"Hello!" said the newspaper man. "I saw that you were registered here. Allow me to welcome you to the only home a bachelor like myself owns. Won't you sit at my table, to give the fiction some verisimilitude?"
"Thank you. I shall be glad to."
"You will suspect that my whole-hearted hospitality has some professional sub-stratum if I ask you at once how our friends the Underwoods are, but I'll have to risk that. I assume that you have seen them today."
"Yes, I have seen the doctor and Miss Underwood. They have met the amazing charge against Henry with dignity and patience. I didn't see Henry, and don't know what he may have to say."
"He'd better say nothing," said Ralston tersely. "It isn't a matter that is bettered by talk."
"Do you think there will be anything more than talk? I have as yet heard no suggestion of the slightest evidence against him."
"No, so far it is merely his bad reputation and the doctor's threat of yesterday. Have you happened to hear of the lively times Henry gave the town some six years ago? Property was burnt, things were stolen, people were terrorized in all sorts of ways for an entire summer. He must have had a glorious time."
"Was it proved against him?" asked Burton.
"The police never actually caught him, but they came so close upon his tracks several times that they warned the doctor that they had evidence against him. Then the disturbances stopped. That was significant."
"I heard something about it, but I understood that the attacks were mostly directed against the Underwoods themselves, and that the anonymous letters written by the miscreant were particularly directed against Henry. You don't suspect him of accusing himself!"