"Well,--his cut finger is sufficient. He couldn't tie all the knots that bound Hadley with that stiff finger," he said, with a would-be astute air.
Underwood could not conceal his disappointment. "You have nothing definite, then, to go upon?"
"Perhaps my evidence, in the present stage, would not be conclusive in court. But that is what I hope to make it. That is what I am definitely undertaking to do. And I believe I shall succeed." He smiled at Leslie, and though she did not repeat her impulsive demonstration of gratitude, he was satisfied with the look in her eyes.
On his way back to the hotel, he suddenly stopped under the trees and spoke to himself impatiently. What difference did it make to him what sort of a look there was in the eyes of Philip's betrothed? He would be better employed in considering the situation of the Underwoods in the light of this new revelation about the silent Henry. If Henry was in love with Miss Hadley--and why else should he carry a locket with her portrait in his breast pocket and think first of all of concealing this trinket when threatened with arrest and fearing a search?--then there was a reasonable explanation of his prowling in the neighborhood of the Hadley house. Burton had thrust the locket back into its hiding-place in the upholstered lounge, but he could not be mistaken. It was the same face that he had seen looking up at Selby,--Hello! No need to hunt further for an explanation of the antagonism between the two men! The look on Selby's face when he talked so earnestly to Miss Hadley was one of the few human expressions that can neither be concealed nor counterfeited. And since nothing could be more reckless, hopeless and bitter, than love between the daughter of the pompous banker and the scapegoat of the town, why, of course, that was the mine that Cupid would fire.
But if Henry was innocent, who was the man who was so bent on making him appear guilty? Who really was behind the High Ridge mystery? The problem was not solved. It was merely made more complicated. And Burton had to acknowledge that his guess was not evidence that would convince the public. Indeed, now that he was half an hour away from it, he began to wonder at his own confidence. It had come to him like a revelation, but it needed verification.
Very well, he said doggedly, he would verify a part of it at once. He would call on Miss Hadley to-morrow.
[CHAPTER XII]
AN UNSTABLE SWEETHEART
Burton awoke the next morning in a new frame of mind. His half reluctant interest in the Underwood situation had suddenly been touched with enthusiasm. If Henry was innocent, then the whole thing was a hideous conspiracy that cried to heaven to be exposed. The fact that it was not taking place in past historic times or in distant lands, but here in a commonplace town of the middle west in the light of newspapers, police regulations and prevalent respectability,--all this made it more interesting to him, instead of more prosaic. It was a real and vital situation, not an imaginable possibility. If Henry was in truth innocent, if the doctor was the guileless child of light that he seemed, if Miss Leslie had been involved in all this tangle by a cruel trick of Fate's, then certainly here was work waiting for him. He was no detective, but neither was this the ordinary melodrama of crime. It was rather a psychological problem, and it was just possible that he was better fitted to get at the truth of the matter than a professional who would have less human interest in the persons involved.
First of all, he would see Miss Hadley. He wanted to verify his guess that Henry's presence in the neighborhood last night was something that she could very well explain if she wanted to. And if that proved true, then Henry's wanderings on the night of the fire might easily have been in the same direction. Burton could not deny that it would ease his mind to have that point settled!