“Indeed! Let us hear them all.”
“Well; in the first place I don’t like the look of the man, nor ever did since the day of our starting. Since I never set eyes on him before, I could have had no impression to prejudice me against him. I admit that, judging by physiognomy, any one may be mistaken; and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be led by that. In this case, however, a circumstance has contributed to shaping my judgment; in fact, deciding me in the opinion, that your fellow Fernand is not only dishonest, but something worse than a thief.”
“Worse than a thief!” is the simultaneous echo from all sides of the table, succeeded by a universal demand for explanation.
“Your words have a weighty sound, doctor,” is Colonel Armstrong’s way of putting it. “We are anxious to hear what they mean.”
“Well,” responds Wharton, “you shall know why I’ve spoken them, and what’s led me to suspect this fellow Fernand. You can draw your own conclusions, from the premises I put before you. Last night at a late hour—near midnight—I took a fancy into my head to have a stroll towards the river. Lighting a weed, I started out. I can’t say exactly how far I may have gone; but I know that the cigar—a long ‘Henry Clay’—was burnt to the end before I thought of turning back. As I was about doing so, I heard a sound, easily made out to be the footsteps of a man, treading the firm prairie turf. As it chanced just then, I was under a pecan-tree that screened me with its shadow; and I kept my ground without making any noise.
“Shortly after, I saw the man whose footfall I had heard, and recognised him as M. Dupré’s head-servant. He was coming up the valley, toward the house here, as if returning from some excursion. I mightn’t have thought much of that, but for noticing, as he passed me, that he didn’t walk erect or on the path, but crouchingly, among the trees skirting it.
“Throwing away the stump of my cigar, I set out after him, treading stealthily as he. Instead of entering by the front, he went round the garden, all the way to its rear; where suddenly I lost sight of him. On arriving at the spot where he had disappeared, I saw there was a break in the wall. Through that, of course, he must have passed, and entered the mission-building at the back. Now, what are we to make of all this?”
“What do you make of it, doctor?” asks Dupré.
“Give us your own deductions!”
“To say the truth, I don’t know what deductions to draw, I confess myself at fault; and cannot account for the fellow’s movements; though I take you’ll all acknowledge they were odd. As I’ve said, M. Dupré, I didn’t from the first like your man of versatile talents; and I’m now more than ever distrustful of him. Still I profess myself unable to guess what he was after last night. Can any of you, gentlemen?”