“What the deuce did you bring another of those detectives up here for?” he asked me, sotto voce, at the first opportunity. “We’ve had a surfeit of them—they’re regular bores! and this Burroughs or Burton, or whatever his name is, is the most disagreeable of them all. A conceited fellow—one of the kind I dislike, naturally.”
“You mistake his character. He is intelligent and a gentleman.”
“I wish you joy of his society,” was the sneering reply.
Nevertheless, James favored us with his company during our morning’s tour. One sole fact the detective ascertained in the course of his two hours’ work. A fisherman had lost a small-boat during the storm of Saturday night. He had left it, fastened to its accustomed moorings, and, in the morning, found that the chain, which was old and rusty, had parted one of its links, probably by the extreme violence with which the wind had dashed the boat about. Mr. Burton had asked to see the remnant of the chain. It was still attached to the post around which it had been locked. An examination of the broken link showed that it was partly rusted away; but there were also marks upon it, as if a knife or chisel might have been used.
“I see my boy, Billy, a-tinkerin’ with it,” said the fisherman. “Like as not he’s been a-usin’ of it to whittle on. That boy breaks more knives’n his neck’s wuth. He’s goin’ on nine, now, and he’s had six jack-knives in as many months.”
Mr. Burton stood, holding the chain in his hand, and looking up and down the river. His face glowed with a light which shone through from some inward fire. I, who had begun to watch his varying expressions with keen interest, saw that he was again becoming excited; but not in the same way as on that first evening of our meeting, when he grew so leonine.
He looked at the water and the sky, the fair shores and the dull dock, as if these mute witnesses were telling to him a tale which he read like a printed book. A few moments he stood thus in silence, his countenance illuminated by that wonderful intelligence. Then, saying that his researches were through with in this part of the village, we returned, almost in silence, to the office; for when this man was pondering the enigmas whose solution he was so certain to announce, sooner or later, he grew absorbed and taciturn.
Mr. Argyll made us go home with him to dinner. I knew that I should not see Eleanor; yet, even to be under the same roof with her, made me tremble. Mary, who was constantly in attendance upon her sister, would not appear at the table. She came down, for a moment, to greet me, and to thank me for my poor efforts. The dear child had changed some, like the rest of us. She could not look like any thing but the rosebud which she was—a fresh and pure young creature of sixteen summers—a rosebud drenched in dew—a little pale, with a quiver in her smile, and bright tears beading her eye-lashes, ready, at any moment, to drop. It was touching to see one naturally so joyous, subdued by the shadow which had fallen over the house. Neither of us could say much; our lips trembled when we spoke her name; so, after a moment’s holding my hand, while the tears began to flow fast, Mary unclasped my fingers, and went up stairs. I saw Mr. Burton hide those blue-gray eyes of his in his handkerchief; my respect for him deepened as I felt that those eyes, sharp and penetrating as they were, were not too cold to warm with a sudden mist at the vision he had beheld.
“Ah!” murmured I to myself, “if he could see Eleanor!”
When dinner was over, Mr. Argyll went up to see his children, giving me permission to show the house and grounds to the detective. James went on the portico to smoke a cigar. Mr. Burton sat a short time in the library, taking an impression of it on his mind, examined the lock of the desk, and noticed the arrangement of the one window, which was a large bay-window opening to the floor and projecting over the flower-garden which lay behind the house and bordered the lawn to the right. It was about three feet to the ground, and although quite accessible, as a mode of entrance, to any one compelled to that resource, the window was not ordinarily used as a mode of ingress or egress. I had sometimes chased Mary, when she was not so old as now, and sent her flying through the open casement into the mignonette and violets beneath, and I after; but since we had both grown more sedate, such pranks were rare.