“Sorry, Cato.” Thorne preceded the old servant into the dining-room, but instead of approaching the table he stopped before a window overlooking the sloping ground and a distant view of the Porter homestead, Dewdrop Inn. “See that man, Cato, loitering near the lodge gate?” he asked, and Cato peered over his shoulder. “Send Julius to him. Wait,” as Cato moved away. “Tell Julius to say that Dr. Thorne presents his compliments and asks Detective Mitchell to come here and have a cup of coffee with him.”
“Yessir.” And Cato went to execute the errand, while Thorne waited until he saw the small negro boy who assisted Cato in tending the grounds cross the back lawn, then turned away from the window.
Walking over to the table he picked up a folded newspaper by his plate and used it as a shield as he drew a photograph from his inside coat pocket. The picture was irregular in shape and small in size, and had evidently been cut from a group photograph, for the two figures on either side of Vera Deane had been partly decapitated by scissors. Vera and her companions were in their nurses’ costume and carried diplomas. It was an excellent likeness of Vera, her pose was natural and her fresh young beauty and fearless eyes claimed the attention of the most casual. Thorne knew every light and shade in the photograph.
“To think she threw away her happiness, her career, for—” he muttered, and his hand clenched in impotent wrath, then, becoming aware of the negro butler’s return, he replaced the photograph in his pocket, and soon became absorbed in the newspaper. Cato, considerably annoyed by the prospect of further delay in serving breakfast, arranged another place at the table with more alacrity than his rheumatic joints usually permitted. He had no more than finished when Detective Mitchell appeared in the side door, ushered in by the grinning boy. Throwing down his paper, Thorne greeted the detective heartily.
“Very good of you to share my breakfast,” he said, pouring out a steaming cup of coffee as Mitchell took possession of the chair pulled out for him by Cato.
“You are the good Samaritan, doctor,” declared Mitchell, rubbing his chilled hands. “The Porter place gets the full force of the wind; you are more sheltered here,” glancing out of the diamond-paned windows, and then back again at his host and the cosy dining-room with its blazing logs in the large stone fireplace at the farther end.
The somewhat shabby old furniture, the wide sideboard on which stood quaint glass candelabra and heavy cut-glass decanters and dishes of the generous proportions of former decades, a table in the window littered with magazines and books, and near at hand a mahogany stand equipped with a smoking outfit, all seemed to blend with the low time-stained oak beams and wainscoted walls. No curtains hung in the windows, and the winter sunshine streamed in, betraying here and there in cracks and crannies small accumulations of dust which Cato’s old eyes had passed unseen.
Thorne observed which way his guest’s attention was straying and smiled, well pleased; he was proud of the historic old house. “This is one of the pleasantest rooms,” he said, pushing the toast rack near the detective. “Try some toast; it’s hot.”
“Thanks.” Mitchell enjoyed his breakfast for a few minutes in silence. “Is this house older than the Porter mansion?”
“Same age; in fact my great-great-grandfather built them both,” answered Thorne. “But this was only a hunting lodge, while the Porter homestead was a mansion house, and is pure Georgian in architecture.”