“Oh! But you cannot hope to build the well on Mrs. Porter’s property.”
Thorne laughed heartily. “Hardly; Mrs. Porter would never give me permission to do so.”
“Then why waste time trespassing on her property?”
Again Thorne laughed, but a shadow lurked in his eyes as he glanced keenly at his questioner. “Frankly, I have two investigations under way,” he acknowledged. “One to locate a spring, and the other to discover who murdered Bruce Brainard.”
Vera’s back was toward the setting sun, and her face was in shadow. “If you spend your time looking for wells you will not solve the mystery of Mr. Brainard’s death,” she said with slow emphasis.
“I’m not so sure of that.” Thorne spun the cleft stick about in his fingers. “Are we not told that truth lies at the bottom of a well? Good-by.” And lifting his cap he vaulted the fence which separated his property from the Porter estate and disappeared behind some barns.
Vera did not at once resume her walk to the house, and when she did so her usually light footstep was dragging and her expression more troubled.
“Has Miss Millicent returned, Murray?” she asked on entering the butler’s pantry a few minutes later.
“No, miss.” And Vera went wearily into the deserted library.
The rooms, with shades and curtains partly drawn and the fire on the hearth reduced to smoldering embers, was not conducive to cheerfulness, and Vera shivered as she threw herself down on the wide leather couch and pillowed her head on one of its numerous cushions.