“Then Mr. Thorpe was not at home here last night?”
“No, he wasn’t,” said Mr. Bragg glibly. “He was at the road house all night. Leastwise, he was with Mabel part of the evening, waiting to see her husband. He’s been trying, you see, to fix up things between them and the old man. But Bob Jeffrey didn’t show up till midnight. Dick had dropped into the road house for a drink, and joined in a game of cards.”
“Has this been a habit of Thorpe?”
“Playing cards there? Oh, yes, regular thing. Genial fellow, Dick—and everybody likes him. It came cold soon after midnight, and his mare, being under cover, he didn’t like to expose her. She’d been sick for a week back, and that was her first time out. So he stayed at the tavern until morning.”
“I see,” nodded Keene. “Then Mrs. Haynie and the stableman were here alone all night?”
“That’s about the size of it. Darbage was at the tavern, and he stayed there until daybreak, when he came up here and slept in the stable, for fear the old man would hear him enter the house. He was some slued, I reckon; but, Lord save us! Moore was past hearing long afore that. Joe Darbage might just as well have tumbled into his own bed.”
“Do you know who last saw Mr. Moore alive, constable?” inquired Keene, who had received, with a series of little nods, the information thus far imparted.
“Mrs. Haynie was the last who saw him.”
“Do you know at what time?”
“About nine o’clock last night.”