“Yes, sir, I do,” was the reply. “I usually don’t, but this morning a fool couple got under my window there at the back of the house and whispered, and talked, and quarreled, until I was ready to get up and fight.”
“You could not hear what they were saying?”
“I caught a word only now and then. I was too mad to listen quietly.”
“That was a queer place for a conference—under a sleeping-room window,” suggested the detective.
“Oh, they probably thought the house unoccupied during the night. It doesn’t look much like a residence, now, does it?”
The man cocked his head to one side and regarded the little structure, built of plain boards nailed on perpendicularly and battened, with a critical eye.
“But the people who usually come to this station know your habits, don’t they?” asked Nick.
“I should think they ought to,” was the reply. “I have been here long enough.”
“Then these men must have been strangers?”