"That is her persistent question, Wigan, and she also asks another almost as persistently: Why, in spite of friendly words concerning Henley, should they look upon the dead body with such repugnance?"
"You make too much of that idea of mine, as I have said before," I objected.
"Let me put it another way," said Quarles. "How was it possible for them to show so little concern about a comrade they liked! They might screw themselves up to go through their performance and hide their sorrow from the public, but in private one would have expected to find them depressed. I hardly think they showed great sorrow while we were with them."
"They did not, certainly."
"May I say that Watson and Miss Day seemed the least concerned, and even venture a step further and guess that they were the two who seemed to you to look upon the dead man with repugnance?"
I admitted that this was the case, and it was then that Zena, having heard the whole story from her grandfather, accused me of lingering in the tent that night for the purpose of seeing Sister Pomona again.
"Now, two points as we go," said Quarles, interrupting our little side-spar. "Miss Day volunteered no statement when I talked of love. Could she have made an unqualified denial I think she would have done so. I did not ask her a direct question on purpose; I thought she would be more likely to answer an indirect one. Her silence, I fancy, was the answer. In view of what the landlady told us, I think we are safe in assuming that Henley admired her, and that she was aware of the fact. The second point is Watson's defense of the men who had been in prison, his hobby, as his wife called it. We will come back to both these points in a moment. Let us consider the dead man first. The face was evidently that of a fast liver, not that of a decent man such as Watson spoke of; the throat and neck were not of the kind one expects in a singer, but, of course, we must not argue too much from this; the hands showed breed, certainly, but they had never been used to twang the strings of a banjo or guitar."
"But Watson distinctly said—"
"And the hat with 'H' in it had never fitted the dead man," said Quarles. "Oh, I remember perfectly what Watson said, and, moreover, I believe I heard a good many of his thoughts which were not put into words—you can hear thoughts, you know, only it is with such delicacy that the very idea of hearing seems too heavy and materialistic to describe the sensation. Watson said the hat was Henley's, he also said that Henley played these instruments; but the pierrots all wore hats that fitted, well-made hats, and for this reason each of them marked his hat, and the skin at the finger tips of a banjo player always hardens. The dead man was certainly not Brother Pythagoras, and so far the deduction is simple."
I made no comment.