“I can’t help it!” Graham retorted obstinately. “You keep asking personal questions that have nothing to do with the case. You don’t have to go prying into a girl’s past, do you?”
“We’re squashed,” interrupted Landis in his friendly way. “Go have your walk, Graham, and cool off!”
Graham stared at him angrily for a moment, then turned on his heel and stalked off in pursuit of his wife.
“Those two,” murmured Landis, “are the only really likeable people in the house, except maybe Miss Mount! Also, I think that Cuddy on Long Island will be an early port of call!”
“You bet he will,” returned Bernard. “In the meantime, suppose we learn what we can about his movements out here!”
Landis went to the garage and discovered that a grateful Harley had done everything except re-upholster his car. They drove first to the local railroad station, where they were lucky enough to find that one of the two porters had seen an old fellow such as they described getting off the six-ten train from New York on Friday night. He looked such a rube that the porter had noticed him. Neither he nor anyone else about the station had seen the same man leave town on Friday night nor seen him on Saturday night.
Luck followed them into the single main street. In the second place they tried which had a public telephone, the woman remembered seeing such an old man on Friday night. She had changed a dollar for him so that he could telephone and he had pored over the change until she was afraid she had given him too much. But she had not seen him on Saturday night.
They returned and put their car in the garage in time to explore the grounds before lunch and to find, some distance back of the house, the open stretch of sward where the archery targets were set up. But neither these nor the grounds yielded anything of moment to their case.
After a taciturn and rather gloomy meal, during which only Ethel Graham and Landis made any effort at sustained conversation, the two detectives set out alone for the inquest. Miss Mount, Stimson and Susan, the only witnesses called, followed in the big car driven by Harley.