"Yes, yes, I was told of it yesterday. Dorn Hackett? Dorn Hackett? They say he used to live around here, but I don't remember him. I suppose I used to know him, though. And he was raised in the neighborhood? It seems strange that any one who was raised near him, and knew him, could ever have had the heart to kill Jacob, don't it?"
"But, Mr. Van Deust, maybe he didn't do it at all."
"Somebody did it; somebody climbed into his window and murdered him for the sake of a little money. Beat in his skull and cut short his little remnant of life, just to get a few dollars. Oh! it was a cruel thing to do, to kill that poor, harmless, gentle, good old man. I wish we had never heard of that cursed fortune. Jacob would be alive to-day, if we hadn't."
His agitation while he spoke was extreme. He trembled like a leaf in the wind; tears ran down his withered cheeks; his voice was broken by sobs, and at length his emotion so obstructed his utterance that Lem could not understand him as he went rambling on about his brother's untimely end. After a little time, during which Lem silently waited for him to regain a little calm, his mood seemed to change to one of suspicion and fear for himself.
"I suppose they'll come to kill me next," he exclaimed. "They'll think there's more money; but there isn't—there isn't a dollar in the house. I'll never have a dollar in the house again; and I'll get a dog, a savage big dog, and I'll load the gun. Oh, I've got a gun, though it hasn't been loaded in forty years."
"Mr. Van Deust, a little elderly gentleman on horseback was in this neighborhood the night your brother was murdered, and he said he knew you. Who was he?"
"Why, he's my lawyer, the man who brought us the intelligence of—But what do you want to know for? What right have you to come here asking me questions about my private affairs—about my lawyer? Do you think he brings money here? No, he don't! he don't! there isn't a dollar in the house. It's none of your business! Go away from here. I won't answer any more of your questions. I was a fool to tell you so much! Begone! begone! Betsy! Betsy! Help! help!"
The old man's excitement seemed to have crazed him, temporarily, at least. He continued raving, and Lem, finding it impossible to get in a word of explanation, went away, no little disgusted with the rebuff he had encountered at the very commencement of his task of hunting up an alibi for Dorn. Returning to Sag Harbor, he succeeded in finding the man who had hired a horse to the little elderly gentleman on several occasions, but could learn nothing from him beyond that fact. The gentleman, according to the man's statement, always arrived by boat from New York, got the horse, rode away, came back, paid, and disappeared, probably by boat again. And that was all that the owner of the horse knew about him.
Then Lem went to New York, saying to himself that he "would ask every little elderly lawyer in New York if he was the man," before he would give up the pursuit. Little did the unsophisticated young fellow, who had never before been away from home, imagine the magnitude of the job he had cut out for himself.