“The body?” Captain Tucker snapped an impatient finger. “That’s only a matter of time. It couldn’t have been taken far.”
Outside the village town hall a constable awaited their coming. Otis Wilkes, he said, had arrived from Baltimore and was now at the Wilkes farm. Captain Tucker turned the car about. Fifteen minutes later they swung into a driveway between trees and skidded to a stop. On the Wilkes porch a thin, wiry man paced back and forth restlessly.
“I’d know him for a Wilkes anywhere,” Captain Tucker said in an undertone. “Favors Boothy in looks, only this one’s all whiskered. Mind if I use Lady while you’re here, Doctor?”
“What for?”
“Clues. She might scent us something.”
As they left the car and came toward the house, Joe Morrow had eyes only for the man on the porch. A voice called down to them across the railing.
“Captain Tucker?” The tone carried a high, nasal twang. “Land o’ Goshen, I’ve been a-waitin’ for you until I’m like t’ freeze.” The sentence ended in a choking, sputtering cough. The man spat violently with a burst of breath. “Come in; come in out of the cold.”
The house, untenanted for a week, was scarcely warmer than the outdoors. But it was the house from which a man had disappeared, and Joe Morrow kept staring about uneasily as though expecting to find a ghost. They went into a front room that overlooked some of the land bordering the road. Here, at least, there was sun.
“Did they get him?” Otis Wilkes demanded. “This Jud Cory?” Speech was momentarily halted by that same choking cough, that same sputtering outburst of breath. “This Jud Cory who killed Boothy.”
Joe was conscious of a sudden, intent look on his uncle’s face. Captain Tucker answered very, very slowly.