"Thrue for ye, sorr; 'twas little enough I did, and that's a fact; I'm not used to being scared to death like ye be, sorr." Was that an unintentional shot, or was it a "feeler"?

Oakes had a sharp customer before him, and he knew it.

"Where were you when you heard the shots, Mike?"

"In the woods at the front of the house. I was raking up the leaves, be the same token."

"What did you see?" Oakes spoke in a commanding voice and fingered the breech of his revolver in a suggestive way.

"I seen a shadow come out av the cellar door."

"What door?" [Pg 112]

[Pg 112]

"The only cellar door; near the side av the house, sorr."

"What sort of a shadow?"

"'Twas the shadow av a man, and a big one. The sun cast it on the side av the house, sorr."

Oakes thought a moment, then arose and said: "Step here, Mike, and point out the side of the house you mean."

Mike hesitated. The other servants withdrew at Oakes's suggestion that he wished to talk with the gardener. The latter advanced. We felt that Oakes was trying to spring a trap.

"The side of the house where the cellar door is," reiterated Mike.

"Nonsense, O'Brien. Your story is impossible. The sun was then in the east and the shadow would have been thrown on the east wall. There is no door on that side; it is on the west side of the house."

O'Brien looked at Oakes defiantly.

"Yer intirely wrong, sorr. There is the cellar door to the east." He pointed to a hatch, opening about forty feet from the house, near the well. "The door ye saw on the west is niver opened—'tis nailed up." [Pg 113]

[Pg 113]

The tables were turned. Oakes was disconcerted.

 Prev. P 53/152 next