reservoir at once—”

“Looks big, huh?”

“You’ll see miles and miles of it, where villages and houses used to be. Old West Hurley used to be down there; it was wiped out. My house where I lived nigh on thirty year was took down. Mother, it killed her just like if you struck her with an axe. Wouldn’ you call that murder? My boy, my grandson, he was drove away with false charges on him—lies. Wouldn’ you call that as bad as kidnapping? Old Merrick, he done that; he was conspirators with ’em. He’s dead ’n where he belongs, he is, but the murderer is still at large.”

“You mean your grandson was accused of murder?” Tom asked cautiously.

“He were, and they was all lies,” said the old man. “But it was that reservoir, and all them engineers from New York that murdered mother.”

“You mean—she was your wife?”

“Thirty years we lived there,” the old man said. “Since I been alone I never touched that water. I don’t mix with murderers.”

Tom could see that the poor old man was shaking with emotion. Whatever grievance, real or fancied, was in his mind, it was by no means clear to Tom. He thought that the old man was not altogether rational. He was rather more interested in the murder which the grandson had been charged with, than with the murder committed by the great reservoir. He was rather more curious about the smaller murderer than the larger one. But it seemed almost hopeless to get a connected and comprehensible narrative out of the poor little old man.

“Who was your grandson accused of killing?” Tom asked.

“That were old Merrick that lived in Kingston. My boy weren’t no more guilty than you are.”

“They actually charged him with it?”

“Lies, all lies,” said old Dyker.

Tom paused in thought. He was not open-minded enough to eliminate a formal accusation from his mind. Who was this poor, little queer old man that his word should be accepted against the weight of an official accusation? And moreover, if the grandson were a fugitive as the old man had said, was not that fact in itself a cause for suspicion against him?

“How old would your grandson be now?” Tom asked.

“Maybe thirty,” the old man said. “He were only a 

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