Читать книгу The Millbank Case: A Maine Mystery of To-day онлайн

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“I suppose you hear from Millbank—from Oldbeg, for instance.”

“Wall,” he said, blushing a fiery red, “Jonathan hain’t no great hand to write: but I du hear sometimes. Say, du you s’pose a body could ’a’ heerd that thar shot from Parlin’s house down onto Canaan Street?”

“I don’t know,” said the detective carelessly, hiding his eagerness. “A still night, it might be; why?”

“’Cause, a letter I got says that thar night she’d jest got to sleep when she woke up sudden, as if she’d heerd so’thing like a shot. She got up, but didn’t hear nothin’ more an’ so went back to bed. But the next mornin’ she guessed ’twas the shot she heerd from Parlin’s.”

“Did she say what time it was?”

“Nope: only she’d ben asleep about half a hour, an’ thet night she didn’t get to bed ’fore twelve o’clock. Fact, I guess she didn’t go till she heerd the train leave.”

“But about this swell,” Trafford interposed. “Would you know him again if you saw him?”

“I guess I would; leastwise ef I could see the top of his head. He took his hat off, an’ thar was the funniest little bald spot, jest the shape of a heart. ’Twas funny, an’ he warn’t more’n thirty years old. Say, when he gets to be fifty, he won’t hev no more hair’n I’ve got on the back o’ my hand.”