e provocation had been. He
might be overcome with horror, fear, remorse--a dozen different
emotions, but anger would not be among them. And further, a man who had
committed a crime and intended to deny it later, would not proclaim his
feelings in quite that blatant manner. Young Gaylord had not injured
anyone; he himself had been injured. He was mad through and through, and
he didn't care who knew it. He expended--you will remember--the most of
his belligerency on his horse on the way home, and you found him in the
summer house undergoing the natural reaction. By evening he had got
himself well in hand again and was probably considerably ashamed of his
conduct. He doesn't care to talk about the matter for several reasons.
Fortunately Solomon is not so scrupulous."

"I don't know what you're driving at, Terry," said I.

"Don't you?" he inquired. "Well, really, it's about time that I came
down!" He paused while he scrawled one or two sentences on his copy pad,
then he glanced up with a laugh. "I don't know myself, but I think I can
make a pretty good guess. We'll call on Miss Polly Mathers in the
morning and see if she can't help us out."

"Terry," I expostulated, "that girl knows no more about the matter than
I do. She has already given her testimony, and I positively will not
have her name mentioned in connection with the affair."

"I don't see how you can help it," was his cool reply. "If she's in,
she's in, and I'm not to blame. However, we won't quarrel about it now;
we'll pay her a call in the morning." He ran his eyes over the clippings
again, then added, "There are just two more points connecting Radnor
Gaylord with the murder that need explaining: the foot-prints in the
cave and the match box. The foot-prints I will dismiss for the present
because I have not seen them myself and I can't make any deductions from
hearsay evidence. But the question of the match box may repay a little
investigation. I want you to tell me precisely what happened in the
woods before you went into the cave. In the first place, how many older
people were there in the party?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Mathers, a lady who was visiting them and Colonel
Gaylord."

"There were two servants, I understand, besides this Mose, to help about
the lunch. What did they do?"

"Well, I don't know exactly. I wasn't paying much attention. I believe
they carried things over from the hotel, collected wood for the fire,
and then went to a farm house for water.