"Good night, merry gentlemen!"
In Indiana, I reflected, rustics, young or old, men or
women, were probably not greatly given to salutations
of just this temper.
Bates now appeared.
"Beg pardon, sir; but your room's ready whenever
you wish to retire."
I looked about in search of a clock.
"There are no timepieces in the house, Mr. Glenarm.
Your grandfather was quite opposed to them. He had
a theory, sir, that they were conducive, as he said, to
idleness. He considered that a man should work by his
conscience, sir, and not by the clock,-the one being
more exacting than the other."
I smiled as I drew out my watch,-as much at Bates'
solemn tones and grim lean visage as at his quotation
from my grandsire. But the fellow puzzled and annoyed
me. His unobtrusive black clothes, his smoothly-brushed
hair, his shaven face, awakened an antagonism
in me.
"Bates, if you didn't fire that shot through the window,
who did-will you answer me that?"
"Yes, sir; if I didn't do it, it's quite a large question
who did. I'll grant you that, sir."
I stared at him. He met my gaze directly without
flinching; nor was there anything insolent in his tone
or attitude. He continued: "I didn't do it, sir. I was in the pantry when I heard
the crash in the refectory window. The bullet came
from out of doors, as I should judge, sir."
The facts and conclusions were undoubtedly with
Bates, and I felt that I had not acquitted myself creditably
in my effort to fix the crime on him. My abuse of
him had been tactless, to say the least, and I now tried
another line of attack.
"Of course, Bates, I was merely joking. What's your
own theory of the matter?"
"I have no theory, sir. Mr. Glenarm always warned
me against theories. He said-if you will pardon me-
there was great danger in the speculative mind."
The man spoke with a slight Irish accent, which in
itself puzzled me. I have always been attentive to the
peculiarities of speech, and his was not the brogue of
the Irish servant class. Larry Donovan, who was English-born,
used on occasions an exaggerated Irish dialect
that was wholly different from the smooth liquid tones of
Bates. But more things than his speech were to puzzle
me in this man.
"The person in the canoe? How do you account for
her?" I asked.
"I haven't accounted for her, sir. There's no women
on these grounds, or any sort of person except ourselves."
"But there are neighbors,-farmers, people of some
kind must live along the lake."
"A few, sir; and then there's the school quite a bit
beyond your own west wall."
His slight reference to my proprietorship, my own
wall, as he put it, pleased me.
"Oh, yes; there is a school-girls?-yes; Mr. Pickering
mentioned it. But the girls hardly paddle on the
lake at night, at this season-hunting ducks-should
you say, Bates?"