I'm too nervous to do it any more.' But I jes'
reckon to myself that ef it's too skeery fer her, it's too skeery
fer me. We had it, then, sho' nuff, and it ended up with Mis'
Watson stayin' in the lodge nights an' me lookin' fer work at de
club."
"Did Mrs. Watson say that anything had happened to alarm her?"
"No, sah. She was jes' natchally skeered. Well, that was all,
far's I know, until the night I come over to see Mis' Innes. I
come across the valley, along the path from the club-house, and I
goes home that way. Down in the creek bottom I almost run into a
man. He wuz standin' with his back to me, an' he was workin'
with one of these yere electric light things that fit in yer
pocket. He was havin' trouble--one minute it'd flash out, an'
the nex' it'd be gone. I hed a view of 'is white dress shirt an'
tie, as I passed. I didn't see his face. But I know it warn't
Mr. Arnold. It was a taller man than Mr. Arnold. Beside that,
Mr. Arnold was playin' cards when I got to the club-house, same's
he'd been doin' all day."
"And the next morning you came back along the path," pursued Mr.
Jamieson relentlessly.
"The nex' mornin' I come back along the path an' down where I dun
see the man night befoh, I picked up this here." The old man
held out a tiny object and Mr. Jamieson took it. Then he held it
on his extended palm for me to see. It was the other half of the
pearl cuff-link!
But Mr. Jamieson was not quite through questioning him.
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