"You were the friend of William Zane, the murdered man. Every obligation of friendship impels you to discover his murderer. You are rich; lend me money to continue my investigations. I know this is a cool proposition; but it is better than spending it on churches."
"Very well," wrote Duff Salter, "as the late Mr. Zane's executor, I will spend any proper sum of money to inflict retribution upon his injurers. I will watch the house."
They went home through Palmer Street, on which stood the little brick church--the street said to be occasionally haunted by Governor Anthony Palmer's phantom coach and four, which was pursued by his twenty-one children in plush breeches and Panama hats, crying, "Water lots! water fronts! To let! to lease!"
As Duff Salter entered the house he saw the school director indicated by Calvin Van de Lear sitting in the parlor with Podge Byerly. For the first time Duff Salter noticed that they looked both intimate and confused. He tried to reason himself out of this suspicion. "Pshaw," he said; "it was my uncharitable imagination. I'll go back, as if to get something, and look more carefully."
As the deaf man reopened the parlor-door he saw the school director making a motion as if to embrace Podge, who was full of blushes and appearing to shrink away.
"There's no imagination about that," thought Duff Salter. "If I could only hear well enough my ears might counsel me."
He felt dejected, and his suspicions colored everything--a most deplorable state of mind for a gentleman. Agnes, too, looked guilty, as he thought, and hardly addressed a smile to him as he passed up to his room.
Duff Salter put on his slippers, lighted his gas, drew the curtains down and set the door ajar, for in the increasing warmth of spring his grate fire was almost an infliction.
"I have not been wise nor just," he said to himself. "My pleasing reception in this house, and feminine arts, have altogether obliterated my great duty, which was to avenge my friend. Yes, suspicion was my duty. I should have been suspicious from the first. Even this vicious young Van de Lear, shallow as he is, becomes my unconscious accuser. He says, with truth, that every obligation of friendship impels me to discover the murderers of William Zane."