“What does old Mr. Delamere have to say about the matter?” asked Miller suddenly.  “Why haven’t we thought of him before?  Has he been seen?”

“No,” replied Watson gloomily, “and for a good reason,—­he is not in town.  I came by the house just now, and learned that he went out to his country place yesterday afternoon, to remain a week.  Sandy was to have followed him out there this morning,—­it’s a pity he didn’t go yesterday.  The old gentleman has probably heard nothing about the matter.”

“How about young Delamere?”

“He went away early this morning, down the river, to fish.  He’ll probably not hear of it before night, and he’s only a boy anyway, and could very likely do nothing,” said Watson.

Miller looked at his watch.

“Belleview is ten miles away,” he said.  “It is now eleven o’clock.  I can drive out there in an hour and a half at the farthest.  I’ll go and see Mr. Delamere,—­he can do more than any living man, if he is able to do anything at all.  There’s never been a lynching here, and one good white man, if he choose, may stem the flood long enough to give justice a chance.  Keep track of the white people while I’m gone, Watson; and you, Josh, learn what the colored folks are saying, and do nothing rash until I return.  In the meantime, do all that you can to find out who did commit this most atrocious murder.”

XXIII

BELLEVIEW

Miller did not reach his destination without interruption.  At one point a considerable stretch of the road was under repair, which made it necessary for him to travel slowly.  His horse cast a shoe, and threatened to go lame; but in the course of time he arrived at the entrance gate of Belleview, entering which he struck into a private road, bordered by massive oaks, whose multitudinous branches, hung with long streamers of trailing moss, formed for much of the way a thick canopy above his head.  It took him only a few minutes to traverse the quarter of a mile that lay between the entrance gate and the house itself.

This old colonial plantation, rich in legendary lore and replete with historic distinction, had been in the Delamere family for nearly two hundred years.  Along the bank of the river which skirted its domain the famous pirate Blackbeard had held high carnival, and was reputed to have buried much treasure, vague traditions of which still lingered among the negroes and poor-whites of the country roundabout.  The beautiful residence, rising white and stately in a grove of ancient oaks, dated from 1750, and was built of brick which had been brought from England.  Enlarged and improved from generation to generation, it stood, like a baronial castle, upon a slight eminence from which could be surveyed the large demesne still belonging to the estate, which had shrunk greatly from its colonial dimensions.  While still embracing several thousand acres, part forest and part cleared