ng sternness.

"At what time did this fire start?" he asked.

Jake had a harsh voice, but he mellowed it wonderfully as he replied:

"Somewhere about one. I don't carry a watch, so I don't know the exact
time."

"The exact time isn't necessary. Near one answers well enough. How came
you to be completely dressed at near one in a country tavern like this?"

"I was on watch. There was death in the house."

"Then you were in the house?"

"Yes." His tongue faltered, but not his gaze; that was as direct as
ever. "I was in the house, but not at the moment the fire started. I had
gone to the stable to get a newspaper. My room is in the stable, the
little one high in the cock-loft. I did not find the paper at once and
when I did I stopped to read a few lines. I'm a slow reader, and by the
time I was ready to cross back to the house, smoke was pouring out of
the rear windows, and I stopped short, horrified! I'm mortally afraid of
fire."

"You have shown it. I have not heard that you raised the least alarm."

"I'm afraid you're right. I lost my head like a fool. You see, I've
never lived anywhere else for the last ten years, and to see my home on
fire was more than I could stand. You wouldn't think me so weak to look
at these muscles."

Baring his arm, he stared down at it with a forlorn shake of his head.
The coroner glanced at Hammersmith. What sort of fellow was this! A
giant with the air of a child, a rascal with the smile of a humourist.
Delicate business, this; or were they both deceived and the man just a
good-humoured silly?

Hammersmith answered the appeal by a nod toward an inner door. The
coroner understood and turned back to Jake with the seemingly irrelevant
inquiry:

"Where did you leave Mr. Quimby when you went to the cock-loft?"

"In the house?"

"Asleep?"

"No, he was making up his accounts."

"In the office?"

"Yes."

"And that was where you left him?"

"Yes, it was."

"Then, how came he to be looking out of your window just before the fire
broke out?"

"He?" Jake's jaw fell and his enormous shoulders drooped; but only for a
moment. With something between a hitch and a shrug, he drew himself
upright and with some slight display of temper cried out, "Who says he
was there?"

The coroner answered him. "The man behind you. He saw him."

Jake's hand closed in a nervous grip. Had the trigger been against his
finger at that moment it would doubtless have been snapped with some
satisfact