CHAPTER V.COLONEL RICHMOND’S NIGHT ADVENTURE.
Of course, Nick questioned the servant. To have failed to do that would have been to throw light upon his real suspicions.
She was a tall, slender, and rather pretty Irish girl, named Annie O’Neil.
Her answers to all questions were plain and simple.
She told what she had been doing on the previous day while Mrs. Stevens was at lunch. She had not been in the dining-room all the time, but had come in twice or thrice when summoned.
During the remainder of the time she had been in the kitchen. Nobody had been with her there.
When Nick left the house, he rode half a mile back along the road, and then dismounted and sat down under a big tree. In a few minutes a farmer’s wagon came along. A young man, who looked like a farm laborer, was riding b
