"He hasn't been hanging around High Ridge very much since I've been in office, I'll swear to that," said Watson. "I know old Bussey pretty well, and he knows me. He never would come into a town if he could help it. You never saw him hanging about your house, did you, Doctor?"
"No, I thought he was dead," said Underwood. He spoke absently as though he were keeping his mind on their talk with something of an effort. Now he turned to Watson with the simple directness that had endeared him to Burton from the first.
"What's this about Henry's escape?" he asked.
"Why,--Henry _has_ got away, hasn't he?" Watson answered evasively.
"It seems so. One of your men woke me up an hour ago to see if Henry were in the house, and when we went to his room we found Mason sleeping across the door, but Henry's window was open and he was gone. How did you happen to send to inquire?"
The doctor drew a quick breath, but said nothing. The silence in the room was so keen that the scratching of Ralston's pencil (he was scribbling like mad at the edge of the table) was like an affront. Burton moved restlessly over to the open window and looked down the way by which Ben had climbed up.
"Of course he'll have a chance to explain things," he said, with laborious carelessness.
A sharp exclamation came from Burton, who was leaning out of the window.
Watson was getting nervous. He jumped to Burton's side as though he expected an attack from the open window.
"Look here, on the window-sill,--it's fresh paint," said Burton quickly. "I put my hand on it. Get a better light. See there,--and below there. Those marks must have been made by Ben when he climbed in. There must have been paint on his clothes somewhere."
"Perhaps," said Watson, looking carefully at the faint traces on the window-sill. "What of it?"
"When I was stumbling through Selby's back yard this evening, I noticed a painter's ladder there and an empty paint bucket on the ground. There must have been fresh paint on Selby's house tonight."
"My God!" said Ralston, and his tone was not irreverent. "Ben came here from Selby's! It was he who stabbed Selby. And he left Henry's cuff-button in the room to throw suspicion, as usual, on Henry. It was his last coup."