I gave Terry the lead--perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he took it--but it did not strike me that he set about his interviewing in a very business-like manner.

He did not so much as refer to the case we had come to investigate, but chatted along pleasantly about the weather and the crops and the difficulty of finding farm-hands.
We had not been settled very long when, to my surprise, Jim Mattison strolled out from the bar-room.

What he was doing in Luray, I could easily conjecture.

Mattison's assumption of interest in the case all along had angered me beyond measure.

It is not, ordinarily, a part of the sheriff's duties to assist the prosecution in making out a case against one of his prisoners; and owing to the peculiar relation he bore to Radnor, his interference was not only bad law but excruciatingly bad taste.