The Sundial by Fred M. White

THE affair was getting interesting. The conversation was proceeding, too, on lines more or less as Grey had expected. He had thought the whole matter out, weighing up the _pros_ and _cons_ of the situation, but the more he debated the thing in his mind the more sure was he that he was on the right track. But for a miscalculation on the part of certain people the mystery of the sundial might have sunk into eternal oblivion. By the irony of fate the very man who could piece together the tangled sections of the puzzle was at hand to do so. For the most part, people regarded the tragedy which had involved the lives of mistress and maid as little more than coincidence. But there were others who, from the first, had insisted that there was mystery calling for solution. Grey was now in possession of information calculated to startle the public, and plenty of newspapers would have been only too pleased to pay a fancy price for what he had to sell. There was one flaw and only one in his line of argument, but that for the present was absolutely fatal--he was still in the dark as to how the thing had been brought about.

As to the main issue he was clear enough in his mind. He knew that to all intents and purposes his information was not of the kind which would have been likely to satisfy a judge and jury. But it seemed that he was about to pick up the missing link and he listened all the more eagerly to what was going on in the next compartment. Bark put his strange question again. He still appeared to be anxious to know if there was such a thing as intermittent electricity. And still Swift preserved the same strange silence. But Bark was not to be put off by the sullen reticence of his companion. "Take your time, my buck," he said. "Don't hurry. Don't commit yourself to anything likely to be used in evidence against you afterwards."