His leg was troubling him. He
walked with quite a pronounced limp, and there were times when his
face winced with pain.
"It's that confounded poison you gave me last night," he announced
to Charlie Webster as they stood chatting in front of the warehouse
office.
"First time I ever heard of booze going to the knee," was Charlie's
laconic rejoinder. "It's generally aimed at the head."
He made good use of the corner of his eye as he strolled leisurely
past the Windom house, set well back at the top of a small
tree-surrounded knoll and looking down upon the grassy slope that
formed the most beautiful "front yard" in the whole county, according
to the proud and boastful denizens of Windomville. Along the bottom
of the lawn ran a neatly trimmed privet hedge. There were lilac
bushes in the lower corners of the extensive grounds, and the wide
gravel walk up to the house was lined with flowers. Rose bushes
guarded the base of the terrace that ran the full length of the
house and curved off to the back of it.
A red and yellow beach umbrella, tilted against the hot morning
sun, lent a gay note of colour to the terrace to the left of the
steps. Some one,--a woman,--sat beneath the big sunshade, reading
a newspaper. A Belgian police dog posed at the top of the steps,
as rigid as if shaped of stone, regarding the passer-by who limped.
Halfway between the house and the road stood two fine old oaks,
one at either side of the lawn.
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