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could have died around eight.”
    â€œWho found him?”
    â€œFarmer going through the cut, about six on Wednesday morning.”
    â€œNobody miss him before that?”
    â€œYes, but lots of things can keep a trooper from coming home. Car trouble, accidents. They don’t always report in. Use their judgment.”
    â€œBoth he and Pottle were on this beat?”
    â€œYes, but Pottle was doing night work. He got shifted to day duty after Trainor was killed.”
    â€œHe seems to have been on day duty last Tuesday afternoon. You said he came down here to warn the gypsies about nightshade carriers.”
    â€œHe got routed out to help search for Sarah Beasley.”
    â€œWhy did Trainor come down as far as this, instead of using the upper road?”
    â€œJust patrolling the routes, I suppose; or giving the gypsies a look-in.”
    â€œDo they say he gave them a look-in, or haven’t you asked them?”
    â€œThey say he didn’t; but they wouldn’t own up to seeing him last thing before he got killed in the short cut.”
    â€œVery annoying, they must be. Here comes Pottle; let’s wait for him.”
    Officer Pottle rode up, and stopped beside the car. “Glad to see you back, Mr. Gamadge,” he said. “Did you hear about Trainor?”
    â€œYes, and I’m awfully sorry. Mitchell thinks he may have ridden down on Tuesday evening to look in on the gypsies.”
    â€œHe may have. We kind of get them on our minds, after their men go back to Boston; there are children in the camp. These gyps ain’t afraid of anything on earth except jail and their own menfolks, but we like to keep an eye on ’em.”
    â€œHe was late getting back to headquarters, Mitchell says; you didn’t wait for him?”
    â€œNo, I started off as soon as I had my supper—went to Beasley’s by the upper road.”
    â€œWho’s taking his shift now?”
    â€œBowles.”
    â€œQueer, about Trainor getting killed that way in the short cut. He must have been well enough used to it.”
    â€œI wish somebody’d explain to me how it did happen. Last thing I would have expected, for Trainor to fall off his bike. He could loop the loops on it.”
    â€œThere’s always a last time, if you fellers will take chances,” said Mitchell, irritably. “Is the whole family in camp today?”
    â€œAll there. I guess they’ll be glad to get rid of the old lady; she rules the roost, all right. She’s goin’ back to Whitewater, Monday. Thinks she’ll take the little sick feller with her, cure him up at the shore.”
    â€œI understand that she has delusions of grandeur,” said Gamadge.
    â€œYou bet she has.”
    â€œDo you know these gypsies at all well, Pottle? Understand their mental processes, that sort of thing?”
    â€œThey haven’t got any mental processes; I told Charlie Haines he was a fool to marry that girl Martha; but some fellers don’t seem to want their wives brainy.”
    â€œDo you think they might make some kind of mistake about a thing like this nightshade? Mix it up with some other kind of berry?”
    â€œNo, I don’t. I bet they know all the poisons in these woods, and a few more.”
    â€œEven the children?”
    â€œI bet Martha’s baby would have the colic if anybody showed it a poison berry of any kind. Don’t forget they make their livin’—if you can call it a livin’—out of these woods and swamps; that sweet grass they make their baskets of, and all the rest of it. And the kids pick berries for sale before they’re hardly able to talk.”
    â€œAccording to your ideas, they can’t very well be responsible for this nightshade business, then.”
    â€œI don’t know if they are or not; but if I had any say about it I wouldn’t run Charlie Haines’ wife and baby out of town without any more proof against ’em