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Page 42
He glanced casually at the bruised faces of Yorke and Redmond. "You men
must have had quite a tussle with that fellow, Moran!" he remarked
whimsically. "You seem to have come off the best, Sergeant. You're not
marked at all."
"Some tussle all right, Sorr!" agreed that worthy evenly, his tongue in
his cheek. "Yu' go git yu're prisoner, Ridmond, an' be ready whin that
thrain comes in. Come back on the next way-freight west, if there's wan
behfure th' passenger. We'll need yez."
Gully murmured some hospitable suggestion to Kilbride, and the two
gentlemen strolled into the wrecked bar. The train presently arrived and
departed eastwards, bearing on it the inspector, Redmond, and his
prisoner.
"Strange thing," the officer had remarked musingly to Slavin, just prior
to his departure, "I seem to know that man Gully's face, but somehow I
can't place him. He introduced himself to me on the train coming up. Of
course I'm familiar with his name, as the J.P. here, but I can't recall
ever meeting him before."
Sometime later, Slavin and Yorke, who had just returned from the gruesome
autopsy and were busily making arrangements for the afternoon's inquest,
heard a loud, cackling commotion out in the main street. They
immediately stepped outside the hotel to see what was the matter.
Advancing towards them, and puffing with exertion and importance, they
beheld Nick Lee, haling along at arm's length an unkempt individual whom
they judged to be the hobo who had disturbed his peace of mind. A small
retinue of dirty urchins, jeering loafers, and barking dogs brought up
the rear. The village "Dogberry" drew nigh with his victim and halted,
as empurpled as probably the elder Weller was, after ducking Mr. Stiggins
in the horse-trough.
"Sarjint!" he panted triumphantly "I did clim up that ther ladder! I did
git thru' th' trap-door! . . . an'--I did ketch that feller!" Suddenly
his jaw dropped, and he wilted like a pricked bladder. "Why! what's
up?" he queried with a crestfallen air, as he beheld Slavin's angry,
worried countenance.
"Damnation!" muttered the latter softly and savagely to Yorke. "This
means another thrip tu Calgary--wid this 'bo'--an' me not able tu shpare
ye just now. Fwhat wid all this other bizness I'd forgotten all 'bout
him. An' we'd vagged him sooner Ridmond might have taken th' tu av thim
down tugither. Da----." The oath died on his lips and he remained
staring at the hobo as a sudden thought struck him. His gaze flickered
to Yorke's face, and his subordinate nodded comprehensively.
Slavin beckoned to Lee. "Take um inside the hotel parlour, Nick," he
ordered, "fwhere we hild coort this mornin.' Yorkey, yu' go an' hunt up
Mr. Gully. I don't think he's pulled out yet, has he, Nick?" He spoke
now with a certain grim eagerness.
The livery-man made a gesture in the negative, and Yorke departed upon
his quest. Slavin ushered Lee and the hobo into the room. To the
sergeant's surprise he beheld the justice sitting at the table writing.
He concluded that that gentleman must have just stepped in from the rear
entrance of the hotel, or the bar, during his own and Yorke's temporary
absence.
At the entrance of the trio Gully raised his head and, with the pen
poised in his fingers, sat perfectly motionless, staring at them
strangely out of his shadowy eyes. His face seemed transformed into a
blank, expressionless mask. The sergeant leaned over the table and spoke
to him in a rapid aside.
"Ah!" murmured Mr. Gully, and he remained for a space in deep thought.
"Sergeant," he began presently, "I'll have to be pulling out soon.
Before we start in with this man . . . will you kindly step down to
Doctor Cox's with these papers and ask him to sign them?"
It seemed an ordinary request. Slavin complied.
Returning some ten or fifteen minutes later he noticed Lee was absent.
The magistrate answered his query. "Sent him round to throw the harness
on my team," he drawled, as he pored over a Criminal Code, "he'll be back
in a moment--ah! here he is." And just then the latter entered, along
with Yorke. The hobo was sitting slumped in a chair, as Slavin had left
him. With one accord they all centred their gaze upon the unkempt
delinquent. Ragged and unwashed, he presented a decidedly unlovely
appearance, which was heightened by his stubble-coated visage showing
signs as of recent ill-usage. His age might have been anything between
thirty and forty.
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