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Page 44
Slavin's face cleared and he emitted a weary sigh of relief. "As you
will, yeh're Worship," he said. "T'will be helpin' me out, tu . . . yeh
undhershtand?" His meaning stare drew a comprehensive nod from Gully.
"I have not a man tu shpare for escort just now."
He turned to the hobo. "Fwhat say yu', me man?" was his curt ultimatum,
"Fwhat say yu'--tu th' kindniss av his Worship? Will yeh go wurrk for
him? . . . Or be charged wid vagrancy?"
The offer was accepted with alacrity. In the hobo's one uninjured optic
shone a momentary gleam of intelligence, as he continued to stare at
Gully, like a dog at its master. The gleam was reflected in a pair of
shadowy, deep-set eyes, unblinking as an owl's.
Gully arose and looked at Lee. "All right then! you can hitch up my
team, Nick!" he said, and that rotund worthy waddled away on his mission.
"Come on, my man" he continued to the hobo, "we'll go round to the
stable." He turned to Slavin and Yorke, shedding his magisterial
deportment. "Well, good-bye, you fellows!" he said, with careless
bonhomie. He lowered his voice in an aside to Slavin. "Sergeant, I
trust I shall see, or hear from you again shortly. I would like to hear
the result of the inquest and--er--how you are progressing with the case."
A few minutes later they heard the silvery jingle of his cutter's bells
gradually dying away in the distance. Slavin aroused himself from a
scowling, brooding reverie. "G----d d----n!" he spat out to Yorke, from
between clenched teeth, "ther' goes another forlorn hope. 'Tis no manner
av use worryin' tho'--let's go get that jury empannelled!" He uttered a
snorting chuckle as a thought seemed to strike him. "H-mm! Gully must
be getthin' tindher-hearthed! Th' last vag we had up behfure him he sint
um down for sixty days."
CHAPTER IX
_Take order now, Gehazi,
That no man talk aside
In secret with his judges
The while his case is tried,
Lest he should show them--reason
To keep a matter hid,
And subtly lead the questions
Away from what he did._
KIPLING.
"Hullo!" quoth Constable Yorke facetiously, "behold one cometh, with
blood in her eye! Egad! Don't old gal Lee look mad? Like a wet hen. I
guess she's just off the train and Nick hasn't met her. There'll be
something doing when she lands home."
It was about ten o'clock on the following morning. The three policemen
(Redmond had returned on a freight during the night) were standing
outside the small cottage, next the livery-stable, the abode of Nick Lee
and his spouse. After a casual inspection of their horses they were
debating as to possible suspects and their next course of action.
Yorke's remarks were directed at a stout, red-faced, middle-aged woman
who was just then approaching them. She looked flustered and angry and
was burdened down with parcels great and small. As she halted outside
the gate one of the packages slipped from her grasp and fell in the mud.
Unable to bend down, she gazed at it helplessly a moment. Yorke,
stepping forward promptly, picked up the parcel, wiped it and tucked it
under her huge arm.
"Thank ye, Mister Yorke," she ejaculated gratefully, "'tis a gentleman ye
are," she glowered a moment at the cottage, "which is more'n I kin say
fur that mon o' mine, th' lazy good-fur-nothin', . . . leavin' me t' pack
all these things from th' train!"
Like a tug drawing nigh to its mooring--and nearly as broad in the
beam--she came to anchor on the front steps and kicked savagely at the
door. A momentary glimpse they got of Nick Lee's face, in all its
rubicund helplessness, and then the door banged to. From an open window
soon emerged the sounds as of a domestic broil.
"Talk av Home Rule, an' 'Th' Voice that breathed o'er Eden'," murmured
Slavin. "Blarney me sowl! just hark tu ut now?"
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