ON THE TRAIL OF A WELSHMAN'S MURDERER.
CHAPTER I. — CONSPIRATORS AT WORK.
It is now, I dare say, five and twenty years back since, one
cold, shivery Christmas Eve, a policeman beckoned me across
the street to him, in the good old town of my nativity. I
was making somewhat briskly for a rendezvous with a couple
of friends, was well wrapped up, and engaged in puffing away
at a fine new briarwood pipe in the hard and fast fashion
habitual with me. Had the officer's gesture been observed by any
but myself, it would, no doubt, have been taken as a signal that
I was wanted. Had I been afterwards seen accompanying him
in a business-like trot down that ill-lit highway, it would have
afforded further confirmation of the fact, and the public mind
would have been made up that, for a time, at least, I was to be
provided with bed and board at the county expense. But I am
just a little before my story.
In the town I mention, where everybody knew everybody
else's business, sometimes better than one's self, it was known
pretty generally that I had a sort of official connection with the
police. As to what the precise connection was there existed a
considerable conflict of opinion; some thinking me a plain.
clothes constable, others the sergeant-clerk in charge at the
police-station, while not a few put me down as an insignificant
"writer to the papers" — penny-a-liner, they would have said,
only their notions of press work were altogether too primitive
to comprehend anything in the shape of a detail.
"You'll excuse me, sir, won't you?" was the greeting of the
Sergeant, when I had crossed over to him. "The fact is I
wanted to speak to you most particular; only I didn't want
Shany Sangharad, who was walking down behind you, to see us
together. I have been looking for you all the evening; twice
at the house, and half-a-dozen times at the office, but I couldn't
catch you nohow."
"Well, Sergeant, and what did you want with me? Is it
anything for which you'll take bail?" said I, half seriously, half
in jest.
"There you go again," said the sergeant, slily. "The fact
is — well, will you hear the tale from me, or wait till we see
the Super.?"
"By Jove!" thought I," this looks serious. There's something
in the wind which you have not yet smelt, old fellow." I
added aloud:
"Let us get to the Super.'s, by all means."
"Off we go, then," responded the Sergeant, "for I am afraid
that by this time he's well nigh tired of waiting."
Without any further waste of words we both trotted along.
If you have been to the town I am speaking of, you can!t
have helped seeing the county police-station. Not that its
architectural beauty brings it conspicuously into relief from its
unornamental background of buildings. Not that, by any means;
but it is, or was at the time of which I am speaking, a sort of
mixed-up, conglomerate, rambling, heavy-looking, ramshackle
old affair, which must have caught your eye in much the
same way as an elephant in a circus procession; the biggest,
ugliest, blackest, most awkward thing of the lot of them. The
"Super.," as the members of the force called their chief, was a
fine, slashing fellow, full of humour and intelligence, with whom
I was a considerable deal of a favourite — for what particular
reason I could never satisfactorily determine.
"Hilloa, Archie, lad!" he said to me directly the door
opened and I showed my face inside his snug little parlour —
one of the cosiest apartments in the whole suite which belonged
to the Super. at the station. "I'm so glad to see you," he continued.
"Just squat in the corner there, and tell us what
you'll have to drink."
"A drop of Scotch, I think," replied I; "and I'll take it hot,
just to stop my jaw teeth from dropping out."
He rang; and presently trim little Polly Morgan tripped into
the room — Polly, the laughing-eyed, yellow-haired, fair-skinned,
and altogether the prettiest little piece of goods in the whole
town — for a maid servant, I mean. Polly, whose chin I had
chucked, whose — but, bless my soul! where am I — a staid old
Diogenes, minus the wit — drifting to? It is curious how these
memories of a golden prime make a fellow's tongue slip, isn't it?
Polly took her orders and withdrew to execute them, after
her eyes had merrily shot a glance at — never mind whom.
"I suppose," said the Super., just as the girl had turned her
back, "you couldn't make out what I wanted you for?"
"You may take your oath of that," replied I, as carelessly as
I could.
"Well," he said, "it's best to go to business at once. We
can enjoy the grog afterwards, and you shall put yours on top
of what I am going to tell you, just by way of considering cap.
Ah! here's Polly with the mixings. Come in."
Polly followed her pretty little rattle-tattle-tattle on the door
panel so quickly that the Super. could hardly finish his injunction,
brief as it was, before she was bearing full down upon us
with jug, tumblers, spoons, sugar, lemons, a knife and decanters —
a most tempting collection, making sweet music, and giving
forth most precious odour on the daintily held tray.
"Scotch for Mr. Hamilton, Mary. Hand me the Hennessy.
Thanks. Now, just step across to the mess-room, and tell
Sergeant Jenkins I want him, will you? Lemon, Mr. Hamilton?
Right."
Polly curtsied and withdrew. The Super. went to a recess
and took therefrom a cigar box, which he held towards me. I
made a selection, and had just cut the end of what turned out
to be an admirable smoke, when Sergeant Jenkins entered.
Mine host motioned him to a chair, and helped him to a glass,
from which he drank a respectful "Here's luck, gen'l'men
both."
"You shouldn't have slipped away, Sergeant," said the Super.,
referring to the sudden manner in which the Sergeant had left.
the room immediately on ushering me into the official presence.
"I noticed Shany Sangharad following us, sir, and made up
my mind to have her in. If she guesses what's up — and I
think she has some kind of notion of it — she'll spoil the whole
thing before we set about it," said the Sergeant, in explanation.
I must say I was somewhat unpleasantly impressed with a
sense of mystery in all this. Had my conscience been any
worse than that of the average young man of one and twenty,
I might not have taken things so easily. Before I had time to
enter into any very long train of speculation, the Super.'s voice
recalled my thoughts to the business in hand.
"It was not safe, Sergeant," he said, deprecatingly. "You
have no charge against her."
"It's all right, sir," returned the Sergeant. "I remembered,
while Mr. Hamilton and me was walking along, that there was
an old warrant out against her for disobeying a summons for
drunkenness. It is 171's case; and you know, sir, that he's left
the district. If you apply for a remand of the case, to enable
us to bring him for'ard to give evidence, we shall get through
this business before she has a chance of blabbing. If she goes
out on bail, she'll let on, you may depend, and it'll then be
good-bye to all chance of nailing her bloke."
"'Twas lucky you thought of it, Sergeant," observed the
Super., with an approving smile. "It couldn't have happened
better. And now, Mr. Hamilton, drink up and have another."
"Thank you; I'm doing very nicely. Not another drop
just now," said I, putting my hand resolutely over my tumbler.
"Well, by-and-bye, then," he rejoined. "You won't leave
us without wetting both eyes, surely? Allow me to give you a
fresh light, anyhow;" and, suiting the action to the word, he
applied a lighted lucifer to the end of my cigar, which I had
unwittingly allowed to go out.
"But you wanted me on business, I understand?" remarked
I, after a puff or two.
"That was just what I did want you for. At least, I thought
to talk a little matter over with you, and enjoy a pipe and a
glass in your company at the same time, you know," he added,
a trifle anxious to divest his hospitality of all suspicion of
motive.
And, without more ado, he proceeded to unbosom himself of
a matter which it would be unreasonable to expect me to enter
upon at the fag end of a chapter already, i am afraid, too
long.
CHAPTER II.
"Murder most foul, as in the best it is."
"It was before your time, Mr. Hamilton," began the superintendent
of Police by way of explanatory preface to his story.
"Dear me! Yes, at least five years before you came to the
place, that on a raw Saturday night in November there drove
into our town a Breconshire farmer, who had been doing a good
stroke of business at the fair that day, and whose pockets were
better lined than his stomach even. I dare say you might
have heard of him, and his curious tricks on horseback, after he
had been to a market or fair."
"Do you mean Shoni Llwyncrwn," I asked. "He who used
to —–"
"No, not Shoni; because he's still alive and well, and, what
is more, married to a young wife, who has cut his hair, pared
his nails, and so well groomed him that he's actually getting to
look respectable. Not very many months since he was made a
magistrate, and it looks as if he was becoming regularly
civilized," said the Super.
"Ah! I don't know your man, then; but go on, that'll make
no difference," I responded.
" Well," he continued, "Dick — for that was the poor fellow's
name — put up at 'The Duke,' where he stabled his horse and
had a hearty meal. Just about ten o'clock, or so, he went out,
saying he would return in an hour. Next morning, at daybreak,
down the river about a mile, he was fished up, with empty
pockets and a knife-wound in his heart."
"I remember reading of the affair," I observed. "And a
shocking thing it was, too; not only because of the man's
horrible death, but because of the ruin it brought upon his
family."
"Yes," he rejoined. "The house of Defynog, once the pride
of the country round, went down with a crash with its owner.
Dick's children are now on the parish, and she was his wife
for whom you made out an order of removal to the Asyhun
to-day."
"Dreadful, really," I remarked. "I suppose you have no
suspicion as to who the murderer was?"
"Oh, yes we have, though; and that is the very point I was
bringing you to," he replied, quickly. "Just before leaving
the house, and, indeed, before getting up from the table, he
was fool enough to boast of the money he had made. You very
likely know the kitchen of 'The Duke' — a regular old barn of
a place, with high-backed benches running up and down it in a
way that one could never know who the other occupants of the
room were, unless be made the tour of the whole lot. While
Dick of Defynog was bragging away about his money, there was
upon the other side of the settle, and probably sitting back to
back with him, Big Mike, the bully, with Shany Sangharad
and Shoni Kicko'r Top, one on each hand."
"My God!" I exclaimed, with an involuntary shudder.
"Dick of Defynog was a doomed man the very moment mention
of his money escaped him."
"Right!" put in the sergeant. "Three bigger devils never
stepped in shoe leather. Mike would have crucified Christ, if
he had the chance, for much less money than Judas ever took
for betraying on Him."
This was plain language, and a (perhaps) unbecoming simile,
but I have nothing to do with that. I am only giving evidence
in a case, and I should be justly open to censure, both from
without and within, were I to refuse to tell the whole truth
without glozing it over.
"Let me go on," said the Super. "Shany, directly she heard
the farmer talk of his money, went round and asked him to
stand her a pint. She was a good-looking hussy in her day,
Shany was, and a winning one, too. The sight of her so worked
upon Dick's drink-soddened heart that they soon grew fast
friends. They left the house together, and Mike and Shoni
followed soon after. Shany —"
"Why were the three never arrested?" I broke in. "They
were the last in his company, and suspicion would have
reasonably attached to them."
"Hear me out," said the Super., "and you shall know;
although, perhaps, I may as well tell you at once that they were
not the last in his company. He stood heaps of drink for them
at 'The Squirrel' afterwards; but he left that house some time
before stop-tap, saying that be was going home. They remained
behind for a good half hour; and while they were there he, like
the fool that he was, kept hanging about and talking to other
women. One of these, who, we think, was Peggy o'r Pant, was
seen walking with him a short way down the road towards the
Japanese quarter, and from that point on we lost all trace of
him."
"Why didn't you bring in Peggy, and boldly charge her,
evidence or no evidence, with the murder?" I asked. "If she
had no hand in it herself, she might have known who had, and
turned informer."
"We did," he replied. "We charged her exactly in the way
you suggest. But she stuck to the same story from first to
hist, that. she never had anything to do with the man beyond
showing him the way into Windsor Street, round the corner of
which you turn to go to 'The Duke.' More than that, we
made her all sorts of promises, if she either confessed to her
own share in the business or gave us a scent of the right people.
But all she could be got to say was, 'I don't know nothing
about it, sir; indeed, indeed, I don't;' and she kept saying this
so often that I at last believed her."
"Strange!" I remarked, thoughtfully.
"Yes; but do you know what?" responded the Super. "It
is my honest opinion that Peggy o'r Pant, although one of the
greatest liars in creation, spoke right down truth that time
every word. These people do sometimes."
"Just about as often, I suppose, as their honest neighbours
tell fibs," said I. "It's a thing they're not accustomed to, but
whenever it's convenient they hesitate not to commit a virtue."
"I grant that," he rejoined. "They fall into virtue
accidentally, as it were. And it is astonishing how virtuous
they can be, too, when they have no object to gain by an
opposite course of conduct. They're like the shopkeepers who
keep double sets of weights. When we go round to inspect,
and catch Mr. Jones using a half-pound light by an ounce, you
should see how indignant Mr. Jenkins becomes at his brother
tradesman's dishonesty. Just a minute before, Mr. Jenkins:
having seen me coming down the street in company of the
sergeant here, with the testing scales under his arm, has time
to pop his light weights out of sight and bring out the proper
ones. Mr. Jones, pounced upon unawares, is caught red-handed,
and that is all the difference between them."
"The balance of evil being against Mr. Jenkins, of course,"
I suggested.
"How's that, sir?" asked the sergeant.
"Why, he practised a double fraud," I observed. "Cheated
the public and imposed upon you as well."
"I don't see it," was the sergeant's sententiously delivered
rejoinder. "No man is bound to criminate hisself, according to
our English law."
I was about to argue the point, but I thought better of it,
and turned the conversation again to the murder of Dick of
Defynog.
"How came you to connect Mike and Shoni and Shany with
the murder, Mr. Hawke?" I asked of the Super. "If they
were seen with poor Dick in the early part of the night, it does
not necessarily follow that they had anything to do with him
afterwards."
"No," he replied, "it does not; but still I have a strong
conviction that two, at least, of the three had a hand in the
man's death. Shany, as I have told you, I think, was at that
time a much better looking piece of goods than now. She must
have created a strong impression upon Dick's mellow nature;
and my opinion is that he made up his mind, after leaving the
"Squirrel," not to go home without one more look at the girl.
After getting rid of Peggy, he may have returned — it is my
honest belief that he did return — and on his way he, no doubt,
fell in with Shany and her male companions. He was inveigled
down to the den she keeps, drugged, robbed, stabbed, hoisted
on to the boundary wall between her house and the river, and
dropped in."
"You made search for his money, I suppose," said I.
"Every nook and corner of the whole of the blessed neighbourhood
was pulled upside down and inside out for that purpose,"
was his reply. "If we overhauled one place, I'm sure we overhauled
fifty, and we searched to the skin quite an army of
men and women both."
"But, tell me," said I, "what bearing has all this upon your
business with me?"
"In one moment," answered the Super. "The day before
yesterday Shany Sangharad and Dolly Doucie — you know her,
Mr. Hamilton; she who had two months last assizes for
receiving stolen goods — had a quarrel. It came off directly
Dolly got clear of the gaol. The women twitted each other,
as women will, with past misdeeds, and out came all the secrets
one had ever told the other. Shany reminded Dolly of a
Dyrlas gaffer whom she had robbed of a roll of fivers, and Doll
retorted by saying, "was that as bad as what you did to the
Defynog farmer? You eased him of a hundred quid, and put
a knife into him after — you and Big Mike, you pair of bloody
murderers, you." This last broadside was altogether too much for
Shany, who gave in and bolted. Now that thing, with one or two
others which have occurred since, has convinced me that my
old suspicions were right, and that those two people murdered
the farmer. What is more, I believe for certain that Mike
has the farmer's gold repeater!"
I whistled; but whether from want of thought or a superabundance
of it, I'll leave the reader to guess.
"Why not run him in?" I asked, shortly after.
"I applied to the magistrates this morning for a warrant,
but they thought it too risky to grant one upon the very slender
evidence that I had to give. If we were to arrest Mike on our
own responsibility, and it turned out there was no case against
him, he would fee old Slymans to bring an action for false
imprisonment against us in a twinkling; and, after the quarrel
we had the other day, that would be nuts to old Slymans,
wouldn't it?"
"Rather," I replied. "But what do you propose to do
further in the matter?"
"Why, this; I mean to meet Mike on his own terms," said
the Super., with a gleam in his eye that was positively
dangerous. "If he's unscrupulous, why should I be any more
particular? I mean to have him," he went on, in a tone of
suppressed fierceness; "case or no case; and for that
purpose I am going to put upon him a new man, who, if he is
sued, will not care a button, because he is not worth a straw.
But I'll see that he never will be sued. If we find nothing on
Mike to justify his detention, I shall bring him before the
magistrates, tell them that it was all a mistake, get him
discharged, and run my man into another district before there's
any chance for commencing an action."
The bold and not over nice line of policy thus sketched
rather astonished me, and I suppose I must have looked the
astonishment I felt, for the Super. said, "It surprises you, I see,
but I hope it won't surprise you any more now I'm going to
tell you that I want your help in laying hold of Master Mike.
My new man, who is a splendid fellow with his fist, does not
know him, and I am bound to have someone who does, to point
him out. Mike knows all my other men, and if he were to see
any of them making for his house, he would guess what was up,
and either bolt with the swag or get rid of it."
"Surround the place before he has time to make his
dispositions," I suggested.
"Not a bit of good trying. Mike is too old a fox, and has
too many spies in his pay," he said emphatically. "We have
no warrant to arrest him or search his house, and you know
the consequences were we to proceed without one — an action
for trespass or false imprisonment, right off the reel."
"Quite right," assented I.
"No," he continued; "the proper and the only way to do
the thing is the one I have chalked out for myself, and if you'll
give us your assistance, the matter is as good as settled."
The whole plan of action was then explained to me; but,
inasmuch as I followed the details almost to the letter, it would
be superfluous to reproduce them. The action itself is, probably,
all that you would care to know about, and I think I have
already bored you sufficiently with my account of our preliminary
council of war.
CHAPTER III. — TRAPPED.
I must confess that I did not enter into the Super.'s scheme
with any very great heartiness. The part I had to play in it
was insignificant enough; but it had its inconveniences, not to
say dangers, nevertheless. All I was expected to do was to
give my companion a signal by which he could recognise his
man, and then leave him to fight his own battle as best
he could. Assistance there was none for either of us, come
weal, come woe, because, as I think I have already made clear,
the Super. was as anxious not to scare away his bird as to avoid
unpleasant consequences in case his suspicions should turn out
to have been unfounded. I knew perfectly well that, if the
fraternity amongst whom I was going to venture were once
to get hold of the notion that I was a spy and an informer,
things would be made seriously unpleasant for me, not only
then, but for all time. But this I did not much care about.
In fact — adventurous young fool that I was — the prospect of
pitting myself, brain or muscle, as might be required, against
a lot of louts, had just that spice of knight errantry about
it which commended it most strongly to my favour. I might
have done a much wiser thing by leaving the whole business
to somebody else; but I was fairly in for it now, and regret was
therefore useless.
It was a biting, dreadfully unpleasant night that I and my
official companion sallied forth upon our expedition. The
ground was covered, foot-deep almost, with dirty, rain-soddened
snow, in which our boots plashed and slipped like the paddles
of a steamship when the sea is choppy. But we were well
wrapped up, my companion as a navvy, and myself metamorphosed
into a sort of better class collier; the most noticeable portions
of my outfit being a large leather-peaked cap and a flaring
yellow neckerchief of silk, with the ends dangling loosely over
a Welsh flannel shirt-front, well studded
with herring bone
stitches, and conical-shaped pyramidally arranged buttons of
china.
We took the longest way round to our point of destination,
the better to give the colour of unpremeditation to our plan.
The sky immediately overhead was cloudless, and the stars,
though not numerous, were of extraordinary brilliancy, standing
out like clearly-cut diamond facets from a mounting of lapis-lazuli.
Upon the horizon great masses of darkness were
gathering slowly and majestically, each sailing up to each like
ships of the line forming into order of battle. The slip-slop
progress we were making gave me a chill, and the icily, muggy
atmosphere laid a load of unpleasant damp about my face and
hair. Turning to my friend, I suggested a nip, just to keep the
cold out, but he declined. He did not drink. "Come in and
toast your toes, then, while I swallow a pint of "gin hot,"
said I.
"No objection in the least, sir," he said, and in we went to the
"Carriers' Arms." The landlady was noted for the brewing of
"gin hot," and I don't remember ever putting nicer tipple to
my lips than that which she brought me this night. While I
was discussing it in the bar parlour, we heard a tremendous
rumpus in the tap-room adjoining, and some one, above the din,
exclaiming —
"I believe you cheated me, Copper Top; but no matter. If
you're better nor me in dominoes, I'm worth two of you at
skittles."
"I'll throw a ball with you any blooming time you like,"
said a gruff voice, in reply.
"Let's go down to the 'Bull,' then, and have it out," said
the challenger; "there's no alley here."
There was an instant uprising, a shuffling of feet, and a
general exodus of the kitchen customers, among whom, as I
looked after them through the glass partition, I plainly made
out the burly form of Big Mike himself. I told my companion
as much, adding that he could not help picking him out from
the rest, because he was at least a head taller than any of
them.
"Then you had better stop here, sir," said he, "and let me
finish the job myself. I know where the men have gone to,
and I shall spot Mike without difficulty, after your description
of him."
"I'll be hanged if I do anything of the kind," I cried, not a
little nettled at the proposal. "I'll see you through it, whatever
it is, now that I have come so far."
"You are game, too," he said admiringly. "We'll follow
them in five minutes, then, if it is the same to you."
"Ten will be better," I observed. "They will only be in the
second throw by that time."
Out we went into the night air across the old-fashioned
bridge, beneath whose arches the river rolled swiftly and silently
seawards, reflecting the steel-cold shimmer of wintry moonbeams,
flung in a shower athwart its crystal surface. Down those
cruel wavelets, five years before, floated poor Dick of Defynog,
with the life blood bubbling from his bosom, and marking his
course with a trail of red! And who knew but that before the
night was over there would be other bloody work, of which the
tale would be told on the morrow? As the thought struck me,
I buttoned up my coat to the neck, drew my cap well over my
eyes, and, with hard-set teeth, started off at a run for our
rendezvous.
We pushed our way, through a bar crowded with as vicious
looking a set as I had ever come across, into the skittle alley of
"the Bull," a long, low, whitewashed affair, lit at unequal
intervals with three double-armed gas brackets. Up the side,
on the bowler's right, was the usual trough, into which the man
at the pins rolled the balls at the end of every third "throw."
Behind the mystic nine was a large square of canvas answering
no other purpose,
I at one time thought, than that of preventing
damage to the ball. When we got in, Mike and his opponent
had not yet begun their game, for the simple reason that another
couple had not finished theirs. One of these latter was a Scotch
draper whom I knew — a great strapping fellow, who was on the
spree that week, and who had been well fleeced by the lambs
with whom he had associated. He was engaged, at the time of
our entrance, in a hot quarrel with a man who had decided
against him a point with reference to an alleged recoil of the
ball, and was threatening to punch his head. The beer lost on
the game was being handed round in a tot-glass by a blackguard,
close-cropped customer, gaol bird, bully and thief,
dressed in dirty moleskin, and wearing his cap with the peak
over his left, ear. I took careful stock of the lot as they stood
in the flare of the gaslight or moved into the shadows beyond.
Murillo would have liked to be with me; a viler crew he could
never hope to see, nor one much more picturesque, either.
There may have been twenty in the room when we first entered,
but the company thinned down on finding that the game
between McTavish and Will Aberdare was likely to last some
time. It was the one between Big Mike and "t'other chap"
they had all come to see. Including myself and the constable,
there were eight left, representative scoundrels the whole of
them, when a man with the glass and a half-gallon tin in his
hand came up and offered my companion a drink. True to his
habits, he refused. The beer divider, as he was called, couldn't
understand it. He took a long stare at the officer, the significance
of which was by no means lost upon me, and, with his
eyes still upon the other's face, he handed the glass to me.
To allay his evidently awakened suspicions, I took it from him
instantly, and said, in what I meant to be a free and easy
manner, "Here's fortune, lads," after which I drank up the
contents. My attempt must have been a signal failure, for the
next moment the fellow shouted "Spies!" and I just had time
to duck my head to avoid the tin which was thrown at it, and
which, missing its mark, whizzed through the window dividing
the alley from the bar. Mike sprang to his feet and made
towards me, snorting like an angry bull. My companion, who
was a little in advance of me, nimbly avoided the charge, and
ran in the direction of the doorway.
"Good God!" thought I, "the coward is going to leave me
here to be murdered." Before I had time to think or see any
further, Mike was upon me with grinding teeth and eyes rolling
red with fury.
"You come smelling around here, do ye?" he yelled; "I'll
have your life, as sure as hell."
He was fairly within striking distance now, and I don't think
I ever delivered a squarer blow. It caught him full in the
forehead, and made him reel, but that was all. My knuckles
were knocked all to smash. Before I could follow up my
advantage, he had doubled down upon me, and was holding me
by the throat with a grip like an iron gin's. I struck him
fiercely, again and again, in eye, face, mouth — anywhere I could,
but to no purpose. He forced me back against the bowling
trough, and twisted my neckherchief tourniquet fashion, evidently
intending to strangle me.
I felt his hot, vile breath on my face, heard him hiss: "Say
your prayers, brat," and —–
Well, to tell you the truth, I am in a considerable fog as to
what happened afterwards. I just remember going round in a
kind of whirlpool, of which the water was foaming with blood;
round, round, round, until I got wedged in the apex of a great
inverted cone, when a gurgling sound, resembling rumbling
thunder in force and volume, filled my ears to the point of
cracking. It then, I thought, began to die away; and, just as it
had subsided into a continuous hum, I was shot up again to the
surface. It must have been about this time that I recovered
my senses; and when I did so, I found the Titan Mike lying by
my side on the boards of the skittle alley, with manacled wrists,
in a pool of blood.
The constable was sponging my temples, as my head rested
on his knee, and the room was at that time fairly swarming
with men in uniform.
I need not tell you how I was lionised after that adventure.
The magistrates in petty sessions, and the judge at the assizes
before whom Mike was tried for the murder of Dick of Defynog,
whose watch had been found upon him, paid prodigious compliments
to my personal courage, and thanked me for the assistance
I had rendered the public justice of my country. The "Super."
offered me a first-class sergeantship at once if I liked to join the
force, but I declined. I had had rather too much of police duty
as it was, and whenever I may have since felt disposed to change
my mind I have had only to stroke my chin in search of a piece
of flesh which has been missing from it ever since my encounter
with Big Mike, to confirm me in the old resolution.
As to Mike himself, he got off on the ground that his possession
of the murdered man's watch was not, in legal parlance,
"recent" enough to justify conviction. He is alive at this day, but
there are patches of white upon that copper-thatched sconce of
his to which such affecting allusion was made by his would-be
opponent at skittles. He remembers me even yet by a gap in
his upper row of teeth. Those small things, the blackening of
his eyes, he has long ago forgotten, and probably also a powerful
blow under the ear which Constable Ap Shenkyn gave him after
choking him off my own significant self. He went down from
it, I was told, "like the side of a house," and, before he could
recover, he found himself minus a gold watch but plus a pair
of steel bracelets. Ap Shenkyn's move, which I had misconstrued
on that night in the skittle alley, was made with a view of
locking the door and thus preventing the enemy's being reinforced
from the bar. I could hardly believe this at first; but, after I
had seen Shenkyn with one hand lift a heavier man than Mike,
chair and all, upon a table, and ocular demonstrations were
given me that he was as plucky as he was powerful, faith grew
too strong for further doubt.
(THE END)
