International Short Stories: English Part 22

"Ay. The hostler, c.o.x."

There was a groan of horror and a cry for vengeance.

"Silence," said the magistrate. "Mr. Gardiner, you are a dying man.

Words may kill. Be careful. Have you any doubts?"

"About what?"

"That the villain was Daniel c.o.x."

"None whatever."

At these words the men and women, who were glaring with pale faces and all their senses strained at the dying man and his faint yet terrible denunciation, broke into two bands; some remained rooted to the place, the rest hurried, with cries of vengeance, in search of Daniel c.o.x.

They were met in the yard by two constables, and rushed first to the stables, not that they hoped to find him there. Of course he had absconded with his booty.

The stable door was ajar. They tore it open.

The gray dawn revealed c.o.x fast asleep on the straw in the first empty stall, and his bottle in the manger. His clothes were b.l.o.o.d.y, and the man was drunk. They pulled him, cursed him, struck him, and would have torn him in pieces, but the constables interfered, set him up against the rail, like timber, and searched his bosom, and found--a wound; then turned all his pockets inside out, amidst great expectation, and found--three halfpence and the key of the stable door.

CHAPTER II

They ransacked the straw, and all the premises, and found--nothing.

Then, to make him sober and get something out of him, they pumped upon his head till he was very nearly choked. However, it told on him. He gasped for breath awhile, and rolled his eyes, and then coolly asked them had they found the villain.

They shook their fists at him. "Ay, we have found the villain, red-handed."

"I mean him as prowls about these parts in my waistcoat, and drove his knife into me last night--wonder a didn't kill me out of hand. Have ye found him amongst ye?"

This question met with a volley of jeers and execrations and the constables pinioned him, and bundled him off in a cart to Bow Street, to wait examination.

Meantime two Bow Street runners came down with a warrant, and made a careful examination of the premises. The two keys were on the table.

Mr. Gardiner's outer door was locked. There was no money either in his portmanteau of Captain Cowen's. Both pistols were found loaded, but no priming in the pan of the one that lay on the bed; the other was primed, but the bullets were above the powder.

Bradbury, one of the runners, took particular notice of all.

Outside, blood was traced from the stable to the garden wall, and under this wall, in the gra.s.s, a b.l.o.o.d.y knife was found belonging to the "Swan" Inn. There was one knife less in Mr. Gardiner's room than had been carried up to his supper.

Mr. Gardiner lingered till noon, but never spoke again.

The news spread swiftly, and Captain Cowen came home in the afternoon, very pale and shocked.

He had heard of a robbery and murder at the "Swan," and came to know more. The landlady told him all that had transpired, and that the villain c.o.x was in prison.

Cowan listened thoughtfully, and said "c.o.x! No doubt he is a knave: but murder!--I should never have suspected him of that."

The landlady pooh-poohed his doubts. "Why, sir, the poor gentleman knew him, and wounded him in self-defence, and the rogue was found a-bleeding from that very wound, and my knife, as done the murder, not a stone's throw from him as done it, which it was that Dan c.o.x, and he'll swing for't, please G.o.d." Then, changing her tone, she said, solemnly, "You'll come and see him, sir?"

"Yes," said Cowen, resolutely, with scarce a moment's hesitation.

The landlady led the way, and took the keys out of her pocket, and opened Cowen's door. "We keep all locked," said she, half apologetically; "the magistrate bade us; and everything as we found it--G.o.d help us! There--look at your portmanteau. I wish you may not have been robbed as well."

"No matter," said he.

"But it matters to me," said she, "for the credit of the house." Then she gave him the key of the inner door, and waved her hand toward it, and sat down and began to cry.

Cowen went in and saw the appalling sight. He returned quickly, looking like a ghost, and muttered, "This is a terrible business."

"It is a bad business for me and all," said she. "He have robbed you too, I'll go bail."

Captain Cowen examined his trunk carefully. "Nothing to speak of,"

said he. "I've lost eight guineas and my gold watch."

"There!--there!--there!" cried the landlady.

"What does that matter, dame? He has lost his life."

"Ay, poor soul. But 'twont bring him back, you being robbed and all.

Was ever such an unfortunate woman? Murder and robbery in my house!

Travellers will shun it like a pest-house. And the new landlord he only wanted a good excuse to take it down altogether."

This was followed by more sobbing and crying. Cowen took her down-stairs into the bar, and comforted her. They had a gla.s.s of spirits together, and he encouraged the flow of her egotism, till at last she fully persuaded herself it was her calamity that one man was robbed and another murdered in her house.

Cowen, always a favorite, quite won her heart by falling into this view of the matter, and when he told her he must go back to the City again, for he had important business, and besides had no money left, either in his pockets or his rifled valise, she encouraged him to go, and said, kindly, indeed it was no place for him now; it was very good of him to come back at all: but both apartments should be scoured and made decent in a very few days; and a new Carpet down in Mr. Gardiner's room.

So Cowen went back to the City, and left this notable woman to mop up her murder.

At Bow Street next morning, in answer to the evidence of his guilt, c.o.x told a tale which the magistrate said was even more ridiculous than most of the stories uneducated criminals get up on such occasions; with this single comment he committed c.o.x for trial.

Everybody was of the magistrate's opinion, except a single Bow Street runner, the same who had already examined the premises. This man suspected c.o.x, but had one qualm of doubt founded on the place where he had discovered the knife, and the circ.u.mstance of the blood being traced from that place to the stable, and not from the inn to the stable, and on a remark c.o.x had made to him in the cart. "I don't belong to the house. I haan't got no keys to go in and out o' nights.

And if I took a hatful of gold, I'd be off with it into another country--wouldn't you? Him as took the gentleman's money, he knew where 'twas, and he have got it: I didn't and I haan't."

Bradbury came down to the "Swan," and asked the landlady a question or two. She gave him short answers. He then told her that he wished to examine the wine that had come down from Mr. Gardiner's room.

The landlady looked him in the face, and said it had been drunk by the servants or thrown away long ago.

"I have my doubts of that," said he.

"And welcome," said she.

Then he wished to examine the keyholes.

"No," said she; "there has been prying enough into my house."

Said he angrily, "You are obstructing justice. It is very suspicious."

"It is you that is suspicious, and a mischief-maker into the bargain,"