The landlord and the other man pricked up their ears at this point of the conversation.
The trainer at Mellish Park had, as we know, risen to popularity from the hour in which he had fallen upon the dewy turf in the wood, shot through the heart.
“If there wasn’t any particklar objections,” the landlord of the Crooked Rabbit said, presently, “I should oncommonly like to hear anything you’ve got to tell about the poor chap. There’s a deal of interest took about the matter in Doncaster, and my customers have scarcely talked of anything else since the inquest.”
The man in the velveteen coat rubbed his chin and smoked his pipe reflectively. He was evidently not a very communicative man; but it was also evident that he was rather gratified by the distinction of his position in the little public-house parlour.
This was no other than Mr. Matthew Harrison, the dog-fancier; Aurora’s pensioner, the man who had traded upon her secret, and made himself the last link between her and the lowborn husband she had abandoned.
Samuel Prodder lifted himself from the Windsor chairs at this juncture. He was too much interested in the conversation to be able to simulate sleep any longer. He got up, stretched his legs and arms, made elaborate show of having just awakened from a profound and refreshing slumber, and asked the landlord of the Crooked Rabbit to mix him another glass of that pineapple-rum grog.
The captain lighted his pipe while his host departed upon this errand. The seaman glanced rather inquisitively at Mr. Harrison; but he was fain to wait until the conversation took its own course, and offered him a safe opportunity of asking a few questions.
“The pecooliar circumstances under which I know’d James Conyers,” pursued the dog-fancier, after having taken his own time and smoked out half a pipeful of tobacco, to the acute aggravation of his auditory, “was a woman—and a stunner she was, too; one of your regular spitfires, that’ll knock you into the middle of next week if you so much as asks her how she does in a manner she don’t approve of. She was a woman, she was, and a handsome one, too; but she was more than a match for James, with all his brass. Why, I’ve seen her great black eyes flash fire upon him,” said Mr. Harrison, looking dreamily before him, as if he could even at that moment see the flashing eyes of which he spoke; “I’ve seen her look at him, as if she’d wither him up from off the ground he trod upon, with that contempt she felt for him.”
Samuel Prodder grew strangely uneasy as he listened to this man’s talk of flashing black eyes and angry looks directed at James Conyers. Had he not seen his niece’s shining orbs flame fire upon the dead man only a quarter of an hour before he received his death-wound? Only so long—Heaven help that wretched girl!—only so long before the man for whom she had expressed unmitigated hate had fallen by the hand of an unknown murderer.
“She must have been a tartar, this young woman of yours,” the landlord observed to Mr. Harrison.
“She was a tartar,” answered the dog-fancier: “but she was the right sort, too, for all that; and what’s more, she was a kind friend to me. There’s never a quarter-day goes by that I don’t have cause to say so.”
He poured out a fresh glass of beer as he spoke, and tossed the liquor down his capacious throat with the muttered sentiment, “Here’s towards her.”
Another man had entered the room while Mr. Prodder had sat smoking his pipe and drinking his rum-and-water, a humpbacked, white-faced man, who sneaked into the public-house parlour as if he had no right to be there, and seated himself noiselessly at one of the tables.
Samuel Prodder remembered this man. He had seen him through the window in the lighted parlour of the north lodge when the body of James Conyers had been carried into the cottage. It was not likely, however, that the man had seen the captain.
“Why, if it isn’t Steeve Hargraves from the Park!” exclaimed the landlord, as he looked round and recognized the “Softy”; “he’ll be able to tell plenty, I dare say. We’ve been talking of the murder, Steeve,” he added, in a conciliatory manner.
Mr. Hargraves rubbed his clumsy hands about his head, and looked furtively, yet searchingly, at each member of the little assembly.
“Ay, sure,” he said; “folks don’t seem to me to talk about owght else. It was bad enoogh oop at the Park; but it seems worse in Doncaster.”
“Are you stayin’ up town, Steeve?” asked the landlord, who seemed to be upon pretty intimate terms with the late hanger-on of Mellish Park.
“Yes, I’m stayin’ oop town for a bit; I’ve been out of place since the business oop there; you know how I was turned out of the house that had sheltered me ever since I was a boy, and you know who did it. Never mind that; I’m out o’ place now, but you may draw me a mug of ale; I’ve money enough for that.”
Samuel Prodder looked at the “Softy” with considerable interest. He had played a small part in the great catastrophe, yet it was scarcely likely that he should be able to throw any light upon the mystery. What was he but a poor half-witted hanger-on of the murdered man, who had lost all by his patron’s untimely death?
The “Softy” drank his beer, and sat, silent, ungainly, and disagreeable to look upon, amongst the other men.
“There’s a reg’lar stir in the Manchester papers about this murder, Steeve,” the landlord said, by way of opening a conversation; “it don’t seem to me
