“Lord save us! I read in the noospaper about that there body being found, but it fair beats me that the crate came from ’ere, it does.”
French continued to enlarge on the tale. That Gurney’s surprise was genuine he felt certain. He could have sworn that the man had no inkling of the truth. But he marked, even more acutely than before, a hesitation or self-consciousness that indicated an uneasy mind. There was something; he felt sure of it. He glanced at the man with his shrewd, observant eyes and suddenly determined on directness.
“Look here, Gurney,” he said. “Come over and sit on this seat. I have something important to say to you.” He paused as if considering his words. “You thought a good deal of your employers, those two poor men who were lost on the moor?”
“An’ I had reason to. It wasn’t an accident ’appening in the execution of my dooty, as you might say, as made me lame and not fit to work. It was rheumatism, and they could ’ave let me go when I couldn’t work no more. But they found this job for me and they let me the ’ouse cheap. Of course it was Mr. Berlyn as ’ad the final say, but I know as Mr. Pyke spoke for me. It wasn’t everyone as would ’ave done that, now was it, sir?”
Consideration on the part of an employer was not, French knew, to be taken as a matter of course, though it was vastly more common than the unions would have the public believe. But gratitude on the part of an employee was not so frequent, though it was by no means unique. Its exhibition, however, in the present instance confirmed French in the course he was taking.
“Now, Gurney, do you know who I am?” he went on. “I’m an inspector from Scotland Yard and I’m down here to try to solve these two mysteries. Because, Gurney, do you know what I think? I think that on that night the body of one of these two gentlemen was taken to the works and put into the crate.”
Gurney started and paled. “Lord save us!” he muttered. “But wot about the accident?”
“There was no accident,” French replied, sternly. “There was murder. Who committed it, I don’t know at present. Where the other body is, if there is another body, I don’t yet know. But I have no doubt about one of the bodies. It was put into the crate on that night.”
Gurney moistened his dry lips.
“But—” he began, and his voice died away into silence.
“That’s it,” French went on, impressively. “Now, Gurney, I’m not accusing you of anything. But you know something. You needn’t attempt to deny it, because it has been plain to me from the first moment I spoke to you. Come now. Something out of the common took place that night. What was it?”
Gurney did not deny the charge. Instead he sat motionless, with scared, unhappy eyes. French remained silent also; then he said, quietly:
“What was it? Were you away from your post that night?”
“No, sir, not that. I was there all the time,” the other answered, earnestly. Again he paused, then with a sudden gesture he went on: “I didn’t know nothing about what you ’ave been saying, but I see now I must tell you everything, even if I gets the sack over it.”
“You’ll not get the sack if I can help it,” French said, kindly, “but go on and tell me, all the same.”
“Well, sir, I did that night wot I never did before nor since. I slept the ’ole night through. I sat down to eat my supper in the boiler-’ouse like I always does, an’ I didn’t remember nothing more till Peter Small ’e was standing there shaking me. ‘Wake up,’ ’e says; ‘you’re a nice sort of a night watchman, you are.’ ‘Lord,’ I says. ‘I never did nothing like that before,’ an’ I asks him not to say nothing about it. An’ ’e didn’t say nothing, nor I didn’t, neither. But now I suppose it’ll come out an’ I’ll get wot for about it.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” French said, heartily. “I’ll see you through. I’ll undertake to get Mr. Fogden to overlook this little irregularity on one condition. You must tell me everything that took place that night without exception. Go ahead now and let’s have the whole of it.”
The old man gazed at him in distress.
“But there weren’t naught else,” he protested. “I went to sleep, an’ that’s all. If there were anything else took place, w’y I didn’t see it.”
“That’s all right. Now just answer my questions. Go back to when you left your house. What time was that?”
“The usual time, about .”
“You brought your supper with you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who prepared it?”
“My wife.”
“Did you meet anyone on your way to the works?”
“Well, I couldn’t rightly say. No one that I remember.”
“No one could have got hold of your supper, anyway?”
The man started. “You think it might ’ave been tampered with?” he queried. He thought for some moments, then shook his head. “No, sir, I’m afraid not. I don’t never let my basket out o’ my ’and till I gets to the boiler-’ouse.”
“Very well. Now when you got to the boiler-house?”
“I put it where I always do, beside one o’ the boilers.”
“And you left it there?”
“While I made my rounds, I did. But there wasn’t no one else in the works then.”
“How do you know?”
Gurney hesitated. In the last resort he didn’t know. But he had not seen anyone and did not believe anyone had been there.
“But suppose someone had been hidden in the works,” French persisted. “He could have doctored your supper while you were on your rounds?”
“If there ’ad been ’e might,” the man admitted. “But I didn’t see no one.”
“What time do you have your meal?”
Gurney, it appeared, had two meals during the night. Time hung heavy on his hands
