United States or French Guiana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Pursey was shortly to talk about Wilchester to some purpose and with no drawing-out from Stoner or anybody. "Well," remarked Myler, having supplied his guests with spirituous refreshment, and taken a pull at his own glass. "I'm glad to see you, Stoner, and so's the missis, and here's hoping you'll come again as often as the frog went to the water.
This was the question which Stoner put to himself when he sat down that night in his parlour to seriously consider if he had any chance of winning that five hundred pounds reward. He looked at the figures again more carefully. The truth was that until that evening he had never given much attention to those figures: it was the word Wilchester that had fascinated him.
With a laugh Stoner accepted this explanation, and then announced that he was hungry for his breakfast. This time Mallow spoke up. "I'm bally-hooing for a new joint; Fulton's Fancy Waffle Foundry. Follow me and I'll try to wedge you in. But you'll have to eat fast and pick your teeth on the sidewalk, for we need the room."
Stoner was one of those unfortunate individuals who seem to have tried everything; a natural slothfulness and improvidence had always intervened to blight any chance of even moderate success, and now he was at the end of his tether, and there was nothing more to try.
Five hundred reward for a bit o' brain work!" Stoner, who thought Postick was chaffing him, was about to throw the handbills, still damp from the press, into the gutter which he was stepping over. But in the light of an adjacent lamp he caught sight of the word Murder in big staring capitals at the top of them.
Once Henry Stoner, the hunter, followed her, and they say no one but Jack Mount can outrun him; but she ran and ran, and he after her, till the day fell down, and he fell gasping like a foundered horse. But she ran on." "Oh, tally," I said; "do you believe that?" "Why, I know it is true," she replied, ceasing her fanning to stare at me with calm, wide eyes. "Do you doubt it?"
Stoner, one, or both of 'em killed that old chap to silence him!" "That's my notion," assented Stoner, who was highly pleased with himself, and by that time convinced that his own powers, rather than a combination of lucky circumstances, had brought the desired result about. "Of course, I've worked it out to that. And the thing now is what's the best line to take? What would you suggest, Dave?"
Altogether, Stoner had gained a vague feeling, a curious intuition, that there was something queer, not unconnected with the visit of Cotherstone's new tenant, and when he heard, next morning, of what had befallen Kitely, all his suspicions were renewed. So much for the difficult reasons which had made him appropriate the half-sheet of foolscap. But there was a reason which was not difficult.
"Twenty-five six seven," counted Cotherstone. "Take him into the private office, Stoner," he answered. "I'll be there in a minute." He continued his checking until it was finished, entered the figures on his list, and went briskly back to the counting-house near the gateway.
Cotherstone made no reply, and Mallalieu presently left him and went home to get his breakfast. And as he walked up the road to his house he wondered why Stoner had gone to Darlington. Was it possible that he had communicated what he knew to any of his friends? If so "Confound the suspense and the uncertainty!" growled Mallalieu. "It 'ud wear the life out of a man.
Word Of The Day