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"You may toss, Quiller, heads or tails as you choose." I refused, and the man pitched the coin into the air, caught it in his hand and returned it to his pocket. "Perhaps you think you will be able to stop me," he said in a voice that came ringing over something in his throat. "We're three, and Malan is a better man than Jud." "He is not a better man," said I. "There is a way to tell," said he.
"Your brother," he said, "tumbled out of the saddle some days ago. It is said his horse fell." My courage flared. "Do you know how the Black Abbot came to fall?" I answered. "An awkward rider, little Quiller," he said. "Is it a good guess?" "You know all about it," I began, breaking out in my childish anger. "You know how that furrow as long as a man's finger got on the Black Abbot's right knee.
Then I heard Ump. "It's a lie, Quiller, a damn lie. Don't you remember what Patsy said? Not to believe anything you hear? Do you think she ran that horse to death for nothin'? It was to tell you, to git to you first before Woodford's lie got to you. Don't you see? Oh, damn Woodford! Don't you see the trick, boy?" Then I saw. My heart gave a great thump.
She pulled her square-rimmed spectacles down on her nose and squinted up at us. When she saw me, she started back and dropped her hands. "Great fathers!" she ejaculated, "I hope I may go to the blessed God if it ain't Quiller gaddin' over the country, an' Mister Ward a-dyin'." It seemed to me that the earth lurched as it swung, and every joint in my body went limber as a rag.
This here's little missie what comes regular to see my daughter-in-law as has been laid by this week or more. I calls her our good angel," he ended tenderly. "She's been the Lord's own blessing to us ever since she come." Merefleet, thus invited, entered and sat down on a wooden chair by the table. Old Quiller turned in also and fussed about him with the solicitude that comes with age.
He had never imagined that the art of cookery could be conducted with so much of grace and charm. Her odd, high voice instantly broke in on this reflection. "I'm going to see Mrs. Quiller and the baby now," she said, with her sprightly little nod. "So long, Big Bear!" The little kitchen suddenly looked dull and empty. The sun had gone in.
There was a smile playing on the man's face. "If it's the same to you," said Jud, "I'll just hold on to the rock." "As you please," replied Woodford, still smiling down at me. "I'd like a word with you, Quiller. Shall we go out on the road a little?" "Not a foot," said I. On my life, the man sighed deeply and passed his hand over his face.
The hunchback turned around in his blue coat without disturbing the swallowtails lying against his legs. "Is Jud right?" he said. I nodded my head. "An' you didn't look?" Again I nodded. "Quiller," cried Ump, "do you know how that way of talkin' started? The devil was the daddy of it.
Quiller had no question to ask of the witnesses, and it was generally understood that the prisoner did not wish to contradict their statement. "Constable Hartrick told the story of the finding of the unfortunate Mr. Morton after his four days' incarceration. The constable had been sent round by the chief inspector, after certain information given by Mrs. Chapman, the landlady of Russell House.
At which Quiller remarked, "That is a devil of a compliment, because the only men who can read their names in the Louvre to-day have been dead fifty years." On the night after the great fog of 1897 there were five members in the Club, four of them busy with supper and one reading in front of the fireplace. There is only one room to the Club, and one long table.
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