“O, what is it, in the name of God?” asks Kilsheelan.
“Sorra and all, but I’d not like to look,” says Tom Tool, and they called the girl to come see what was it.
“A dead man!” says Christine, in a thin voice with a great tremble coming on her, and she white as a tooth. “Unwind him now.” They began to unwind him like a tailor with a bale of tweed, and at last they came to a man black in the face. Strangled he was. The girl let a great cry out of her. “Queen of heaven, ’tis my dad; choked he is, the long strands have choked him, my good pleasant dad!” and she went with a run to the house crying.
“What has he there in his hand?” asked Kilsheelan.
“’Tis a chopper,” says he.
“Do you see what is on it, Tom Tool?”
“Sure I see, and you see, what is on it; blood is on it, and murder is on it. Go fetch a peeler, and I’ll wait while you bring him.”
When his friend was gone for the police Tom Tool took a little squint around him and slid his hand into the dead man’s pocket. But if he did he was nearly struck mad from his senses, for he pulled out a loose dead hand that had been chopped off as neat as the foot of a pig. He looked at the dead man’s arms, and there was a hand to each; so he looked at the hand again. The fingers were covered with the rings of gold and diamonds. Covered!
“Glory be to God!” said Tom Tool, and he put his hand in another pocket and fetched a budget full of papers and banknotes.
“Glory be to God!” he said again, and put the hand and the budget back in the pockets, and turned his back and said prayers until the peelers came and took them all off to the court.