“You two were as different as fire and water. Phillip Redgill planned your murder once or twice.”
“I know he did.”
“But you had a charmed life, Ned,” said Jack, “and no one can harm you; all the gipsies and weird women on the Cornish coast have said so.”
“Oh, yes, no doubt about that,” said old Bates. “Ned Warbeck must have as many lives as a cat, or he would have been killed long and long enough ago.”
“Can you account for the fact that my father was found with his legs cut off,” said Bob Bertram.
“Yes. When Phillip Redgill murdered him, he ‘limbed’ the poor old man to get the bank notes which he heard your father had sewn up in his leather leggings.”
“The infamous scoundrel! the barbarian!” swore Bob, in a great rage.
“But he’s paid out for that bit of butchery, long ago,” said Jack, “for he has confessed it.”
“How? In what way?”—
“The phantom legs of old Farmer Bertram follows him both night and day.”