“What’s the betting, boys?” asked Belcher, from the steps.
“Even money, Jim,” cried several voices.
“It was long odds on Wilson when last I heard.”
“Yes; but there came a man who laid freely the other way, and he started others taking the odds, until now you can get even money.”
“Who started it?”
“Why, that’s he! The man that lies drunk in the passage. He’s been pouring it down like water ever since he drove in at six o’clock, so it’s no wonder he’s like that.”
Belcher stooped down and turned over the man’s inert head so as to show his features.
“He’s a stranger to me, sir.”
“And to me,” added my uncle.
“But not to me,” I cried. “It’s John Cumming, the landlord of the inn at Friar’s Oak. I’ve known him ever since I was a boy, and I can’t be mistaken.”