"Ah, I've seen it done before; but it's an awkward place if you get a squeeze," the skipper remarked drily. "Now you listen to me. You say you've come an' put yourself in my power, an' trusted me. So you have—with a knife up your sleeve. But never mind that—I doubt if you'd ha' had pluck to use it. You killed a man at my door, because of eight hundred pounds you'd got between you; but to get that money you had to kill another man first."
"No, cap'en, no——"
"Don't try to deny it, man! Why it's what's saving you! I know where that money come from—an' it's murder that got it. Marr was the man's name, an' he was a murderer himself; him an' another between 'em ha' murdered my boy; murdered him on the high seas as much as if it was pistol or poison. He was doin' his duty, an' it's murder, I tell you—murder, by the law of England! That man ought to ha' been hung, but he wasn't, an' he never would ha' been. He'd ha' gone free, except for you, an' made money of it. But you killed that man, Dan Ogle, an' you shall go free for it yourself; for that an' because I won't sell what you trusted me with about this other."
Captain Nat turned and took the knife from the shelf. "Now see," he went on. "You've done justice on a murderer, little as you meant it; but don't you come tryin' to take away the orphan's compensation—not as much as a penny of it! Don't you touch the compensation, or I'll give you up! I will that! Just you remember when you're safe. The man lied as spoke to seein' you that night by the door; an' now he's gone back on it, an' so you've nothing to fear from him, an' nothing to fear from the police. Nothing to fear from anybody but me; so you take care, Dan Ogle!... Come, enough said!"
Captain Nat flung wide the door and pitched the knife into the outer darkness. "There's your knife; go after it!"
CHAPTER XXII
ON THE COP
When Viney followed the limy man from Musky Mag's door he kept him well in view as far as the Hole in the Wall, and there waited. But when Grimes emerged, and Viney took up the chase, he had scarce made three-quarters of the way through the crooked lanes toward the Commercial Road, when, in the confusion and the darkness of the turnings, or in some stray rack of fog, the man of lime went wholly amissing. Viney hurried forward, doubled, and scoured the turnings about him. Drawing them blank, he hastened for the main road, and there consumed well nigh an hour in profitless questing to and fro; and was fain at last to seek out Blind George, and confess himself beaten.
But Blind George made a better guess. After Viney's departure in the wake of Grimes, he had stood patiently on guard in the black archway, and had got his reward. For he heard Musky Mag's feet descend her stairs; noted her timid pause at the door; and ear-watched her progress to the street corner. There she paused again, as he judged, to see that nobody followed; and then hurried out of earshot. He was no such fool as to attempt to dog a woman with eyes, but contented himself with the plain inference that she was on her way to see Dan Ogle, and that the man whom Viney was following had brought news of Dan's whereabouts; and with that he turned to the Highway and his fiddling. So that when he learned that the limy man had called at the Hole in the Wall, and had gone out of Viney's sight on his way east, Blind George was quick to think of Kemp's Wharf, and to resolve that his next walk abroad should lead him to the Lea bank.