CHAPTER XXV
THE LATE RICHARD ROSCOE
Two days after the ball, as Shafto was passing through the veranda, Roscoe met him, took him by the arm, accompanied him into his room, and solemnly closed the door.
“Anything up?”
“Well, yes, there is,” replied Roscoe gravely, “and I thought I’d tell you when we were by ourselves. That cousin of mine, Dirk Roscoe, has been done for. He was found this morning in a back drain, in one of the gullies, with the stab of a dah in his back.”
“Oh, poor chap!” exclaimed Shafto.
“Well, he hadn’t much of a life to lose, had he? However, such as it was, he laid it down for others.”
“Then I suppose it was he who put FitzGerald on the track of this splendid haul—six hundred ounces of cocaine?”
“It was—yes, although he knew the risk he ran. He sent FitzGerald a line and warned him that there would be two sampans in Bozo creek; that one sampan would be a decoy, loaded with stones, but that they would find what they wanted in the other, which would attempt to clear off whilst they were examining the dummy. It’s a pretty big loss to some people, and cocaine will be scarce for a week or two—and dear.”
“It beats me to understand how these beggars manage to find the money?”
“Oh, they prowl round at night and thieve—and are capable of the most daring theft. I’ve known them steal a whole lot of furniture out of a sitting-room, a man’s evening clothes out of his dressing-room—not forgetting his gold watch and chain and even tooth-brush and tumbler. Once they actually had the cheek to take a pony belonging to the Chief Inspector of Police and sell him over at Moulmein. The small fry take taps, pipes, bits of zinc roofing, rope—anything that will bring in a few annas.”