“ ‘Or was it the gentleman you was tellin’ me of as did it for him?’ says the sawbones, still as dry as cracknels.
“Then I took one jump and pounced on the thing, and caught it up;—and I no sooner ’ad it in my ’ands, than I knew it were a dummy—nothing more nor less. But what I felt at that was nothin’ to the shock my pullin’ it away give me—for there, behind where it had set, was a ’ole, big enough for a boy to pass, cut right through the cushions and panels into the fore boot; and the instant I see it, ‘O,’ I says, ‘the mail’s been robbed!’ ”
The old man, who had worked himself up to a state of practised excitement, paused a dramatic moment at this point, until I put the question he expected.
“And it had been?”
“And it had been,” he said, pursing his lips, and nodding darkly. “In the vinter of ’13, sir—the cleverest thing ever planned. It made a rare stir; but the ’ole truth was never known till years arterwards, when one o’ the gang (it was the boy as had been, now growed up) were took on another charge, and confessed to this one. The fat man were a ventriloquist, you see. That, and to secure the ’ole six insides to themselves while seemin’ strangers was the cream of the job. They cut into the boot soon arter we was clear of London, and passed the boy through with a saw and centre-bit t’other side o’ Croydon. He set to—the young limb, with his pretty innocent ducks!—tuk a piece clean out of the roof just under the driver’s seat, and brought down the cash-box; while Mr. Blackamoor Cato kep’ up his dance overhead to drown the noise of the saw. The box was opened and emptied, and put back in the boot where it was found; and the swag, for fear of accidents, was all tuk away at Cuckfield.”
He came to an end. I was aware of William gamekeeper, the younger, standing silent at the door, with a couple of speckled auburn trophies in his hand. The fire leapt and fluttered. I rose with a sigh—then with a smile.
“Thank you, William,” I said gratefully, as I took the woodcock. “How plump they are; and how I love these links with the past.”
THE JADE BUTTON
The little story I am about to tell will meet, I have no doubt, with a good deal of incredulity, not to say derision. Very well; there is the subject of it himself to testify. If you can put an end to him by any lethal process known to man, I will acknowledge myself misinformed, and attend your last moments on the scaffold.
Miss Belmont disapproved of Mrs. John Belmont; and Mrs. John Belmont hated Miss Belmont. And the visible token of this antagonism was a button.