“Durgan’s dead,” he gasped. A sudden stillness fell on the room. “Dead?” said someone.
“Dead,” said the messenger. “His neck’s broke. His wife’s just run to the police station, an’ she’s in shriekin’ hysterics there, an’ Mulcahy’s found Durgan dead beside his own doorstep.”
Durgan’s house was just on the outskirts of the town.
The men looked round one another. “Where’s Steve Knight?” said someone, and there was an instant and awful silence.
“He was there a little ago,” said one. “He slipped out quiet ’bout quarter an hour back,” said Darby the Bull. “Said suthin’ about ’is ’orse.”
Now Steve’s horse was in the horse paddock with the others, and Durgan’s house was close by the horse paddock on the outskirts of the town.
The men looked uneasily at one another. “Shut up, you fool,” whispered Whip Thompson to Darby, and Darby stared at him in bewilderment.
They moved quietly to the door, and outside found Trooper Dan in earnest conversation with several of the townsmen. It was just commencing to grow light, and when he saw them coming the trooper stepped over to them. “Where’s Steve Knight?” he asked quietly, and the men moved uneasily and made no answer.
“He went for ’is ’orse ...” began Darby, when Aleck Gault nudged him violently.
A town man whispered to the trooper, who nodded and walked to the gate of the hotel stable yard. As he did so Steve Knight walked out of the stable leading his saddled horse. He stopped short when he saw the trooper and the men, but almost immediately walked on towards them, leading his horse by the bridle.