“Did they mention any names?” asked Laverick—“Morrison’s, for instance? Did they want to know whether he was a regular customer?”
“They didn’t mention no names at all, sir,” the man answered, “but they did begin to ask questions about my regular clients. Fortunate like, the place was so crowded that I had every excuse for not paying any too much attention to them. It was all I could do to keep on getting orders attended to.”
“What sort of men were they?” Laverick asked. “Do you think that they came from the police?”
“I shouldn’t have said so,” Shepherd replied, “but one can’t tell, and these gentlemen from Scotland Yard do make themselves up so sometimes on purpose to deceive. I should have said that these two were foreigners, the same kidney as the poor chap as was murdered. I heard a word or two pass, and I sort of gathered that they’d a shrewd idea as to that meeting in the ‘Black Post’ between the man who was murdered and the little dark fellow.”
Laverick nodded.
“Jim Shepherd,” he declared, “you appear to me to be a very sagacious person.”
“I’m sure I’m much obliged, sir; I can tell you, though,” he added, “I don’t half like these chaps coming round making inquiries. My nerves ain’t quite what they were, and it gives me the jumps.”
Laverick was thoughtful for a few moments.
“After all, there was no one else in the bar that night,” he remarked,—“no one who could contradict you?”
“Not a soul,” Jim Shepherd agreed.