By three o’clock on the following morning he was in Plymouth, and turned his steps straightway to the Barbican. For Daniel sought a ship. He had debated of all possibilities, and even thought of hiding upon the Moor and letting Minnie feed him by night, until the truth of Thorpe’s murder came to be known; but the futility of such a course was manifest. To intervene actively must be impossible for him without discovery; he felt it wiser, therefore, to escape beyond reach of danger for the present. Then, once safe, he hoped to communicate with his friends and hear from them concerning their efforts to prove his innocence.
The Barbican grew out of dawn gradually, and its picturesqueness and venerable details stood clear cut in the light of morning. It woke early, and Daniel hastened where a coffee-stall on wheels crept down to the quay from an alley-way that opened there. He was the first customer, and he made a mighty breakfast, to the satisfaction of the merchant. Daniel was cooling his third cup when other wayfarers joined him. Some were fishermen about to sail on the tide; some were Spanish boys, just setting out on their rounds with ropes of onions; some were sailors from the ships.
A thin, hatchet-faced man in jack-boots and a blue jersey attracted Daniel. He wore his hair quite long in oily ringlets; gold gleamed in his ears; his jaws were clean-shaven, and his teeth were yellow.
“Have any of you chaps seen a Judas-coloured man this morning?” he asked of the company. “His name’s Jordan, and he carries a great red beard afore him, and the Lord knows where he’s got to. Went off his ship last night and never came back.”
A fisherman was able to give information.
“I seed the very man last night. He was drinking along with some pals and females at the ‘Master Mariner’—that publichouse at the corner. He’s got into trouble, mister.”
“Of course, of course; I might have knowed it. He’s a man so fiery as his colour. Have they locked him up?”
“That I couldn’t tell you. There was a regular upstore an’ pewter mugs flying like birds. First a woman scratched the man’s face; then three chaps went for him all at once. The police took him away, but whether he’s to the lock-up or the hospital I couldn’t tell ’e. One or t’other for sartain.”
The sailor with the earrings showed no great regret.