"What did you do with the wire?" asked the coroner, looking perplexed at this strange contradictory evidence, as he well might.
"I gave it to Inspector Garrit."
"Here it is," said the inspector producing it; "when I was in town, I went to the office whence this had been sent. It was the St. James's Street office where the other wire had been sent from. I learnt from a smart operator that the telegram had been brought in by a ragged, red-haired boy----"
"Butsey," cried Mrs. Merry, folding her shawl tightly round her lean form.
"Yes," said Garrit, nodding, "apparently it is the same boy who joined the three men when they carried the body home, and knocked five times."
"And the same boy as told me a lie about Cain," cried Mrs. Merry; "what do you make of it all, gentlemen?"
Mrs. Merry was rebuked, but the jury and coroner looked puzzled. They could make nothing of it. Inquiry showed that Butsey had vanished from the neighbourhood. Wasp deposed to having seen the lad. "Ragged and white-faced and red-haired he was," said Wasp, "with a wicked eye----"
"Wicked eyes," corrected the coroner.
"Eye," snapped Wasp respectfully, "he'd only one eye, but 'twas bright and wicked enough to be two. I asked him--on the Westhaven road--what he was doing there, as we didn't like vagrants. He said he'd come from London to Westhaven with a Sunday school treat. I gave him a talking to, and he ran away in the direction of Westhaven. Oh, sir," added Wasp, obviously annoyed, "if I'd only known about the knocking, and the lying to Mrs. Merry, and the telegram, I'd have taken him in charge."
"Well, you couldn't help it, knowing no reason why the lad should be detained," said the coroner; "but search for him, Wasp."