“What was it? Were you away from your post that night?”
“No, sir, not that. I was there all the time,” the other answered, earnestly. Again he paused, then with a sudden gesture he went on: “I didn’t know nothing about what you ’ave been saying, but I see now I must tell you everything, even if I gets the sack over it.”
“You’ll not get the sack if I can help it,” French said, kindly, “but go on and tell me, all the same.”
“Well, sir, I did that night wot I never did before nor since. I slept the ’ole night through. I sat down to eat my supper in the boiler-’ouse like I always does, an’ I didn’t remember nothing more till Peter Small ’e was standing there shaking me. ‘Wake up,’ ’e says; ‘you’re a nice sort of a night watchman, you are.’ ‘Lord,’ I says. ‘I never did nothing like that before,’ an’ I asks him not to say nothing about it. An’ ’e didn’t say nothing, nor I didn’t, neither. But now I suppose it’ll come out an’ I’ll get wot for about it.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” French said, heartily. “I’ll see you through. I’ll undertake to get Mr. Fogden to overlook this little irregularity on one condition. You must tell me everything that took place that night without exception. Go ahead now and let’s have the whole of it.”
The old man gazed at him in distress.
“But there weren’t naught else,” he protested. “I went to sleep, an’ that’s all. If there were anything else took place, w’y I didn’t see it.”
“That’s all right. Now just answer my questions. Go back to when you left your house. What time was that?”
“The usual time, about twenty minutes to seven.”
“You brought your supper with you?”