The sheriff disappeared. The clock tick-tocked away five minutes, then ten. Finally the door swung open.
"Your Honour," said the sheriff clearly, across the court-room, "the man has confessed."
XXVI
THE SIXTEEN GAUGE SHOTGUN
Bobby and his friend, Johnny English, sat on the floor of Bobby's chamber reviewing the exciting events of the afternoon. In the tumult following the sheriff's announcement, Bobby was temporarily forgotten. He had slipped back into the crowd, and from that point had followed closely all that had ensued. Laughton's confession merely filled in the details of Bobby's surmises. It seems that Pritchard had had a violent quarrel with his man, ending by knocking him down and stalking off across the fields. Mad with rage, Laughton had picked himself up and followed without even pausing long enough to get a hat. He had lost track of his victim in the popple thicket, but had come across Kincaid's cap, which he had appropriated. A shot from Pritchard's little rifle apprised him of his enemy's whereabouts. The murder committed, he had mounted a stump to spy upon the country. He had seen Kincaid and his dog, and was just about to withdraw, when the cap was knocked from his head by a bullet which at the same time broke the skin on his scalp. Thinking himself discovered, he had run. Later reconnoitring carefully, he had seen two apparently unexcited small boys climbing into a pony cart a half-mile away and had come to the conclusion that the bullet had been spent, and a chance shot. The idea of incriminating Mr. Kincaid had not come to him until later.
Mr. Kincaid had at once been released. Under cover of the congratulations, the boys made their escape.
"I don't see how you ever figured it out!" cried Johnny for the twelfth time.
"I knew it must have hit his head unless it just grazed his cap," said Bobby, "and when I saw that scar——"
"Gee, it was great!" gloated Johnny, "just like a book! It'll be in all the papers to-morrow. You saved Mr. Kincaid's life, didn't you?"