“Now, Cripps—just attend to me—for I mean business. If you deceive me, by so much as a word, it’ll be the worse for you. You tell me you took this body from the river? What day was that?”
The Doctor blinked his eyelids, moistened his lips with his tongue, and looked extraordinarily grave. “Thish afternoon—no—thish is to-morrow mornin’—ain’t it? Yeshterday afternoon, I mean——”
“I know what you mean; you mean a few hours since—say, ten or a dozen—eh?” cried Ogledon, impatiently, yet always in that low, cautious tone.
“Thash it,” replied the Doctor, fast merging into sleep again.
“Very well then. You understand your business, I suppose; how long had this man—this body—been in the water?”
“Five—shix days—p’raps a week,” said the other. Then, suddenly becoming more sober, at the recollection of what had so recently happened, the little man waved his arms wildly, and exclaimed, in his thin piping voice—“But that’s nothing—nothing ’t all. Dandy Chater came to meeting; took bank-notes—his own—yours, too——”
“What the devil are you talking about?” cried Ogledon, almost as wildly as the other. “What meeting—what notes?”
“Tuesday. The boys divided up—share and share alike—Dandy took yours and his own. And to-night—ugh!—he was in that damned garden, and took the necklace. He takes everything.”
Ogledon wiped his face, and even his hands, and poured out more brandy. Drinking it, he looked over the top of the glass at Cripps; set the glass down, and stood nervously beating his hands together, and biting his lips.
“Cripps,” he said at last, in a whisper—“this thing has got the better of me. As sure as Heaven, Dandy Chater is—is dead.”