Still, a code of honour is always respectable, and these two policemen may have supposed that their mate knew no worse of this convict than that he had redistributed some property—was what the first holder of that property would have called a thief. One prefers to think that Ibbetson knew of some less equivocal wickedness.
Perhaps this man, supposed to be drowned, would not have reappeared in this story had it not been for one of the witnesses at the inquest, the boy who overheard the conversation between him and his mate, before the arrival of the police-boat.
"This boy," said the Coroner's clerk, who seemed to have an impression that this was a State Prosecution, and that he represented the Crown, "can give evidence as to a conversation between the"—he wanted to say "the accused"; it would have sounded so well, but he stopped himself in time—"between the man whose body has not been found, and"—here he would have liked to say "an accomplice"—"and another person who has eluded the ... that is to say, whom the police have, so far, failed to identify...."
"That's all right," said the Coroner. "That'll do. Boy's got something he can tell us. What's your name, my man?"
"Wot use are you a-going to make of it?" said the boy. He did not appear to be over twelve years old, but his assurance could not have been greater had he been twelve score. A reporter put a dot on his paper, which meant "Laughter, in which the Coroner joined, in a parenthesis."
An old woman who had accompanied the boy, as tutelary genius, held up a warning finger at him. "Now, you Micky," said she, "you speak civil to the gentleman and answer his questions accordin'." She then said to the Coroner, as one qualified to explain the position:—"It's only his manners, sir, and the boy has not a rebellious spirit being my grandnephew." She utilised a lax structure of speech to introduce her relationship to the witness. She was evidently proud of being related to one, having probably met with few opportunities of distinction hitherto.
The witness, under the pressure at once of family influence and constituted authority, appeared to give up the point. "'Ave it your own way!" said he. "Michael Ragstroar."
"How am I to spell it?" said the clerk, without taking his pen out of the ink, as though it would dry in the air.
"This ain't school!" said our young friend from Sapps Court, whom you probably remember. Michael had absconded from his home, and sought that of his great-aunt; the only person, said contemporary opinion, that had a hounce of influence with him. It was not clear why such a confirmed reprobate should quail before the moral force of a small old woman in a mysteriously clean print-dress, and tortoise-shell spectacles she would gladly have kept on while charing, only they always come off in the pail. But he did, and when reproached by her for his needlessly defiant attitude, took up a more conciliatory tone. "Carn't recollect, or p'r'aps I'd tell yer," said he.