summa’t.
‘Ever in trouble?’ said Eugene.
‘Once.’ (Might happen to any man, Mr Riderhood added incidentally.)
‘On suspicion of—’
‘Of seaman’s pocket,’ said Mr Riderhood. ‘Whereby I was in reality the man’s best friend, and tried to take care of him.’
‘With the sweat of your brow?’ asked Eugene.
‘Till it poured down like rain,’ said Roger Riderhood.
Eugene leaned back in his chair, and smoked with his eyes negligently turned on the informer, and his pen ready to reduce him to more writing. Lightwood also smoked, with his eyes negligently turned on the informer.
‘Now let me be took down again,’ said Riderhood, when he had turned the drowned cap over and under, and had brushed it the wrong way (if it had a right way) with his sleeve. ‘I give information that the man that done the Harmon Murder is Gaffer Hexam, the man that found the body. The hand of Jesse Hexam, commonly called Gaffer on the river and along shore, is the hand that done that deed. His hand and no other.’
The two friends glanced at one another with more serious faces than they had shown yet.
‘Tell us on what grounds you make this accusation,’ said Mortimer Lightwood.
‘On the grounds,’ answered Riderhood, wiping his face with his sleeve, ‘that I was Gaffer’s pardner, and suspected of him many a long day and many a dark night. On the grounds that I knowed his ways. On the grounds that I broke the pardnership because I see the danger; which I warn you his daughter may tell you another story about that, for anythink I can say, but you know what it’ll be worth, for she’d tell you lies, the world round and the heavens broad, to save her father. On the grounds that it’s well understood along the cause’ays and the stairs that he done it. On the grounds that he’s fell off from, because he done it. On the grounds that I will swear he done it. On the grounds that you may take me where you will, and get me sworn to it. I don’t want to back out of the consequences. I have made up my mind. Take me anywheres.’
‘All this is nothing,’ said Lightwood.
‘Nothing?’ repeated Riderhood, indignantly and amazedly.
‘Merely nothing. It goes to no more than that you suspect this man of the crime. You may do so with some reason, or you may do so with no reason, but he cannot be convicted on your suspicion.’
‘Haven’t I said—I appeal to the T’other Governor as my witness—haven’t I said from the first minute that I opened my mouth in this here world-without-end-everlasting chair’ (he evidently used that form of words as next in force to an affidavit), ‘that I was willing to swear that he done it? Haven’t I said, Take me and get me sworn to it? Don’t I say so now? You won’t deny it, Lawyer Lightwood?’
‘Surely not; but you only offer to swear to your suspicion, and I tell you it is not enough to swear to your suspicion.’
‘Not enough, ain’t it, Lawyer Lightwood?’ he cautiously demanded.
‘Positively not.’
‘And did I say it was enough? Now, I appeal to the T’other Governor. Now, fair! Did I say so?’
‘He certainly has not said that he had no more to tell,’ Eugene observed in a low voice without looking at him, ‘whatever he seemed to imply.’
‘Hah!’ cried the informer, triumphantly perceiving that the remark was generally in his favour, though apparently not closely understanding it. ‘Fort’nate for me I had a witness!’
‘Go on, then,’ said Lightwood. ‘Say out what you have to say. No after-thought.’
‘Let me be took down then!’ cried the informer, eagerly and anxiously. ‘Let me be took down, for by George and the Draggin I’m a coming to it now! Don’t do nothing to keep back from a honest man the fruits of the sweat of his brow! I give information, then, that he told me that he done it. Is that enough?’
‘Take care what you say, my friend,’ returned Mortimer.
‘Lawyer Lightwood, take care, you, what I say; for I judge you’ll be answerable for follering it up!’ Then, slowly and emphatically beating it all out with his open right hand on the palm of his left; ‘I, Roger Riderhood, Lime’us Hole, Waterside character, tell you, Lawyer Lightwood, that the man Jesse Hexam, commonly called upon the river and along-shore Gaffer, told me that he done the deed. What’s more, he told me with his own lips that he done the deed. What’s more, he said that he done the deed. And I’ll swear it!’
‘Where did he tell you so?’
‘Outside,’ replied Riderhood, always beating it out, with his head determinedly set askew, and his eyes watchfully dividing their attention between his two auditors, ‘outside the door of the Six Jolly Fellowships, towards a quarter after twelve o’clock at midnight—but I will not in my conscience undertake to swear to so fine a matter as five minutes—on the night when he picked up the body. The Six Jolly Fellowships won’t run away. If it turns out that he warn’t at the Six Jolly Fellowships that night at midnight, I’m a liar.’
‘What did he say?’
‘I’ll tell you (take me down, T’other Governor, I ask no better). He come out first; I come out last. I might be a minute arter him; I might be half a minute, I might be a quarter of a minute; I cannot swear to that, and therefore I won’t. That’s knowing the obligations of a Alfred David, ain’t it?’
‘Go on.’
‘I found him a waiting to speak to me. He says to me, “Rogue Riderhood”—for that’s the name I’m mostly called by—not for any meaning in it, for meaning it has none, but because of its being similar to Roger.’
‘Never mind that.’
‘’Scuse me, Lawyer Lightwood, it’s a part of the truth, and as such I do mind it, and I must mind it and I will mind it. “Rogue Riderhood,” he says, “words passed betwixt us on the river tonight.” Which they had; ask his daughter! “I threatened you,” he says, “to chop you over the fingers with my boat’s stretcher, or take a aim at your brains with my boathook. I did so on accounts of your looking too hard at what I had in tow, as if you was suspicious, and on accounts of your holding on to the gunwale of my boat.” I says to him, “Gaffer, I know it.” He says to me, “Rogue Riderhood, you are a man in a dozen”—I think he said in a score, but of that I am not positive, so take the lowest figure, for precious be the obligations of a Alfred David. “And,” he says, “when your fellow-men is up, be it their lives or be it their watches, sharp is ever the word with you. Had you suspicions?” I says, “Gaffer, I had; and what’s more, I have.” He falls a shaking, and he says, “Of what?” I says, “Of foul play.” He falls a shaking worse, and he says, “There was foul play then. I done it for his money. Don’t betray me!” Those were the words as ever he used.’
There was a silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the grate. An opportunity which the informer improved by smearing himself all over the head and neck and face with his drowned cap, and not at all improving his own appearance.
‘What more?’ asked Lightwood.
‘Of
