WHICH GIVETH SOME DESCRIPTION OF A MURDERER’S HAT
“Why such speed, sir?” inquired the Corporal as they galloped up the long
hill out of Seaford.
“Aye, why indeed!” answered Sir John. “Life is short enough o’
conscience! Let us then rather amble the whiles I sum up our case as it
standeth to-day. And heed and mark me well, Robert.... And we begin with
my Lord Sayle, a sordid creature of sordid tastes, of whom ’twere better
to talk in metaphor.... My Lord Sayle, then, is reported to have a keen
eye for beauty and a catholic taste; the stately lily, the humble, modest
violet each alike find favour in his eyes and he culleth them as he may;
he acquireth by money, by guile, by force—aye, frequently by force, for
the which he useth divers agents ... and James Sturton we know for one of
these agents.
“Upon a certain evening some two years ago, a young village girl went up
Windover, she going thither to carry a cake to her lover, Roger Hobden,
who was tending sheep there. So much at least we know for fact; here
followeth surmise: James Sturton, in company with another of my lord’s
agents, by name Jonas Skag, being about their master’s evil business,
there met with her, and in this desolate place she screamed, and with
good reason! Hearing which outcry, Hobden came running. He fought
desperately, one against the two, or more for aught we know, and in the
struggle received a blow struck, as I believe, by Sturton, though much
harder than he meant.... And so died poor Roger Hobden.”
“But why should you think ’twas Sturton struck the fatal blow, sir?”
“Why should Sturton be paying ‘hush-money’ to Jonas Skag?”
“Aye, true, your honour!”
“And have become my lord’s very slave?”
“True again, sir! And he’s ever at Oxham’s beck and call, moreover.”
“One other surmise, Bob.... During the struggle Jonas Skag’s pocket was
torn, and out o’ that pocket fell a horn snuff-box——”
“Why, your honour, here’s a powerful lot o’ surmises! ’Tis all mighty
reasonable, but ye can’t convict a man nor yet hang a man by surmise.”
“Very true, Bob. And here is the snuff-box!”
Corporal Robert examined the sorry thing with a degree of interest.
“But how,” he inquired, handing it back again, “how can your honour be
sure ’twas the same box, or that Skag ever saw it, or lost it on the
fatal oc-casion?”
“Jonas Skag recognised it, Bob, and in his terror crawled away to
Sturton.”
“Lord!” exclaimed the Corporal, “so this was why they rid off in such a
hurry?”
“Partly, Bob, and partly, I think, to afford us proof that our surmising
is very near the truth.”
“As how, your honour?”
“Look before us, yonder!” The Corporal stared at the dusty road, at the
rolling landscape to right and left, at Sir John, and shook his head.
“Yonder, Bob, the road, you’ll notice, winds up in a sharp ascent between
steep banks crowned with trees and dense brush.... You observe?”
“I do, sir.”
“Well, in something less than ten minutes we shall reach the strategic
point; then, at word from me, you will spur and take that hill at full
gallop——”
“Ah!” quoth the Corporal; “an ambushment, sir?”
“Why, ’tis a likely place for such, Bob. Ha’ you your pistols?”
“Here, sir!”
“Then have ’em ready! And stoop low in the saddle ... though you will not
be their chief target, I fancy——”
“Your honour ... sir ... Sir John, the risk is too great to warrant——”
“Tush, Bob! They have seen us long since and, should we turn tail now,
would but choose some other time and place when we were less prepared.
Besides, there is about the uncertainty a thrill that stirs me not
unpleasingly—and to feel is to be alive!”
“Very good, sir!” answered Robert the Imperturbable, loosing pistols in
holsters.
“On the whole, Bob, the country hath an infinity of charms, more
especially this fair country o’ Sussex. Now! Spur, man, spur!”
A clatter of hoofs spurning the dust, a creaking of saddle-leather, and
the two high-spirited animals breasted the steep ascent at a gallop,
their riders low-crouched, pistols in hand; they had reached thus the
steepest part of the hill when from the bank above rang a shot, followed
immediately by a second, and Sir John, rocking in the saddle, dropped
his weapon, steadied himself and grasped at right forearm; the Corporal
meanwhile, having fired in return, swung to earth and began to scramble
up the bank, but, the slope being very precipitous, it was some minutes
ere he reached, and vanished among, the dense brush.
“Save thyself further trouble!” cried Sir John. “The rogues will be well
away by now, Bob.”
“They are, sir!” answered the Corporal ruefully. “But they’ve left a hat
behind ’em!”
“A hat, Bob? Then bring it—bring it hither, man!” Back into the road
scrambled Robert forthwith, to behold his master, pale and bloody,
whereupon he dropped the hat and came running.
“Are ye hurt bad, sir?”
“Pish—naught to matter! The hat, Bob, the hat!” The Corporal brought it,
turning it this way and that for his master’s inspection.
An ordinary, three-cornered hat, devoid of all ornament or garnishings,
but of excellent material and workmanship: such a hat as could have
covered the head of a prosperous, highly reputable person only.
“By heavens, Bob!” exclaimed Sir John, grim-lipped. “’Tis a murderer’s
hat and might be a magistrate’s! Note its sober cock, its generous
proportions, its eminent respectability! Have ye ever seen it, ere now,
Bob?”
“Aye, I have, sir!” answered the Corporal, scowling at the thing he held.
“’Tis a hat in a thousand, Bob, and mayhap shall aid a rogue to the
gallows.... And now, prithee, look to this arm o’ mine.”
Deftly the Corporal unbuttoned and rolled back sleeve and ruffled
wrist-band, discovering an ugly graze that scored Sir John’s arm from
elbow to wrist.
“Painful, sir?”
“The smart is tolerable,” answered Sir John, wincing a little as the
Corporal lapped the wound in the neckerchief he had whipped off for the
purpose—“tolerable, Bob, and may be a blessing in disguise.”
“How so, your honour?”
“Nay, dispatch, Bob; the sooner we are away from here the better.... They
may try again, so hurry, man!”
The bandage in place, the Corporal sprang to saddle and, setting spurs to
their willing horses, they had soon left that place of danger far behind.
“Now, talking o’ pistol-balls and blessings in disguise, your honour?”
questioned the Corporal at last.
“With my arm thus, Bob, I am free to meet my Lord Sayle whenever I will.”
“But, sir, his wound should be nigh well by now and your arm will be
mighty stiff to-morrow.”
“But not too stiff to kill him.”
“Kill?” repeated the Corporal, and, glancing at his master’s pale, set
face, said no more.
“When we fought at the ‘White Hart’ I might ha’ reached him time and
again, but held my hand because of the oath I swore five years agone.”
“Aye, your honour, and to be sure an oath is ever an’ always an oath!”
nodded the Corporal.
“Hum!” quoth Sir John, eyeing the Corporal a little askance. “But to-day,
Bob, I know him for a thing the world were well rid of ... and yet I will
confess to a foolish prejudice, a ridiculous qualm at the idea of having
the fellow’s death on my hands. And yet this hath nothing whatever to do
with my oath.”
Here Sir John became thoughtful, whereupon the Corporal reined half a
length to the rear, and thus they journeyed in silence, until they were
come in sight of the cross-roads.
Now, against the finger-post one of my Lord Sayle’s bills had been set
up, and before this they espied a stalwart man busily reading by the aid
of a short, though formidable bludgeon with which he ticked off each
word, letter by letter; this, though a somewhat laborious business,
seemed to afford the reader no small pleasure, for more than once he
chuckled, and it was with a smile upon his face that he now turned to
greet them, touching bludgeon to eyebrow in salute.
“What, Mr. Potter!” exclaimed Sir John. “Where ha’ you been these last
few days?”
“Here and theer, Mus’ Derwent—mostly theer.”
“And how are you?”
“Never better, sir.”
“Do you chance to have seen a man pass who has lost his hat?”
“Nary a one, sir.”
“Why, then, perchance you can recognise the hat—show it him, Bob.”
At this, Corporal Robert struck himself a resounding blow upon muscular
thigh.
“Damme, sir!” he exclaimed woefully. “Asking your pardon ... but I left
it a-lying on the bank yonder!” Sir John merely looked, whereupon the
Corporal shook his head, wheeled his horse and galloped back along the
road.
“‘One ’undred pound reward,’ sir!” quoth Mr. Potter, with the greatest
unction, when the galloping hoof-strokes had died away. “‘Dead or Alive,’
Mus’ Derwent!”
“Aye,” nodded Sir John, “surely you run great risk to venture abroad in
daylight, and here of all places.”
“Why, I dunno as one place be much worse than t’other, sir.... But
one ’undred pound! Lord, I know it by ’eart.... I wish my old feäther
might ha’ seed it! One ’undred pound for pore Pot’s carkiss—dead or
alive. A powerful sight o’ money it be. I wouldn’t ha’ thought they’d
ha’ valleyed pore Potter so ’igh-like ... theer was a ’ighwayman-chap
as shot the guard o’ the Lewes coach las’ year, they only offered
twenty-five for ’e!... They’ve got these ’ere bills posted arl over the
plaace ’ereabouts. I know ’em arl an’ I reads ’em arl—reg’lar! But theer
be a brace o’ words as I doan’t rightly onderstand, otherwise it arl
seems fair enough an’ a sight more than Potter expected. First ’ere be
this here word ‘male-factor.’ Well, ’tis sartin sure I bean’t no female
an’ no more I bean’t no ‘factor’ ... then ’ere be t’other ’un, sir ...
‘not-orious.’ ... Well, nobody never says as I was ‘orious’ as ever I
knowed.”
His mind at rest upon these two intricate points, Mr. Potter diffidently
suggested they should keep company together a “small ways,” for:
“Lord, sir,” said he, “what wi’ barns an’ ditches it be few friendly
faces pore Potter sees o’ late.”
Accordingly, Sir John rode on at a hand-pace, Mr. Potter walking beside
him.
“Arm ’urted, sir?” he inquired, noting Sir John’s bandage.
“Nothing very much, though irksome!”
“Fall, sir?”
“Bullet!”
“Accidental, sir?”
Hereupon Sir John briefly recapitulated the affair, to Mr. Potter’s
round-eyed surprise.
“Lord, sir,” quoth he, “I thought nobody never shot at nothing nor nobody
except pore Potter, these days.”
“Have you seen anything of your friends Oxham or Sturton lately?”
“Aye, sir, seed ’em this very day, I did, over to ’Friston.”
“’Friston!” exclaimed Sir John. “Why, that is Lord Sayle’s place, surely.”
“Aye it be, sir. So there Potter went; ye see, nobody never thought o’
lookin’ for me in Lord Sayle’s barns. Well, sir, theer I did behold Oxham
an’ Sturton along o’ Lord Sayle. Lord Sayle was a-fencing wi’ a gentleman
in his shirt-sleeves.”
“Ah, fencing was he?”
“Aye, sir, in ’is shirt-sleeves, when along comes Oxham and says summat
an’ p’ints at Sturton, whereupon my lord says summat to Sturton in a
mighty passion an’ Sturton says summat to Lord Sayle, mighty ’umble, an’
Lord Sayle fetches Sturton a clout wi’ his fencin’-iron an’ sends ’im
about ’is business.... An’ now I’ll bid ye good-evenin’, sir; yonder lays
my road.... I’ve a brace o’ birds for ol’ Pen.... Happen I’ll be seeing
ye at the Cross purty soon.... The _True Believer_’ll be across one o’
these nights i’ the dark o’ the moon, for business be business, sir.” So
saying, Mr. Potter climbed the adjacent bank, paused to touch bludgeon to
eyebrow, and was gone.
Sir John was in sight of Alfriston Church spire when, hearing the
approach of galloping hoofs, he turned to behold the Corporal returning.
“Ah!” said he, noting Robert’s gloom, “our murderer’s hat had vanished,
then?”
“Com-pletely, sir!”
“Well, well, never look so glum, man! Our day hath not been wholly vain.”