The Day of Judgment Part 68

In these English kirks they are very lax in the faith." And again the man laughed as though something amused him.

"You seem to boast a good deal of your knowledge," said the judge, trying to estimate the man.

"I ne'er boast," was the reply. "I'm just a canny Scotsman, that's all. If I told all I kenned--weel, I might become popular. But a still tongue makes a wise heid."

"If you are Willie Fearn's brother," said the judge, and it pained him to say what next pa.s.sed his lips, but as I have said, he was eager to catch at any straw, "you knew Jean Lindsay?"

"Ay, I kenned her weel," was the reply. "But I was aboot to go into the 'Hare and Hoonds,' Mr. Judge Bolitho. Perhaps for the sake of the time when you called yourself Graham you might like to give me a drop of whisky?"

"Come with me," said the judge. "I want to talk with you. If we go up Liverpool Road it will be quiet there. But stay, come with me to the house I'm staying at."

"Dootless you keep a bottle of good whisky in the cupboard there?"

"You shall not regret going," said the judge, and he led the way to Paul's house.

Half an hour later the two sat together in Paul's study. During their walk thither the man of the law had been thinking deeply. He had been trying to piece together the conversation he had heard in the market-place, trying to understand the significance of what Archie Fearn had said. He had no great hope of important revelations, but a lifetime of legal training and practice had proved to him that oft-times the greatest issues depended on the most trivial circ.u.mstances, and he could not afford to allow the most insignificant happening to pa.s.s by unnoticed.

"How long have you been in Brunford?" asked the judge.

"Since a month before Christmas," was the reply.

"You came here to get work?"

"I came here because I wasn't known in the toon, and because I thought I might be able to pick up an odd sax-pence."

"You say you knew Jean Lindsay when she was a girl?"

"Syne I expected her to be my ain sister-in-law, it was very natural that I should," was the reply.

"Do you think you'd know her again if you saw her?"

"I kenned her the moment I saw her in the streets of this toon, not long before Christmas," was the reply.

"You saw her then?"

"Ay, I did. I saw her and recognised her, just as I recognised you.

But it took me longer to mak you oot. Although, as you say, you gave me six months in Liverpool, did not, at that time, connect you with my ain hame. But when I saw your picture as large as life in the house where I lodged, I began to put things together. When I saw you in Liverpool you had your big wig on, and your judge's goon, that's what put me off there, I expect. But in your picture you looked more natural, and I said: 'That's the lad who took away my brother Willie's la.s.s.'"

The judge's mind was working quickly by this time, and he saw that the incident might have great possibilities.

"And you say you saw Jean in the streets of Brunford?"

"Ay, I did."

"And did you speak to her?"

"Nay, not at the time. The sight of her gave me a shock, as you may say. But as I tell't you, the Scots are a canny race, so I asked a man in the street who she was, and he told me she was Mrs. Stepaside, and that led to other inquiries, till presently I found out all there was to know."

"And what then?" asked the judge.

"Your lordship is a rich man," replied Archie. "And you'll not be expecting me to tell all I know for nothing. And I'm in sair need of a drop of whisky, too!"

The judge took a couple of sovereigns from his pocket.

"When you tell me all you know, you shall have these," he said.

The Scotsman's eyes glittered greedily. "Two sovereigns; weel, it's a sma' sum, a sma' sum for the likes of you, and I think I can say something that will interest you, too. In Scotland we think a great deal of a five-poon note!"

"Very well," said the judge. "If you know anything worth telling me, and you speak plainly, you shall have the five-pound note."

"Of course, your lordship is a fair-minded man as far as money is concerned? I'll say nothing about anything else," and again the Scotsman laughed like one enjoying himself.

"You'll have to trust me for that," said the judge. "In any case, if you speak freely I'll give you the two sovereigns. If I judge your information to be important you shall have the five-pound note."

"It's this way," said Archie Fearn, "--and I think your lordship will see that what I have to tell ye is worth five poons, although I doot whether ye'll be pleased--when I discovered all aboot Jean, and what people were saying aboot her, and when I had made up my mind aboot Mr.

Bolitho, who was at one time the Member of Parliament for this toon, I fell to thinking, and I was not long in a.s.suring myself that Mr.

Bolitho was the same lad who came to the Highlands lang years syne as Douglas Graham. Of course, I had heard a great deal about Paul Stepaside, and being, as I tell't ye, a reasoning man, I put two and two together. So I sent a letter to Jean, and asked her to meet me."

"A likely story!" said the judge.

"Like or not, it's true. And more than that, she came to see me on the very night that young Wilson was murdered, so noo then!"

"Then you spoke to her that night?"

"Ay, I did. I thought to myself, 'Now that Jean has plenty of siller she'll be glad to know the truth!'"

"And you told her the truth?"

"Ay, I did. I showed her your photograph which I'd brought with me.

We were standing under a street-lamp, and I showed it to her. And there's not the slightest doot but she recognised you."

"What time was that?" asked the judge.

"It were late," said the man. "It must have been well after eleven o'clock."

"How long was she with you?"

"A goodish time, for she had many questions to ask, and we talked a good deal about old times. And I was not long in convincing her of the truth, I can tell ye. Ay, man, but you should have seen her face when she looked at your photograph. 'Oh, that's he, that's he!' she said."

"And then," said the judge, "did she come back here alone?"

"Nay, I walked back with her. Do ye think I'd be likely to allow a la.s.s who was to have been my ain sister-in-law to come hame alone?"

"In what part of the town did you meet?"

"It was near the part they call Howden Clough."

"And at what hour did you return?"