Dead Mens Money | Page 9

instant that this was the stain
of blood, and I do not think I was surprised when, advancing a step or
two further, I saw, lying in the roadside grass at my feet, the still figure
and white face of a man who, I knew with a sure and certain instinct,

was not only dead but had been cruelly murdered.
CHAPTER IV
THE MURDERED MAN
There may be folk in the world to whom the finding of a dead man,
lying grim and stark by the roadside, with the blood freshly run from it
and making ugly patches of crimson on the grass and the gravel, would
be an ordinary thing; but to me that had never seen blood let in violence,
except in such matters as a bout of fisticuffs at school, it was the
biggest thing that had ever happened, and I stood staring down at the
white face as if I should never look at anything else as long as I lived. I
remember all about that scene and that moment as freshly now as if the
affair had happened last night. The dead man lying in the crushed
grass--his arms thrown out helplessly on either side of him--the gloom
of the trees all around--the murmuring of the waters, where Till was
pouring its sluggish flood into the more active swirl and rush of the
Tweed--the hot, oppressive air of the night--and the blood on the dry
road--all that was what, at Mr. Gilverthwaite's bidding, I had ridden out
from Berwick to find in that lonely spot.
But I knew, of course, that James Gilverthwaite himself had not
foreseen this affair, nor thought that I should find a murdered man. And
as I at last drew breath, and lifted myself up a little from staring at the
corpse, a great many thoughts rushed into my head, and began to
tumble about over each other. Was this the man Mr. Gilverthwaite
meant me to meet? Would Mr. Gilverthwaite have been murdered, too,
if he had come there in person? And had the man been murdered for the
sake of robbery? But I answered that last question as soon as I asked it,
and in the negative, for the light of my lamp showed a fine, heavy gold
watch-chain festooned across the man's waistcoat--if murderously
inclined thieves had been at him, they were not like to have left that.
Then I wondered if I had disturbed the murderers--it was fixed in me
from the beginning that there must have been more than one in at this
dreadful game--and if they were still lurking about and watching me
from the brushwood; and I made an effort, and bent down and touched

one of the nerveless hands. It was stiffened already, and I knew then
that the man had been dead some time.
And I knew another thing in that moment: poor Maisie, lying awake to
listen for the tap at her window, so that she might get up and peep
round the corner of her blind to assure herself that her Hughie was alive
and safe, would have to lie quaking and speculating through the dark
hours of that night, for here was work that was going to keep me busied
till day broke. I set to it there and then, leaving the man just as I had
found him, and hastening back in the direction of the main road. As
luck would have it, I heard voices of men on Twizel Bridge, and ran
right on the local police-sergeant and a constable, who had met there in
the course of their night rounds. I knew them both, the sergeant being
one Chisholm, and the constable a man named Turndale, and they
knew me well enough from having seen me in the court at Berwick;
and it was with open-mouthed surprise that they listened to what I had
to tell them. Presently we were all three round the dead man, and this
time there was the light of three lamps on his face and on the gouts of
blood that were all about him, and Chisholm clicked his tongue sharply
at what he saw.
"Here's a sore sight for honest folk!" he said in a low voice, as he bent
down and touched one of the hands. "Aye, and he's been dead a good
hour, I should say, by the feel of him! You heard nothing as you came
down yon lane, Mr. Hugh?"
"Not a sound!" I answered.
"And saw nothing?" he questioned.
"Nothing and nobody!" I said.
"Well," said he, "we'll have to get him away from this. You'll have to
get help," he went on, turning to the constable. "Fetch some men to
help us carry him. He'll have to be taken to the nearest inn for the
inquest--that's