Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/72

52 The words would hardly come. Jim thumped the table with heavy fist.

“That’ll do!” he cried. “That’ll hang him, you mark my words! What sort of a watch?”

But this time the words would not come at all, for Jim’s wife stood in the doorway behind Jim’s chair, and her eyes and Tom’s—the terrified and the guilty—were locked together in a long, dread stare.

“What’s that about a watch?” she said in a sort of whisper, advancing unsteadily, and leaning a hand upon her husband’s shoulder. “Whose watch?”

“One belonging a murdered man,” replied Jim. “I’m asking what kind of a one. I say it ought to hang the chap what did it.”

“It will,” said she hoarsely in his ear. “It’s a repeater, and him that has it sits in front of you in that chair!”

There followed a silence so profound that Tom could hear the watch itself ticking in his pocket. The coachman then rose, and slowly leaned across the table, resting one hand upon it; the other was half-way to Tom’s throat when he started to his feet, and in so doing pressed his thigh against the table’s edge. Instantly there rang from his pocket a sweet and tiny ting! ting! ting! ting! ting!

It was the saving of him from Jim the coachman and his wife.

Both shrank back as Tom darted to an inner door, and so up the stairs which he had descended half-asleep.

Ere he reached the top there was a crash below; for an instant he thought the man had fallen in a fit; but a volley of oaths proved it only a slip, as Tom slammed