Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/102

98 oath he's the man. He and Whyte hated one another. He says to Whyte, 'I'll kill you if I've got to do it in the open street.' He meets Whyte drunk, a fact which he acknowledges himself; he clears out, and the cabman swears he comes back; then he gets into the cab with a living man, and when he comes out leaves a dead one; he drives to East Melbourne and gets into the house at a time which his landlady can prove—just the time that a cab would take to drive from the Grammar School on the St. Kilda Road. If you ain't a fool, Kilsip, you'll see as there's no doubt about it."

"It looks all square enough," said Kilsip, who wondered what evidence Calton should have found to contradict such a plain statement. "And what's his defence?"

"Mr Calton is the only man as knows that," answered Gorby, finishing his drink; "but, clever and all as he is, he can't put anything in that can go against my evidence."

"Don't you be too sure of that," sneered Kilsip, whose soul was devoured with envy.

"Oh! but I am," retorted Gorby, getting as red as a turkey-cock at the sneer. "You're jealous, you are, because you haven't got a finger in the pie!"

"Ah! but I may have yet."

"Going a-hunting yourself, are you?" said Gorby, with an indignant snort. "A-hunting for what—for a man as is already caught?"

"I don't believe you've got the right man," remarked Kilsip, deliberately.

Mr. Gorby looked upon him with a smile of pity.

"No! of course you don't, just because I've caught him; perhaps, when you see him hanged, you'll believe it then?"

"You're a smart man, you are," retorted Kilsip; "but you ain't the Pope to be infallible."

"And what grounds have you for saying he's not the right man?" demanded Gorby.

Kilsip smiled, and stole softly across the room like a cat.

"I'm not going to tell you all I know, but you ain't so safe nor clever as you think," and with another irritating smile, he went out.

Mr. Gorby started after him in indignant surprise. The