Page:The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.djvu/121

 Then he came back to the Doctor on tiptoe and whispered,

"He killed a man!"

"Lord preserve us!" cried the Doctor, sitting down heavily in a chair and mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. "When did he do it?"

"Fifteen years ago—in a Mexican gold-mine. That's why he has been a hermit ever since. He shaved off his beard and kept away from people out there on the marshes so he wouldn't be recognized. But last week, it seems these new-fangled policemen came to Town; and they heard there was a strange man who kept to himself all alone in a shack on the fen. And they got suspicious. For a long time people had been hunting all over the world for the man that did that killing in the Mexican gold-mine fifteen years ago. So these policemen went out to the shack, and they recognized Luke by a mole on his arm. And they took him to prison."

"Well, well!" murmured the Doctor. "Who would have thought it?—Luke, the philosopher!—Killed a man!—I can hardly believe it."

"It's true enough—unfortunately," said Jip. "Luke did it. But it wasn't his fault. Bob says so. And he was there and saw it all. He was scarcely more than a puppy at the time. Bob says Luke couldn't help it. He had to do it."

"Where is Bob now?" asked the Doctor.