"No, not quite that! But I saw a man lying on the ground just over there, and he didn't move a bit. Another man was holding him in his arms, and Denis Bantry was standing by with a lantern."
"It was a gentleman called Mr. Jeringham. Oh, yes! My head was queer, but I knew him by his clothes, I did. I was at the grand ball of the gentry, you know; it was there I got drunk--and I saw Mr. Jeringham there in black clothes with gold trimmings. He had them on when he bent over Captain Larcher."
"How did you know the man on the ground was Captain Larcher?"
"I didn't, then," confessed Dick ingenuously; "but when I heard as they found him in the river, I knew it was him, I did. I saw them drop him in!"
"Denis Bantry and Mr. Jeringham?" exclaimed Tait, astonished at the minuteness of these details.
"Yes. They talked together for a bit, but my head was so queer that I couldn't make out what they said. But they picked up Captain Larcher, one at the head and the other at the heels, and they dropped him in--Splash! he went, he did. I was behind a tree and they couldn't see me. Ugh!" said the man, with a shiver, "how I did feel afraid when he went splash into the cold water. Then I went away and held my tongue."
"Why did you do that? It was your duty to have come forward and told the truth."
Dick Pental put on a cunning look, and shook his head. "Not me, sir," he said artfully. "They'd have said my head was queer and put me in an asylum again. No, no, Dicky was too clever for them, he was."
"But you say it was Denis Bantry who killed Captain Larcher," said Tait, after a moment's reflection. "How do you know that, when you did not see the blow struck? It might have been Mr. Jeringham."
Looking lovingly at the piece of gold which was now in his possession, Dick shook his head with great vigor.
"It wasn't Mr. Jeringham," he protested. "He was a good, kind gentleman. He gave Dicky half a crown the day before. He was fond of Captain Larcher's wife, so he couldn't have killed Captain Larcher."
Against this insane reasoning Tait had nothing to urge, as Dicky was evidently convinced that Denis Bantry was guilty, to the exclusion of Jeringham. Had the former given him money instead of the latter he would doubtless have accused Jeringham and sworn to the innocence of Denis. The man's brain was too weak to be depended upon; but Tait recognized that the report he gave of the occurrence of that fatal night was true and faithful in all respects. Dicky was not sufficiently imaginative to invent such a story.
