e tail of a horse when proceeding
to market to be sold.

'Well? Have you finished?' asked the strange man.

'No,' said Riderhood, 'I ain't. Far from it. Now then! I want to know
how George Radfoot come by his death, and how you come by his kit?'

'If you ever do know, you won't know now.'

'And next I want to know,' proceeded Riderhood 'whether you mean to
charge that what-you-may-call-it-murder--'

'Harmon murder, father,' suggested Pleasant.

'No Poll Parroting!' he vociferated, in return. 'Keep your mouth
shut!--I want to know, you sir, whether you charge that there crime on
George Radfoot?'

'If you ever do know, you won't know now.'

'Perhaps you done it yourself?' said Riderhood, with a threatening
action.

'I alone know,' returned the man, sternly shaking his head, 'the
mysteries of that crime. I alone know that your trumped-up story cannot
possibly be true. I alone know that it must be altogether false, and
that you must know it to be altogether false. I come here to-night to
tell you so much of what I know, and no more.'

Mr Riderhood, with his crooked eye upon his visitor, meditated for some
moments, and then refilled his glass, and tipped the contents down his
throat in three tips.

'Shut the shop-door!' he then said to his daughter, putting the glass
suddenly down. 'And turn the key and stand by it! If you know all this,
you sir,' getting, as he spoke, between the visitor and the door, 'why
han't you gone to Lawyer Lightwood?'

'That, also, is alone known to myself,' was the cool answer.

'Don't you know that, if you didn't do the deed, what you say you could
tell is worth from five to ten thousand pound?' asked Riderhood.

'I know it very well, and when I claim the money you shall share it.'

The honest man paused, and drew a little nearer to the visitor, and a
little further from the door.

'I know it,' repeated the man, quietly, 'as well as I know that you and
George Radfoot were one together in more than one dark business; and as
well as I know that you, Roger Riderhood, conspired against an innocent
man for blood-money; and as well as I know that I can--and that I swear
I will!--give you up on both scores, and be the proof against you in my
own person, if you defy me!'

'Father!' cried Pleasant, from the door. 'Don't defy him! Give way to
him! Don't get into more trouble, father!'

'Will you leave off a Poll Parroting, I ask you?' cried Mr Riderhood,
half beside himself between th