“Lawyer Lightwood, take care, you, what I say; for I judge you’ll be answerable for follering it up!” Then, slowly and emphatically beating it all out with his open right hand on the palm of his left; “I, Roger Riderhood, Lime’us Hole, Waterside character, tell you, Lawyer Lightwood, that the man Jesse Hexam, commonly called upon the river and along-shore Gaffer, told me that he done the deed. What’s more, he told me with his own lips that he done the deed. What’s more, he said that he done the deed. And I’ll swear it!”
“Where did he tell you so?”
“Outside,” replied Riderhood, always beating it out, with his head determinedly set askew, and his eyes watchfully dividing their attention between his two auditors, “outside the door of the Six Jolly Fellowships, towards a quarter after twelve o’clock at midnight — but I will not in my conscience undertake to swear to so fine a matter as five minutes — on the night when he picked up the body. The Six Jolly Fellowships stands on the spot still. The Six Jolly Fellowships won’t run away. If it turns out that he warn’t at the Six Jolly Fellowships that night at midnight, I’m a liar.”
“What did he say?”
“I’ll tell you (take me down, T’other Governor, I ask no better). He come out first; I come out last. I might be a minute arter him; I might be half a minute, I might be a quarter of a minute; I cannot swear to that, and therefore I won’t. There’s knowing the obligations of a Alfred David, ain’t it?”
“Go on.”
“I found him a waiting to speak to me. He says to me, ‘Rogue Riderhood’ — for that’s the name I’m mostly called by — not for any meaning in it, for meaning it has none, but because of its being similar to Roger.”
“Never mind that.”
“ ’Scuse me, Lawyer Lightwood, it’s a part of the truth, and as such I do mind it, and I must mind it and I will mind it. ‘Rogue Riderhood,’ he says, ‘words passed betwixt us on the river to-night.’ Which they had; ask his daughter! ‘I threatened you,’ he says, ‘to chop you over the fingers with my boat’s stretcher, or take a aim at your brains with my boathook. I did so on accounts of your looking too hard at what I had in tow, as if you was suspicious, and on accounts of your holding on to the gunwale of my boat.’ I says to him, ‘Gaffer, I know it.’ He says to me, ‘Rogue Riderhood, you are a man in a dozen’ — I think he said in a score, but of that I am not positive, so take the lowest figure, for precious be the obligations of a Alfred David. ‘And,’ he says, ‘when your fellow-men is up, be it their lives or be it their watches, sharp is ever the word with you. Had you suspicions?’ I says, ‘Gaffer, I had; and what’s more, I have.’ He falls a shaking, and he says, ‘Of what?’ I says, ‘Of foul play.’ He falls a shaking worse, and he says, ‘There was foul play then. I done it for his money. Don’t betray me!’ Those were the words as ever he used.”
There was a silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the grate. An opportunity which the informer improved by smearing himself all over the head and neck and face with his drowned cap, and not at all improving his own appearance.
“What more?” asked Lightwood.
“Of him, d’ye mean, Lawyer Lightwood?”
“Of anything to the purpose.”
“Now, I’m blest if I understand you, Governors Both,” said the informer, in a creeping manner: propitiating both, though only one had spoken. “What? Ain’t that enough?”
“Did you ask him how he did it, where he did it, when he did it?”