There, he was told that his father was in
jail, and came here to ask us to let him see him."
"You should have refused and have detained the boy. Well?"
"I was moved by the little chap's tears," said the constable,
abashed, "so I let him go into the cell."
"Were you with him?" asked the inspector sharply.
"No, sir. We left them alone for a few minutes. As the boy
was so sad and cut up, I thought there would be no harm in
doing that. Well, sir, the boy came out again in ten minutes,
still crying, and said he would get a lawyer to defend his
father. He did not believe his father had passed the money.
Then he went away. Later--about half an hour later, we went
into the cell and found the man lying groaning, with an empty
bottle of whisky beside him. The doctor came and said he
thought the man had been poisoned. The man groaned and said
the young shaver had done for him. Then he became unconscious
and died."
Jennings listened to this statement calmly. He saw again the
hand of the coiners. The person who controlled the members
evidently thought that the man would blab, and accordingly
took precautionary measures to silence him. Without doubt,
the man had been poisoned, and the boy had been sent to do it.
"What is the boy like?" he asked.
"Billy Tyke, sir?" said the constable, replying on a nod from
his chief, to whom he looked for instructions, "a thin boy,
fair and with red rims round his eyes--looks half starved,
sir, and has a scarred mouth, as though he had been cut on the
upper lip with a knife.
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