"The Black Killer, is it? What d'you know o' the Killer?" he inquired.
"Why _black_, I wad ken? Why _black?_" the little man asked, leaning forward in his chair.
Now David, though repudiating in the village Red Wull's complicity with the crimes, at home was never so happy as when casting cunning innuendoes to that effect.
"What would you have him then?" he asked. "Red, yaller, muck-dirt colour?"--and he stared significantly at the Tailless Tyke, who was lying at his master's feet. The little man ceased rubbing his knees and eyed the boy. David shifted uneasily beneath that dim, persistent stare.
The little man giggled, and his two thin hands took up their task again.
"Aiblins his puir auld doited fool of a dad kens mair than the dear lad thinks for, ay, or wushes--eh, Wullie, he! he!"
"Then what is it you do know, or think yo' know?" David asked irritably.
"Naethin' ava, laddie, naethin' worth the mention. Only aiblins the Killer'll be caught afore sae lang."
David smiled incredulously, wagging his head in offensive scepticism.
"Yo'll catch him yo'self, I s'pose, you and yer Wullie? Tak' a chair on to the Marches, whistle a while, and when the Killer comes, why! pit a pinch o' salt upon his tail--if he had one."
At the last words, heavily punctuated by the speaker, the little man stopped his rubbing as though shot.
"What wad ye mean by that?" he asked softly.
"I dinna ken for sure," the little man answered; "and it's aiblins just as well for you, dear lad"--in fawning accents--"that I dinna." He began rubbing and giggling afresh. "It's a gran' thing, Wullie, to ha' a dutiful son; a shairp lad wha has no silly sens o' shame aboot sharpenin' his wits at his auld dad's expense. And yet, despite oor facetious lad there, aiblins we will ha' a hand in the Killer's catchin', you and I, Wullie--he! he!" And the great dog at his feet wagged his stump tail in reply.
David rose from his chair and walked across the room to where his father sat.
"If yo' know sic a mighty heap," he shouted, "happen you'll just tell me what yo' do know!"
M'Adam stopped stroking Red Wull's massive head, and looked up.
"Tell ye? Ay, wha should I tell if not ma dear David? Tell? Ay, I'll tell ye this"--with a sudden snarl of bitterness--"That you'd be the vairy last person I wad tell."