CHAPTER XII.
THE BRASS BUTTON BY CROSBY, BIRMINGHAM
Mr. Matthew Harrison and Captain Prodder were both accommodated with suitable entertainment at the sign of the Crooked Rabbit; but while the dog-fancier appeared to have ample employment in the neighbourhood, – employment of a mysterious nature, which kept him on the tramp all day, and sent him home at sunset, tired and hungry, to his hostelry, – the sailor, having nothing whatever to do, and a great burden of care upon his mind, found the time hang very heavily upon his hands; although, being naturally of a social and genial temper, he made himself very much at home in his strange quarters. From Mr. Harrison the captain obtained much information respecting the secret of all the sorrow that had befallen his niece. The dog-fancier had known James Conyers from his boyhood; had known his father, the "swell" coachman of a Brighton Highflyer, or Sky-rocket, or Electric, and the associate of the noblemen and gentlemen of that princely era, in which it was the right thing for the youthful aristocracy to imitate the manners of Mr. Samuel Weller, senior. Matthew Harrison had known the trainer in his brief and stormy married life, and had accompanied Aurora's first husband as a humble dependent and hanger-on in that foreign travel which had been paid for out of Archibald Floyd's cheque-book. The honest captain's blood boiled as he heard that shameful story of treachery and extortion practised upon an ignorant school-girl. Oh, that he had been by to avenge those outrages upon the child of the dark-eyed sister he had loved! His rage against the undiscovered murderer of the dead man was redoubled when he remembered how comfortably James Conyers had escaped from his vengeance.
Mr. Stephen Hargraves, the "Softy," took good care to keep out of the way of the Crooked Rabbit, having no wish to encounter Captain Prodder a second time; but he still hung about the town of Doncaster, where he had a lodging up a wretched alley, hidden away behind one of the back streets, – a species of lair common to every large town, only to be found by the inhabitants of the locality.
The "Softy" had been born and bred, and had lived his life, in such a narrow radius, that the uprooting of one of the oaks in Mellish Park could scarcely be a slower or more painful operation than the severing of those ties of custom which held the boorish hanger-on to the neighbourhood of the household in which he had so long been an inmate. But now that his occupation at Mellish Park was for ever gone, and his patron, the trainer, dead, he was alone in the world, and had need to look out for a fresh situation.
But he seemed rather slow to do this. He was not a very prepossessing person, it must be remembered, and there were not very many services for which he was fitted. Although upwards of forty years of age, he was generally rather loosely described as a young man who understood all about horses; and this qualification was usually sufficient to procure for any individual whatever some kind of employment in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. The "Softy" seemed, however, rather to keep aloof from the people who knew and could have recommended him; and when asked why he did not seek a situation, gave evasive answers, and muttered something to the effect that he had saved a little bit of money at Mellish Park, and had no need to come upon the parish if he was out of work for a week or two.
John Mellish was so well known as a generous paymaster, that this was a matter of surprise to no one. Steeve Hargraves had no doubt had pretty pickings in that liberal household. So the "Softy" went his way unquestioned, hanging about the town in a lounging, uncomfortable manner, sitting in some public-house taproom half the day and night, drinking his meagre liquor in a sullen and unsocial style peculiar to himself, and consorting with no one.
He made his appearance at the railway station one day, and groped helplessly through all the time-tables pasted against the walls: but he could make nothing of them unaided, and was at last compelled to appeal to a good-tempered-looking official who was busy on the platform.
"I want th' Liverpool trayuns," he said, "and I can find naught about 'em here."
The official knew Mr. Hargraves, and looked at him with a stare of open wonder.
"My word, Steeve," he said laughing, "what takes you to Liverpool? I thought you'd never been further than York in your life?"
"Maybe I haven't," the "Softy" answered sulkily; "but that's no reason I shouldn't go now. I've heard of a situation at Liverpool as I think'll suit me."
"Not better than the place you had with Mr. Mellish."
"Perhaps not," muttered Mr. Hargraves, with a frown darkening over his ugly face; "but Mellish Park be no pleace for me now, and arnt been for a long time past."
The railway official laughed.
The story of Aurora's chastisement of the half-witted groom was pretty well known amongst the townspeople of Doncaster; and I am sorry to say there were very few members of that sporting community who did not admire the mistress of Mellish Park something more by reason of this little incident in her history.
Mr. Hargraves received the desired information about the railway route between Doncaster and Liverpool, and then left the station.
A shabby-looking little man, who had also been mating some inquiries of the same official who had talked to the "Softy," and had consequently heard the above brief dialogue, followed Stephen Hargraves from the station into the town. Indeed, had it not been that the "Softy" was unusually slow of perception, he might have discovered that upon this particular day the same shabby-looking little man generally happened to be hanging about any and every place to which he, Mr. Hargraves, betook himself. But the cast-off retainer of Mellish Park did not trouble himself with any such misgivings. His narrow intellect, never wide enough to take in many subjects at a time, was fully absorbed by other considerations; and he loitered about with a gloomy and preoccupied expression in his face, that by no means enhanced his personal attractions.
It is not to be supposed that Mr. Joseph Grimstone let the grass grow under his feet after his interview with John Mellish and Talbot Bulstrode. He had heard enough to make his course pretty clear to him, and he went to work quietly and sagaciously to win the reward offered to him.
There was not a tailor's shop in Doncaster or its vicinity into which the detective did not make his way. There was not a garment confectionée by any of the civil purveyors upon whom he intruded that Mr. Grimstone did not examine; not a drawer of odds and ends which he did not ransack, in his search for buttons by "Crosby, maker, Birmingham." But for a long time he made his inquisition in vain. Before the day succeeding that of Talbot's arrival at Mellish Park was over, the detective had visited every tailor or clothier in the neighbourhood of the racing metropolis of the north, but no traces of "Crosby, maker, Birmingham," had he been able to find. Brass waistcoat-buttons are not particularly affected by the leaders of the fashion in the present day, and Mr. Grimstone found almost every variety of fastening upon the waistcoats he examined, except that one special style of button, a specimen of which, out of shape and blood-stained, he carried deep in his trousers-pocket.
He was returning to the inn at which he had taken up his abode, and where he was supposed to be a traveller in the Glenfield starch and sugar-plum line, tired and worn out with a day's useless work, when he was attracted by the appearance of some ready-made garments gracefully festooned about the door of a Doncaster pawnbroker, who exhibited silver teaspoons, oil-paintings, boots and shoes, dropsical watches, doubtful rings, and remnants of silk and satin, in his artistically-arranged window.
Mr. Grimstone stopped short before the money-lender's portal.
"I won't be beaten," he muttered between his teeth. "If this man has got any weskits, I'll have a look at 'em."
He lounged into the shop in a leisurely manner, and asked the proprietor of the establishment if he had anything cheap in the way of fancy waistcoats.
Of course the proprietor had everything desirable in that way, and from a kind of grove or arbour of all manner of dry goods at the back of the shop, he brought out half a dozen brown-paper parcels, the contents of which he exhibited to Mr. Joseph Grimstone.
The detective looked at a great many waistcoats, but with no satisfactory result.
"You haven't got anything with brass buttons, I suppose?" he inquired at last.
The proprietor shook his head reflectively.
"Brass buttons aint much worn now-a-days," he said; "but I'll lay I've got the very thing you want, now I come to think of it. I got 'em an uncommon bargain from a traveller for a Birmingham house, who was here at the September meeting three years ago, and lost a hatful of money upon Underhand, and left a lot of things with me, in order to make up what he wanted."
Mr. Grimstone pricked up his ears at the sound of "Birmingham." The pawnbroker retired once more to the mysterious caverns at the back of his shop, and after a considerable search succeeded in finding what he wanted. He brought another brown-paper parcel to the counter, turned the flaming gas a little higher, and exhibited a heap of very gaudy and vulgar-looking waistcoats, evidently of that species of manufacture which is generally called slop-work.
"These are the goods," he said; "and very tasty and lively things they are, too. I had a dozen of 'em; and I've only got these five left."
Mr. Grimstone had taken up a waistcoat of a flaming check pattern, and was examining it by the light of the gas.
Yes; the purpose of his day's work was accomplished at last. The back of the brass buttons bore the name of Crosby, Birmingham.
"You've only got five left out of the dozen," said the detective; "then you've sold seven?"
"I have."
"Can you remember who you sold 'em to?"
The pawnbroker scratched his head thoughtfully.
"I think I must have sold 'em all to the men at the works," he said. "They take their wages once a fortnight; and there's some of 'em drop in here every other Saturday night to buy something or other, or to take something out of pledge. I know I sold four or five that way."
"But can you remember selling one of them to anybody else?" asked the detective. "I'm not asking out of curiosity; and I don't mind standing something handsome by-and-by, if you can give me the information I want. Think it over, now, and take your time. You couldn't have sold 'em all seven to the men from the works."
"No; I didn't," answered the pawnbroker after a pause. "I remember now, I sold one of them – a fancy sprig on a purple ground – to Josephs the baker, in the next street; and I sold another – a yellow stripe on a brown ground – to the head-gardener at Mellish Park."
Mr. Joseph Grimstone's face flushed hot and red. His day's work had not been wasted. He was bringing the buttons by Crosby of Birmingham very near to where he wanted to bring them.
"You can tell me the gardener's name, I suppose?" he said to the pawnbroker.
"Yes; his name's Dawson. He belongs to Doncaster, and he and I were boys together. I should not have remembered selling him the waistcoat, perhaps, for it's nigh upon a year and a half ago; only he stopped and had a chat with me and my missis the night he bought it."
Mr. Grimstone did not linger much longer in the shop. His interest in the waistcoats was evidently departed. He bought a couple of second-hand silk handkerchiefs, out of civility, no doubt, and then bade the pawnbroker good-night.
It was nearly nine o'clock; but the detective only stopped at his inn long enough to eat about a pound and a quarter of beefsteak, and drink a pint of ale, after which brief refreshment he started for Mellish Park on foot. It was the principle of his life to avoid observation, and he preferred the fatigue of a long and lonely walk to the risks contingent upon hiring a vehicle to convey him to his destination.
Talbot and John had been waiting hopefully all the day for the detective's coming, and welcomed him very heartily when he appeared, between ten and eleven. He was shown into John's own room this evening; for the two gentlemen were sitting there smoking and talking after Aurora and Lucy had gone to bed. Mrs. Mellish had good need of rest, and could sleep peacefully now; for the dark shadow between her and her husband had gone for ever, and she could not fear any peril, any sorrow, now that she knew herself to be secure of his love. John looked up eagerly as Mr. Grimstone followed the servant into the room; but a warning look from Talbot Bulstrode checked his impetuosity, and he waited till the door was shut before he spoke.
"Now, then, Grimstone," he said; "what news?"
"Well, sir, I've had a hard day's work," the detective answered gravely, "and perhaps neither of you gentlemen – not being professional – would think much of what I've done; but for all that, I believe I'm bringin' it home, sir; I believe I'm bringin' it home."
"Thank God for that!" murmured Talbot Bulstrode, reverently.
He had thrown away his cigar, and was standing by the fireplace, with his arm resting upon the angle of the mantel-piece.
"You've got a gardener by the name of Dawson in your service, Mr. Mellish?" said the detective.
"I have," answered John: "but, Lord have mercy upon us! you don't mean to say you think it's him? Dawson's as good a fellow as ever breathed."
"I don't say I think it's any one as yet, sir," Mr. Grimstone answered sententiously; "but when a man as had two thousand pound upon him in bank-notes is found in a wood shot through the heart, and the notes missin' – the wood bein' free to anybody as chose to walk in it – it's a pretty open case for suspicion. I should like to see this man Dawson, if it's convenient."
"To-night?" asked John.
"Yes: the sooner the better. The less delay there is in this sort of business, the more satisfactory for all parties, with the exception of the party that's wanted," added the detective.
"I'll send for Dawson, then," answered Mr. Mellish; "but I expect he'll have gone to bed by this time."
"Then he can but get up again, if he has, sir," Mr. Grimstone said politely. "I've set my heart upon seeing him to-night, if it's all the same to you."
It is not to be supposed that John Mellish was likely to object to any arrangement which might hasten, if by but a moment's time, the hour of the discovery for which he so ardently prayed. He went straight off to the servants' hall to make inquiries for the gardener, and left Talbot Bulstrode and the detective together.
"There aint nothing turned up here, I suppose, sir," said Joseph Grimstone, addressing Mr. Bulstrode, "as will be of any help to us?"
"Yes," Talbot answered. "We have got the numbers of the notes which Mrs. Mellish gave the murdered man. I telegraphed to Mr. Floyd's country house, and he arrived here himself only an hour ago, bringing the list of the notes with him."
"And an uncommon plucky thing of the old gentleman to do, beggin' your pardon, sir," exclaimed the detective with enthusiasm.
Five minutes afterwards, Mr. Mellish re-entered the room, bringing the gardener with him. The man had been into Doncaster to see his friends, and only returned about half an hour before; so the master of the house had caught him in the act of making havoc with a formidable cold joint, and a great jar of pickled cabbage, in the servants' hall.
"Now, you're not to be frightened, Dawson," said the young squire, with friendly indiscretion; "of course nobody for a moment suspects you, any more than they suspect me; but this gentleman here wants to see you, and of course you know there's no reason that he shouldn't see you if he wishes it, though what he wants with you – "
Mr. Mellish stopped abruptly, arrested by a frown from Talbot Bulstrode; and the gardener, who was innocent of the faintest comprehension of his master's meaning, pulled his hair respectfully, and shuffled nervously upon the slippery Indian matting.
"I only want to ask you a question or two to decide a wager between these two gentlemen and me, Mr. Dawson," said the detective with reassuring familiarity. "You bought a second-hand waistcoat of Gogram, in the market-place, didn't you, about a year and a half ago?"
"Ay, sure, sir. I bought a weskit at Gogram's," answered the gardener; "but it weren't second-hand; it were bran new."
"A yellow stripe upon a brown ground?"
The man nodded, with his mouth wide open, in the extremity of his surprise at this London stranger's familiarity with the details of his toilet.
"I dunno how you come to know about that weskit, sir," he said, with a grin; "it were wore out full six months ago; for I took to wearin' of it in t' garden, and garden-work soon spiles anything in the way of clothes; but him as I give it to was glad enough to have it, though it was awful shabby."
"Him as you give it to?" repeated Mr. Grimstone, not pausing to amend the sentence, in his eagerness. "You gave it away, then?"
"Yees, I gave it to th' 'Softy;' and wasn't th' poor fond chap glad to get it, that's all!"
"The 'Softy'!" exclaimed Mr. Grimstone. "Who's the 'Softy'?"
"The man we spoke of last night," answered Talbot Bulstrode; "the man whom Mrs. Mellish found in this room upon the morning before the murder, – the man called Stephen Hargraves."
"Ay, ay, to be sure; I thought as much," murmured the detective. "That will do, Mr. Dawson," he added, addressing the gardener, who had shuffled a good deal nearer to the doorway in his uneasy state of mind. "Stay, though; I may as well ask you one more question. Were any of the buttons missing off that waistcoat when you gave it away?"
"Not one on 'em," answered the gardener, decisively. "My missus is too particular for that. She's a reg'lar toidy one, she is; allers mendin' and patchin'; and if one of t' buttons got loose she was sure to sew it on toight again, before it was lost."
"Thank you, Mr. Dawson," returned the detective, with the friendly condescension of a superior being. "Good-night."
The gardener shuffled off, very glad to be released from the awful presence of his superiors, and to go back to the cold meat and pickles in the servants' hall.
"I think I'm bringing the business into a nutshell, sir," said Mr. Grimstone, when the door had closed upon the gardener. "But the less said, the better, just yet awhile. I'll take the list of the numbers of the notes, please, sir; and I believe I shall come upon you for that two hundred pound, Mr. Mellish, before either of us is many weeks older."
So, with the list made by cautious Archibald Floyd, bestowed safely in his waistcoat-pocket, Mr. Joseph Grimstone walked back to Doncaster through the still summer's night, intent upon the business he had undertaken.
"It looked uncommon black against the lady about a week ago," he thought, as he walked meditatively across the dewy grass in Mellish Park; "and I fancy the information they got at the Yard would have put a fool upon the wrong scent, and kept him on it till the right one got worn out. But it's clearing up, it's clearing up beautiful; and I think it'll turn out one of the neatest cases I ever had the handling of."
CHAPTER XIII.
OFF THE SCENT
It is scarcely necessary to say, that, with the button by Crosby in his pocket, and with the information acquired from Dawson the gardener, stowed away carefully in his mind, Mr. Joseph Grimstone looked with an eye of particular interest upon Steeve Hargraves the "Softy."
The detective had not come to Doncaster alone. He had brought with him a humble ally and follower, in the shape of the little shabby-looking man who had encountered the "Softy" at the railway station, having received orders to keep a close watch upon Mr. Stephen Hargraves. It was of course a very easy matter to identify the "Softy" in the town of Doncaster, where he had been pretty generally known since his childhood.
Mr. Grimstone had called upon a medical practitioner, and had submitted the button to him for inspection. The stains upon it were indeed that which the detective had supposed – blood; and the surgeon detected a minute morsel of cartilage adhering to the jagged hasp of the button; but the same surgeon declared that this missile could not have been the one used by the murderer of James Conyers. It had not been through the dead man's body; it had inflicted only a surface wound.
The business which now lay before Mr. Grimstone was the tracing of one or other of the bank-notes; and for this purpose he and his ally set to work upon the track of the "Softy," with a view of discovering all the places which it was his habit to visit. The haunts affected by Mr. Hargraves turned out to be some half-dozen very obscure public-houses; and to each of these Joseph Grimstone went in person.
But he could discover nothing. All his inquiries only elicited the fact that Stephen Hargraves had not been observed to change, or to attempt to change, any bank-note whatever. He had paid for all he had had, and spent more than it was usual for him to spend, drinking a good deal harder than had been his habit heretofore; but he had paid in silver, except on one occasion, when he had changed a sovereign. The detective called at the bank; but no person answering the description of Stephen Hargraves had been observed there. The detective endeavoured to discover any friends or companions of the "Softy;" but here again he failed. The half-witted hanger-on of the Mellish stables had never made any friends, being entirely deficient in all social qualities.
There was something almost miraculous in the manner in which Mr. Joseph Grimstone contrived to make himself master of any information which he wished to acquire; and before noon on the day after his interview with Mr. Dawson the gardener, he had managed to eliminate all the facts set down above, and had also succeeded in ingratiating himself into the confidence of the dirty old proprietress of that humble lodging in which the "Softy" had taken up his abode.
It is scarcely necessary to this story to tell how the detective went to work; but while Stephen Hargraves sat soddening his stupid brain with medicated beer in a low tap-room not far off, and while Mr. Grimstone's ally kept close watch, holding himself in readiness to give warning of any movement on the part of the suspected individual, Mr. Grimstone himself went so cleverly to work in his manipulation of the "Softy's" landlady, that in less than a quarter of an hour he had taken full possession of that weak point in the intellectual citadel which is commonly called the blind side, and was able to do what he pleased with the old woman and her wretched tenement.
His peculiar pleasure was to make a very elaborate examination of the apartment rented by the "Softy," and any other apartments, cupboards, or hiding-places to which Mr. Hargraves had access. But he found nothing to reward him for his trouble. The old woman was in the habit of receiving casual lodgers, resting for a night or so at Doncaster before tramping further on their vagabond wanderings; and the six-roomed dwelling-place was only furnished with such meagre accommodation as may be expected for fourpence and sixpence a night. There were few hiding-places, – no carpets, underneath which fat bundles of bank-notes might be hidden; no picture-frames, behind which the same species of property might be bestowed; no ponderous cornices or heavily-fringed valances shrouding the windows, and affording dusty recesses wherein the title-deeds of half a dozen fortunes might lie and rot. There were two or three cupboards, into which Mr. Grimstone penetrated with a tallow candle; but he discovered nothing of any more importance than crockery-ware, lucifer-matches, fire-wood, potatoes, bare ropes, on which an onion lingered here and there and sprouted dismally in its dark loneliness, empty ginger-beer bottles, oyster-shells, old boots and shoes, disabled mouse-traps, black beetles, and humid fungi rising ghost-like from the damp and darkness.
Mr. Grimstone emerged dirty and discomforted, from one of these dark recesses, after a profitless search, which had occupied a couple of weary hours.
"Some other chap'll go in and cut the ground under my feet, if I waste my time this way," thought the detective. "I'm blest if I don't think I've been a fool for my pains. The man carries the money about him, – that's as clear as mud; and if I were to search Doncaster till my hair got gray, I shouldn't find what I want."
Mr. Grimstone shut the door of the last cupboard which he had examined, with an impatient slam, and then turned towards the window. There was no sign of his scout in the little alley before the house, and he had time therefore for further business.
He had examined everything in the "Softy's" apartment, and he had paid particular attention to the state of Mr. Hargraves' wardrobe, which consisted of a pile of garments, every one of which bore in its cut and fashion the stamp of a different individuality, and thereby proclaimed itself as having belonged to another master. There was a Newmarket coat of John Mellish's, and a pair of hunting-breeches, which could only have built by the great Poole himself, split across the knees, but otherwise little the worse for wear. There was a linen jacket, and an old livery waistcoat that had belonged to one of the servants at the Park; odd tops of every shade known in the hunting-field, from the spotless white, or the delicate champagne-cleaned cream colour of the dandy, to the favourite vinegar hue of the hard-riding country squire; a groom's hat with a tarnished band and a battered crown; hob-nailed boots, which may have belonged to Mr. Dawson; corduroy breeches that could only have fitted a dropsical lodge-keeper, long deceased; and there was one garment which bore upon it the ghastly impress of a dreadful deed that had but lately been done. This was the velveteen shooting-coat worn by James Conyers, the trainer, which, pierced with the murderous bullet, and stiffened by the soaking torrent of blood, had been appropriated by Mr. Stephen Hargraves in the confusion of the catastrophe. All these things, with sundry rubbish in the way of odd spurs and whip-handles, scraps of broken harness, ends of rope, and such other scrapings as only a miser loves to accumulate, were packed in a lumbering trunk covered with mangy fur, and secured by about a dozen yards of knotted and jagged rope, tied about it in such a manner as the "Softy" had considered sufficient to defy the most artful thief in Christendom.
Mr. Grimstone had made very short work of all the elaborate defences in the way of knots and entanglements, and had ransacked the box from one end to the other; nay, had even closely examined the fur covering of the trunk, and had tested each separate brass-headed nail to ascertain if any of them had been removed or altered. He may have thought it just possible that two thousand pounds' worth of Bank of England paper had been nailed down under the mangy fur. He gave a weary sigh as he concluded his inspection, replaced the garments one by one in the trunk, reknotted and secured the jagged cord, and with a weary sigh turned his back upon the "Softy's" chamber.
"It's no good," he thought. "The yellow-striped waistcoat isn't among his clothes, and the money isn't hidden away anywhere. Can he be deep enough to have destroyed that waistcoat, I wonder? He'd got a red woollen one on this morning; perhaps he's got the yellow-striped one under it."
Mr. Grimstone brushed the dust and cobwebs off his clothes, washed his hands in a greasy wooden bowl of scalding water, which the old woman brought him, and then sat down before the fire, picking his teeth thoughtfully, and with his eyebrows set in a reflective frown over his small gray eyes.
"I don't like to be beat," he thought; "I don't like to be beat." He doubted if any magistrate would grant him a warrant against the "Softy" upon the strength of the evidence in his possession – the blood-stained button by Crosby of Birmingham; and without a warrant he could not search for the notes upon the person of the man he suspected. He had sounded all the out-door servants at Mellish Park, but had been able to discover nothing that threw any light upon the movements of Stephen Hargraves on the night of the murder. No one remembered having seen him; no one had been on the southern side of the wood that night. One of the lads had passed the north lodge on his way from the high-road to the stables, about the time at which Aurora had heard the shot fired in the wood, and had seen a light burning in the lower window; but this, of course, proved nothing either one way or the other.
"If we could find the money upon him," thought Mr. Grimstone; "it would be pretty strong proof of the robbery; and if we find the waistcoat off which that button came, in his possession, it wouldn't be bad evidence of the murder, putting the two things together; but we shall have to keep a precious sharp watch upon my friend, while we hunt up what we want, or I'm blest if he won't give us the slip, and be off to Liverpool and out of the country before we know where we are."
Now the truth of the matter is, that Mr. Joseph Grimstone was not, perhaps, acting quite so conscientiously in this business as he might have done, had the love of justice in the abstract, and without any relation to sublunary reward, been the ruling principle of his life. He might have had any help he pleased, from the Doncaster constabulary, had he chosen to confide in the members of that force; but, as a very knowing individual who owns a three-year old, which he has reason to believe "a flyer," is apt to keep the capabilities of his horse a secret from his friends and the sporting public, while he puts a "pot" of money upon the animal at enormous odds, so Mr. Grimstone desired to keep his information to himself, until it should have brought him its golden fruit in the shape of a small reward from Government, and a large one from John Mellish.