Mr. Derry got his legs loose at last, and moved to lean against the door, by that rambling action somehow making them all his prisoners of the moment. The room had been crowded before--Captain Jenks made any closed space seem so; now, with Daniel Shawn lean and large in his green coat, and Mr. Derry obscurely grown in stature, the little place was stifling as a shut box. "Who are you, sir?" "Daniel Shawn, seaman. And you?" "I am Malachi Derry, and Constable. Your name was mentioned but now, Mr. Shawn. I understand you dined yesterday evening with Mr. Cory here, at the Lion Tavern on Ship Street?" "Oh, I did that," said Mr. Shawn lightly. "And later, Mr. Kenny, I feared maybe I had presumed, but sir, the boy and I were both at a loose end, you might say, and most pleasant conversation we had, and no harm in it, I hope?" "Oh, none," said John Kenny, groping at something in his mind. "I wish Ben might have let me know, but that's unreasonable of me, for I don't know how he could, seeing I left early for Roxbury. Ben, you had something more to tell?" "Yes, and I'm glad Mr. Shawn is here, for he'll remember it too. There was a man seated at the back of the tavern when Mr. Shawn and I went in, a total stranger, a one-eyed man I'd know again if I saw him, no matter how far away, and--oh, it can't be important, only a feeling I had----" "Now I will judge of that," said Malachi Derry, and came alive, leaning away from the door with the sudden monstrous tension of a cat who has just sighted a wriggle in the grass. "A one-eyed man?" "Ay, a black patch, over the left eye. And the only reason I mention him, sir, is that when Mr. Dyckman and Ball left the place, this man rose at once and followed them out, but until then he had been sitting idle with the flies gathered on his empty trencher, and when I first saw him I had a feeling that he was--oh, waiting for something." Captain Jenks shook his head in grim disgust. "The left eye, Mr. Cory? You are certain?" "Yes, Mr. Derry, the left eye. He was--not the common sort. I'd know him again, anywhere. Shabby clothes, black, patched. Tall, thin, a gray diagonal scar across the back of his right hand, and on his face a mad fixed smile such as I never saw on any man before." "Oh, come!" said Captain Jenks. "May we not have the precise height of this hobgoblin, in inches and fractions?" John Kenny said carefully: "Mr. Derry, I have sometimes walked with Ben in the woods. Though an old man, I did not know until then how much the human eye can grasp." Ben warmed within; he saw Reuben smile as if the small triumph were his own. "You may take it, Mr. Derry, it was the left eye, and with this pencil--catch, Ben!--he can draw you an accurate sketch of the diagonal scar." "No need," said Mr. Derry softly, examining the ceiling, a little relaxed. "I happen to know of mine own knowledge, the description is just." His gaze wandered here and there, and settled on Daniel Shawn. "Did you also see this man?"