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The Hobbit pulled the cap from his head and ran a grubby hand through his hair. Followed close on by him twisting the poor old cap in his hands in a rather nervous manner.
‘Come on, now, Hitch!’ Shiriff Rusty urged. He tapped his foot expectantly on the hardwood floor. ‘You wouldn’t want us to have to be looking to hard at where you might have been and what happenings were going on ‘bout then, would you? Wouldn’t go well, if you were thought to be guilty of holding back our investigation and then found to have had a hand in something on the shady side, too.’
Mungo felt as if he were trapped twixt two snakes. Poisonous snakes. Their eyes fixing him with a hungry look. And it was no help that the ranger had tweaked a smile. He squirmed, feeling much like a coney about to be pounced on.
‘Well, right, then,’ he managed to mumble. He sucked in the corner of his lower lip considering the events of the past night. ‘You see, I was down near Hays End, now, wasn’t I . . . . and that’s when I seen what I did. The boat and those three. It was ‘round midnight, I reckon. And it was a brief look I had at them. I was high-tailing it . . . . er, that is, hurrying, you know, cuz it was going to be a long trip on foot back to Stock. Had some business here that needed to be got to.’
Mungo stopped abruptly, realizing he was heading toward them knowing some unnecessary details. What ‘business’ he’d had hoped to finish at the Inn had most likely been scared off by all this morning’s hubbub anyway.
‘So, there you have it. Don’t know much more than that.’ He settled his cap back on his head and gave a quick look about the room. Nope . . . . no hope of seeing who he needed to be seeing here.
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