"Well," said Henry, "that was provoking: but who can foresee every thing all in a moment? I have been worse duped than that a good many times."
Ransome shook his head. "An old officer of police, like me, not to smell a swell accomplice. I had only to handcuff that man, and set him down with me on the shutter, till, in the dispensation of Providence, a bobby came by."
He added by way of corollary, "You should send to London for a detective."
"Not I," said Henry. "I know you for a sagacious man, and a worthy man, and my friend. I'll have no one to help me in it but you."
"Won't you?" said Ransome. "Then I'll go in. You have done me good, Mr. Little, by sticking to a defeated friend like this. Now for your case; tell me all you know, and how you know it."
Henry complied, and Ransome took his notes. Then he said, he had got some old memoranda by him, that might prove valuable: he would call in two days.
He did call, and showed Henry Coventry's card, and told him he had picked it up close by his letter-box, on the very night of the explosion. "Mark my words, this will expand into something," said the experienced officer.
Before he left, he told Henry that he had now every reason to believe the swell accomplice was Shifty Dick, the most successful and distinguished criminal in England. "I have just got word from London that he has been working here, and has collared a heavy swag; he says he will go into trade: one of his old pals let that out in jail. Trade! then heaven help his customers, that is all."
"You may catch him yet."
"When I catch Jack-a-lantern. He is not so green as to stay a day in Hillsborough, now his face has been close to mine; they all know I never forget a face. No, no; I shall never see him again, till I am telegraphed for, to inspect his mug and his wild-cat eyes in some jail or other. I must try and not think of him; it disturbs my mind, and takes off my attention from my duties."
Ransome adhered to this resolution for more than a month, during which time he followed out every indication with the patience of a beagle; and, at last, he called one day and told Little Hill had forfeited his bail, and gone to Canada at the expense of the trade; but had let out strange things before he left. There was a swell concerned in his attempt with the bow and arrow: there was a swell concerned in the explosion, with some workman, whose name he concealed; he had seen them on the bridge, and had seen the workman receive a bag of gold, and had collared him, and demanded his share; this had been given him, but not until he threatened to call the bobbies. "Now, if we could find Hill, and get him to turn Queen's evidence, this, coupled with what you and I could furnish, would secure your man ten years of penal servitude. I know an able officer at Quebec. Is it worth while going to the expense?"
Little, who had received the whole communication in a sort of despondent, apathetic way, replied that he didn't think it was worth while. "My good friend," said he, "I am miserable. Vengeance, I find, will not fill a yearning heart. And the truth is, that all this time I have been secretly hoping she would return, and that has enabled me to bear up, and chatter about revenge. Who could believe a young creature like that would leave her father and all her friends for good? I made sure she would come back in a week or two.