“I heard in the town that he was a young man. And, putting one thing and another together, and keeping a still tongue myself, I thought he would serve me as well as the other, and I called——”
“Not much, sir,” answered the valet, a twinkle of cunning in his eye. “The less said the sooner mended. But he understood, and he promised to give me ten shillings a week.”
The curate drew a long breath. This was what he had expected. It was to information which might be drawn from this man that his second scheme had referred. And here was the man at his service, bound by a craven fear to do his bidding—bound to tell all he knew. “But why,” Clode asked suspiciously, a thought striking him, “if what you say be true, are you here now—doing this, my man?”
“I was tempted, sir,” the servant answered, his tone abject again. “I confess it truly, sir. I saw the money in the box here this morning, sir, and I thought that my ten shillings a week would not last long, and a little capital would set me up comfortably. And then the devil put it into my head that the young gentleman would not persecute me, even if he caught me.”
“You did not think of me catching you?” said the curate grimly.
The man uttered a cry of anguish. “That I did not, sir,” he sobbed. “Oh, Lord! I have never had a policeman’s hand on me. I have been honest always.”
“Until you took his lordship’s money,” replied the curate quietly. “But I understand. You have never been found out before, you mean.”
No doubt when people of a certain class, for which respectability has long spelled livelihood, do fall into the law’s clutch they suffer very sharply. Master Felton continued to pour forth heartrending prayers; but he might have saved his breath. The curate’s thoughts were elsewhere. He was thinking that a witness so valuable must be kept within reach at any cost and it did flash across his brain that the best course would be to hand him over now to the police, and trust to the effect which his statements respecting the rector should produce upon the inquiry. But the reflection that the allegations of a man on his trial for burglary would not obtain much credence led Clode to reject this simple course and adopt another. “Look here!” he said curtly. “I am going to deal mercifully with you, my man. But—but,” he continued, frowning impatiently, as he saw the other about to speak—“on certain conditions. You are not to leave Claversham. That is the first. If you leave the town before I give you the word, I shall put the police on your track without an instant’s delay. Do you hear that?”