“Quite so. I am sure you will never regret doing this act of kindness to a poor fellow in trouble.”
“I hope I never may have cause to regret it, but you certainly are a most extraordinary sort of man, and that’s the truth.”
“It will be all right if I succeed in concealing myself so that I may avoid needless exposure. I intend to return to my family to-morrow, and then there will be an end of the business.”
While Charles Peace was concealed in the parlour of the house into which he had so unceremoniously entered, the two detectives ran through the rooms of the Jew’s habitation, but they could not discover any stranger in any of the apartments which Mr. Simmonds opened obsequiously one after the other.
The detectives saw they were at fault, and they assumed an apologetic tone, and expressed their regret at having been so troublesome, stating, at the same time, that they had a duty to perform, and that they were in search of a gentleman who was “wanted.”
The Jew’s son, who had been left in charge of the shop, was a sharp-witted, precocious young gentleman, who, like his father, had an eye to business. He thought it just as well to take the articles, one by one, which his father had purchased of our hero, and place them under lock and key.
In their hurry to secure their man the detectives had forgotten to examine these contraband goods, some of which had the initials of their owner’s engraved on their face.
When Simmonds descended into the back parlour with the detectives, he noticed the absence of the goods from the place where he had left them, but he was by far too prudent a man to make any observation or allude in any way to the subject.
“Good lad,” he murmured to himself. “Ah, he’ll make a bright man—he has cleared all away. So much the better. He’s as good as gold—that’s what he is.”
The detectives remained for some time in the shop, conversing with the Israelite, who thought it just as well to be urbane and conciliatory in his manner.