Danger had made Comstock super-cautious, otherwise he might have ruined everything right then and there; for the first thought that occurred to him was that by some stroke of incalculable luck they had stumbled onto still another rebel. But remembering that Bowdler had said that there were only four fellow fighters altogether made Comstock wait for a lead. He said, "Thanks. You've probably saved our lives."
Hands on his narrow hips, the stranger frankly eyed Pat appreciatively. A low whistle preceded his next words, "Put twenty years on you, honey child, and you're going to be a real live doll!"
If this man liked old women, Comstock reasoned, he could not be a fellow rebel. But that made his conduct even more remarkable. Go slow, very slowly and carefully, Comstock brooded, as Pat smilingly asked, "May we know who you are?"
With vast mock-modesty, the man bowed low, and said, "I am known by a variety of names, none of them my own. I am perhaps best known as the Picaroon." Then he waited for them to express surprise and pleasure.
They just looked at him. Slightly crestfallen he rose from his bowing position, and said, almost anxiously, "You've heard of me? The Picaroon? I steal from the poor and give to the rich?"
Comstock turned his head and looked inquiringly at Pat. She was as puzzled as he.
Considerably crestfallen the man said, "The greatest outlaw in all New Australia? The man the R.A.'s would give their left arms to capture?" A frown crossed his face, then he said as though talking to himself, "The dirty rats! They were supposed to write me up, they promised they would, when I got sick and had to become a thief."
Whirling around on tip toe like a dancer, he pointed at the accumulation of odds and ends that crowded the room. "Then what have I been working so hard for? Why have I worked my fingers to the bone stealing ... stealing, out every night when I should be asleep, burglarizing every innocent house I come to? Why, I ask you, why? It's enough to make a man become a cynic, that's what it is!"
Slumping into a chair that was already overcrowded with various objects, he put his head in his hands. A terrifying thought seemed to occur to him. He looked up at them. "If you don't even know who I am, if they aren't even writing up my criminal exploits, what did I go to all the trouble of preparing this Haven for? If they're not chasing me, if there is no danger, how can my cure work?"
"I'm sure I don't know," Comstock said since the man seemed to want some kind of an answer. All the while the thief had been talking, Comstock had been racking his weary brain trying to recollect what illness crime was a cure for. He couldn't remember.