“Within reach of us?” gasped Bartley.
“That’s why I said you could take it along to Plymouth to-night, if you had a mind to. Drive across with me into King’s Oven under Hurston Ridge an’ borrow a spade or two, an’ I’ll wager you’ll have every pennyweight of the silver in your trap in two hours or less from this minute. Take it or leave it. I’m in solemn earnest; that I swear to. Only this I’ll say: you’ll not find it without me—not if you dig for ever an’ a day. ’Tis safe enough.”
The policemen held a hurried colloquy aside. In Gregory’s mind was a growing suspicion that the prisoner did not speak the truth. But the others believed him.
“What motive should he have to lie about it?” asked Corder, under his breath. “It won’t advantage him if we find nothing. If we do find it, the credit is ours. An’ I sha’n’t grudge his wife her share of the reward, I’m sure. Ban’t even as if ’twas blood money; for that stealing job won’t make any difference to this hanging one. Better let him show us the stuff now. Who be the worse? If he’s fooling us, he’s not helping himself. For my part, I believe him. He’s just come from marrying his wife; an’ ’tis human nature that she should be the uppermost thought in his heart.”
“King’s Oven do lie no more than a mile from here,” said Gregory; “so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t get going. You put in the hoss, Luke. Sooner this job’s over an’ we’m on the Plymouth road again, the better I’ll be pleased.”
Corder spoke to Daniel.
“We’ll fall in with your offer, young man. Show us that stuff an’ your missis shall have her two hundred pounds so soon as the reward is paid.”
“Very well. If you slip a spade and a pick or two in the trap afore we start, ’twill be all the better. An’ a bit of rope, for that matter. Us have got our work cut out,” answered the prisoner. “What they Londoners will say to me for turning traitor, I don’t know; an’ I don’t care now neither,” he added.
“You won’t give ’em up?”