"Yes, I believe it is. But what do you want to know about it for?"
Then Jack told of his sister's mysterious disappearance, and how she was accused of stealing a knife just like this one.
"Where did you get it?" he asked eagerly.
"Well, I bought it about a week ago, of a woman who brought it into the shop to ask if I could tell her whether it was silver. She had just picked it up as she came across the heath, she said."
"Was she a stout woman, wearing a plaid shawl?" said Jack.
Yet why he asked the question he could not tell, for would it not be a confirmation of Lizzie's guilt, if it could be proved that the woman she was seen leaving the fair with, and the one who sold this knife, were the same person?
The man looked at the lad's anxious face, and said cautiously: "I don't want no bother with the police. If you know anything about the knife, why, I'll let you have it for what I gave for it."
But Jack shook his head to this proposal. "I haven't got any money to spare," he said; "but I should like you to show it to the police, and tell them where you got it."
But the "bother" of having anything to do with the police almost frightened the man, and it was not until Jack had appealed to him, and told him about his father's illness and his mother's despair, that he would consent to lock it up in his desk, and keep it out of sight until he should hear more about the business from Jack by and by.
Then he looked at the lock, and offered Jack employment at once. But the lad explained how he had left home in search of his sister, and could not give up the quest until he had learned something about her. He would stay in the town through the following day, and do a few odd lobs that were ready, and make inquiries as to whether anyone had seen the gypsy vans passing through the town, and which route they had taken.