He tripped up to Jack, tapped the handkerchief with his wand, and displayed to the eyes of all the dollar he had placed there.
"And now to proceed with the feat," he cried, in his most pompous manner. "We wrap the coin so, and thar ain't no mistake about it. That dollar's thar solid. Yer can hear the tap of the wand. It's thar, and in a moment I'll transfer it to the audience. Now, one, two, three. There she goes."
He waved the wand again, and then caught the handkerchief from Jack's fingers.
"Say, did yer feel it fly?" he asked.
Simpkins's eyes were now on our hero, and for the moment the latter felt as if the constable were a snake whose gaze fascinated him. Jack was almost trembling. In his mind's eye he saw the cell from which he had so recently escaped, that sombre court in which the trial had proceeded, and in the near distance the prison to which he would be sent to spend ten solitary, hopeless years of his life. He could only shake his head to the question.
"Yer didn't feel it fly. But it's gone. Ye're sure of that?"
Jack nodded his head vigorously, while for one brief second he looked squarely into Simpkins's eyes. Did he see suspicion there? Or was that only a morbid fancy? The doubt was terrifying, and to speak the truth Jack Kingsley was at that moment as near to acting foolishly as ever in his life. The impulse was with him to leap to his feet, to jump from the platform, and race away for his life. For there was suspicion in Simpkins's eyes. Every man he regarded while on this special journey upon which the officials had sent him was a suspect, the prisoner who had escaped from Hopeville. Even the same man with the black beard and moustaches who had clambered on to the stage at the call of the conjuror might be the man he was searching for. And in consequence the constable regarded him with a fixed stare, and struck by something, the height perhaps, or some unconscious pose of Jack's, moved a trifle closer. A moment later a movement on the part of Amos arrested further advance.
"Ah, there is no mistake, my friends! That coin is gone, flown, as I said it would. And already I can see it. Pardon me, sir, but you have it."
The wand pointed direct at Simpkins, much to the latter's annoyance. He attempted to move away, but the crowd wedged him in, and, moreover, all eyes were on him. A chorus of laughter greeted his attempt.
"He never made a dollar easier in all his life," cried one of the audience. "Stop him! That ain't his money."