“Who do you think it was, then? Who do you think it was as took your watch an’ your money? Speak out, sir, speak out, if you dare!”
The blood rose in Clifford’s face. The man’s surly, defiant tone seemed to show that he had either some knowledge or some fear of the truth. But again there rushed over the young man an overwhelming sense of shame, which prevented him from being more explicit.
“I have spoken out,” he said, simply.
For a few minutes the men stood silent, each afraid to say too much. Then Claris, as sullenly, as fiercely as ever, beckoned to Clifford to follow him into the inn.
“Come an’ see ’em, come an’ see ’em all. Search ’em if you like,” said he, bluntly. “And look over the house an’ see if there’s a way in it or out of it that anybody could have got in or out by. Come and see for yourself, I say.”
Clifford followed him in silence into the little bar, allowed Claris to point out to him that the window was still barred and had evidently not been tampered with. And so in turn they examined together the windows and the doors of the whole house; and Clifford saw that, unless Claris himself had been in collusion with the thief, no one could have got in from the outside during the night. But then Clifford himself had not suspected a thief from the outside.
As for the persons who had slept in the house that night, George Claris said they were five in number. Himself, his niece, Clifford, the servant whom Clifford had seen in the bar, and old Nannie, a woman between sixty and seventy years of age, who slept in a small room, which was scarcely more than a cupboard, on the ground floor, because she was too infirm to go upstairs.
Clifford made the excuse of wishing to converse a little with the old woman, that he might have an opportunity of examining her hands. They were withered and lean, rendered coarse by field work, and enlarged at the joints by rheumatism. Without a doubt it was not the hand of old Nannie which had taken his watch and purse.
When he left the kitchen, where he and the landlord had thus interviewed the staff of the establishment, Clifford followed Claris again into the road in front of the inn.
“Now,” said Claris, defiantly, “you’ve seen every blessed creature as was in the house last night. Which of them was it as you think took your things?”