“Oh, nothing. Only this morning Rose had a new gold brooch, quite a handsome one.”
Rose is Marion’s maid, a pleasant and I believe efficient girl of agreeable appearance.
“Even if Mr. Power was smuggling,” I said, “it’s exceedingly unlikely that he’d bring in a cargo of gold brooches to give to the servants in the district.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” said Marion. “In fact Rose told me that her young man gave her the brooch. He’s a very nice, steady young fellow with a freckly face and he drives one of the carts for Crossan.”
He must, I suspect, be the same young man who accused Godfrey of being a spy. If so he is evidently a judge of character, and his selection of Rose as a sweet-heart is a high compliment to her.
“He promised her a gold bracelet next week,” said Marion, “and Rose is very mysterious about where he gets the money.”
“As long as he doesn’t steal it from me,” I said, “I don’t care where he gets it.”
“It’s very queer all the same. Rose says that a lot of the young men in the village have heaps of money lately, and I thought it might have something to do with smuggling.”
This is what distracted my mind from the story of the man who murdered Godfrey. I could not help wondering where Rose’s young man and the others got their money. They were, I assumed, the same young men who frequented the co-operation store during the midnight hours. It was, of course, possible that they might earn the money there by some form of honest labour. But I could not imagine that Crossan had started one of those ridiculous industries by means of which Government Boards and philanthropic ladies think they will add to the wealth of the Irish peasants. Besides, even if Crossan had suddenly developed symptoms of kindly idiocy, neither wood-carving or lace-making could possibly have made Rose’s freckly faced young man rich enough to buy a gold brooch. The thing puzzled me nearly as much as did the Finola’s midnight activity.