“If you hadn’t been telling me lies ever since I’ve been in Clonmore,” said Miss Blow, “there’d be some chance of my believing you now.”
“There’s a man going past the door of the hotel this minute,” said Jimmy, “with an ass load of turf that he’s after fetching in off the bog. Will you go out now and ask him did he meet Mr. Goddard on the road? Maybe you’ll believe him when he tells you.”
Miss Blow accepted the challenge. She waylaid the man with the donkey, who proved to be very deaf. She raised her voice and shouted at him. He replied in a low tone. She shouted again, and the man made what seemed a long answer. Miss Blow returned to Jimmy O’Loughlin.
“You’ve told me the truth for once,” she said ungraciously. “That man met the officer a mile out of town on the road to Rosivera.”
Jimmy was generous. He did not attempt to humiliate Miss Blow. He pursued his policy of trying to soothe her. An hour passed. Two hours passed. Even Miss Blow’s anger began to give way to anxiety. What if Mr. Goddard was himself a victim to the mysterious gang which had already made away with seven men? He might have gone the whole way to Rosivera. He might have fallen into some craftily arranged ambush on the road. Fear laid hold on her heart. Jimmy O’Loughlin, who was a little puzzled but not particularly anxious, seized his opportunity.
“It’ll be better for you,” he said, “to go to your bed, you and the rest of the ladies, where you’ll be safe till the morning. You’ll hardly be expecting any other man to be going out into the darkness of the night, risking his life maybe, to satisfy you. Not but what there’s many a one would do it. I’d do it myself if I saw any good would come out of it.”
Miss Blow and Miss Farquharson consulted together anxiously. This fresh disaster had gone a long way towards cowing them. They were not prepared to insist on the sacrifice of more human life. Mrs. Dick wept noisily and unrebuked. Mrs. Sanders became very white and her hands trembled.
“You’ll be safe in your beds anyway,” said Jimmy. “You can turn the key in the door of every room in this house barring the one I sleep in myself, for the lock of it is gone wrong on me, and since poor Patsy Devlin went from us there isn’t a man about the place fit to settle it.”
“Let us go,” said Mrs. Dick, sobbing. “I want to be somewhere at peace. I don’t care—— Oh, poor Richard!”