Patsy chuckled. He had nourished a grudge against Jimmy O’Loughlin ever since the election of the inspector of sheep dipping.
“And why will I not?”
“Because the doctor’s gone, that’s why. He’s off to America, and every stick of furniture he owns is gone along with him.”
“He is not,” said Jimmy. “He couldn’t. It was only last night he passed this door, looking the same as usual. I was speaking to him myself, and him on his way home after being out beyond in the bog.”
“It was last night he went.”
“He couldn’t. Sure you know as well as I do there’s no train.”
“There’s the goods that passes at one o’clock. What would hinder him getting into one of them cattle trucks? Who’d see him? Anyway, whether it was that way he went or another, he’s gone. And you may be looking for your money from New York. Be damn! but I’d take half a crown for all of it you’ll ever get.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Jimmy; but it was evident that he was fighting desperately against conviction.
“Go round to the house then yourself and you’ll see. He’s not in it, and what’s more he didn’t leave it this morning, for old Biddy Halloran was watching out for him along the road the way he’d renew the bottle he gave her for the rheumatism, and if he’d gone out she’d have seen him.”
“It might be,” said Jimmy, “that he was called out in the night and didn’t get back yet.”