“The Lord save us!” said old Biddy Halloran. “It’s an afflicted creature you are this day, Mary Devlin.”
Sergeant Farrelly buttoned his tunic and took his cap. He summoned Constable Cole and they marched together down the street towards Jimmy O’Loughlin’s hotel. The crowd, Mrs. Devlin at the head of it, followed them. Constable Cole turned.
“Go home out of that the lot of you,” he said, “and take Mrs. Devlin along with you. The matter is in the hands of the police now, and that ought to content you.”
Jimmy O’Loughlin’s customers deserted him as soon as the noise of Mrs. Devlin’s wailing was heard in the street. He stood alone behind his bar when the police entered the hotel. He greeted the sergeant heartily, for he was a man of good conscience and unaware of any reason why he should dread a visit from the police. He was struck by the solemn severity with which Sergeant Farrelly replied to his greeting, and became vaguely uneasy. The business of a publican is beset with legal snares which only the most fortunate men succeed in avoiding altogether. Jimmy examined himself rapidly, but failed to discover anything in his immediate past which could bring him under the lash of the law. He was quite sure that batch of convivial friends who absorbed a few dozen bottles of porter on the previous Sunday had entered his house unseen. They had certainly entered it cautiously—by the back door, after climbing over a wall into his yard. His mental attitude was that of the people of the town of Bethlehem when the prophet Samuel came unexpectedly among them. They were not conscious of deserving any kind of denunciation, but they were anxious, and said to the great man: “Comest thou peaceably?” Jimmy O’Loughlin might have repeated their exact words, but he had never heard the story, and was therefore unable to quote from it. His face wore an expression of anxious interrogation.
“Did you hear,” said Sergeant Farrelly, “what they’re after telling me about Patsy Devlin?”
“What about him?” said Jimmy cautiously.
“He’s left the town, and deserted his wife and family.”
“Do you say that now?”
“It’s not me that says it,” said the sergeant; “but it’s being said.”
“I wouldn’t wonder,” said Jimmy, “but there might be some truth in it.”