"We've had word that the government has men on the way. They'll be here to-night or to-morrow, working in cahoots with the fellows across the border. Why, damn it all, Barnes, don't you know who it was that engineered that whole business last night?" He blurted it out angrily, casting off all reserve.
Barnes smiled. "I do. He is a secret agent from the embassy—"
"Secret granny!" almost shouted O'Dowd. "He is the slickest, cleverest crook that ever drew the breath of life. And he's got away with the jewels, for which you can whistle in vain, I'm thinking."
"For Heaven's sake, O'Dowd—" began Barnes, his blood like ice in his veins.
"But don't take my word for it. Ask her,—upstairs there, God bless her!—ask her if she knows Chester Naismith. She'll tell ye, my bucko. He's been standing guard outside her window for the past three nights. He's—"
"Now, I know you are mistaken," cried Barnes, a wave of relief surging over him. "He has been in this Tavern every night—"
"Sure he has. But he never was here after eleven o'clock, was he? Answer me, did ye ever see him here after eleven in the evening? You did not,—not until last night, anyhow. In the struggle he had with Nicholas last night his whiskers came off and he was recognised. That's why poor old Nicholas is lying dead up there at the house now,—and will have a decent burial unbeknownst to anybody but his friends."
"Whiskers? Dead?" jerked from Barnes's lips.
"Didn't you know he had false ones on?"
"He did not have them on when he left me," declared Barnes. "Good God, O'Dowd, you can't mean that he—he killed—"