“I knew the step, sir,” said Purkis, “and I could see the figure turn all round at once, sir, without moving its head; and then, in my lair, I watched and watched with my heart beating fierce, for I knew that the time was come for me to vindicate innocence, and to—to—er—er—wait Mr Ruggles, sir. And I did wait, Mr Ruggles, sir, till I heard the church-door shut softly, when all was so still that I couldn’t help thinking it might be fancy.”
“And it was fancy, Mr Purkis, wasn’t it?” exclaimed Tim, eagerly.
“No, sir, it warn’t fancy,” said Purkis, austerely, as he waved Tim back with the slipper. It was all true as true; and I slapped my knees and rubbed my hands, and then I looked up towards the old organ and nodded at it; for I thought of the vally of what I’d found out, sir, to a good man, and no end of a family of children. And then, when I thought I’d waited long enough not to be seen, I went and knocked up Mr Timson, our churchwarden; fetched him out of bed, for it was one o’clock and past; and when he got down to me in his dressing-gown, he began a bullying me like anything; for he thought, you know, I’d come boxing with my Christmas-piece.
“But, ‘gently, sir,’ I says; ‘don’t be rash—don’t be hasty.’ ‘Hasty!’ he says: ‘I’ll report you to Mr Grey. Get out, sir, you’re drunk: I can smell rum here.’ ‘And a good thing, too,’ I says, ‘for keeping cold out when you’re watching poor-boxes at night in a empty church?’ ‘What?’ he says, ‘what did you say, Purkis?’ he says. For answer, sir, I laid a finger solemn-like against one side of my nose, and looks at him out of the corners of my eyes. ‘Purkis,’ he says, ‘Purkis: you don’t mean as you have found it out?’ ‘But I do, sir,’ I says; and then I told him all, and he begged my pardon; and then, if he didn’t go into fits of delight, hopping about ‘I always said as it wasn’t Pellet,’ he kept on saying. Then he danced round the room, with his little bare legs popping out of the bottom of his dressing-gown, and he slapped me on the back over and over again. ‘Poor old Pellet!’ he says; ‘I’m glad: out and out glad!’ Then he called me a trump, which, though it was well meant, didn’t sound respectful to a man in my position in life, and beadle of St Runnle’s for all the years as I’ve been.
“But I didn’t show no temper, sir, for he meant well, as I said before; and he gets out something in an ugly little bottle, as he poured into two of the wretchedest little glasses you ever see; but when you come to taste it, my! it was just like what he called it; ‘gold water,’ he said it was, and he chuckled and danced as he poured it out. ’Pon my word, sir, it was like swallowing melted sovereigns.”
Tim groaned, but remained patient and motionless.
“Then, sir,” continued Purkis, “I went away a happy man, promising that I’d be with him next morning—no, it wasn’t, though, it was the same morning—to run down with him to see the vicar, as was in the country.
“‘Do you mean to report me, sir?’ I says. ‘Don’t be a fool, Purkis,’ he says. ‘I want you to tell him with your own lips.’”
“Tell him what, sir?—tell him what?” said Tim, piteously.
“That I’d seen—”