CHAPTER LXVI.
BESS MAKES A CONFESSION.
George, I want to tell you something.’
George and Bess were sitting upstairs in the little room which they occupied in Heckett’s house. Josh had fallen into a doze, and Bess, who had nursed him devotedly, had stolen upstairs to her husband, for her mind was troubled.
She had been round to Mrs. Jarvis that morning, and Mrs. Jarvis had started off down to the late Squire Heritage’s with a note for Gertie.
The sands of the old man’s life were running fast, and he yearned for the presence of his granddaughter—‘Gertie’s gal,’ as he called her.
Bess had seen the Jarvises once or twice, for hers was not a nature to forget such service as these simple, good-hearted people had rendered her and her husband in their hour of peril.
Mr. Jarvis had emerged from his adventure with the police with flying colours. They were unable to obtain the slightest proof that he had ever thoroughly harboured the runaway, since he had boldly declared that when the detectives had the confounded impudence to come searching for convicts at his residence he had declared they should find one, and so had donned the clothes which he had found in Mrs. Smith’s rooms.
‘Oh,’ said the Inspector, ‘then he was there?’
‘Of course he was,’ answered Mr. Jarvis; ‘the gentleman came to see his wife, but he didn’t stop. I didn’t know as he was a conwick; he didn’t come and say “Guvnor, I’m a conwick,” he dissembled, like willuns always does in the dramer. I thought he was a respectable cove come from a woyage.’
‘Then why didn’t you say he had been at your house when the officer came with a warrant, instead of deceiving him?’