Curtis sat silent a few moments.
“What you have told me amounts to this,” he then summed up: “you have heard of a man who seems to look like Cyril Jernyngham.”
“It’s as much to the purpose that he acts like him. I’ve told you all I learned about his doings and you can judge for yourself. You knew the man.”
“So do you,” said Curtis pointedly.
Prescott smiled.
“Leave it at that. I want you to find out whether I’m correct or not. You made some inquiries along the new line?”
“We didn’t go far west,” Curtis admitted. “There were difficulties, and we couldn’t see much reason for the search. It was quite clear to me that Jernyngham was knocked out near the muskeg.” He looked hard at Prescott. “It isn’t easy to change that opinion.”
“It seems your duty to test it. Even if the thing costs some trouble, can’t you instruct your people in Alberta to find out whether a man called Kermode worked in any of the construction camps, and if they’re satisfied that he answers Jernyngham’s description, to have him followed up in British Columbia?”
“There’s a point you haven’t got hold of,” Curtis replied. “When you struck a camp, asking after your partner, the boys were ready to talk to you; but it’s quite different when a trooper comes along. I wouldn’t have much use for anything they told him.”
Prescott realized the truth of this. Traveling on foot in search of a working comrade, he had been received by the railroad hands as one of themselves; but he knew that men with checkered careers which would not bear investigation found refuge among the toilers on the new lines, and that even those who had nothing to fear would consider reticence becoming when questioned by the police. The only excuse for loquacity would be the sending of an inquisitive constable on a fruitless expedition.