“The fooling has been done by these who started the story that he was murdered,” remarked Bernard.
“One must always be prepared for that—at some stage of a case—among these Irish,” said the resident magistrate. “I’ve only been in Ireland two years, but I know their lying tricks as well as if I’d been born among them. Service in India helps one to understand all the inferior races.”
“I haven’t been here even two months,” said the young man from Houghton County, “but so far as I can figure it out, the Irishmen who do the bulk of the lying wear uniforms and monkey-caps like paper-collar boxes perched over one ear. The police, I mean.”
“We won’t discuss that,” put in the major, peremptorily. “Do you know where O’Daly is?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” answered Bernard.
“Where?”
“You wouldn’t know if I told you, but I’ll take you to the place—that is, if you’ll let me talk to your prisoners first.”
Major Snaffle turned the proposition over in his mind. “Take me to the place,” he commented at last; “that means that you’ve got him hidden somewhere, I assume.”
Bernard looked into the shrewd, twinkling eyes with a new respect. “That’s about the size of,” he assented.
“Hra-m! Yes. That makes a new offense of it, with you as an accessory, I take it—or ought I to say principal?”