"Me? I'm from Arcady,"—Perkins was grinning with sheer joy—"just in th' next county. You know it?"
"The little village of Arcady?" Hector asked, in an uncompromising tone. "I know it well. I thought you were an American."
Perkins looked sheepish.
"No—ah, that's just a—a business nationality, with me. I'm a Canuck, born in Arcady, Ontario. An' I want—if it ain't asking too much, Mr. Adair, I want you to do me a little favour there."
"What is it?"
"My old mother lives there yet, Sergeant-Major."
Hector felt his sternness melting; but he said nothing.
"I wasn't—wasn't always a—a shell-game expert, Mr. Adair. I ran away from home, though, when I was nineteen—more than twenty years ago—I was wild—couldn't stand the apron-strings. Well, for a while I ran straight—an'—my mother, she forgave me, when she heard I was doin' well—an' for a long time I ust to write to her an'—an' tell her, God help me, what a fine feller I was. Then—well I left the straight an' narrow, Mr. Adair, but I couldn't bear to let my mother know, 'cause it 'ud 'a' broken her heart. So' I just kep' on pertendin' I was doin' awfully well. I wrote her a pack o' lies, Mr. Adair, but if she'd known the truth, I guess it 'ud have killed her.
"So all these years I been foolin' her, Mr. Adair. I ain't wrote to her just lately but that wasn't my fault. An' now—well, I want you to help me out, Mr. Adair."
Perkins had fired the one shaft capable of piercing Hector's otherwise impregnable armour. Before Hector left the cell he had pledged himself to go and see the gambler's mother and give her that message from her prodigal son.