“Into the cell with him,” Halliwell cried, losing patience.
“Leave him to me,” said the sheriff. “I understand the sort of man. Now, Dunwoodie, what were you doing in Tilliedrum?”
“I was taking my laddie down to be prenticed to a writer there,” answered Dunwoodie, falling into the sheriff’s net.
“What are you yourself?”
“I micht be a tinsmith to trade.”
“And you, a mere tinsmith, dare to tell me that a lawyer was willing to take your son into his office? Be cautious, Dunwoodie.”
“Weel, then, the laddie’s highly edicated and I hae siller, and that’s how the writer was to take him and make a gentleman o’ him.”
“I learn from the neighbours,” the policeman explained, “that this is partly true, but what makes us suspect him is this. He left the laddie at Tilliedrum, and yet when he came home the first person he sees at the fireside is the laddie himself. The laddie had run home, and the reason plainly was that he had heard of our preparations and wanted to alarm the town.”
“There seems something in this, Dunwoodie,” the sheriff said, “and if you cannot explain it I must keep you in custody.”