“Well, supposing I was watching them?” I retorted. “I may have had a good reason, and very good reason! What do you say to that?”
He began to shift about the things on his counter, aimlessly. I remained watching him. Suddenly he looked up, nervously, but defiantly.
“You’re not going to get anything out of me!” he said. “I’ve said my say already, and I’ve been warned against such as you.” Then he assumed a sneering look and tone. “Old copper articles!” he flung at me. “You should think shame of yourself coming in on a man with false excuses like that!”
I saw now that there was something, and I gave him a thrust that was intended to go right home.
“Copper is a good word!” said I. “And I wonder if you’ve ever seen or handled an old copper box, a few inches square, with a coat-of-arms engraved on it, and an unusual motto beneath that? Come, now!”
He stood straight up at that, and I knew that he had seen such a thing, and that the two men who had just gone had been at him about it. And having made this discovery, and without another word, I turned on my heel and went swiftly out of the shop, leaving him staring after me.
But if he was bewildered, so was I. What on earth was all this mystery, plainly centring round Parslewe and his copper box? I had walked up the street, turned a corner, and gone far down another street before I remembered my canvas and my train. I turned back, got the canvas, and made for the hotel and the station. And of course, through poking my nose into other people’s affairs, I had missed the train to Alnwick and Wooler, and there wasn’t another until late in the afternoon. So I lunched in the hotel, and idled the time away there—chiefly wondering about this thing. Parslewe—Pawley—White Whiskers—the coppersmith—and that infernal copper box in the middle of them! What was the mystery attached to them and it? Was it fraud?—was it some matter of felony?—was it murder? I was going to tell Parslewe what I had discovered, anyway, and as quickly as possible. But I had to cool my heels until between five and six o’clock, and when at last I walked out on the platform to my train I saw White Whiskers standing at the door of a first-class carriage talking to the man who had gone with him to the coppersmith’s shop. White Whiskers had his bag and his rug in the carriage; I glimpsed them as I passed—evidently, he was going northward by my train, and was, of course, on his way to Kelpieshaw.
I had one of the hotel porters with me, carrying my bag and my canvas, and when he had found me a seat I engaged his attention.
“There are two gentlemen standing at the door of a first-class compartment up there,” I said. “Do you happen to know who they are?”
The man looked, and nodded.