“I see,” said Spargo. “A good explanation. And when you had beaten the hearthrugs—what then?”
Mollison smiled his weak smile again.
“Well, sir, I looked at that there stick and I see it was something uncommon,” he answered. “And I thinks—‘Well, this Mr. Anderson, he’s got a bundle of sticks and walking canes up there—he’ll never miss this old thing,’ I thinks. And so I left it in a corner when I’d done beating the rugs, and when I went away with my things I took it with me.”
“You took it with you?” said Spargo. “Just so. To keep as a curiosity, I suppose?”
Mollison’s weak smile turned to one of cunning. He was obviously losing his nervousness; the sound of his own voice and the reception of his news was imparting confidence to him.
“Not half!” he answered. “You see, guv’nor, there was an old cove as I knew in the Temple there as is, or was, ’cause I ain’t been there since, a collector of antikities, like, and I’d sold him a queer old thing, time and again. And, of course, I had him in my eye when I took the stick away—see?”
“I see. And you took the stick to him?”
“I took it there and then,” replied Mollison. “Pitched him a tale, I did, about it having been brought from foreign parts by Uncle Simon—which I never had no Uncle Simon. Made out it was a rare curiosity—which it might ha’ been one, for all I know.”
“Exactly. And the old cove took a fancy to it, eh?”
“Bought it there and then,” answered Mollison, with something very like a wink.