“Then I won’t tell you,” she fiercely answered.
“I didn’t ask you. I mean to find out for myself. You’re such a horse of a woman—I want to see if I can tell by looking at your teeth. Come away, now, like a good soul, open your mouth.”
Pauley turned pale, and Bell closed her lips more rigidly.
“Sha’nt,” she defiantly answered, in a mumble through her teeth.
“Ah, ladies are always shy on that point; I must take you to the Office, and get a crowbar to prize open your jaws,” and I got out my handcuffs to fit one on her, when she suddenly made a desperate gulp, and then turned crimson in the face, and began to wave her arms and kick her legs at a fine rate, gasping, and choking, and sputtering, but failing to get the impediment either up or down her capacious throat. She opened her mouth now without being asked, and the chasm thus displayed was enough to frighten the bravest, but she was so evidently in pain, and urgent in her motions, that I made an attempt to relieve her.
Others tried in turn, but at length we had to send for a doctor, who, with a peculiar instrument—like a long bent pair of forceps—managed to bring out of her throat an Indian gold coin. As soon as I had examined the coin, and made some pleasant remarks thereon, which were very badly received by Bell, I asked for the remainder of the plunder, and not getting it, searched the place thoroughly, when I at last found a small paper parcel tied with a piece of twine, and fastened up inside the chimney with a table fork. In this parcel was most of the plunder, including the old-fashioned watch, which seemed not a bit the worse of its smoking. The landlady was loud in her denunciations of my prisoners, and they were good enough to confirm her protests, by declaring that she knew nothing of the hide. Still all three had to trudge, though the landlady afterwards got off with an admonition. It was the table fork which saved her, for it was proved that she had missed the fork days before, and kicked up a terrible row, accusing one of the lodgers of having stolen that useful article.
The arrest, and the manner in which it had been accomplished, seemed to impress Pauley with a more exalted opinion of my powers. He did not know that it was by a mere chance that I entered at the moment when Bell had the Indian coin in her possession, and seemed to think there was something uncanny about me. That was his first impression. A day or two’s reflection made him veer a little. He had never told the particulars of the robbery to a living being—even Bell had not been so trusted. How then could I have known that he must be the man? That was Pauley’s puzzle, and it led his thoughts insensibly in the direction of Benjie Blunt. He sent for me at last, and asked me point blank if he had been informed on by that worthy. I was a little staggered by the question, and Pauley took me up at once.
“I see it was him that set you on to me and Bell—and there’s nobody else could,” he bitterly continued. “Well, I can be even with him, for I’m not the real man after all. If you’ll undertake to get me off, I’ll put you up to the whole plant.”
I could make no such pledge, but Pauley’s anger was roused, and he had resolved that Benjie should suffer, so he made unconditionally the following statement:—
“That night when the robbery was done I met Benjie in a public-house in the Pleasance. He pretended to be very drunk, but he wasn’t, and I knew it, and wondered what he was after, as I smelt chloroform, and knew he was the only one who could have it about him. He got quarrelsome and broke a glass, and was put out of the place. I didn’t stay long after, as I was curious about him. He went along a street or two pretty drunk like, and then got as sober as a judge, and went out very smart to the cottage at the Meadows. The whole job didn’t last five minutes, and I watched it all a bit off. When he came out again he had a narrow box in his hands, and he went to the dog kennel and pushed the box in below it, and then bolted. I went for the box, and got it, and bolted too, for I was frightened, seeing the servant’s foot in the lobby, and thinking maybe he had given her too strong a dose. I burned the box whenever I got under cover, and hid everything but the money. I heard that Benjie was locked up for being drunk and abusive the same night. He was no more drunk than I am now, but I s’pose he thought he’d be safer in there than out.”