This story was too wonderful for me to credit at a moment’s notice, but I thought there could be no harm in getting hold of Benjie. I had pledged my word to him that he was not to appear in the case as a witness; his appearing as a prisoner was quite outside of the bond.
I went to look for Benjie soon after my interview with Pauley, and chanced to meet him coming up a close in the High Street, when he graciously smiled out, and seized hold of my hand to shake it warmly, while he thanked me most heartily for so neatly securing Pauley and Bell. He seemed to look upon the capture as a personal favour done to himself. He was shortly to change his opinion.
“I’ll go up the close with you,” I quietly remarked, turning and accompanying him as far as the High Street. “There are some points in that affair I’m not quite sure of, and I want you to go with me as far as the Office.”
“All right, but I am not to appear as a witness,” he warningly observed.
“No, no, not as a witness,” I assuringly returned, “and, lest anyone should suspect you of peaching, suppose I put one of these on you and take you along on suspicion?”
He looked at me suspiciously, but recovered and grinned out as I snapped the steel on his wrist—
“It’s a good joke,” he said delightedly.
“I don’t mean it for a joke at all,” I said, becoming serious. “Really and truly I am arresting you on suspicion.”
His whole countenance changed, his jaw fell, and for a moment he stopped walking, and looked as wicked as any human being could look.
“You can’t prove anything against me,” he at length answered, moving along with me in apparent confidence. “I can prove a nalibi, as it’s called. I was in Fernie’s public-house in the Pleasance all the afternoon, and was put out there drunk, and lugged into the Office long before the robbery came off. I was drunk, but I knew what I was about, and I know I was never near the Meadows.”