Tommy paid little attention to her kind words, for all his powers were concentrated on the cabman. He watched the man till his very eyes became telescopic, and gloated over the fact that the scrutiny was evidently painful to the suspected one. After the gases were lit his patience was rewarded by seeing the cabman furtively take from under his pillow something in shape of a watch enclosed in a chamois leather cover. The sight was too much for Tommy.
He sprang out of bed, forgetful alike of pains in his back and stiffness of neck, and pounced on the watch with a cry of joy.
“That’s my watch, you plunderer!” he shouted; but to his surprise the cabman resisted stoutly, and stuck to the watch, dealing Tommy at the same time several blows, which sent him reeling back on his bed. The man was big-bodied and strong; such an unequal contest could never be maintained by Tommy; so he snatched up a kind of tin flagon, which stood handily near, and hurled it at the cabman’s head, closing up one of that patient’s eyes and scattering the contents all over his bed. Up sprang the cabman, and the next moment Tommy knew what a real pain in his back meant, for his breast bone had nearly driven the spine out of him through a tremendous blow from his opponent. The din of the battle, the shouts and imprecations, and the cries of the other patients, brought a number of nurses and attendants to the spot; and at length the combatants were torn apart and some explanation offered. Each accused the other of being a dastardly robber in attempting to steal a watch.
The cabman stated his case, and proved beyond question that the watch he held was his own—a silver lever, with his initials engraved on the case. Tommy had then very little to say, except that he had been robbed of a watch, which no one had ever seen, and which was certainly not in his possession when he entered the Infirmary. On the whole, Tommy looked and felt rather foolish, and not even the sympathy of Teddy O’Lacey, who warmly took his part, could quite convince him that he had not done a rash thing. This fear was confirmed when the house surgeon came round and audibly commented on Tommy’s astonishing agility and freedom from pain during the encounter, and ended in saying—
“I’m afraid you’re an impostor and malingerer, but we’ll see to-morrow when the professors come round.”
Morning came, and Tommy was sternly asked whether he would rise and put on his clothes and depart, or wait till a policeman was sent for to assist him from the place. With a deep groan Tommy chose to leave the building unaided. It cut him to the heart to make the decision, for had he not been robbed of the chronometer, and was he not thus putting himself farther than ever from the thief? O’Lacey, the simple Irishman, almost wept in sympathy with him, and hoped they would meet again when Tommy was free from all such persecutions and wicked conspiracies. They wrung hands pathetically, while the cabman, with a bread poultice on his eye, audibly wished that he might be present at Tommy’s execution.
While this affectionate adieu was taking place, I was entering the gate of the Infirmary with no thought of Tommy in my mind, but intending to see a miserable girl in another part of the building. I wished to see this girl, with the chaplain by my side, and had to get that gentleman before going farther. When this had been arranged, we crossed the quadrangle together, so intent on the subject of conversation that, when Tommy appeared before me, I looked him full in the face without seeing him, and should have passed on had he but been as inattentive as myself. He made sure I had come for him, and dashed away down the steps towards the Surgical Hospital. A high wall surrounded the building, covered with iron spikes, and facing the High School Yard. A ladder left by some workmen stood near, and Tommy pounced on that as a godsend, bore it to the wall, and was up like a monkey before I could reach the spot. The ladder was short, and he had to reach up and grasp the iron spikes to hoist himself up. As he did so, the rotten and rusted iron gave way, and down he flopped at my feet with a sprained ankle, a broken leg, and many more pains and aches than he had simulated for the past few days. He was carried into the building, and his leg set, and then I told him to be ready to accompany me as soon as he was able to leave the establishment. He would say nothing regarding the captain’s chronometer; but one of the nurses chanced to speak of the battle, and his strange accusation against the cabman, and I gradually pieced the facts together well enough to clear up all mystifications but one. That was—where was the chronometer?
The cabman had it not; and every other patient and crevice in the ward was searched with a like result. I firmly believed that the chronometer had never been in the place, and that the charge against the cabman was only some eccentric ruse on Tommy’s part to draw our attention from the real hiding-place. I visited him occasionally during his stay in the Infirmary, and at length, when he was able to move, took him with me and had him charged with the theft. But here an awkward circumstance arose, apparently to defeat justice. Captain Hosking had gone off to sea again before my capture of Tommy, and was not returned, so that Tommy’s identification could not be made. There was nothing for it but to remand him, when he kindly came to our help by confessing all that I have put down. But he declared most positively that he had been robbed of the chronometer during his sleep, and, as one of the nurses had been discharged on suspicion of having pilfered from a dead patient, I lost a deal of good time in ferreting after her. She proved to be innocent, having been out of the building on that particular night, and I was left as far from success as ever. A chance remark of Tommy’s about the “simplicity” of Teddy O’Lacey drew my attention to that patient, and one day when I was in the building I walked to the old ward to have a talk with him. He was gone, and his bed occupied by a new patient. I got an outline of his address, and began hunting for him in the West Port. While making this tour through one of the worst rookeries in the place I met a Roman Catholic priest well known to me, and hailed him at once with the question—
“Do you know one Teddy O’Lacey?”
The face of the priest became grave in a moment, and he appeared to me to think well before he answered.