Poor Dibble! When the detective showed him a pair of handcuffs, and charged him with robbery, he burst into tears.
It was as the detective had guessed, a case of sudden temptation. The robbery had been committed just as he had suggested; but there was no thirst for money for its own sake in poor Dibble’s wickedness. For weeks and months he had brooded over his wife’s misfortunes; her taunts had sunk deep into his heart; he was miserable beyond description to think how she had been reduced; and all in a moment this bundle of notes had seemed to offer him and his wife release from their troubles. He had been sent to the bank to change a cheque. The notes were close to his hand; he touched them; nobody was looking; he seized them, and walked out of the bank as he came. Hurrying back to his master’s, he gave the cheque to an under-servant, as though he had not had time to go to the bank, and then after that one bit of cleverness, he made a shambling excuse about an aunt in the country, and left Brazencrook.
Poor Dibble! He did nothing but moan about his poor dear wife,—his poor injured wife.
This smart bit of police detection was destined to lead to more important and startling results than the capture of Thomas Dibble, otherwise we should not have narrated it so circumstantially.
CHAPTER XVI.
“BAL. TO R. T., £300.”
When Dibble was fairly locked up in the Brazencrook station, and Bales had indulged in a quiet joke with the Brazencrook chief, he had the curiosity to examine the roll of notes after Mr. Flooks had identified them.
Two of these notes were new Bank of Englands, and were for £10 each. At the back of one there were some figures in pencil,—a calculation evidently of interest, and the result was carried down at the corner—“Bal. to R. T., £300.” Then the figures had been run through with the pencil, as though the writer had made a simple calculation of moneys on the spur of the moment, and the sum showed a balance of £300 to “R. T.” Who was “R. T.”? Singular that these should be the initials of the man who was murdered at Montem! Mere coincidence thought the detective,—nothing in it; nevertheless, he would see Mr. Flooks again.
“Do you remember whether these notes were paid by the Severntown man in the £300?” said the detective.
“I do not.”
“Yet you identified the bundle easily?”