Before the sun was an hour high Prairieville was greatly excited over the news of the burglary at Lakeside and the subsequent arrest of O’Rourke on suspicion of having been concerned in it.
He was, however, speedily at large again, Nolan not being able to swear positively to his identity, and Colonel Bangs coming forward with an alibi in his favor. He made oath that O’Rourke had been with him in his private office at the precise time when he was supposed to have been at Lakeside taking the money from the parlor cupboard.
He (Bangs) had had a fit of wakefulness, and thinking it must be time to rise, had summoned Phelim to light a fire in the office. On looking at his watch, when Phelim came in answer to the summons, he had found it barely three o’clock. Still, feeling sure he should not be able to sleep again, he had his order carried out. The fire was slow to burn, and Phelim did not leave the room till the clock had struck four—long after McAllister and Nolan had given up their pursuit of the burglar and returned to Lakeside.
This testimony, of course, completely exonerated O’Rourke, unless upon the unlikely supposition that Lawyer Bangs was perjuring himself to shield one in whom he had no greater interest than that of a master in his servant. Barney Nolan was, perhaps, the only person who still indulged strong suspicions against Phelim.
There was a grain of truth in the lawyer’s story. He had called Phelim from his bed between two and three o’clock that morning, but it was by an arrangement entered into the previous evening, during a private interview held shortly after O’Rourke’s return from the depot; and without waiting to light a fire at all the Irishman had set out on his evil errand.
After making good his escape from his pursuers (McAllister and Nolan) he gained Bangs’s residence by a circuitous route, and, under cover of the darkness, crept cautiously in at a back door, opened for him by the lawyer himself, who had a few moments before taken his stand beside it, and was waiting there, listening intently for the expected sound of approaching footsteps.
“Ah, at last!” he exclaimed, half under his breath, as his accomplice stepped in. “Don’t breathe so loud if you can help it; some one may be listening. This way—into the office.”
They groped their way through the dark passage into a room beyond, dimly lighted by a smouldering fire. Bangs struck a match and lighted a lamp.
“Won’t it shine out intil the street, sor?” asked Phelim, glancing apprehensively around at the windows.
“No; can’t you see that the shutters are closed and the blinds drawn down? Now, what success? I was never on any former occasion so anxious to have you succeed.”