And again I saw an incident of this long search, for the man before me, from another angle. The Blackacre Bank had kept the search hot for him, pretending the public welfare. I saw it now, that was Westridge’s money box—that would be little Westridge in the background.
He eyed me curiously in a moment’s pause.
“He kept slippin’ you the word, eh? Well, she blocked him at that, even if she didn’t know it.”
There came a sudden energy into his voice.
“An’ if the plague hadn’t got me I’d ’a’ saved her that trouble; I’d ’a’ played ring-a-round-a-rosy with you.”
He lifted himself in the chair with the strength of his hands on the broad arm-rests. And I realized more fully what a physical wreck he was—the lower part of his body was motionless.
“I want to tell you about this thing,” he said. “And then you can go ahead with your warrant.”
“I fear,” I replied, “that a somewhat higher authority has got in before the King’s writ.”
He chuckled as though the deadly fact were a sort of pleasantry.
“Sure,” he said, “the big Judge has beat you to it.”