"I would not much mind answering for Jenner myself," remarked Mr. Butterby. "Brown seems all right, too.
"Brown's honesty has been sufficiently proved. Very large sums have passed through his hands habitually, and he has never wronged us by a shilling. Had he wished to help himself, he would have done it before now: he has had the opportunity."
"Then that leaves us back at Hurst again. Where is your objection, sir, to the doubt of him being mentioned to your father?"
A kind of startled look crossed Bede's face: a look of fear: and he spoke hastily.
"Have you forgotten what I said? That the fact of Mr. Hurst's knowing he was suspected (assuming he is guilty) would be attended with danger. Awful danger, too. If it were possible to disclose all to my father, he would forfeit a great deal that he holds dear in life, rather than incur it."
"Well it seems to me that I can be of little use in this matter," said Butterby, turning somewhat crusty. "I have had dangerous secrets confided to me in my lifetime, sir; and the parties they were told of are none the wiser or the worse for it yet."
"And I wish I could confide this to you," said Bede, steadily and candidly. "I'd be glad enough to get it out of my keeping, for I don't know what to do with it. If no one but myself were concerned; if I could disclose it to you without the risk of injuring others you should hear it this next minute. For their sakes, Mr. Butterby, my lips are tied. I dare not speak."
"Does he mean his wife, or doesn't he?" thought Butterby. And the question was not solvable. "I'll look after Hurst a bit," he said aloud. "Truth to tell, I considered him the safest of them all, in spite of your opinion, Mr. Bede Greatorex, and have let him be. He shall get a little of my private attention now. And so shall one of the others," the detective mentally added.
"Unsuspected by Hurst himself," enjoined Bede, a shade of anxiety in his voice.
Could Mr. Butterby have been suspected of so far forgetting professional dignity as to indulge in winks, it might have seemed that he answered by one, as he rose from his chair.