"It was for Hurst's sake I spoke," said Bede, in the light of a rather lame apology. "It may suit me to hush it up, even though you tell me he is guilty."
"When you desired me to look after your clerks, and gave me your reasons--which I couldn't at first make top nor tail of, and am free to confess have not got to the bottom of yet--my own judgment was that young Hurst was about the least likely of all to be guilty," pursued the officer, in his calmest and coolest manner. "However, as you persisted in your opinion, I naturally gave in to it, and looked up Hurst effectually. Or got him looked up; which amounts to the same thing."
"Without imparting any hint of my reasons for it?" again anxiously and imperatively interrupted Bede Greatorex. And it nettled the detective.
"I'd like to ask you a question, Mr. Bede Greatorex, and to have it answered, sir. Do you think I should be fit for my post unless I had more 'cute discretion about me than ordinary folks, such as--excuse me--you? Why, my whole work, pretty nigh, is made up of ruses and secresy, and pitching people off on wrong scents. Says I to my friend--him that I sets about the job?--'that young Mr. Hurst has been making a undesirable acquaintance, quite innocent, lately; he may get drawed into unpleasant consequences afore he knows it; and as I've a respect for his father, a most skilful doctor of physic, I should like to warn the young man in time, if there's danger. You just turn him, inside out; watch all he does and all he doesn't do, and let me know it.' Well, sir, Hurst was turned inside out, so to say; if we'd stripped his skin off him, we couldn't have seen more completely into his in'ard self and his doings than we did see; and the result was (leastways, the opinion I came to), that I was right and you were wrong. He had no more hand in the taking of that there cheque, or in any other part of the matters you hinted at, than this pocketbook here of mine had. And when I tell you that, Mr. Bede Greatorex, you may believe it."
A short silence ensued. Bede Greatorex's left elbow rested on the table; his hand, the glove off now, was pressing his temple as if in reflective thought, the beautiful diamond ring on his little finger glittering in the gas-light. His mother had given the ring to him when she was dying, expressing a hope that he would wear it always in remembrance of her. It appeared to Bede almost as a religious duty to obey, though few men hated ornaments in connection with himself, so much as he. His eyes were fixed on the fire; Mr. Butterby's on him.
"Well, Mr. Greatorex, Hurst being put out of the field, I naturally went on to the others. Jenner I never suspected at all, 'twas not him; and I felt morally sure, in spite of his impudence to me, that this time it was not Roland Yorke. Notwithstanding, I looked a little after both those gents; and I found that it was not either of 'em."
"What do you mean by 'this time' in connection with Mr. Yorke?" inquired Bede, catching up the words, which, perhaps, had been an inadvertent slip.
Butterby coughed. But he was not a bad man at heart, and had no intention of doing gratuitous damage even to impudent Roland.
"Oh well, come Mr. Bede Greatorex--a young fellow who has been out on the spec to Port Natal, seeing all sorts of life, is more likely, you know, to tumble into scrapes than steady-natured young fellows who have never been let go beyond their mothers' apron-strings."
"True," assented Bede Greatorex. "But in spite of his travelling experiences, Roland Yorke appears to me to be one of the most unsophisticated young men I know. In the ways of a bad world he is as a very boy."