Jim Sanders, who was discharged and at work again, became quite the lion of the day. He had never been made so much of in his life. Tea here, supper there, ale everywhere. Everyone was asking Jim the particulars of that later night, and Jim, nothing loth, gave them, with the addition of his own comments.
And the days went on, and the ferment and the doubts increased.
CHAPTER XLV
AN APPLICATION
The ferment increased. The arguments in the neighbourhood were worthy of being listened to, if only from a logical point of view. If Rupert Trevlyn had stated that he was going back to the Hold after the proceedings at Barmester; and if Rupert Trevlyn never reached the Hold, clearly Mr. Chattaway had killed and buried him. Absurd as the deduction may be from a dispassionate point of view, to those excited gentry it appeared not only a feasible but a certain conclusion. The thing could not rest; interviews were held with Mr. Peterby, who was supposed to be the only person able to take up the matter on the part of the missing and ill-used Rupert; and that gentleman bestirred himself to make secret inquiries.
One dark night, between eight and nine, the inmates of the lodge were disturbed by a loud imperative knocking at their door. Ann Canham—trying her poor eyes over some dark sewing by the light of the solitary candle—started from her chair, and remarked that her heart had leaped into her mouth.
Which may have been a reason, possibly, for standing still, face and hands uplifted in consternation, instead of answering the knock. It was repeated more imperatively.
Old Canham turned his head and looked at her, as he smoked his last evening pipe over the fire. "Thee must open it, Ann."
Seeing no help for it, she went meekly to the door, wringing her hands. What she feared was best known to herself; but in point of fact, since Bowen, the superintendent, had pounced upon her a few days before, as she was going past the police-station, handed her inside, and put her through sundry questions as we put a boy through his catechism, she had lived in a state of tremor. She may have concluded it was Bowen now, with the fellow handcuffs to those which had adorned Jim Sanders.