“When I got back, Mr. Kit, you may suppose, all about the door and the hat-brim was gone clean out of my mind, as if it never was there; and I come away home, without a word about it, and never thought of it nother, till I lay awake in bed and heered our own door creak, when father went to spy the weather. But oh, if I had only thought about it, Mr. Kit, perhaps missus mightn’t never ’a been took off!”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
NONE.
At this beginning of my great trouble, I used to be worried, more than common sense would warrant, by the easy way in which other people took my distress, even while I was among them. If anything occurred to make them laugh, they laughed with all their hearts at things, in which I could perceive no joke at all. I dare say they were right, and I was wrong; but I felt that I should not have laughed at all, if the tables had been turned upon them, as I wished they had been. That is to say, if they had been in bitter grief, and I had been standing outside to help them. For the policemen I could make all allowance, because they must get seasoned by their profession, even as the lawyers do; but it did seem a little bit unnatural at first, that some men, to whom I would gladly have lent my last shilling but one, if they had wanted it, should be ready to put their hands into their pockets, not to feel if there was anything there for my good, but to enable them to enjoy a broad grin at leisure, if the least bit of laughable nature turned up. But one thing I will say for the women, there was scarcely so much as a smile among them; they could understand what I had lost, and they knew (perhaps from self-examination) that a good wife is not to be got every day.
The heavy cloud had been pouring down rain in volumes and hail in lines, when with Selsey Bill, and Mrs. Bill, and Polly lagging after us under a broken umbrella, my uncle and myself came to Honeysuckle Cottage and found Sergeant Biggs and Constable Turnover, with their oilskin capes running like a tiled roof, and their faces full of discipline.
“Wouldn’t go inside, gents, till you came; no warrant being out, and no instructions received. Always gets into trouble, when we acts on our own hook.”
We led them inside, for there was broad day-light now, and the cloud began to lift, and the rain came down in single drops, instead of one great sheet. As they stamped about and shook themselves in our little passage, scattering grimy wetness like a trundled mop, I wondered, with a bitter pang, what Kitty would have thought after all her neat work, if she could only have seen this.
“Turnover, you come after me. We makes this inspection together, mind. And what I sees, you sees, and corroborates. Though it ain’t a case of murder, so far as we know yet, we must keep our eyes open, the same as if it was. Everything comes to us, and nothing comes amiss to them that does their duty.”
This sentiment was much admired by Constable Turnover; and my uncle whispered, “Let them do exactly as they like, Kit. They are a pair of fools; but we need not tell them so. We shall have them on our side, at any rate. And if they don’t do any good, they can do no harm. Leave them entirely to their own devices.”
This quite agreed with my own view of the matter. When a crime has been committed, we call in the police, as in dangerous illness we invoke a doctor, for the satisfaction of our own minds, rather than from any hope of being helped. And in the former case, we have this advantage—the thing becomes widely spread, and distant eyes are turned on it.