Patrick Flinders’s usually jovial face had by that time become almost as long and lugubrious as that of Westly.
“I don’t know,” returned Fred, shaking his head.
“My one plan, on which I had been founding much hope, is upset. Listen. It was this. I have been saving a good deal of my gold for a long time past and hiding it away secretly, so as to have something to fall back upon when poor Tom had gambled away all his means. This hoard of mine amounted, I should think, to something like five hundred pounds. I meant to have offered it to Gashford for the key of the prison, and for his silence, while we enabled Tom once more to escape. But this money has, without my knowledge, been taken away and—”
“Stolen, you mean!” exclaimed Flinders, in surprise.
“No, not stolen—taken! I can’t explain just now. It’s enough to know that it is gone, and that my plan is thus overturned.”
“D’ee think Gashford would let him out for that?” asked the Irishman, anxiously.
“I think so; but, after all, I’m almost glad that the money’s gone, for I can’t help feeling that this way of enticing Gashford to do a thing, as it were slily, is underhand. It is a kind of bribery.”
“Faix, then, it’s not c’ruption anyhow, for the baste is as c’rupt as he can be already. An’, sure, wouldn’t it just be bribin’ a blackguard not to commit murther?”
“I don’t know, Pat. It is a horrible position to be placed in. Poor, poor Tom!”
“Have ye had supper?” asked Flinders, quickly.