They were five unset diamonds.
“Well, I’ll be hanged! Did she give them to you?” The manager of the Inn looked suspiciously from the tinker to Patsy.
“No; she didn’t know I had them—didn’t even know they existed and that she was being trailed as a suspected thief. Why, what’s the matter?” For Patsy had suddenly grown white and her lips were trembling past control.
“Naught—naught they could understand. But I’m finding out there was more than one quest on the road to Arden, more than one soul who fared forth to help another in trouble. And my heart is breaking, just, with the memory of it.” And Patsy sank back on the bier and covered her face.
“What is it, dear?” whispered a distressed tinker.
“Don’t ask—now—here. Sometime I’ll be telling ye.”
“Well”—the sheriff thumbed the armholes of his vest in a business-like manner—“I cal’ate we’ve waited about long enough, young man; supposin’ you explain how you come to have those stones in your possession; and why you lied to me about her and sent me hiking off to that country club—when you knew durned well where she was.”
The tinker laughed in spite of himself. “Certainly; it’s very simple. I found these, in a suit of rags which I saw on a tramp the morning you lost the diamonds—and Miss O’Connell. I liked the rags so well that I paid the tramp to change clothes with me; he took mine and gave me his, along with a knockout blow for good measure.”
The manager of the Inn interrupted with an exclamation of surprise: “So! You were the young fellow they picked up senseless by the stables that morning. When the grooms saw the other man running, they made out it was you who had struck him first.”