“Nay, Thomas, I don’t mean as I’d any hand in killing him—it were his own doing; but I were mixed up with the matter in a way, and I thought I’d tell you all about it, as you’re a prudent man as won’t go talking about it; and I shall get it off my mind, for it’s been a-troubling me for months past.”
“Go on, Ned.”
“Well, then, it were that same evening, two days afore Christmas-day, I were coming home from my work; and just as I were passing the Railway Inn I sees a bag lying on the step just outside the front door of the public.”
“A what?” exclaimed Bradly, half rising from his seat. “But go on—all right,” he added, noticing the sick man’s surprise at his sudden question.
“A bag,” continued the other. “It were a shabby sort of bag, and I thought it most likely belonged to Ebenezer Potts, for I’d often seen him carrying a bag like it: you know Ebenezer’s a joiner, and he used to carry his tools with him in just such a bag. So I says to myself, ‘I’ll have a bit of fun with Ebenezer. I’ll carry off his bag, and leave it by-and-by on his own door-step when it’s dark; won’t he just be in a fuss when he comes out of the public and misses it! I shall hear such a story about it next day.’ For you know, Thomas, Eben’s a fussy sort of chap, and he’d be roaring like a town-crier after his bag. It were a foolish thing to do, but I only meant to have a bit of a game. So I carries off the bag, and turns into the Green Dragon on my way home to have a pint of ale.
“There was two or three of our set there, and one says to me, ‘What have you got there, Ned?’—‘It’s Eben Potts’s bag of tools,’ says I; ‘I found it lying on the step of the Railway Inn while he went in to get a pint. I shall leave it at his own door in a bit; but won’t he just make a fine to-do when he misses it!’—‘It’ll be grand,’ said one of them, and they all set up a laugh.—‘Let me look at the bag,’ said poor Joe Wright, who’d been staring at it. I hands it to him. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘’tain’t Eben’s bag after all.’—‘Not his bag!’ cries I, in a fright.—‘Nothing of the sort,’ says he; ‘I knows his bag quite well. Besides, just feel the weight of it; there’s no tools in this bag.’—‘Well, it did strike me,’ says I, ‘as it were very light. What’s to be done now? They’ll be after me for stealing a bag. I wonder what’s in it? Not much, I’m sure; just a few shirts and pocket-handkerchers, or some other gents’ things, I dessay.’
“‘Well,’ says another, ‘there’ll be no harm looking, and it’ll be easily done—it’s only a common padlock. Has any one got a key as’ll unlock it?’ No one of us had; so we says to the landlady’s daughter, Miss Philips, who’d been peeping in, and had got her eyes and ears open, ‘Have you got ever a bunch of keys, miss, as you could lend us?’ She takes a bunch out of her pocket, and comes in to see what we should find. ‘There’s a lump of summat in it, I can feel,’ says I, as I was trying to open the padlock. Well, one key wouldn’t do, but another would, and we opens the bag. ‘Nothing but bits of paper arter all,’ says one.—‘You stop a bit,’ says I, and I turns the bag bottom up. Two things fell out: one were a book, I think, and it must have tumbled under the table, I fancy, for none on us noticed it; we was all crowding to see what the other thing was, which were wrapped up in soft paper, and fell on the table with a hard thump. ‘Just you open it, Miss Philips,’ says Joe Wright; ‘it’s better for your lovely soft hands to do it than our rough ’uns.’—‘Go along with your nonsense, Joe,’ says she; but she takes up the little parcel and opens it; and what do you think there were in it, Thomas?” He paused; but Bradly made no answer. “Ah! You’d never guess. Why, it were a beautiful gold thing full of precious stones, such as ladies wear round their wrists.
“Well, we all stared at it as if we was stuck. ‘What’s to be done now?’ says I; ‘this’ll be getting us into trouble.’—‘Put it back, lock up the bag, and take it back to where you fetched it from.’—‘Nay,’ says I, ‘that won’t pay; they’ll lock me up for a thief.’—‘Well, what do you say yourself? I wish we’d never meddled with it, any of us; it’ll be getting us all into a scrape,’ says another of my mates.—‘Shall we bury it?’ says one.—‘Shall we drop it into a pond?’ says another.—‘Nay, it’s sure to turn up agen us if we do,’ says I. So we sat and talked about it for some time, and had one pint after another, till we was all pretty fresh. Then says I, all of a sudden, ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do, if you’ll help me, and I’ll pay for another pint all round,’ (there was just four of us altogether). ‘The express train from the north’ll be passing under the wooden bridge in the cutting a little after ten; let’s put the bracelet, as Miss Philips calls it, back into the bag, and lock it up safe, and then let’s take the bag, and one of us clamber down among the timbers of the bridge, and drop the bag plump on the top of the train. It don’t stop, don’t that train, till it gets to London; so when they finds the bag at the other end, nobody’ll know wherever it came from, ’cos it’s got no direction to it, and we shall get fairly quit of it.’
“It were a wild sort of scheme, and I should never have thought of such a thing if I hadn’t had more ale than brains in me at the time. But they all cried out as they’d join me, so we had t’other pint; and then we put back the bracelet, and stuffed in a lot of papers with it, and locked up the bag as it was afore.”
“And the book?” asked Bradly, eagerly.