“It wouldn’t take long neither,” returned Jagger significantly. “There’s only one in this village ’at’s as clever as the devil himself, and as black-hearted; but he’ll go a step too far one o’ these days.”
“Sure enough! Them ’at dig pits are like to fall in ’em. If it goes on much longer, lad, we shall have to watch.”
“Aye, but it’s more’n a man can do to work all t’ day and watch all t’ night. Let him be!” Jagger spoke as if the anticipated pleasure of seeing Nemesis at work outweighed all the grievous afflictions which were but for a moment.
Certainly the succession of trifling mishaps that had at first half-amused, half-enraged the village and had latterly aroused a large measure of resentment, had been conceived and carried out with such impish ingenuity as to convince a small minority that the culprit must be one of a gang of rough lads from Kirkby Mawm who were well-known to belong to the devil’s household brigade of mischief-makers. It was hard to believe that any grown man would take pleasure in changing the labels on the Drakes’ oil-cans as they stood on the cart in the carrier’s shed ready for despatch, so that the man who was waiting for boiled oil found himself supplied with linseed, and the farmwife whose stock of paraffin had run out stamped her foot in wrath when thick lubricating oil began to pour from the neck of the tin. After that, of course, the carrier boarded up his shed; but he might have saved himself the expense for the rascal was too wise to return upon his tracks.
It looked a lad’s trick, too, when the door at the Grange which Maniwel had painted white was seen in the morning to be covered with soot and the sweep’s bag lying on the ground a few yards away: when Farmer Lambert’s new cart was dragged from the Drakes’ painting shed during the night and its coat of gorgeous scarlet ruined by the rain which had fallen in torrents. There was some division of opinion, I repeat, on the question of authorship; but there was none on the market value of Police Constable Stalker as an officer of the law, which it was unanimously agreed could hardly be lower.
Whether or no Inman was aware that he was regarded with suspicion by any of his neighbours he bore himself at this time with a detached and contemptuous air that was his best defence; and he offered a simple explanation of each mishap as it occurred that always drew a waverer or two to his side.
“Just another piece of blooming carelessness,” he would say with a shrug of the shoulders. “They’re both of ’em half-asleep most o’ their time.”
The subtle poison worked, if only slowly; and even those who were well-disposed to the Drakes and ready to lay the charge at Inman’s door began to wonder if it was quite safe to entrust their jobs to a firm whose operations were attended with such bad luck. Fortunately Mr. Harris remained their constant friend, and work had never yet been scant.
In the policeman Inman found a staunch ally. Every hint that was dropped by the crafty plotter with a sportive humour that concealed itself behind a mask of cynical unconcern was accepted and acted upon by Stalker as if it had been a divine revelation. Nothing, of course, could have served Inman’s purpose better; and he controlled the constable’s movements to an extent that would have surprised the sergeant, who was kept in blissful ignorance of these trifling occurrences. Stalker had no qualms of conscience because he was quite certain that he was on the track of a criminal, and that with Inman’s unobtrusive help he would one day lay his hands upon him. For this reason the coldness or abuse of the villagers made as little impression upon him as their scorn. He was a dull and easily-befooled officer; but he had learned that if the law moved slowly, it also moved majestically, and he could bide his time. He accepted the suggestion of his prompter that these mishaps to the Drakes were all arranged by Jagger himself to throw dust in his eyes and divert his attention from the weightier matter of the robbery; and he was determined to take good care that the device should not succeed.
All this, of course, was not known to the Drakes; but both father and son had a shrewd suspicion of how matters stood, though their attitude towards the suspect differed materially. When Jagger said, therefore: “Let him be!” the look that accompanied the injunction was more expressive than the words.