All the man’s complacency had been shattered by the interview, and he knew that the anodyne of hard work had left the sore in his heart untouched: that the hours he had crowded with plans and projects in the hope of obliterating thoughts of what might have been had been to that extent hours wasted. Yet, though he knew himself maimed and marred by this severance from the woman he loved: though the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice had inflamed every spirit-nerve until the sense of pain was intolerable, he was conscious at the same time of a kind of fierce satisfaction because the pain could not make him writhe. Whatever Nancy had withheld from him she had at any rate given him manliness; and he could hold up his head among other men and walk unashamed.
When he could no longer see her he walked smartly homewards, busying his thoughts with the subject that was never far from them, of Inman’s enmity and Stalker’s attitude of hostility. He had said nothing when Nancy spoke of the conference between her husband and the policeman because there had been nothing to say. Everybody knew that they were taking place, just as everybody knew that Jagger was suspected by the two of knowing more than any other living soul about the robbery. The suspicion was too ridiculous to afford him a moment’s uneasiness. Why should he worry when he had the confidence and goodwill of his neighbours, every one of whom scouted the notion of his dishonesty as a conceit that only the brain of an unfriendly foreigner could entertain?
It puzzled Jagger that so little attention had been paid by the police to the occurrence, and he felt a sense of personal grievance, (though a keener sense of amusement left the grievance without sting), at the thought that their lack of interest and enterprise kept an innocent man under suspicion. No doubt to these townspeople the loss of five hundred pounds was an event of no great moment, but Inman was not to be blamed if he refused to regard it with the same equanimity, and applied himself to the task of which the professional detectives appeared to have tired.
Jagger laughed to himself as these thoughts passed through his mind. “And whilst he’s following this false scent with his precious Stalker,” he said, “the real fox is getting away. The daft fools!”
Then a grimmer smile spread over his face. “He calls me a fool,” he muttered; “but he can’t have it both ways. If I took t’ money I’ve been too clever for them to find it. Seemingly, he thinks better of me than he’s willing to take to. Maybe, he’ll find ’at I’m cleverer than he thinks, for I’ll lay him by the heels yet. He’ll go a bit too far with his underhanded night jobs, I’ll warrant.”
Thus switched back to his own concerns his thoughts naturally returned to Nancy, and the shadow of uneasiness that had never entirely left his face deepened again.
“I’d rather she’d kept out of it,” he said, “but she’s bad to shift when she sets herself, same as most moor-folk; and she’s afraid o’ naught. However, she has her wits about her, and maybe she’ll pull it off.”
CHAPTER XXVI
IN WHICH MANIWEL LETS JAGGER INTO A SECRET
“NOT so bad for an old man, Jagger!” said Maniwel, as he passed a rag with a few last caressing touches over the shining surface of a small bookcase:—“I say, not so bad for an old fellow wi’ one arm! Bear in mind, young gaffer, ’at I’ve glass-papered it, stained and polished it, on my lonesome; and you’ve never put finger to’t. Come over here, Baldwin, and tha shalt be t’ boss and pass t’ job!”