These thoughts flashed across his mind; were examined and rejected in a moment, for they were speedily followed by a second and better suggestion. Before another minute had passed he was making his way back, at first cautiously, then with increasing speed to the high road and the village.
He had been gone a half-hour before the whistling cry of a curlew was heard from the cliff side, and the two men in hiding lifted up their heads and listened. A moment later it was repeated, more loudly and this time not so successfully, for there was something less of the bird and more of the schoolboy in it—a note of triumph that is missing from the bird’s call.
“What is it?” the detective asked; and Maniwel replied with a similar reproduction of the moorbird’s music.
“He’s fun what he’s after,” he replied. “We might as well get down.”
It was in a recess well above his head that Jagger had found the object of his search. Behind a clump of yew that had secured root-hold in a narrow crevice of the cliff and spread its foliage before a shallow opening in the rock, his hand had encountered something softer than stone or wood; something that proved to be a small leather bag.
It was heavy—eight or nine pounds he judged—and he had a little difficulty in transferring it to his pocket, for the toes of his boots had not much grip upon the inch-wide ledge of rock from which he was stretching upwards, but by and by he found himself on the turf again with the screes immediately below. He was so eager to be down that he sent the loose stones clattering to the river bed like a miniature avalanche, and his father could not forbear a warning cry.
“Steady, lad, steady! You’ll hurt yourself if you fall to t’ bottom!”
“No fear o’ that,” replied Jagger, who was already on the edge of the lower cliff, making ready to descend. “By gen, father, we’ve dropped on it this time. It’s a job for t’ police, right enough—a bag-full o’ brass.”
He was too excited to moderate his voice, and when the old man bade him “Whisht!” he only laughed.
“I care for nobody,” he said. “He can come when he likes now. He’s a deep beggar, is Inman, but, by gen, he’s let himself in for’t this time! It’ll open Stalker’s eyes!”