“I—I don’t know what to say. Only, when the sheriff arrested him, why didn’t he deny——”
Once more Lon stopped the boy in mid-sentence. “There you go again—forgettin’ Peter ain’t like most folks! It’s where the crooked thinkin’—and the crooked livin’—comes in. The Major’s in a passion, and Peter has jawed back till he’s ’bout as mad himself. Most likely the sheriff can’t make head nor tail o’ what he’s growlin’. And Peter’s got his reputation, and everybody knows he’s made threats against the Major, and one barrel of his gun has been fired. So the sheriff thinks it’s a pretty clear case, and loads Peter in his wagon, and hauls him to the lock-up. By that time Peter, mebbe, has been workin’ his crooked wits. He sees well enough nobody’d believe him just then if he said he didn’t do it, so he doesn’t waste his breath that way. And mebbe, too, he gets a notion the case against him won’t be so all-fired convincin’ when it comes to a trial, the evidence bein’ circumstantial, you see. Perhaps he’s schemin’ for damages for false arrest—and then, all of a sudden, they turn him loose. And so he skulks off, with a grudge against everybody, but a particular one against Sam Parker, Esq., who, he believes, lied about him to save himself. Sense, ain’t it—Peter’s kind o’ sense, that is?”
Sam pondered. “Why—why—perhaps.”
Lon wagged his head sagely. “Wal, I’m tellin’ you, Sam, a grudge is jest the one thing in this life Peter’ll live up to. He means to take it out o’ your hide. Now, when things went wrong about the place, and kept on goin’ wrong, and I saw they weren’t due to your footlessness, I had half a notion some kid might be at the bottom of the trouble. But then I began to miss things from the barn—a spare bit, then a wrench, then a new sponge; and I’ll admit that did sort o’ suggest Groche’s manners. And weren’t you tellin’ me a while ago that one of your crowd figgered it out that no boy could have chucked that boulder through your club-house window? Wal, Groche could ’a’ done it. He’s as strong as an ox, confound him! Come now! Piece it all together, and own up it makes quite a case!”
“Perhaps it does,” Sam admitted.
“But I don’t convince you completely?”
Sam hesitated. “Why—why, I don’t know, Lon. I’ve had a lot of jolts to-day, and I’ve got to do some thinking before I can be sure of anybody.... Or of anything!” he added, after an instant’s pause.
CHAPTER XIX
OF DUELS AND CONSCIENCE
The club received such report as Sam felt free to make of his investigation with interest rather than with regret for its share in the misfortunes of Tom Orkney.
If Sam had told the whole story, including the affair in Marlow woods and Lon’s suspicions of Peter Groche, the crowd, doubtless, would have buzzed with excitement, and, incidentally, felt some sympathy for Orkney; but, given merely new light on the matter of the cap and a revised version of the incident at the pond, the boys, as a rule, fell back upon the declaration that Tom was a “grouch,” anyway, and declined to take to themselves any especial culpability. Somebody had committed the depredations at the Parker place; somebody had smashed the club-house window. Maybe Orkney hadn’t done these things, but wasn’t he a chronic sorehead? Of course, it was hard luck for him to be deemed Little Perrine’s persecutor instead of protector, but the misunderstanding was general and not the particular error of the Safety First Club.