“Why, that there _isn’t_ any such knife.”
“Look here, Wilson,” said Blake, “Tom Driscoll’s right,
for a thousand dollars–if I had it.”
Wilson’s blood warmed a little, and he wondered if he had been played
upon by those strangers; it certainly had something of that look.
But what could they gain by it? He threw out that suggestion.
Tom replied:
“Gain? Oh, nothing that you would value, maybe. But they are strangers
making their way in a new community. Is it nothing to them to appear
as pets of an Oriental prince–at no expense? It is nothing
to them to be able to dazzle this poor town with thousand-dollar
rewards–at no expense? Wilson, there isn’t any such knife,
or your scheme would have fetched it to light. Or if there is
any such knife, they’ve got it yet. I believe, myself,
that they’ve seen such a knife, for Angelo pictured it out with
his pencil too swiftly and handily for him to have been inventing it,
and of course I can’t swear that they’ve never had it; but this I’ll
go bail for–if they had it when they came to this town,
they’ve got it yet.”
Blake said:
“It looks mighty reasonable, the way Tom puts it; it most certainly does.”
Tom responded, turning to leave:
“You find the old woman, Blake, and if she can’t furnish the knife,
go and search the twins!”
Tom sauntered away. Wilson felt a good deal depressed. He hardly
knew what to think. He was loath to withdraw his faith from the twins,
and was resolved not to do it on the present indecisive evidence;
but–well, he would think, and then decide how to act.
“Blake, what do you think of this matter?”
“Well, Pudd’nhead, I’m bound to say I put it up the way Tom does.
They hadn’t the knife; or if they had it, they’ve got it yet.”
The men parted. Wilson said to himself:
“I believe they had it; if it had been stolen, the scheme would have
restored it, that is certain. And so I believe they’ve got it.”
Tom had no purpose in his mind when he encountered those two men.
When he began his talk he hoped to be able to gall them a
little and get a trifle of malicious entertainment out of it.
But when he left, he left in great spirits, for he perceived that
just by pure luck and no troublesome labor he had accomplished
several delightful things: he had touched both men on a raw spot
and seen them squirm; he had modified Wilson’s sweetness for the
twins with one small bitter taste that he wouldn’t be able to get
out of his mouth right away; and, best of all, he had taken the
hated twins down a peg with the community; for Blake would gossip
around freely, after the manner of detectives, and within a week
the town would be laughing at them in its sleeve for offering a
gaudy reward for a bauble which they either never possessed or
hadn’t lost. Tom was very well satisfied with himself.
Tom’s behavior at home had been perfect during the entire week.
His uncle and aunt had seen nothing like it before. They could find
no fault with him anywhere.
Saturday evening he said to the Judge:
“I’ve had something preying on my mind, uncle, and as I am going away,
and might never see you again, I can’t bear it any longer.
I made you believe I was afraid to fight that Italian adventurer.
I had to get out of it on some pretext or other, and maybe I
chose badly, being taken unawares, but no honorable person could
consent to meet him in the field, knowing what I knew about him.”
“Indeed? What was that?”
“Count Luigi is a confessed assassin.”
“Incredible.”
“It’s perfectly true. Wilson detected it in his hand, by palmistry,
and charged him with it, and cornered him up so close that he had
to confess; but both twins begged us on their knees to keep the secret,
and swore they would lead straight lives here; and it was all
so pitiful that we gave our word of honor never to expose them