Jump to content

Page:The Copper Box - Fletcher (1923).djvu/173

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

X

Known at the Crown

The various doings of that evening had not been of a nature that conduced to sleep, and I lay awake for a long time wondering about them. Naturally, my speculations chiefly ran on what I had seen in Bickerdale's back parlour. How came Pawley there? What did Parslewe say to Pawley in that kitchen that made Pawley suddenly transformed into a state of almost servile acquiescence in Parslewe's further doings? What was the document that Bickerdale handed over to Parslewe? Had Bickerdale found it during his repairing of the copper box, or had Augustus Weech abstracted it when Madrasia and I left him alone in the parlour at Kelpieshaw? All these questions ran helter-skelter through my brain as I lay there, anything but sleepy, and, needless to say, I hadn't satisfactorily answered one of them when at last I

171