At this awful threat Patsy made sure that his last moment had come. He was too frightened to speak or cry out, he just lay staring at the broad, red face of his executioner, or as much as he could see of it, for Mr Murphy’s back was half turned on the fire. “Tell him, Patsy,” implored Con, “or he’ll have your life.” Patsy felt the point of the knife tickling his throat. “It’s the jewels!” shrieked Patsy. “Which jewels?” asked Mr Murphy. “Quick now, or the knife goes into you.” “The jewels ould Lady Molyneux’s bringin’ with her worth hundredths of thousands of pounds.” “Who told you of them?” went on Mr Murphy. “Mrs Kinsella, no less; she tould the maids and I was listenin’. Ohone! sure, it’s ruined I am!” “Faith, you never said a truer word, if you don’t tell all you know. Out with it all, before I slits your wizzind.” “Dimonds and em’ralds and all,” cried Patsy. “They say she do be wearin’ them wherever she goes, and she ould enough to be Mrs Kinsella’s mother.” “Where does she keep them at night?” “In a box on her dressin’ table. Mrs Kinsella says she wonders the ould lady hasn’t been robbed before this.” “Faith, she won’t be wondering that long,” said Mr Murphy, who now having got the information he required, closed his knife and put it in his pocket. “Have you been listenin’ to what your nevy told me, Con Cogan?” “I have,” said Con. “Now,” said Mr Murphy, turning to Patsy, whom he had released, and who was sitting up with his hair all towsled and a scared look on his face—“now listen to me, for I’m goin’ to talk bizness. Who locks the big front door at night?” “Mr James, the butler,” replied Patsy. “What’s he do with the key?” “Gives it to the ould missis—her ladyship, I mean, and she puts it under her pilla’.” “Bad cess to her and her pilla’!” grumbled Mr Murphy; “what makes her go mistrustin’ people like that for? Well, now, the windy’s in front of the house: could you be afther openin’ the latch of one of them for me if I chanst to call some night soon afther the family was in bed to inspict the drains?” “Sure, every windy in the front of the house is fixed up with wires,” replied Patsy, “so that if you raised one you’d ring a bell and a gun would go off, and you’d be cocht as sure as sartin.” “Think o’ that now,” said Mr Murphy. He gazed into the fire without speaking whilst Patsy ransacked his mind for more ideas. The front door of Glen Druid was left at night, like most other front doors, bolted and chained with the key in the lock, any one could have opened it from the inside; there were no wires on the front windows except in Patsy’s imagination. Patsy often made blunders in household duties, but he was by no means a fool. “Think o’ that now,” said Mr Murphy, “the suspicions of thim; faith, you might think there were no honest men in the world at all, at all, by the way some people go on. Now, how about the little scullery window?” “That’s been screwed up,” said Patsy, “wid screws the length of your arm.”