Edmund Byrle was never caught, and so far as we were concerned, was never heard of; and if it hadn't been for his father, I should never have understood a lot of things that puzzled me. I had given a pretty good guess as to how Miss Doyle came in the first place to inquire about Mr Byrle and the detective; a very clever idea in itself, but like many other clever things, it lost her the game. Mr Byrle had talked with his friends about employing detectives; and Miss Doyle knowing about the Bank paper, and being always on the watch, had got hold of just enough to mislead her. She went out with Edmund Byrle to Turkey, I think, and was married to him; and old Mr Byrle sent out a friend to see them; and it was in this way I got the particulars. It appears she knew me again--only as the limping labourer, of course--when she saw me talking at the ferry to Tilley. But she knew _him_ as the detective at the _Yarmouth Smack_, and she thought that although it might be all right, yet a detective was a dangerous customer, and his acquaintances might be dangerous also. Consequently she tried to persuade Edmund to put off his journey; but he wanted the money for the paper, and wouldn't listen to her. But he agreed at last to go aboard in another boat, which satisfied her, as she felt so certain the skipper's boat would be attacked. As I have explained, her precaution saved him from fifteen years' 'penal,' which is the least he would have had. The skipper was sent for life, having killed a man in his arrest; but he didn't live six months in prison; he never got over the tremendous blow he received from Barney. All the reports spoke of his being a receiver of 'stolen goods.' The Bank paper was never mentioned, for the authorities did not want to unsettle the public again, or let them see what a narrow escape they had had.
And now comes about the queerest part of my story. Call me names if I didn't stop the thieving at Byrle's factory as well as recover the Bank paper, killing two birds with one stone.
It was all through my catching the bony ferryman. Finding that things was going hard with him, and hoping to make them easier, and being disappointed that those who were concerned with him did not come forward with money to provide for his defence, he 'rounded' on them; he split on them all, and owned how he was the means of taking the metal over to a fence on his side of the water, the things being stolen by a mechanic and a watchman who were in league. (I see I have used the word 'fence;' this means a receiver of stolen goods; but though I have been warned by the editor of this magazine, we can't do without _some_ slang words.)