"

All the way back to Great Anvill Street, where Mrs. Price lived, Pickles
danced a hornpipe.

"I've nailed him at last," he said, chuckling and laughing and dancing
all in one breath. "Now to put on the torture screw until he confesses!
Oh Pickles, my boy, _wot_ a treasure you'll prove yerself in Scotland
Yard!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

DELAYED TRIAL.

It is quite true that Pickles had put on the torture screw. Harris felt
exceedingly uncomfortable as he walked home. It was a fact, then, that
Sue had been caught and put in prison. That disagreeable boy had seen it
all; he had witnessed her rapid flight; he had heard her protestations
of innocence; he had seen her carried off to prison. Sue, so good and
brave and honest, would be convicted of theft and would have to bear the
penalty of theft--of another's theft, not her own. What a foolish girl
she had been to run away! Of course, it made her guilt seem all the
plainer. There was not a loophole of escape for her. She was certain to
be found guilty; probably to-day she would be brought before the
magistrate and sentence pronounced upon her. He wondered what magistrate
would try her; how long her punishment would last. Had he dared he would
have attended her trial. But he did not dare. That red-haired boy--that
most unpleasant, impudent boy--would probably be there. There was no
saying what things he might say. He would probably appear as a witness,
and nothing would keep that giddy tongue of his quiet. What a very queer
boy he was, and how strange were his suspicions! When any one else in
all the world would have accepted Sue's guilt as beyond doubt or
question, he persisted in declaring her innocent. Nay, more than that,
he had even declared that the man who had gone with her into the shop
was the guilty person. Harris knew there was no proof against the man.
No one had seen him take the locket; no one had witnessed its transfer
into Sue's pocket. The man was safe enough. No one living could bring
his guilt home to him.

But stay a moment! A horrible fear came over him. Why did that boy speak
like that? He saw Sue running away. Perhaps he had seen more than that.
Perhaps he had come on the platform of events earlier in the narrative.
Harris felt the cold sweat starting to his forehead as it occurred to
him that that awful boy had reason for his talk--that he _knew_ to whom
he was speaking. When Harris took the locket he might have been
flattening his nose again