had in these parts."

"Perhaps that may be the truth," I laughed. "Just now when the papers
are full of these rogues, anything concerning them must be of
superior interest of course." And I pressed him again to give me a
history of the house and the two thieves who had inhabited it.

"Wa'al," drawled he "'taint much we know about them, yet after all it
may be a trifle too much for their necks some day. Time was when
nobody thought especial ill of them beyond a suspicion or so of their
being somewhat mean about money. That was when they kept an inn there,
but when the robbery of the Rutland bank was so clearly traced to
them, more than one man about here started up and said as how they
had always suspected them Shoenmakers of being villains, and even
hinted at something worse than robbery. But nothing beyond that one
rascality has yet been proved against them, and for that they were
sent to jail for twenty years as you know. Two months ago they
escaped, and that is the last known of them. A precious set, too,
they are; the father being only so much the greater rogue than the son
as he is years older."

"And the inn? When was that closed?"

"Just after their arrest."

"Has'nt it been opened since?"

"Only once when a brace of detectives came up from Troy to
investigate, as they called it."