nodded, and regarded the pin meditatively.
‘Yes, it was his,’ he said.
‘Then wotcher arskin’ me for?’ demanded Ben.
‘I didn’t ask you if it was his, I asked you how you knew it was his. It was in his coat. I expect it must have dropped out.’
‘Well, I don’t want it in my coat!’ declared Ben emphatically. ‘Yer can ’ave it fer a birthday present.’
But the man did not take the offering. Instead he continued to regard it for a few seconds, and then raised his eyes again to Ben’s face.
‘In your coat,’ he murmured. ‘That’s an idea!’
‘Oh! Well, I ain’t ’avin’ the idea!’ retorted Ben. ‘And if yer’ve finished with me, can I go?’
The man made no answer. He seemed to be thinking hard. Suddenly it occurred to Ben that perhaps he was entitled to ask a question.
‘Wotcher kill ’im for, guv’nor?’ he inquired.
‘It was self-defence,’ said the man.
‘Ah—’e went fer yer?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Why?’
‘Let’s say—a guilty conscience. I told you he was a wrong ’un.’
‘Yus. Well, if ’e went fer yer, they can’t ’ang yer.’
‘Thanks for the consolation. But if they’d wanted to hang me, would those bobbies have left me behind?’
‘So they wouldn’t!’
‘Getting wise?’
‘Yer mean, yer a ’tec?’
The man nodded. ‘But even detectives make mistakes sometimes—’
‘Go on!’
‘—and I showed myself a bit too soon. Don’t ask any more questions for the moment. Just stand by. I’m thinking. Maybe—you can help me.’
‘’Ow luvverly!’ murmured Ben.
A new sense of discomfort began to enter into him. He was no longer afraid of this man. He was no longer threatened by either a revolver or the gallows. But he was threatened by something else—something that lurked in the grinning little skull he was holding, and the detective’s last words, and the depressingly likeable quality of the detective’s eyes. He was the sort of man you might easily make a silly fool of yourself for. Yes, you wanted to be careful of him, or you’d promise yourself into a pack of trouble!
‘Got somethink to tell yer, guv’nor,’ said Ben.
‘What?’ asked the detective.
‘I’m a mug. I ain’t no good at ’elpin’.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘Well, see, I knows meself better. The on’y thing I’m really good at’s runnin’ away.’
‘Many a useful man begins by running away.’
‘Yus, but I’ve never stopped.’
‘You’re stopping now.’
‘Eh?’
‘Prove your words. I’m not keeping you. Run away. Pop off!’
‘Lumme, ’e’s doin’ me!’ thought Ben, wretchedly. ‘I toljer ’e would.’
‘You see, I know you better than you know yourself,’ continued the detective, after a pause. ‘I’m quite sure you know how to run away—’
‘I’ll die runnin’!’
‘—but if there’s any solid reason, you stand firm. You used one of my favourite expressions just now. “Stick it out.” Well, suppose I told you that, if you stick this out, you may bring off something that will make all the folk in Scotland Yard touch their hats to you every time you pass—’
‘Go on!’
‘—and that might bring you in, say, a fifty pound note at the end?’
‘’Ere, ’old me!’ gasped Ben.
The detective laughed softly. ‘Listen—I’m going to tell you a little story,’ he said.
‘I’ll bet it’s ’orrible!’
‘But you’d like to hear it?’
‘No. Go on.’
‘The fellow you spoke to and who has just been taken away had an appointment to meet somebody on this bridge between two and half-past. He was going to be identified by his rags and that skull-pin in your hand. I don’t know who the somebody is, but I do know that if I can track him to his source—that’s my present job—I’m on to a big thing.’
‘Yus, but—’
‘Wait till I’ve finished. What I’m going to propose to you is this. The somebody hasn’t turned up yet. Will you wait on this bridge, with that ugly brute of a pin in your coat, at the spot where you spoke to the late lamented, till half-past two—’
‘Late ’oo?’
‘The chap who’s dead. Nothing may happen. In that case the fee will have to be reduced, but you’ll still be on to a fiver for the easiest job you’ve ever had. But something may happen. The somebody may turn up, and be duped by your rags and your pin. In that case—Ben—if you play your cards cleverly and “stick it out,” eh?—the somebody may cart you back to the very source I’m looking for, and you will earn your couple of ponies.’
Ben wiped his forehead.
‘I admit it won’t be pleasant. But there will be glory and cash at the end of it—and, of course, I’ll be following you and looking after you—with this—!’
He raised his revolver again and, with grim and unappreciated humour, directed it towards Ben. Ben ducked involuntarily. An instant later the detective dropped to the ground, a crumpled heap.
Ben stared, stunned. ‘Wot’s ’appened to me?’ he wondered. The thing had been too swift and silent and unbelievable to have occurred outside a suddenly distorted brain. His mind ceased to function. Then he experienced a sensation as though he were coming out of gas. Truth developed out of numbness, and for several seconds he saw nothing, and thought of nothing, but the helpless, limp form of a young man whose eager voice still echoed in his ears, and whose friendly eyes had conveyed him out of terror into human warmth … He looked up to find other eyes upon him. The eyes of a beautiful woman in a dark, close-fitting coat.
She was standing beside a closed car. Had the car slipped up from the
