“When’s the wedding coming off?” bantered Mr. Dobb.

Mr. Clark started violently and said something reprehensible about Mr. Dobb’s inquisitiveness.

“What—is it all off, Sam?” teased Mr. Dobb.

“It are!  Not that there was any real chance of it ever being on, but—but—”

He shook his head dolefully and added an unkind aspiration with regard to Mr. Joseph Bindley’s future state.

“Why, what’s ’e to do with it?”

“Heverything!  Mind you, I was never fool enough to think that a girl like ’er—well a woman like ’er, then,” he amended, in deference to Mr. Dobb’s startled exclamation—“that a woman like ’er would ever take to a old chap like me.  I admit I was romantical, but—but one never knows, do one?”

“You might ’ave been ’er ideal, Sam,” conceded Mr. Dobb.  “As you says, one can’t ever know for sure.”

“Of course, if ever I’d got to know ’er properly—” said Mr. Clark.  “I did once fetch a cab for ’er,” he went on, smiling pathetically at the happy memory.  “And she thanked me and give me thrippence.  At least, she sent it out to me with ’er thanks.  I ain’t ever spoke to ’er, reely.  And now that ’ere Bindley—”

He stopped emotionally, and then again voiced an uncharitable interest in Mr. Bindley’s eventual destination.

“Yes; but what’s Bindley to do with it?” asked Mr. Dobb.  “This is a free country, ain’t it?”

“You’ll ’ave to promise to be nothing more than a brother to ’er, after all, Sam,” said Mr. Dobb, with an unsympathetic levity which caused his companion to stare at him in a wounded way and then stalk offendedly on.

Mr. Dobb, resuming his way, reached his abode, and sat down in an arm-chair to indulge in meditation.  At the end of twenty minutes he leaped to his feet.

“Good enough!” he cried, joyously.

Mr. Marmaduke Bellaby, sauntering abroad on the morrow, found himself met by Mr. Dobb.  In this there was no novelty, nor was there in their consequent adjournment to the “Royal William.”

“And ’ow did the show go last night?” asked Mr. Dobb.

“Great, laddie, great!” returned the other, though not entirely convincingly.

“’Ave a crowded haudience?”

Mr. Bellaby regarded Mr. Dobb quizzically.  “Well, we didn’t exactly have to turn them away from the doors,” he confessed.

“I know,” said Mr. Dobb.  “I ’appened to look in later on.”

“What for?”

“Been like that all the week,” gloomily said Mr. Bellaby.

“Well, that could be haltered,” observed Mr. Dobb sagely.  “I got a idea.  Do us both good, it will.”

“What’s the scheme?”

“Lose ’er jewels,” whispered Mr. Dobb, mysteriously.

Mr. Bellaby, with a superior smile, stigmatized the suggestion as both stale and threadbare.  To this Mr. Dobb replied that, elaborated according to the notion he had in mind, the artifice would none the less prove successful.

“Mind you, it’s quite time we did something,” frankly conceded Mr. Bellaby.  “Talk about frosts!  She was saying to me only yesterday that if things didn’t improve—  Of course for my own sake, I’d like things to improve, but what can one do?  We’d all like to hit on something good.  But as for losing her jewels, my dear old boy—oh, my dear old boy!”

“Never mind if they did start the idea in the year dot,” retorted Mr. Dobb.  “The Shore’aven public ain’t too used to the idea to sit up and take notice, anyway.  She’s got plenty of jew’l’ry to lose, ain’t she?  For myself, I never ’eard anyone rattle quite so much on the stage as she do.  Of course, we knows it ain’t real, but—”

“It’s such an old, old scheme, though, laddie,” objected Mr. Bellaby.

“Well, let’s hear, anyway,” said Mr. Bellaby.

“It begins with ’er ’aving ’er jew’l’ry stole.  That’s to say, you arrange things with ’er, and brings the whole lot down to me secret.  Well, next thing, you plasters all over the town a full list of the missing jewels, except, of course, there’s no need to use the word ’himitation.’”

“Of course not,” agreed Mr. Bellaby.

“You ’eads the bill ‘One ’Undred Pounds Reward,’ promising that to anyone assisting in the recovery of ’er jewels.  And you lets the town study that ’ere bill for a day or two.  And then a chap brings the jewels to my shop and tries to get me to buy ’em.”

“Eh?”

“’E can’t read print,” explained Mr. Dobb, with a wink, “so ’e don’t know about them bills.  I charges ’im with ’aving stolen ’em, and am just going to send for the police, when ’e clears out in a ’urry, leaving the jewels with me.”

“Ah, now I see!” observed the other.

“Hexactly.  I’ve ’ad ’em all the time.  Well, I now applies for the reward.  The affair ’as got into the papers, and every one’s talking about it.  There’s a special performance, where she wears all ’er recovered jew’l’ry, and you ’ave me up on the stage and ’and over the reward to me—simply a bit of blank paper in a henvelope, of course, but I get a little publicity and she gets a lot of publicity, and—”

“Not at all bad,” commended Mr. Bellaby.  “You being a local man, it looks much more genuine.”

“In course it do.  That’s just the idea.”

“Why, that’s just where you miss the best part of it!” urged Mr. Dobb.  “When that chap runs out of my shop, the jewels is spilled all over the place.  If you like, ’e ’alf stuns me too, to prevent persoot.  I know one or two safe chaps what can be passing a minute or two after it’s supposed to ’ave ’appened, and they can ’elp gather up the jewels and bathe my fore’ead and so on.  ’Ow’s that for a yarn for the ‘Shore’aven Gazette,’ eh?  Why, it’s as good as a play in itself.”

Mr. Bellaby, critically examining the project in all its facets, came at last to the warmest agreement as to its merits, and there followed a period of undertones.  Then, to demonstrate his zeal in her cause, Miss Delafayne’s manager straightway departed to set the scheme before her, and Mr. Dobb ordered himself a drink, which, before he consumed it, he waved at his reflection in a mirror.

In a short while Mr. Bellaby buoyantly returned.  He told Mr. Dobb that Miss Delafayne had been suffering very severely indeed from her artistic temperament when first he had broached the subject to her, but he had left her in the sunniest and most compliant of moods.  Mr. Joseph Bindley, too, it seemed, was thoroughly convinced of the merits of the scheme, and had directed that his name, as proprietor of the theatre, should figure in conjunction with Miss Delafayne’s as offerers of the reward.

Mr. Dobb, returning home a little later with this packet under his arm, was hailed by Mr. Tridge from the latter’s doorway.

“What you got there, ’Orace?” asked Mr. Tridge, curiously.

“A order for a glass shandyleary,” replied Mr. Dobb and passed on with lightsome step.

That same evening the town of Shorehaven found itself furnished with material for thrilling gossip, for scarce a thoroughfare was there that did not exhibit somewhere adown its length the tally of the jewels that the talented lady temporarily living in their midst had had the misfortune to lose.  In front of every printed handbill, with its fascinating heading of “£100 Reward,” there lingered an absorbed group, reading amazedly of ropes of pearls, and large and small diamond brooches, of valuable rubies, and rare metals.  The manner of their disappearance, and the scene whence they had vanished, were details tactfully left vague, so that the ends of publicity were further served by this opportunity to speculate whether the noted absent-mindedness of genius or mere criminal avarice were responsible for the lady’s loss.

And then one afternoon Mr. Horace Dobb sent a dictatorial and even arrogant message to Mr. Joseph Bindley, demanding that gentleman’s attendance at the little shop in Fore Street at once.  Mr. Bindley, a gentleman plain of speech and blunt of manner, went immediately to Mr. Dobb to ask him what he meant by such a message.

“I got a glass shandyleary what belongs by rights to the ceiling of your theayter,” returned Mr. Dobb, equably, “and I want to sell it to you.”

Mr. Bindley, as became a man who had attained the position of theatrical proprietor, heatedly gave his opinion of such impertinence and strode to the door.

“Ain’t you rather mixed up with me to act so ’aughty?” asked Mr. Dobb, in civil accents.

Mr. Bindley halted and swung round to stare at Mr. Dobb.

“Don’t you get trying to play any tricks with me!” he warned Mr. Dobb.  “We’ve got a understanding, and you stick to it, and I stick to it, and there’s an end of it!  I don’t want no ’anky-panky!”

“Thirty-five quid—that was what I was going to ask for that shandyleary,” mentioned Mr. Dobb.  “Only I’ve ’ad a lot of hincidental expenses with it lately, so I’m asking thirty-eight now.  And it’s worth it—well worth it.  You ’ave a look at it, and you’ll say so, too.  It’s a bargain.”

“What’s the game?” said Mr. Bindley, aggressively.  “What are you trying on—a sort of blackmail?”

Mr. Bindley, snorting, laid his palm on the handle of the door.

“They tells me Miss Delafayne ’as got a dooce of a temper,” observed Mr. Dobb, irrelevantly.

Mr. Bindley plucked open the door and marched out.  Five yards away he halted and came back again to the threshold.

“What’s that got to do with it?” he demanded.

“It’s a lovely shandyleary,” declared Mr. Dobb.

“To blazes with your shandyleary, and you too!” bawled the choleric Mr. Bindley.  “Why don’t you speak straight out?”

“Just what I’m going to,” answered Mr. Dobb; and abruptly abandoned his pose of suavity.  “Look ’ere, Bindley, I’ve got you tied up tight!  See?  ’Ere, glance at that little notice on the wall there.  ‘Strictly Business!’ that says, don’t it?  Well, that’s my motter.  I’ve been planning to sell you that shandyleary, and I’m going to.”

“Huh!” scornfully returned Mr. Bindley.

“Huh-ing or no huh-ing, I’m going to!  You can’t ’elp yourself.  You’ve been trying a bit of artfulness with the public over them lost jewels, so you can’t squeal if some one else tries ’is artfulness on you.  Fust of all, you don’t mind admitting I’ve got that parcel of coloured beads and brass, do you?  Suppose I goes and calls in the first ten chaps I meet outside and tells ’em ’ow that jew’l’ry come into my ’ands?  That would make you look pretty foolish, wouldn’t it?”

“I could say you stole them.”

“I could say he stole them, and you were the receiver.”

“Yes, so you could,” agreed Mr. Dobb; “and we wouldn’t ’alf ’ave a chatty time in the dock explaining ’ow it all really came about.  They wouldn’t overlook your trying to deceive ’em, as you ’ave done, in a ’urry.”

“So, I’m to buy the shandyleary to prevent the truth coming out, am I?” said Mr. Bindley, not without admiration.  “It’s pretty smart, but not smart enough.”

“You’ve been smart enough in your time, from what they tells me about you,” returned Mr. Dobb.  “You ought to be smart enough now to see you’re cornered.  Why, I’ve got you any number of ways.  I could sue you for the reward, for example, if I went about the thing carefully.”

“Well, couldn’t I deny they were the jewels?  They won’t agree exact with the description, you know.”

“Ah, I thought you might say that!  That’s my trump card.  You say they ain’t ’er jewels?  Very well, I hexibits the ’ole jolly collection in the very front of my window, and pastes the reward bill over ’em, and writes a paper beside ’em what says: ‘These jewels ’ave been found and ’ave not been claimed by anyone.  They are all false, and Miss Margureety Delafayne says they ain’t ’ers.’  That’ll start people putting two and two together, won’t it?”

“Let ’em!” cried Mr. Bindley, forcefully.  “Before ever I’ll be blackmailed out of—”

Mr. Bindley, his complexion of a fine purple hue, stood staring at Mr. Dobb.

“It’s a dirty trick!” he gasped at last.

“Dessay,” said Mr. Dobb.  “We’ve all got to live.”

“And if—if I was fool enough to buy your confounded shandyleary, how do I know you wouldn’t diddle me again?  You might keep some of them jewels back and—”

“Not a bit of it,” said Mr. Dobb, quite eagerly.  “I’d be glad to ’ave finished with such trickery on the public.  You give me a cheque for that shandyleary, and you can take the jew’l’ry away with you when you go, if you like.  You’ll know it ain’t safe to stop the cheque, because that would lead to all sorts of hinquiries, and—”

“I shouldn’t dream of giving you a cheque.  You’d blackmail me again over that, some’ow.  But I’ve got some notes on me—”

“Forty quid?” asked Mr. Dobb, urbanely.  “That’s the price up-to-date, you know.”

“Where’s the shandyleary?” growled Mr. Bindley.

“Downstairs in my cellar.  And ’ere’s the jew’l’ry.”

“All of it?”

“You compare that with the list and you’ll find there ain’t a thing missing,” he said, tying up the parcel again and returning it beneath the counter.

“Well, let’s see the shandyleary,” grunted Mr. Bindley, with ill grace, “and maybe I’ll offer you a price for it.”

“Spoke like a sensible man!” declared Mr. Dobb.  “It’s in three parts.  I’ll carry ’em up.”

Elatedly he tripped down into his cellar.  He was just about to pick up the nearest portion of the chandelier, when a sudden anguish assailed him.  With an anxious cry he ran back up the stairway again.  The shop was empty.  Mr. Dobb darted behind his counter.  The parcel was gone.  He raced out into the roadway, and was rewarded with a view of Mr. Bindley, the parcel tight-clutched beneath his arm, rapidly retiring down the perspective.

Mr. Dobb opened his mouth to shout, then blinked and became thoughtful.  And, at long last, he made a helpless, fluttering gesture with his hands and retired forlornly into his shop.

That same evening Mr. Clark, in a state of considerable jubilation, came to see him.

“I’ve ’ad a bit of luck to-day!” babbled the stout ferryman.  “I met ’er face to face, and I’m cured!  Why, close to, she’s nearly ’alf as old as I am!  Bindley was with ’er, and that’s what I come to see you about, to see if you can hexplain the mystery.  He saw me ’anging about the corner, as usual, and ’e asked me if I’d do a little job for ’im, seeing as ’e reckoned to ’ave a busy time before the hopening of the theayter.”

“Well?” sourly prompted Mr. Dobb.

“Ah!” commented Mr. Dobb.

“But that ain’t the mystery.  Then ’e give me another bob and a ’eavy little parcel to be left at the stage-door.  It was addressed to Miss Margureety Delafayne, and on it was written in pencil, ‘From one ’oo repents.’  Now, seeing ’e was with ’er at the time, what did ’e want to send that there parcel to the theayter for?  And what did that bit about repenting mean?  Can you see any sense in it?”

“No,” said Mr. Dobb, churlishly and untruthfully.

Mr. Horace Dobb sharply closed the tattered volume which had been occupying his leisure, and looked up as if something were momentarily dazzling him.  And next he removed his slippered feet from the mantelshelf and very slowly and carefully described an arc with his heels until he was sitting erect in his chair, alertly yet contemplatively, and also with a suggestion of breathlessness, in the manner of one who is visited by an inspired idea.

For a full minute Mr. Dobb remained thus, and then he rose and shuffled out into his shop.  Here he opened a cupboard to take from it a small metallic object.  Returning to his parlour, he placed this object on the table, and it stood revealed as a posturing figure of tarnished brass, ostensibly Oriental in origin.

And now for a long, long while Mr. Dobb stared at this figure in deep meditation, with his eyelids twitching and flickering impatiently when, now and then, he found that his inventiveness had stampeded him into some mental cul-de-sac.  And then he began to pace the narrow confines of the room, walking in a tense, rigid way, as though his thoughts were so delicately balanced on each other that the slightest disturbance of their equilibrium would send them scattering uselessly in all directions.

“Green heyes and all, just like it says in the book,” he remarked, enigmatically.

And with that he bundled the idol back into its cupboard, and set forth to confabulate with Mr. Peter Lock at his place of employment.

The hour happily being that usually devoted to siesta, Mr. Dobb found Mr. Lock quite alone at his post in the billiard-room at the “Royal William Hotel.”

Mr. Dobb at once put to Mr. Lock a direct question.

“Well, I don’t know,” murmured Mr. Lock, reflectively.  “There’s two or three of ’em.  ’Specially at billiards.  But, on the whole, I should say that Sinnett is.  Come to think of it, I’m pretty certain he is.  I don’t know where you’d find a bigger, anyway.”

“Ah, but does ’e think ’e’s smart?” asked Mr. Dobb. “That’s the kind of mug I’m after.”

“He’s the sort what’s so busy thinking about his cleverness,” replied Mr. Lock, “that he don’t have a moment to spare for finding out what a fool he really is.”

“That’s the sort what’s good for trade,” declared Mr. Dobb, appreciatively.  “’E’s just the kind of chap I’m needing.”

“What’s the game this time?” asked Mr. Lock.

“Why, that’s a old, old plot,” said Mr. Lock, disparagingly.  “You’re losing your dash, ’Orace.  Fancy you having to go to books to learn anything!”

“P’r’aps it’ll be a noo enough plot so far as this ’ere Mr. Sinnett is concerned,” observed Mr. Dobb, unruffled.

He tarried some while longer in intimate discussion with Mr. Lock, and then departed to interview another member of the translated crew of the obsolete “Jane Gladys,” in the plump and venerable person of Mr. Samuel Clark, the ferryman.

Mr. Clark, perceiving the advent of Mr. Dobb, came forward to greet him with marked expectancy.

“Sam, do you know a chap called Sinnett—Mr. George Sinnett?” queried Mr. Dobb.

“Squeaky voice, leather gaiters, nose like a fox?” sketched Mr. Clark.

“That’s ’im.”

“Know ’im?  I ’ate ’im!” stated Mr. Clark.

“Just as well,” sagely remarked Mr. Dobb.  “Nothing like a bit of feeling to make a man sincere in his hefforts.”

“Meaning—”

“Why, this ’ere Sinnett is the next down on our list, Sam,” announced Mr. Dobb.  “’E’s down for a Hindian hidol—fifteen pounds.”

“And us?” quickly asked Mr. Clark.

“’Alf of it between the three of you,” promised the master-mind of the confederacy.  “I can hafford to be generous.  It only cost me three-and-six.”

“Brummagem?” next inquired Mr. Clark.

“And Sinnett’s going to pay fifteeen quid for it?” raptly cried Mr. Clark.  “Oh, ’appy day!  A dozen times ’ave I ferried ’im across, and never so much as a a’penny for a tip!  And then ’e ’ad the sauce to say that the fare ought to be less at low tide, because the distance ain’t so far!”

“Never mind,” said Mr. Dobb, “everything comes to ’im ’oo don’t mind laying low for a bit.  What’s ’is ’ouse of call, do you know?”

“The ‘Flag and Pennant’ yonder, when ’e ain’t trying to play billiards at the ‘Royal William.’”

“Another thing,” mentioned Mr. Dobb.  “’Ave you got any old scars or wounds on you?”

“There’s this old cut on the back of my ’and, what I done that night I was shaving in the fo’c’sle when Alf Runnett come down and tickled me, playful, because ’is gal ’ad gone off with some one else.”

“Just right,” said Mr. Dobb, examining the cicatrice; and forthwith adopted a preceptory attitude towards the stout ferryman.

Mr. Clark, at the end of ten minutes of instruction, asked a few questions to dispel one or two uncertainties of mind, and then professed a complete trust in his ability to carry out Mr. Dobb’s directions.  Mr. Dobb, after satisfying himself by something in the nature of a rehearsal that Mr. Clark’s confidence was well founded, then passed on for the purpose of seeking an interview of connective interest with Mr. Joseph Tridge, fourth member of the confederacy established long ago in the bowels of the inglorious “Jane Gladys.”

“Never mind!” passionately remarked Mr. Clark.  “I’ll get me rights yet!  Fair’s fair, ain’t it, Sinnett?”

Mr. Sinnett turned and regarded the ferryman with considerable coldness, for Mr. Clark was presumptuously flinging a bridge across a well-defined social space.  Mr. Sinnett, noting that the ferryman was a little glassy of orb and rather reckless about the disposition of his legs, frowned unencouragingly and looked away again.

“Fair’s fair!” again asserted Mr. Clark, dogmatically.  “’Im and me was both in it, and that’s what I got for a start-off!  Look!”

Mr. Sinnett aloofly disdained the invitation, and next became aware that the back of a huge hand was floating to and fro a few inches below his nose.

“You look at that afore it slips!” directed Mr. Clark, forcefully.  “See that scar?  That’s what I got for my share.”

“Indeed,” said Mr. Sinnett, not quite comfortably.

“In-blooming-deed!” asserted Mr. Clark.  “Just as I was climbing over the railings of the temple.”

“Temple?  What temple?” asked Mr. Sinnett puzzled.

“Ah, I ain’t such a fool as to tell you that!” vaunted Mr. Clark.  “But the nigger on guard gave me a lick across the back of the ’and with ’is sword, and—  My chum got away all right, though.  At least, ’e was my chum in those days.  But now—”

Mr. Clark concluded his sentence with a deep-throated snarl, eloquent of hatred, contempt, and smouldering fury.

“Ah, it’s a sailor’s life for fun and hadventure!” cried Mr. Clark; and uttered a few tuneful roulades bearing upon his statement.

“’Ere!” he said, ceasing suddenly to be lyrical and leaning forward to address Mr. Sinnett in a kind of large confidence.  “There’s people fool enough to think that I’m ’anging about Shore’aven just to work the ferry!  They thinks that, they do.  Let ’em, says I.  So much the better.”

“Well, what are you doing here?”

Mr. Clark bent a little further forward and impressively tapped Mr. Sinnett on the knee.

“’E’s ’ere!” he whispered.

“He?  Who?”

“Why, the chap I’ve been telling you about.  The chap ’oo ’elped me to steal the hidol out of that sacred temple.  Run away with it, ’e did, but I been tracking ’im down all these years, and now I’ve found ’im!  And if he ain’t got that hidol still—”

“Valuable, is it?” asked Mr. Sinnett, intrigued.

“Can’t say.  ’Im and me only sneaked it for a lark, only them niggers took it so serious.  It don’t look vallyble, any’ow.  Just a fat thing with a fat face and a couple of bits of green glass for heyes.  ’Tain’t as if it was made of gold, as you could see at a glance.  There wasn’t ’alf a outcry when we took it, though.  After us, they was, for ever so long, and we ’ad to—to take to the jungle to give ’em the slip.  And then, one night while I was asleep, my chum took the hidol out of my pocket and ’ooked off with it.”

“And you followed him?” asked Mr. Sinnett, with lively interest.

With a species of incredulous annoyance at his own garrulity, Mr. Clark stopped abruptly and rose from his chair.

“You been letting me say more than I ought to!” he remarked, severely.

“Oh, no!” returned Mr. Sinnett, smoothly.  “Why, you have not even told me the name of—”

“No; and I ain’t going to, neither!” truculently interrupted Mr. Clark; and marched from the apartment.

“Queer!” murmured Mr. Sinnett.  “Very queer!”

A little later in the evening that gentleman, directing his course homeward by accustomed paths, came to a length of quiet, ill-lit thoroughfare, and here he found himself beholding the unusual.  For, in the very middle of the roadway, he could clearly discern two men, who grappled earnestly with each other, swaying this way and that in furious embrace, and yet preserving an eerie and almost complete silence.

For some moments, Mr. Sinnett viewed this phenomenon in amazement, and then he hurried forward.  His advent appeared to alarm the antagonists, for, as soon as he drew near, they parted.  One of them, presenting a stout figure tolerably familiar to Mr. Sinnett, ran clumsily away down the road; the other man, breathing exhaustedly, stood fumbling at his collar in a dazed way.  Mr. Sinnett, peering at his features through the gloom, discovered him to be the man who kept the Magnolia Toilet Saloon, one Mr. Joseph Tridge, to wit.

“What’s the game?” demanded Mr. Sinnett.

“Wasn’t that the ferryman?”

“Eh?” cried Mr. Tridge, guiltily.  “No—oh, no!  It wasn’t ’im.  It wasn’t anybody you’d know.  It—it wasn’t anybody I know!”

“But I’m certain—  Did he attack you sudden?  Why didn’t you call for the police?”

“We—we’d rather not ’ave the p’lice mixed up with it.  It’s a—a private affair.  I—I’m all right now.”

Mr. Tridge then stumbled dizzily against the other man.

“Here—here!” cried Mr. Sinnett, in concern.  “Why, man, you’re shaking all over!  Here, take my arm and lean on me.  The ‘Cutlass and Cannon’ is quite close; you’d better have something there to pick you up and pull you together.”

Mr. Tridge lurched again, most convincingly, and Mr. Sinnett, with many encouraging remarks, began to lead him towards the tavern he had named.

“All the same,” muttered Mr. Tridge, hazily, “’e—’e didn’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“Oh, nothing—nothing!  I—I wasn’t thinking.”

A minute or so after they reached the “Cutlass and Cannon.”  Here Mr. Tridge, with obvious effort, forced himself to a normal deportment, thus escaping the curiosity of the few patrons present in the tap-room.  Under direction of Mr. Sinnett, he sat down in a quiet corner, and soon, under the influence of his companion’s prescription, became quite animated.  A second potion having been swallowed, and a third ordered, to make quite sure that the required dose should lack nothing in strength, Mr. Sinnett coughed delicately and addressed Mr. Tridge in winning accents.

“Did I tell you it was the ferryman?  I never meant to.”

“Oh, well, you did!  But there’s no harm done.  A secret is a secret with me.  Same as I shan’t tell anyone,” continued Mr. Sinnett, watching his companion very closely, “that what he was after was an Indian idol.”

Mr. Tridge started violently. “’Ow did you know that?” he asked.

“Why, you told me so yourself.  Don’t you remember?” returned Mr. Sinnett, with a disarming smile.

“No; I—I don’t remember.  My ’ead was going round and round, and—  Well, I am a mug!”

He raised his glass and emptied it.  Mr. Sinnett, eyeing him with intensity, immediately had the measure refilled.

“After all,” said Mr. Tridge, defensively, “it’s as much mine as ’is!”

“Quite,” readily agreed Mr. Sinnett.  “Oh, quite!”

“’E tried to serve me a dirty trick,” said Mr. Tridge, placing an argumentative forefinger on Mr. Sinnett’s necktie, “and I served ’im one instead.  See?  That’s fair, ain’t it?”

“Certainly,” acquiesced Mr. Sinnett, with a straining quality of helpfulness underlying his tone.  “Fair is fair, all the world over, of course!”

“Clear as clear.  When your mind’s made up, it’s made up.”

“That’s me,” accepted Mr. Tridge, complacently. “Follered me all over the place, they ’ave and hoffered me any amount of money for it.  But I ain’t a wobbler.  What I says I sticks to.  See?  Let’s ’ave another!”

“Yes, let’s,” agreed Mr. Sinnett, eagerly.

“Tried to steal it off me, them niggers ’ave,” said Mr. Tridge, disdainfully, after the rites consequent on a further libation had been observed.  “But I’m a match for them any day.  And they talks about sticking me next time they come across me.  Let ’em try that on, that’s all!”

“But why do you think they are so anxious to get it back?  What do they want to—”

“Hidol!” sagely returned Mr. Tridge, with an explanatory wave of his glass.  “What they says their prayers to.  Sort of—sort of marscutt, you know.  You know, if you ’ad a marscutt and you lost it, ’ow everything ’ud seem to go wrong for you?  Not that it’s brought me much luck.”

“Perhaps these niggers you spoke of was at the back of it?” suggested Mr. Sinnett.

“Maybe,” said Mr. Tridge, with sublime carelessness. “There was always a nigger around whenever things went wrong, anyway.  But I’m a British seaman, I am, and I don’t take no notice of niggers.  See?  And I’m surprised as you should, either!”

“I—I wasn’t thinking,” apologized Mr. Sinnett. “But tell me—do you think perhaps the idol is valuable?”

“You ought to see it!” he cried.  “Just a figger of fun made of brass, with bits of green glass for eyes.”

Mr. Sinnett sat vigilantly upright.

“Oh, but are you sure they are glass?” he asked.

“Why, what else could they be?” returned Mr. Tridge.

“They—they might—” began Mr. Sinnett, and then checked himself.  “Er—quite so,” he ended, belatedly.  “What else could they be?”

Mr. Tridge, carelessly flicking the question out of the range of further consideration, now stated that he felt quite recovered from the attack that had been made upon him, and earnestly besought Mr. Sinnett to maintain silence as to the incident, if for no other reason than for the good repute of the Magnolia Toilet Saloon.

“I been wild in my time,” confessed Mr. Tridge, “but I don’t want folks to think that I’m the rough character I used to be.  See?  And now good-night, and thank ’ee.”

He steered for the door.  Mr. Sinnett, with a kindly smile, insisted on accompanying him.

“You—you might be took bad again,” he urged, linking arms with him.  “I’ll come your way and see you safe home.”

“’Ullo, where did you spring from?” he asked, dully.

“I’ve been seeing you home,” replied Mr. Sinnett, in benevolent accents.

“Like your cheek!” grunted Mr. Tridge.  “Ne’ mind!  Jolly good fellow!  Mush ’bliged!  Goo’ night!”

He opened the door, and was passing over the threshold, when Mr. Sinnett addressed him a little desperately.

“Ain’t you—ain’t you going to ask me in?” he queried.

“No!” said Mr. Tridge, flatly.  “You leave me ’lone!”

“I—I’d like to have a look at that idol you was talking about.  Just—just see it, you know.”

“Hidol?” exclaimed Mr. Tridge, staring about him alarmedly.  “What hidol?  I don’t know nothing about no hidol!”

“Oh, but you’ve been telling me—”

“I ain’t never seen no hidol, not nowhere!” declared Mr. Tridge.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!  Hidol, hindeed!  ’Ere,” he quavered, “’ave I been fool enough to—  But that’s all right!  I know I ain’t—I’ve only jus’ met you this very minute, and I ain’t ’ad time to.  Well, goo’ ni’, old chum!”

He leered owlishly upon Mr. Sinnett, shook him by the hand, and lurched most realistically over the threshold.  Quietly he shut the door, and instantly all inconsequence of manner vanished from him.  He stood to listen to the slow, receding footsteps of Mr. Sinnett, and at that moment the two gentlemen exhibited exactly the same exultant expression of countenance.

“We got ’im!” remarked Mr. Tridge to himself, with vast satisfaction.

For the ensuing portion of the week, Mr. Sinnett’s everyday pursuits suffered neglect, for that worthy had apparently conceived an obsession to have either Mr. Tridge or Mr. Clark continually under observation.  And so for each of several mornings he entered the Magnolia Toilet Saloon and sat him down on the bench where those waited who required Mr. Tridge’s professional services.

Here Mr. Sinnett would become so engrossed in the newspaper that he would waive his turn for attention till he was the only patron remaining.  And when he had no further pretext for lingering, he would be shaved, and then go off to the ferry, where he would be needlessly rowed across the ferry and return by that conveyance almost immediately.

And in the afternoon he would find that he had need of toilet soap, or a bottle of hair-oil, and he would repair to Mr. Tridge’s establishment to procure such article, making the matter of purchase as protracted a business as possible.  And then he would saunter down to the ferry and, alleging that sea air was good for him, be taken several consecutive journeys across the river under the impulse of Mr. Clark’s sculls.

But never a word was there spoken of an idol of any sort.  Twice or thrice Mr. Sinnett had broached Imperialism as a topic of conversation, being thus enabled to allude to India in a natural, unforced way.  But mention of that empire had instantly caused both Mr. Tridge and Mr. Clark to look suspicious and markedly avoid any development of the subject, so that Mr. Sinnett had to travel warily back, by way of Canada and Australia and New Zealand, to shallower waters.

And, for their part, Mr. Tridge and Mr. Clark bore the partiality of Mr. Sinnett for their society with nothing but a nice air of gratitude for patronage.  Not once did either of them make allusion to that recent evening when they had shown him something of the inner side of their confidence.  And Mr. Sinnett was glad that this should be so, for clearly, he argued, it showed that the conversations had had no abiding place in their memories.  Wherefore, then, he cultivated their company, waiting for a chance word to swell the bulk of his secret information and give him assistance in turning this knowledge to his own profit.

“Ever seen a cat waiting outside a mouse-’ole?  That’s ’im!” Mr. Clark privately reported to Mr. Horace Dobb.

“A bit of waiting don’t do no ’arm,” said Mr. Dobb, sagaciously.  “The more time ’e spends the less ’e’ll like to think that it might ’ave been wasted.”

So that it was not till one evening in the middle of the following week that Mr. Sinnett was thrilled by a further unwinding of the spool of adventure.

“No, Mr. Tridge ain’t been in here yet, sir,” Mr. Lock replied.  “In fact, I was just wondering whether you’d come across him anywhere.  There’s been some one inquiring very eager after him since you was here a hour ago.”

“Who was it—that ferryman?”

“No, sir; a dark gentleman.”

“A—a nigger?” exclaimed Mr. Sinnett.

“Well, yes; except that he was dressed quite respectable,” acquiesced Mr. Lock.  “Oh, very respectable indeed.  He looked as if he might be pretty well off at home.”

“Did he say he wanted to see Tridge important?”

“Very important, so he said, sir.  He said something about only just having managed to find out where he was, and about a boat sailing back almost immediate.”

“Um-m-m,” commented Mr. Sinnett, and thoughtfully began to stroke his chin.  “Did he—did the nigger say where he was stopping, or anything like that?”

“No, sir.  I told him where Mr. Tridge lodged, and—”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that!”

“No, sir?  Why not?”

“Oh, because—”

Mr. Sinnett, without furnishing the explanation, stopped short, for Mr. Tridge had just entered the room.  Conspicuously bandaged was Mr. Tridge’s right hand, and a huge asterisk of sticking-plaster decorated his left cheek.

“How?” further inquired Mr. Sinnett.

“With a knife,” said Mr. Tridge.

“Whatever was you a-doing of, sir?” asked Mr. Lock.

“What the devil’s that got to do with you?” roared Mr. Tridge.  “You shut up and mind your own business!”

“Sorry, sir,” humbly apologized Mr. Lock.  “By the way, sir, there was a dark gent inquiring for you.”

“I know,” said Mr. Tridge, curtly.  “I met ’im!”

And now the door opened, and the visage of Mr. Clark stared round it.  Vengeful and gloating was the stout ferryman’s face, and he nodded with malevolent satisfaction at Mr. Tridge.

“Ah, ’e told me ’e ’ad!” he cried.  “Good luck to ’im!”

“You get out!” shouted Mr. Tridge, passionately.  “Else I’ll serve you like I did ’im!”

“Pooh, ’e was only shamming!” retorted Mr. Clark. “’E got up again and walked away soon as you’d gone.”

“Well, shut up, anyway!” ordered Mr. Tridge, with a warning scowl.  “Don’t you think you’ve said more than enough already?”

“Them?” said Mr. Clark, glancing carelessly at Mr. Sinnett and Mr. Lock.  “They don’t know nothing.”

“Oh, well, ’e didn’t get it, anyway!” declared Mr. Tridge.

“’E’ll get it all right in the end,” prophesied Mr. Clark, darkly.  “You mightn’t get off so lucky next time.”

“Not if you deals fair by me,” said Mr. Clark. “P’r’aps he won’t, then, not against the two of us.”

“I’ve told you I ain’t sharing, once and for all!” bellowed Mr. Tridge.

“All right!” growled Mr. Clark.  “You’ll be sorry.  I could tell you something if I liked.  Made me sit up when I ’eard it, anyway.  Look ’ere, I give you fair warning—in future it’s either to be me and you, or me and ’im!  Take your choice.  Anyway, after what I’ve learnt to-night, I’m going to be in it, some-’ow!”

“Nothing doing!” announced Mr. Tridge, stoutly.

“All right,” said Mr. Clark, in the most sinister fashion.  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

He withdrew.  Mr. Tridge began to whistle a little flatly, as though unaware of the absorbed gaze bent upon him by the other two men present.

“Reminds me—letter to post!” ejaculated Mr. Sinnett, suddenly; and followed after Mr. Clark, in a state of the keenest excitement.

Mr. Clark had proceeded but as far as the tap-room of the “Royal William,” and here Mr. Sinnett unostentatiously took up a strategic position in the chair next to him.  For some while Mr. Clark displayed an introspective moodiness, sipping at his refreshment and nodding his head with the same grim air of determination.

But presently he turned towards Mr. Sinnett, and, after eyeing him cautiously, addressed him in the gruff tones of one determined to check any unnecessary extension of talk.

“’Ow much is hemeralds worth?” he asked.

“That’s what I said,” observed Mr. Clark, surlily.  “Hemeralds.  You know, them green stones.”

“It—it depends.”

“I see,” said Mr. Clark, and pointedly turned his shoulder to Mr. Sinnett.

“How—how big are they?” ventured Mr. Sinnett.

“Both of ’em are a pretty fair size,” said Mr. Clark.  “But it don’t matter.  I—I was only just wondering.  See?”

He brought his back even more deliberately into Mr. Sinnett’s cognizance, and the conversation ended.  And, a few minutes after, he quitted the room with so ungenial an air that Mr. Sinnett had not the courage to accompany him.  And he found Mr. Tridge was gone from the billiard-room, so that there was nothing left for Mr. Sinnett to do but to retire home to spend a night of fitful slumber.

Early next morning did he enter the Magnolia Toilet Saloon, drawn thither by an irresistible desire to keep abreast of every development in this affair which so tantalizingly suggested personal profit without indicating the means thereto.

“Morning, sir!” said Mr. Tridge.

“Morning!” returned Mr. Sinnett.  “I just looked in to see how those wounds of yours are getting on.”

“Oh, they’re all right,” said Mr. Tridge; and added, in the casual tones of heroism, “Matter of fact, it was a bit of a scrap.  And, what’s more, I ’ad another one after I left you last evening.  Only, of course, I don’t want you to talk about ’em.  It won’t do this ’ere saloon no good.”

“And—and the second scrap?”

“Burgle you?  Who was?”

“Why, that—oh, just a couple of chaps.  I ’it out at ’em, and they closed with me.  In the end,” concluded Mr. Tridge, modestly, “they was both glad enough to jump out of the window.”

“Well, well!” breathed Mr. Sinnett.

Mr. Tridge smiled, and then broke into chuckles.

“It’s rather a joke,” he said.  “I don’t mind telling you something, if you promise you won’t repeat it.”

“Oh, I promise!” cried Mr. Sinnett, readily.

“Well, they was after something that wasn’t there at all!  Mind you, they thought it was!  It was something I’d ’ad for a long time, and they was very anxious to get it.  Many and many a try they’d ’ad for it.  But I wouldn’t let ’em ’ave it.  The first scrap last night—that was one of their hattempts.  Any one might think it worth ’undreds of pounds, the way they keeps on trying.  But it ain’t.”

“Isn’t it?” asked Mr. Sinnett, in strained tones.

“Only as a curiosity.  It’s vallyble, far as that goes.  Anyway, I ’ad no difficulty in getting twelve quid for it last night.”

“You—you’ve sold it?” cried Mr. Sinnett.

“I ’ave.  After that first scrap last night, I got so sick about ’aving to bother about its being safe always that I just took and sold it.  Not to them, of course, I wouldn’t give in to them.  I sold it to Dobb, in Fore Street.  ’E see at once that it was a genuine curiosity, and ’e didn’t ’aggle a bit.”

“Just the very gent I was ’oping to see!” said Mr. Peter Lock, exhibiting suppressed excitement.  “There’s something a bit queer afoot, sir, what I’d like to talk over with you.  You know about that row Mr. Tridge ’ad with the ferryman last night.  At least, I think it’s something to do with that.”

“We can talk in here,” said Mr. Sinnett; and drew Mr. Lock into the “Bunch o’ Grapes.”

“Mind you, sir, I don’t take no responsibility,” said Mr. Lock.  “But it’s queer.  That Indian gent come into the billiard-room not half an hour ago.  He said he’d arranged to meet Clark, the ferryman, there at noon, but he found he must get back to London by the eleven-eleven train this morning.  And so he gave me a note to hand to him.”

“Well?”

“Well, sir, he said something about advising Clark to lay low after last night.  He said he’d forgot to put that in the note, and asked me to mention it to Clark.  Remembered it just as he was going, he did, and come back to tell me.  Well, now, sir, I don’t want to get mixed up in no fishy cases.  If you remember what them two was saying to each other last night—”

“Open the note,” directed Mr. Sinnett.

“Just what I was thinking, sir.  That’s why I wanted to see you, because you was there and know as much about it as I do.  If there’s any risk, I don’t mean to be in it at all.”

With a certain trembling eagerness, Mr. Sinnett watched Mr. Lock draw an envelope from his pocket.

“You can easily put it in a new envelope,” said Mr. Sinnett, as Mr. Lock began to stare perplexedly at the flap.

“I never thought of that,” said Mr. Lock, and at once tore open the missive.  It was very short.

“I am at 17, Somerset Terrace, Poplar, till to-morrow.  Ten my boat sails, but letters there will be forwarded me.  Keep to our bargain.  Do not forget that I am prepared to pay a higher price than anyone else for it.”

“Strange,” murmured Mr. Lock.

“Seventeen, Somerset Terrace, Poplar,” muttered Mr. Sinnett.  “Seventeen, Somer—”

“Do you thing there’s anything in the address, sir?” asked Mr. Lock, curiously.

“If you take my advice,” said Mr. Sinnett, impressively, “you’ll burn that note and say no more about it.”

“I think that would be safest,” agreed Mr. Lock, and, striking a match, ignited the missive in the fire-place.

“Well, I must be going,” said Mr. Sinnett, coming to a sudden briskness; and, settling the score, he hastened away.

Five minutes later he was in the presence of Mr. Horace Dobb.  Permission to glance round the stock had been met with suave and smiling acquiescence, and almost immediately Mr. Sinnett, with false calm, was inquiring the price of a small idol.

“Twenty pounds?” said Mr. Sinnett.  “Why, man, I happen to know you only gave twelve for it!”

“Ah, I’d ’ave given more if ’e’d pressed me, but ’e seemed anxious to get rid of it.  And, anyway, sir, I’d ’ave got twenty pounds easy enough for it yesterday afternoon, if I’d ’ad it.  There was a Indian gentleman in ’ere hinquiring if by any chance I ’ad any hidols.  Particular keen ’e seemed to get one just like that.  ’E might ’ave been—”

“Fifteen pounds,” offered Mr. Sinnett.

And so it was; but even then, Mr. Dobb only yielded with professed reluctance to losing the chance of Mr. Sinnett as a regular patron thenceforward.

That same evening Mr. Clark, Mr. Tridge, and Mr. Lock foregathered in Mr. Dobb’s parlour.

“Yes, I see ’im go,” said Mr. Tridge.  “’E’d got it in a portmanteau.  Caught the two-twenty-one, ’e did.  ’E’ll be in London by now.  Can’t you fancy ’im getting more and more hexcited at that ’ouse, trying to hexplain to ’em that ’e wants to see a nigger they don’t know nothing about?  And ’e’ll think they’re trying to deceive ’im, and ’e’ll tell ’em all the ’ole story, just to show ’e’s telling the truth, and—”

“Seventeen, Somerset Terrace, Poplar.  ’Orace told me to write down any old address I happened to think of, didn’t you, ’Orace?  And Seventeen, Somerset Terrace, come easiest to my mind.  I don’t know where I got it from.”

“Seventeen, Somerset—” gasped Mr. Tridge and Mr. Clark, simultaneously.

“That’s it.”

“Then I can tell you where you got it!” shouted Mr. Tridge.  “You come and see me and Sam Clark there many a time while we was lodging there, when the old ‘Jane Gladys’ was being repaired that time.”

“Ah, of course, I remember now!” said Mr. Lock. “A nice, comfortable, homely place it was, too!”

“And you’ve sent Sinnett there to start questioning and arguing and hexplaining?” roared Mr. Tridge. “Why, Sam and me ran up a bill for the ’ole six weeks we stopped there, and then we skipped off without paying.  And now—”