my friend here you'd told him?"

"Not a word more, guv'nor! 'Cause why--I ain't seen him since."

"And you've told nothing to the police?"

"The police ain't never come a-nigh me, and I ain't been near them. What
the old chap said was--wait! And I've waited and ain't heard nothing."

"Wherefore," observed Triffitt sardonically, "you want to make a bit."

"Ain't no harm in a man doing his best for his-elf, guv'nor, I hope,"
said the would-be informant. "If I don't look after myself, who's
a-going to look after me--I asks you that, now?"

"And I ask you--how much?" said Triffitt. "Out with it!"

The taxi-cab driver considered, eyeing his prospective customer
furtively.

"The other gent told you what it is I can tell, guv'nor?" he said at
last. "It's information of what you might call partik'lar importance, is
that."

"I know--you can tell the name of the man whom you drove that morning
from the corner of Orchard Street to Kensington High Street," replied
Triffitt. "It may be important--it mayn't. You see, the police haven't
been in any hurry to approach you, have they? Come now, give it a name?"

The informant summoned up his resolution.

"Cash down--on the spot, guv'nor?" he asked.

"Spot cash," replied Triffitt. "On this table!"

"Well--how would a couple o' fivers be, now?" asked the anxious one.
"It's good stuff, guv'nor."

"A couple of fivers will do," answered Triffitt. "And here they are." He
took two brand-new, crackling five-pound notes from his pocket, folded
them up, laid them on the table, and set a glass on them. "Now, then!"
he said. "Tell your tale--there's your money when it's told."

The taxi-cab driver eyed the notes, edged his chair further into the
half-lighted corner in which Triffitt and Carver sat, and dropped his
voice to a whisper.

"All right, guv'nor," he said. "Thanking you. Then it's this here--the
man what I drove that morning was the nephew!"

"You mean Mr. Barthorpe Herapath?" said Triffitt, also in a whisper.

"That's him--that's the identical, sir! Of course," continued the
informant, "I didn't know nothing of that when I told the old gent in
Portman Square what I did tell him. Now, you see, I wasn't called at
that inquest down there at Kensington--after what I'd told the old gent,
I expected to be, but I wasn't. All the same, there's been a deal of
talk around about the corner of Orchard Street, and, of course, there is
them in that quarter as knows all the parties