the
man was arrested for passing the bad shilling. There, he was told that
his father was in jail, and came here to ask us to let him see him."

"You should have refused and have detained the boy. Well?"

"I was moved by the little chap's tears," said the constable, abashed,
"so I let him go into the cell."

"Were you with him?" asked the inspector sharply.

"No, sir. We left them alone for a few minutes. As the boy was so sad
and cut up, I thought there would be no harm in doing that. Well, sir,
the boy came out again in ten minutes, still crying, and said he would
get a lawyer to defend his father. He did not believe his father had
passed the money. Then he went away. Later--about half an hour later,
we went into the cell and found the man lying groaning, with an empty
bottle of whisky beside him. The doctor came and said he thought the
man had been poisoned. The man groaned and said the young shaver had
done for him. Then he became unconscious and died."

Jennings listened to this statement calmly. He saw again the hand of
the coiners. The person who controlled the members evidently thought
that the man would blab, and accordingly took precautionary measures to
silence him. Without doubt, the man had been poisoned, and the boy had
been sent to do it. "What is the boy like?" he asked.

"Billy Tyke, sir?" said the constable, replying on a nod from his
chief, to whom he looked for instructions, "a thin boy, fair and with
red rims round his eyes--looks half starved, sir, and has a scarred
mouth, as though he had been cut on the upper lip with a knife."

Jennings started, but suppressed his emotion under the keen eyes of the
observant Twining. He had an idea that he knew who the boy was, but as
yet could not be sure. "I'll cut along to the public-house where this
man was arrested," said Jennings, "I suppose you'll hold an inquest."

"Certainly, seeing the man has been poisoned." Then the inspector
proceeded to rebuke the constable who had performed his duty so ill,
and threatened him with dismissal. Jennings left in the midst of the
trouble, after getting the inspector to promise that, he would report
the result of the inquest.

At the public-house--it was the "White Horse," Keighley, an adjoining
suburb--Jennings learned that the man who called himself--or rather who
was called by his presumed son--Tyke, was not an habitue of the place.
Therefore, the boy could not have known that his supposed