hat day. At least, it seemed so to him that
evening, as he returned to Holborn after a long and trying afternoon
spent in the squalid streets and slums of St Pancras and Islington. The
goddess of Chance, bestowing her favours with true feminine caprice, had
taken it into her wanton head, at the last moment, to accomplish for him
the seemingly impossible feat of tracing the pawnbroker's marked
shilling, through various dirty hands, to the pocket of the man who had
pawned the pencil-case. Whether she would grant him the last favour of
all, by enabling him to prove whether this man and Nepcote were
identical, was a point Caldew intended to put to the proof that night.

Caldew was in high good humour with himself at such a successful day's
work, and he alighted from the tram with the intention of passing a
couple of hours pleasantly by treating himself to a little dinner in
town before returning to Islington to complete his investigations. He
wandered along from New Oxford Street to Charing Cross by way of Soho,
scanning the restaurant menus as he passed with the indecisive air of a
poor man unused to the privilege of paying high rates for bad food in
strange surroundings.

The foreign smells and greasy messes of Old Compton Street repelled his
English appetite, and he did not care to mingle with the herds of
suburban dwellers who were celebrating the fact that they were alive by
making uncouth merriment over three-and-sixpenny tables d'hotes and
crude Burgundy and Chianti in the cheap glitter of Wardour Street. As a
disciplined husband and father, Caldew's purse did not permit of his
going further West for his refection, so when he reached Charing Cross
he turned his face in the direction of Fleet Street. He had almost made
up his mind in favour of a small English eating-house half-way down the
Strand, when he encountered Colwyn.

The private detective was wearing a worn tweed-suit and soft hat, which
had the effect of making a considerable alteration in his appearance. He
was about to enter the eating-house, but stopped at the sight of Caldew
looking in the window, and advanced to shake hands with him.

"Thinking of dining here, Caldew?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Caldew. "It seems a quiet place."

"It certainly has that merit," responded Colwyn, glancing into the empty
interior of the little restaurant. "You had better dine with me if you
have nothing better to do. I should like to have a talk with you."

Caldew ex