EPISODE IX THE GREEN EYES OF THE LITTLE BIRMINGHAM GOD

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.

But at last he halted, nodded his head thrice with keen satisfaction at the idol on the table, and then came to the greatest animation, whistling, snapping his fingers, and even pirouetting a little.

“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.

“Hidols’ heyes,” said Mr. Dobb. “I been reading a book,” he continued in response to Mr. Lock’s uncomprehending stare. “And there was a hidol in it what ’ad real hemerald heyes, and this ’ere hidol was stole from a temple somewhere out foreign by a couple of chaps what didn’t know about its heyes, and there wasn’t half some murders and niggers and things in it.”

“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.

“Oh, no,” denied Mr. Dobb, flippantly. “Real native Hindian work—that’s why I give such a ’igh price for it.”

“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.”

That same evening Mr. George Sinnett was taking his ease in the bar-parlour of the “Flag and Pennant” when Mr. Samuel Clark entered the apartment a little precipitously and flung himself into a chair beside Mr. Sinnett.

“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.

Mr. Sinnett, for lack of more intelligent comment, sipped at his glass in a non-committal way.

“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.

“Everywhere! Worst of it was, wherever I follered ’im, ’e’d ’ad about a year’s start. But at last I’ve found ’im, and—”

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.

“No game,” puffed Mr. Tridge. “Dead serious!”

“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.

“You were telling me just now, when—when you were taken queer out in the road—that that ferryman didn’t get what he was after.”

“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!”

“’Course it is. And, mind you, I’m hobstinit. If ’e’d come to me, fair and reasonable, in the first place— You see what I mean? But ’e didn’t. Same as them nigger chaps what ’ave follered me about from time to time, wanting to buy it back. I told ’em once I wouldn’t sell it, and what I says I sticks to. See?”

“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?”

Mr. Tridge noisily laughed the notion to scorn.

“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.”

And this he very charitably did. Mr. Tridge, although leaning heavily on his companion’s supportive arm, none the less otherwise ignored the presence of Mr. Sinnett. Moved by contact with the open air to a reflective mood, Mr. Tridge, as he walked, growled aloud a resentful epitome of his conversation in the “Cutlass and Cannon,” coming back again and again to dwell on his firmness in refusing to part with his booty. Arrived at the door of his lodgings, he found his latchkey, and then turned to his escort.

“’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.

“Talk about sheer luck!” joyously murmured Mr. Sinnett, as he walked away. “George, my boy, you’re on the track of something good! Why, it’s like one of them old detective tales come true!”

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.

And in the evening he would visit the “Flag and Pennant” inn, or such other tavern as might be extending its hospitality to Mr. Tridge or Mr. Clark, and here he would laboriously contrive desultory conversation with one or other of them until doors had to be closed, when his way would strangely coincide with the homeward path of that gentleman of the twain in whose society closing-time had found him.

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.

On that night, neither Mr. Clark nor Mr. Tridge were to be discovered in accustomed haunts, and Mr. Sinnett, fearful of this coincidence, went from hostelry to hostelry in feverish search. Returning to the “Royal William Hotel” for a second time, he again questioned the billiard-marker.

“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.

“’Ad a bit of a haccident,” he returned, evasively, when Mr. Sinnett asked a surprised question. “Cut meself.”

“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.”

“’E’ll never get it,” stated Mr. Tridge, with dour confidence.

“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.

“Emeralds?” fluttered Mr. Sinnett. “Emeralds?” He paused to strive for greater self-control.

“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?”

“Ah, that was in my lodgings! When I got ’ome,” narrated Mr. Tridge, “I see my window open. Indoors I goes, very quiet. Blest if they wasn’t trying to burgle me!”

“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.”

For several long seconds Mr. Sinnett stared at Mr. Tridge. Then, with a start, he purchased a superfluous stick of shaving-soap, and wandered from the premises. Scarce had he gone twenty yards when he found himself accosted by Mr. Peter Lock.

“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.”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Sinnett. “Open the note and make sure.”

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.

“That?” said Mr. Dobb. “Oh, I’d let you have that for twenty pounds. Genuine curiosity, that is, sir. I dare say it’s worth a lot more, but I want to make you a customer. Ah, that won’t be on my shelves long, for all I only bought it last night. Always getting inquiries for genuine foreign idols, I am. That’s the only one I’ve got in my shop at present. There’s a lot of connoshers of them things about.”

“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—”

“Oh, ’e’ll be very hagitated,” said Mr. Clark. “’E’s that sort, I bet, when things goes sideways. Serve ’im right! Anyway, thanks for my share, ’Orace. I shall be able to do a bit of slate-cleaning with it. By the way, what haddress did you send ’im looking for, Peter?”

“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—”