chopper is pretty certain to make more than a single blow, and as there appeared to have been only a single wound on the head, it seemed probable that another had fallen somewhere else—­almost certainly on the arm, as it would be raised to defend the head.  At Limehouse I found he had had his head and wrist attended to at a local medico’s, and a big nigger in a fright, with a long black coat, a broken head, and a lame hand, is not so difficult to find in a small area.  How I persuaded him up here you know already; I think I frightened him a little, too, by explaining how easily I had tracked him, and giving him a hint that others might do the same.  He is in a great funk.  He seems to have quite lost faith in England as a safe asylum.”

The police failed to catch Rameau’s assailant—­chiefly because Rameau could not be got to give a proper description of him, nor to do anything except get out of the country in a hurry.  In truth, he was glad to be quit of the matter with nothing worse than his broken head.  Little Goujon made a wild storm about his arrest, and before he did go to France managed to extract twenty pounds from Rameau by way of compensation, in spite of the absence of any strictly legal claim against his old tormentor.  So that, on the whole, Goujon was about the only person who derived any particular profit from the tortoise mystery.

THE END.