“That’s all very well, cabby,” I said, “but it’s just likely you want to add another sovereign to that five-pound ten.  If you do I don’t mind putting another in your way.  I tell you that I want to catch the man I was after to-night.  He’s as big a thief as ever walked the earth, and if you will help me to put my hand upon him, you’ll be doing a service, not only to me, but to the whole country at large.”

“What is it you want me to do?” he asked suspiciously.  “He treated me fair, and he’ll take it mean of me if I help you to nab him.”

“I don’t want you to do anything but to drive me to the side street where you put him down.  Then you can take your sovereign and be off home as quick as you like.  Do you agree?”

He hesitated for a space in which a man could have counted twenty, and then set his glass upon the counter.

“I’ll do it,” he said.  “I’ll drive yer there, not for the suvering, but for the good of the country yer speaks about.  Come on.”

I gave my own man his money, and then followed the other out to his cab.  He mounted to his box, not without some help, and we presently set off.  Whether it was the effect of the refreshment he had imbibed, or whether it was mere elation of spirits I cannot say, the fact, however, remains that for the whole of the journey, which occupied ten or twelve minutes he howled vociferously.  A more joyous cabman could scarcely have been discovered in all that part of London.  At last he pulled his horse to a standstill, and descended from his seat.

“This ’ere’s the place,” he said, “and that’s the street he bolted down.  Yer can’t mistake it.  Now let’s have a look at yer suvering, guvner, and then I’ll be off home to bed, and it’s about time too.”

I paid him the sum I had promised him, and then made my way down the narrow street, in the direction Hayle had taken.  It was not more than a couple of hundred yards long, and was hemmed in on either hand by squalid cottages.  As if to emphasize the misery of the locality, and perhaps in a measure to account for it, at the further end I discovered a gin-palace, whose flaring lights illuminated the streets on either hand with brazen splendour.  A small knot of loafers were clustered on the pavement outside the public, and these were exactly the men I wanted.  Addressing myself to them I inquired how long they had been in their present position.

“Best part of an hour, guv’ner,” said one of them, pushing his hands deep down into his pockets, and executing a sort of double shuffle as he spoke.  “Ain’t doin’ any harm ’ere, I ’ope.  We was ‘opin’ as ’ow a gent like yourself would come along in the course of the evening just to ask us if we was thirsty, and wot we’d take for to squench it.”

“You shall have something to squench it, if you can answer the questions I am going to ask you,” I replied.  “Did either of you see a gentleman come down this street, running, about half-an-hour or so ago.”