‘I own I took the things,’ confessed the man doggedly, seemingly anxious to make a clean breast of it; ‘but Scales helped me, and old Nathan put us both on the job’—— ‘Scales has been here,’ I interrupted. ‘You may as well tell me what you know about him; it will be the better for you.’ ‘Yes,’ replied the deserter, when he had dropped through the trap on the floor; ‘I got off his handcuffs, and here they are;’ scattering a heap of bones and displaying the ‘bracelets,’ each receptacle for the wrists being filed in two. ‘Now,’ I continued, ‘if you can give me any information that will enable me to catch Scales, I’ll report in your favour at headquarters. Perhaps it will save you something when you are tried.—Where is he now?’ ‘Well, sergeant, Nathan gave him a suit of “plains,” and he went out. I don’t know where he has gone. But I don’t mind “rounding” on him, and I’ll tell you this: he’s to be back here to-night at twelve. Nathan’s to let him in by the little window that looks into the yard.’ We then descended the stair with our prisoner; and the man perceiving the Jew, broke away from us, exclaiming: ‘You old villain! if it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have got into this!’ and before we could prevent him, struck the miserable Israelite a terrible blow. This act of castigation, under the circumstances, however, rather pleased me than otherwise. Two additional policemen having been summoned, the deserter and Nathan were taken away in custody. When they had gone, I was rather amused when Williams informed me that, despite the Jew’s extreme trepidation, while I was examining his upper storey, his commercial proclivities did not for a moment desert him, as he attempted to open negotiations with the private regarding the purchase of his war medals. Two detectives now arrived to search the premises; but of course this investigation did not lie within my province. No article of a criminating nature was found, however, except Scales’s uniform, which was concealed beneath the Jew’s filthy mattress. I lost no time in despatching my companion to an adjacent blacksmith’s shop, in order to have the divided parts of the handcuffs welded together; and this operation was completed within an hour.