I stared at him in amazement; he had stated his meaning in one pregnant word, but he had failed in conveying to my mind any comprehension of it. "Now, I put it to you," he said, "and I hope you'll take it kindly. I give you my word that my intentions are good. You are not a rich man, are you?" "No," I answered promptly; for he was so frank and open, and was speaking in a tone of such deep concern, that I could not take offence at a question which at other times I should have resented. "I am not." "And you wouldn't turn your nose up at a thousand pounds?" "No, indeed I would not," I said heartily, wondering what on earth the rich Australian was driving at. "Well, then," he said, touching my breast with his forefinger, "you discover the murderer of my poor niece Lizzie, and the thousand pounds are yours. I will give the money to you. Something else: find my niece Mary, and restore her to her parents and to me, and I'll make it two thousand. Come, you don't have such a chance every day." "That is true," I said, and I could not help liking the old fellow for this display of heart. "But it is too remote for consideration." "Not at all, my dear sir, not at all," and again he touched my breast with his forefinger; "there is nothing remote in it." "But why," I asked, not at all convinced by his insistence, "do you offer _me_ such a reward, instead of going to the police?" "Partly because of what you said, confirmed--though I didn't think of it at the time you mentioned it--by what I have read, about murders being committed in the very heart of London, without the murderers ever being discovered." "I was simply stating a fact." "Exactly; and it speaks well for the police, doesn't it? But I have only explained part of my reason for offering you the reward. It isn't alone what you said about undiscovered murderers, it is because you spoke like a sensible man, who, once having his finger on a clue, wouldn't let it slip till he'd worked it right out; and like a man who, while he was working that clue, wouldn't let others slip that might happen to come in his way. I've opened my mind to you, and I've nothing more to say until you come to me to say something on your own account. O, yes I have, though; I was forgetting that we're strangers to one another, and that it wouldn't be reasonable for me to expect you to take my word for a thousand pounds. Well, then, to show you that I am in earnest, I lay on the table Bank of England notes for a hundred pounds. Here they are, on account." To my astonishment he had pulled out his pocket-book and extracted ten ten-pound notes, and there they lay on the table before me. I would have entreated him to take them back, feeling that it would be the falsest of false pretences to accept them, but before I could speak again he was gone.