Here, the same fate befell them. Neither of the two constables had noticed Walter Brooklyn; and both of them seemed to think the quest quite hopeless. Ellery did not give the name of the man he was looking for, lest the police, intent on building up their own case, might refuse him information. Only an unrecognisable snapshot had appeared in the Press. “Well, sir,” said the sergeant. “I’ve done my best for you, and I’m sorry it’s no use. But it’s what I told you to expect.” Ellery distributed suitable rewards in the appropriately furtive manner, and prepared to take his leave. But Joan stopped him. “I have an idea,” she said. “It may come to nothing; but it’s worth trying.” Then she turned to Mulligan, a short, humorous, and very obviously Irish constable. “Tell me, is there any tramp, or person of that sort, who is often to be found at night in Trafalgar Square? I mean some one you’re always having to move on.” “Lord, miss, there’s a dozen or so. Move ’em on night after night; but they come back just the same.” “Well, I want you to find me a man like that—one who’s always hanging about the Square, and is likely to know others who do the same. Can you find me a man of that sort?” “Certainly, miss, I can. I see what you’re after, and I should say the chap we call ‘the Spaniard’ is about what you want. He’s a bloke who goes about in a long cloak and a broad-brimmed felt hat—often not much else, I should say, barring the remains of a pair of trousers—he’s pretty nearly always about in the Square, and he’s always talking to any one he can find to listen.” Ellery broke in. “Can you find him for us now?” The constable looked at the sergeant. “If the sergeant here will let me leave the station for half an hour, I expect I can,” he said. The sergeant was duly placated, and the two set off with Constable Mulligan. He led them, not into the Square, but into the little alley behind St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. There he pointed to the bar of a rather disreputable-looking public-house. “You go in there,” he said to Ellery, “and ask if ‘the Spaniard’ is there. They’d know him. If I were to go in, they’d shut up like a knife when you aren’t looking.” Ellery went in and ordered a drink. A glance round the bar showed him that “the Spaniard” was not in the bar at the moment. He turned to the woman behind the bar counter and asked her if she knew where to find “the Spaniard.” The woman looked at him with an air of surprise; but she made no reply. Then she turned to a curtained door behind her, and spoke through it. “Alf,” she said, “come here a minute.” Alf speedily appeared in his shirt-sleeves—a portly, middle-aged man, rather stolid to look at, but with a pair of cunning little eyes that looked at you, not steadily, but with a succession of keen, quick glances. Ellery heard the woman whisper to him, “This gent here’s asking for ‘the Spaniard.’”