“A strange character,” he said. “A remarkable character in many ways. He was a member of the gang engaged in frauds on French banks. I suppose you didn’t know that? His lawyer came to see me to-day. Apparently a Mrs. Marl has turned up to claim his property, and she has told the whole story. He and a man named Lightman made a fortune in France until they were caught. Marl would have been sent to the guillotine, only he turned State’s evidence. Lightman, I believe, went to the knife.” “What a charming man Mr. Marl must have been!” said Mr. Froyant ironically. The little lawyer smiled. “What charming people we all are when our lives are laid bare!” he said, and Mr. Froyant resented the implied censure, for it was his boast that his life was a book. He might have added in truth a bank-book. So Brabazon was a dealer in stolen notes and Marl a convicted murderer! Mr. Froyant wondered how Marl managed to escape from his term of imprisonment, which must have been a severe one, and he inwardly rejoiced that his business relationships with the deceased had not ended even more disastrously than they had. He dressed and went to his club to dine, and his car was running into Pall Mall when a hoarding poster showed under the light of a lamp and reminded him of the unpleasant fact that he was a fifty-thousand pounds poorer man that night than he had been in the morning. “Ten thousand reward!” he muttered. “Bah! Who is going to turn King’s evidence? I don’t suppose even Brabazon would dare.” But he did not know Brabazon. Chapter XXV. The Tenant of River House Mr. Brabazon sat in a chill upper room of River House, eating slowly a large portion of bread and cheese. He wore the dress suit he was wearing when the warning came to him, and he was a ludicrous figure in the smartly-fitting, but now soiled and dusty garb. His white shirt was grey with the grime of the house, he was collarless, and his general air of dissipation was heightened by the stubbly beard that decorated his face. He finished his repast, opened the window carefully and threw out the remnants of bread, and passing through the trap-door, he descended the ladder and made his way to the big kitchen at the back of the house. He had neither soap nor towel, but he made some attempt to wash himself without their aid, utilising one of the two handkerchiefs he had brought with him to the house in his flight. With the exception of the clothes he stood up in, an overcoat and the soft felt hat he had seized when he made his escape, he was quite unequipped for this undesirable adventure.