"I have been quite open with you, Sir Ralph. I don't know. As things are at present, it looks uncommonly as though he had a hand in it. He is the only person who can clear himself. While he remains in hiding everything looks black against him. We have managed to keep things quiet until the resumption of the inquest. When that takes place we shall not be able to maintain the confusion of identity. With things as they stand, the jury are practically certain to return a verdict of murder against him. If he is not guilty, his best chance is for us to find him. Understand me, Sir Ralph. If he is innocent you are doing him no service by refraining from helping us. Every day makes things blacker. If he is guilty--well, it is for you to judge whether you will shield a murderer even if he is your friend." To another person, Foyle would have used another method of persuasion, talking more but saying less. He had staked much on his estimate of the baronet's character, and awaited his reply with an anxiety of which his face gave no trace. Very rare were the occasions on which he had told so much of an unfinished investigation to another person, and that person not an official of Scotland Yard. Often he had feigned to open his heart with the same object--to win confidence by apparent confidence. The difference now was that he had given the facts without concealment or suppression. Fairfield fingered his watch-chain, and the big office clock loudly ticked five minutes away. "I will assist you as far as I can, but you must allow me to decide when to remain neutral," he said at last. "Agreed," said Foyle, and the two shook hands on the bargain. CHAPTER XXIV Dutch Fred changed his seat to one less conspicuous and farther up the tramcar. He felt that his luck was dead out, that life was a blank. And that Heldon Foyle of all men should have chosen that particular moment to board that particular tramcar had, as Fred would have expressed it, "absolutely put the lid on." Fred knew very well how to circumvent the precaution taken by order of the police that public vehicles should have the back of the seats filled in to prevent pocket-picking. Instead of sitting behind a victim, one sat by his side, with a "stall" behind to pass the plunder to. A "dip" of class--and Dutch Fred was an acknowledged master--never keeps his plunder on him for a single second longer than necessary. But with Foyle on the car it was too expensive to operate, especially single-handed. Therefore, Fred felt the world a dreary place.