The messenger boy, deeply conscious that he was ushering into Spargo’s room an individual who might shortly carry away a thousand pounds of good _Watchman_ money in his pocket, opened the door and introduced a shy and self-conscious young man, whose nervousness was painfully apparent to everybody and deeply felt by himself. He halted on the threshold, looking round the comfortably-furnished room, and at the two well-dressed young men which it framed as if he feared to enter on a scene of such grandeur. “Come in, come in!” said Spargo, rising and pointing to an easy-chair at the side of his desk. “Take a seat. You’ve called about that reward, of course.” The man in the chair eyed the two of them cautiously, and not without suspicion. He cleared his throat with a palpable effort. “Of course,” he said. “It’s all on the strict private. Name of Edward Mollison, sir.” “And where do you live, and what do you do?” asked Spargo. “You might put it down Rowton House, Whitechapel,” answered Edward Mollison. “Leastways, that’s where I generally hang out when I can afford it. And—window-cleaner. Leastways, I was window cleaning when—when——” “When you came in contact with the stick we’ve been advertising about,” suggested Spargo. “Just so. Well, Mollison—what about the stick?” Mollison looked round at the door, and then at the windows, and then at Breton. “There ain’t no danger of me being got into trouble along of that stick?” he asked. “’Cause if there is, I ain’t a-going to say a word—no, not for no thousand pounds! Me never having been in no trouble of any sort, guv’nor—though a poor man.” “Not the slightest danger in the world, Mollison,” replied Spargo. “Not the least. All you’ve got to do is to tell the truth—and prove that it is the truth. So it was you who took that queer-looking stick out of Mr. Aylmore’s rooms in Fountain Court, was it?” Mollison appeared to find this direct question soothing to his feelings. He smiled weakly. “It was cert’nly me as took it, sir,” he said. “Not that I meant to pinch it—not me! And, as you might say, I didn’t take it, when all’s said and done. It was—put on me.” “Put on you, was it?” said Spargo. “That’s interesting. And how was it put on you?” Mollison grinned again and rubbed his chin.