“If he had wanted to find himself in the dock and to put the rope round his neck he couldn’t have gone to work better. He must needs stand talking to the girl in the Strand until she cries, whereupon he calls a cab and drives home with her, gets out of it and takes up a position in the full light of a gas lamp, so that the first policeman who passes may have a look at his face, and recognise him again when the proper time comes. After that he hurries back to his hotel at such a pace that he arrives in a sufficiently agitated condition to stand in need of brandy. Why, it’s an almost unbelievable list of absurd coincidences. However, he didn’t commit the crime, that’s quite certain. I’ve had a bit of experience in my time, and I don’t know that I’ve ever made a mistake about a human face yet. There’s not a trace of guilt in his. To-morrow morning I’ll just run round to the scene of the murder and begin my investigations there. Though the Pro’s have been over the ground before me, it will be strange if I can not pick up something that has not been noticed by their observant eyes.” A perpetual feud existed between the famous Jacob Burrell and the genuine representatives of the profession. His ways were unorthodox, the latter declared. He did not follow the accustomed routine, and what was worse, when he managed to obtain information it was almost, if not quite, impossible to get him to divulge it for their benefit. Such a man deserved to be set down on every possible opportunity. True to the arrangement he had made with himself on the previous evening, Burrell immediately after breakfast next morning set out for Burford Street. On reaching No. 16 he ascended the steps and entered the grimy passage, and inquired from a man he found there where the landlord was to be discovered. In reply the individual he interrogated went to the head of a flight of stairs that descended like an abyss into the regions below, and shouted something in German. A few moments later the proprietor of the establishment made his appearance. He was a small sallow individual with small bloodshot eyes, suggestive of an undue partiality for Schnapps, and the sadness of whose face gave one the impression that he cherished a grievance against the whole world. His sleeves were rolled up above the elbows, and he carried a knife in one hand and a potato in the other. “Vat is dat you vant mit me?” he inquired irritably, as he took stock of the person before him. “I want you to show me the room in which that Italian girl, Teresina Cardi, was murdered,” Burrell replied, without wasting time. The landlord swore a deep oath in German. “It is always de murder from morning until night,” he answered. “I am sick mit it. Dat murder will be the ruin mit me. Every day der is somebody come and say ‘Where is dot room?’ Who are you that you ask me that I should to you show it?”