"Oh, there's a great deal that Mr. Eldrick didn't ask," said Prydale. "Mr. Eldrick sort of just skirted round things, like. We want to know a bit more. This Parrawhite's got to be found, d'ye see, Mr. Murgatroyd, and as you seem to be the last man who had aught to do with him in Barford, why, naturally, we come to you. Now, to start with, you say he came to you about getting a passage to America? Just so--now, when would that be?" "Day before he did get it," answered Murgatroyd, rapidly thinking over the memoranda which Pratt had jotted down for his benefit. "That," said Prydale, "would be on the 23rd?" "Yes," replied Murgatroyd, "23rd November, of course." "What time, now, on the 23rd?" asked the detective. "Time?" said Murgatroyd. "Oh--in the evening." "Bit vague," remarked Prydale. "What time in the evening?" "As near as I can recollect," replied Murgatroyd, "it 'ud be just about half-past eight. I was thinking of closing." "Ah!" said Prydale, with a glance at Byner, who had already told him of Parrawhite's presence at the _Green Man_ on the other side of the town, a good two miles away, at the hour which Murgatroyd mentioned. "Ah!--he was here in your shop at half-past eight on the evening of November 23rd last? Asking about a ticket to America?" "New York," muttered Murgatroyd. "And he came next morning and bought one?" asked the detective. "I told Mr. Eldrick that," said Murgatroyd, a little sullenly. "How much did it cost?" inquired Byner. "Eight pound ten," replied Murgatroyd. "Usual price." "What did he pay for it in?" continued Prydale. "He gave me a ten-pound note and I gave him thirty shillings change," answered Murgatroyd. "Just so," assented Prydale. "Now what line might that be by?" Murgatroyd was becoming uneasy under all these questions, and his uneasiness was deepened by the way in which both his visitors watched him. He was a man who would have been a bad witness in any case--nervous, ill at ease, suspicious, inclined to boggle--and in this instance he was being forced to invent answers. "It was--oh, the Royal Atlantic!" he answered at last. "I've an agency for them." "So I noticed from the bills and placards in your window," observed the detective. "And of course you issue these tickets on their paper--I've seen 'em before. You fill up particulars on a form and a counterfoil, don't you? And you send a copy of those particulars to the Royal Atlantic offices at Liverpool?" Murgatroyd nodded silently--this was much more than he bargained for, and he did not know how much further it was going. And Prydale gave him a sudden searching look. "Can you show us the counterfoil in this instance?" he asked. Murgatroyd flushed. But he managed to get out a fairly quick reply. "No, I can't," he answered, "I sent that book back at the end of the year."