"That's your sort. Only don't look for him in the reptile house at the Zoo, where his relations live. I want to know ever so many things about him. Whether he lives alone, or has a wife. Whether he has any children, and whether they have little bald heads with halos round them like their venerable parent. Whether he practises as a doctor, and what his neighbours think of him, etc., etc., etc. It's a large order, Gracie."
"I'll do it, Dick."
"You're a brick. Here we are at the printer's. But you mustn't go away without the needful for current ex's. You might want to jump into a bus, and if you keep out all day you'll want something to eat. Hold out your hand--one shilling, two shillings, a sixpence, and some coppers. If you've anything to tell me come to Aunt Rob's house any time between six and eight. I've a particular reason for not wanting to be seen with you in Catchpole Square to-night. Here are a couple more coppers for brandyballs for the babies at home. Now, off with you, my little detective. No sleeping partners in our firm. You and I, working together, will make Scotland Yard sit up. We'll beat the Criminal Investigation Department, even if it has a dozen Dr. Vinsens to back it up. Here's a kiss for good luck, Gracie."
"Thank you, Dick," said Gracie, and away she scudded, proud of the task entrusted to her.
Neither of them had noticed that they had been followed in a shambling sort of way by an old man in list slippers with a skull cap on his head, sucking at a pipe which, in his close observance of them, he had allowed to go out. He was blear-eyed, and was cursed with a spasmodic twitching on the right side of his face, which imparted to his features a ghastly mirth; and close as was his observance of them he had so managed as not to draw their attention upon him. During the last moment or two he had shuffled so near to them as to brush their clothes as he passed, and had heard the concluding words of their conversation.
"'Thank you, Dick,'" he echoed, with a half-tipsy lurch, as Gracie flew away and Dick entered the printing office. "Dick! It's the man himself. Who'll give me a kiss for good luck?"
He laughed and twitched, and with his eye on the door through which Dick had passed, proceeded with trembling fingers to refill his pipe.
There was a fair stock of "jobbing" type in the printing office, and the master, a working printer himself, was the very man Dick needed for the job in hand, trade being rather slack. In imitation of the official announcement of a reward in the Great Porter Square murder Dick had placed a Royal Coat of Arms at the top of his bill, but the printer argued him out of it, being doubtful whether a private individual had the right to use it for the detection of the perpetrator of a criminal offence. But for the better publicity of the reward Dick was bent upon a pictorial illustration, and out of a lot of old woodcuts they fished a rough wood-block of the figure of Justice, blindfold, holding the scales, which suggested the line beneath, "In the Cause of Justice." Within an hour the type was set up, corrected, locked in its chase, and on the press, the paper was damped, the "devil," a young apprentice, was wielding his roller, and the master printer, his sleeves tucked up to his shoulders, was pulling off the posters, which read thus:
At the top the figure of even-handed Justice; then--
IN THE CAUSE OF JUSTICE.
MURDER.
£500 REWARD.