"He was always either here or at the Empire. He wasn't a bad sort, Barney, although he was just like all the rest of them, close with his money when he was sober, and chucking it about when he'd had a drop too much. What did you want to know about him in particular?"
"Well, for one thing," Wrayson answered, "where he got his money from."
She shook her head.
"He was always very close about that," she said. "The only story I ever heard him tell was that he'd made it mining in South Africa."
"You have really heard him say that?" Wrayson asked.
"Half a dozen times," she declared.
"That proves, at any rate," he remarked thoughtfully, "that there was some mystery about his income, because I happen to know that he came back from South Africa a pauper."
"Very likely," she remarked. "Barney was always the sort who would rather tell a lie than the truth."
"Did he say anything to you that night about being in any kind of danger?" he asked.
She shook her head.