"None, sir. I've only been on this beat a week."
"You'll get to know them soon, I expect. A quiet place, officer."
"It is that, sir," assented Mulligan, as they turned down a narrow and lonely street. "Never a robbery or an accident or a murder to make things happy."
"Why should there be a murder?" asked the man angrily. "Murders are not so common."
"More common than you think, sir, but the most of them aren't found out. It is I who'd like a really fine crime with my name in the papers, and a printed recommendation as an efficient officer. None of your poker murders and plain sailing you'll understand, sir, but a mystery, as you read of in them little books written by gentry as don't know the law."
"Ah! Incidents in detective novels rarely occur in real life," said the other, with a more tranquil laugh. "Providence is too original to borrow in that way. But live in hope, officer, a crime may come your way sooner than you expect."
"Not hereabouts, sir." Mulligan shook his head gloomily. "It's too clean a neighbourhood."
"The very place where a crime is likely to occur. Have you another light, constable?"
Mulligan struck another match, and this time he saw the face of the speaker clearly. It was a handsome face, rather worried-looking. But as the stranger wore a moustache and a small pointed beard, and as his Homberg hat--it was grey with a black band--was pressed down over his eyes, Mulligan could not determine if he were more than usually worried. Not that he minded. He fancied after some reflection that this handsome young gentleman was--as he put it--out on the spree, and therefore took the marks of worry for those of dissipation. He did not even examine the face closely, but when the match was extinguished he halted. "There's the half-hour, sir. I must get back to my beat."
"And I must race for a cab," said the stranger, pressing a half-crown into a not unwilling hand. "Thanks for coming so far with me, officer. I wonder if my watch is right," he added, pulling it out. "It's half-past eleven." Something fell at the moment, chipped against the curb with a tinkling sound, and rebounded into the road. "You've dropped something, sir," said Mulligan, flashing his lantern towards the middle of the street.