"Not a word, or it will be the worse for you. Let's have a light, Green."
The prisoner kept very still, and Green flashed a light on his face. It was that of a man of forty or so, with pronounced Hebrew features. His greasy black hair was tangled in coarse curls, and a smooth black moustache ran across his upper lip. A pair of shifty eyes were fixed fearfully on Foyle, and the man murmured something in a guttural tongue.
"We are police officers. How many people are there in this house?" demanded Foyle sternly, in a low voice. "You may as well answer in English. Quietly, now."
He had released his hold round the Jew's waist, but stood with the jemmy dangling by his side and with ears cocked ready for any sound. Green had climbed the stairs and stood by his side.
Domiciliary visits are unfrequent in England, but the Jew was not certain enough to stand upon a legal technicality. As a matter of fact, the search warrant would have met the difficulty. He cringed before the two men, whose faces he could not see, for Green had thrown his wedge of light so that it showed up the man's sallow face and left all else in darkness.
"I do not know why you have come," he answered, forming each word precisely. "I have done nothing wrong. I am an honest newsagent. There is only my wife, daughter, son, lodger in house."
"You are a receiver of stolen goods," answered Foyle, something, it must be confessed, at a venture. "Don't trouble to deny it, Mr. Israels. We're not after you this time—not if you treat us fairly. What
about this lodger of yours? Have you bought him a typewriter lately?"
"Yes—yes. I help you all I can," protested the Jew, with an eagerness that deceived neither of the detectives. There is no class of liar so abysmal as the East-end criminal Jew. They will hold to a glib falsehood with a temerity that nothing can shake. If there is no necessity to lie, they lie—for practice, it is to be presumed. The best way to extract a truth is to make a direct assertion by the light of apparent knowledge and so sometimes obtain assent. Foyle knew the idiosyncrasies of the breed. Hence the threat in his demand.
"I bought a typewriter—yes," went on Israels. "I think he was honest. Didn't seem as though police after him."