‘The boss was seldom in when we arrived, but he was there this morning, and his temper was no better.
‘“Here, you,” he called, when he saw me, “I thought you were never coming. Get the big gray yoked into the box cart and get away to this address”—he handed me a paper—“to shift a piano.”
‘“But the cask,” I stammered.
‘“You mind your own business and do what you’re told. I’ve settled about that.”
‘I looked round. The dray was gone, and whether he’d sent it back to Felix or to the address I’d given, I didn’t know.
‘I cursed the whole affair bitterly, particularly when I thought of Jim waiting at the house. But there was nothing I could do, and I yoked the box cart and left. I went round by the house and told Jim, and I never saw a madder man in all my life. I could make nothing of him, so I left him and did the piano job. I just got back to the yard and was going for dinner when you nabbed me.’
When the prisoner had mentioned the address in Little George Street, Burnley had given a rapid order to the driver, and the statement had only just been finished when the car turned into the street.
‘No. 133, you said?’
‘That’s it, sir.’
No. 133 was a large hardware shop. Burnley saw the proprietor.