“It's no good, I tell you!” said Mr Brown roughly. “He's gone—vanished!”
“Yes. Yes, I had grasped that,” said Randall. “But you might still be able to use ten pounds.”
“How?” demanded Mr Brown involuntarily.
“Oh, quite easily!” said Randall in his nonchalant way. “You can tell me where Hyde keeps his papers.”
Mr Brown shook his head with some vigour. “Not me. Besides I don't know.”
Randall dropped his half-smoked cigarette on the floor, and set his heel on it. “How disappointing!” he remarked. “The information would have been worth quite a lot—in hard cash, you understand. While if you happened to be holding any correspondence addressed to Hyde that too would be worth ten pounds, or even more.”
“I ain't got no correspondence,” muttered Mr Brown.
“You don't think I'd keep any letters here with them busies nosing around, do you? Any letters that came—and I don't say any did, mind you—I burned, and that's Gospel-truth. I tell you, I've had enough of the whole business.” He watched Randall restore the Bank-note to his case. The faint crackle of it caused a regretful, covetous gleam to shine in his eyes. He passed his tongue between his lips, and said angrily: “How do I know you wouldn't set the cops on to it, supposing there was anything I could tell you?”
“You don't,” said Randall amiably. “But as you can't tell me anything that I want to know, that needn't worry you.”
The notecase was shut, and the hand that held it in the act of sliding it back into an inner pocket. Mr Brown cast another glance towards the door, and after a moment's hesitation leaned slightly forward across the counter, and said in a quick undertone: “I could tell you something about his papers, but it won't help you. That's fair warning, ain't it?”