The two hours that followed were perhaps the dreariest he had ever spent in civilised circumstances. London had given him enough to think about in all conscience, but his mind would not be controlled; as surely as a disturbed compass needle it kept moving back to the north.
Teddy's arrival, half an hour after midnight, he hailed as a great relief. Teddy wore a tired and soiled aspect, but his eyes glinted with repressed excitement.
"Let's go up to my room, Alan," he said at once; "I've got something to shew you."
The moment they were there, with the door bolted, Teddy's fingers went to his waistcoat pocket.
"Recognise it?" he asked, holding up an inch of fine gold chain bearing a small nugget.
"No I don't. Stay! it's not unfamiliar—but no; I can't place it.
Whose is it?"
"Bullard's."
"Oh! Where did you pick it up, Teddy?"
Teddy sat down on the edge of the bed. In a voice not wholly under control he replied—
"I took it from the hand of a dead man, a couple of hours ago."