“Depends,” answered Triffitt. “You’d better answer a question or two. First—you haven’t told the old gentleman in Portman Square—Mr. Tertius—any more than what you told my friend here you’d told him?”
“Not a word more, guv’nor! ’Cause why—I ain’t seen him since.”
“And you’ve told nothing to the police?”
“The police ain’t never come a-nigh me, and I ain’t been near them. What the old chap said was—wait! And I’ve waited and ain’t heard nothing.”
“Wherefore,” observed Triffitt sardonically, “you want to make a bit.”
“Ain’t no harm in a man doing his best for his-elf, guv’nor, I hope,” said the would-be informant. “If I don’t look after myself, who’s a-going to look after me—I asks you that, now?”
“And I ask you—how much?” said Triffitt. “Out with it!”
The taxi-cab driver considered, eyeing his prospective customer furtively.
“The other gent told you what it is I can tell, guv’nor?” he said at last. “It’s information of what you might call partik’lar importance, is that.”
“I know—you can tell the name of the man whom you drove that morning from the corner of Orchard Street to Kensington High Street,” replied Triffitt. “It may be important—it mayn’t. You see, the police haven’t been in any hurry to approach you, have they? Come now, give it a name?”