Thus the gin-drinker’s thoughts flitted through his mind, as he sat before the tavern fire drinking raw spirits and drying his clothes, a poor thin, wretched-looking object, with one foot in the grave, as the slipshod servant had said to her boozy master, when he asked who it was that had such “a big swallow.”
CHAPTER XV.
CONTAINS A CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF DETECTIVE PHILOSOPHY, AND IS AN IMPORTANT LINK IN THIS HISTORY.
“Well, I shall be off to town,” said Mr. Bales to the superintendent of the Brazencrook police, on the third morning after his arrival. “This case is a floorer to me.”
The constable smiled, and thought he had certainly done the detective.
“I have been connected with Scotland Yard for some years now, and had a tolerable experience in America too, and I don’t think I have felt so helpless as I do in this business; so I called in to say good-bye, and wish you well through the case.”
“Don’t go for a few minutes,” said the superintendent: “rather a singular disappearance of bank notes has been reported to me just now; you may like to hear the story; being here on spec, you know, and not a very successful spec, perhaps you might like to try your hand at another case.”
The speaker smiled a little sarcastically, but as much as to say, having beaten your head off in this Montem business, I can afford to be generous.
“All right,” said Bales; “better luck next time.”
“Will you hear about this note job?”
“Certainly,” said Bales.