CHAPTER XXIV.
MR. LONGCLUSE FOLLOWS A SHADOW.
The ex-detective cleared his voice, shook his head, and smirked.
“A hinterview, gentlemen,” said he, “is worth much in the hands of a persuasive party. I have hanged several obnoxious characters, and let others in for penal for life, by means of a hinterview. You remember Spikes, gentlemen, as got into difficulties for breaking Mr. Winterbotham's desk? Spikes would have frusterated justice, if it wasn't for me. It was done in one hinterview. Says I, ‘Mr. Spikes, you have a wife and five children.’”
The recollection of Mr. Paul Davies' diplomacy was so gratifying to that smiling gentleman, that he could not forbear winking at his auditors as he proceeded.
“‘And my belief is, Mr. Spikes, Sir,’” he continued, “‘that it was all the hinfluence of Tom Sprowles. It was Sprowles persuaded yer—it was him as got the whole thing up. That's my belief; and you did not want to do it, no-wise, and only consented to force the henges in the belief that Sprowles wanted to read the papers, and no more. I have a bad opinion of Sprowles,’ says I, ‘for deceiving you, I may say innocently;’ and talking this way, you conceive, I got it all out of him, and he's under penal for life. Whenever you want to get round a man, and to turn him inside out, your way is to sympathise with him. If I had but an hinterview with that man, I know enough to draw it out of him, every bit. It's all done by sympathising.”
“But do you think you can discover the man?” asked Mr. Arden.