“Well enough to swear to him?”
“I think so, sir.”
“What sort of a man was he? Describe him as well as you can.”
“So dark that he looked almost like a foreign chap,” said Larkins’ wife; “taller than most men, and broader. He wore a hat slouched down over his eyes, so I could not see his face, but his voice was deep and full, and had a fierce sort of note in it.”
“Would you say, now, that he was a gentleman?”
“Oh, yes, he had the way of one—’aughty he were, and proud as a lord.”
“Well, now, think a minute: you are quite sure you never heard his name?”
“No, that I didn’t; but Bill was mighty flustered the last time he came here. I were in the next room for a bit, and I ’eard my husband and this gentleman talk about a robbery which they meant to commit in the north of England. I believe it were a bank they wanted to rob. Someone, whose name I could not catch, had said they were to do the job between them—that is, my man was to do the real business, and the other man was to watch and to look on. That’s all I ever heard, and it’s my belief the robbery never came off—but I remember they planned it.”
“Here,” said Crossley suddenly, taking a photograph out of his pocket; “you say you would know your man if you saw him again?”
“I would, sir.”