"Well, old chap,"—I was that already to him—"what can I tell you, and what do you know?"
"I know this much," said I; "last month the grave of Madame Brewer at Raincy was rifled. The man who did it stole a necklace of green diamonds, real or sham, but the latter, I am thinking."
"As true as gospel—I was the man who took them, and they were sham, and be damned to them!"
"Well, you're a pretty ruffian," I said. "But what I want to know is, how did you come to find out that the stones were there, and who was the man who got the real necklace I made for Madame Brewer only a few months ago?"
"Oh, that's what you want to know, is it? Well, it's worth something, that is; I don't know that he ain't a pard of mine; and about no other necklace I ain't heard nothing. You know a blarmed sight too much, it seems to me, guv'ner."
"That may be," said I, "but you can add to what I know, and it might be worth fifty pounds to you."
"On the cushion?"
"I don't understand."
"Well, on that table then?"
"Scarcely. Twenty-five now, and twenty-five when I find that you have told me the truth."