This, be sure, didn't trouble me at all. What was in my mind was the five hundred sterling offered by the Daily Herald for the solution of the mystery; and that sum I did not lose sight of night or day. To win it I must discover the Yankee with the voice like a saw-mill, and the little cove with the saucer eyes, and for these, upon an instinct which I can hardly account for even to myself (save to say it was connected with three days I spent in Paris eight months ago) I hunted Soho for eleven days as other men hunt big game in Africa. And, will you believe it, when I discovered one of them at last, it was not by my eyes, but by his, for he spotted me at the very top of Wardour Street, and, coming across the road, he slapped me on the shoulder, just as though I had been his only brother let loose on society for the especial purpose of shaking him by the hand.
"Why," says he, "I guess it's the coachman."
"Coachman be d——d," says I; "hasn't Pentonville taught you no better manners than that? You be careful," says I, "or they'll be cancelling your ticket-of-leave——"
He wasn't to be affronted, for he continued to treat me as though he loved me and life had been a misery since we lost each other.
"Say," cried he, "you got through with the basket all right. Well, see here, now; do you want to get that five hundred, Britten, or do you not? I'll play the White Man with you—do you want to get it?"
"Oh," cried I, "if it's a matter of five hundred being put in the cloak-room because there isn't a label on it——"
"Then come along," he rejoined, and, taking me by the arm, he led me along the street, turned sharp round to the right into a place that looked like a disused coach-house; and before I could wink my eye, he dragged me through a door into a room beyond, and then burst out laughing fit to split.
"Britten," says he, "you're fairly done down. I've got the cinch on you, Britten. Don't you perceive that same?"
Well, of all the fools! My head spun with the thought; not at first the thought of fear, mind you, though fear followed right enough, but just with the irony of it all, and the rightdown lunacy which sent me into this trap as a fly goes into a spider's web. And this man would suck me dry; I hadn't a doubt of it; a word might cost me my life.
"Well," I rejoined, knowing that my safety depended upon my wits, "and what if I am? Do you suppose I came here without letting Inspector Melton know where I was coming? You'd better think it out, old chap. There may be two at the corner and both on the wrong side. Don't you make no mistake."