ual, his eyes a trifle greener, his whole demeanor one of
unconcealed and unaffected terror.

"Hullo!" Laverick exclaimed. "What the dickens--what do you want
here, Shepherd?"

"Upon my word, sir, I'm not sure that I know," the man replied,
"but I'm scared. I've brought you back the certificates of them
shares. I want you to keep them for me. I'm terrified lest they
come and search my room. I am, I tell you fair. I'm terrified to
order a pint of beer for myself. They're watching me all the time."

"Who are?" Laverick demanded.

"Lord knows who;" Shepherd answered, "but there's two of them at it.
I told you about them as asked questions, and I thought there we'd
done and finished with it. Not a bit of it! There was another one
there this afternoon, said he was a journalist, making sketches of
the passage and asking me no end of questions. He wasn't no
journalist, I'll swear to that. I asked him about his paper.
'Half-a-dozen,' he declared. 'They're all glad to have what I send
them.' Journalist! Lord knows who the other chap was and what he
was asking questions for, but this one was a 'tec, straight. Joe
Forman, he was in to-day looking after my place, for I'd given a
month's notice, and he says to me, 'You see that big chap?'--meaning
him as had been asking me the questions--and I says 'Yes!' and he
says, 'That's a 'tee. I've seed him in a police court, giving
evidence.' I went all of a shiver so that you could have knocked me
down."

"Come, come!" said Laverick. "There's no need for you to be feeling
like this about it. All that you've done is not to have remembered
those two customers who were in your restaurant late one night.
There's nothing criminal in that."

"There's something criminal in having two hundred and fifty pounds'
worth of shares in one's pocket--something suspicious, anyway,"
Shepherd declared, plumping them down on the table. "I ain't giving
you these back, mind, but you must keep 'em for me. I wish I'd never
given notice. I think I'll ask the boss to keep me on."

"Why do you suppose that this man is particularly interested in you?"
Laverick inquired.

"Ain't I told you?" Shepherd exclaimed, sitting up. "Why, he's
been to my place down in 'Ammersmith, asking questions about me.
My landlady swears he didn't go into my room, but who can tell
whether he did or not? Those sort of chaps can get in anywhere.
Then I went out for a bit of an airing after the one o'clock rus