ury that morning
about a chance customer, who, in his own words, had diddled him for a
bob overnight. He showed the policeman a shilling he had taken from the
man, and was under the impression that it was a bad one because it was
marked with a cross. The policeman put the coin in his pocket and gave
the man another one to get rid of him. I obtained the shilling from him,
and went to see the coffeestall keeper. His description of the man who
passed it resembled Nepcote, and he added the information that the
customer, after changing the shilling for a cup of coffee, had asked him
where he could get a bed. The coffeestall keeper directed him to a cheap
lodging-house near the _Angel_. I went to his lodging-house, and
ascertained that a man answering to the description had slept there last
night, and on leaving this morning said that he would return there for a
bed to-night. I have a policeman watching the place, and I am going out
there shortly to see this chap--if he comes back. Do you care to go with
me?"

"I'll go with pleasure," said Colwyn, who had listened to this story
with close attention.

"Then we'd better be getting along. But, I say, don't mention this to
Merrington if anything goes wrong and I don't pull it off. The old man
has his knife into me over this case, and my life wouldn't be worth
living if Nepcote slipped through our fingers again. I want to try and
surprise him, and let him see that there are other men at Scotland Yard
besides himself."

"I don't think you have much to fear from Merrington," said Colwyn,
laughing outright. "He is in a chastened mood at present. But you can
rely on my discretion, and I hope you will get your man."

"I believe I shall," returned Caldew in a confident tone. "Shall we make
a start?"

Colwyn paid the bill, and they set out through the darkened streets,
upon which a light autumn fog was descending. The Kingsway underground
tramway carried them to the _Angel_, where they got off. Caldew threaded
his way through the unwashed population of that centre, and turned into
a side street where a swarm of draggle-tailed women were chaffering for
decaying greens heaped on costers' stalls in the middle of the road. He
turned again into a narrower street running off this street market, and
stopped when he got to the end of it. He nudged his companion, and
pointed to a sign of "Good Beds," visible beneath a flare in a doorway
opposite.

"That's the place," he said.

A policem