side of his desk. "Take a seat. You've called about that reward,
of course."

The man in the chair eyed the two of them cautiously, and not without
suspicion. He cleared his throat with a palpable effort.

"Of course," he said. "It's all on the strict private. Name of Edward
Mollison, sir."

"And where do you live, and what do you do?" asked Spargo.

"You might put it down Rowton House, Whitechapel," answered Edward
Mollison. "Leastways, that's where I generally hang out when I can
afford it. And--window-cleaner. Leastways, I was window cleaning
when--when----"

"When you came in contact with the stick we've been advertising about,"
suggested Spargo. "Just so. Well, Mollison--what about the stick?"

Mollison looked round at the door, and then at the windows, and then at
Breton.

"There ain't no danger of me being got into trouble along of that
stick?" he asked. "'Cause if there is, I ain't a-going to say a
word--no, not for no thousand pounds! Me never having been in no
trouble of any sort, guv'nor--though a poor man."

"Not the slightest danger in the world, Mollison," replied Spargo. "Not
the least. All you've got to do is to tell the truth--and prove that it
is the truth. So it was you who took that queer-looking stick out of
Mr. Aylmore's rooms in Fountain Court, was it?"

Mollison appeared to find this direct question soothing to his
feelings. He smiled weakly.

"It was cert'nly me as took it, sir," he said. "Not that I meant to
pinch it--not me! And, as you might say, I didn't take it, when all's
said and done. It was--put on me."

"Put on you, was it?" said Spargo. "That's interesting. And how was it
put on you?"

Mollison grinned again and rubbed his chin.

"It was this here way," he answered. "You see, I was working at that
time--near on to nine months since, it is--for the Universal Daylight
Window Cleaning Company, and I used to clean a many windows here and
there in the Temple, and them windows at Mr. Aylmore's--only I knew
them as Mr. Anderson's--among 'em. And I was there one morning, early
it was, when the charwoman she says to me, 'I wish you'd take these two
or three hearthrugs,' she says, 'and give 'em a good beating,' she
says. And me being always a ready one to oblige, 'All right!' I says,
and takes 'em. 'Here's something to wallop 'em with,' she says, and
pulls that there old stick out of a lot that was in a stand in a corner
of the lobby. And that's how I came to handle it, sir."