suggests again that the
paralysed man will understand what is said to him if spoke to plain.
Clearly, he who speaks plain to him will do a good-natured act.

Whether the officer's motives are Samaritan or otherwise, he takes the
hint. As the woman gets out of hearing, he says:--"You are the master of
this house, I take it?" And his hearer's crippled mouth half succeeds in
its struggle for an emphatic assent. He continues:--"In course you are.
I'm Sub-Inspector Cardwell, N Division. There's a man concealed in your
house I'm after. He's wanted.... Who is he?"--a right guess of an
unintelligible question--"You mean what name does he go by? Well--his
name's Daverill, but he's called Thornton or Wix as may be. P'r'aps you
know him, sir?" Whether or no, the name has had effect electrically on
its hearer, who struggles frantically--painfully--hopelessly for speech.
The officer says commiseratingly:--"Poor devil!--he's quite off his
jaw"; and then, going to the open window, calls out to his mates of the
river-service, below in the garden:--"Keep an eye on the roof, boys."

Then he goes out on the stair-landing. That woman is too long away--it
is out of all reason. As he passes the paralytic man, he notes that he
seems to be struggling violently for something--either to speak or to
rise. He cannot tell which, and he does best to hasten the return of the
woman who can.

Out on the landing, Miss Hawkins, who has not been looking for keys, but
supplying her first Sunday customers in their own jugs, protests that
she has fairly turned the house over in her key-hunt--all in vain! Her
interest seems vivid that these police shall not be kept off her roof.
She suggests that a builder's yard in the Kew Road will furnish a ladder
long enough to reach the roof. "Shut on Sunday!" says Sub-Inspector
Cardwell conclusively. Then let someone who knows how be summoned to
pick the lock. By all means, if such a person is at hand. But no trade
will come out Sunday, except the turn-cock, obviously useless. That is
the verdict. "You'll never be for breaking down the door, Mr. Inspector,
with my father there ill in the room!"--is the woman's appeal. "Not till
we've looked everywhere else," is the reply. "I'll say that much. I'll
see through the cupboards in the room, though. _That_ won't hurt him."

Little did either of them anticipate what met their eyes as the door
opened. There on the couch, no longer on his back, but sitting up and
gasping for