ny good,
Mr. 'Oward. What you wants to find is them diamonds?"

"Of course I do."

"Well;--you won't find 'em. I knows nothing about 'em, in course,
except just what I'm told. You know my line of life, Mr. 'Oward?"

"Not a doubt about it."

"And I know yours. I'm in the way of hearing about these things,--and
for the matter of that, so are you too. It may be, my ears are the
longer. I 'ave 'eard. You don't expect me to tell you more than just
that. I 'ave 'eard. It was a pretty thing, wasn't it? But I wasn't in
it myself, more's the pity. You can't expect fairer than that, Mr.
'Oward?"

"And what have you heard?"

"Them diamonds is gone where none of you can get at 'em. That five
hundred pounds as the lawyers 'ave offered is just nowhere. If you
want information, Mr. 'Oward, you should say information."

"And you could give it;--eh, Billy?"

"No--; no--" He uttered these two negatives in a low voice, and with
much deliberation. "I couldn't give it. A man can't give what he
hasn't got;--but perhaps I could get it."

"What an ass you are, Billy. Don't you know that I know all about
it?"

"What an ass you are, Mr. 'Oward. Don't I know that you don't
know;--or you wouldn't come to me. You guess. You're always
a-guessing. And because you know how to guess, they pays you for
guessing. But guessing ain't knowing. You don't know;--nor yet don't
I. What is it to be, if I find out where that young woman is?"

"A tenner, Billy."

"Five quid now, and five when you've seen her."

"All right, Billy."

"She's a-going to be married to Smiler next Sunday as ever is down at
Ramsgate;--and at Ramsgate she is now. You'll find her, Mr. 'Oward,
if you'll keep your eyes open, somewhere about the 'Fiddle with One
String.'"

This information was so far recognised by Mr. Howard as correct, that
he paid Mr. Cann five sovereigns down for it at once.

CHAPTER LVIII

"The Fiddle with One String"

Mr. Gager reached Ramsgate by the earliest train on the following
morning, and was not long in finding out the "Fiddle with One
String." The "Fiddle with One String" was a public-house, very humble
in appearance, in the outskirts of the town, on the road leading to
Pegwell Bay. On this occasion Mr. Gager was dressed in his ordinary
plain clothes, and though the policeman's calling might not be
so manifestly declared by his appearance at Ramsgate as it was
in Scotland Yard,--still, let a hint in that direction have ever
bee