“Well, here I am at last, you see, my dear fellow,” he said, as he crossed the room and shook hands with him.  “Ripping day, isn’t it?  What are you doing?  Admiring the view or taking stock of Mrs. Culpin’s roses?”

“Neither.  I was speculating in futures,” replied Cleek, glancing back at the sunlit common, and then glancing away again with a faintly audible sigh.  “How happy, how care-free they are, those merry little beggars, Mr. Narkom.  What you said in your letter set my thoughts harking backward, and ...  I was wondering what things the coming years might hold for them and for their parents.  At one time, you know, Philip Bawdrey was as innocent and guileless as any of those little shavers; and yet, in after years he proved a monster of iniquity, a beast of ingratitude, and—­Oh, well, let it pass.  He paid, as thankless children always do pay under God’s good rule.  I wonder what his thoughts were when his last hour came.”

“It did come, then?”

“Yes.  Got playing some of his games with those short-tempered chaps out in Buenos Ayres and got knifed a fortnight after his arrival.  I had a letter from Mrs. Bawdrey yesterday.  His father never knew of—­well, the other thing; and never will now, thank God.  The longer I live, Mr. Narkom, the surer I become that straight living always pays; and that the chap who turns into the other lane gets what he deserves before the game is played out.”

“Ten years of Scotland Yard have enabled me to endorse that statement emphatically,” replied Narkom. “‘The riddle of the ninth finger’ was no different in that respect from nine hundred other riddles that have come my way since I took office.  Now sit down, old chap, and let us take up the present case.  But I say, Cleek; speaking of rewards reminds me of what I wrote you.  There’s very little chance of one in this affair.  All the parties connected with it are in very moderate circumstances.  The sculptor fellow, Van Nant, who figures in it, was quite well-to-do at one time, I believe, but he ran through the greater part of his money, and a dishonest solicitor did him out of the rest.  Miss Morrison herself never did have any, and, as I have told you, the Captain hasn’t anything in the world but his pension; and it takes every shilling of that to keep them.  In the circumstances, I’d have made it a simple ‘Yard’ affair, chargeable to the Government, and put one of the regular staff upon it.  But—­well, it’s such an astounding, such an unheard-of-thing, I knew you’d fairly revel in it.  And besides, after all the rewards you have won you must be quite a well-to-do man by this time, and able to indulge in a little philanthropy.”

Cleek smiled.

“I will indulge in it, of course,” he said, “but not for that reason, Mr. Narkom.  I wonder how much it will surprise you to learn that, at the present moment, I have just one hundred pounds in all the world?”

“My dear fellow!” Narkom exclaimed, with a sort of gasp, staring at him in round-eyed amazement.  “You fairly take away my breath.  Why, you must have received a fortune since you took up these special cases.  Fifty or sixty thousand pounds at the smallest calculation.”