Twisden. [Looking at the card] Yes.  What can we do for you?

Gilman.  Well, I’ve come to you from a sense of duty, sir, and also a feelin’ of embarrassment. [He takes from his breast pocket an evening paper] You see, I’ve been followin’ this Dancy case—­it’s a good deal talked of in Putney—­and I read this at half-past two this afternoon.  To be precise, at 2.25. [He rises and hands the paper to Twisden, and with a thick gloved forefinger indicates a passage] When I read these numbers, I ‘appened to remember givin’ change for a fifty-pound note—­don’t often ’ave one in, you know—­so I went to the cash-box out of curiosity, to see that I ’adn’t got it.  Well, I ’ad; and here it is. [He draws out from his breast pocket and lays before Twisden a fifty-pound banknote] It was brought in to change by a customer of mine three days ago, and he got value for it.  Now, that’s a stolen note, it seems, and you’d like to know what I did.  Mind you, that customer of mine I’ve known ’im—­well—­ eight or nine years; an Italian he is—­wine salesman, and so far’s I know, a respectable man-foreign-lookin’, but nothin’ more.  Now, this was at ’alf-past two, and I was at my head branch at Putney, where I live.  I want you to mark the time, so as you’ll see I ’aven’t wasted a minute.  I took a cab and I drove straight to my customer’s private residence in Putney, where he lives with his daughter—­Ricardos his name is, Paolio Ricardos.  They tell me there that he’s at his business shop in the City.  So off I go in the cab again, and there I find him.  Well, sir, I showed this paper to him and I produced the note.  “Here,” I said, “you brought this to me and you got value for it.”  Well, that man was taken aback.  If I’m a judge, Mr Twisden, he was taken aback, not to speak in a guilty way, but he was, as you might say, flummoxed.  “Now,” I said to him, “where did you get it—­that’s the point?” He took his time to answer, and then he said:  “Well, Mr Gilman,” he said, “you know me; I am an honourable man.  I can’t tell you offhand, but I am above the board.”  He’s foreign, you know, in his expressions.  “Yes,” I said, “that’s all very well,” I said, “but here I’ve got a stolen note and you’ve got the value for it.  Now I tell you,” I said, “what I’m going to do; I’m going straight with this note to Mr Jacob Twisden, who’s got this Dancy-De Levis case in ’and.  He’s a well-known Society lawyer,” I said, “of great experience.”  “Oh!” he said, “that is what you do?”—­funny the way he speaks!  “Then I come with you!”—­And I’ve got him in the cab below.  I want to tell you everything before he comes up.  On the way I tried to get something out of him, but I couldn’t—­I could not.  “This is very awkward,” I said at last.  “It is, Mr Gilman,” was his reply; and he began to talk about his Sicilian claret—­a very good wine, mind you; but under the circumstances it seemed to me uncalled for.  Have I made it clear to you?