Twisden.  I am Dancy’s lawyer, my dear Charles, as well as yours.

Winsor.  Well, can I go and see Canynge?

Twisden.  Better not.

Winsor.  If they get that out of him, and recall me, am I to say he told me of it at the time?

Twisden.  You didn’t feel the coat yourself?  And Dancy wasn’t present? 
Then what Canynge told you is not evidence—­he’ll stop your being asked.

Winsor.  Thank goodness.  Good-bye!

     Winsor goes out.

Twisden, behind his table, motionless, taps his teeth with the eyeglasses in his narrow, well-kept hand.  After a long shake of his head and a shrug of his rather high shoulders he snips, goes to the window and opens it.  Then crossing to the door, Left Back, he throws it open and says

Twisden.  At your service, sir.

     Gilman comes forth, nursing his pot hat.

Be seated.

     Twisden closes the window behind him, and takes his seat.

Gilman. [Taking the client’s chair, to the left of the table] Mr Twisden, I believe?  My name’s Gilman, head of Gilman’s Department Stores.  You have my card.

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.”