a suitable term for his authentic offense." It was three o'clock on Christmas morning when they saw the lights of London from the top of Brockley Hill; a minute later they were on the tram-lines at the foot, and almost immediately in the purlieus of the town. The trip did not end without a telling taste of Mr. Vinson's very individual quality. In Maida Vale he suddenly announced his intention of having the life-preserver identified in those very small hours by the pawnbroker who had sold it on the morning of the autumn raid. The crime doctor was terrified; for aught he knew the man might be well aware that he had sold it to Lady Vera Moyle. She was notorious enough, in all conscience; his only hope lay in the fact that he himself had not known her by sight before that day. In vain he raised various objections; they were well met by his own[Pg 73] previous arguments for the immediate reprieve of Alfred Croucher, and he feared to press them. He knew only the name of the pawnbroker's street, but here Cockney sharpness came in again, and they were pounding on the right shutters by half past three. An up-stairs window flew alight, up went a sash, and out came an angry head. [Pg 73] "My name is Topham Vinson," said one of the swaddled men in a sepulchral voice. "I'm the Home Secretary, but I can't force you to come down and speak to me because of that. I can only make it more or less worth your while." He was fishing for his sovereign-case as he spoke. In another minute the private door had shut behind him and Doctor Dollar, and an obsequious sack of humanity shuffled before them into a sanctum still redolent of a somewhat highly-seasoned meal. "I remember 'aving it in the thop," said the unkempt head protruding from the sack. "But I can't thay 'ow it came here—that I can thwear in a court of juthtith, my lord! It'th a narthy, beathly thing, but I thwear it wath here when I took over the bithneth."[Pg 74] [Pg 74] "I don't care how or when it came here," said Topham Vinson, counting the sovereigns in the gold case attached to the watch-chain of other memories. "I want to know if you remember selling this life-preserver?" "Yeth, I do!" "When?"
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