The Shadow of a Man. Hornung Ernest William

sergeant, who had sunk his own voice to the veriest whisper. "Yes – yes – that's the gentleman. None other! Incredible, isn't it? Of course it wasn't Darlinghurst he escaped from, but Pentridge; only I thought you'd guess if I said; it's been in the papers some days."

      "We get ours very late, and haven't always time to read them then. I knew nothing about it."

      "Well, then, you knew about as much as is known in Victoria from that day to this. The police down there have lost their end of the thread, and it was my great luck to pick it up again by the merest chance last week. I'll tell you about that another time. But you understand what it would mean to me?"

      "Rather!"

      "To land him more or less single-handed!"

      "I won't tell a soul."

      "And don't you go and take the man himself behind my back, Mr. Rigden!" the policeman was obliged to add, with such jocularity as men feign in their deadliest earnest.

      But Rigden's laugh was genuine and involuntary.

      "I can safely promise that I won't do that," said he. "But ask the other fellows if they've seen the kind of man you describe; if they haven't, no harm done."