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Mary fled, and Eliza bustled into the kitchen. "A big man, with a round head an' bulgin' blue eyes!" she muttered wrathfully. "Does he think I'm afraid of that sort of brewer's drayman, or of a little man with eyes like a ferret, either? If he does, he's very much mistaken. I don't believe he's a real 'tec. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he wasn't a reporter.
"Will it run to it, guvnor?" "Certainly," was the cordial reply, "and the same to your friends, if you will answer a question." "Troop up, lads," the man shouted. "We've a toff 'ere. He ain't a 'tec I know the cut of them. Out with the question." "Serve every one who desires it with drinks," Sir Timothy directed the barman. "My question is easily answered.
"I'm down 'ere now on special work," he ses, "looking arter sailormen." "Wot ha' they been doing?" ses Sam. "When I say looking arter, I mean protecting 'em," ses the tec. "Over and over agin some pore feller, arter working 'ard for months at sea, comes 'ome with a few pounds in 'is pocket and gets robbed of the lot.
"That's my secret," he ses, arter the tec 'ad patted 'im on the back and brought 'im round. "You're a marvel, that's wot you are," ses the tec, shaking his 'ead. "Have one with me." Sam said he didn't mind if 'e did, and arter drinking each other's healths very perlite 'e ordered a couple o' twopenny smokes, and by way of showing off paid for 'em with 'arf a quid.
Cubbins got up to go at last, saying that he 'ad got a call to make at the police-station, and they went out together. "Nine o'clock sharp," he ses, as they shook hands, "on Tower Hill." "I'll be there," ses Sam. "And, wotever you do, no noise, no calling out," ses the tec, "and don't mention a word of this to a living soul."
"I pretended to be drunk, same as the tec told me," ses Sam, "and then I felt 'em turn round and creep up behind me. One of 'em come up behind and put 'is knee in my back and caught me by the throat, and the other gave me a punch in the chest, and while I was gasping for breath took my purse away. Then I started on 'em." "Lor'!" ses Ginger, very nasty. "I fought like a lion," ses Sam.
I shall go to Marvillier's to-morrow fortunate man, Marvillier and ask him to supply me with a really good 'tec, who will stop in the house and keep an eye upon every living soul that comes near me. He shall scan each nose, each eye, each wig, each whisker. He shall be my watchful half, my unsleeping self; it shall be his business to suspect all living men, all breathing women.
Pore Sam, with a tec standing alongside of 'im, said it was quite right, and put it into 'is pocket in a hurry and began to talk to the tec as fast as he could about a murder he 'ad been reading about in the paper that morning. They went and sat down by a comfortable little fire that was burning in the bar, and the tec told 'im about a lot o' murder cases he 'ad been on himself.
I'll remember him, one day!" A word in this is not the one Daverill used, and his adjective is twice omitted. Aunt M'riar's puzzled face produced a more temperate explanation, to the effect that Micky had carried the letter to a "tec," or detective, who had "got at him," and that the letter had been tampered with at the police-station.
I'll give you the benefit of my experience as a 'tec, and with my plot and your own writing we'll be able to knock up a story for the paper I talk of. Then, with one hundred pounds you'll have a nest-egg to start with." "I accept with gratitude," said Beecot, moved, "but I really don't know why you should trouble about me."
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