“What are you talking about? What umbrella?”

“The umbrella which was left behind here the last time the tenant left this place.”

The man became talkative all at once.

“I don’t know nothing about no umbrella!” he cried. “Straight I don’t! I don’t know what you’re getting at, guv’nor! I’ve bin ’ere, man and boy, thirty years, and I’ve never so much as seen no umbrella! You ask any of the tenants ’ereabouts, they’ll tell you the sort of man I am——”

Meanwhile, Mallett, holding his arm in a firm but gentle grip, was impelling him slowly downstairs.

“An umbrella,” he murmured in his blandest tones, while the caretaker’s protests died away into whimperings. “A nice silk umbrella. With a broad gold band on it, for certain. And initials. Or perhaps a name and address on it. Oh, certainly, a name and address I should think. Where is it?”

They had reached the bottom landing. With a convulsive start, the man tore himself away from the inspector’s grasp and vanished into his dim abode below stairs. There was the sound of chairs being overset by hasty movements, of a key being turned in a lock, of a cupboard door opening and closing with a bang, and the man returned. He was pale with fear, and in a hand that trembled violently he extended to the detective an umbrella, precisely as had been described.

“Thank you,” said Mallett coolly. “That was what I had in mind.” He inspected the gold band that decorated the handle. “Name and address in full, I see. Just as I thought. Well, well!”

“I didn’t mean to keep it, guv’nor,” the caretaker insisted.

“No?”

“No. Yer see, it was like this. After Anglo-Dutch hadn’t been near the place two, three days or more, I thought I’d just go up to see if things was all right, see? And I found that there umbrella put away, like, be’ind the door. I didn’t look at the name on the ’andle or anythink, I just thought I’d keep it by me for ’im when ’e come back. Then the police coming in and all, I took another look at it, and when I seed ’oo it belonged to I got scared. I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t dare let on I’d got it, even.”

His eyes anxiously sought Mallett’s to see if he was believed. “I—I swear I never done nothink wrong, guv’nor,” he went on. “Only just what I told you, that’s all.”