“No money,” pursued Mortimer; “but threepence in one of the skirt-pockets.”

“Three. Penny. Pieces,” said Gaffer Hexam, in as many sentences.

“The trousers pockets empty, and turned inside out.”

Gaffer Hexam nodded. “But that’s common. Whether it’s the wash of the tide or no, I can’t say. Now, here,” moving the light to another similar placard, “his pockets was found empty, and turned inside out. And here,” moving the light to another, “her pocket was found empty, and turned inside out. And so was this one’s. And so was that one’s. I can’t read, nor I don’t want to it, for I know ’em by their places on the wall. This one was a sailor, with two anchors and a flag and G. F. T. on his arm. Look and see if he warn’t.”

“Quite right.”

“This one was the young woman in grey boots, and her linen marked with a cross. Look and see if she warn’t.”

“Quite right.”

“This is him as had a nasty cut over the eye. This is them two young sisters what tied themselves together with a handkecher. This is the drunken old chap, in a pair of list slippers and a nightcap, wot had offered — it afterwards come out — to make a hole in the water for a quartern of rum stood aforehand, and kept to his word for the first and last time in his life. They pretty well papers the room, you see; but I know ’em all. I’m scholar enough!”

He waved the light over the whole, as if to typify the light of his scholarly intelligence, and then put it down on the table and stood behind it looking intently at his visitors. He had the special peculiarity of some birds of prey, that when he knitted his brow, his ruffled crest stood highest.

“You did not find all these yourself; did you?” asked Eugene.

To which the bird of prey slowly rejoined, “And what might your name be, now?”

“This is my friend,” Mortimer Lightwood interposed; “Mr Eugene Wrayburn.”

“Mr Eugene Wrayburn, is it? And what might Mr Eugene Wrayburn have asked of me?”

“I asked you, simply, if you found all these yourself?”

“I answer you, simply, most on ’em.”

“Do you suppose there has been much violence and robbery, beforehand, among these cases?”

“I don’t suppose at all about it,” returned Gaffer. “I ain’t one of the supposing sort. If you’d got your living to haul out of the river every day of your life, you mightn’t be much given to supposing. Am I to show the way?”

As he opened the door, in pursuance of a nod from Lightwood, an extremely pale and disturbed face appeared in the doorway — the face of a man much agitated.

“A body missing?” asked Gaffer Hexam, stopping short; “or a body found? Which?”

“I am lost!” replied the man, in a hurried and an eager manner.

“Lost?”