the front van, saying that he would overtake them.
"Come to give yourself up?" enquired the sergeant, who had a slight acquaintance with Bindle.
"Not yet, ole sport; goin' to give yer a chance to earn promotion. I come for a key."
Bindle handed in his credentials.
At that moment two constables entered with a drunken woman screaming obscenities. The men had all they could do to hold her. Bindle listened for a moment.
"Lord, she ain't learnt all that at Sunday-school," he muttered; then turning to the sergeant, said, "'Ere, gi'e me my key. I didn't ought to 'ear such things."
The sergeant hurriedly turned to a rack behind him, picked up the key and handed it to Bindle. His attention was engrossed with the new case; it meant a troublesome day for him.
Bindle signed for the key, put it in his pocket and left the station.
He overtook the vans just as they were entering Branksome Road. Pulling the key out of his pocket he looked at the tag.
"Funny," he muttered, "thought he said a 'undred an' eighty-one, not a 'undred an' thirty-one."
He took a scrap of paper out of his pocket, on which he had written down the number in the
