Page:Edgar Wallace - The Man who Knew.djvu/142

 "That 's the sort of man he is," he said. "I knew him years ago—at least, I 've seen him. I was in Matabeleland with him, and I tell you there 's nothing too mean for 'Ready-Money Minute'—curse him!"

"I 'll bet you have had a terrible life, sergeant," encouraged Constable Wiseman.

The other laughed bitterly.

"I have," he said.

Sergeant Smith's acquaintance with Eastbourne was a short one. He had only been four years in the town, and had, so rumor ran, owed his promotion to influence. What that influence was none could say. It had been suggested that John Minute himself had secured him his sergeant's stripes, but that was a theory which was pooh-poohed by people who knew that the sergeant had little that was good to say of his supposed patron.

Constable Wiseman, a profound thinker and a secret reader of sensational detective stories, had at one time made a report against John Minute for some technical offense, and had