It was from the Southwark Police Station.
"SIR: Kindly make it convenient to attend here to-morrow evening at 8 P. M. Yours truly,
The following day it was Mason's duty to report himself under his ticket-of-leave, but it was quite unusual for the police to give a preliminary warning in this respect. Failure on his part meant arrest. That was all the officials looked after.
"What's up now?" he muttered. "Anyway, Grenier was right. This gives me a cast-iron alibi. I'll acknowledge it at once."
His accomplice, hoping to obtain sleep from champagne, consumed the contents of a small bottle in his bedroom, while he scanned the columns of the local evening papers for any reference to a "Seaside Mystery" on the Yorkshire coast.
There was none. Anson's body had not been recovered yet.
Before going to bed, he wound Philip's watch. He examined it now with greater interest than he had bestowed on it hitherto.
Although silver, it appeared to be a good one. He opened the case to examine the works. Inside there was an inscription:
"Presented to Philip Anson, aged fifteen years, by the officers and men of the Whitechapel Division of the Metropolitan Police as a token of their admiration for his bravery in assisting to arrest a notorious burglar."
He looked back through the soiled leaves of a sordid record, and found that he was then acting in a melodrama entitled "The Wages of Sin."
And the wages of sin is death! The drama insisted on the full measure of Biblical accuracy. Altogether, Grenier lay down to rest under unenviable conditions.
He dreamed that he was falling down precipices, and striking sheets of blue water with appalling splashes. Each time he was awakened by the shock.
But he was a hardy rogue where conscience was concerned, and he swore himself to sleep again. Rest he must have. He must arise with steady head and clear brain.
He was early astir. His first act was to send for the Yorkshire morning papers. They contained no news of Philip Anson dead, but the local sheet chronicled his arrival at York.
This was excellent. The banker would see it. A few printed lines carry great weight in such matters.
Then he signed the leases, dispatched them in a typewritten envelope and telegraphed: