Another section of his clients, however, equally furtive and mysterious, had clues in plenty, which they seemed to think entitled them to some reward. These, after assuring themselves that no one could overhear them, would produce an incoherent story of how one of their neighbours must be the criminal. He had been heard to utter threats that he would do someone in some day, he had been in Praed Street on the night when Mr. Tovey was murdered, in the neighbourhood of Paddington station when Mr. Pargent was killed. Others, again, had met a muffled figure brandishing a knife, or had seen a dark man with a beard standing in the shadow thrown by a projecting wall. Two or three searching questions were always sufficient to prove that their suspicions were baseless.