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Applying Behavioural
Science to the Private
Sector
Decoding What People
Say and What They Do

Helena Rubinstein
Applying Behavioural Science to the Private Sector
 Helena Rubinstein

Applying Behavioural
Science to the Private
Sector
Decoding What People Say and What They Do
Helena Rubinstein
Innovia Technology Ltd
Cambridge, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-01697-5    ISBN 978-3-030-01698-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01698-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018958001

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2018
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan

This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Brian, Ilana and Nadia
 Preface

The idea for this book came from a discussion with a Principal Scientist
and Research Fellow at a global pharmaceutical company. He told me that
his organisation might benefit from using behavioural science, but he
didn’t know where to start. “I have heard about nudging. Is that the same
as behavioural science? I don’t know enough about it or how to find someone
who is really good at it. I’ve received lots of emails from people who claim they
do behavioural science but how do I know what is good or what is right for
us?”
He was making a point I had heard many times. Behavioural science has
become unusually high profile and many businesses are exploring how to
use it. However, it is a relatively new discipline and there are not many
guides for how to use it well in a commercial setting.
At Innovia Technology, where I manage a team of behavioural scien-
tists, we have been working with global corporations on their behavioural
challenges for many years. The team comprises practitioners from across
the psychological sciences including social psychologists, health psycholo-
gists, experimental psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, behavioural
economists, public health specialists, and sports psychologists. We all come
from an academic background and have been applying academic theory in
a way that is well-suited to the faster pace of the commercial sector to
design better products, services and interventions.
This book is the result of these experiences. It is intended to help stu-
dents know how to use behavioural science theory and apply it in business,
and help managers know how and when to use behavioural science, as well
as overcome the challenges to incorporating it in their businesses.

vii
viii PREFACE

People believe that they understand human behaviour because they are
human. However, it’s almost impossible to intuitively know how people
will behave. People say one thing and do another. It is hard to predict
human behaviour and even harder to change it, but if we use a structured
and rigorous approach, we can get better at understanding why people
don’t always do what they say they do.

Cambridge, UK Helena Rubinstein

 Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my colleagues at Innovia for their support and comments
while I was writing this book. In particular, Dr Geraint Davies read and
improved early drafts of every chapter and Dr Guen Bradbury gave detailed
and invaluable advice to improve readability. In addition, I would like to
thank those colleagues who contributed or were interviewed including Dr
Colin Ager, Dr Emma Bertenshaw, Hannah Burt, Dr Marie Buda, Dr
Helen Clubb, Dr Tim Goldrein, Gabriel Greening, Dr Caroline Hagerman,
Dr Alex Hellawell, Glenn Le Faou, Dr Alastair McGregor, Dr Fiona
McMaster, Dr Katie Morton, Andy Milton, Dr Shreyas Mukund, Kora
Muscat, Arron Rodrigues, Ben Rose, Dr Julian Scarfe, James Salisbury,
and Dr Rob Wilkinson.
I am also grateful to my clients for allowing me to work on so many
fascinating challenges. I am especially indebted to Heather Figallo at
Southwest Airlines and Allie Kelly at The Ray for their helpful comments
on the case studies.

ix
 About the Book

This book is divided into two parts. Part I focuses on the theory and prin-
ciples of behavioural science and Part II describes how this theory can
effectively be put into practice in commercial organisations. Case studies
are used to illustrate major themes.
The aim of Part I is to describe the underlying theory and principles
behind the discipline. I outline the history of behavioural science, discuss
why behaviour is hard to predict, and explain how behavioural scientists
use theories and models of behaviour. In the last chapter of this section, I
show a process for how theory is applied to design products, services and
interventions.
Part II is about practice. Much of this section is based on case studies
or interviews with practitioners. I discuss the challenges of integrating
behavioural science into an established organisation and suggest how and
why to use behavioural science in multidisciplinary teams. In Chap. 7, I
use a case study to show how the process described in Part I was applied
to improve the boarding experience at the gate for Southwest Airlines. I
also consider the potential for misuse of behavioural science and suggest
ethical guidelines that could be used in the private sector. Finally, I discuss
the value of applying behavioural science to business and propose how
best to realise its potential.

xi
 Contents

Part I Theory and Principles of Behavioural Science  1

1 An Overview of Behavioural Science   3

Why Businesses Don’t Use It and Why They Should

2 The Difficulty of Predicting Behaviour  23

Why Existing Market Research Methods Aren’t Good Enough

3 The Science Behind Behaviour  35

Why Evidence-Based Theories and Models Are Useful

4 The Application of Theory to Intervention Design  51

Why a Structured Process Is Vital

Part II Embedding Behavioural Science in the Business  69

5 The Integration of Behavioural Science into Business  73

How to Overcome Resistance to Using It in the Organisation

xiii
xiv Contents

6 The Importance of Multiple Perspectives  89

How to Make Behavioural Science Work in Multidisciplinary
Teams

7 A Case Study of Using Behavioural Science in Practice 107

How Southwest Airlines Used It to Improve the Boarding
Experience

8 The Ethical Risks of Behavioural Science 117

How to Avoid Its Misuse

9 The Benefits of Applying Behavioural Science to Business 127

How to Get the Most Value from Behavioural Science

Index 135
 About the Author

Helena Rubinstein is Head of Behavioural Science and leads the Strategic

Advisory Group at Innovia Technology, an innovation consultancy based
in Cambridge, UK. Her academic background is in social psychology and
she has lectured at the University of Cambridge on the application of
social psychology to social issues and on the psychology of ageing. She has
also conducted research in the field of health psychology.
Helena has extensive commercial experience and has held senior posi-
tions in advertising and communications. She was managing director of
the global brand consultancy for Leo Burnett and a partner at Brunswick
Group.
She is married with two children and lives in Cambridge.

xv
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Schematic of speed-control pulsing and gradated warning used

to test comprehensibility and usefulness of solar-powered road
studs. Source: Innovia Technology 6
Fig. 1.2 The MyPlate symbol: a reminder for use on food packaging to
help people make healthy food choices. Source: United States
Department of Agriculture 13
Fig. 3.1 COM-B: making a behavioural diagnosis 40
Fig. 3.2 The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 42
Fig. 4.1 The five steps of intervention design 54
Fig. 4.2 Protection Motivation Theory: a theory developed to
understand how people respond to health threats 57
Fig. 4.3 Categories of behaviour-change techniques 60
Fig. 4.4 Intervention evaluation: risk–reward analysis for nutritional
supplement example 64
Fig. 7.1 Areas to influence at the boarding gate 113
Fig. 7.2 Examples of high- and low-tech solutions to relieve anxiety at
the boarding gate. Source: Innovia Technology 114
Fig. 7.3 Schematic of concepts tested at St Louis Airport. Source:
Innovia Technology 115

xvii
 List of Boxes

Box 2.1 The Intention–Behaviour Gap Makes Prediction Hard 25

Box 3.1 Diagnosing What Needs to Be Done to Change Behaviour 40
Box 3.2 A Model of Technology Acceptance 42
Box 5.1 Using Behavioural Science for an Innovation Challenge 86

xix
 PART I

Theory and Principles of Behavioural

Science

This section focuses on the theory of behavioural science and its relevance
to commercial issues. It describes the basic principles and the main theo-
ries that underpin behavioural science.
The aim is to help readers to understand what behaviour is, how behav-
ioural scientists describe and model behaviour, and how to use this knowl-
edge to improve research, product and service development, and
intervention design.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of behavioural science. It describes how
the discipline of behavioural science developed from ideas emerging from
social and health psychology, how these ideas challenged classical eco-
nomic theory, and how they have been transferred, and successfully used
by policy makers. It explores the main principles of nudge theory and sug-
gests that there is more to behavioural science than ‘nudging’. The chap-
ter concludes that businesses would benefit from applying the scientific
method of behavioural science in the commercial sector, if they can over-
come five major challenges to its implementation.
Chapter 2 focusses on the difficulty of predicting behaviour, explains
the intention–behaviour gap, and explores why existing market research
methods are not good enough at predicting behaviour. Conventional
methods often fail to yield useful information because the data collected is
often poor quality, data is confused with insight, the research fails to focus
on the factors that drive behaviour, and the research is done to confirm
existing biases rather than to prove or refute behavioural hypotheses. This
chapter describes the barriers that prevent businesses developing a deeper
understanding of consumer behaviour. It explains why businesses need
2 Theory and Principles of Behavioural Science

better research tools and methods that apply the principles of behavioural
science if they are to design products and services that are intuitive to use
and that people want. It clarifies the need for a good theoretical frame-
work to allow researchers to find out what people really do, not what they
say they do.
Chapter 3 describes the science behind behaviour and why theories and
models are useful. They provide focus, help to cut through complexity,
and guide decisions about what products, services and interventions to
design and develop. It argues that too many businesses focus on changing
attitudes and beliefs rather than on the behaviours themselves. Without a
good theory or model of behaviour, companies do not know what activi-
ties to observe, or what is really important in influencing behaviour. It
discusses what makes a good theory or model of behaviour and how
organisations can use and develop models to understand specific chal-
lenges. It illustrates how theories, such as the COM-B and the Unified
Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Model, benefit decision-
making and how they can be used in practice.
Chapter 4 explores the application of theory to intervention design and
explains why a structured approach is vital. It outlines a five-step process
that can be applied in business, starting with defining the desired behav-
ioural outcome, taking the reader through approaches for doing a behav-
ioural diagnostic, prioritising the influences on behaviour, identifying
suitable behaviour-change techniques, ideating products, services and
interventions and prioritising them, and ends with how to test and evalu-
ate them. It describes how a structured approach helps to refine a large
number of options down to a small number of intervention ideas that have
a good probability of success. It concludes that using a systematic process,
which is grounded in evidence and theory, results in solutions that are
more likely to be effective and acceptable to the consumer.
 CHAPTER 1

An Overview of Behavioural Science

Why Businesses Don’t Use It and Why They Should

Abstract This chapter focuses on how the discipline of behavioural sci-

ence developed from ideas emerging from social and health psychology,
how these ideas challenged classical economic theory, and how they have
been transferred, and successfully used by policy makers. Rubinstein
explores the main principles of nudge theory and suggests that there is
more to behavioural science than ‘nudging’. She concludes that businesses
would benefit from applying the scientific method of behavioural science
in the commercial sector, if they can overcome five major challenges to its
implementation.

Keywords Behavioural science • Nudge theory • Scientific method

How good are you at driving?

Be honest—how good are your driving skills really?
Peoples’ sense of their own driving ability is deeply embedded.
Most will tell you that they are ‘above average’. Even if you tell them
that, of course, they can’t all be above average, they’ll say “yeah, but
I am above average”.
This is relevant if you are trying to design systems to help people
to drive better, and more safely. If you ask a person to describe her

© The Author(s) 2018 3

H. Rubinstein, Applying Behavioural Science to the Private Sector,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01698-2_1
4 H. RUBINSTEIN

actions while, for example, merging from a smaller road onto a big
one, she will probably describe a standard ‘textbook’ manoeuvre.
She won’t tell you what happens when the phone rings, when she is
distracted by her children in the back, when she is late for work,
tired, or gripped by road rage. For the more experienced drivers,
many driving behaviours have become habitual and automatic, so
people aren’t really aware of what they are doing or thinking while
driving. And the way we ask questions about driving doesn’t help.
We tend to ask about driving behaviour as if everyone is always ratio-
nal and we fail to take account of the social and emotional factors
that influence what we do.
This was the problem facing the team at Innovia Technology when
they were designing novel systems to improve safety on the road. So,
how did the team face these challenges? The narrative below sum-
marises some of their thinking and processes.
Glenn arrived at the meeting late. “Sorry, the traffic is always ter-
rible when it’s been raining. There was a collision. People just don’t
realise they need to change their driving behaviour when the conditions
change.”
“You should know,” Marie, the psychologist, commented. “You’re
the transport designer! Anyway, you’ve arrived at just the right
moment—we’re talking about the solutions to prevent road accidents
for The Ray.”
The Ray is a not-for-profit organisation that manages 18 miles of
highway in Georgia that is working to make roads greener and safer.
Its mission is ‘Zero Carbon, Zero Waste, Zero Death’. The Ray
developed as a result of an epiphany by the founder of Interface, Inc,
Ray C. Anderson. He had grown the business into the world’s larg-
est manufacturer of modular carpets, but realised that his company,
and all of business and industry, was causing tremendous environ-
mental damage. Furthermore, he recognised that only businesses
like his were sufficiently large, capitalised, and organised to solve
global environmental challenges. In 1994, he committed to making
his organisation sustainable, so that it could eventually operate with
no harm to the biosphere. For the remaining 17 years of his life, he
proved that a company’s authentic commitment to environmental
 AN OVERVIEW OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE 5

sustainability was not only morally right: it was also remarkably prof-
itable. Today, The Ray describes itself as ‘a living lab for innovative
ideas and technologies that can set a new standard for roadways
around the world and prove that ambitious goals are within our
reach’.
This meeting at Innovia was focused on how to improve driving
safety.
Marie had been sifting through piles of statistics and reports on
driving behaviour. “Did you know that 95% of accidents are caused by
drivers themselves and 40% are rear-end collisions? Most crashes occur
because people don’t pay attention to the road—they look but they don’t
see, or they only see what they expect to see.”
The client relationship manager, Andy, who was a physicist, had
been looking at all the solutions that had been tried previously.
“There are so many ways of approaching this problem—signage, traffic
calming, vehicle tracking, and more. And there’s so much data! How
do we know where to focus?”
“Signs and signals don’t always help,” said Marie. “Only about 15%
of people’s attention is given to road signs. If you show people ten signs
while driving, they only recall seeing one of them! And when you increase
the number of signs, you actually lull people into a false sense of security,
so they pay even less attention”
“So, where should we focus?” asked Glenn.
“I’ve been looking at the psychology of driving behaviour,” said Marie.
“There are several behavioural models we could use to understand the
way in which drivers do, (or don’t) make good decisions. I think the
most useful one here would be the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Let’s
start with this. We might need to modify as we get new data, but it will
help us to decide what is important initially.”
Over the next few weeks, the team investigated the types of acci-
dents that were happening, explored why they were happening, and
analysed the psychology of drivers. The behavioural model helped
the group to identify effective ways to change driving behaviour.
A few weeks later, the team was reviewing the findings.
Marie started the conversation. “The key to increasing safety is to
keep people alert. If they have too little to do, they don’t pay attention.
6 H. RUBINSTEIN

Most drivers think they are better than average—they don’t like to be
told what to do even if it is for their own good. Anything we create needs
to fit with the driver’s own view of the situation, otherwise drivers won’t
accept it.”.
“Different drivers make mistakes for different reasons—some are
overconfident, some are nervous. We need to address all of these reasons,”
Andy added.
Glenn agreed. “We’ve looked at lots of different ideas and have come
up with a range of possible solutions. The strongest idea has never been
done before, but it fits the behavioural model well and looks technically
very promising. It involves using solar-powered LED road studs to give
subtle cues to the driver to help them drive more safely. I think this is a
really powerful option.”
And he was right. The team developed a range of ways in which
the solar-powered studs could communicate with road users. The
studs could flash at different speeds to encourage people to slow
down or speed up, or they could turn red to indicate when a driver
was too close to the car in front.

Fig. 1.1 Schematic of speed-control pulsing and gradated warning used to

test comprehensibility and usefulness of solar-powered road studs. Source:
Innovia Technology
 AN OVERVIEW OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE 7

To test this idea, the team built a series of 3D simulations from the
driver’s perspective (Fig. 1.1.) and tested them with different types
of drivers, ranging from the novice to the experienced, and from the
risk-averse to the risk-takers. During the tests, people were asked
what they thought the lights meant and what they would do as a
result. The responses were positive: people found the road stud sig-
nals intuitive and thought that they would be useful on the road to
improve their driving behaviour.
In 2017, The Ray made prototypes of the studs and applied for
patents. In 2018, the solar-powered road stud was a finalist for Fast
Company’s World-Changing Ideas Awards, which reward concepts
and products that make the world better. The Ray continues to
explore and develop new technologies to make highways sustainable
and safer.

* * *

So, what does this story tell us about using behavioural science? One, a
validated behavioural model helps to make sense of a lot of data and to
know where to focus solutions. Two, understanding the decision-making
process (how drivers decide to do what they do) is vital. And three, testing
and evaluating interventions is critical to ensure that solutions are accept-
able, feasible and effective.
Let’s look at these in a bit more detail. A behavioural model is one that
has been created by behavioural scientists because they think it might be a
useful way of explaining why people do what they do. A validated behav-
ioural model has been tested by behavioural scientists with a huge amount
of data—and they can see whether the model predicts accurately how
people behave. So, using a proven model in a new situation (such as in the
car, on the road) helped Innovia to work out what was important and
what we should ignore.
Understanding the decision-making process is important because it
helps us to see which factors matter most in influencing behaviour and
allows us to ignore those that are unimportant. It means that we know
when and how to target our interventions to change behaviour most
effectively.
8 H. RUBINSTEIN

And finally, experimental approaches with real people in real or simu-

lated situations helps us to work out whether our solutions have the
potential to change behaviour in context. Context is critical. While models
of behaviour are quite robust, due to sheer complexity of human nature,
they always need to be tested because we may see different results in dif-
ferent contexts.
So, it’s clear that we can use behavioural science to better understand
what people need and to create solutions that deliver what they need.
However, changing behaviour is rarely easy. This is why it is most effec-
tively achieved by people who understand the underlying principles, can
select the most appropriate model, and can interpret the data in light of
that model. These are the skills of behavioural scientists.

1.1   How Did Behavioural Science Develop?

Behavioural science is seen as a relatively new discipline, but it’s been
around for a long time. It’s just gone by a few different names. Aspects of
the systematic study of human behaviour, individually and with each other,
arise from social and health psychology, anthropology, sociology, and
economics.
Human behaviour is complex. Unlike the physical behaviour of objects,
human behaviour does not follow reliable, predictable laws. It is prone to
change from day to day and even from moment to moment (West, 2015).
The American Psychological Association defines behaviour as “anything a
person does in response to internal or external events”. Human behaviour
is influenced by a very large number of factors, often acting simultane-
ously. These factors include our personal traits (including our motives and
our attitudes and beliefs); the situations we find ourselves in at any given
moment; the behaviour of other people; and our physical and social
environments.
Unsurprisingly, these multiple influences make it very hard to predict
what people will actually do. Let’s take someone who really wants to lose
weight. This person decides to stop eating chocolate and pastries, and
confidently declares his ambition to his friends, family, and colleagues.
However, regardless of his good intentions, he will find it hard to resist
celebrating his friend’s birthday with a piece of cake, he’ll struggle to resist
a piece of dessert when he’s feeling a bit down, and he may find himself
buying a chocolate bar at the garage without even thinking about it. Good
intentions are often not enough to change behaviour in all situations, in
 AN OVERVIEW OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE 9

part because people aren’t aware of influences that subconsciously affect

them.
Although it’s hard to make consistently accurate predictions about peo-
ple’s behaviour, many people have tried to analyse behaviour systemati-
cally. From this, we see that while human behaviour can seem to be erratic
and irrational, there are recognisable patterns that occur in different situ-
ations and under different influences. These systematic reviews and assess-
ments of behaviour have come from different fields. Three of the most
influential are from classical economics, from public policy, and from social
and health psychology.

1.1.1  From Classical Economics: Understanding Rationality

and Irrationality
Classical economics describes a theory of market economies as self-­
regulating systems, which are driven by production and exchange.
However, the predictions from this theory are sometimes not supported
by the evidence, and this is because people don’t always behave rationally.
Some of the key challenges to classical economic theory came from
Herbert Simon, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, Cass Sunstein and
Richard Thaler, and Dan Ariely. These led to the development of the field
called behavioural economics. Let’s look at these challengers in a bit more
detail.
The economist Herbert Simon could be considered an early pioneer
of behavioural science. He was a Nobel Prize winning economist, who
believed that human behaviour could be studied scientifically. Among
other things, he investigated behavioural decision-making and was most
famous for his concepts of ‘bounded rationality’1 and ‘satisficing’2 (Simon,
1947). Unlike the economists of the day, Simon recognised that human
beings do not make entirely rational decisions based on complete informa-
tion. He suggested that people’s ability to make decisions is limited by
insufficient information. And even if people have all of the information

1
Bounded rationality of individuals is limited by the information they have, the cognitive
limitations of their minds, and the finite amount of time they have to make a decision.
2
Satisficing is used to explain why individuals do not seek to maximise their benefit from a
particular course of action (since they cannot assimilate and digest all the information that
would be needed to do such a thing) and even if they could their minds would be unable to
process it properly.
10 H. RUBINSTEIN

available, they lack the cognitive capacity to process it thoroughly.

Therefore, because they can’t work out how to ‘maximise benefits,’ they
tend to just aim for ‘good enough.’ He said that human decision-making
is made under conditions of uncertainty, is influenced by multiple factors,
and that it is best understood as much by psychology as by economics.
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman were social psychologists, but
their work on decision-making challenged the classical economists’ view
that humans are rational decision-makers. Their research showed that
humans don’t analyse every decision in forensic detail. People make use of
shortcuts, ‘rules of thumb’ or use ‘heuristic biases’ (simple, efficient rules),
to make the decisions easier (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). These cogni-
tive biases are systematic (we are all prey to them) and are effective for
making some decisions but not for others, so some decisions lead to out-
comes that are not as good as expected.
Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for
Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979); sadly Tversky had died
before it was awarded. This highly influential (and much quoted) theory
investigated people’s attitudes to risk, and what characteristics of a situa-
tion made people ‘risk-averse’ or ‘risk-seeking.’ They found that the pain
of losing is psychologically more powerful than the pleasure of gaining.
‘Losses loom larger than gains.’ In many instances, people would rather
avoid a loss than gain a reward of similar, or even larger, logical value. This
helps us frame information when trying to influence behaviour. We can
stress the positives of performing a healthy behaviour: ‘exercising more
often will reduce the likelihood of becoming overweight.’ This is gain-­
framing. Alternatively, we can stress the risks of not performing a healthy
behaviour: ‘exercising less often will increase the likelihood of becoming
overweight’. This is loss framing. Prospect Theory tells us that in certain
situations the second framing (loss framing) is likely to be more effective
at changing behaviour.
There is no difference in the outcome described in these two state-
ments, but there is a big difference in how people perceive them. If we
frame the outcome negatively (that people are more likely to become
overweight), more people engage with the improved behaviour because
their fear of the negative outcome is greater than their desire for the posi-
tive one. People are influenced by the framing of decisions because of their
inbuilt biases about potential losses and gains.
Kahneman argued that humans make irrational decisions because they
use two systems of thinking in the brain: System 1 and System 2
 AN OVERVIEW OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE 11

(Kahneman, 2012). System 1 thinking is fast, automatic and emotional

whereas System 2 thinking is slow, effortful and calculating. People use
both of these systems to form judgments. As System 2 thinking takes more
effort, people tend to default to System 1 thinking if the decision is hard,
if the decision needs to be made quickly, or if they are distracted. If System
1 thinking is applied to the wrong decisions, the decision seems irrational,
and the outcome may be less than desirable.
Researchers have since identified dozens of heuristics and cognitive
biases (“List of cognitive biases, Wikipedia” 2016). Although some deci-
sions made with heuristics seem irrational and bizarre, actually heuristics
are efficient for most situations, most of the time. That’s why people use
them. However, if we understand these systematic biases, we can then
predict and influence human behaviour, and we’ll discuss this further later.
Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler took Kahneman and Tversky’s
ideas about framing, cognitive biases, and Systems 1 and 2, and built them
into Nudge Theory. In their book Nudge: Improving Decisions about
Health, Wealth and Happiness, they describe a nudge as ‘any aspect of the
choice architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way
without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic
incentives’ (Sunstein & Thaler, 2009, p. 6). Sunstein, a legal scholar and
Thaler, an economist, saw that Kahneman and Tversky’s theories helped
to explain why people often made poor economic choices. They preferred
the idea of nudging people rather than coercing them. Unsurprisingly, this
approach attracted a lot of interest, especially from US politicians and
policy makers, because they liked the idea of a relatively inexpensive way
to give people choice but still encourage them to do the right thing.
Some of the key ideas of nudge theory include:

• choice architecture—how people’s decision-making is affected by

how choices are presented to them
• anchoring—how people intuitively assess probabilities against an
implicitly suggested reference point,
• the availability heuristic—how people assess risk based on how easily
they can think of examples,
• status quo bias—how people prefer the current state of affairs and see
any change from the baseline as a loss
• loss aversion—how people strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquir-
ing gains
12 H. RUBINSTEIN

Sunstein and Thaler described several different types of nudges. They

suggested that, by understanding these biases, it is possible to design solu-
tions that will encourage people to make better choices and improve their
lives.
Writing around the same time as Sunstein and Thaler, Dan Ariely, a
psychologist, showed how human beings were predictably irrational
(Ariely, 2009). He focussed on how financial decisions are made, and like
Sunstein and Thaler, he discussed the biases that affect human decision-­
making. Many of his coined phrases have entered the popular vocabulary.
People like products more if they’ve created or assembled them—he called
that the ‘IKEA effect’. People value an item more if they own it or have
chosen it: they will pay more to keep something that they own than to get
something that they don’t own, even if they’ve only just purchased it or
have no reason to be attached to it. This is known as the ‘endowment
effect’
These scientists and writers challenged the views of classical economists,
setting the scene for the development of behavioural economics as a sepa-
rate discipline. Their ideas influenced many thinkers, and some of those
were involved in creating policy.

1.1.2  From Public Policy: Changing How People Receive

Information
In 2009, US President Barack Obama named Cass Sunstein as head of the
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Sunstein’s goal was
to make regulation more cost effective by reviewing regulation from many
departments to ensure that the benefits justified the costs (Sunstein,
2012). He applied the principles from behavioural economics to improve
the way people received government information.
Sunstein knew that people don’t make rational economic choices, and
he instead looked at changing the choice architecture to nudge people to
make good decisions. His team applied the principles of nudge theory to
a ‘food pyramid’ designed by the US Department of Agriculture, which
aimed to encourage people to eat a healthy diet. The pyramid was very
confusing. Instead, the team recommended a new graphic—MyPlate—
that showed a plate divided into four segments (Fig. 1.2). Each quarter of
the plate had a different food group: fruits and vegetables, grains and
protein, and there was also a separate but smaller plate for dairy products.
This simple graphic related directly to food and was far easier to
understand.
 AN OVERVIEW OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE 13

Fig. 1.2 The MyPlate

symbol: a reminder for
use on food packaging
to help people make
healthy food choices.
Source: United States
Department of
Agriculture

Sunstein applied these behavioural principles to a wide range of US

government challenges ranging from the regulation and design of the
2009 CARD Act (Lunn, 2014, p. 27) to the regulations of food l­abelling
(Lunn, 2014, p. 28). Nudge theory was explicitly used for the Credit
Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (CARD) which
was designed to counter unfair practices by US credit card companies
that took advantage of various well-known cognitive biases. For exam-
ple, consumers pay insufficient attention to potential future costs (a bias
known as hyperbolic discounting) and are too optimistic when assessing
the likelihood of incurring fees (optimism bias). The CARD act tried to
limit these behavioural biases by banning the hiding of fees and insisting
that lenders supplied more helpful and timely information. Lenders were
also mandated to include an explicit calculation on bills of the time and
cost of making minimum payments each month to clear the bill and a
similar calculation of repaying over 36 months. A recent analysis
(Agarwal, Chomsisengphet, Mahoney, & Stroebel, 2015) estimated that
the regulation of hidden fees saved consumers $21 billion per year and
the nudge involving explicit calculations led to a significant impact on
repayments.
During this time, the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) was set up
inside the UK Government’s Cabinet Office. Its ambitious mission was to
influence areas of policy, spread understanding of behavioural approaches
in central government administration, and achieve at least a tenfold return
on the costs of the unit (Halpern, 2015, p. 54). The BIT rapidly became
14 H. RUBINSTEIN

known as the ‘nudge unit’. Although met with initial suspicion, the team
soon demonstrated how behavioural science principles could be used to
achieve good outcomes.
One challenge that it faced was that of reducing government spend-
ing on fighting fraud, error, and debt (Behavioural Insights Team,
2012) The team trialled interventions to increase the number of people
paying by Direct Debit in fifteen London boroughs—this made council
tax collection much more efficient. Tax payers were automatically
entered into a £25,000 prize draw if they signed up to direct debit pay-
ments. For a £25,000 outlay, the boroughs received efficiency savings
of £345,000. Each borough’s investment was paid back in just three
months.
The BIT developed frameworks that could be used across government
departments. In 2010, the BIT published the MINDSPACE report and
framework (Dolan, Hallsworth, Halpern, King, & Vlaev, 2010) to help
policy makers design new interventions. In 2014, it released an article
describing four simple ways to apply behavioural insights—the EAST
framework (easy, attractive, simple, and timely) (Service et al., 2014)
Although these frameworks drew on decades of academic research, they
were written for people with no behavioural science background. The BIT
emphasised the importance of experimentation for evaluating their policy
ideas and produced evidence on what worked and what didn’t. The BIT
was very successful. It is now a social purpose company, partly owned by
the UK government and partly by its employees, and it advises other
countries on how to set up their own BITs.
The US Social and Behavioural Science Team, established by President
Obama to improve federal policies and programmes, was disbanded when
President Trump came into power. However, BITs have now been set up
in many different countries, including New Zealand, Australia, Canada,
France, Qatar, and Singapore.
We’ve now seen how, with a better understanding of people’s cogni-
tive biases, we can change the choice architecture to nudge people to
behave in ways that give better outcomes. However, these successes are
in very specific situations, and the principles are ineffective in others.
‘Nudges’ provide behavioural solutions to problems that arise because
of problems in human decision making. There are many other factors
that affect behaviour, and there is more to behaviour change than
nudging.
 AN OVERVIEW OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE 15

1.1.3  From Social and Health Psychology: Modelling Human

Behaviour
We’ve seen theories that developed following challenges to classical eco-
nomics, and we understand how those have been applied in government.
However, more evidence informing our views on human behaviour arose
from social and health psychology, that viewed behaviour in a slightly dif-
ferent way.
Social psychology explores how people interact with each other and
how a person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by the
real or imagined presence of other people (Allport, 1935). Health psy-
chology focusses specifically on the psychological processes and cultural
factors that influence our health and wellness behaviour. Both of these
areas of psychology investigated human behaviour scientifically, develop-
ing testable hypotheses and constructing theories and models of ­behaviour.3
Unlike the two earlier approaches, which focussed on limiting the impact
of cognitive biases, social psychologists knew that the complexity of behav-
ioural systems meant that a single intervention was unlikely to change
behaviour.
Social psychology considers emotions, attitudes and beliefs, how people
perceive themselves and their identity, how they make attributions about
others, how they behave in groups, and why they behave altruistically or
aggressively. Behavioural economists focus on the wide range of cognitive
biases and defaults that influence judgments of value, but social psycholo-
gists try to understand the processes that people go through when making
decisions. They have investigated the processes that affect how our beliefs
are formed, how we change our attitudes, and how we can influence and
persuade people to change their behaviour.
Some of these ideas have entered popular discourse. One of these is the
idea of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). This is the tension that
occurs when a person holds two seemingly opposing views at the same
time. People prefer harmony in their beliefs and behaviours, and so they
will generally change or reject one of the views to remove tension.

3
Psychologists can be rather loose in their terminology and often use the words theory and
model interchangeably. For our purposes, we use theory to mean a concept that explains
when and why a behaviour occurs and model to mean a representation of how different fac-
tors interact and relate to each other to cause a behaviour. This is discussed in more detail in
Chap. 3.
Other documents randomly have
different content
to by all men who came his way? Why should she thwart or impede
him?

He was not perfect, no doubt, but who had set her the task of
perfecting him?

Her haughty love.

Yes, the very intensity of her love had ended in the estrangement
of the lover. She found noble qualities in the man, and she had tried
to make him divine. Not because he was _her_ lover, but because
she _loved him_. She had given him her heart and soul, and now
she had sacrificed her love itself upon the altar of her devotion.

That was the heroic aspect of the affair, and as in all other
sorrows that take large shape, the heroic aspect elevated above pain
and forbade the canker of tears.

But this girl saw other aspects too.

She should miss him--oh, so bitterly! She should miss him the
whole of her life forth from that hour! She should miss him in the
immediate future. She had missed him that day in the Park. She
should miss him tomorrow. He always came on Saturdays. He used
to say he always came to Curzon Street on Saturday afternoon, like
any other good young man, to see his sweetheart when the shop
was shut. She should miss him on Sunday, too, for he always came
on Sunday, saying, the better the day the better the deed. On
Mondays he made it a point to stay away, but contrived to meet her
somewhere, in the Park, or at a friend's place, or in Regent Street,
and now he would stay away altogether, not making a point of it, but
because she had told him to make an observance of always staying
away.

She should miss his voice, his marvellous voice, which could be so
clarion toned and commanding among men, and was so soft and
tunable for her ear. When he spoke to her it always seemed that the
instrumental music designed to accompany his words had fined off
into silence for shame of its inadequacy. How poor and thin and
harsh all voices would sound now. They would merely make idle
sounds to the idle air. Of old, of that old which began its backward
way only yesterday, all voices had seemed the prelude of his. They
sounded merely as notes of preparation and awakening. They were
only the overture, full of hints and promises.

She should miss his eyes. She should miss the clear vivid leap of
flame into his eyes when he glanced at her with enthusiasm, or joy,
or laughter. She should miss the gleam of that strange light which,
once having caught his eye in moments of enthusiasm, appeared to
bathe his face while he looked and spoke. She should miss the
sound of his footstep, that fleet herald of his impatient love!

Oh, it was hard--hard--hard to be doomed to miss so much!

And all this was only what she should miss in the immediate
future.

In the measure of her after life would be nothing but idle air. In
her dreams of the future she had pictured him going forth from her
in the morning radiant and confident, to mingle in some worthy
strife, and coming back in the evening suffused with glory, to draw
breaths of peaceful ease in her society, in her home, her new home,
their joint home. She had thought of the reverse of this picture. She
had thought of him returning weary and unsuccessful, coming home
to her for rest now, and soothing service of love and inspiriting
words of hope.

She had visions of later life and visions of their gradual decay, and
going down the hill of life hand in hand together. She had dreamed
they should never, never, never be parted.

And now they were parted for ever and ever and ever, and she
should miss him to-day and to-morrow and all the days of the year
now half spent, and of all the after years of her life.
 She should miss him in death. She should not lie by his side in the
grave. She should not be with him in the Life to Come.

All the glory of the world was only a vapour, a mist. The sunlight
was a purposeless weariness. The smell of the flowers in the
window-sill was thin and foretold decay. What was the use of a
house and servants and food. Lethe was a river of Hell. Why? Why
not a river of Paradise?

She should not be with him even in the grave--even in the grave
where he could have no fear of her betraying him!

She would now take any share of humbleness in life if she might
count on touching his hand and being for ever near him in the tomb.
 CHAPTER XXXI.

WINDING UP THE CLOCK.

It was eleven o'clock that night when Tom Stamer, dressed in the
seedy black clothes and wearing the false beard and whiskers he
had on in the morning, started from the Borough once more for the
West. He had not replaced the spectacles broken in his fall at the
Hanover in Chetwynd Street. He carried a very substantial-looking
walking-stick of great thickness and weight. It was not a loaded
stick, but it would manifestly be a terrible weapon at close quarters,
for, instead of consisting of metal only in one part of one end, it was
composed of metal throughout. The seeming stick was not wood or
leaded wood, but iron It was not solid, but hollow like a gas pipe,
and at the end intended to touch the ground, the mouth of the tube
was protected by a brass ferrule to which a small tampion was
affixed. The handle was massive and crooked, and large enough to
give ample hold to the largest hand of man. About a couple of
inches from the crook there was a joining where the stick could be
unscrewed.

Stamer accounted to the eyes of observers for carrying so

massive a stick by affecting a lameness of the right leg. When he
entered a dense crowd or came upon a point at which the people
were hurrying, he raised the stick up from the ground and laid aside
his limp. But where people were few and close observation of him
possible, his lameness grew very marked, and not only did his stick
seem indispensable, but he put it down on the pavement as gingerly
as though the least jar caused him pain. Sympathetic people who
saw him fancied he had but just come out of hospital, and were
inclined to be indignant that he had not been supplied with more
effectual support, such as crutches.

One old gentleman asked him if he ought not to have a second

stick; Stamer snivelled and said he knew he ought, but declared with
a sigh he had no money to buy another one. The old gentleman
gave Stamer a shilling. Stamer touched his hat, thanked the old
gentleman for his kindness and his gift, and requested Heaven to
bless him. The old gentleman wore a heavy gold chain and, no
doubt, a watch. But Stamer had important business on hand, and
there were a great number of people about, and he did not want to
run, for running would make his arm unsteady, so he asked Heaven
to bless the old gentleman and forebore to rob him.

But the thought of that missed opportunity rankled in him. The

feeling that he had been obliged to neglect business and accept
charity fretted and vexed him. The thought of the mean squalid
shilling made him sick, and as soon as he came to a quiet place he
threw it with a curse into the middle of the road. He had shillings of
his own, and didn't want charity of any man. If he had stolen the
shilling that would have been a different affair. Then it would have
come to him in a straightforward business-like way, and would,
doubtless, be the best he could have done under the circumstances.
But now it seemed the result of a fraud committed upon him, to
which he had been forced to consent. It was the ransom he had
under duress accepted for a gold watch and chain, and was,
therefore, loathsome and detestable in his sight. Its presence could
not be endured. It was abominable. Foh! He was well rid of it?

He did not approach Welbeck Place by Chetwynd Street. He did

not intend repeating his visit to Mr. Williams's house. He had got
there all he wanted and a little more. He kept along by the river and
then retraced the way he had come that afternoon after leaving the
Hanover. On his previous visit to-day to this locality he had been
silent and watchful as a cat, and he had a cat's strong sense of
locality. He never forgot a place he was once in; and, piercing
northward from the river through a network of mean streets he had
never seen until today, he hit upon the southward entrance to
Welbeck Mews with as much ease and certainty as though he had
lived there for twenty years.

The mews were lonely after nightfall, and the road through them
little used. When Stamer found himself in the yard, the place was
absolutely deserted. They were a cabman's mews and no one would,
in all likelihood, have business there for a couple of hours. The night
was now as dark as night ever is at that time of the year, and the
place was still. It wanted about twenty minutes of twelve yet.

When Stamer came to the gable of the house next but one to the
Hanover, and the wall of which formed one half of the northern
boundary of the yard, he paused and listened. He could hear no
sound of life or movement near him beyond the snort or cough of a
horse now and then.

The ostler who waited on the cabmen lived in the house at the
gable of which he stood, and at this hour he had to be aroused in
case of any man returning because of accident, or a horse knocked
up by some long and unexpected drive. As a rule, the ostler slept
undisturbed from eleven at night till half-past four or five in the
morning.

After a pause of two or three minutes, Stamer stooped, slipped

off his boots, slung them around his neck, and having hitched the
crook of his heavy stick to a belt he wore under his waistcoat, he
laid hold of the waterpipe that descended from the gutter of the
double roof to the yard, and began ascending the gable of the house
with surprising agility and speed.

In less than two minutes from the time he first seized the
waterpipe he disappeared in the gutter above. He crawled in a few
yards from the edge and then reclined against the sloping slates of
the roof to rest. The ascent had taken only a couple of minutes, but
the exertion had been very great, and he was tired and out of
breath.

Then he unscrewed the ferrule and withdrew the tampion and

unscrewed the handle of his stick, and was busy in the darkness for
a while with the weapon he carried. Overhead the stars looked pale
and faint and wasting in the pall of pale yellow cloud that hangs by
night over London in summer, the glare of millions of lights on the
vapour rising up from the great city.

He particularly wished to have a steady hand and arm that night,

in a few minutes, so he made up his mind to rest until five minutes
to twelve. Then he should get into position. He should creep down
the gutter until he came to the wall of the Hanover, the gable wall of
the Hanover standing up over the roofs of the houses on which he
now was lying. He should then be almost opposite the window at
which he last night saw the dwarf wind up his clock. He should be a
little out of the direct line, but not much. The width of Welbeck Place
was no more from house to house than fifty feet. The distance from
the wall of the house he should be on then, and the wall of Forbes's
bakery could not be more than sixty feet. The weapon he carried
was perfectly trustworthy at a hundred, a hundred-and-fifty yards, or
more. He had been practising that afternoon and evening at an old
hat at forty yards, and he had never missed it once. Forty yards was
just double the distance he should be from that window if he were
on a parapet instead of being at the coping tile, lying on the inside
slope of the roof. Allow another ten feet for that. This would bring
the distance up to seventy feet at the very outside, and he had
never missed once at a hundred and twenty feet. He had given
himself now and then a good deal of practice with the gun, for he
enjoyed peculiar facilities; because the factory wall by which the lane
at the back of his place ran, prevented anyone seeing what he was
doing, and the noise of the factory drowned the whurr of the gun
and the whizz of the bullet.
 There was to be a screen, or curtain, or blind up to-night, but that
was all the better, for it made no difference to the aim or bullet, and
it would prevent anything being noticed for a while, perhaps until
morning no one would know.

The work would go on at the window until half-past twelve. It

would be as well not to _do it_ until very near half-past; for then
there would be the less time for anyone in the Hanover to spy out
anything wrong, At half-past would come the noise and confusion of
closing time. There would then be plenty of people about, and it
would be quite easy to get away.

It was a good job there were no windows in the Hanover gable,

though no one was likely to be upstairs in the public-house until
after closing time. The landlord was not a married man. It was a
good job there was no moon.

It would be a good job when this was done.

It was a good job he thought of waiting until just half-past twelve,

for then everything would be more favourable below, and his hand
and arm would have more time to steady.

It was a good job that in this country there were some things
stronger than even smelling-salts!

At half-past eleven that night the private bar of the Hanover held
about half-a-dozen customers. The weather was too warm for
anything like a full house. Three or four of the men present were old
frequenters, but it lacked the elevating presence of Oscar Leigh, who
always gave the assembly a distinctly intellectual air, and it was not
cheered and consoled by the radiation of wealth from Mr. Jacobs,
the rich greengrocer of Sloane Street.

The three or four frequenters present were in no way

distinguished beyond their loyalty to the house. They came there
regularly night after night, drank, in grave silence, a regular quantity
of beer and spirits, and went away at closing time with the
conviction that they had been spending their time profitably
attending to the improvement of their minds. They had no views on
any subjects ever discussed. They had, with reference to the
Hanover, only one opinion, and it was that the finishing touches of a
liberal education could nowhere else in London be so freely obtained
without derogation and on the self-respecting principle of every man
paying his way and being theoretically as good as any other. If they
could they would put a stop to summer in these islands, for summer
had a thinning and depreciating effect on the company of the private
bar.

A few minutes later, however, the spirits of those present rose, for
first Mr. Jacobs came in, smiling and bland, and then Mr. Oscar
Leigh, rubbing his forehead and complaining of the heat.

Mr. Jacobs greeted the landlord and the dwarf affably, as became
a man of substance, and then, knowing no one else by name,
greeted the remainder of the company generally, as became a man
of politeness and consideration.

"I'll have three-pennyworth of your excellent rum hot," said Mr.

Jacobs to the landlord, in a way which implied that, had not the
opinion of an eminent physician been against it, he would have
ordered ten times the quantity and drunk it with pleasure. Then he
sat down on a seat that ran along the wall, took out of his pocket a
cigar-case, opened it carefully, and, having selected a cigar,
examined the weed as though it was not uncommon to discover
protruding through the side of these particular cigars a diamond of
priceless value or a deadly drug. Then he pierced the end of his
cigar with a silver piercer which he took out of a trouser's pocket,
pulled down his waistcoat, and began to smoke, wearing his hat just
a trifle on one side to show that he was unbent.

Just as he had settled himself comfortably, the door of the public

department opened, and a tall, thin man, with enormous ears,
wearing long mutton-chop whiskers, a brown round hat, and dark
chocolate-coloured clothes, entered and was served by the potman.

"I have only a minute or two. I must be off to wind up," said
Leigh. "Ten minutes to twelve by your clock, Mr. Williams, that
means a quarter to right time. I'll have three of rum hot, if you
please."

"That's quite right, Mr. Leigh," said the landlord, proceeding to

brew the punch and referring to his clock. "We always keep our
clock a few minutes fast to avoid bother at closing time. The same
as always, Mr. Jacobs, I see, and I _smell_."

"I beg your pardon?" said the greengrocer, as though he hadn't

the least notion of what the landlord alluded to.

"A good cigar, sir. That is an excellent cigar you are smoking."

It was clear that up to that moment Mr. Jacobs had not given a
thought to the quality of his cigar, for he took it from his lips, looked
at it as though he was now pretty certain this particular one did not
exude either priceless diamonds or deadly drugs, and said with great
modesty and satisfaction, "Yes, it's not bad. I get a case now and
then from my friend Isaacs of Bond Street. They cost me, let me
see, about sixpence a piece."

There was a faint murmur of approval at this statement. It was

most elevating to know that you were acquainted with a man who
smoked cigars he bought in Bond Street, and that he did not buy
them by the dozen or the box even, but by the case! If a man
bought cigars by the case from a friend in Bond Street at the rate of
sixpence each, what would be the retail price of them across the
counter? It was impossible to say exactly and dangerous to guess,
but it was certain you could not buy one for less than a shilling or
eighteen-pence, that is, if a man like Mr. Jacobs' friend Mr. Isaacs
would bemean himself by selling a single one at any price to a
chance comer.
 "Still working at your wonderful clock, Mr. Leigh?" said the
greengrocer from Sloane Street, with the intention of sharing his
conversation fairly between the landlord and the dwarf, the only men
present who were sitting above the salt.

"Well, sir, literally speaking, I cannot be said to be working at it

now. But I am daily engaged upon it, and before a quarter of an
hour I shall be busy winding it up."

"Have you to wind it every day?"

"Yes. St. Paul's clock takes three quarters of an hour's winding

every day with something like a winch handle. My clock takes half an
hour every night. It must be wound between twelve and one, and I
have made it a rule to wind it in the first half hour. My one does not
want nearly so much power as St. Paul's. It is wound by a lever and
not a winch handle. By-and-by, when it is finished and placed in a
proper position in a proper tower, and I can increase the power, once
a week will be sufficient."

"It is, I have heard, the most wonderful clock in London?"

"In London! In London! In the worlds sir. It is the most wonderful

clock ever conceived by man."

"And now suppose you forgot to wind it up, what would happen?"

"There is no fear of that."

"It must be a great care on your mind."

"Immense. I have put up a curtain today, so that I may be able to

keep the window open and get a breath of air this hot weather."

"Are you not afraid of fire up there and so near a bakehouse?"

 "I never thought of fire. There is little or no danger of fire. Mr.
Forbes is quite solvent."

"But suppose anything were to happen, it is so high up, it could

not be got down?"

"Got down! Got down! Why, my dear sir, it is twelve feet by nine,
and parts of it are so delicate that a rude shake would ruin them.
Got down! Why it is shafted to the wall. All my power comes through
the wall, from the chimney. When it is shifted no one will be able to
stir bolt or nut but me. _I_ must do it, sir. No other man living knows
anything about it. No other man could understand it. Fancy anyone
but myself touching it! Why he might do more harm in an hour than
I could put right in a year, ay, in three years. Well, my time is up.
Good night, gentlemen."

He scrambled off his high stool and was quickly out of the bar. It
was now five minutes to twelve o'clock right time.

He crossed Welbeck Street and opening the private door of

Forbes's in Chetwynd Street went in, closing the door after him.

As he came out John Timmons emerged from the public bar of

the Hanover, and turned into Welbeck Place. He went on until he
came opposite the window of the clock-room. Here he stood still,
thrust his hands deep down in his trousers' pockets, and leaning his
back against the wall, prepared to watch with his own eyes the
winding of the clock.

In less than five minutes the window of the top room, which had
been dark, gradually grew illumined until the light came full through
the transparent oiled muslin curtain. Timmons could see for all
practical purposes as plainly as through glass.

"There Leigh is, anyway," thought Timmons, "working away at his

lever. Can it be he was doing the same thing at this hour last night?
Nonsense. He was walking away from this place with me at this hour
last night as sure as I am here now. But what did he say himself to-
day? I shouldn't mind Stamer, for he is a fool. But the landlord and
Stamer say the same thing, and Leigh himself said it too this day. I
must be going mad.

"There, he is turning round now and nodding to the men in the

bar. They said he did the same last night, and, as I live, there's the
clock we were under striking the quarter past again! I must be going
mad. I begin to think last night must have been all a dream with me.
I don't think he's all right. I don't believe in witchcraft, but I do
believe in devilry, and there's something wrong here. I'll watch this
out anyway. I must bring him to book over it. I'll tell him straight
what I know--that is if I know anything and am not going mad----"

Whurr--whizz!

"Why what's that over head?"

Timmons looked up, but saw nothing.

"It's some young fellows larking."

He glanced back at the window.

"What a funny way he's nodding his head now. And there's a hole
in the curtain and there seems to be a noise in the room. There goes
the gas out. I suppose the clock is wound up now. Well, it's more
than I can understand and a great deal more than I like, and I'll
have it out of him. It would be too bad if that fool Stamer were right
after all, and--but the whole thing is nonsense.

"Strange I didn't hear the clock strike the hour and yet Leigh's
light is out. I suppose his half hour winding was only another piece
of his bragging.

"Is the light quite out? Looks now as if it wasn't. He must have
put it out by mistake or accident, for surely it hasn't struck half-past
twelve yet.

"Ah, what's that? He is lighting a match or something. No, my

eyes deceive me. There is no light. Everything here seems to
deceive me. I'll go home.

"Ah, there's the half-hour at last!"

And John Timmons walked out of Welbeck Place, and took his
way eastward.
 CHAPTER XXXII.

THE MORNING AFTER.

Mr. John Timmons was not a hard-working man in the sense of

one devoted ardently to physical labour. His domain was thought. He
was a merchant, a negotiator, not an artisan. He kept his hands in
his pockets mostly, in order that his brain might not be distracted by
having to look after them. He had a theory that it is wasteful to burn
the candle at both ends. If you employ your brain and your hands it
will very soon be all over with you. Still, he held that the appearance
of indulgence or luxury was most unbecoming in any place of
business, and particularly in a marine store, where transactions were
concerned with so stern and stubborn things as junk and old metal.
He dealt in junk, but out of regard for the feelings of gentlemen who
might have had bitter and long acquaintance with it while adorning
another sphere, Timmons kept the junk away from sight in the cellar,
to which mere callers were never admitted. Timmons had an opinion
that the mere look of junk had a tendency to damp the professional
ardour of men who had ever spent the days of their captivity in
converting it into oakum.

On the ground floor of Timmons's premises there was no such

thing as a chair. He looked on a chair in a marine store as a token of
dangerous softening of manners. If a man allowed himself a chair in
his place of business why not also a smoking-cap and slippers?
 But Timmons had a high office stool, which was a thing differing
altogether from a chair. It was of Spartan simplicity and
uncomfortableness, and besides, it gave the solvent air of a counting
house to the place. It had also another advantage, it enabled you to
sit down without placing your eyes lower than the level of a man of
your own height standing.

On Saturday morning about nine o'clock Timmons was reposing

on the high stool at his doorway, if any part of this establishment
may be called a doorway, where one side was all door and there was
no other means of exit. He had bought a morning paper on his way
to business, and he now sat with the advertising sheet of the paper
spread out before him on his knees. Sometimes articles in which he
dealt were offered for sale in that sheet, and once in a way he
bought a paper to have a look at this sheet, and afterwards, if he
had time, scan the news. He made it a point never to look at the
reports of the police courts or criminal trials. Every man has his own
feelings, and Timmons was not an exception. If an inquiry or trial in
which he took interest was going on in London he was certain to
know more of it than the newspapers told. He avoided the accounts
of trials that did not interest him. They had as damping effect on
him as the sight of junk had on some of his customers.

Beyond the improvement of his mind gathered from reading the

advertisement columns of things for sale, he got no benefit out of
the advertising sheet. None of the articles offered at a sacrifice was
at all in his way. When he had finished the perusal of the marvellous
miscellany he took his eyes off the paper and stared straight at the
brick wall before him.

He turned his mind back for the twentieth time on the events of
yesterday.

There was not in the whole list of what had occurred a single
incident that pleased him. He was a clear-headed man, and prided
himself on his brains. He had neither the education nor the insolence
to call his brains intellect. But he was very proud of his brains, and
his brains were completely at a loss. As with all undisciplined minds,
his had not the power of consecutive abstract thought. But it had
the power of reviewing in panoramic completeness events which had
come within the reach of its senses.

The result of his review was that he did not like the situation at
all. There was a great deal about this scheme he did not understand,
and with such minds not to understand is to suspect and fear.

It was perfectly clear that for some purpose or other, Leigh hung
back from entering upon the matter of their agreement, and now it
seemed as though there might be a great deal in what Stamer
feared, namely, that Leigh might have the intention of betraying
them all into the hands of the police. Stamer had told him that in the
talk at the Hanover, the night before, the landlord had informed the
company under the seal of secrecy that Leigh on one occasion
entrusted the winding up of the clock to a deputy who was deaf and
dumb, and not able to write. That, no doubt, was the person they
had seen in the clock-room the evening before, and not the dwarf.
Leigh had not taken him into confidence respecting this clock, or this
man who wound it up for him in his absence, but Leigh had taken
him into confidence very little. It was a good thing that Leigh had
not taken the gold from him. Of course, he was not such a fool as to
part with the buttons unless he got gold coins to the full value of
them, but still they might, if once in the possession of the little man,
be used in evidence against him. The great thing to guard against
was giving Leigh any kind of hold at all upon him.

He did not know whether to believe or not Leigh's account of the

man in Birmingham. It looked more than doubtful. His talk about
telegraphing and all that was only bunkum. The whole thing looked
shaky and dangerous, and perhaps it would be as well for him to get
out of it.
 At all events he was pretty sure not to hear any more of the
matter for a week or so. He should put it out of his head for the
present.

He took up the newspaper this time with a view to amusement

not business.

He glanced over it casually for a time, reading a few lines here

and there. He passed by columns of parliamentary reports in which
he took no interest whatever. Then came the law courts which he
shunned. Finally he came upon the place where local London news
was given. His eye caught a large heading, "Fire And Loss Of Life In
Chelsea." The paragraph was, owing to the late hour at which the
event took place, brief, considering its importance. It ran as follows:-
-

"Last night, between half-past twelve and one o'clock, a

disastrous and fatal fire broke out in the bakery establishment of Mr.
Forbes at the corner of Chetwynd Street and Welbeck Place,
Chelsea. It appears from the information we have been able to
gather, that the ground floor of the establishment is used as a
baker's shop and the floor above as a store house by Mr. Forbes. The
top floor, where the fire originated was occupied by Mr. Oscar Leigh,
who has lost his life in the burning. The top floor is divided into
three rooms, a sitting-room, a bed-room, and a workshop. In the
last, looking into Welbeck Place, the late Mr. Leigh was engaged in
the manufacture of a very wonderful clock, which occupied fully half
the room, and which Mr. Leigh invariably wound up every night
between twelve and half-past twelve.

"Last night, at a little before twelve, Mr. Leigh left the Hanover
public house, at the opposite corner of Welbeck Place, and went into
the bakery by the private entrance beside the shop door in
Chetwynd Street. In the act of letting himself in with his latchkey he
spoke to a neighbour, who tried to engage him in conversation, but
the unfortunate gentleman excused himself, saying he hadn't a
minute to spare, as the clock required his immediate attention. After
this, deceased was seen by several people working the winding lever
of the clock in the window. At half-past twelve he was observed to
make some unusual motions of his head, so as to give the notion
that he was in pain or distress of some kind. Then the light in the
clock-room was extinguished and, as Mr. Leigh made no call or cry
(the window at which he sat was open), it was supposed all was
right. Shortly afterwards, dense smoke and flames were observed
bursting through the window of the room, and before help could
arrive all hope of reaching the unfortunate gentleman was at an end.

"The building is an old one. The flames spread rapidly, and before
an hour had elapsed the whole was burnt out and the roof had fallen
in.

"At the rear of the house proper is an off building abutting on

Welbeck Mews. In this slept the shopman and his wife. This
bakehouse also took fire and is burned out, but fortunately the two
occupants were saved by the fire escape which had been on the
spot ten minutes after the first alarm.

"It is generally supposed that the eccentric movements of Mr.

Leigh were the result of a fit or sudden seizure of some other kind,
and that in his struggles some inflammable substance was brought
into contact with the gas before it was turned out."

Timmons flung down the paper with a shout, crying "Dead! Dead!
Leigh is dead!"

At that moment the figure of a man appeared at the threshold of

the store, and Stamer, with a scowl and a stare, stepped in hastily
and looked furtively, fearfully, around.

"What are you shoutin' about?" cried Stamer, in a tone of

dangerous menace. "What are you shoutin' about?" he said again, as
he passed Timmons and slunk behind the pile of shutters and
flattened himself up against the wall in the shadow of them.

"Leigh is dead!" cried Timmons in excitement, and taking no

notice of Stamer's strange manner and threatening tone.

"_I_ know all about _that_, I suppose," said Stamer from his
place of concealment. He was standing between the shutters and
the old fire-grate, and quite invisible to anyone in the street. His
voice was hollow, his eyes bloodshot and starting out of his head.
Notwithstanding the warmth of the morning, his teeth were
chattering in his head. His bloodshot eyes were in constant motion,
new exploring the gloomy depths of the store, now glancing
savagely at Timmons, now looking, in the alarm of a hunted beast,
at the opening into the street.

Timmons took little or no notice of the other man beyond

addressing him. He was in a state of wild excitement, not exactly of
joy, but triumph. It was a hideous sight to see this lank, grizzled,
repulsive-looking man capering around the store, and exulting in the
news he had just read, of a man on whom he had fawned a day
before. "He's dead! The dwarf is dead, Stamer!" he cried again. In
his wild gyrations his hat had fallen off, disclosing a tall, narrow
head, perfectly bald on the top.

"Shut up!" whispered Stamer, savagely, "if you don't want to

follow him. I'm in no humour for your noise and antics. Do you want
to have the coppers down on us?--do you, you fool?" He flattened
himself still more against the wall, as though he were striving to
imbed himself in it.

Timmons paused. Stamer's words and manner were so unusual

and threatening that they attracted his attention at last. "What's the
matter?" he asked, in irritated surprise. "What's the matter?" he
repeated, with lowering look.
 "Why, you've said what's the matter," said Stamer, viciously. "And
you're shouting and capering as if you wanted to tell the whole
world the news. This is no time for laughing and antics, you fool!"

"Who are you calling a fool?" cried Timmons, catching up an iron

bar and taking a few steps towards the burglar.

"You, if you want to know. Put that down. Put that bar down, I
say. Do it at once, and if you have any regard for your health, for
your life, don't come a foot nearer, or I'll send you after him! By ----,
I will!"

Timmons let the bar fall, more in astonishment than fear. "What
do you mean, you crazy thief? Have they just let you out of Bedlam,
or are you on your way there? Anyway, it's lucky the place is handy,
you knock-kneed jail-bird! Why he's shaking as if he saw a ghost!"

"Let me alone and I'll do you no harm. I don't want to have

_two_ on me."

"What does the fool mean? I tell you Leigh is dead."

"Can you tell me who killed him? If you can't, _I_ can." He
pointed to himself.

"What!" cried Timmons, starting back, and not quite

understanding the other's gesture.

"Now are you satisfied? I thought you guessed. I wouldn't have

told you if I didn't think you knew or guessed. Curse me, but I am a
fool for opening my mouth! I thought you knew, and that, instead of
saying a good word to me, you were going to down me and give me
up."

Timmons stepped slowly back in horror. "You!" he whispered,

bending his head forward and beginning to tremble in every limb.
"You! You did it! You did this! You, Stamer!"
 Stamer merely nodded, and looked like a hunted wild beast at the
opening. He wore the clothes of last night, but was without the
whiskers or beard. All the time he cowered in the shelter of the
shutters, he kept his right hand behind his back.

Timmons retreated to the other wall, and leaned his back against
it, and glared at the trembling man opposite.

"For God's sake don't look at me like that. You are the only one
that knows," whined Stamer, now quite unmanned. "I should not
have told you anything about it, only I thought you knew, when I
heard you say he was dead. You took me unawares. Don't stare at
me like that, for God's sake. Say a word to me. Call me a fool, or
anything you like, but don't stand there staring at me like that. If
'twas you that did it, you couldn't be more scared. Say a word to
me, or I'll blow my brains out! I haven't been home. I am afraid to
go home. I am not used to this--yet. I thought I had the nerve for
anything, and I find I haven't the nerve of a child. I am afraid to go
home. I am afraid to look at my wife. I thought I shouldn't be afraid
of you, and now you scare me worse than anything. For the love of
God, speak to me, and don't look at me like that. I can't stand it."

"You infernal scoundrel, to kill the poor foolish dwarf!" whispered

Timmons. His mouth was parched and open. The sweat was rolling
down off his forehead. He was trembling no longer. He was rigid
now. He was basilisked by the awful apparition of a man who had
confessed to murder.

Stamer looked towards the opening, and then his round, blood-
shot eyes went back to the rigid figure of Timmons. "I don't mind
what you say, if you'll only speak to me, only not too loud. No one
can hear us. I know that, and no one can listen at the door, without
our seeing him. You don't know what I have gone through. I have
not been home. I am afraid to go home. I am afraid of everything.
You don't know all. It's worse than you think. It's enough to drive
one mad----"
 "You murderous villain!'

"It's enough to drive any man mad. I've been wandering about all
night. I am more afraid of my wife than of anyone else. I don't know
why, but I tremble when I think of her, more than of the police, or--
or--or----"

"The hangman?"

"Yes. You don't know all. When you do, you'll pity me----"

"The poor foolish dwarf!"

"Yes. I was afraid he'd betray us--you----"

"Oh, villain!"

"And I got on a roof opposite the window, and when he was

working at the lever, I fired, and his head went so--and then so--and
then so----"

"Stop it, you murderer!"

"Yes. And I knew it was done. The neck! Yes, I knew the neck
was broken, and it was all right."

"Oh! Oh! Oh, that I should live to hear you!"

"Yes. I thought it was all right, and it was in one way. For he
tumbled down on his side, so----"

"If you don't stop it, I'll brain you!"

"Yes. And I got down off the roof and ran. I couldn't help running,
and all the time I was running I heard him running after me. I heard
him running after me, and I saw his head wagging so--so--so, as he
ran. Every step he took, his head wagged, so--and so--and so----"
 "If you don't stop that----"

"Yes. I will. I'll stop it. But I could not stop _him_ last night. All
the time I ran I couldn't stop him. His head kept wagging and his
lame feet kept running after me, and I couldn't stop the feet or the
head. I don't know how long I ran, or where I ran, but I could run
no more, and I fell up against a wall, and then it overtook me! I saw
_it_ as plainly as I see you--plainer, I saw it----"

The man paused a moment to wipe his forehead.

"Do you hear?" he yelled, suddenly flinging his arms up in the air.
"Do you hear? Will you believe me now? The steps again! The lame
steps again. Do you hear them, you fool?"

"Mad!"

"Mad, you fool! I told you. Look!"

The figure of a low-sized, deformed dwarf came into the opening

and crossed the threshold of the store.

With a groan Stamer fell forward insensible.

 CHAPTER XXXIII.

LEIGH CONFIDES IN TIMMONS.

Timmons uttered a wild yell, and springing away from the wall
fled to the extreme end of the store, and then faced round panting
and livid.

"Hah!" said the shrill voice of the man on the threshold. "Private
theatricals, I see. I did not know, Mr. Timmons, that you went in for
such entertainments. They are very amusing I have been told; very
diverting. But I did not imagine that business people indulged in
them in their business premises at such an early hour of the day. I
am disposed to think that, though the idea is original, the frequent
practice of such scenes would not tend to increase the confidence of
the public in the disabled anchors, or shower-baths, or invalid
coffee-mills, or chain shot, or rusty fire-grates, it is your privilege to
offer to the consideration of customers. Hah! I may be wrong, but
such is my opinion. Don't you think, Mr. Timmons, that you ought to
ring down the curtain, and that this gentleman, who no doubt
represents the villain of the piece confronted with his intended
victim, had better get up and look after his breakfast?" He pointed to
the prostrate Stamer, who lay motionless upon the sandy floor.

Timmons did not move or speak. The shock had, for the moment,
completely bereft him of his senses.
 "I have just come back from the country," said the dwarf, "and I
thought I'd call on you at once. I should like to have a few moments'
conversation with you, if your friend and very able supporter would
have the kindness to consider himself alive and fully pardoned by his
intended victim."

"Hush!" cried Timmons, uttering the first sound. The words of the
hunchback, although uttered in jest, had an awful significance for
the dazed owner of the place.

"Hah! I see your friend is not fabled to be in heart an assassin,

but the poor and hard-working father of a family, who is just now
indulging in that repose which is to refresh him for tackling anew the
one difficulty of providing board and lodging and raiment for his wife
and little ones. But, Mr. Timmons, in all conscience, don't you think
you ought to put an end to this farce? When I came in I judged by
his falling down and some incoherent utterance of yours that you
two were rehearsing a frightful tragedy. Will you oblige us by getting
up, sir? The play is over for the present, and my excellent friend
Timmons here is willing to make the ghost walk."

The prostrate man did not move.

Timmons shuddered. He made a prodigious effort and tried to

move forward, but had to put his hand against the wall to steady
himself.

Leigh approached Stamer and touched him with his stick. Stamer
did not stir.

"Is there anything the matter with the man? I think there must
be, Timmons. What do you mean by running away to the other end
of the place? Why this man is unconscious. I seem to be fated to
meet fainting men."

Timmons now summoned all his powers and staggered forward.

Leigh bent over Stamer, but, although he tried, failed to move him.
 Timmons regained his voice and some of his faculties. "He has
only fainted," said he, raising Stamer into a sitting posture.

Stamer did not speak, but struggled slowly to his feet, and
assisted by Timmons walked to the opening and was helped a few
yards down the street. There the two parted without a word. By the
time Timmons got back he was comparatively composed. He felt
heavy and dull, like a man who has been days and nights without
sleep, but he had no longer any doubt that Oscar Leigh was present
in the flesh.

"Are we alone?" asked Leigh impatiently on Timmons's return.

"We are."

"Hah! I am glad we are. If your friend were connected with racing

I should call him a stayer. I came to tell you that I have just got back
from Birmingham. I thought it best to go there and see again the
man I had been in treaty with. I not only saw him but heard a great
deal about him, and I am sorry to say I heard nothing good. He is, it
appears, a very poor man, and he deliberately misled me as to his
position and his ability to pay. I am now quite certain that if I had
opened business with him I should have lost anything I entrusted to
him, or, if not all, a good part. Hah!"

"Then I am not to meet you _at the same place_, next Thursday
night?" asked Timmons, with emphasis on the tryst. He had not at
this moment any interest in the mere business about which they had
been negotiating. He was curious about other matters. His mind was
now tolerably clear, but flabby and inactive still.

"No. There is no use in your giving me the alloy until I see my

way to doing something with it, and I feel bound to say that after
this disappointment in Birmingham, I feel greatly discouraged
altogether. Hah! You do not, I think you told me, ever use eau-de-
cologne?"
 "I do not."

"Then you are distinctly wrong, for it is refreshing, most

refreshing." He sniffed up noisily some he had poured into the palm
of one hand and then rubbed together between the two. "Most
refreshing."

"Then, Mr. Leigh, I suppose we are at a standstill?"

"Precisely."

"What you mean, I suppose, Mr. Leigh, is that you do not see
your way to going any further?"

"Well, yes. At present I do not see my way to going any further."

Timmons felt relieved, but every moment his curiosity was

increasing. There was no longer any need for caution with this
goblin, or man, or devil, or magician. If Leigh had meant to betray
him, the course he was now pursuing was the very last he would
adopt.

"You went to Birmingham yesterday. May I ask you by what train

you went down?"

"Two-thirty in the afternoon."

"And you came back this morning?"

"Yes. Just arrived. I drove straight here, as I told you."

"And you were away from half-past two yesterday until now. You
were out of London yesterday from two-thirty until early this
morning?"

"Yes; until six this morning. Why are you so curious? You do not, I
hope, suspect me of saying anything that is not strictly true?" said
Leigh, throwing his head back and striking the sandy floor fiercely
with his stick.

"No. I don't _suspect_ you of saying anything that is not strictly

true."

The emphasis on the word _suspect_ caught Leigh's attention. He

drew himself up haughtily and said, "What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean, sir," said Timmons, shaking his minatory finger at him,
and frowning heavily, "not that I suspect you of lying, but that I am
sure you are lying. I was at the Hanover last night, you were there
too."

Leigh started and drew back. He looked down and said nothing.
He could not tell how much this man knew. Timmons went on:

"I was in the public bar, against the partition that separates it
from the private bar, when you came in. You called for rum hot, and
you went away at close to twelve o'clock to wind up your clock. I
went out then and saw you at the window winding up the clock. I
was there when the light went out just at half past twelve. Now, sir,
are you lying or am I?"

Leigh burst into a loud, long, harsh roar of laughter that made
Timmons start, it was so weird and unexpected. Then the dwarf
cried, "Why you, sir, you are lying, of course. The man you saw and
heard is my deputy."

"You lie. I heard about your deputy. He is a deaf and dumb man,
who can't write, and is as tall as I am, a man with fair hair and
beard."

"My dear sir, your language is so offensive I do not know whether

you deserve an explanation or not. Anyway, I'll give you this much of
an explanation. I have two deputies. One of the kind you describe,
and one who could not possibly be known by sight from myself."
 "But I have more than sight, even if the two of you were matched
like two peas. I heard your voice, and all your friends in the bar
knew you and spoke to you, and called you Mr. Leigh. It was you
then and there, as sure as it is you here and now." Timmons
thought, "Stamer when he fired must have missed Leigh, and Leigh
must have gone away, after, for some purpose of his own, setting
fire to the place. He is going on just as if the place had not been
burned down last night, why, I am sure I do not know. I can't make
it out, but anyway, Stamer did not shoot him, and he is pretending
he was not there, and that he was in Birmingham. He's too deep for
me, but I am not sure it would not be a good thing if Stamer did not
miss him after all."

The clockmaker paused awhile in thought. It was not often he

was posed, but evidently he was for a moment at a nonplus.
Suddenly he looked up, and with a smile and a gesture of his hands
and shoulders, indicating that he gave in:

"Mr. Timmons," he said suavely, "you have a just right to be angry

with me for mismanaging our joint affair, and I own I have not told
you quite the truth. I did _not_ go to Birmingham by the two-thirty
yesterday. I was at the Hanover last night just before twelve, and I
did go into Forbes's bakery as you say. But I swear to you I left
London last night by the twelve-fifteen, and I swear to you I did not
wind up my clock last night. It was this morning between four and
five o'clock I found out in Birmingham that the man was not to be
trusted. You will wonder where I made inquiries at such an hour."

"I do, indeed," said Timmons scornfully.

"I told you, and I think you know, that I am not an ordinary man.
My powers, both in my art and among men, are great and
exceptional. When I got to Birmingham this morning, I went to--
where do you think?"

"The devil!"
 "Well, not exactly, but very near it. I went to a police-station. It so
happens that one of the inspectors of the district in which this man
lives is a great friend of mine. He was not on duty, but his name
procured for me, my dear Mr. Timmons, all the information I desired.
I was able to learn all I needed, and catch the first train back to
town. You see now how faithfully I have attended to our little
business. I left the Hanover at five minutes to twelve, and at two
minutes to twelve I was bowling along to Paddington to catch the
last train, the twelve-fifteen."

"That, sir, is another lie, and one that does you no good. At
twelve-fifteen I saw you as plain as I see you now--for although
there was a thin curtain, the curtain was oiled, and I could see as if
there was no curtain, and the gas was up and shining on you--I say
_at fifteen minutes after twelve I saw you turn around and nod to
your friends in the bar_. It's nothing to me now, as the business is
off, but I stick to what I say, Mr. Leigh."

"And I stick to what I say."

"Which of the says?" asked Timmons contemptuously. "You have

owned to a lie already."

"Lie is hardly a fair word to use. I merely said one hour instead of
another, and that does not affect the substance of my explanation
about Birmingham. I told you two-thirty, for I did not want you to be
troubled with my friend the inspector."

This reference to a police-station and inspector would have filled

Timmons with alarm early in the interview, but now he was in no
fear. If this man intended to betray him, why had he not done so
already? and why had he not taken the gold for evidence?

"But if you left Forbes's, how did you get away? Through the
front-door in Chetwynd Street, or through the side-door in Welbeck
Place?"
 "Through neither. Through the door of the bakehouse into the
mews."

Timmons started. This might account for Stamer's story of the

ghost.

"But who wound the clock? I saw you do it, Mr. Leigh--I saw you
do it, sir, and all this Birmingham tale is gammon."

"Again you are wrong. And now, to show you how far you are
wrong, I will tell you a secret. I have two deputies. One I told that
fool Williams about, and requested him as a great favour not to let a
soul know. By this, of course, I intended that every one who enjoyed
the privilege of Mr. Williams's acquaintance should know. But of my
second deputy I never spoke to a soul until now, until I told you this
moment. The other deputy is a man extremely like me from the
waist up. He is ill-formed as I am, and so like me when we sit that
you would not know the difference across your own store. But our
voices are different, very different, and he is more than a foot taller
than I. You did not see the winder last night standing up. He always
takes his seat before raising the gas."

A light broke in on Timmons. This would explain all. This would

make Stamer's story consist with his own experience of the night
before. This would account for this man, whom Stamer said he had
shot, being here now, uninjured. This would make the later version
of the tale about Birmingham possible, credible. But--awful but!--it
would mean that the unfortunate, afflicted deputy had been
sacrificed! Yes, most of what this man had said was true.

"What's the unfortunate deputy's name?" he asked, with a

shudder.

"That I will not tell."

"But it must come out on the inquest, to-day or to-morrow, or

whenever they find the remains."
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