"You might as well say it is I, or that it is Crewe, or Dempsey, or Selby----"

"Or White," said the colonel slowly; "don't forget White."

They stared at him.

"What do you mean?" asked Crewe with a frown.

White had been a favourite of his.

"How could it be White?"

"Why shouldn't it be White?" said the colonel. "When did Jack o'

Judgment make his first appearance? I'll tell you. About the time we started getting busy framing up something against White. Did we ever see him when White was with us--no! Isn't it obviously somebody who has been a business a.s.sociate and knows our little ways? Why, of course it is.

Tell me somebody else?

"You don't suggest it is 'Snow' Gregory, anyway?" he added sarcastically.

Crewe shivered and half-closed his eyes.

"For heaven's sake don't mention 'Snow' Gregory," he said irritably.

"Why shouldn't I?" snarled the colonel. "He's worth money and life and liberty to us, Crewe. He's an awful example that keeps some of our business a.s.sociates on the straight path. Not," he added with elaborate care, "not that we were in any way responsible for his untimely end. But he died--providentially. A doper's bad enough, but a doper who talks and boasts and tells me, as he told me in this very room, just where he'd put me, is a mighty dangerous man, Crewe."

"Did he do that?" asked Crewe with interest.

The colonel nodded.

"In this very room where you're standing," he said impressively, "at the end of that table he stood, all lit up with 'coco' and he told me things about our organisation that I thought n.o.body knew but myself. That's the worst of drugs," he said, shaking his head reprovingly; "you never know how clever they'll make a man, and they made 'Snow' a bit too clever.

I'm not saying that I regretted his death--far from it. I don't know how he got mixed up in the affair----"

"Oh, shut up!" growled Pinto; "why go on acting before us? We were all in it."

"Hush!" said the colonel with a glance at the door.

There was a silence. All eyes were fixed on the door.

"Did you hear anything?" asked the colonel under his breath.

His face was a shade paler than they had ever remembered seeing it.

"It is nothing," said Pinto; "that fellow's got on your nerves."

The colonel walked to the sideboard and poured out a generous portion of whisky and drank it at a gulp.

"Lots of things are getting on my nerves," he said, "but nothing gets on my nerves so much as losing money. Crewe, we've got to go after that Yorkshireman again--at least somebody has got to go after him."

"And that somebody is not going to be me," said Crewe quietly. "I did my part of the business. Let Pinto have a cut."

Pinto Silva shook his head.

"We'll drop him," he said decisively, and for the first time Crewe realised how dominating a factor Pinto had become in the government of the band.

"We'll drop him----"

Suddenly he stopped and craned his head round.

It was he who had heard something near the door, and now with noiseless steps he tiptoed across the room to the door, and gripping the handle, opened it suddenly. A gun had appeared in his hand, but he did not use it. Instead, he darted through the open doorway and they heard the sound of a struggle. Presently he came back, dragging by the collar a man.

"Got him!" he said triumphantly, and hurled his captive into the nearest chair.

CHAPTER IX

THE COLONEL EMPLOYS A DETECTIVE

Their prisoner was a stranger. He was a lean, furtive-looking man of thirty-five, below middle height, respectably dressed, and at first glance, the colonel, whose hobby was distinguishing at a look the social standing of humanity, was unable to place him.

Crewe locked the door.

"Now then," said the colonel, "what the devil were you doing listening at my door? Was that his game, Mr. Silva?"

"That was his game," said the other, brushing his hands.

"What have you got to say before I send for the police?" asked the colonel virtuously. "What have you got to say for yourself? Sneaking about a gentleman's flat, listening at keyholes!"

The man, who had been roughly handled, had risen and was putting his collar straight. If he had been taken aback by the sudden onslaught, he was completely self-possessed now.

"If you want to send for the police, you'd better start right away," he said; "you've got a telephone, haven't you? Perhaps I'll have a job for the policeman, too. You've no right to a.s.sault me, my friend," he said, addressing Pinto resentfully.

"What were you doing?" asked the colonel.

"Find out," said the man sharply.

The colonel stroked his long moustache, and his manner underwent a change.

"Now look here, old man," he said almost jovially; "we're all friends here, and we don't want any trouble. I daresay you've made a mistake, and my friend has made a mistake. Have a whisky and soda?"

The man grinned crooked.

"Not me, thank you," he said emphatically; "if I remember rightly, there was a young gentleman who took a gla.s.s of water in North Lambeth Police Court the other day, and----"

The colonel's eyes narrowed.

"Well, sit down and be sociable. If you're suggesting that I'm going to poison you, you're also suggesting that you know something which I don't want you to tell. Or that you have discovered one of those terrible secrets that the newspapers are all writing about. Now be a sensible man; have a drink."