Chapter 1

"And remember, Labar, you don't bluff me." The Chief Constable, who had
been through the game himself, tapped the string of figures that lay
upon his desk with an aggressive forefinger. "You're lazy--damned lazy.
If things don't clear up in your division in the next month or so you
can count on something happening. That's all. Think it over."

"Thank you, sir," said the other, with the smooth suavity of a man who
had received a compliment, and swung on velvet toes from the room.

After all, what was the use of arguing? Divisional Detective Inspector
Labar was under no illusions about himself. He _was_ lazy. All
Scotland Yard knew it. Particularly did Winter, Chief Constable of the
Criminal Investigation Department know it, for in some sort Labar was a
_protégé_ of his. Yet that shrewd old veteran reckoned that even
the quality of indolence had its uses. It could make a brilliant man
concentrate fiercely on his work, in order to save time for his own
purposes. The amount of time taken by a detective on an individual job
is largely a matter on which his superiors must accept his word. Some
men slog laboriously, while others get their results quickly. In minor
positions there is always someone around to see that the work is done.

All this, however, does not apply in the same degree to a detective
inspector. Such a one gives, more often than he receives, orders. As an
executive Labar felt himself a failure. Well, well, a man must have a
little time for golf.

A heavy hand fell with mathematical accuracy between his shoulder
blades, and he flung round with a delicate shudder.

"One of these days, Moreland, someone's going to slap you hard on the
wrist, slog you on the jaw, and kick you where it hurts most. You're
too boisterous for the society of gentlemen."

Moreland, of the Flying Squad, grinned cheerfully. "Behold the infant
phenomenon of Grape Street, as the apostle of gloom," he said, walking
round Labar with mock awe. "Behold his shiny boots and well-creased
trousers, and mark his creased forehead and frowning countenance. No,
don't speak. Let me apply my well-known powers of deduction." He put
his hand to his brow. "He has--yes he has been on the carpet."

A slow rueful smile broke on Labar's face. "You guessed it," he said.
"If you want promotion there's the job of divisional inspector at
Grape Street liable to be vacant some time. Better write out your
application."

Moreland's levity vanished. "The old man's bitten you as bad as that?
Cheer up, and pull yourself together. Come and tell papa all about it."
He pulled Labar into an adjoining room, adjusted himself on a tall
stool and lit a pipe. "Shoot," he ordered.

Harry Labar shrugged his shoulders. "There's nothing to it," he
declared. "Winter says things are too loose in the division. I've got
to tighten them up, or----"

"The shelf, eh?" Moreland eyed his friend whimsically. "That'll be
a new record for you. The youngest man to be promoted divisional
inspector, and the youngest divisional inspector to retire. Well, why
don't you tighten them up?"

"Blah, all blah. Easy talk. Look here, Moreland, my percentages of
unsolved crime are up--but you know why. Curse it all, Winter knows as
well as I do that Larry Hughes is operating in my district. No one, not
even the old man himself, has ever pinned anything to Larry. I'm to be
the goat. Why didn't they give me an easy division when they promoted
me, instead of the wealthiest in London, infested by all the slickest
crooks in the world? What right has the old man to be sore at me?"

Moreland slid from his stool and put a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Listen to me, Harry. They gave you the job because they thought you
could do it. To blazes with your golf handicap. Now you go and take a
pill and get on with it." He pushed the other gently from the room.

To few other men than Moreland would Labar have confided his troubles.
He passed swiftly out of the little back door from the C.I.D.
headquarters, dodging the Assistant Commissioner with some skill, for
he felt that that official might be no less emphatic, if more urbane,
than the Chief Constable on the state of crime in the West End.

His mind was focussed upon Larry Hughes. Larry was a gentleman who had
never been in a criminal court in his life--a sleek, cultivated man
about town, with a taste in literature and art, and enough money to run
his own steam yacht and a racing stud. His life was apparently open
to the world, his character to all seeming flawless, impeccable. Any
head-strong police officer who had ventured to put a public slur on
Larry's character, by hauling him to a dungeon cell, would have very
promptly found himself with a suit for heavy damages on his hands.

Yet to Labar, as to many men in the police circles of the world, it was
certain knowledge that Larry Hughes was the most adroit and intelligent
crime organiser in London, or for the matter of that anywhere. It was
certain but utterly unprovable.

There are half a dozen men in London, another half a dozen in New
York, three in Paris, a couple in Amsterdam, and a few more knocking
about other capitals of the world, who run crime on the principles
of big business. Through many intermediaries there filters to them
much knowledge which they have the means to turn to profit. These are
eclectic in their enterprises, but in general they are receivers. They
will organise and finance a burglary, a forgery, or a hold-up, but they
keep well in the background. The casual thief has never heard of them;
even the big professional crook frequently has only a dim conception
of their identity. The loot never reaches them in any tangible and
identifiable shape. They have their agents, and their tools, and many
of them die in an atmosphere of eminent respectability.

Among this class the most audacious, the most ingenious, was Larry
Hughes. Labar had little doubt that, if one really got to the bottom
of things in his division, half the professional crime would have
shown Larry's finger in the pie. Either Larry must lay off of his own
volition--an unlikely event--or some method must be found of putting a
spoke in his wheel. Harry Labar did not avoid the feeling that the task
was likely to prove a man's size job.

He had reached Cockspur Street when the thing happened. Even if his
mind had been less preoccupied, it is likely that he would have failed
to notice the big touring car that edged itself through the traffic
towards him. Not until it had swept close to the kerb, and he saw
the girl leaning from the near side, did he realise that it held any
significance for him. A wisp of fair hair had fallen over her forehead,
and she brushed it back with a slim gloved hand. Harry Labar, although
his colleagues held him doomed to bachelordom, had an eye for a pretty
girl and he noticed her with subconscious approval as the car drew near.

Almost mechanically it dawned on him that her hand was stretched to him
from the now slowly moving car.

"For you," said the girl, and a letter waved on a level with his eyes.
As he reached to take it, the car leapt away like a living thing, with
a rapidity that told of perfect acceleration and steel nerves at the
wheel.

"Hey!"

The detective was aroused from his reverie on the instant. He sprang
forward with a command to stop, that, even as he uttered it, he knew
to be futile. The car was well away. It was vain to hope to stop it,
and the speed at which it was moving showed it improbable that any taxi
could overtake it, even had there been one near.

With a habit ingrained by years of training he took a pencil from his
pocket and made a note of the number. Then, with a philosophic shrug of
his shoulders, he slit the blank envelope that he held, and glanced at
its contents. A Bank of England note for a hundred pounds lay in his
hand. He inspected the envelope again, and threw an eye around to make
sure that nothing had been dropped. There was nothing. Just a hundred
pound note in a blank envelope.

"Well I'm damned," determined Detective Inspector Labar.

The method rather than the event had startled him. Although one hundred
pound notes do not descend on detective inspectors every day of the
week, there are philanthropists who attempt at times to impose money on
police officers. It was a bribe of course. But the touch of melodrama
was amateurish and clumsy. The most illiterate crook in London should
have known that a hundred pound note was ridiculously easy to trace.
The whole thing was raw. It was just possible that the car had a
false number, but leaving that aside he would remember the girl. Yes,
decidedly he would remember the girl.

He felt reasonably certain that in the normal course of events he
would know more about it during the day. Without undue speculation,
therefore, he betook himself to Grape Street, where, in the stiffly
furnished room that formed the headquarters of the divisional detective
force, he summoned one of his satellites and passed the note on.

"Find out what hands that note has been in," he ordered. "And while
you're about it, m'lad, slip down and discover who owns a car numbered
X20008. Take a note of that number. If I'm not here when you're
through, leave a message for me."

With that off his mind, he shed his coat, and was about to immerse
himself in the official routine correspondence that was the bane of his
life, when there was a jangle of telephone bells, and a hearty-looking,
ruddy-cheeked man engaged in converse that brought a fresher purple
sheen to his face. He put down the receiver with an oath.

"Wish you wouldn't swear, Bill," said Labar, petulantly. "It jars on
me."

It was at such a time that Detective Sergeant Malone, presuming on many
years association, was wont to observe that he was no kid glove John.
But at the moment he was too moved for remonstrance.

"We've struck it, guv'nor," he declared huskily. "This has put the tin
hat on it this has."

Labar lit a cigarette wearily. "Tell me the worst," he said.

"They've made a clean sweep of Streetly House. Old Gertstein's foaming
at the mouth. Quarter of a million of pounds worth of jewels and curios
melted away as clean as a conjuring trick. I could smell Larry Hughes a
thousand miles off in this." His tone was gloomy, for he knew something
of Labar's troubles. "Nice look-out for us, an' the Yard not throwing
any flowers our way as it is."

"You said it, Bill," agreed Labar, rising, and pulling down his shirt
sleeves. "It's get on or get out, for me at any rate, this time. Get
your hat on and tell 'em to ring through to the Chief. We're liable to
have some work to do."