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All they have to do is to check the number of my car to know who I am and where I live. How smart can you get, Harry? What’s happening to that white thing in your head you call a brain?”
    Rossland shifted his bulk uncomfortably.
    “Don’t talk that way to me!” he blustered. “I don’t like it!”
    “You’re not meant to like it,” Girland said in a bored, flat voice. “You’re beginning to show signs of being washed up in this racket. You’re now too fat, too damned sleek, too sure of yourself. You’ve had a long, long run for your money and now you’re over confident. You think this is a parlour game: giving orders, raking in the money, waving your tiny wand and letting others do the dirty work. Two years ago, you wouldn’t have let a front tail get onto you. This isn’t a game, Harry. This is one of the most lethal rackets you can get into. Mugs like us who are crazy enough to work for drips like Dorey have to look out for trouble all the time. You’ve become so smug and stale you can’t even recognise trouble when it actually sits in your fat lap.”
    “My God!” Rossland exclaimed, sweat breaking out on his forehead. “No cheap shyster like you can talk this way to me! You’re not the only agent I have who can handle this and be glad to! I’m doing you a favour because I know you want the money. You stop picking on me or I’ll …”
    “No, you won’t, Harry,” Girland said and there was a bored note in his voice. “I happen to be the last of the suckers who are willing to do your dirty work and you know it. Jason’s gone. Gray, Fauchet and Pierre … they saw the red light as I’m seeing it now. I’m the last of your shabby little stable who you can rely on, so don’t wave threats in my face.”
    Rossland breathed heavily. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and stared furiously through the dusty windshield of the car.
    “What’s it worth?” Girland asked finally. “I won’t even consider it until I get some money.”
    Rossland hesitated, then groped in his hip pocket. He gave Girland two one hundred franc notes.
    “Where’s the rest of it?” Girland demanded.
    “That’s all for the moment. You know the way Dorey pays.”
    Girland put the notes in his limp wallet.
    “I need my head examined working for this kind of money,” he said in disgust.
    “I want action,” Rossland said. “I’m going back to my place right now and I’ll be waiting. Watch it they don’t tail you.”
    “Very funny … coming from you,” Girland said.
     
    Herman Radnitz sat in an alcove in the bar of the George V Hotel: a square, fat man with hooded eyes and a thick hooked nose. He wore an immaculate Savile Row suit, a dark red carnation in his button hole and Lobb brogue shoes. From time to time he drew on an expensive cigar which he held in his short, fat fingers.
    He had been sitting in the bar for the past half hour, his ruthless face clouded with thought.
    Radnitz was a well-known figure at the hotel. He was believed to be one of the richest men in the world. His financial machinations spread like the tentacles of an octopus over the whole globe.
    A young man, wearing a chin beard and a shabby overcoat belted like a dressing-gown, came quietly into the bar. He paused, then at a sign from Radnitz, sat down in a vacant chair by Radnitz’s side.
    This young man whose name was Michel Thomas, said softly, “Dorey has had an interview with Rossland. They met at the Crillon Bar and talked for some time. As they were leaving, Dorey gave Rossland something … could have been money. I wasn’t close enough to see. Rossland then went to the bar at the Normandy Hotel and made a telephone call. Borg was with me. He followed Rossland from in front: I from behind. Rossland lost me in the Métro, but Borg stayed with him. Borg has just now telephoned that Rossland met an American in a Fiat car. We don’t know who this American is, but we have his car number and Borg is making