“Well?” demanded Whitey sharply.
“Whitey — that fellow’s got us.”
Whitey’s thin lips curled in a contemptuous smile.
“You’re dead easy to beat, Lambaire,” he said in his shrill way, “you’re Flab! You’re a Jellyfish!”
He was lashing himself into one of his furies, and Lambaire feared Whitey in those moods more than he feared anything in the world.
“Look here, Whitey, be sensible; we’ve got to face matters; we’ve got to arrange with him, square him !”
“Square him!” Whitey’s derision and scorn was in his whistling laugh. “Square Amber — you fool! Don’t you see he’s honest! He’s honest, that fellow, and don’t forget it.”
“Honest — why—”
“Honest, honest, honest! “ Whitey beat the desk with his clenched fist with every word. “Can’t you see, Lambaire, are you blind? Don’t you see that the fellow can be a lag and honest — that he can be a thief and go straight — he’s that kind.”
There was a long silence after he had finished. Whitey went over to the window and looked out; Lambaire sat biting his finger nails.
By and by Whitey turned.
“What is the position?” he asked.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“Things are very bad; we’ve got to go through with this diamond business: you’re a genius,
Whitey, to suggest the boy; if we send him to carry out the work, it will save us.”
“Nothing can save us,” Whitey snapped. “We’re in a mess, Lambaire; it’s got beyond the question of shareholders talkin’, or an offence under the Companies Act — it’s felony, Lambaire.”
He saw the big man shiver, and nodded.
“Don’t let us deceive ourselves,” Whitey kept up a nodding of head that was grotesquely reminiscent of a Chinese toy, “it’s twenty years for you, and twenty years for me; the police have been searching the world for the man that can produce those banknotes — and Amber can put ’em wise.”
Again a long silence. A silence that lasted for the greater part of an hour; as the two men sat in the gathering darkness, each engaged with his own thoughts.
It was such an half-hour that any two guilty men, each suspicious of the other, might spend. Neither the stirrings of remorse nor the pricking of conscience came into their broodings. Crude schemes of self-preservation at any cost — at whose expense they cared not — came in irregular procession to their minds.
Then—” You’ve got nothing here, I suppose?” said Whitey, breaking the long silence.
Lambaire did not answer at once, and his companion repeated the question more sharply. “No — yes,” hesitated Lambaire, “I’ve got a couple of plates—”
“You fool,” hissed the other, “you hopeless Mug!
Here! Here in the first place they’d search—”
“In my safe, Whitey,” said the other, almost pleadingly, “my own safe; nobody has a key but me.”
There was another long silence, broken only by the disconnected hissings of Whitey.
“Tomorrow — we clear ’em out, d’ye hear, Lambaire; I’d rather be at the mercy of a Nut like Amber, than have my life in the hands of a fool like you. An’ how have you got the plates? Wrapped up in a full signed confession, I’ll take my oath! Little titbits about the silver business, eh? An’ the printing establishment at Hookley, eh? Full directions and a little diagram to help the Splits — oh, you funny fool!”
Lambaire was silent under the tirade. It was nearly dark before Whitey condescended to speak again.
“There’s no use our sitting here,” he said roughly. “Come and have some dinner, Lambaire — after all, perhaps it isn’t so bad.”
He was slipping back to the old position of second fiddle, his voice betrayed that. Only in his moments of anger did he rise to the domination of his master. In all the years of their association, these strange reversals of mastery had been a feature of their relationship.
Now Lambaire came back to his old position of leader.
“You gas too much, Whitey,” he said, as he locked the door and descended the dark stairs. “You take too much for granted, and, moreover, you’re a bit too free with your abuse.”
“Perhaps I am,” said Whitey feebly, “I’m a Jute Factory on Fire when I’m upset.”
“I’ll be more of a salvage corps in future,” said Lambaire humorously.
They dined at a little restaurant in Fleet Street, that being the first they found open in their walk westward.
“All the same,” said Whitey, as they sat at dinner, “we’ve got to get rid of those plates — the note we can explain away; the fact that Amber has it in his possession is more likely to damage him than us — he’s a Suspected Person, an’ he’s under the Act.”*
[* Prevention of Crimes Act.]
“That’s true,” admitted Lambaire, “we’ll get rid of them tomorrow; I know a place — ¦”
“Tonight!” said Whitey definitely. “It’s no good waitin’ for tomorrow; we might be in the cart tomorrow — we might be in Bridewell tomorrow. I don’t like Amber. He’s not a policeman, Lambaire — he’s a Head — he’s got Education and Horse sense — if he gets Funny, we’ll be sendin’ S.O.S. messages to one another from the cells.”
“Tonight then,” agreed Lambaire hastily; he saw Whitey’s anger, so easily aroused, returning to life, “after we’ve had dinner. And what about Amber — who is he? A swell down on his luck or what?”
Throughout these pages there may be many versions of the rise and fall of Amber, most, indeed all but one, from Amber’s lips. Whether Whitey’s story was nearer the truth than any other the reader will discover in time.
“Amber? He’s Rum. He’s been everything, from Cow-boy to Actor. I’ve heard about him before. He’s a Hook because he loves Hooking. That’s the long and the short of it. He’s been to College.”
“College,” to Whitey, was a vague and generic term that signified an obscure operation by which learning, of an undreamt-of kind, was introduced to the human mind. College was a place where information was acquired which was not available elsewhere. He had the half educated man’s respect for education.
“He got into trouble over a scheme he started for a joke; a sort of you send me-five-shillings-and I’ll-do-the-rest. It was so easy that when he came out of gaol he did the same thing with variations He took up hooking just as another chap takes up collecting stamps.”
They lingered over their dinner, and the hands of Fleet Street’s many clocks were pointing to half-past nine before they had finished.
“We’ll walk back,” said Lambaire; “it’s fortunate that there is no caretaker at Flair Court.”
“You’ve got the key of the outer door?” asked Whitey, and Lambaire nodded.
They passed slowly up Ludgate Hill, arm in arm, two eminently respectable city men, top-hatted, frockcoated, at peace with the world to all outward showing, and perfectly satisfied with themselves.
Flair Court runs parallel with Lothbury, and at this hour of the night is deserted. They passed a solitary policeman, trying the doors of the buildings, and he gave them a civil good night.
Standing