The car carried on. He pulled open the door of the waiting sedan and menaced the two men waiting inside. One of them was just clutching the driving wheel, but the other had a Browning, which Dillon wrenched from his hand. Billy arrived a moment later, opened the car door and relieved the driver of a Colt.25 from his waistband.

“Here, what is this?” the driver protested. It started, the usual bluster.

“I hate people being stupid,” Billy said. “Don’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Dillon told him, and at that moment Blake turned the corner and approached.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Just go and get your luggage and we’ll be on our way, idiot,” Dillon told him. “Get moving.”

“Did I have company? Ah well, I knew I could rely on you two.” Blake laughed and went to the front door of the house.

“Assume the position, both of you,” Dillon said, which they did with reluctance. Billy went through their pockets, did a quick check and found a wad of fifty-pound notes. “Two thousand,” he said, counting. “Must have been more originally. Had to be.”

Dillon stuck his pistol in the first man’s ear. “Who put you up to this?”

“Get stuffed,” the man said. He sounded Cockney; the driver stayed silent.

“Stupid and arrogant,” Dillon said. “A lethal combination.” And he shot half the man’s left ear off.

The man cursed and moaned at the same time, and Dillon said, “If you want the other one taken care of as well, that’s all right with me.” He slipped the two thousand into the man’s pocket. “You can keep this. Just tell me who it was.”

“George Moon,” the man said, gasping, “Runs the Harvest Moon pub in Trenchard Street, Soho. Farms out work.”

“And pretty dirty work, too, if that old sod’s still at it.”

“And who was he representing?” Billy said to the driver. “You might as well come clean.”