Hayn nodded. "I meant to come to some arrangment with you over dinner," he said. "This bird can go down as your first job, on commission. If you're ready, we'll start."
Stannard assented, and they walked over to the table which had been prepared. Hayn was preoccupied. If his mind had not been simmering with other problems, he might have noticed Stannard's ill-concealed nervousness, and wondered what might have been the cause of it. But he observed nothing unusual about the younger man's manner.
While they were waiting for the grapefruit, he asked a question quite perfunctorily. "What's this South African's name?"
"Templar-Simon Templar," answered Jerry.
The name meant nothing at all to Mr. Hayn.
Chapter VI OVER the dinner, Hayn made his offer-a twenty per cent commission on business introduced. Stannard hardly hesitated before accepting.
"You don't want to be squeamish about it," Hayn argued. "I know it's against the law, but that's splitting hairs. Horse-racing is just as much a gamble. There'll always be fools who want to get rich without working, and there's no reason why we shouldn't take their money. You won't have to do anything that would make you liable to be sent to prison, though some of my staff would be jailed if the police caught them. You're quite safe. And the games are perfectly straight. We only win because the law of probabilities favours the bank."
This was not strictly true, for there were other factors to influence the runs of bad luck which attended the players upstairs; but this sordid fact Mr. Hayn did not feel called upon to emphasize.
"Yes-I'll join you," Stannard said. "I've known it was coming. I didn't think you went on giving and lending me money for looking decorative and doing an odd job or two for you now and again."