“Don’t say I told you,” pleaded Eddie.

He heard someone approaching and put his glass hastily to his eye. The footsteps passed. Eddie stared at Roger with his glass at his eye, his forehead and nose wrinkled.

“It’s a bad do, Handsome, no doubt about that.”

He broke off when the telephone on his desk rang. He answered it and Roger judged, from his manner, that it was Chatworth. Eddie was more impressed by the Assistant Commissioner than most Chief Inspectors, although Chat- worth had a reputation for being a martinet.

Eddie replaced the receiver and stood up, gathering some papers from his untidy desk.

“Got to go and see the Old Man,” he said, in a confidential undertone. “He wants my report on those dud notes. You know the ones I mean.”

“Yes,” said Roger, with a flicker of interest. “Are they slush?” He thought of the £1,000 now at the Strand Post office waiting for ‘Mr North’ but it was too early to ask Eddie’s opinion of the two specimens; Eddie was not a man to be trusted in these circumstances. There were two Yard men who might take the risk of helping him, but one, Sloan, was on holiday.

“Stake my reputation on it,” said Eddie, half-way to the door. “They’re good, though. Er — best of luck, Handsome. If I can do anything let me know.”

Alone in the office, Roger looked about him, putting his hand in his raincoat pockets. He felt an envelope in there but thought nothing of it. The green-distempered walls displayed a few photographs, including one, old and faded, of a

Suffragette procession down Whitehall in 1913, two cricket XI’s one of them including himself, two or three maps of London districts and several calendars. On one of the desks was a small vase of fading daffodils. The fireplace was littered with cigarette ends and the carpet, with several threadbare patches, had a few trodden into it.