“Ben, you know London pretty well, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure I don’t know it better than New York,” answered Ben. “Are you forgetting I was the London correspondent for five years?”

“I half-remembered,” Luigi replied drily. “Can you tell me anything about a guy named Rollison?”

Without even an instant’s pause the other repeated, like an echo: “Rollison! Richard Rollison?”

“That’s right, he lives —”

“Luigi,” the newspaperman said, “I know plenty about Rollison. If you take my advice, you won’t tangle with him.”

“I don’t believe the criminal I won’t tangle with exists,” retorted Luigi. “What’s so special about him?”

“He’s not a crook,” answered the Times man.” ‘Private eye’ isn’t the right description but you would call him one. He doesn’t know the criminal he won’t tangle with, either. He —” there was a pause, a sharp intake of breath, another pause, then a deep-voiced question redolent of suspicion. “What do you want with the Toff ?”

“The who?”

“The Toff. T — O — F — F,” the Times man spelled out. He allowed just enough time for the spelling to register on Luigi’s mind before repeating : “I’ll tell you what I know about the Toff when I know why you want the information. You come clean, Luigi, and I will.”

“Off the record,” Luigi said.

“Off the record,” agreed the newspaperman. “In the beginning, anyway.”

“Okay,” agreed Luigi. He told the story in outline, answered a few questions, and then in a tone of deep finality he declared: “That’s plenty, Ben. Now you tell me all you know about this Rollison — this Toff. What is a Toff, anyway?”