It was all very well for Melun to tell Westerham that he was a strong man armed. But was he?

Westerham pondered over this problem with a puzzled frown. In spite of the checks he had met with, he still felt himself to be, as Melun had said, a strong man. And when he came to a tight corner he was armed for the struggle, and had less fear of things than had Melun.

At times also it seemed as if his ingenuity was greater than the captain's. But, for all that, did he really hold the upper hand? As he impartially summed the matter up for himself it seemed to him that he did not.

On the Gigantic he had laughed that Melun should hope to find in his possession anything to make him an easy prey to blackmail. Yet here he was, a prey to the worst blackmail of all—a species of blackmail of the heart. On every hand, and at every turn, no matter in what direction he might strike out, he was more than met and baffled by the one dominant fact that the faintest breath of publicity would inevitably lose him Lady Kathleen.

So great, however, and so entirely unselfish was his love for the Premier's daughter, that he would have faced even that loss bravely could it have brought any peace to the hunted girl's mind. But he realised that to relinquish his claims would be immediately to throw her into the arms of Melun. Westerham shuddered when he thought of that.

No, crippled and cramped though he was, he must certainly go on—go on in the blind hope that he could find something which would enable him to deal Melun a blow from which he could not recover.

This, however, on further thought, seemed a rather laissez faire policy to follow. It was ridiculous to think that, in spite of his handicap, he should be beaten and bested at every turn by such a man as Melun.

For fully an hour, therefore, after the captain had left him, Westerham sat, pencil in hand, mapping out plan after plan of campaign. But all of them, as he pored over their possibilities, seemed to avail him nothing, and at last, when well nigh in despair, he tore up into minute fragments the various propositions he had formulated.

Then it suddenly dawned on him that if he could only prove, as he strongly suspected, that Melun was by no means dealing honestly with his fellow criminals, he would be able by a little astute management to turn all the organisation which Melun had at his disposal against the captain himself.

Westerham's bright gaze brightened and his smile broadened. With an almost boyish delight he immediately set to work to devise a scheme whereby he could turn the tables on his enemy.

There was very little time to be lost, and to his joy Westerham remembered that the day was Thursday, the day on the evening of which Melun's various friends met at the pseudo working-man's club at Limehouse.

Immediately he resolved that he would go there that very night.

Rough men had no terrors for him; during his life in the West he had dealt with rougher men than Melun had ever been called on to handle. He laughed as he thought of the possibilities of dominating such a collection of scoundrels as he had seen on his first visit to “The Club.”

Then he bethought him of Mr. Rookley, and he reflected that if the mills of Scotland Yard, like the mills of God, ground exceedingly slowly, they ground uncommonly fine.

It may be an easy thing to detect that one is shadowed by a large man with large boots. But, none the less, it is sufficiently disconcerting to find that the large boots follow one's footsteps persistently and doggedly. Scotland Yard wears down a man by sheer weight.

Westerham knew, too, that he had so aroused the interest of the authorities that they would do their best to watch his every movement. Nor was he wrong.

He realised, therefore, that it would be folly for him to proceed straight from Bruton Street to the East End. Never in his life had he feared any man, nor had he ever before been compelled to face the contingency of throwing off pursuers—and those pursuers the representatives of law and order.

However, the prospect of for once being the pursued rather than the pursuer to some extent tickled his fancy; he resolved to try his 'prentice hand at evasion by secretly making his way from Bruton Street to Walter's Hotel.

Walter's, he imagined, would be probably safe from observation for that night at least. Rookley had practically told Sir Paul that he did not know where he went when he was not in Bruton Street.

First Westerham called in Blyth and questioned him pretty closely; he satisfied himself, however, that whatever the man might think of his master's methods of life he was at least faithful.

Westerham, indeed, resolved to trust him a great deal more than he had done up to then, and told him, without any disguise, that he strongly suspected that Bruton Street was at that moment being watched. Casually, and without the slightest demonstration of surprise, the valet thereupon suggested that it would be just as well for Westerham to change his dress before he left the flat.

This he did, and afterwards sent the porter for a taxicab. Into this he jumped as soon as it arrived, telling the man to drive to Turnham Green.

And long before they reached that distant part of London, Westerham convinced himself that even had he been pursued at all he had certainly outdistanced the pursuers.

From Turnham Green he took the District Railway to Earl's Court. Alighting there, he walked to South Kensington, where he again took the train, on this occasion booking straight through to Whitechapel.

From St. Mary's, Whitechapel, he turned south, and plunging through a maze of little streets came on foot to Limehouse at about nine o'clock.

He had little difficulty in finding the “Cut,” and walking briskly down it, came to the little space where the tall, four-storeyed building was set back from the roadway.

Always quick to observe detail, he had not only noticed but he recollected Melun's peculiar rap. So three times he knocked slowly, and again three times slowly, and then three times in quick succession.

As on the former occasion, the door swung open at once, and the hideous face of the negro he had treated so cavalierly before peered at him from the darkness.

The nigger peered eagerly about as though seeking for Melun, and when he saw that Westerham stood there alone, made as though to slam the door on him.

But Westerham was too quick for him, and thrust his heavy-booted foot into the opening and laughed in the negro's face.

The negro cursed him roundly and demanded what he wanted.

“Let me in,” said Westerham, quietly, “and I will explain.”

Most unwillingly the negro opened the door, and Westerham, entering the passage, looked the black squarely in the eyes.

“I fancy that it is none of your business to inquire what I want?” he said. “I was brought here by Captain Melun and properly introduced, if such is the term you use. And my affairs at the present moment are with the gentlemen of the club. I will thank you to take me there at once.”

The negro gave him an ugly look.

“Did Captain Melun send you?” he asked.

“Mind your own business,” retorted Westerham, sharply. “Lead the way. I shall say what I have to say to my friends.

“Don't play the fool,” he added as the man still looked doubtful. “What do you take me for? A ‘tec’? If I were, do you think I should be ass enough to come here alone and ask to be shown into that crowd?”

The negro grinned as much as to say that he thought him an ass in any case, but he led the way down the passage none the less.

They passed through the opium den as before, and then it seemed that the negro purposely made no disturbance in order that Westerham's entrance might have a proper dramatic effect.

He was right in his estimation of the confusion it would cause.

If one may so term it, the parliament of scoundrels was in full session. The long trestle table was in the centre of the room, and at one end of it sat the bullet-headed man, while at the other was the young ruffian whom Westerham knew by the name of Crow.

It was evidently Crow, too, who was in supreme command.

The bullet-headed man rose up and stared at Westerham with starting eyes. The other men followed his gaze and leapt to their feet with cries and oaths.

Crow, of the vicious eyes and the hawk-like nose and the large, brutal hands, alone seemed undismayed.

The negro, having waited just sufficiently long to watch the sensation caused by Westerham's entrance, had slipped out of the club-room on silent feet.

Crow, in a quick, hard voice, cried, “The door!”

Instantly, as though their stations had by previous arrangements been allotted them—as was indeed the case—two men jumped from their seats and put their backs against the door. As they stood there they drew their knives, and on taking a step forward Westerham found himself cut off from retreat and facing the angry eyes of quite a score of men.

Two of them had pulled out revolvers, but Crow caught their action with quick and angry eyes.

“Don't be fools,” he said; “put those barkers away. We want no noise down here.”

Sullenly the men obeyed.

“Come to the table, Mr. Robinson,” said Crow, in a manner which suggested he had no doubt that his instructions would be followed, “and explain what this intrusion means.”

Westerham laughed and drew away from the men with the knives. He walked easily down to the table to the place which had been vacated by the bullet-headed man, and without so much as a word of apology took that plump and furious person's seat.

He looked easily and almost lazily along the lines of vicious faces until his gaze finally rested on Crow.

“I understood,” he said, in a pleasant voice, “that after my introduction the other night I was at liberty to come here when I pleased.”

“Unfortunately,” said Crow, “you have made a mistake. We had no desire to see you then, much less had we any wish to set eyes on you again.”

“I should think not!” blared the bullet-headed man.

From the rest of the men came murmurs and angry words.

“My visit,” said Westerham, “should be of considerable interest to you all. It is also of considerable interest to myself, as it proves that you act independently of Melun. I understood from him that you held no council unless he was with you.”

“Are you his cursed spy?” cried the man on his right, rising from his seat and bringing his fist down with a bang on the table.

“No,” said Westerham, looking the man straight in the face, “I am not.”

“Sit down, Smith!” shouted Crow.

The man sat down.

“Now, my pretty gentleman,” Crow went on, “we have had enough of you, just as we have had enough of Melun, who has brought you into this business for no good so far as we are concerned, and we do not propose that matters should go any further; in fact, it is rather handy that you thought of coming down East to us, as otherwise we should have come up West to you.”

“Indeed,” said Westerham, who was still smiling at Crow.

“Yes,” Crow went on, “you have saved us a great deal of trouble. You are a cool hand, Mr. Robinson, but we are just as cool. This spot was not chosen for its beauty; it was chosen for its advantages.”

At this some of the men laughed coarsely, while several of them swore.

“Melun's kid-glove business is all very well in its way. It has made a bit of money in its time, but it seems to us—we were just discussing the matter to-night—that we can do pretty well without the captain and his swells up West.

“It is a long time since his nice West End pals brought any grist to our mill, and we don't propose to go on like this for ever.

“What brought matters to a head was your arrival. We can stand a good deal, and we can wait a good deal. We are financed now and again by men whom we never set eyes on, and, according to Melun, we pay them a pretty rate of interest for our share of the work, but that is neither here nor there. What we do object to—and what you will find we object to to the extent of putting an end to it—is the importation of Yankee swankers from the States.”

Westerham raised a protesting hand, but Crow did not heed him.

“Oh, it is no use your objecting,” he said; “we can read you like a book. Things have been worse ever since your arrival. Melun has practically never been near us so that we have been left to our own resources. Well, we don't mind that; but we will see that the resources are such as we like.”

He laughed a jarring laugh.

“Now you may be as bad as the worst of us, and it may be you won't stick at much; and it may be that you have in that clever head a thousand ways of keeping us in funds. I should say by the look of you, you had.

“But I should say, too, that you were one of the mean breed, who keeps things to himself. You are too much class for us. We don't suit your book, and so we can rot while you and Melun spend the dibs up West. Now, that's not good enough.”

Crow looked round the table, the men nodded, and he continued:—

“We are going to end it here and now. Mark you, Mr. High-and-Mighty, we owe you one grudge already. We did not go looking after you to interfere with your pleasures, which probably are a deal worse than ours. In the same way, we do not allow any interference with what we do down here.

“It's a thing which Melun himself never dares to do, and why should you? It's more than we can stand. I am talking about those girls the other night.”

Westerham was still smiling with his eyes hard and bright. “Perhaps,” he said, “you had better let me inform you that if I found the same state of things going on to-night I should interfere again.”

Some of the men stared in astonishment at his audacity. Crow's face went white with passion.

“Would you, my beauty? I don't think you would.”

Then in a flash he had drawn a six-shooter from his pocket and yelled “Hands up!”

Westerham laughed outright. Unless he should so lose control over himself as to act foolishly he knew that Crow would not fire. He had already told two men that they wanted no firing that night.

So, instead of putting his hands up, he folded them placidly on the table.

“Put that thing away,” he said quietly, “until you explain precisely what you intend to do.”

Crow lowered his weapon but kept it on the table. He even laughed a hard, short laugh.

“Well, you are a good plucked 'un at any rate,” he said, “and as your number's up, and dead men tell no tales, I don't see why I shouldn't oblige you.

“You think,” he continued, making an attempt to imitate Westerham's cool, off-hand way of speech, “that this is a working-man's club.

“Well, it is not exactly that. It is a club, sure enough, with pretty fixed rules—rules which, if broken, may result in a man's light being put out.

“The same may be said of anyone who offends us. You have offended us.

“Now, though Melun comes in through ‘The Cut,’ we come in the other way. No one in London except the members of this club know that there are two entrances. We come in by the main door, and that gives on to a path which runs by a handy canal.

“Shooting is noisy, and knives mean messy work. Strangling is just as simple and just as easy, and, with the clothes off you, and with a good lead weight on your feet, there'd not be much chance of your disappearance ever being traced to this place.”

He stared at Westerham with a fixed beast-like glare.

Westerham, however, with his hands still folded placidly on the table, was smiling blandly.

“Allow me,” he said, seeing that Crow had made an end of speaking, “to congratulate you on a very pretty little programme—but a programme which, I fear, is hardly likely to be carried out to-night.”

“Str'wth,” cried a man, craning across the table towards Westerham, “are you a copper's nark? Have you put the police on us?”

Half a dozen men rose from their seats and looked with scared faces at Crow.

Crow, somewhat to Westerham's admiration, kept his head.

“See to the door,” he said.

Two other men rose, and going to Westerham's side of the long room, opened the door leading into a little porch; through this they went out on to the footpath by the canal and peered cautiously up and down.

Presently they came back shaking their heads.

“Have another look,” said Crow. “Search a little further.”

The two men went out again, and in the complete silence which now prevailed their footsteps could be heard through the open door pacing up and down the path.

Returning, they reported that everything was quiet.

“Very well,” said Crow, “but, all the same, you had better get to your posts.”

The two men went out once more and closed the door after them.

“Bluff!” said Crow, insolently, to Westerham, “just bluff. But you cannot come bluff on us, for all your Yankee smartness.”

“No,” said Westerham; and his face was still the face of a man who is immensely amused and interested.

“What are you grinning at?” snarled Crow.

“I was grinning because, whatever you may contrive to do to me, it struck me as being rather funny that one man in a place like this should manage to scare so many.”

Crow's hand gripped the handle of his revolver.

“That will do,” said Westerham, growing suddenly serious, for he realised that while the men were posted at either end of the canal-path there was just a chance that Crow might risk the noise of firearms.

“Now, Mr. Crow,” Westerham continued, “I have allowed you to say a good deal and insult me very considerably. As a matter of fact, I do not happen to be an American—not that that makes very much difference. Who I am and where I come from is no concern of yours. And I don't propose to tell you.

“I propose to tell you something else, though, and I regret to say that it is a tale of breach of faith—of a breach of faith committed by a member of what you are pleased to call ‘the club.’”

The men looked at each other.

“The name of the offending member,” said Westerham, slowly and deliberately, “is Melun.”

At the mention of this name most of the men broke out into volleys of cursing; but Westerham held up his hand for silence.

“I entered into a certain agreement with Melun on certain terms,” he said. “Is it news to you that the price I offered for his services and for the services of yourselves was a hundred thousand pounds?”

“Good Heavens!” Crow exclaimed, and then sat muttering to himself.

The rest of the men were too astonished to speak.

“You are a liar!” shouted Crow.

“Pardon me,” said Westerham, “I am no liar, as I am quite prepared to prove to you. Now I have every intention, provided that Melun holds good to his promise, of handing him over that sum. I simply tell you this in order that you may see to it that you get your proper shares.”

“You liar!” exclaimed Crow again.

“Pardon me,” said Westerham, “but you really are mistaken.”

He put his hand into his breast and pulled out a pocket-book.

“Here,” he said, “I have the sum of ten thousand pounds in notes.”

Drawing them out, he flung them carelessly on the table.

So utterly were the men lost in amazement that they could do nothing but stare in silence at the notes.

“Now, I may as well be quite frank,” Westerham went on, “and tell you that I have not the slightest intention of handing those notes over to you. Nor, for that matter, do I intend having them stolen.

“You might take them from me, but you would merely have to destroy them, for I have taken the precaution of informing the bank that all these notes have been lost. I can well afford to let such a sum as this lie idle for a time, and the numbers were posted this afternoon.”

“Good Heavens!” said Crow once more.

“Now,” Westerham continued as evenly as ever, “I hope that this, to some extent, proves that what I say is true.”

Some of the men nodded assent.

“Well,” said Westerham, looking about him, “I will take it for granted that you are prepared to believe me. So far so good.”

“I have now to tell you that Captain Melun is at the present moment engaged in a deal of the most stupendous proportions. He has mentioned to me that the sum he hopes to net is over a quarter of a million.”

He paused and looked round at the men again. They continued to stare at him open-mouthed, remaining entirely silent. They were beyond all speech.

Glancing at Crow, Westerham saw with satisfaction that he was evidently much amazed and beginning to look uneasy.

“Well, gentlemen,” Westerham continued, “it is unnecessary for me to mention the names of the people who are assisting Captain Melun in this enterprise. I really believe that they don't even know what the enterprise is. But there is an exception. One of them does know, because the business may involve dirtier work than Melun may care to do with his own hands.”

Westerham paused, and saw that Crow's face was as pale as ashes.

Again his intuition proved to be correct.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, rising, and pointing an accusing finger at Crow, “that is the man who knows!”

“It's a lie!” shrieked Crow; “it's a lie! It is only a matter of ten thousand pounds. Melun swore it to me.”

In the silence that followed Westerham laughed loud and long.

“Gentlemen,” he said at last, “I ask you if ever a man more completely condemned himself out of his own mouth?”

Now the tide of anger turned and swept towards Crow.

There was a great clamour, while the men, with curses, shouted at him for an explanation.

Then above the hubbub there came a loud knocking, and turning in the direction of the sound they saw Melun, smiling and pleasant-looking as ever, pounding on the floor with his stick, while the negro stood behind him, grinning over his shoulder.

Instantly silence fell again.

“Now, then,” called Melun, coolly, “be quiet, all of you. Be quiet at once. We have been betrayed, and the man who has betrayed us is there!”

For some seconds the men looked from Westerham to Melun, and then from Melun to Westerham. But the power of their old allegiance held good, and before he could utter a sound Westerham was seized and borne savagely to the floor.

When he found himself pinned to the ground Westerham made not the slightest attempt to struggle. He had been in similar predicaments before, and knew that a policy of passive resistance was best.

And, just as he had expected, when he made no effort to release himself the men partially relaxed their hold of him. Two of them, indeed, dragged him into a sitting posture.

By this time Melun had taken his place at the head of the long table, and was rapping on the bare boards for order and for silence.

“Two of you are enough there,” he said. “The rest of you get back to your seats.”

The men followed his instructions hastily and almost sheepishly.

When they were all seated again, Melun looked down their ranks sharply and a little furtively.