may be much to my benefit, and with your permission I will proceed to explain to you why.”

Captain Melun slowly shrugged his shoulders and slightly bowed his head. He realised that it[Pg 16] was the baronet's move, and did not propose to hinder him in the making of it, inasmuch as until he could correctly grasp Westerham's intention he could make no counter move himself.

[Pg 16]

“Following therefore,” continued Westerham, “my original line of thought, I should say that you were the headpiece, the brain-piece, of a well-planned scheme of crime.”

The faint colour in Melun's face became fainter still. Westerham knew he was pursuing the right trail.

“Now with such men as yourself—mind, I am not speaking so much from knowledge as from an intuition as to what I should do myself were I placed in similar circumstances—it is probable that you have sufficient intelligence, not only to rob your victims, but to rob your friends.

“Another piece of life's philosophy that roughing it has taught me is that the robber is always poor. I come, therefore, to the natural deduction that you are hard up.”

Westerham's whole expression of face changed suddenly. The coldness left it. The sea-green eyes smiled with a smile that invited confidence from the man before him.

“Well?” said Melun. “And what of it?”

Westerham knew that the battle was won.

“Then,” Westerham continued coolly, “such a sum as a hundred thousand pounds would not come amiss to you. Such a sum I am prepared to pay you—under certain conditions.”

He paused suddenly in his speech with the intention of catching the very slightest exclamation on the part of Melun; nor was he disappointed.[Pg 17] A quick indrawing of Melun's breath told Westerham that he was hitting him hard.

[Pg 17]

All the pleasantness in Westerham's face vanished again, and he looked at the captain with narrowed eyes.

“I realise that in offering you such a sum,” he said, “it will, of course, cost you something to earn it. A man who speculates must spend his own money to gain other people's. A criminal—you must forgive the word, but it is necessary—who seeks to make a great coup at the expense of others must put up a 

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