however foolish my haste may appear, I am determined to see the rest of your organisation without further delay.”

[Pg 54]

Melun shrugged his shoulders.

“So be it,” he said; “we shall want a couple of caps, and you will have to turn your collar up. Not even the comparatively humble bowler is particularly acceptable in Limehouse.”

“Limehouse!” exclaimed Westerham. And he smiled a pleased little smile to himself. Events were developing themselves in a sufficiently melodramatic way to be entertaining. “Limehouse,” he said again. “I was there yesterday.”

Melun drew in his breath sharply and bared his teeth in an unpleasant snarl.

“Have you been spying?” he asked coarsely.

“I don't spy,” said Westerham, coldly.

And that was sufficient.

The two men ate a rather gloomy dinner in the small hotel. Conversation lagged, for as yet they had not much in common. Each of them, however, from a different point of view, was soon to have far too much in common with the other.

Towards eight o'clock Melun rose and suggested that they should be going. Westerham provided him with a cap, and having pulled their coat collars about their ears, they climbed on board one of the Blackwall motor omnibuses.

On this they travelled as far as Leman Street, where Melun descended from the omnibus roof. Westerham followed at his heels.

They then took a tram, and for what seemed to Westerham an interminable time they travelled[Pg 55] slowly eastward along the Commercial Road. Presently a great white tower threw into greater blackness the surrounding black of the murky sky. Westerham, as the result of his recent experiences in the East End, knew the tower to be that of Limehouse church.

[Pg 55]

Here they again alighted, and Melun walked quickly down that curious street which is known as Limehouse Cut.

Gas lamps standing at long intervals threw a very feeble and flickering light upon 

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