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[Pg 131] 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.”

[Pg 131]

“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[Pg 132] the face of a man who is immensely amused and interested.

[Pg 132]

“What are you grinning at?” snarled Crow.

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