"You see," continued Lyall ; "it means that somewhere in London there is an UNKNOWN SPY who knows as much about my movements as I do myself. It must be obvious to even the meanest intelligence that he is fully aware of my intentions regarding the Duchess of Renburgh's jewels. It is or ought to be equally obvious that he has already notified the police of my intentions or perhaps I ought to say our intentions. otherwise why should he warn me? And again, why has he warn me and not the others? But chiefly, who the devil is he?"
The cold, chill note had gone out of Lyall's voice. His easy assumption of casual detachment fell away and he uttered the last words with a rasping asperity.
"I've been thinking matters over very closely this morning," he went on, "and I've come to the conclusion that here, I'm this warning is a clue to the biggest mystery we have ever known. here is a connecting link with something that has been gnawing at my thoughts for weeks." He broke off suddenly and looked at his Confederate..
"Tansy," he asked quietly; "haven't you noticed anything peculiar about the affairs that have happening in our line of business of late? Hasn't it ever struck you that either. the police have been getting miraculously farsighted at their own game----or----that----? He left the sentence unfinished, and his steely eyes burned fiercely as he stared at the jeweller.
Tansy shifted uncomfortably on his feet. His chief was in a queer mood this morning and he couldn't quite get what he was driving at.
"just hark your mind back over the events of the past few months," said Lyall. "yours is not the only group of adventurous gentleman with whom I have the honour of association. You probably know that the silver Arrow gang is a comparatively small branch of my connections. I have a very intimate interest in at least six in London alone. But they are all being slowly wiped out without possible cause or explanation. Look at your own crowd. six months ago you were thirty strong and everyone of you as slick at planning a job as careful at assessing the chances as any man in the game. and yet look at you now a mere handful of stragglers. There was Marty's crowd fifteen of them clever as badgers wiped out. Marty himself collared with the goods on. Marty was never under police suspicion---never in his life. But they got him.
"And so you can go on. Ruskey, Johnstone, Philippe the Dago, Johnny Dean, Harris, the Piccadilly crowd, Everard and whole hatful more. Every job that has been attempted in London for the last four months has been foiled from the start and our boys have gone to the Moors. Can you think of a single successful job brought off since Marty got cleared with the Eveleigh rubies? The silver Arrow were the first to get it in the neck. The police got six of us in the first rush. And Fred Jegs was shot in the leg get that? They were armed! Ready for us! Expecting us!
"Bah! it all comes down to this damned post-card. Look at it. Not a warning, but a plain bald threat telling me that the police have been informed of my plans to ransack the Renburgh jewel cases, and that they will be there. Tansy, it's all here in the card. The man who has sent me this card is the man who has been selling us to the police for months.
"He paused in his angry tirade. Throughout his outburst, Tansy had been regarding him with an ever -growing wonderment writ large upon his face. the jeweller, as a man of a lower order of intelligence than Lyall had not grasped the inner significance of Lyall's first utterances. But as his leader swept on, rattling off proof after proof, connecting up link after link. even he saw the deadly certitude with which Lyall had made his deductions.
Lyall again faced the fence, flushed and breathing heavily.
"Do you realize it now?" he demanded. "Do you realize what a quicksand we are treading on? There is not a single one of us who is safe as long as that human devil remains alive. He's got us all by the throat. We don't even know who he's getting next. He's like a spider with the whole crowd of us struggling in his web and his coming down for one or the other of us whenever he feels inclined."
"But----but who is he guv'nor? Who the blazing banshee is he? asked the perplexed man. "You ought to know him. You're one of the leaders it ain't likely that the likes of me would know him. He's somebody in your set."
"I've no more idea than you have. it's your job to find out who he is. you know more of your own class than I do. There's dozens of the underdogs calling here every week. Some of them must have heard rumours, some of them must have smelt a rat. find out from them. make inquiries---- you know how to do that sort of thing as well as any man I know. He's one of the leaders all right and a mighty big one too. That fact sticks out a mile. Who else but one of the big men would know so much about the plans of all the big gangs? Who else but one of the leaders themselves would know what the other leaders are doing?"
Tansy scratched his head. The whole business had got him into such a quagmire of puzzlement, doubt and mystification that he was left groping. He was bewildered ; scarcely knew whether to trust his own leader. The whole thing was so hopelessly confusing....
He looked up queerly at his leader and there was an odd expression in his eyes. "There ain't so many if you big fellers left are there?" he said.
Lyall shot a swift glance at him.
"And just what do you mean by that?" he queried icily.
"I mean that he's a friend of yours. you're chummy together."
Lyall eyes began to glitter like marbles of ice.
"Are you hinting that I'm double-crossing the crowd myself, you----you lunatic?" he rasped.
"No I ain't boss. There's no need to get your hair off. What I say is it must be someone who thinks a lot of you, else why should he send you that warning? if he didn't give a damn whether you went to the Moors or not, he wouldn't have sent it would he? He would just have let you carry in like the rest of e'm."
Lyall grunted and began pacing up and down the room. The jeweller's words had given him food for reflection. it was a point he had missed. But for the life of him he couldn't connect up that card with anyone. who while being yellow enough to give his friends away to the police, was also white enough to send him that friendly warning.
"Are you going to obey that warning guv'nor?" the querulous voice of Tansy broke in upon his harassed thoughts..
Lyall wheeled and glared at the fence savagely.
"Yes, I am"gmhe said fiercely. "Why not? This horror has got to be stamped out once and for all. Somebody has got to pay the price of safety. And the bunch who are doing the Renburgh job will be the one to foot the bill. If the police get them I shall know that this is no fake. I shall have ground to work on to trap this devil. And by God! when I do get him, it will be murder! You'll keep your mouth shut about this. You aren't in it at all. If any of the gang come around here, you haven't heard from me except to say that the Renburgh job is O.K to go ahead on. I shan't go out that night---- but I shall be working and working for the safety of the likes of you Mr. Tansy. Don't forget that when your tongue begins itching within a very few hours of Tuesday morning I shall have got our man and"----he paused grimly----"he will need the undertakers all right."