“I thought you were going to come clean,” observed Labar mildly. “Let me remind you of one or two things. I don’t know what you’ve been doing this past eight or nine years, but if you’ve been going straight you’ll get the credit, if you don’t try to fool me. Now last night I sent your fingerprints to the Yard and had you looked up. You came out from a three years sentence nine years ago. Before that you had done terms in the States and one or two sentences of hard labour here. All of these are on record. Now this letter.” He tapped the paper beneath his hand. “I don’t know whether you’ve forgotten the properties of gum arabic, or whether you were too fuddled yesterday to make use of your knowledge.”

He breathed on the paper and crossing to the grate scraped up some dust with his fingers and sprinkled it over the letter. Irregular block letters appeared between the lines and he thrust the slip beneath the face of the man.

“See that. ‘Panjandrum says get out at once. Splits know of your business. Get under cover right away.’ Now who sent you that? Who is Panjandrum?”