He came back to where Larry was lying on the shingle. “That’s got rid of him. There might be a chance for two of us. There wouldn’t be any for a crowd. What do you say?”

For once in his life Larry Hughes was irresolute. In his career there were few codes that he had not broken. But always he had made it a practice to keep faith with those who had come under his sway. He could say, outlaw though he was, that he had never betrayed a friend nor forgiven an enemy. It was a rigid part of his policy to enforce honour among thieves to himself as to his associates. He could neither afford to forgive a man who had let him down nor to abandon those who had worked with him. That was the reason for the strength that he had acquired in the underworld. Once that policy was abandoned the prestige that had been so profitable to him would be gone.