The smiling nonchalance of Larry Hughes vanished. He flung cigarette and amber holder with an impatient gesture into the grate, and advanced a step, with clenched hands.

“Don’t be a damned fool, man,” he snarled. “That girl has no more concern with the robbery than the man in the moon. She’s white. The whole thing is pure silliness. What have you got against her?”

“Not a thing. She only tried to bribe me yesterday. She only changed a forged cheque on the Midland Bank. She only tried to sandbag me last night. She only denied that she had ever heard of you, and now I find her photograph in your private room. Oh, I’ve not a thing to hold her on.”

There was a little bead of perspiration on the smooth forehead of the crook. “I don’t believe you are lying to me,” he said earnestly, “but you’re all wrong somehow. That girl has not the faintest strain of crookedness in her. Supposing that all you’ve heard about me is true. Have you known me to do a dirty thing?”