“Blah, all blah. Easy talk. Look here, Moreland, my percentages of unsolved crime are up⁠—but you know why. Curse it all, Winter knows as well as I do that Larry Hughes is operating in my district. No one, not even the old man himself, has ever pinned anything to Larry. I’m to be the goat. Why didn’t they give me an easy division when they promoted me, instead of the wealthiest in London, infested by all the slickest crooks in the world? What right has the old man to be sore at me?”

Moreland slid from his stool and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Listen to me, Harry. They gave you the job because they thought you could do it. To blazes with your golf handicap. Now you go and take a pill and get on with it.” He pushed the other gently from the room.