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realize. Take a little one-man business. If that's well-run and if it's the right size, it's a sure and certain winner. Branch out, make it bigger, increase personnel, and perhaps you'll get it suddenly to the wrong size and down the hill it goes. The same way with a great big chain of stores. An empire in industry. If that's big enough it will succeed. If it's not big enough it just won't manage it. Everything has got its right size. When it is its right size and well-run it's the tops.”
    “How big do you think this show is?” Sir Ronald barked.
    “Bigger than we thought at first,” said Comstock.
    A tough-looking man, Inspector McNeill, said, “It's growing, I'd say. Father's right. Growing all the time.”
    “That may be a good thing,” said Davy. “It may grow a bit too fast, and then it'll get out of hand.”
    “The question is, Sir Ronald,” said McNeill, “who we pull in and when?”
    “There's a round dozen or so we could pull in,” said Comstock. “The Harris lot are mixed up in it, we know that. There's a nice little pocket down Luton way. There's a garage at Epsom, there's a pub near Maidenhead, and there's a farm on the Great North Road.”
    “Any of them worth pulling in?”
    “I don't think so. Small fry all of them. Links. Just links here and there in the chain. A spot where cars are converted and turned over quickly; a respectable pub where messages get passed; a secondhand clothes shop where appearance can be altered, a theatrical costumer in the East End, also very useful. They're paid, these people. Quite well-paid but they don't really know anything!”
    The dreamy Superintendent Andrews said again, “We're up against some good brains. We haven't got near them yet. We know some of their affiliations and that's all. As I say, the Harris crowd are in it and Marks is in on the financial end. The foreign contacts are in touch with Weber but he's only an agent. We've nothing actually on any of these people. We know that they all have ways of maintaining contact with each other, and with the different branches of the concern, but we don't know exactly how they do it. We watch them and follow them, and they know we're watching them. Somewhere there's a great central exchange. What we want to get at is the planners.”
    “It's like a giant network,” Comstock said. “I agree that there must be an operational headquarters somewhere. A place where each operation is planned and detailed and dovetailed completely. Somewhere, someone plots it all, and produces a working blueprint of Operation Mailbag or Operation Payroll. Those are the people we're out to get.”
    “Possibly they are not even in this country,” said Father quietly.
    “No, I dare say that's true. Perhaps they're in an igloo somewhere, or in a tent in Morocco or in a chalet in Switzerland.”
    “I don't believe in these masterminds,” said McNeill shaking his head. “They sound all right in a story. There's got to be a head, of course, but I don't believe in a master criminal. I'd say there was a very clever little board of directors behind this. Centrally planned, with a chairman. They've got on to something good, and they're improving their technique all the time. All the same -”
    “Yes?” said Sir Ronald encouragingly.
    “Even in a right tight little team, there are probably expendables. What I call the Russian sledge principle. From time to time, if they think we might be getting hot on the scent, they throw off one of them, the one they think they can best afford.”
    “Would they dare to do that? Wouldn't it be rather risky?”
    “I'd say it could be done in such a way that whoever it was wouldn't even know he had been pushed off the sledge. He'd just think he'd fallen off. He'd keep quiet because he'd think it was worth his while to keep quiet. So it would be, of course. They've got plenty of money to play with, and they can afford to be generous. Family looked after, if he's got one, while he's in prison.