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would turn into a slide, and he would go down and down to the final crash where a revolver bullet would be his only way out.
    There was something about this girl – not yet twenty-five, very beautiful to look at, detached and quietly determined – that gave him a sudden feeling of hope: something he hadn’t had for the past two years: not since they had told him to get out of the Stock Market or they’d prosecute.
    He told her he hadn’t been feeling wel .
    ‘It’s not that I’m a young man,’ he said lamely. ‘Perhaps I’ve lived too hard. I’m burned out, Eve. Not for long, but right now, I’m tired and disillusioned. In a lit le while I’l begin again. I just want to rest.’
    He could see at once she didn’t believe him, although she gave him a sympathetic smile.
    ‘I think I can help you,’ she said. ‘Something I happened to overhear…’
    That was how he had been committed to this Rajah business. At first he had thought she was joking.
    ‘My dear girl,’ he had said, pat ing her long, sleek leg as she lay across his lap, her head against his shoulder, ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing. It’s fantastic, and there’s nothing I could possibly do about it. Even if I could, I don’t think I’d care to dabble in such a venture. It’s quite out of the question.
    Besides, this Rajah wouldn’t want me to interfere.’
    ‘He might,’ she had said thoughtful y. ‘I think I’l ask him.’
    Kile didn’t believe for a moment she would approach the Rajah. He had dismissed the whole thing from his mind, and he was startled when she told him a few days later that the Rajah would see them at his hotel that evening.
    Immediately he had refused to go, but she had persuaded him.
    ‘At least let’s hear what he has to say,’ she had said, her face against his, holding his hand over her breast. ‘He may not agree. He may not offer enough. Even if he does agree and offers something reasonable, we don’t have to go through with it if we don’t want to. We can always say it wasn’t possible.’
    Reassured by this argument, and a little flattered to be received by a Rajah, Preston allowed himself to be persuaded. The meeting had turned out far easier than he had expected.
    It was pretty obvious that Eve had already laid a solid foundation for the interview. The Rajah said he would be delighted if they could help him recover the jewels. They were, he said, heirlooms of the utmost value. If they found them and returned them to him he would pay the sum of half a million dollars and their expenses; the only condition being the deal must be secret.
    Kile realised the Rajah was out to gyp the insurance companies, but that didn’t worry him unduly. If he had the chance he wouldn’t hesitate to gyp any insurance company himself. He considered them fair game. But five hundred thousand! Why, with such a sum he could make a new start; he could even get back on to the Stock Market.
    Those were the immediate thoughts that had chased through his mind when the Rajah had casually mentioned the sum, but as the Rajah went on talking, Kile’s latent shrewdness and caution asserted themselves. The undertaking was impossible. The Rajah was only offering this sum because he knew he would never be called upon to pay it. The whole thing was an absurd pipe-dream that no one in his right mind could or would take seriously.
    Eve had apparently convinced the Rajah that if anyone could get the jewels, Kile could. How she had done it, what arguments she had used, Kile couldn’t think, but it was obvious the Rajah was impressed by him, even before they met.
    ‘I don’t expect miracles,’ the Rajah had said, holding Eve’s hand and looking at Kile as they stood at the door at the end of the interview. I’m afraid you are setting yourself a very difficult task. But I believe in supporting the long chance. I will pay up to five thousand to cover the expenses of – shall we say – an examination of the prospects. Naturally you