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them now, there would be questions and trouble. But if a buyer for the arms could be found, perhaps his debts could be paid, and no one would be the worse. The emergency is over. No harm could come of it, only good for my friend."
    Mr. Tan sat very still. "You wish me to advise your friend?"
    Girija nodded. "That is what he hopes you may do, sir. Yes."
    "He should still take the matter to the police. It would be very wrong to try to sell them. He need not say that he found them long ago, but he should certainly go to the police."
    Girija spread out his hands. "But, sir, my friend has debts."
    "It is better to go to a money-lender than to risk going to prison."
    Girija smiled triumphantly. "That was exactly my own advice to him, sir. To risk going to prison for a few hundred dollars is the act of a fool. I told him so."
    Mr. Tan hesitated. The agreement baffled him. He knew instinctively that somewhere, somehow, he had mismanaged the conversation. He knew that he was left with only one question to ask, and that when he had asked it he would have lost a battle of wits. But he also knew that his curiosity would have to be satisfied. Mentally he shrugged off the humiliation.
    "And what was his reply?" he asked.
    Girija's hand went to the row of ball-point pens in his shirt pocket, and drew from behind it a folded sheet of paper. He opened it out and handed it across the desk.
    "This paper, sir," he said; "my friend gave me this paper."
    Mr. Tan took the paper, spread it out on the desk in front of him and looked down. It was a typed list with the word 'INVENTORY' at the head of it. He read on:
     
    Description                Type                       Quantity                Today's Free
    Market Value
    ($Straits)
     
     
    Rifles                     .303 Military S.A.
    Belge                                       54                           16,000
    .303 Ammo                For above                     5,000 rds           6,000
      Machine pistols    Schmeisser                         25                           18,000
    .300 Ammo                With magazines
    for above                8,000 rds           7,000
    Bazookas                U.S. Govt. pattern                4                             6,000
    Ammo for same    “         “         “                          35 rds                    1,000
    Grenades                Mills unfused                 
    Fuses                     for same                                              100                        2,000
    Land mines                Teller                                    40                           4,000
                                                                                                             --------
                                                                                                             60,000
                                                                                                             --------
    Equals £(Sterling)                21,000
    Equals $(U.S.)                               75,000
     
    Note: All items in brand new mint condition in