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from the window crossing Fitzroy Square; then he turned in a fury on his companion.
    ‘Clever, ain’t you! That old hound knew you had a gun – knew the number. And if Allford had found it you’d have been “dragged” and me too!’
    ‘I threw it in the river,’ said Lew sulkily.
    ‘Brains – not many but some!’ said Bride, breathing heavily. ‘You cut out Reeder – he’s hell and poison, and if you don’t know it you’re deaf! Scared him? You big stiff! He’d cut your throat and write a hymn about it.’
    ‘I didn’t know they were tailing me,’ growled Kohl; ‘but I’ll get him! And his money too.’
    ‘Get him from another lodging,’ said Bride curtly. ‘A crook I don’t mind, being one; a murderer I don’t mind, but a talking jackass makes me sick. Get his stuff if you can – I’ll bet it’s all invested in real estate, and you can’t lift houses – but don’t talk about it. I like you, Lew, up to a point; you’re miles before the point and out of sight. I don’t like Reeder – I don’t like snakes, but I keep away from the Zoo.’
    So Lew Kohl went into new lodgings on the top floor of an Italian’s house in Dean Street, and here he had leisure and inclination to brood upon his grievances and to plan afresh the destruction of his enemy. And new plans were needed, for the schemes which had seemed so watertight in the quietude of a Devonshire cell showed daylight through many crevices.
    Lew’s homicidal urge had undergone considerable modification. He had been experimented upon by a very clever psychologist – though he never regarded Mr Reeder in this light and, indeed, had the vaguest ideas as to what the word meant. But there were other ways of hurting Reeder, and his mind fell constantly back to the dream of discovering this peccant detective’s hidden treasure.
    It was nearly a week later that Mr Reeder invited himself into the Director’s private sanctum, and that great official listened spellbound while his subordinate offered his outrageous theory about Sir James Tithermite and his dead wife. When Mr Reeder had finished, the Director pushed back his chair from the table.
    ‘My dear man,’ he said, a little irritably, ‘I can’t possibly give a warrant on the strength of your surmises – not even a search warrant. The story is so fantastic, so incredible, that it would be more at home in the pages of a sensational story than in a Public Prosecutor’s report.’
    ‘It was a wild night, and yet Lady Tithermite was not ill,’ suggested the detective gently. ‘That is a fact to remember, sir.’
    The Director shook his head.
    ‘I can’t do it – not on the evidence,’ he said. ‘I should raise a storm that’d swing me into Whitehall. Can’t you do anything – unofficially?’
    Mr Reeder shook his head.
    ‘My presence in the neighbourhood has been remarked,’ he said primly. ‘I think it would be impossible to – er – cover up my traces. And yet I have located the place, and could tell you within a few inches–’
    Again the Director shook his head.
    ‘No, Reeder,’ he said quietly, ‘the whole thing is sheer deduction on your part. Oh, yes, I know you have a criminal mind – I think you have told me that before. And that is a good reason why I should not issue a warrant. You’re simply crediting this unfortunate man with your ingenuity. Nothing doing!’
    Mr Reeder sighed and went back to his bureau, not entirely despondent, for there had intruded a new element into his investigations.
    Mr Reeder had been to Maidstone several times during the week, and he had not gone alone; though seemingly unconscious of the fact that he had developed a shadow, he had seen Lew Kohl on several occasions, and had spent an uncomfortable few minutes wondering whether his experiment had failed.
    On the second occasion an idea had developed in the detective’s mind, and if he were a laughing man he would have chuckled aloud when he slipped out of Maidstone station one