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to the street where the Blue Dog stood at the corner. He was not surprised to see two of Ebbutt’s scouts standing at the door of the big gymnasium behind the pub, a wooden building with a corrugated iron roof.
    The men waved, and one came hurrying. Rollison slowed down.
    â€˜Mr. Ebbutt would like a word wiv you, Mr. Ar.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ said Rollison, and got out and lit another cigarette. It was a little after half past three; less than two and a half hours since he had first stepped into the Blue Dog. One of the astonishing things was the speed of events. The attempt to run him down; the swift decision to act upon a woman’s charge of murder; the shearing of Leah Sampson’s hair; and the despoliation of the Rolls-Bentley. All of these things helped to create in him a cold anger which he could not throw off; so his greeting for Bill Ebbutt was not so bright as it might have been.
    â€˜Want me, Bill?’
    â€˜Yes, Mr. Ar,’ said Ebbutt, panting a little because he had been hurrying. He looked almost an old man. ‘You’ve been warned plenty ’aven’t you? They nearly tore your guts out down at the corner.’
    â€˜But they didn’t touch me, Bill.’
    Ebbutt was as earnest as a man could be, and his big, ugly face was a study in solemnity.
    â€˜You got away with that, Mr. Ar, but take it from me you won’t get away with any more unless you take a bodyguard with you.’
    â€˜Thanks, Bill.’
    â€˜Oo’jer want?’
    â€˜Not yet,’ said Rollison, with a grin which wasn’t quite spontaneous. ‘If I go around with two of your chaps on my tail, Wallis and Clay will have scored a moral victory. I’d like to borrow a cosh if you’ve any left among the relics.’ Now the spontaneity was back. ‘We don’t want them to have any moral victories, do we? I’ll tell you if I reach the point where I’ll feel safer with two of your muscle-men behind me. How about that cosh?’
    â€˜I’ll get it,’ promised Ebbutt, and was gone only a few minutes. When he came back, he handed Rollison a shiny black cosh, pliable and soft, and weighted with lead shot. ‘If I was goin’ to Wallis’s place, I’d take a knuckleduster, you’ll never make an impression on ’im or Clay’s thick skulls wiv a cosh. Mr. Ar, be sensible, and change your mind,’ he pleaded. ‘This job ain’t worth getting yourself in ’ospital for.’
    â€˜I’m not a bit sure that you’re right,’ said Rollison, and gripped the man’s thick forearm. ‘Bill, it isn’t so long since you and your chaps ran into a lot of trouble in a job like this. I’m going to try to keep them out of this one if I can.’
    â€˜Well, I ought to know better than try to make you change your mind,’ Ebbutt conceded unwillingly, ‘but we’d rally round, Mr. Ar. And you can’t say I didn’t warn you.’
    His face was set and bleak as he watched Rollison drive off.
    One of the scouts came up, and asked: ‘Where’d you fink ’e’s orf to?’
    â€˜It’s anybody’s guess,’ said Ebbutt, ‘but from the look in ‘is eyes ’e’s aht for trouble. Wouldn’t surprise me to learn ’e’s gone to see Wallis and Clay.’
    The scout almost winced.
    â€˜He wouldn’t be so crazy!’
    â€˜You don’t know Mr. Richard Rollison,’ said Ebbutt, and a glimmer of a smile came into his eyes. ‘You don’t know Mr. Ruddy Torf, you don’t. That man would take on the whole Russian Army if he thought it worth a try.’
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Chapter Eight
Bad Man’s Wife
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    Dirk Street was near the docks.
    It was one of a few short streets in the district. The terraced houses on either side had been built some fifty or sixty years ago for the foremen, office managers and all the better paid workers of dockland; a kind