or your confidence.
I simply tell you that you are wasting your time and mine if you choose
to withhold it."

Sir Richard was silent. He recognized a new quality in the man--but the
truth was an awful thing to tell! He considered--then told.

Ruff briskly asked two questions. "In alluding to your heavy settlement
with Masters, you said just now that you could not have paid him--then."

"Quite so," Sir Richard admitted. "That is the rotten part of the whole
affair. Four days later a wonderful double came off--one in which we
were all interested, and one which not one of us expected. We've drawn a
considerable amount already from one or two bookies, and I believe even
Masters owes us a bit now."

"Thank you," Ruff said. "I think that I know everything now. My fee is
five hundred guineas."

Sir Richard looked at him.

"What?" he exclaimed.

"Five hundred guineas," Ruff repeated.

"For a consultation?" Sir Richard asked.

Peter Ruff shook his head.

"More than that," he said. "You are a brave man in your way, Sir Richard
Dyson, but you are going about now shivering under a load of fear. It
sits like a devil incarnate upon your shoulders. It poisons the air
wherever you go. Write your cheque, Sir Richard, and you can leave
that little black devil in my wastebasket. You are under my protection.
Nothing will happen to you."

Sir Richard sat like a man mesmerised. The little man with the amiable
expression and the badly fitting suit was leaning back in his chair, his
finger tips pressed together, waiting.

"Nothing will happen!" Sir Richard repeated, incredulously.

"Certainly not. I guarantee you against any inconvenience which might
arise to you from this recent unfortunate affair. Isn't that all you
want?"

"It's all I want, certainly," Sir Richard declared, "but I must
understand a little how you propose to secure my immunity."

Ruff shook his head.

"I have my own methods," he said. "I can help only those who trust me."

Sir Richard drew a cheque book from his pocket. "I don't know why I
should believe in you," he said, as he wrote the cheque.

"But you do," Peter Ruff said, smiling. "Fortunately for you, you do!"

It was not so easy to impart a similar confidence into the breast of
Colonel Dickinson, with whom Sir Richard dined that night tete-a-tete.
Dickinson was inclined to think that Sir Richard ad been "had."

"You've paid a ridiculous fee," he argued, "and all that you have in
return is