ee," agreed the other in the tone of a man not quite convinced.
"Now, when are you going down to Grave Street again? You'll want at
least a dozen men."

"There won't be any trouble at Grave Street," answered Foyle with a
smile; "and if there is, Green and I will have to settle it. More men
would only be in the way. Our first job is to get hold of Waverley."

"But only two of you! Grave Street isn't exactly a nice place. If there
is trouble----"

"We'll risk that, sir," said Foyle, stiffening a trifle.

He went back to his own room and signed a few letters. Some words
through a speaking-tube brought Green in, stolid, gloomy, imperturbable.
The chief inspector accepted and lit a cigar. Through a cloud of smoke
the two men talked for a while. They were going on a mission that might
very easily result in death. No one would have guessed it from their
talk, which, after half an hour of quiet, business-like conversation,
drifted into desultory gossip and reminiscences.

"Sir Hilary wanted me to take a dozen men," said Foyle. "I told him the
two of us would be plenty."

"Quite enough, if we're to do anything," agreed Green. "I wouldn't be
out of it for a thousand. Poor old Waverley and I have put in a lot of
time together. I guess I owe him my life, if it comes to that."

Foyle interjected a question. The chief inspector lifted his cigar
tenderly from his lips.

"It was in the old garrotting days," he said. "Waverley and I were
coming down the Tottenham Court Road a bit after midnight--just off
Seven Dials. There were half-a-dozen men hanging about a corner, and one
of them tiptoed after us with a pitch plaster--you'll remember they used
to do the stuff up in sacking and pull it over your mouth from behind. I
never noticed anything, but Waverley did. The man was just about to
throw the thing over me when Waverley wheeled round and hit him clean
across the face with a light cane he was carrying. The chap was knocked
in the gutter and his pals came at us with a rush. A hansom driver
shouted to us to leave the man in the roadway to him, and hanged if he
didn't drive clean over him with the near-side wheel. That gave us our
chance. We hopped into the cab and got away without staying to see if
any one was hurt. But if Waverley hadn't hit out when he did I'd have
been a goner."

"I had a funny thing happen to me once in the Tottenham Court Road,"
said Foyle reminiscently. "I was an inspector then and big Bill Sladen
was w