“I think you can do that,” said the detective almost eagerly. “Believe me, Jimmy is not to be judged by conventional standards. If you ask me to describe him, I would say that he is a genius who works in an eccentric circle that sometimes overlaps, sometimes underreaches the rigid circle of the law. If you asked me as a policeman, and if I was his bitterest enemy, what I could do with Jimmy, I should say, ‘Nothing.’ I know of no crime with which I could charge him, save at times with associating with doubtful characters. As a matter of fact, that equally applies to me. Listen, Miss Kent. The first big international case I figured in was a gigantic fraud on the Egyptian Bank. Some four hundred thousand pounds were involved, and whilst from the outsider’s point of view Jimmy was beyond suspicion, yet we who were working at the case suspected him, and pretty strongly. The men who owned the bank were rich Egyptians, and the head of all was a Somebody-or-other Pasha, as great a scoundrel as ever drew breath. It is impossible to tell a lady exactly how big a scoundrel he was, but you may guess. Well, the Pasha knew it was Jimmy who had done the trick, and we knew, but we dare not say so. The arrest of Jimmy would have automatically ruined the banker. That was where I realized the kind of man I had to deal with, and I am always prepared when Jimmy’s name is mentioned in connection with a big crime to discover that his victim deserved all he got, and a little more.”
The girl gave a little shiver.
“It sounds dreadful. Cannot such a man as that employ his talents to a greater advantage?”
Angel shrugged his shoulders despairingly.
“I’ve given up worrying about misapplied talents; it is a subject that touches me too closely,” he said. “But as to Jimmy, I’m rather glad you started the conversation in that direction, because I’m going to ask you to meet him to-day.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t,” she began.
“You are thinking of what happened on the night the will was read? Well, you must forget that. Jimmy has the key to the verse, and it is absolutely imperative that you should be present this afternoon.”
With some demur, she consented.
In the sitting-room of Jimmy’s flat the three sat round a table littered with odds and ends of papers.