"You'd better ask her yourself," said the other with some asperity. "I tell you, colonel, I can't handle that woman."
"Nobody ever thought you could," said the colonel. "Did she give you any idea as to what her business was?"
Pinto shook his head and the colonel paced the big room thoughtfully, his big hands in his pockets.
"Here's a situation," he said. "There's some outsider who's following every movement we make, who knew that boob from Huddersfield was coming, and who knew what our business was. That somebody was this infernal Jack o' Judgment, but who is Jack o' Judgment, hey?"
He looked round fiercely.
"I'll tell you who he is," he went on, speaking slowly "He's somebody who knows our gang as well as we know it ourselves, somebody who has been on the inside, somebody who has access, or who has had access, to our working methods. In fact," he said using his pet phrase, "a business associate."
"Rubbish!" said Pinto.
This polished man of Portugal, who had come into the gang very late in the day, was one of the few people who were privileged to offer blunt opposition to the leader of the Boundary Gang.
"You might as well say it is I, or that it is Crewe, or Dempsey, or Selby——"
"Or White," said the colonel slowly; "don't forget White."