"Well, to be more particular, Hay is one of those well-dressed blackguards who live on mugs. He has no money—"
"I beg your pardon, he told me himself that his uncle had left him a thousand a year."
"Pooh, he might as well have doubled the sum and increased the value of the lie. He hasn't a penny. What he did have, he got through pretty quickly in order to buy his experience. Now that he is hard up he practises on others what was practised on himself. Hay is well-bred, good-looking, well-dressed and plausible. He has well-furnished rooms and keeps a valet. He goes into rather shady society, as decent people, having found him out, won't have anything to do with him. But he is a card-sharper and a fraudulent company-promoter. He'll borrow money from any juggins who is ass enough to lend it to him. He haunts Piccadilly, Bond Street and the Burlington Arcade, and is always smart, and bland, and fascinating. If he sees a likely victim he makes his acquaintance in a hundred ways, and then proceeds to fleece him. In a word, Mr. Beecot, you may put it that Mr. Hay is Captain Hawk, and those he swindles are pigeons."
Paul was quite startled by this revelation, and it was painful to hear it of an old school friend. "He does not look like a man of that sort," he remonstrated.
"It's not his business to look like a man of that sort," rejoined the detective. "He masks his batteries. All the same he is one of the most dangerous men on the market at the present in town. A young peer whom he plucked two years ago lost everything to him, and got into trouble over some woman. It was a nasty case and Hay was mixed up in it. The relatives of the victim—I needn't give his title—asked me to put things right. I got the young nobleman away, and he is now travelling to acquire the sense he so sadly needed. I have given Mr. Hay a warning once or twice, and he knows that he is being watched by us. When he slips, as he is bound to do, sooner or later, then he'll have to deal with me. Oh I know how he hunts for clients in fashionable hotels, smart restaurants, theatres and such-like places. He is clever, and although he has fleeced several lambs since he plucked the pigeon I saved, he has, as yet, been too clever to be caught. When I saw you with him, Mr. Beecot, I thought it just as well to put you on your guard."
"I fear he'll get little out of me," said Paul. "I am too poor."
"You are rich now through your promised wife, and Hay will find it out."
"I repeat that Miss Norman's money has nothing to do with me. And I may mention that as soon as the case is in your hands, Mr. Hurd—"
"Which it is now," interpolated the detective.
"I intend to marry Miss Norman and then we will travel for a time."