"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 working with me—he had a beautiful tenor voice, you will remember. We were after a couple of confidence men and had a man we were towing about to identify them. Well, we got 'em down to a saloon bar near the Oxford Street end, but I daren't go in because they knew me. It was a bitter cold night, with a cold wind and snow and sleet. So I stayed on the opposite side of the road and induced Bill to go over and sing 'I am but a Poor Blind Boy,' in the hope that our birds would call him in and give him a drink. He hadn't been at it five minutes before a fiery, red-headed little potman had knocked him head over heels in the gutter and told him to go away. Bill could have broken the chap in two with his little finger, but he daren't do anything. He came over to me and I sent him back again. This time he did get invited inside. And there he stayed for a full hour, while the witness and I stood shivering and wet and miserable in the snow. We could hear him laughing and singing with the best of 'em. They wouldn't let him come away. It was not until I took all risks and marched in with the witness and arrested them that they tumbled to the fact that he wasn't a real street singer." He glanced at his watch. "You'd better go and have a rest, Green. Meet me here at half-past twelve. We'll take a taxi to Aldgate and walk up from there. And, by the way, here's a pistol. I needn't tell you not to use it unless you've got to."