"I wonder if you newspaper men ever eat a real, true enough breakfast. I should think the hours you lead would kill you off. Anything new on the Hargreave story?"
"I'm not handling that," the reporter lied cheerfully. "Didn't want to. I knew him rather intimately. I've a horror of dead people, and don't want to be called upon to identify the body when they find it."
"Then you think they will find it?"
"I don't know. It's a strange mixup. I'm not on the story, mind you; but I was in the locality of Duffy's warehouse late last night and fell into a gunman rumpus."
"Yes, I read about that. What were they after?"
"You've got me there. No one seems to know. Some cock and bull story about there being something valuable. There was."
"What was it? The report in this paper does not say."
"Ten thousand bags of coffee."
Braine lay back in his chair and laughed.
"If you want my opinion," said Norton, "I believe the gunmen were out to shoot up another gang, and the police got wind of it."