Spike’s eyes gleamed as he reached for the decanter. He took a seat.
“Cigar, Spike?”
“Sure. T’anks, boss.”
Jimmy lit his pipe. Spike, after a few genteel sips, threw off his restraint and finished the rest of his glass at a gulp.
“Try another?” suggested Jimmy.
Spike’s grin showed that the idea had been well received.
Jimmy sat and smoked in silence for a while. He was thinking the thing over. He felt like a detective who has found a clue. At last he would be able to discover the name of the Mauretania girl. The discovery would not take him very far, certainly, but it would be something. Possibly Spike might even be able to fix the position of the house they had broken into that night.
Spike was looking at him over his glass with silent admiration. This flat, which Jimmy had rented for a year, in the hope that the possession of a fixed abode might help to tie him down to one spot, was handsomely, even luxuriously, furnished. To Spike every chair and table in the room had a romance of its own as having been purchased out of the proceeds of that New Asiatic Bank robbery, or from the revenue accruing from the Duchess of Havent’s jewels. He was dumb with reverence for one who could make burglary pay to this extent. In his own case the profession had rarely provided anything more than bread and butter and an occasional trip to Coney Island.
Jimmy caught his eye, and spoke.
“Well, Spike,” he said. “Curious that we should meet like this?”