"Why, you were Manny Jarman's right-hand man," I said. "You haven't forgotten what it's like to be top dog?"
He was immensely flattered at that. "Thank you kindly, General. You sees deeper into a bloke than most. Go on."
"I've only a hazy idea of what I want you to do, Arold, when the time comes. But here's an important part of it. Could you find me a whole raft of fellows who'd be willing to commit murder for money, no questions asked?"
"Hell," he grinned, "could a cat find garbage cans?"
"They'd have to be given definite instructions, and be the kind of men who would carry them out to the letter. And no copper's narks, see? Nobody who'd take our cash and then squeal."
"I could do it," he said, thinking. "I could get bullies 'ere in Brummagem who'd cut their mothers' necks for three quid. And they could get others. Ow, trust Arold Smiff to find the right 'uns!"
"We might need a hundred."
"There's that many and more."
I was giving slow birth to a real plan now. "It might be that they'd have to go all over England, and do these murders in a hundred different places. And they'd have to do them in a certain manner you'd tell 'em about, see? No slipshod hatchet work, but well-planned assassinations."
"Might be harder to find them as would work precise to orders, but I could do it. I know every rogue in these parts, don'tcher doubt it, General."