For fully an hour, therefore, after the captain had left him, Westerham sat, pencil in hand, mapping out plan after plan of campaign. But all of them, as he pored over their possibilities, seemed to avail him nothing, and at last, when well nigh in despair, he tore up into minute fragments the various propositions he had formulated.
Then it suddenly dawned on him that if he could only prove, as he strongly suspected, that Melun was by no means dealing honestly with his fellow criminals, he would be able by a little astute management to turn all the organisation which Melun had at his disposal against the captain himself.
Westerham's bright gaze brightened and his smile broadened. With an almost boyish delight he immediately set to work to devise a scheme whereby he could turn the tables on his enemy.
There was very little time to be lost, and to his joy Westerham remembered that the day was Thursday, the day on the evening of which Melun's various friends met at the pseudo working-man's club at Limehouse.
Immediately he resolved that he would go there that very night.
Rough men had no terrors for him; during his life in the West he had dealt with rougher men than Melun had ever been called on to handle. He laughed as he thought of the possibilities of dominating such a collection of scoundrels as he had seen on his first visit to “The Club.”
Then he bethought him of Mr. Rookley, and he reflected that if the mills of Scotland Yard, like the mills of God, ground exceedingly slowly, they ground uncommonly fine.
It may be an easy thing to detect that one is shadowed by a large man with large boots. But, none the less, it is sufficiently disconcerting to find that the large boots follow one's footsteps persistently and doggedly. Scotland Yard wears down a man by sheer weight.
Westerham knew, too, that he had so aroused the interest of the authorities that they would do their best to watch his every movement. Nor was he wrong.