Mason smiled sourly at his leader's ready explanation, and Langdon saw only the venom in the man's face.

"He ought to have said so," he muttered. "I am in no mood to be denied the confidence of those who act with me in this matter. In any case, what can we do?"

Grenier procured a decanter of brandy and pa.s.sed his cigarette case.

"We can accomplish nothing without money."

"Money! What avail is money against a millionaire?"

"None, directly. You would be swamped instantly. But we must know more about Anson. He has servants. They can be made to talk. He has susceptible cooks and housemaids in Park Lane, and at whatever place he owns in the country. I am great with cooks and housemaids. There is a mystery, an unfathomable mystery, about his supply of diamonds. It must be probed----"

"No mystery at all," snarled Jocky Mason. "He found a meteor in a slum called Johnson's Mews. It was cram full of diamonds. I saw some of 'em."

"You saw them!"

His hearers allowed all other emotions to yield to the interest of this astounding statement.

"Yes. I don't say much. I act. You'll get no more out of me. I want none of your girls or property. I want Philip Anson's life, and I'll have it if I swing for it!"

"My dear Hunter, you are talking wildly. Have another drink?"

Grenier, cool as an icicle, saw unexpected vistas opening before him. He must be wary and collected. Here was the man who would pay, and the man who would dare all things.

Mason's truculent determination gave hope even to Langdon. He, too, gifted with a certain power of vicious reasoning, saw that this new ally might prove useful. But he was afraid of such bold utterances, and hoped to achieve his purposes without binding himself even tacitly to the commission of a crime, for Mason not only looked, but talked murder.

"I think I had better go," he said, suddenly. "Your brandy is too strong for my head, Grenier. Call and see me in the morning."

The astute rogue whom he addressed raised no objection to his departure.

He instantly embraced Langdon's att.i.tude in his wider horizon.

"Yes," he agreed, "let us sleep on it. We will all be better able to discuss matters more clearly to-morrow."

Thenceforth the flat in Shaftesbury Avenue became a spider's web into which the flies that buzzed around Philip's life were drawn one by one, squeezed dry of their store of information, and cast forth again unconscious of the plot being woven against their master.

Within a month, Grenier knew Anson's habits, his comings and goings, his bankers, his brokers, many of his investments, the names of his chief employees, the members of his yacht's crew, the topography of his Suss.e.x estate. Nothing was too trivial, no detail too unimportant, to escape a note undecipherable to others and a niche in a retentive memory.

He made a friend of one of Philip's footmen by standing treat and listening reverently to his views on the next day's racing. He persuaded one kitchen maid in Park Lane and another at Fairfax Hall that he had waited all his life to discover a woman he could love devotedly. It was a most important discovery when he unearthed in a dingy hotel the man whom Philip had dismissed for tampering with the locked portmanteau.

From this worthy he first heard of the quaint adjunct to the belongings of the young millionaire, and judicious inquiry soon revealed that there was hardly a servant in Philip's employ who did not credit the Gladstone bag with being the repository of the millionaire's fortunes.

Ordinary people will credit any nonsense where diamonds are concerned.

Even an educated criminal like Victor Grenier believed there might be some foundation for the absurd theory which found ready credence among the domestics.

He never made the error of planning a burglary or adroit robbery whereby the bag might come into his possession. If it did contain diamonds, and especially if it contained unique specimens, it was absolutely useless to him. But his vitals yearned for Anson's gold, and the question he asked himself in every unoccupied moment was how he might succeed in getting some portion of it into his own pocket.

One day a quaint notion entered his mind, and the more he thought of it the more it dominated him. He was tall and well-made, if slim in figure, and his face had never lost the plasticity given it by his stage experience.

He had only heard Philip's voice once, but his features and general appearance were now quite familiar to him, and he undertook a series of experiments with clothing and make-up to ascertain if he could personate Anson sufficiently well to deceive anyone who was not an intimate acquaintance. Soon the idea became a mania, and the mania absorbed the man's intellect. To be Philip Anson for a day, a week! What would he not give for the power!

One evening, when Jocky Mason entered Grenier's apartments he started back with an oath, as a stranger approached him in the dim light and said:

"Well, Mason, and what do you want?"

The ex-burglar and man-slayer seemed to be so ready to commit instant murder that Grenier himself was alarmed.

"Hold hard, old chap," he said, in his natural voice. "I am only trying an experiment on you."

"What tomfoolery is this?" shouted the other, gazing at him with the suspicious side glance of a discomfited dog which has been startled by some person familiar to it in ordinary guise but masquerading in _outre_ garments.

"A mere pleasantry, I a.s.sure you. Good heavens, man, how you must hate this fellow, Anson, if you are so ready to slay him at sight. From your own story, he only acted as ninety-nine people out of a hundred would have done in helping the cop."

"What I want to know is, why you are playing tricks on me. I won't stand it. I'm not built that way."

"Now, Mason, be reasonable. Can I ask anybody else if I resemble Philip Anson when made up to represent him?"

"Perhaps not, but you ought to have warned me. Besides, I am worried to-day."

"What has happened now?"

"I went to report myself at Southwark Police Station. Who should I find there but Bradley, the chap we used to call 'Sailor.' He is an inspector now, and, of course, he knew me at once."

"What of that?"

"He pretended to take an interest in me, and tried to lead me on to talk about you."

"The devil he did!"

"Oh, I know their ways. They can't do anything to me as long as I show up regularly and keep a clean slate."

"But what about me?"

"I said you had been a good friend--there was no use in denying that I was here pretty often--and that we both thought of emigrating."

"Good. We will."

"Not me. I have a score to settle----"

"Patience, my worthy friend. Your score shall be settled in full. I cannot prevent it, even if I would. Do you think I have been idle, or that I spend Langdon's money on a wild-goose chase? Not me. Langdon has taken my advice at last. He has met this charmer with whom he is so infatuated. She almost recognized him, but he pretended such complete ignorance of her, and even of London, that her suspicions were quieted."

"What good is that to us?"

"Little, but it gave him the opportunity to try and ingratiate himself.

He failed most completely, and why?"

"How do I know? He is an a.s.s, anyway."

"Exactly. More than that, the young lady is in love with Philip Anson."

"I'm not."