Sergeant's interest; he gave him quite a long glance. Then he finished
his whisky-and-soda, spoke a word to Bill Smithers, and lounged across
the room to where the Sergeant sat.

"It's poor work drinking alone on Christmas night," he observed. "May I
join you? I've ordered a little something, and, well, we needn't bother
about offering a gentleman a glass tonight."

The Sergeant eyed him with apparent disfavor--as, indeed, he did
everybody who approached him--but a nod of his head accorded the desired
permission. Smithers came across with a bottle of brandy and glasses.
"Good stuff!" said the stranger, as he sat down, filled the glasses, and
drank his off. "The best thing to top up with, believe me!"

The Sergeant, in turn, drained his glass, maintaining, however, his
aloofness of demeanor. "What's up?" he growled.

"What's in the brown bag?" asked the stranger lightly and urbanely.

The Sergeant did not start; he was too old a hand for that; but his
small gimlet eyes searched his new acquaintance's face very keenly.
"You know a lot!"

"More than you do in some directions, less in others, perhaps. Shall I
begin? Because we've got to confide in one another, Sergeant. A little
story of what two gentlemen do in London on Wednesdays, and of what they
carry home in a brown leather bag? Would that interest you? Oh, that
stuff in the brown leather bag! Hard to come by now, isn't it? But they
know where there's still some, and so do I, to remark it incidentally.
There were actually some people, Sergeant Hooper, who distrusted the