"You made a bad break that time," he said when we had gone downstairs.
"Never give away information unless you're getting a return for it! If
you'd left Yussuf Dakmar to scratch that door after he recovered
consciousness, he'd have invented a pack of lies to tell his friends,
and they'd have been no wiser than before. Now they'll know he never
scratched it. They'll deduce, unless they're lunatics, that someone
overheard their conference last night and knew the signal. That'll make
them desperate. They'll waste no more time on finesse. They'll use
violence at the first chance after the train leaves Haifa."

"Rammy's like me; he hates not to have an audience for his tricks," put
in Jeremy by way of consolation.

"We've got to stage a new play, that's all," said Grim. "I'd have the
lot of them arrested, but all the good that would do would be to inform
the man higher up, who'd tip off another gang by wire to wait for us
over the border. Say, suppose we all three bear this in mind: No play
to the gallery! That's where secret service differs from other
business. Applause means failure. The better the work you do, the less
you can afford to admit you did it. You mustn't even smile at a man
you've scored off. Half the game is to leave him guessing who it was
that tripped him up. The safest course is to see that someone else gets
credit for everything you do."

"Consume your own smoke, eh?" suggested Jeremy.

"That and more," Grim answered. "You've got to work like Bell for
what'll do you no good, because the moment it brings you recognition it
destroys your usefulness. You mayn't even amuse yourself; you have to
let the game amuse you, without turning one trick for the sake of an