"Oh, there's plenty of the stuff there," Dunn answered. "Why?"

"Oh, I was thinking a visit might be made fairly profitable," Deede
Dawson said carelessly, for the first time definitely throwing off
his mask of law-abiding citizen under which he lived at Bittermeads.

"It would be a risky job," answered Dunn, showing no surprise at the
suggestion. "The stuff's well guarded, and then, that's not what
I'm thinking about--it's meeting Rupert Dunsmore, man to man, and
no one to come between us. If that ever happens--"

Deede Dawson nodded reassuringly.

"That'll be all right," he said. "So you shall, I promise you that.
But we might as well kill two birds with one stone and clear a bit
of profit, too. I've got to live, like any one else, and I haven't
five thousand a year of my own, so I get my living out of those who
have, and I don't see who has any right to blame me. Mind, if there
was any money in chess, I should be a millionaire, but there isn't,
and if a man can make a fortune on the Stock Exchange, which takes
no more thought or skill than auction-bridge, why shouldn't I make a
bit when I can? There's the 'D. D.' gambit I've invented, people
will be studying and playing for centuries, but it'll never bring me
a penny for all the brain-work I put into it, and so I've got to
protect myself, haven't I?"

"It's what I do with less talk about it," answered Dunn
contemptuously. "Why, I've guessed all that from the first when
you weren't so all-fired keen on seeing me in gaol, as most of your
honest, hard-working lot, who only do their swindling in business-hours,