glass upon the table and selecting a cigarette from a packet
which he carried in his pocket.

"I'm not so sure," growled the other, watching him suspiciously.
"You've been lying low for a long time, and it's not like you to
slack off except when there's something big in sight."

"Hm!" said his companion, lighting his cigarette. "What do you
mean exactly?"

Jim Poland--for such was the big man's name--growled and spat
reflectively into a spittoon.

"I've had my eye on you, Freddy," he replied; "I've had my eye on
you!"

"Oh, have you?" murmured the other. "But tell me what you mean!"

Beneath his suave manner lay a threat, and, indeed, Freddy Cohen,
known to his associates as "Diamond Fred," was in many ways a
formidable personality. He had brought to his chosen profession
of crook a first-rate American training, together with all that
mental agility and cleverness which belong to his race, and was
at once an object of envy and admiration amongst the fraternity
which keeps Scotland Yard busy.

Jim Poland, physically a more dangerous character, was not in the
same class with him; but he was not without brains of a sort, and
Cohen, although smiling agreeably, waited with some anxiety for
his reply.