untry. But perhaps you were not in touch with the underworld?"

"I don't think I was."

"Ah!" said John Peters significantly.

He took up the revolver, gave it a fond and almost paternal look, and
replaced it on the desk.

"What on earth are you doing with that thing?" asked Sam.

Mr. Peters lowered his voice.

"I'm going to America myself in a few days' time, Mr. Samuel. It's my
annual holiday, and the guv'nor's sending me over with papers in
connection with The People _v._ Schultz and Bowen. It's a big case over
there. A client of ours is mixed up in it, an American gentleman. I am
to take these important papers to his legal representative in New York.
So I thought it best to be prepared."

The first smile that he had permitted himself for nearly two weeks
flitted across Sam's face.

"What on earth sort of place do you think New York is?" he asked. "It's
safer than London."

"Ah, but what about the Underworld? I've seen these American films that
they send over here, Mr. Samuel. Did you ever see 'Wolves of the
Bowery?' There was a man in that in just my position, carrying important
papers, and what they didn't try to do to him! No, I'm taking no
chances, Mr. Samuel!"

"I should have said you were, lugging that thing about with you."

Mr. Peters seemed wounded.

"Oh, I understand the mechanism perfectly, and I am becoming a very fair
shot. I take my little bite of food in here early and go and practise at
the Rupert Street Rifle Range during my lunch hour. You'd be surprised
how quickly one picks it up. When I get home of a night I try how
quickly I can draw. You have to draw like a flash of lightning, Mr.
Samuel. If you'd ever seen a film called 'Two-Gun-Thomas,' you'd realise
that. You haven't time to wait loitering about."

Mr. Peters picked up a speaking-tube and blew down it.

"Mr. Samuel to see you, Sir Mallaby. Yes, sir, very good. Will you go
right in, Mr. Samuel?"

Sam proceeded to the inner office, and found his father dictating into
the attentive ear of Miss Milliken, his elderly and respectable
stenographer, replies to his morning mail.

Sir Mallaby Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face
and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London's best tailor,
and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation
in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was
twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace Hignett, considered him worldly.