escription together."

"No?" said Hallam, with a little brutal laugh. "Dollars running out?"

Deringham glanced at him languidly. "As you know, that is not the
reason. Now I do not ask for a return of the money you obtained from
me--but I want the thing stopped immediately."

Hallam poured out a glass of wine. "You will have to put it straight."

"Well," said Deringham, "if you insist. I am sincerely sorry I ever
saw or heard of you. You, of course, remember the conditions on which
I made that deal with you. I desired Mr. Alton kept away from
Somasco--for a time, and now I want a definite promise from you that he
will be free from any further molestation."

"Then," said Hallam, with a grin, "what's your programme if I don't
agree? You would put the police on to me?"

"No," said Deringham, making the best play he could, though he realized
the weakness of his hand. "That would not appear advisable--or
necessary. It would be simpler to warn my kinsman."

Hallam laid his hand upon the table, and Deringham noticed that it was
coarse and ill-shaped, but suggested a brutal tenacity of grasp.

"Bluff, with nothing behind it. You don't take me that way," he said.
"Now I'll put my cards right down in front of you. Alton is not a
fool, and you couldn't tell him anything he doesn't know already. The
trouble is, he can prove nothing. He has a tolerably short temper, and
one day he 'most hammered the life out of another man in the Somasco
mill. That man didn't like him before, and it's quite possible he fell
foul of Alton after it, but where does that take in me? Got hold of
that, haven't you? Well, then, there's just this difference between
you and me. I could tell Alton one or two things about you he didn't
know!"

"I would be willing to take my chance of his believing you," said
Deringham.

Hallam laughed. "For a man of business you have a plaguy bad memory.
Now it seems to me quite likely that the man I talked about has had
quite enough of fooling with Alton, and we'll let what you asked for go
at that, because there's something else we're coming to. There was a
cheque you gave me, and I had who it was drawn by and payable to put
down on the slip when I passed it through my bank. Now I've got that
slip, and after I'd had a talk with him, Alton wouldn't wonder what you
gave me all those dollars for."

Deringham was silent almost a minute, for he knew his opponent had seen
the weak point. Then he