four twenty-dollar bills on to the desk in front of Craig. 'See for yourself.'
Craig picked them up and looked at them. They were crisp and clean, with the hard feel of good paper, the portrait of President Jackson sharp and well defined. The color was good, the printing excellent.
'Pretty,' said Craig.
'Would you take one if it was offered?' Craig nodded, and Loomis nodded back, a one-inch inclination of the head that was regal in its dignity.
'Me too. Trouble is, there's three thousand bills and only four serial numbers between them. I've had them looked at. Chap at Scotland Yard specializes in this sort of thing. He liked them. Got very excited. Nearly wet himself.' Loomis paused, then added: 'Thin feller,' as if in explanation. 'Seems they've had one of these passed in London. He's got some of his young men working on it now. I think you'd better go and help them. It'll be a bit of an education for you.'
Craig's tutor was Detective Sergeant Millington, a young, eager copper with an unquenchable thirst for promotion. Craig met him in a pub in Chelsea, a dim, chilly little place where even the feeling of decay was, if not elegant, at least expensive. Mill-ington was drinking beer and eating a sausage. He looked weary yet brimming with excitement, the energy fighting the weariness: as it must do when you work a sixty-hour week every week, and the assistants and equipment you need are eternally promised but never arrive. He was hatless and his shoes were not unduly large for his big man's weight, and yet Craig had spotted him at once for a copper. He had the look of a born hunter. Craig went over to him; he sensed the quick appraisal of the other's eyes. It had been the same when he'd gone to see him at Scotland Yard. Millington was afraid of Craig and disliked him because of it.
'I don't like this idea,' Millington said. 'It's asking for trouble. Anybody can see you're not a copper.' He looked at Craig's hand-stitched gray suit, the white Sea Island cotton shirt, and Dior tie. 'You're too well dressed for one thing.'
'I thought I might look more like a crook,' said Craig.
Millington scowled.
'I can't take you with me to interview people when you look like that.'
'I don't want to be with you,' Craig said. 'Just show me who they are and let me work it out for myself.'
'I don't think I can do that,' Millington said. 'After all, I'm responsible for you.'
'Oh no,' said Craig. 'I don't think so.'
Millington looked at him again, not trying to hide his dislike.
'Okay,' he said, 'I'll show them to you. But what good'll that do? They'll see you with me.'
'No,' said Craig. 'They won't. We've got just the thing for that.'
What he had was a Bedford van, with one-way black glass panels in the sides and back. A chain of roses was painted round the van, and on each side was the name 'BLOSSOMS UNLiMiTED 'jMillington wasn't amused. The interior of the van was furnished like a caravan with a camp bed and chairs; there were three Leica Ikon cameras with telefoto lenses, a 16-millimeter Eclair movie camera, two Ferrograph tape recorders, and a radio as well. Millington lusted after that van. It would have saved him hours of questioning, miles of walking. The driver got in, and the van drove away. They were going to Soho.
The twenty-dollar bill had been passed in a strip club, a small place just off Greek Street with seats for fifty, a tiny stage, and an enormous bar. Currently its name was 'Nuderama.' The man who had passed the bill had looked and talked like an American. He had used it to buy champagne for the three stars of the show, and it had cost him five pounds for a magnum. He'd given the barman ten shillings, kept thirty shillings in change, and had never gone back, though the stars looked for him daily. So did the barman. Millington thought he might be a man called Tony Driver, an unusually versatile crook who had done time in Great Britain and Canada for such varied offenses as blackmail, larceny, and the con game. Driver dressed well, lived anywhere, and played poker at least four hours a day. Usually he won. On the day before the bill had been passed, Driver had played for six hours and had lost five hundred pounds, Millington had learned. Then, apart from his one visit to Nuderama, he had disappeared for two days, come back with stake money, played poker again, and won. He handed Craig his photograph.
'You haven't tried to have him identified yet?' Craig asked.
'We were going to—until you came along. Now we've been asked to hold back.'
'It's good of you to wait.'
'It's orders,' said Millington.
The van turned off Shaftesbury Avenue, along Old Compton Street and into Greek Street, then parked at a meter. It was three o'clock and Nuderama was preparing to face a new day. Craig took a pair of Zeiss glasses from a rack, gave another pair to Millington, looked at a yellow door framed in electric light bulbs, and around the light bulbs a wooden frame. At the top of the frame was the name 'NUDERAMA' in rainbow lettering; the two sides sported pictures of girls. Mostly they were simply naked, except for that look of outraged hauteur— like a duchess whose bottom's being pinched by a servant—that strippers always wear when they pose. One or two wore muffs, or a pair of doves, or what Craig took to be a piece of salmon net. The most enterprising appeared about to administer the Irish whip to a gorilla.
As Craig watched, a man with the very white skin of one who rarely sees daylight went up to the doorway, opened it and went in. Craig took his photograph.
'That's the barman,' said Millington.
He was followed by a chunky, bad-tempered woman—the cashier—and another man.
'That's the barker,' said Millington. 'He stands outside and cons in the customers.'
Craig continued to take photographs.
A Bentley Continental whispered up to the curb and a tall, thin man got out. He was gray-haired, elegant, a white carnation in the buttonhole of his dark-blue suit. He limped slightly as he walked up to the doorway, and there was a smeared scar on one side of his face that suggested unsuccessful plastic surgery.
'That's the owner,' said Millington. 'Julek Brodski. He's a naturalized Pole.'
'Any form?' asked Craig.
'No. He was a squadron leader in the Polish air force during the war. Got a D.S.O. Matter of fact, he's supposed to be a count or something. No, Brodski's all right,' Millington said. He looked at a photo of a girl whose inability to handle a sunshade was causing her some embarrassment. 'As a matter of fact he runs a nice, clean place.'
'That the lot?' Craig asked, and Millington nodded. 'What time do the girls arrive?'
'Four thirty,' said Millington.
'Let's go and look at the place where Driver plays cards,' said Craig.
Driver played in the basement of Luigi's, a sad, ineffective little cafe three blocks from the strip club. On the ground floor there was a soda fountain and seats that looked like the pews of the Methodist chapels Craig remembered from his boyhood. Three tired waitresses, who looked as if they hadn't left the building for weeks, shambled back and forth serving meals whose cheapness did nothing to compensate for their nastiness. Craig sat in the van and took more pictures—of the waitresses, of everybody who seemed at ease in the place, of a fat man who visited the cash register every half hour and rang up 'NO CHANGE,' then counted the take. The fat man was the proprietor. His name wasn't Luigi; it was Arthur. Fat Arthur. He was very fat indeed, but he didn't look soft. Downstairs was exactly the same, Craig learned, except that there was a little room behind the dining area, and in that room a poker game went on, sometimes for days. It was a quiet game, restricted to friends of Arthur's, dishonest men who kept their dishonesty to themselves. The police weren't interested. Millington suddenly looked restless.
'What's wrong?' Craig asked.
Millington flushed. 'I drank too much beer,' he said.
'The loo's in that cupboard,' said Craig, and pointed.
Millington, half-believing, opened the cupboard door. It was true.
'You think of everything,' he said.
'We try,' said Craig. 'We have to, in our business.'
He looked again into the street as Millington voided his bladder.
'Come here,' he said, and began taking pictures.
'I can't,' said Millington.
Craig took more pictures, and at last Millington came over to him and looked out of the window at a tall young man in a Brooks Brothers gray-flannel suit, knitted silk tie, and button-down collar.
