Sumner Journ was silent for a moment; but he was not thinking of resuming the bluff. That wouldn't help. He had to thank his stars that his first police visitor was a man who so clearly and straightforwardly understood the value of hard cash.
'How much do you want?' he asked.
'Two hundred pounds,' was the calm reply.
Mr. Journ put up a hand and twirled one of the tiny horns of his wee moustache with the tip of his finger and thumb. His hard brown eyes studied Inspector Tombs unwinkingly.
'That's a lot of money,' he said with an effort.
'What I can tell you is worth it,' Simon told him grimly.
Mr. Journ hesitated for a short time longer, and then he took out a cheque-book and dipped his pen in the inkwell.
'Make it out to Bearer,' said the Saint, who in spite of his morbid affection for the cognomen of 'Tombs' had not yet thought it worth while opening a bank account in that name.
Journ completed the cheque, blotted it, and passed it across the desk. In his mind he was wondering if it was the fee for Destiny's warning: if Scotland Yard had asked the local division to 'keep an eye on him,' it was a sufficient hint that his activities had not passed unnoticed, and a suggestion that further inquiries might be expected to follow. He had not thought that it would happen so soon; but since it had happened, he felt a leaden heaviness at the pit of his stomach and a restless anxiety that arose from something more than a mere natural resentment at being forced to pay petty blackmail to a dishonest detective. And yet, so great was his seasoning of confidence that even then he was not anticipating any urgent danger.
'Well, what can you tell me?' he said.
Simon put the cheque away.
'The tip is to get out,' he said bluntly; and Mr. Journ went white.
'Wha-what?' he stammered.
'You shouldn't complain,' said the Saint callously. 'You've been going for four years, and you must have made a packet. Now we're on to you. When I tell you to get out, I mean it. The Yard didn't ask us to keep an eye on you. What they did was to send an order through for a raid this afternoon. Chief Inspector Teal is coming down himself at four o'clock to take charge of it. That's worth two hundred pounds to know, isn't it?'
He stood up.
'You've got about an hour to clear out—you'd better make the most of it,' he said.
For several minutes after the detective had gone Mr. Journ was in a daze. It was the first time that the consequences of his actions had loomed up in his vision as glaring realities. Arrest—police court—remand—the Old Bailey—penal servitude—the whole gamut of a crash, he had known about in the abstract like everyone else; but his self-confident imagination had never paused to put himself in the leading role. The sudden realisation of what had crept up upon him struck him like a blow in the solar plexus. He sat trembling in his chair, gasping like a stranded fish, feeling his knee-joints melting like butter in a frightful paralysis of panic. Whenever he had visualized the end before, it had never been like this: it had been on a date of his own choosing, after he had made all his plans in unhurried comfort, when he could pack up and beat his trail for the tall timber as calmly as if he had been going off on a legitimate business trip, without fear of interference. This catastrophe pouncing on him out of a clear sky scattered his thoughts like dry leaves in a gale.
And then he got a grip on himself. The getaway still had to be made. He still had an hour—and the banks were open. If he could keep his head, think quickly, act and plan as he had never had to do before, he might still make the grade.
'I'm feeling a bit washed out,' he told his secretary; and certainly
