"If I was you, I should go a bit quiet with the young lady and 'er friends," Jacob Potts said seriously. "I've nowt straightforward to tell agin 'em, and that's a fact, but a bit here and a bit there is good enough for a man with a level head. There's three or four of 'er kidney in this country, and, if I'm not greatly mistook, they're wrong 'uns." "I can't think that the young lady comes altogether under that designation," Aaron Rodd protested stiffly. "At the same time, Mr. Potts, I must admit that her associations are mysterious." "Steer clear of them, sir, and take an old man's advice," the ex-publican begged. "I've 'ad things 'inted to me about them that I shouldn't like altogether to put into words----" Aaron Rodd saw his client out and found an old friend ascending the staircase. Harvey Grimm was whistling softly to himself, his hat was at its usual jaunty angle, his violets were as fresh as ever, his clothes as carefully brushed. Only his expression was different. He was almost serious. He took Aaron by the arm. "Put on your hat, my friend," he said. "We will walk for a little time." Aaron obeyed and they made their way down to the Embankment Gardens. "Listen," Harvey Grimm began, looking around to be sure that no passers-by were within hearing distance, "there is such a thing as tempting Fate a little too far. I think we have come to the point when we had better draw in." "Explain yourself, please," his companion begged. "During the last few weeks," Harvey Grimm proceeded, "I have broken up and cut into different shapes nearly a hundred thousand pounds' worth of diamonds. I have actually handled nearly eighty thousand pounds in money. You and I are fifteen thousand pounds each to the good. Our friends want to go on. Frankly, I've got the funks. I'd like to cry off for a time." "That doesn't sound like you," Aaron remarked. "Perhaps not," his friend admitted. "All the same, I've no fancy for thrusting my neck into the noose. Brodie doesn't even know it himself, but he was hot on the scent last time, He found out, somehow or other, the very house in which I was living. We were in the same room. He even had me searched. Once I saw him stare. I thought it was all up. Then his suspicion passed. It was just the way one of the Jewish girls down there had accepted me which put him off, but I tell you, Aaron, it was touch and go. Then the diamonds themselves--there was a stroke of genius there of which I am proud. I hadn't long to do it either. Where do you think I hid them?" "No idea." "Of course you haven't! Listen. I had set them roughly, in common brass fittings, like a pile of common brooches that were being sold, and I mixed them all up together, let them lie there on the counter of the little jeweller's shop where I have been doing my work and where I was hiding. Brodie took up some and let them fall through his fingers. I tell you that was the closest shave of my life!"