"Because I have had bad luck--rotten bad luck!" Mr. Cullen declared firmly. "I am perfectly convinced that this Mr. Parker, as he calls himself, has been financing one of the greatest artists in banknote counterfeits ever known to the police. I am perfectly convinced that Mr. Parker left this young man in Adam Street last night, with a packet of notes upon his person for which he had just paid two hundred pounds, and if I could have arrested him then the game would have been up. He dodged me by going into the Cecil, leaving by the back way and coming through the Savoy; but I picked him up again within two minutes of his reaching Stephano's. "Obviously with your collusion--you'll pardon me, sir, but there the facts are--he was seated at your table as though in the middle of a dinner. I had him searched, but there wasn't a thing on him. I am not going to ask you what he did with the notes he had--whether he palmed them off on you or not--but I will simply say that between the time of his entering Stephano's and the time of my searching him he got rid of a thousand pounds' worth of counterfeit notes." "Sounds very clever of him!" I remarked. "How do you know that he didn't get rid of them to some one in either the Cecil or the Savoy?" "Because," Mr. Cullen explained, "he was followed by one of my men through both places and not lost sight of for a single second. You see, I made sure he would come to Stephano's and I was on the other side of the Strand, but I had left a man in case he went the other way. I tell you he was under the strictest surveillance the whole time, except during the few minutes--I might almost say seconds--when he disappeared in the restaurant." "Anything else against him?" I asked. "I am not inclined," Mr. Cullen continued slowly, "to mention specifically the various cases that have come under my notice and in which I believe him to be concerned; but, among other things, he is a frequenter of half the gambling houses in London and a tout for their owners. Trouble follows wherever he goes. But, Mr. Walmsley, mark my words! I am not a man given to idle speech and I assure you that within a few weeks--perhaps within a few days--I shall have him; aye, and the young lady, too! You don't want to be mixed up in this sort of business, sir. I am here to give you the advice to sheer off! They'll only rob you and bring you, too, under suspicion." I lit a cigarette and stood on the hearthrug with my hands behind me. "Mr. Cullen," I said, "it is, of course, very kind of you to come to me in this disinterested manner. You don't seem to have anything to gain by it, so I will accept your attitude as being a bona fide one. I will, if I may, be equally frank with you. I met both Mr. Parker and his daughter last night for the first time----" "Then that dinner was a plant!" Mr. Cullen interrupted swiftly. "I knew it!" I ignored the interruption.