"Not, you understand, that I associate myself in any way with the outrages which they propose to commit," John explained hastily. "No. I am simply a wage slave--an employee--an hireling. And, in passing, the hire is worthy of the hireling. My employers pay me a salary, which is very comfortable--thank you--and in return I undertake to deal with such refractory locks and so forth as they wish to penetrate. So far I have had little to do, although I was given to understand that there would be an important piece of work for me in the near future. The Bank of England, I think Surcon said--Surcon is the name by which the Apex is known to his men. An assumed name, of course, but we are not encouraged to discover his real one. There was a man named Rodriguez--a Portuguese--who said he was going to find out the real name and put the black--I believe that is the correct slang, Mr. Teal?--and--er--where had I got to? Oh, yes, put the black on. Polite people call it demanding money with menaces. Rodriguez died the other day. Enteric, you know. I'm sure of that, because I was able to take a swab from the hypodermic syringe Mr. Surcon used when he treated Rodriguez to a shot of morphine. Surcon says he qualified as a doctor. So did I. In my leisure moments, I still dabble in bacteriology, and _bacilli typhosi_ are easily recognised under the microscope by the trained observer. So--er--one is not encouraged to be inquisitive, is one?" "Quite," murmured Storm. Inspector Teal cleared his throat noisily, fumbled aimlessly in his pockets, and came across a battered cigar. He nipped the end from it, and sought for matches. Instead, he found a virgin packet of spearmint, and abandoned fumigation in favour of mastication. Then, having returned the weary weed to his pocket and posted a wafer of chicle in his mouth, he struck a match and absently wondered why there wasn't anything to light. Which seems to indicate a certain perturbation. It does. Mr. Teal was familiar with the vanity of criminals, their affectations and their powers of plausible invention, but the yarn of Prester John was something which failed to enter the borders of his experience. The germ of truth in it stuck out like the Eiffel Tower: he had always known that Prester John had drifted to burglary, not from Borstal, but from Balliol, solely because of the moral kink in his nature. But the lying of criminals--which psychologists will tell you is "pathological," whatever that may mean--is expressly designed for the covering up of their defects and defections--not the revelation of the same. Wherefore Prester John became an interesting specimen. A fact which seemed to have entered the mind of that oleaginous man, for he allowed an appreciable time to elapse before he resumed his confession--time during which the theatrical atmosphere piled up hand over fist.