Teddy scowled uneasily and shifted to his feet twirling his soft hat in his hands. He did not know what to make of this dismissal, but he was more than a little suspicious. In his experience divisional detective inspectors did not give up in this way. "You're through?" he asked. "Through for now. I may have to see you again, I hope. Look after yourself." Sufficient for the day are the troubles thereof. That was part of Gold Dust Teddy's philosophy. He did not for an instant suppose that Labar was as generous as he appeared to be--there was certainly something behind this move. But the immediate fact was that he was out of a hole. Whatever happened thereafter could be met from outside a cell. With a cheerful salute he passed through the door which the inspector unlocked for his benefit, and so through a few odd uniformed police and one or two detectives at whom he leered triumphantly out of the entrance to the station. Labar thrust an arm through that of a frowning young detective sergeant whose discoloured eye told Teddy's prowess and led him upstairs. "You've helped a whole lot on this job, Down," he said. "Don't you worry about Teddy. We'll get our hooks on him when we want. I'm using him as bait. What I want you to do is to watch when the big fish bites." He expounded at greater length when he was back at his desk. "This joker's in the game up to the neck, but you can bet Larry's only trusted him as far as he had to. How much he knows I can't say. He's scared to death to say anything, now. But it's odds, now that we're on to him, that he'll try to give the office to Larry either direct, or through someone else. You've got to tail him closer than a brother. Take Heath to help you--he doesn't know Heath. And be particularly careful when he's stewed. He may drop something that we'd like to know. See if you can get a line through what channels his money comes, though Larry's likely to have seen that you don't get back to him that way. If you do get hold of anything burn the wires in getting it to me." Down jerked his head in comprehension. "I'll attend to it, sir. Heath will be on the job when I have to stay under cover." "Get to it then. I'm relying on you not to fall down." The divisional detective inspector turned to other matters. CHAPTER IX A couple of days passed, and although the newspapermen still pestered Labar, and other potential sources of information at Scotland Yard, the space allotted to the hue and cry in the news dwindled. Labar was thankful. There are times when an energetic and persevering journalist may stumble on something that will aid the police, but in a case of this kind reporters were an embarrassment. There were no innocuous morsels that one might feed them on, and such facts as Labar had up his sleeve he was anxious to keep to himself. Larry no doubt would be scanning the morning and evening journals with assiduity.