He took another pinch of snuff and picked up the _Times_. "Will you lunch with me here in the grillroom at two o'clock?" "With pleasure, Mr. Ganns." "Right. And telegraph, right now, that we hope to get off in a week." Some hours later they met again and over a steak and green peas Brendon reported that the boat train left Victoria at eleven and that the _Rapide_ would start from Paris on the following morning at half past six. "We reach Bevano some time after noon next day," he said, "and can either go on to Milan and then come back to Como and travel by boat to Menaggio, where Mr. Redmayne lives, or else leave the train at Bevano, take steamer on Maggiore, cross to Lugano, and cross again to Como. That way we land right at Menaggio. There's not much in it for time." "We'll go that way, then, and I'll see the Lakes." Peter Ganns spoke little while he partook of a light meal. He picked a fried sole and drank two glasses of white wine. Then he ate a dish of green peas and compared their virtues with green corn. He enjoyed the spectacle of Brendon's hearty appetite and bewailed his inability to join him in red meat and a pint of Burton. "Lucky dog," he said. "When I was young I did the like. I love food. You need never fear any rough stuff in business as long as you can eat beef and drink beer. But nowadays, I don't go into the rough stuff--too old and fat." "Of course not, sir. You've done your bit. Nobody on your side has been at closer quarters with the big crooks, or heard their guns oftener." "That's true." Mr. Ganns held up his left hand, which was deformed and had lost the third and little finger. "The last shot that Billy Benyon ever fired. A great man--Billy. I'll never see his like again." "The Boston murderer? A genius!" "He was. A marvellous brain. When I sent him to the chair it was like a Bushman killing an elephant." "You're sorry for the under dog sometimes, I expect?" "Not always; but now and again I like the bull to get the toreador, and the savage to eat the missionary." They entered the smoking-room presently and then Brendon, very much to his surprise, heard an astonishing lecture which left him under the emotions of a fourth-form schoolboy after an interview with his head master. Mr. Ganns ordered coffee, took snuff, and bade Mark listen and not interrupt. "We're going into this thing together and I want you to get a clear hunch on it," he began, "because at present you have not. I don't say we shall see it through; but if we do, the credit's going to be yours, not mine. We'll come to the Redmayne business in a minute. But first let us have a look at Mr. Mark Brendon, if it won't bore you stiff." The other laughed. "He's not a very impressive object, so far as this case is concerned, Mr. Ganns."