He belonged to a certain horrible gang who infest the West End of London, bringing terror and ruin to all they meet. These people haunt the bars and music halls of the "pleasure" part of London. It were better for a man that he had never been born--a thousand times better--than that he should go among these men. Black shame and horrors worse than death they bring with both hands to the bitter fools who lightly meet them unknowing what they are. Constantine Schuabe, in the moment when he saw this man--knowing well who and what he was--knew the bitterest moment of his life. Vast criminal that he was himself, mighty in his evil brain, ... he was pure; certain infamies were not his.... He spat into his handkerchief with an awful physical disgust. "This is my friend, Nunc Wallace," said Llwellyn, pale and trembling. The man looked keenly at his two hosts. Then he sat down in a chair. "Well, gentlemen," he said in correct English, but with a curious lack of _timbre_, of life and feeling in his voice--he spoke as one might think a corpse would speak--"I'm sorry to say that it's all off. It simply can't be done at any price. Even I myself, 'King of the boys' as they call me, confess myself beaten." Schuabe gave a sudden start, almost of relief it seemed. Llwellyn cleared his throat once or twice before he could speak. When the words came at length there was a nauseous eagerness in them. "Why not, Wallace? Surely _you_ and your friends--it must be something very hard that you can't manage." The words jostled each other in their rapid utterance. "Give me a drink, Sir Robert, and I'll tell you the reason," said the man. Then, with an inexpressible assumption of confidence and an identity of interests, which galled and stung the two wretched men till they could hardly bear the torture of it, he began: "You see, it's like this; we can generally calculate on 'putting a man through it' if he's anything to do with racing on the Turf. I've seen a man's face kicked liver colour, and no one knew who did it. But this parson was a more difficult thing altogether. Then it has been very much complicated by the fact of his friend coming back. "The idea was to get into the chambers on the evening of this Spence's arrival and put them both through it. In fact, we'd arranged everything fairly well. But two nights ago, as I was in the American bar, at the Horsecloth, a man touched me on the arm. It was Detective Inspector Melton. He knows everything. 'Nunc,' he said, 'sit down at one of these little tables and have a drink. I want to say a few words to you.' Well, of course I had to. He knows every one of the boys.