Again Miss Gorringe reassured him. "Everything's going to be quite all right. You explained very clearly in your letter."

Other people might not have used the word "clearly." "Fully" would have been better, since he had certainly written at length.

All anxieties set at rest, Canon Pennyfather breathed a sigh of relief and was conveyed, together with his baggage, to Room 19.

In Room 28 Mrs. Carpenter had removed her crown of violets from her head and was carefully adjusting her night-dress on the pillow of her bed. She looked up as Elvira entered.

"Ah, there you are, my dear. Would you like me to help you with your unpacking?"

"No, thank you," said Elvira politely. "I shan't unpack very much, you know."

"Which of the bedrooms would you like to have? The bathroom is between them. I told them to put your luggage in the far one. I thought this room might be a little noisy."

"That was very kind of you," said Elvira in her expressionless voice.

"You're sure you wouldn't like me to help you?"

"No, thanks, really I wouldn't. I think I might perhaps have a bath."

"Yes, I think that's a very good idea. Would you like to have the first bath? I'd rather finish putting my things away."

Elvira nodded. She went into the adjoining bathroom, shut the door behind her and pushed the bolts across. She went into her own room, opened her suitcase and flung a few things on the bed. Then she undressed, put on a dressing gown, went into the bathroom and turned the taps on. She went back into her own room and sat down on the bed by the telephone. She listened a moment or two in case of interruptions, then lifted the receiver.

"This is Room Twenty-nine. Can you give me Regent 1129, please?"

Within the confines of Scotland Yard a conference was in progress. It was by way of being an informal conference. Six or seven men were sitting easily around a table and each of those six men was a man of some importance in his own line. The subject that occupied the attention of these guardians of the law was a subject that had grown terrifically in importance during the last two or three years. It concerned a branch of crime whose success had been overwhelmingly disquieting. Robbery on a big scale was increasing. Bank holdups, snatches of payrolls, thefts of consignments of jewels sent through the mail, train robberies. Hardly a month passed but some daring and stupendous coup was attempted and brought off successfully.

Sir Ronald Graves, Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, was presiding at the head of the table. According to his usual custom he did more listening than talking. No formal reports were being presented on this occasion. All that belonged to the ordinary routine of C.I.D. work. This was a high-level consultation, a general pooling of ideas between men looking at affairs from slightly different points of view. Sir Ronald Graves's eyes went slowly round his little group, then he nodded his head to a man at the end of the table.

"Well, Father," he said, "let's hear a few homely wisecracks from you."

The man addressed as "Father" was Chief Inspector Fred Davy. His retirement lay not long ahead and he appeared to be even more elderly than he was. Hence his nickname of Father. He had a comfortable spreading presence, and such a benign and kindly manner that many criminals had been disagreeably surprised to find him a less genial and guffible man than he had seemed to be.

"Yes, Father, let's hear your views," said another Chief Inspector.

"It's big," said Chief Inspector Davy with a deep sigh. "Yes, it's big. Maybe it's growing."

"When you say big, do you mean numerically?"

"Yes, I do."

Another man, Comstock, with a sharp, foxy face and alert eyes, broke in to say,

"Would you say that was an advantage to them?"

"Yes and no," said Father. "It could be a disaster. But so far, devil take it, they've got it all well under control."

Superintendent Andrews, a fair, slight, dreamylooking man, said thoughtfully:

"I've always thought there's a lot more to size than people realize. Take a little one-man business. If that's well run and if it's the right size, it's a sure and certain winner. Branch out, make it bigger, increase personnel, and perhaps you'll get it suddenly to the wrong size and down the hill it goes. The same way with a great big chain of stores. An empire in industry. If that's big enough it will succeed. If it's not big enough it just won't manage it. Everything has got its right size. When it is its right size and well run it's the tops."

"How big do you think this show is?" Sir Ronald barked.

"Bigger than we thought at first," said Comstock.

A tough-looking man, Inspector McNeill, said, "It's growing, I'd say. Father's right. Growing all the time."

"That may be a good thing," said Davy. "It may grow a bit too fast, and then it'll get out of hand."

"The question is, Sir Ronald," said McNeill, "who we pull in and when?"

"There's a round dozen or so we could pull in," said Comstock. "The Harris lot are mixed up in it, we know that. There's a nice little pocket down Luton way. There's a garage at Epsom, there's a pub near Maidenhead, and there's a farm on the Great North Road."

"Any of them worth pulling in?"

"I don't think so. Small fry all of them. Links. Just links here and there in the chain. A spot where cars are converted, and turned over quickly; a respectable pub where messages get passed; a secondhand clothes shop where appearance can be altered, a theatrical costumer in the East End, also very useful. They're paid, these people. Quite well paid but they don't really know anything!"

The dreamy Superintendent Andrews said again, "We're up against some good brains. We haven't got near them yet. We know some of their affiliations and that's all. As I say, the Harris crowd are in it and Marks is in on the financial end. The foreign contacts are in touch with Weber but he's only an agent. We've nothing actually on any of these people. We know that they all have ways of maintaining contact with each other, and with the different branches of the concern, but we don't know exactly how they do it. We watch them and follow them, and they know we're watching them. Somewhere there's a great central exchange. What we want to get at is the planners."

"It's like a giant network," Comstock said. "I agree that there must be an operational headquarters somewhere. A place where each operation is planned and detailed and dovetailed completely. Somewhere, someone plots it all, and produces a working blueprint of Operation Mailbag or Operation Payroll. Those are the people we're out to get."

"Possibly they are not even in this country," said Father quietly.

"No, I dare say that's true. Perhaps they're in an igloo somewhere, or in a tent in Morocco or in a chalet in Switzerland."

"I don't believe in these masterminds," said McNeill shaking his head. "They sound all right in a story. There's got to be a head, of course, but I don't believe in a master criminal. I'd say there was a very clever little board of directors behind this. Centrally planned, with a chairman. They've got on to something good, and they're improving their technique all the time. All the same-"

"Yes?" said Sir Ronald encouragingly.

"Even in a right tight little team, there are probably expendables. What I call the Russian sledge principle. From time to time, if they think we might be getting hot on the scent, they throw off one of them, the one they think they can best afford."

"Would they dare to do that? Wouldn't it be rather risky?"

"I'd say it could be done in such a way that whoever it was wouldn't even know he had been pushed off the sledge. He'd just think he'd fallen off. He'd keep quiet because he'd think it was worth his while to keep quiet. So it would be, of course. They've got plenty of money to play with, and they can afford to be generous. Family looked after, if he's got one, while he's in prison. Possibly an escape engineered."