transaction. But I had no illusions. Five-pound notes do not fall out of the sky every day, even in London, city of marvels.
Although I never chose to have much to do with the habitués of
the African Café, I nevertheless learned much of their doings and had
pointed out to me many a fellow whom the Paris Service de Sûreté and
London Scotland Yard would have given much to get into their hands. But
they were such cunning devils that for many years they managed to evade
the clutches of the law while living in great luxury on the proceeds of
their interesting activities. Although most of these men have since
gone to their long reckoning, it would be doing a disservice to their
families to mention them by name. I know several professional men of
good repute and sterling character who owed their first chances in life
to a father with a mistaken idea of taking "desperate chances" for the
sake of his offspring.
But
it must not be thought that the London police, with their widespread
net of "information received" and who are famed for their astuteness,
did not from time to time gather in the fish whose predatory boldness
had outgrown their caution. It is in the public interest that the
police should often tolerate the existence of meeting-places frequented
by known "bad hats". For where men walk in the twilight of the law,
valuable information is liable to leak out from within, and what is
more, many a suspect is steadily kept under observation until his cup
of iniquity is full and he is duly gathered in.
But it is only the unthinking man who draws a thick
