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as a matter of fact. Hope you don't mind.' 'Don't do it again,' Tweed said. 'I don't tout for any of my business.'
    'Any chance of a small advance for the tip?'
    'None at all. Too vague.'
    'A couple of hundred pounds would make me happy.'
    'Try your luck with the lottery.'
    'Suppose I'd better love you and leave you.' Windermere stood up. The hostile reception has at last penetrated his thick skull, Newman said to himself. 'I had a coat.'
    Monica was already taking down his white coat from a hook. She simply handed it to him without making any effort to help him on with it. Windermere stood very still, glancing round the spartan office. Newman could see why he would be attractive to a certain type of woman.
    'Don't think I know you,' Windermere remarked, addressing Marler.
    'You don't.'
    'And what a charming lady,' Windermere went on, gazing at Paula.
    She had her head down, studying some papers. She appeared not to have heard him.
    'Newman will accompany you to the door,' Tweed told him.
    'Let's keep in touch, you beautiful people...'
    Newman had the door open. As he closed it and followed their visitor down the stairs Windermere began talking over his shoulder.
    'I say, Bob, maybe we could have a drink together one evening.'
    'Maybe.'
    'I frequent Bentleys in Swallow Street. You'd find me there about eight in the evening. In their sumptuous bar downstairs.'
    'George,' Newman called out, 'our visitor is leaving if you'd unlock the door...'
    Windermere paused just outside the exit to button up his coat. Newman stayed inside after glancing outside across the Crescent. As George was closing the door Newman ran back upstairs into Tweed's office. He looked annoyed.
    'Why on earth did you let that gigolo get inside here?' he asked.
    'To see if he'd provide me with any information. He did,' Tweed replied.
    'You mean about someone insuring Sharon Mandeville for thirty million dollars?'
    'No. That was nonsense. His excuse for coming here to check up on my staff, to identify as many as he could. Marler caught on and so did Paula. So who could be anxious to penetrate our organization?'
    'Sharon Mandeville,' Newman suggested.
    'Not necessarily. Windermere babbles on but is a stranger to the truth. He may not have even met the delectable Sharon, as he described her.'
    'Well,' Newman retorted as he sat down, 'you might be interested to know that everyone who leaves this building is being photographed. This time a Lincoln Continental is parked out on the main road. I caught a glimpse of a man aiming a camera at Windermere as he was leaving.'
    'Get a picture of you?' Tweed enquired.
    'No, I kept well back.'
    'I don't understand it,' protested Paula. 'First a Cadillac, now a Lincoln Continental. If it is an American gang you'd think they'd use British cars. Why American?'
    'To intimidate us,' Tweed told her. 'I expect their campaign to get a lot worse, even more aggressive. But enough of that. Bob, you arrived back just in time. Marler has discovered who assassinated the Prime Minister.'

    'Up to a point,' Marler drawled in his upper-crust accent. 'I'm just back from Paris,' he explained to Newman. 'While over in Gay Paree, as the Yanks used to call it, I met three of my informants in various seedy parts of the city. The first two couldn't give me the time of day.'
    'They didn't know?' Newman queried.
    'The question scared them stiff. Then I met the Ear in another low-down bar.'
    'The Ear?' asked Paula, puzzled.
    'That's his nickname in the French underworld. He has guts. He plays both sides. For money, of course. By both sides I'm referring to the police and the underworld. And what I have just said is utterly confidential.'
    'He's playing a dangerous game,' Newman commented.
    'With great skill,' Marler told him. 'He's helped the Prefect of Paris to put some very lethal saboteurs - especially from Algeria - behind bars. Bit of a patriot, the Ear.'
    'And was he also scared stiff when you put the question to him?' Newman suggested.
    'Not a bit