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"Now it can walk," said Selby, inhibiting further complimentary remarks. "Locks, you're a thief and an associate of thieves, and I don't suppose there's a 'wrong one' in London that you don't know. And that look of innocent amazement doesn't become you. You know the crooks as I know the fingers of the right hand."

"And as you know them," said Locks emphatically. "I can't tell you any more than you know, Mr. Lowe. And anyway, I'm too old to turn policeman."

"I'm not asking you to turn policeman," said Selby Lowe. "I want to know something which perhaps you can tell me. Is there a crook amongst your acquaintances who wears a cameo ring?"

"A what?" asked the puzzled Locks, who was not well acquainted with the technique of bijoutry.

"A cameo—a little, oval-shaped——"

"I've got you," interrupted the other. "Like a lot of landladies wear as brooches. The bigger the cameo, the weaker the soup. I've got you, Mr. Lowe! No, I can't say I know anybody who wears that kind of decoration or ornament. My own idea is that people who deck their bodies with jewellery and lay up their treasures on earth are intellectually inferior. As Dr. Johnson once said to Boswell on a notorious occasion——"