The Fourth Plague by Edgar Wallace

silk socks. He looked little more than twenty, though he was in reality much older.
    His attitude towards the others was one of amused curiosity. From time to time he examined his beautiful nails with solicitude, as though he found them much more interesting than the conversation. And yet the talk was startling enough.
    The stout man had finished the story of his adventure.
    â€œAnd Signors,” he said appealingly, “I, myself, could have secured this jewel, but for the restrictions which your Excellencies placed on me.”
    He spoke alternately to Il Bue and the young man at the foot of the table.
    â€œWhy?” he asked, in extravagant despair, “why is it necessary that you should employ a third person—one without finesse, like this man, Mansingham, who blunders through the house, awakes the servants, and is arrested? It was tempting Providence, Signors; it would be almost as much a temptation to employ the girl.”
    The young man smiled.
    â€œYou are a fool,” he said.
    They were speaking in liquid Italian, and the youth’s voice was soft and melodious.
    â€œHave we no example of the folly of acting otherwise?”
    He raised his eyebrows, and for a moment a baleful light shone in his eyes, changing the whole character of his face.
    â€œListen, my little man.” He tapped the table before him, and spoke with quiet emphasis. “What may seem simple to you is not so simple to us. It is the rule of ‘Our Friends,’ when such a raid is carried out, that the person who abstracts and the person who immediately receives shall be unknown to one another. Moreover,” he said, carefully choosing his words, “it is necessary, since a certain happening which you may remember, that the medallion, if medallion it be, shall be received by two of our brethren, and not by one.”
    He smiled.
    â€œI repeat,” he said, “And not by one.”
    He looked at Il Bue, still smiling, and then at the stout man.
    â€œA year ago,” he said, “we had marked down something we required. It was a medallion. One of those two medallions, I know, contains a secret which will make us rich. We commissioned a brother skilled in scientific abstraction to remove that jewel. It follows, my dear Pietro, that the same set of brains which can wield, with great skill, a set of tools for the removal of locks or the forcing of glass cases may be entirely inefficient or inadequate when it comes to the removal and the safeguarding of the treasure. In stealing, as in all other sciences, the specialist has the advantage; we instruct one specialist to take the medallion from its case—wherever it may be—we employ two other specialists jointly to receive that jewel and to take it to a place of safety—watching each other the while. You follow me?”
    The stout man nodded grudgingly, and the young man went on.
    â€œThe gentleman,” he said, with grim humour, “who received that precious relic of which the society stood in the greatest need, disappeared with it. He was false to his oath, false to his kin; he demonstrated the falsity of the English adage, that there was honour amongst thieves—and indeed there is not—and, although eventually we found him, we never found the jewel.”
    He took a flat gold cigarette case from his pocket, took out a cigarette and lit it.
    â€œIt would have been no satisfaction to us to remove this erring friend. It was fortunate that he saved us the trouble by removing himself. We did not find the jewel,” he repeated. “That most desirable thing he had, in his panic, handed to some peasant or other. That peasant we have at last located.”
    He exchanged a swift glance with Il Bue, and the big man nodded emphatically.
    â€œWhether we shall get the jewel remains to be seen,” continued the exquisite young man, puffing rings of smoke at the ceiling.
    â€œAt any rate, the necessity for taking precautions in