The Notched Hairpin by H. F. Heard Page A

now in the offing, is ‘nicking the minute with a happy tact.’”
    And we had a delightful lunch which whetted my appetite for more of this odd tale that somehow—I could not make out how, but Mr. M. already seemed to suspect—led to us all being here in this place and in the spot where either a suicide or a murder had so lately been the latest incident.
    â€œI think,” resumed Millum, “that our Alsatian big-scale assassin thought we were soft, so that when he rose he said, ‘I expect you find my kind of trade a bit humdrum and really almost aboveboard. I own it is; profit and patriotism are really my only interests. But you’re more of the jeunesse dorée , so you’d really like the oddities of a luxury trade more than my straightforward hard-as-steel stuff.’
    â€œHe said it with sufficient mockery so that Sankey, who was, I think, the cleverest and toughest of us, replied, ‘Well, you are really always in danger of being recognized,’ and, as the other got ready to seize the opportunity to enlarge his sneer at our expense, Sankey ended rather neatly, ‘and of being made the hero of the new nation, whatever it is, and of appearing with your bosom covered with its brand-new orders, and no doubt of acting as its chief ambassador!’
    â€œOur guest saw that the laugh might be turned on him, so he shot out, ‘If you are so keen on trying to put your noses right up on what the world still rates as the worst smell, ask your own countryman Crofts, here! I mix with all if there’s profit in it. And, as I see it, it’s just the tough unders getting at the tough overs. That’s life, it’s a struggle. But beside us who do the tiger business, there are hyenas. As you want to see—as in the fairy tale—whether you can shudder, maybe you would like to see what I think to be a human hyena.’
    â€œPerhaps he thought we’d back down. Even if we’d wished to, we couldn’t. We couldn’t have him leave with all the trumps. We had to get back our initiative. Sankey again spoke for us.
    â€œâ€˜We like our zoo to have all the contents of the Ark. With our dear vulgarian, Kipling, we call “nothing common or unclean” until it bores us.’
    â€œâ€˜All right,’ our guest shot out as he turned to the door, ‘if you have the guts, ask Crofts—here’s his address. He’s always wanting to use my lines for his filthy freight, but I’m not hard enough up yet to let him in on my tracks. In my world we have got to let live in order to be able to get the profits which belong to us unrecognized patriots, called by the mincing liberals “merchants of death.” But I still have a nose, and I don’t like Crofts near me.’
    â€œWe tittered at our guest’s sudden adoption of high moral tone, and he, now quite angry, threw a card at us and left, remarking, ‘Well, I hope he’ll get you into a mess, as he certainly can.’
    â€œWhen he was gone we snatched up the billet-doux. It was a simple carte de visite on which was written Mr. William Crofts and a quietly good address in Mayfair. I couldn’t think why the name seemed somehow to be familiar, but we decided, on the strong recommendation we had received, to ask him to be our next guest.
    â€œHis appearance was not unpromising. His clothes were good and quiet—Saville Row without a doubt. But the face and hands that emerged from the quiet cloth were delightfully unassuring. He was heavy and no doubt brutal, but the eyes, which were large, were very vigilant—dead and at the same time extremely wary. The mouth, too, though coarse, had round it a pleasant disconcerting tension of humor. Yes, he was undoubtedly a very callous man who, under the appearance of being a simple brute, was peculiarly cunning. He was just our dish, and he seemed quite ready to amuse us.
    â€œHe began with the usual coarse stories,