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 understand what the case was.” And he had a deep, but peculiarly gentle sort of voice.

Babbing nodded. “No. I could n’t be explicit over the telephone. Sit down.”

Van Amberg settled himself in a chair, leaning forward, his elbows on the chair arms, frankly interested in the “famous” Walter Babbing, but impersonally so, as a thoughtful spectator.

“What I am going to tell you,” Babbing said very slowly, “is, of course, confidential. We have a client who has been blackmailed systematically, for some years, by a woman and two men in this city. As in the majority of such cases, he is not in a position to prosecute. And we have been investigating the operations of the gang in the hope of finding a victim on whom we might successfully base a prosecution.” He reached a file of typewritten reports on his desk and began to turn the pages.

“In the course of this investigation we