The Fat Man ignored him. "Discipline, discipline." He shook his head and his massive jowls wobbled. "Without order we perish. How many times have I told you that? If you had given that to me, openly and honestly as we agreed, I would have sold it and given you half." His mouth hardened. He stood motionless. "But as I have had to take the trouble of coming for it myself, and bringing my men with me, I shall have to keep all of it. Expenses, you see?"

No one moved.

"And discipline .. . always discipline. Can't have things getting out of control. No!" He barked the last word as one of the thieves made to stand up, his hand going to his waist for a weapon. "Very foolish, Doyle. Very foolish indeed. Do you imagine I have come unarmed? Now, you know me better than that! Or perhaps you don't, or you would not have tried such a stupid piece of duplicity."

But the man was too angry to heed a warning. He drew a dagger out of his belt and lunged forward.

The Fat Man shouted, and the next moment the shadows came alive. There was a melee of heaving bodies, flying arms and legs, and the candlelight on the sudden, bright arcs of knives and cutlasses. It took less than a minute to realize that the Fat Man's followers were getting the better of it. There were more of them and they were better armed.

Orme was staring at Monk, waiting for the word.

For a sick, blinding instant Monk wanted to escape. How many men could he lose in a swordfight in the candlelight, with the thieves and the Fat Man's men against them?

Then his mind cleared. What were the odds to do with anything? They were policemen. They wore the queen's uniform. The Fat Man would take the carving and the police would have stood by like cowards and watched. Monk knew exactly how many men he would lose then-all of them.

"Forward!" he said, and charged, heading for the Fat Man.

The next moments were violent, painful, and terrifying. Monk was in the thick of it, and at first the cutlass felt strange in his hand. He was not sure whether to stab with it or hack. A thin man, scrawny but surprisingly powerful, swung at him with a cudgel and caught him a glancing blow on the arm. The pain of it jerked him into reality and hot anger. He swung back with the cutlass and missed. A knife tore the flesh of his right shoulder, and he felt the hot blood. This time his cutlass did not miss and the jar of its blade on bone rocked him.

But beyond the first taste of bile in his mouth, there was no time to think what he might have done. Orme was to his right, in trouble, and Clacton beyond was struggling. Jones came to his rescue. Where was the Fat Man?