He was not a clever man, but he was patient and possessed the kind of intelligence that can slowly but surely cut through to the heart of things and this, coupled with an extensive knowledge of human nature gained from a thousand long hard Saturday nights on the town and numerous times like them, made him a good policeman.

He had no conscious thought, or even desire, to help society. Society consisted of the civilians who sometimes got mixed up in the constant state of guerrilla warfare that existed between the police and the criminal and, if anything, he preferred the criminal. At least you knew where you were with him.

But he was no sentimentalist. A villain was a villain and there was no such thing as a good thief. One corruption was all corruption. He’d read that somewhere and as he walked through the streets, head down against the rain, he remembered it and thought of Ben Garvald.

From the way he had discussed the case with Grant, Miller had seemed to take a fancy to Garvald. If that was his attitude, then the sooner he fell flat on his face and got the boot, the better. A copper’s job was to catch thieves and all the education in the world couldn’t teach a man to do that – only experience.

Brady sighed morosely and paused to light a cigarette. The strange thing was that now that his initial anger had evaporated, he found to his surprise that he had been more impressed with Miller than he had thought possible. On the other hand, that was no reason for not teaching him a lesson. It would sharpen the lad up for next time.

Gascoigne Square was a quiet backwater no more than a quarter of a mile from the Town Hall. Its gracious Georgian town houses were still in excellent condition and occupied mainly as offices by solicitors and other professional men, but one or two of the larger houses had proved ideal for conversion into the kind of night club-cum-gaming houses that had mushroomed all over the country since the change in the law.

And some of them also provided for more elemental needs. Brady smiled sardonically as he passed Club Eleven and a taxi unloaded half a dozen middle-aged businessmen who jostled each other excitedly as they went up the steps to the narrow entrance.

They’d get everything they needed in that hole. Molly Ryan would see to that and one or two of them might even pick up a little more than they’d bargained for. But that was life and you took a chance with each new day that dawned.