value on my own life, nor on that of any other criminal. As I saw it, the law was always "off" on game of my breed. The law does not bother itself very much when it stubs its toes on a dead thief, and is generally quite content when crooks turn to and slaughter each other. And the crooks have rather accepted this liberal point of view.
Although it was known to only a few people in the Under-World that M. de Maxeville and Chu-Chu le Tondeur were the same, I thought it possible that an inquest over his corpse would bring this to light and prevent much investigation for his assassin. Whether it did or not, I certainly did not intend to sit down and twirl my thumbs and wait for Chu-Chu to bag me. Although I had reformed, my principles had not yet mounted to this lofty plane.
One thing was pretty sure, and that was that Chu-Chu would make no attempt upon my life until he had tried to swap his gems back for the pearls. At least, I did not think that he would. Chu-Chu was known to be an avaricious man and he knew that I wanted that particular pearl necklace and would be willing to sacrifice the added value of the gems to get it. I had little doubt but that I would hear from him in regard to the matter before the day was over.
Well, the game was on now and all that I could do was to play it out. On leaving Ivan's house I had turned down a street which led to the garage where I stabled our six-cylinder show-car, for John and I were to take out a client later. The garage was a big, new establishment, near the Pare Monceau and accommodated two or three hundred cars. When I got there I found that my tyres were a little
