HOW LONDON BILL TOOK A PAL Perhaps the golden rule of all detective work is, Never let the detected one detect.

Inspector Val was alive to this ordinance of his craft, and an hour later, when Storri cautiously emerged from the drain, he met neither sign nor sound of Inspector Val and Mr.Duff.Feeling sure that his exploration had not been observed, Storri wended homeward to his rooms, his chin sunk in meditation.
Storri the next day went to New York, and immediately on arrival at that hotel which he designed to honor with his custom he sprang into a hansom, and within ten minutes was at a private-detective agency, being the one whereat he aforetime procured those spies to set about the Harley house--spies long since withdrawn.

The head of this detective bureau was a coarse-visaged, brandy-blotched man named Slater.
"And so," observed Mr.Slater, following a statement of Storri's errand, "you want to be put next to a 'peter-man, what we call a box-worker ?" "I would like to meet the best in the business," said Storri; "one also who is acquainted with others in his line, and who can be relied upon to the death." "You want something desperate, eh ?" said Mr.Slater, in a tone of suspicion.

"Might I ask whether you have a safe to blow or a crib to crack on your own private account?
I'm a cautious man, myself," he concluded, with a harsh chuckle, "and like to know what I'm getting mixed up with." "Your caution is to be commended," returned Storri, "and I'll answer freely.

No, I've no one to rob, no safe to break open.