Hard Pressed by Fred M. White — Read

Phillips slipped out of the club by and by, and for a while walked up and down opposite, studying the building in which the Post Club was situated. It was a large block of offices on five or six floors, mostly given over to merchants and dealers whose business was in connexion with Covent Garden Market. Moving up and down as if waiting for a friend, Phillips was making an exceedingly careful scrutiny of the building.

"It isn't as easy as I thought it was at first," he said. "I've got a pretty shrewd idea, for which I have in the main to thank that snowstorm. It is evident that Rickerby is perfectly right, and that there is some cunning plot afoot to rob this Selwyn. I wonder whether Rickerby was alluding to Raymond Copley. It can't be anybody else. Now it is clear the gang cannot make late bets during a snowstorm or thick mist or anything of that kind. I should like to know how they manage to get the name of the winner into the club before the horse is past the post. But that I must leave for the present. The point I have to find out now is how the man upstairs who comes to do the betting gets his information. If there was another block of buildings opposite the club I could understand it, because it would be easy to signal from one window to another. But there's nothing opposite except the Market with a lot of porters hanging about, and I don't suppose they have anything to do with it.