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Page 69
Disentangling his coat, he sought and found the electric torch.
He pressed the button. No light came. It was broken! He drew a
hissing breath, and began to grope about the little room. At last
his hand touched the telephone, and, taking it up:
"Hello!" he said. "Hello!"
"Yes," came the voice of the operator--"what number?"
"City 8951. Police business! Urgent!"
One, two, three seconds elapsed, four, five, six.
"Hello!" came the voice of Innes.
"That you, Innes?" said Harley. And, interrupting the other's
reply: "I am by no means safe, Innes! I am in one of the tightest
corners of my life. Listen: Get Wessex! If he's off duty, get
Burton. Tell him to bring--"
Someone leaped in at the broken window behind the speaker.
Resting the telephone upon the table, where he had found it,
Harley reached into his hip pocket and snapped out his automatic.
Dimly he could hear Innes speaking. He half-turned, raised the
pistol, and knew a sudden intense pain at the back of his skull.
A thousand lights seemed suddenly to split the darkness. He felt
himself sinking into an apparently bottomless pit.
CHAPTER XX. CONFLICTING CLUBS
"Any news, Wessex?" asked Innes, eagerly, starting up from his
chair as the inspector entered the office.
Wessex shook his head, and sitting down took out and lighted a
cigarette.
"News of a sort," he replied, slowly, "but nothing of any value,
I am afraid. My assistant, Stokes, has distinguished himself."
"In what way?" asked Innes, dully, dropping back into his chair.
These were trying days for the indefatigable secretary. Believing
that some clue of importance might come to light at any hour of
the day or night he remained at the chambers in Chancery Lane,
sleeping nightly in the spare room.
"Well," continued the inspector, "I had detailed him to watch
Nicol Brinn, but my explicit instructions were that Nicol Brinn
was not to be molested in any way."
"What happened?"
"To-night Nicol Brinn had a visitor--possibly a valuable witness.
Stokes, like an idiot, allowed her to slip through his fingers
and tried to arrest Brinn!"
"What? Arrest him!" cried Innes.
"Precisely. But I rather fancy," added the inspector, grimly,
"that Mr. Stokes will think twice before taking leaps like that
in the dark again."
"You say he tried to arrest him. What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that Nicol Brinn, leaving Stokes locked in his chambers,
went out and has completely disappeared!"
"But the woman?"
"Ah, the woman! There's the rub. If he had lain low and followed
the woman, all might have been well. But who she was, where she
came from, and where she has gone, we have no idea."
"Nicol Brinn must have been desperate to adopt such measures?"
Detective Inspector Wessex nodded.
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