There was a pause before the caller spoke again. There was nothing alarming to me in that, either. I had grown accustomed to the pause during my first few weeks under the roof of the great consultant. Few of those who needed his services liked to disclose their business to a deputy.
“Please have him waked immediately. He is wanted as soon as possible—on His Majesty’s service.”
The request was peremptory, nevertheless I was not inclined to give way to it at once. The police formula made no difference to me. I was His Majesty’s servant as much as my chief, and it was for me, and not for the Inspector, to decide which of us was to take the case. At the same time I began casting off my clothes so as to be ready to go in and rouse Tarleton if it became necessary; and one hand was busy with my necktie and collar while the other held the telephone mouthpiece to my lips.
“My instructions are not to disturb Sir Frank unless I am satisfied that the case is urgent, and that I can’t deal with it myself,” I said firmly. “I must ask you to tell me something more.”
There was another pause before the caller spoke again, and I took advantage of it to wrench off my collar and throw my waistcoat after my coat onto the floor. When the wire buzzed again the first words that reached my ear nearly caused me to drop the tube from my fingers.
“I am speaking from the Domino Club, Vincent Studios, Tarifa Road, Chelsea. There was a masked dance here this night, and one of the dancers has been found dead, apparently poisoned.”
And now I might well find myself trembling all over, and have to lean against the wall to recover myself. I only just succeeded in keeping back a cry of consternation. For it was to go to that underground club, with its dark reputation, and its strange character of mingled fashion and depravity, that I had been tempted to quit my post that night. I had been one of those masked dancers, jostling with I knew not whom under the shadowy lights and in the curtained recesses of the pretended studio in London’s nearest approach to a Quartier Latin. I could recall the scene in the after-midnight hours, the sea of black silk-covered faces thronging under the crimson lamp-shades, the bizarre confusion of costumes, monks and Crusaders, columbines and queens, the swish of silk and tinkling of swords and bracelets, and the incessant flood of whispers that had made me think of the scene in Milton’s pandemonium when the assembly of fallen angels are suddenly deprived of speech and changed into hissing serpents.
I had used the greatest precautions in coming and going. I had no reason to think that there was any real likelihood of my presence there being discovered. But a cold fear laid hold of me as I steadied my nerves to deal with the Police Inspector who had so unexpectedly conjured up a spectre on the scene of that past revelry. It was doubly imperative now that I should make no mistake, and above all that I should get rid of every sign that I had not passed the night in my own bed.
I was fast unbuttoning my shirt as I spoke again to the waiting police officer.
“I’m afraid I can’t awake Sir Frank for that. It seems to be a case that he will expect me to attend myself. Is there anything peculiar about the medical symptoms? What does your local surgeon say?”