“Who is it?” he asked, as if that demand for him were the last straw but one. “Nearly seven on Friday evening!” he added, martyrised.
“I think a friend, sir.”
The middle-aged financier dropped his gold-mounted brush and, wading through the deep pile of the Oriental carpet, passed into the telephone-cabinet and shut the door.
“Hallo!” he accosted the transmitter, resolved not to be angry with it. “Hallo! Are you there? Yes, I’m Bowring. Who are you?”
“Nrrrr,” the faint, unhuman voice of the receiver whispered in his ear. “Nrrrr. Cluck. I’m a friend.”
“What name?”
“No name. I thought you might like to know that a determined robbery is going to be attempted to-night at your house in Lowndes Square, a robbery of cash—and before nine o’clock. Nrrrr. I thought you might like to know.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Bowring to the transmitter.
The feeble exclamation was all he could achieve at first. In the confined, hot silence of the telephone-cabinet this message, coming to him mysteriously out of the vast unknown of London, struck him with a sudden sick fear that perhaps his wondrously organised scheme might yet mis-carry, even at the final moment. Why that night of all nights? And why before nine o’clock? Could it be that the secret was out, then?
“Any further interesting details?” he inquired, bracing himself to an assumption of imperturbable and gay coolness.