"Have you a 'phone?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"What's its number?"
The boy told him and Dan jotted it down.
"Will you give the card to Miss Vard as soon as she arrives?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, I'll do that."
Dan wrote a hasty line on the card, asking Kasia to call him at once, and added his telephone number. Then he turned wearily away, and went back to his rooms. There was nothing to do but wait. And he found waiting most trying of all. The minutes dragged miserably, each of them weighted with self-accusation, but the afternoon shadows began to lengthen and still his telephone had not rung. Finally he called for Kasia's number and asked for her. A voice which he recognised as that of the negro boy answered that she had not yet returned.
"It's those Germans!" Dan muttered to himself. "It's those damned Germans! They've got her into it, somehow!"
And then suddenly he remembered his appointment, and snatched out his watch. It was nearly six o'clock.
"I'll drag it out of them!" he said. "I'll drag it out of them! And if Chevrial's there...."