"Well, there's the telephone," said Masters impatiently. "Ring him up and explain."
The telephone was supported at the desk on one of those folding steel frameworks by which you can pull it out or push it back. H.M. put his hand on the receiver, but for the moment he was not looking at it. He blinked absent-mindedly at the articles on Agnew's desk, revealed with hypnotic clearness by the green-shaded lamp. They were the rubber dagger, the real dagger, the spoon, and the little rows of numerals on another equally important piece of evidence.
“They may have gone to bed at the Fanes'," continued Masters, taking down his raincoat from a hook. "But, I tell you straight, if I could see my way clear to putting a certain party under lock and key, I'd wake up the Assistant Commissioner himself. If—"'
There was an interruption.
"Gaaal" roared Sir Henry Merrivale.
He pushed back his chair with a hideous, chalk-like squeak on the bare boards which made his two companions jump. When they whirled round to look at him, he was regarding the desk with the expression of one whom during a bout of delirium tremens, has just seen another spider walk along the wall.
"The Haunted Man,' " said H.M.," 'or The Ghost's Bargain.' Masters, don't ever wish you were me."
"I never did," said Masters, "and, by George, I never will! What's all this foolishness now?"
"It's not foolishness," H.M. assured him with the utmost earnestness. "I'm being pursued. I wish you had the sense to see how you were bein' pursued too."
"Pursued by what?"