“Yes—Mr. Winch.”
She took his card, passed into one of the glass-partitioned private offices and returned after what to Hammond seemed an unjustifiable delay. “Mr. Winch will see you in ten minutes,” she said. “Just take a seat, please.”
Hammond was forced to cool his heels till the girl, after responding to an office ’phone call, indicated that Mr. Winch was ready to receive him.
Hammond at last had struck the right trail. The little grey man gazing up at him from across the desk in the private office was none other than the bogus Eulas Daly. But Winch did not look the least flustered; in fact, there was the barest trace of the geniality he had worn in the role of the American consul.
“Mr. Hammond,” he opened quietly, “I have a shrewd notion what questions you have in mind to demand of me. But, before we proceed with that, will you kindly tell me why you have violated your contract with Mr. Gildersleeve by leaving the Nannabijou Limits without notification?”
“Because I’m tired up with the whole business,” exploded the young man. “Because I’m not quite ass enough to stick out there on an assignment from a man who’s dropped out of sight. And, in the next instance, I want to know from you why you—”
“Just a moment, just a moment,” insisted Mr. Winch. “We’ll come to that presently. Did you know that your leaving the limits at this particular time may seriously jeopardise the plans Mr. Gildersleeve had in mind?”
“Mr. Gildersleeve has disappeared.”
“Even so. That, however, does not prevent his associates carrying on, does it? As I understood it, you agreed with Mr. Gildersleeve to remain at the limits in the capacity he sent you until you received word to return, and he emphasised the injunction that you were to remain no matter what apparently unusual things happened. Is that not a fact, Mr. Hammond?”
It was a fact—Hammond felt the full force of it now. For the moment he was not prepared with a reply. He was in grips with one of the most brilliant cross-examiners in the north country.