The telephone bell began to ring as the door closed. Wingate took up the receiver, listened for a moment and passed the instrument over to Phipps. The latter presently replaced the receiver upon its hook with a little groan.
"You've broken us," he announced grimly.
"No news has ever given me greater pleasure." Wingate replied.
Stanley Rees rose to his feet.
"We are not prisoners any more, I suppose?" he asked sullenly. "I am going home."
"There is nothing to detain you," Wingate replied politely, "unless you choose to take breakfast first."
"We want no more of your hospitality," Phipps muttered. "You will hear of us again!"
Wingate stood between them and the door.
"Listen," he said. "You are going away, I can see, with one idea in your mind. You have held your peace during the last quarter of an hour, because you have known that your lives would be forfeit if you told the truth, but you are saying to yourselves now that from the shelter of other walls you can tell your story."
There was a furtive look in Rees' eyes, a guilty twitch on his companion's mouth. Wingate smiled.