“Thank the Lord you’ve come, old son,” he cried, with a brief look at the detective. “There’s something doing down at Godalming I don’t like.”
He followed Hugh into the sitting-room.
“At twelve o’clock to-day Toby rang up. He was talking quite ordinarily—you know the sort of rot he usually gets off his chest—when suddenly he stopped quite short and said, ‘My God! What do you want?’ I could tell he’d looked up, because his voice was muffled. Then there was the sound of a scuffle, I heard Toby curse, then nothing more. I rang and rang and rang—no answer.”
“What did you do?” Drummond, with a letter in his hand which he had taken off the mantelpiece, was listening grimly.
“Algy was here. He motored straight off to see if he could find out what was wrong. I stopped here to tell you.”
“Anything through from him?”
“Not a word. There’s foul play, or I’ll eat my hat.”
But Hugh did not answer. With a look on his face which even Peter had never seen before, he was reading the letter. It was short and to the point, but he read it three times before he spoke.
“When did this come?” he asked.
“An hour ago,” answered the other. “I very nearly opened it.”