“Again, please,” she muttered huskily, in a tone not in the least like her usual, “I didn’t quite catch....”
The voice boomed in rather irritated repetition,
“Bach double-piano concerto,” it said, “in C minor.... Bach ... for two pianos ... do you understand?”
She tried to grasp it while her mind was busied with a million other things.
“It goes like this ...” the voice went on, and commenced a weird nasal rumble like a tube-train emerging from a tunnel.... “Da-da-da-da-da-daddaddadd-addadd-addah.”
She smiled! Once again fate had flung to her a moment of triumph. Long ago, when the man at the other end of the telephone had been her friend, she had learnt specially for him a work of Bach which was little known and not likely to be much cared about. Her gift had never been offered.... And now, after all this interval, he was enquiring about the very piece she had learned for him!
She put the telephone apparatus on the top of the piano on which she tried things over. Then sitting down she played over the first few bars of the concerto.... Keeping the receiver to her ear she heard:
“That’s it!—That’s the one!—Do you know it?—Curious—well, well, get it for me, will you.... Good!—I’ve tried all over town for it....”
“What address?” she enquired mechanically.
The voice replied: “Professor Verreker ... Seahill ... Barhanger, Essex.”