Dick S.
“Oh!” ejaculates the Chief, “Dick at last! Something is going to happen.”
And then he calls the office boy back.
“Go to this address,” he says, hastily writing upon a card; “ask for Mr. Parks, and say to him that I am obliged to beg himself and friend to put off their interview with me until this afternoon, say three o’clock.”
When the boy had departed, he turned to the desk and took up Vernet’s report. As he opened it, he frowned and muttered:
“Vernet’s doing some queer work. If it were any one else, I should say he was in a muddle. As it is, I shall not feel sure that all is right until I know what his manœuvres mean. I’ll have no more interviews until I have seen Follingsbee, and studied this matter out.”
CHAPTER LV.
THE LAST MOMENT.
At two P. M. of the same day, the day that witnessed Alan Warburton’s return to his own, and the Chief’s perplexity, there is an ominous stillness brooding about the Francoise dwelling.