All rested with the telephone that stood mockingly mute at the man’s elbow, callous alike to his anxiety and the rancorous regard in which he held it. His call for the house near Queen Anne’s Gate had now been in for more than forty minutes; in that interval he had no less than three times pleaded its urgency to the trunk-line operator. And still the muffled bell beneath the desk was dumb.
And the worst of it was, fatal though the delay might prove, he dared not stir a hand to save himself until he knew....
In the taut torment of those long-drawn minutes a sound of circumspect scratching was enough to bring Victor to his feet in one startled bound.
He stood for a moment, a-twitch, but intent upon the corridor door, then composed himself with indifferent success, approached and opened the door. The girl Chou Nu slipped in, offered a timid courtesy, and awaited his leave to speak.
“Well? What is it?”
“Excellency: the Princess Sofia refuses to let me stay in the room with her.”
“Why? Don’t you know?”
“I think she means to run away. She would not go back to her bed, but walked up and down, till I ventured to urge her to take rest, when she turned on me in a rage and bade me be gone. Then I came to you.”
Victor took thought and finished with a dour nod.
“You have done well. Return, keep watch, let me know if she leaves—”