“Ah!”
“Went up to chambers of Sir Lucien Pyne and was admitted.”
“Well?”
“Twenty minutes later came out. Lady was with Sir Lucien. Both walked around to old Bond Street. The Honorable Quentin Gray—”
“Ah!” breathed Irvin.
“—Overtook them there. He got out of a cab. He joined them. All three up to apartments of a professional crystal-gazer styling himself Kazmah ‘the dream-reader.’”
A puzzled expression began to steal over the face of Monte Irvin. At the sound of the telephone bell he had paled somewhat. Now he began to recover his habitual florid coloring.
“Go on,” he directed, for the speaker had paused.
“Seven to ten minutes later,” resumed the nasal voice, “Mr. Gray came down. He hailed a passing cab, but man refused to stop. Mr. Gray seemed to be very irritable.”
The fact that the invisible speaker was reading from a notebook he betrayed by his monotonous intonation and abbreviated sentences, which resembled those of a constable giving evidence in a police court.