Читать книгу Slane's Long Shots - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 6

Table of Contents

TWO hours later, Mark Odane, Professor of Oriental Languages and a scholar of some repute, confessed himself partially beaten.

"I'll have to take the thing home, Monty," he announced finally. "I've got some dictionaries there that will help, and a phrase book in manuscript. I'll do it for you—word for word, too—but you'll have to give me a few hours. I can't stay any longer now. I've got a committee meeting of the Royal Geographical Society. Lend me your dispatch box."

"You must take it away, I suppose?" the young man asked wistfully. "It's against the regulations."

"I can do nothing here," Odane admitted. "Besides, who cares about those regulations? They are broken every day. You know that. Say good-by to your sister for me, there's a good fellow."

The Professor hurried out to his taxicab. The young man saw him off, and watched the vehicle turn the corner. There were a few promenading couples on the waste piece of common opposite —not another person in sight. He closed the front door, and called up the stairs to his sister: "Gone to bed, Ruth?"

"Long ago," came the sleepy reply. "Good-night, and don't forget to lock up."

He made his way back to the sitting-room, mixed himself a whisky and soda, and settled himself in an easy-chair, with the evening paper. The cricket scores failed to interest him. The Stock Exchange news left him unmoved. The illness of a great statesman did not affect him in the least. He was conscious of a curious tingling of the nerves. There was something—what was it that had happened that evening? He remembered suddenly Ruth's moment of panic, and smiled. Then, conscious of what seemed to be a draft, he turned his head. The newspaper slid from his nerveless fingers. Before he could call out, there was a hand upon his throat, and the glitter of steel before his eyes. Almost immediately the room was plunged into darkness. He could see nothing but the dim shadow of the man leaning over him, in whose grasp he was like an infant.

"I want the paper you brought home this evening from the Foreign Office. Will you give it to me? Decide quickly. If you refuse you have less than ten seconds to live."

The grasp upon his throat relaxed a little. He was able to mumble.

"It isn't here. I have had to pass it on to someone else."

There was a brutal, choking sound, a short laugh of contempt.

"Usual thing to part with manuscripts from the Foreign Office, isn't it? Five seconds left. Will you give it to me?"

"I swear that it isn't here."

In the darkness, the thread of steel was like an electric shaft. Then that one, long-drawn-out moment of hideous pain, and blackness greater than the gloom of the room. The young man lay a crumpled-up heap upon his easy-chair, and his visitor proceeded with his task.