Part 3 (1/2)
I took up the receiver.
”Hullo! Hullo.”
”Cavanagh!--is that Cavanagh?”
”Yes! yes! who is that?”
”Deeping! I have rung up the police, and they are sending some one. But I wish...”
His voice trailed off. The sound of a confused and singular uproar came to me.
”Hullo!” I cried. ”Hullo!”
A shriek--a deathful, horrifying cry--and a distant babbling alone answered me. There was a crash. Clearly, Deeping had dropped the receiver. I suppose my face blanched.
”What is it?” asked Bristol anxiously.
”G.o.d knows what it is!” I said. ”Deeping has met with some mishap--”
When, over the wires--
”Ha.s.san of Aleppo!” came a dying whisper. ”Ha.s.san ... of Aleppo...”
CHAPTER IV
THE OBLONG BOX
”You had better wait for us,” said Bristol to the taxi-man.
”Very good, sir. But I shan't be able to take you further back than the Brixton Garage. You can get another cab there, though.”
A clock chimed out--an old-world chime in keeping with the loneliness, the curiously remote loneliness, of the locality. Less than five miles from St. Paul's are spots whereto, with the persistence of Damascus attar, clings the aroma of former days.
This iron gateway fronting the old chapel was such a spot.
Just within stood a plain-clothes man, who saluted my companion respectfully.
”Professor Deeping,” I began.
The man, with a simple gesture, conveyed the dreadful news.
”Dead! dead!” I cried incredulously.
He glanced at Bristol.
”The most mysterious case I have ever had anything to do with, sir,” he said.
The power of speech seemed to desert me. It was unthinkable that Deeping, with whom I had been speaking less than an hour ago, should now be no more; that some malign agency should thus murderously have thrust him into the great borderland.