Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/75

 to Gibraltar—will be in your hands in plenty of time. You"

The doctor stopped abruptly. A hidden electric buzzer somewhere in the shadowed room was clucking an alarm. Koch pressed a button at the side of the operating chair. There was a sound beyond closed doors of some one passing through a hallway; the front door opened and closed.

"Some one at the gate," Doctor Koch explained. "Cæsar, my playful little Numidian—and an artist with the Bedouin dagger is Cæsar—he goes to answer."

Their talk was desultory during the next minutes. The doctor seemed restless under the suspense of a pending announcement as to the late visitor. Finally came a soft tapping on the hidden door behind Woodhouse. The latter heard the doctor exchange whispers with the Numidian in the hallway. Finally, "Show him into the waiting-room," Koch ordered. He came back to where the captain was sitting, a puzzled frown between his eyes.

"An Englishman, Caæsar says—an Englishman, who insists on seeing me—very