Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/81

 nineteen thirty-two—nineteen thirty-two, remember; and I am to give him orders. Please explain that before I pull this trigger."

"He showed you his number—his ticket, then?" Woodhouse added this parenthetically.

"The man said his ticket had been stolen from him some time after he left Paris—stolen from the head of his cane, where he had it concealed. But the number was nineteen thirty-two." The doctor voiced this last doggedly.

"You have, of course, had this man followed," the other put in. "You have not let him leave this house alone."

"Cæsar was after him before he left the garden gate—naturally. But"

Woodhouse held up an interrupting hand.

"Pardon me. Doctor Koch; did you get this fellow's name?"

"He refused to give it—said I wouldn't know him, anyway."

"Was he an undersized man, very thin, sparse hair, and a face showing dissipation?" Woodhouse went on. "Nervous, jerky way of talking—fingers to his mouth, as if to feel his words as they come out—brandy or wine breath? Can't you guess who he was?"