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 74 well-dressed man who had spoken to him uncompromisingly.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he said.

"Am I right in assuming that you are a doctor?"

"You are perfectly correct, sir, in your assumption."

The man smiled: obviously a gentleman, thought the practitioner, with his hand on the door of his car.

"It's about a great pal of mine, Captain Drummond, who lives in here," went on the other. "I hope you won't think it unprofessional, but I thought I'd ask you privately, how you find him."

The doctor looked surprised. "I wasn't aware that he was ill," he answered.

"But I heard he'd had a bad accident," said the man, amazed.

The doctor smiled. "Reassure yourself, my dear sir," he murmured in his best professional manner. "Captain Drummond, so far as I am aware, has never been better. I—er—cannot say the same of his friend." He stepped into his car. "Why not go up and see for yourself?"

The car rolled smoothly into Piccadilly, but the man showed no signs of availing himself of the doctor's suggestion. He turned and walked rapidly away, and a few moments later—in an exclusive West End club—a trunk call was put through to Godalming—a call which caused the recipient to nod his head in satisfaction and order the Rolls-Royce.

Meanwhile, unconscious of this sudden solicitude for his health, Hugh Drummond was once more occupied with the piece of paper he had been studying