Page:Vance--The false faces.djvu/339

Rh His thick, spatulate fingers of an executive drummed heavily upon the desk.

Stone's figure darkened the windows.

"Colonel Stanistreet?" he called diffidently.

"Yes, Mr. Stone?"

"There's something here I'd like to consult you about, sir, if you can spare a minute."

"Certainly." The Englishman rose. "If you will excuse me, Monsieur Duchemin. …" Half way to the windows he hesitated. "By the bye, Blensop, I wish you'd call up Apthorp and ask after Howson's condition."

"Very good, sir," Blensop intoned cheerfully.

"And do it without delay, please. I don't like to think of the poor fellow suffering."

"Immediately, sir."

As his employer passed out into the garden with Stone, the secretary discontinued his checking and came over to the desk, drawing up a chair and sitting down to telephone. At the same time Lanyard got up and began to pace thoughtfully to and fro.

"Howson is the wounded night watchman, I take it, Mr. Blensop?"

"Yes—an excellent fellow. … Schuyler nine, three hundred," Blensop cooed into the transmitter.

Conceivably that ostensible discomfiture whose symptoms Lanyard had remarked had been a transitory humour. Mr. Blensop was now in what seemed the most equable and blithe of tempers. His very posture at the telephone eloquently betokened as much: he had thrown himself into the chair with picturesque nonchalance, sitting with body half turned from the desk, his