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Four

The old clock in a corner of the study chimed resonantly and with deliberation: four double strokes; and while yet the deep-throated music was dying into silence the telephone bell shrieked impertinently.

Maitland bit savagely on the gag and knotted his brows, trying to bear it. The effect was that of a coarse file rasped across raw quivering nerves. And he lay helpless, able to do no more toward endurance than to dig nails deep into his palms.

Again and again the fiendish clamor shattered the echoes. Blinding flashes of agony danced down the white-hot wires strung through his head, taut from temple to temple.

Would the fool at the other end never be satisfied that he could get no answer? Evidently not: the racket continued mercilessly, short series of shrill