Page:Vance--The rass bowl.djvu/237

 There was money in his lodgings, in the Chippendale escritoire; but to get it he would have to run the gauntlet of reporters and detectives which had already dismayed him in prospect. O'Hagan—ah!

At the head of his bed was a telephone. Impulsively, inconsiderate of the hour, he turned to it.

"Give me Nine-o-eight-nine Madison, please," he said; and waited, receiver to ear.

There was a slight pause; a buzz; the voice of the switchboard operator below stairs repeating the number to Central; Central's appropriately mechanical reiteration; another buzz; a silence; a prolonged buzz; and again the sounding silence. …

"Hello!" he said softly into the transmitter, at a venture.

No answer.

"Hello!"

Then Central, irritably: "Go ahead. You've got your party."

"Hello, hello!"

A faint hum of voices, rising and falling, beat against the walls of his understanding. Were the