Page:When It Was Dark.djvu/171

Rh passed over his pale, immobile face and was gone. He knew that if Spence spoke like this the occasion was momentous.

He looked at his watch. "Is it news for to-night's paper?" he said. "No," answered Spence. "I'm the only man in England, I think, who has it yet. We shall gain nothing by printing to-night. But we must settle on a course of action at once. That won't wait. You'll understand when I explain."

Ommaney nodded. On the writing-table was a mahogany stand about a foot square. A circle was described on it, and all round the circle, like the figures on the face of a clock, were little ivory tablets an inch long, with a name printed on each. In the centre of the circle a vulcanite handle moved a steel bar working on a pivot. Ommaney turned the handle till the end of the bar rested over the tablet marked

COMPOSING ROOM

He picked up the receiver and transmitter of a portable telephone and asked one or two questions.

When he had communicated with several other rooms in this way Ommaney turned to Spence.

"All right," he said, "I can give you an hour now. Things are fairly easy to-night."

He got up from the writing-table and sat down by the fire. Spence took a chair opposite.

He seemed dazed. He was trembling with excitement, his face was pale with it, yet, above and beyond this agitation, there was almost fear in his eyes.

"It's a discovery in Palestine — at Jerusalem," he said in a low, vibrating voice, spreading out the thin,