As was his custom, he took a pencil
and wrote upon a little block:
Find means to force Brinn to speak.
He lay back in his chair again, deep in thought, and presently
added the note:
Obtain interview with Ormuz Khan.
Just as he replaced the pencil on the table, his telephone bell
rang. The caller proved to be his friend, Inspector Wessex.
"Hello, Mr. Harley," said the inspector. "I had occasion to
return to the Yard, and they told me you had rung up. I don't
know why you are interested in this Ormuz Khan, unless you want
to raise a loan."
Paul Harley laughed. "I gather that he is a man of extensive
means," he replied, "but hitherto he has remained outside my
radius of observation."
"And outside mine," declared the inspector. "He hasn't the most
distant connection with anything crooked. It gave me a lot of
trouble to find out what little I have found out. Briefly, all I
have to tell you is this: Ormuz Khan--who is apparently entitled
to be addressed as 'his excellency'--is a director of the
Imperial Bank of Iran, and is associated, too, with one of the
Ottoman banks. I presume his nationality is Persian, but I can't
be sure of it. He periodically turns up in the various big
capitals when international loans and that sort of thing are
being negotiated. I understand that he has a flat somewhere in
Paris, and the Service de Surete tells me that his name is good
for several million francs over there.
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