Innes looked haggard and exhibited unmistakable signs
of anxiety. Since he had received that dramatic telephone message
from his chief he had not spared himself for a moment. The
official machinery of Scotland Yard was at work endeavouring to
trace the missing man, but since it had proved impossible to find
out from where the message had been sent, the investigation was
handicapped at the very outset. Close inquiries at the Savoy
Hotel had shown that Harley had not been there. Wessex, who was a
thorough artist within his limitations, had satisfied himself
that none of the callers who had asked for Ormuz Khan, and no one
who had loitered about the lobbies, could possibly have been even
a disguised Paul Harley.
To Inspector Wessex the lines along which Paul Harley was
operating remained a matter of profound amazement and
mystification. His interview with Mr. Nicol Brinn had only served
to baffle him more hopelessly than ever. The nature of Paul
Harley's inquiries--inquiries which, presumably from the death of
Sir Charles Abingdon, had led him to investigate the movements of
two persons of international repute, neither apparently having
even the most remote connection with anything crooked--was a
conundrum for the answer to which the detective inspector sought
in vain.
"I can see you have no news," said Innes, dully.
"To be perfectly honest," replied Wessex, "I feel like a man who
is walking in his sleep.
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