"You heard me?"
"Yes, I heard you, but I don't know what you are talking about."
Quick decisions are required from every member of the Criminal
Investigation Department, and Detective Inspector Wessex came to
one now.
"That will do for the present," he said, turned, and ran down the
steps to the waiting cab.
CHAPTER XV. NAIDA
Dusk was falling that evening. Gaily lighted cars offering
glimpses of women in elaborate toilets and of their black-coated
and white-shirted cavaliers thronged Piccadilly, bound for
theatre or restaurant. The workaday shutters were pulled down,
and the night life of London had commenced. The West End was in
possession of an army of pleasure seekers, but Nicol Brinn was
not among their ranks. Wearing his tightly-buttoned dinner
jacket, he stood, hands clasped behind him, staring out of the
window as Detective Inspector Wessex had found him at noon. Only
one who knew him very well could have detected the fact that
anxiety was written upon that Sioux-like face. His gaze seemed to
be directed, not so much upon the fading prospect of the park, as
downward, upon the moving multitude in the street below. Came a
subdued knocking at the door.
"In," said Nicol Brinn.
Hoskins, the neat manservant, entered. "A lady to see you, sir."
Nicol Brinn turned in a flash. For one fleeting instant the
dynamic force beneath the placid surface exhibited itself in
every line of his gaunt face.
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