phone just as Mrs. Tims glanced up.

"Don't sit there watching that telephone," she cried, "anyone would
think you were wanting----"

"Brrrrrrr--brrrrrrr--brrrrrr," went the bell.

"Now perhaps you're happy," cried Mrs. Tims as he rose to answer the
call, whilst she put on the kettle to make hot coffee to fill the
thermos flasks without which she never allowed the car to go out at
night. It was her tribute to "the Chief."

II

In his more expansive moments Malcolm Sage would liken himself to a
general practitioner in a diseased-infected district. It is true
that there was no speaking-tube, with its terrifying whistle, a few
feet from his head; but the telephone by his bedside was always
liable to arouse him from sleep at any hour of the night.

As Tims had folded up his newspaper with a view to bed, Malcolm Sage
was removing his collar before the mirror on his dressing-table,
when his telephone bell rang. Rogers, his man, looked
interrogatingly at his master, who, shaking his head, passed over to
the instrument and took up the receiver.

"Yes, this is Malcolm Sage--Speaking--Yes." Then for a few minutes
he listened with an impassive face. "I'll be off within ten
minutes--The Towers, Holdingham, near Guildford--I understand."

While he was speaking, Rogers, a little sallow-faced man with
fish-like eyes and expressionless face, had moved over to the other
telephone and was droning in a monotonous, uninflected voice, "Chief
wants car in five minutes."

It was part of Malcolm Sage's method to train his subordinates to
realise the importance of intelligent and logical inference.

Returning to the dressing-table, Malcolm Sage took up another collar,
slipped a tie between the fold, and proceeded to put it on.

As he did so he gave instructions to Rogers, who, note-book in hand,
and with an expression of indifference that seemed to say "Kismet,"
silently recorded his instructions.

"My address will be The Towers, Holdingham, near Guildford. Be on
the look-out for messages."

Without a word Rogers closed the book and, picking up a suit-case,
which was always ready for emergencies, he left the room. Two
minutes later Malcolm Sage followed and, without a word, entered the
closed car that had just drawn up before his flat in the Adelphi.

Rogers returned to the flat, switched the telephone on to his own
room, and prepared himself for the night, whilst Malcolm Sage,
having eaten a biscuit and drunk some of