e round my head was bandaged up, and I was in quite a decent
little room, lying on a couch, with Mr. Ivan Abramovitch sitting
opposite to me. I couldn't give a guess where it was, for the window
only looked out on a blank wall. I sat up, and he grinned at me.

"'I am a police officer,' I said. 'How did I get here?'

"'I brought you,' he says with a grin. 'You were taking too great an
interest in my doings for my liking. Now I am going to take an interest
in yours.'

"At that I jumped for him and got a knife through my arm for my pains.
After he'd sworn at me like a trooper in English, French, and Russian
for about ten minutes he bandaged up the cut with his handkerchief, and
told me if I made any more fuss I was in for trouble. Some one knocked
at the door, but he ordered them off.

"'You won't get away from here alive without permission if I can help
it,' he said; 'but if you do, you won't be able to identify any one but
myself. If you take it coolly there'll be no harm come to you.'

"I tried to bluff a bit, but he just laughed. And then I stayed with him
in the same room up to within an hour or two ago, when some one came
into the house and he was summoned outside the door. They had an excited
pow-wow, and I could hear a woman talking. Finally, the man came back
and told me they'd determined to let me go. He put a handkerchief over
my eyes, and after a while I was taken down into what I thought was a
taxicab. I was turned out a quarter of an hour ago at the Blackfriars
end of the Embankment."

Foyle was by now striding up and down the office, his hands thrust deep
in his trousers pockets. He paused long enough to blow down a
speaking-tube and put a quick question.

"What was the number of the cab?"

"It had no police number. Its index mark was A.A. 4796."

The superintendent drew from his pocket a little black book, such as is
carried by every police officer in London. On the outside was inscribed
in white letters: "Metropolitan Police. Pocket Directory." He turned
over the pages until he found what he wanted. A messenger had pushed
open the door.

"Southampton registration," said the superintendent. "Johns, get through
on the 'phone to the Southampton police, and ask 'em to trace the owner
of this car the moment the county council offices open."

The messenger disappeared, and he turned on Waverley.

"The number's probably a false one--a board slipped over the real
number, as they did in the Dalston ca