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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
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