_A Thrilling Novelette_
By CARL RAMUS, M. D.
“Thanks for the lift, Edwards. Come in for a minute, won’t you?”
“No. I was up nearly all last night, and must get some sleep.”
“To be sure! But you’ve time for a nip before you go.”
“Well—since you put it that way, and in these arid times——”
“Good! Come along.”
Dr. Herbert Carlson opened the door of his office on the first floor with
his latch key, snapped on the lights, and entered with his colleague, Dr.
Clark Edwards. Carlson hung up his overcoat and hat, and Edwards threw
his own over a chair, and then Carlson produced from an inner room a
bottle, two glasses, and a siphon of carbonic.
“Like the good old days,” smiled Edwards, sipping his glass. “_How_ do
you get it?”
“A voluntary donation from a grateful patient, a second steward on board
the—but that would be telling.”
Edwards took another sip. “I wish I had one or two patients like that!”
“You’re not likely to get them as long as you stick to _your_ specialty.”
“I suppose not—Hello! What’s all that shouting for?”
Both men listened. Newsboys were yelling an “Extra.” Carlson opened a
window, leaned far out, and drew up a paper.
“Just another bank robbery. They’re so common now as to be hardly worth
mentioning.”
“Exactly. Anything new in the Holden case?”
“Let’s see.... O yes! Here it is: ‘Father of Ina Holden gets another
threatening letter.’”
Edwards’ jaw set. “If I had my way,” he said, “every kidnapper would go
to the chair!”
“I’ll go you one better. If I had _my_ way, they’d get the Georgia
treatment!”
“What’s that?”
“Lynching!”
Edwards was silent.
“The trouble is,” Carlson went on, “that we have too much legal red tape,
too much politics, too many lawyers, and too little real law.”
“I suppose so,” said Edwards. “When we haven’t children of our own, it
takes some special circumstance to bring home to us the meaning of a
damnable crime like kidnapping. This Holden case brings it home to me.”
“Indeed!”
“Very much so. It has to do with an unusual surgical case, which I
believe was reported in the International Journal of Surgery or _The
London Lancet_ by Professor Meyerovitch.”
“I don’t remember reading it. Please tell me about it.”
“I will. It was when I was house surgeon at the Presbyterian Hospital in
Chicago. One night a child of seven was brought in with all the signs of
fulminating appendicitis. That child was Ina Holden.”
“Ah!”
“It was a private case of old Meyerovitch’s, and he decided on immediate
operation. Now Meyerovitch was one of the few really good surgeons who
wouldn’t use either the McBurney or Kamerer incision for appendicitis. He
just cut down over the trouble and through everything in one line.”
“Fool!”
“Most of us thought so then, but somehow Meyerovitch always got good
results—_always_.”
“Pure accident.”
“Perhaps so. But, anyhow, when little Ina was under the anaesthetic,
and Meyerovitch had his knife in one hand—his left, by the way—and was
testing the tension of the abdomen with the other hand, he said, ‘I will
need plenty of room here.’ And then he surprised us all by making a
reversed Senn incision.”
“I don’t seem to remember that incision,” said Carlson, after a slight
pause. “What is it?”
“An S-shaped incision devised by Nicholas Senn when he was Professor of
Surgery at Rush Medical College. You young fellows in New York don’t as a
rule know about that incision.”
“But, Edwards, as I remember, Senn recommended the McBurney method in his
book.”
“Yes, for appendicitis. He only used the S in neck operations. And so
when Meyerovitch used it on Ina Holden, it was the first time on record
for appendicitis, and probably the last.”
“Most likely. And how did the case get along?”
“Better than any of us expected. It was a drainage case, of course, and
took some time to dry up. But the wound finally healed perfectly, with no
suggestion of weakness, and left a large scar like a reversed S.”
“Meyerovitch’s bull luck.”
“Yes. I saw the child every day for more than a month and got much
attached to her. She wouldn’t let anyone else dress the wound, and after
she went home, the family often invited me to the house.”
“They’re very rich, aren’t they?”
“They are, now, but they weren’t then. Mr. Holden owned some manganese
land in California, and when the Western Pacific laid its tracks over a
corner of his property, he was a rich man.”
The colleagues silently finished their illegal glasses. Then Edwards
looked at his watch and rose from his chair.
“Good night, Herbert, and many thanks for the drink.”
Carlson, alone, looked at a memorandum that his sister had left on his
desk.
“Nothing more for tonight, thank God,” he thought with relief.
He closed and fastened the windows, bolted the door, and was passing into
his bedroom, when the telephone rang.
“Damn! Why didn’t I muffle it?”
He put the receiver to his ear.
“Well?” he said abruptly.
“Doctor Carlson speaking?”
“Yes.”
“Can you come at once to a very sick case?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t. My car is out of order, and I’m not very well
myself tonight.”
“But this case is extremely urgent, sir, and we don’t want anyone else
but you.”
“Thank you, but——”
“Please listen, Doctor. I’ll have a car for you in five minutes, and take
you home afterwards, if you’ll only come.”
“Try another doctor first.”
“We _have_ tried, but can’t find one of the only other two we have
confidence in. Money is no object. Please do reconsider, Doctor.”
“Who recommended me to you? Do I know you?”
“I do not know you personally. But you are highly recommended by the
Brooklyn Hospital. Once more let me say that your fee can be as large as
you like.”
Carlson did not answer for a while.
“All right, I’ll go,” he said at last. “What is it—a medical or surgical
case?”
After a short silence, the voice replied: “Medical, I think. But you had
better come prepared to do whatever is necessary.”
“Very well. I’ll be ready when you call for me.”
Carlson placed his medical and surgical bags on the table, put on his
overcoat and hat, and sat down to wait.
In less than five minutes he heard the _honk-honk_ of an automobile under
the window, and he picked up his two bags, snapped off the lights, and
went down to the waiting car, a large limousine.
As Carlson emerged from the house, the chauffeur got out of his seat and
opened the car door. He wore a wide slouch hat, the brim of which hung
down and so shaded his face from the corner electric light that Carlson
could not make out his features. All he was sure of was a long heavy
moustache. The lower part of the man’s face was concealed in a muffler.
He opened the door and stood as if at attention.
When Carlson was inside with his bags the man closed the door silently,
got into the driver’s seat, and the car was soon rushing up the street.
It turned at the second corner, and after that made so many sharp turns
among small and narrow and dark streets that Carlson began to feel
uncomfortable.
At last they came to a long stretch of vacant lots, and went faster for
half a minute or so, and then slowed down again. The chauffeur sounded
three _honks_—one long and two short. Carlson bent forward and peered
ahead, but could see nothing.
He did not like it at all, and he regretted that he had not brought his
revolver. He was wondering what he had got into, when, suddenly, the car
slowed down with a loud grinding of the brakes, and stopped with a jerk
that threw Carlson violently forward.
A moment later both doors opened together, and he realized that masked
men stood on either side of the car, covering him with revolvers or
magazine pistols.
Then came a few moments of the most eloquent silence that Carlson had
ever experienced. He said nothing and waited.
“Don’t be afraid, Doc,” said a thick voice, obviously disguised. “Just do
as you are told and you’ll be O. K. But if you try any stunts—T. N. T.
for you. Do you get me?”
“Yes. What do you want me to do?”
“You’ll be told later. My partner’ll sit by you now, and I’ll sit facing
you. So——”
They got inside and shut the doors, and the car started forward at high
speed.
“Sorry, Doc, but we’ll have to blindfold you,” said the masked man.
And then a heavy muffler was wound about his face.
_II_
As the car rushed on, Carlson sat still with his captors in a kind of
stupefied silence. Only that morning he had been wishing that his life
was more eventful, less commonplace. Well, here was adventure with a
vengeance.
He was only twenty-seven and he had been two years in the city. The first
year and a half had been slow and discouraging, as often happens with
young doctors. But in the last six months patients had begun to come, in
steadily increasing numbers, until now he had about all he could handle.
He was five-feet-eleven, well-built and athletic. He had clear hazel eyes
with a very direct look, and thick and wavy brown hair, which was much
admired by his women patients. All this, with good and strong features
and a pleasant expression, made an ensemble which expressed health,
confidence and efficiency.
And now what was he in for? It was hardly reassuring, especially when
blindfolded, to know that at least one gun was probably pointed at him
all the time, and that any involuntary move of his might bring a bullet
into his brain.
Yet, for all that, he did not feel exactly fear; it was more like
strained interest, a burning curiosity to know where the adventure was to
lead.
For a long time—or so it seemed—the car sped on what might have been an
isolated suburban road. Occasionally another car passed, going in the
opposite direction, but otherwise there were no other sounds than the
rolling of the limousine.
At last they slowed down and turned off to the right, and from then on,
for perhaps five minutes, the car went slowly over rough ground, turning
so frequently that Carlson lost all idea of direction.
Presently they were on a good road again, and once more traveled very
fast. More and more automobiles passed them, and they went slower and
slower, until Carlson knew they were in a town again. Once they had to
stop for a minute or two, as it seemed, at a crossing, and he distinctly
heard a policeman’s voice allowing them to make a turn to the left on a
side street. After that interruption they moved for the most part rapidly
for another five minutes or so, making several turns and passing many
machines, until they slowed down and came to a full stop.
Carlson could hear people passing to and fro on the sidewalk, talking and
laughing. He sat still, careful not to make any movement that might alarm
his captors, feeling that their weapons were leveled at him.
When at last the voices and footsteps had become almost inaudible, the
voice spoke again.
“Now, Doc—no fooling.”
He put his own slouch hat on Carlson’s head and drew the brim far down
over his face. Then he opened the door toward the curb stone and got out.
“Come along, Doc, give me your hand.”
Carlson took the hand and got out of the car. The man put his hand within
his arm and drew him across the sidewalk. Carlson heard the other man
open an iron gate, and close it again after they had passed through. A
few steps more, and another stop.
He heard a key turning in a lock, and a door open, and he was led into
a warm room. The door _clicked_ after them. A woman’s harsh voice
impatiently exclaimed:
“I thought you’d _never_ come.”
“Shut up!” said Carlson’s guide. “Here’s the Doctor. Take him upstairs.
Step lively, will you! Keep right hold of my arm, Doc.”
Carlson counted three flights of stairs, then he heard a key turned just
beyond the head of the stairway, and he was led into a room.
“Shut the door!”
It was done.
“Now take off the blinder!”
Carlson’s eyes blinked as the muffler was removed. But as soon as his
eyes got accustomed to the light, he realized that the room was only
dimly lighted.
Two men and one woman, all masked, stood nearby. One of the men had come
with him in the car. The other was a huge man, a giant. The woman was
short and rather scrawny-looking, to judge from her hands and neck.
“Now, Doc, a word with you alone,” said one of the men. “Come here!”
He stepped into a small dressing room and Carlson followed.
“Shut the door!”
Carlson obeyed.
“Now, here’s the proposition. We’ve got a sick woman on our hands—damned
sick! But she’s got in trouble with the law and the police are after her.
Get me?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“Well, that’s why she dasn’t go to a hospital, and that’s why we had to
get you. Get me?”
“Go on.”
“Very good! Now your job is just this: Look at her and find out what in
Hell is the matter with her, and write out a prescription—No! That won’t
do, either. Somebody might get on to it. You’ve got your medicines with
you, have you?”
“I have some medicines in my bag.”
“Good! You’ll give me the dope she needs, and then get out and away from
here as fast as you can and keep your mouth shut. You’ll be taken home
safe, and you’ll get your money all right. Do you get me?”
“I understand.”
“Good! Just one other thing. You can’t see her face, and there can’t be
any talking, not one word. You understand?”
Carlson felt that the time had come for him to say something, and he said
it:
“You damned fool! What kind of an examination do you think a doctor can
make if he can’t see his patient or hear her talk? Have you never been to
a doctor yourself?”
The man hesitated, fingering his automatic.
“Open that door!” he commanded, after a pause. Carlson did as he was told.
“Teresa!”
She appeared so quickly that Carlson was sure that she had been listening
behind the door.
“The doctor will have to ask her a few questions, and she will have to
answer. Go and tell her. And tell her from me—that if she says anything
she doesn’t have to say—T. N. T. for her! Do you get me?”
“All right, Boss, I’ll tell her.”
She spoke with a cruel chuckle that all but made Carlson shudder. While
he waited for further orders from his captor, he tried to get a line on
the mystery he was involved in. But nothing came to him. Was the sick
woman he was about to visit a fugitive or a captive? Probably the latter;
and if so, why?
He furtively inspected the dressing-room and its contents. It was richly
and beautifully furnished—like the large bedroom it adjoined, as far as
his very brief glance had discovered. It was on a corner and had two
windows, with curtains tightly drawn. At the end, farthest from the door
of entrance, was another door, standing half open and showing a glimpse
of a lavatory and bathtub. Nothing hopeful thus far.
Then he noticed a small black box on the wall nearest the corner, with a
green cord leading from it and disappearing behind a screen. Not until
his anxious glance had shifted elsewhere did Carlson realize the possible
significance of that green cord. Surely, what else could it mean but a
telephone behind that screen! A _telephone_.
The masked woman suddenly appeared at the door.
“She’s ready for the doctor,” she snapped out viciously.
Carlson looked at his masked companion for orders.
“Go with her,” he said. “And don’t ask her no questions that are none of
your damned business! If you do, you’ll go out of this house in two or
three suit cases! Get me?”
Carlson did not answer, and followed the woman to a darkened bedside. The
man also followed, and stood at the foot of the bed.
_III_
In the dim light of a shaded table-lamp Carlson saw a large double bed of
massive and antique construction. At the head was a high and projecting
portion of carved woodwork which overhung like a canopy. On the bed he
saw the outline of a human body through the coverings.
The head showed a mass of thick dark-brown hair, unbound and falling
about the shoulders. The upper part of the face was hidden by a wide
bandage wound several times around the head. The arms were bare and lay
outside the coverlet. They were well rounded, and the hands were small
and beautiful.
Carlson stood silently beside the bed at first, watching the patient’s
deep and rapid breathing, and assembling his professional manner. The
hand nearest him was trembling slightly. As he took it up, to feel the
pulse, the arm jerked and the whole body shook, as if under profound
nervous tension. A thrill of compassion and pity ran through him as he
held the trembling little hand.
“Don’t be afraid, Madam,” he said rather huskily. “I’m the doctor. I want
to feel your pulse.”
Instantly the trembling stopped and her fingers tightened about his. He
noted the pulse rate with his other hand, and found it rapid, about 120.
The hand and wrist were burning hot.
He let go of the hand and took a thermometer from his vest pocket. After
shaking it down several times he placed it in her mouth and closed her
lips with his fingers, saying:
“Hold it that way for five minutes, please.”
Again he took her hand, pretending to count the pulse beats by his wrist
watch, but in reality thinking as hard as he could. The thermometer was
actually a one-minute thermometer, but he wished to gain as much time
as possible. When at last he took it from her mouth and held it to the
light it registered 105. Involuntarily he whistled. Here was a very sick
woman, indeed!
“How long have you been sick?”
“Three days.” The voice was soft, but deep and sweet.
“Is your throat sore?”
“No.”
“Do you cough?”
“No.”
“Have you pain anywhere?”
“I hardly know. I feel sick all over.”
Carlson thought for a minute. Three days sick, and now a temperature of
105! About time for a skin eruption to begin to show, if it was one of
those diseases. He turned to the masked virago who stood beside him.
“I must have more light,” he said abruptly.
The woman hesitated and looked toward the man.
“What about it?” she jerked out.
“What’s the matter with this light?” the man snapped angrily.
“Just that it isn’t enough for me, that’s all! She may have typhus or
smallpox—”
“Hell!” The man jumped backward so quickly that he upset a small table
and chair.
“Damn her!” screamed the woman, retreating to the wall.
Carlson, being a doctor and often in contact with contagious and
loathsome diseases, had not counted on the terrifying effect of the word
“smallpox” on the criminals he was for the moment associated with. But he
instantly realized the advantage it gave him, and decided to capitalize
it to the limit in the mysterious woman’s interests.
After a short but tense silence he said impressively:
“Yes, it may be smallpox. But I cannot say for certain in this light.”
The masked man waited a few uneasy seconds, then went to the chandelier
and raised a hand to the light key.
“Teresa. See that the bandage is tight over her face before I turn on
more light.” His voice was surly.
“I won’t touch her again if she has smallpox!” Teresa’s strident voice
shook.
“Yes, you will, or I’ll brain you.” He took a step toward her.
The woman muttered, but obeyed, though her hands shook as she fumbled
with the bandage. Crossing herself, she said with shaking voice:
“All safe,” and stepped back again to the wall. The light was turned on,
and Carlson bent down to look more closely at his mysterious patient.
A deep, feverish flush was over the arms, neck and the strip of forehead
above the bandage. But Carlson’s trained fingers could not feel even a
suggestion of the “shotty” feeling which goes with the first rash of
smallpox.
“What do you make of it, Doc?” asked the man impatiently.
“Highly suspicious, but I cannot tell certainly until I have finished
my examination. Madam, may I listen to your lungs and heart with my
stethoscope?”
“Yes,” she faintly murmured.
Carlson looked around at the man.
“I am not in the habit of examining women in the presence of strange
men,” he said sharply.
The man mumbled a curse and turned his back. Carlson then looked at the
masked woman.
“Turn down the bedclothes and open her nightgown!”
“Do it yourself! I won’t touch her again!”
Carlson took his stethoscope from his pocket and bared the patient’s
chest. The nightgown was coarse and cheap, but the form within it was
rounded and beautiful. The sleeves of the garment had apparently been
roughly hacked off with scissors.
Carlson’s examination of lungs and heart found absolutely nothing to
account for the very high fever. Then he thought of appendicitis or
peritonitis.
“Now, please let me examine the abdomen for a moment.”
She lay still while he delicately arranged the clothing. The light from
the chandelier showed obliquely, so that the lower part of the abdomen
was in the shadow cast by the rolled-down bedclothes. Carlson felt and
carefully sounded, but she gave no sign of pain or involuntary resistance.
As his sensitive fingers passed over the place under which the appendix
is located, he felt something that broke the smoothness of the perfect
skin. It was a surgical scar. That fact alone should almost certainly
rule out a present attack of appendicitis!
“So you have had appendicitis?”
“Yes.”
“It must have been a bad case—to judge from the size of the scar.”
She did not answer, and he drew the covering a little lower and brought
the scar out of the shadow into full view. Then he started, and,
involuntarily, a gasp escaped him.
The large surgical scar was in the form of _a perfect reversed letter S_.
_IV_
So much had happened to Carlson that night that his mental receiving
instrument was somewhat dulled, and did not immediately register the
momentous significance of what his eyes now saw. That curious scar—that
reversed S—symbol of the great Senn. Great God! _Now_ he remembered.
The only case on record in which that Senn S-incision had been made for
appendicitis was the case of Ina Holden.
He heard the masked man muttering in angry impatience, and then his brain
began to work again. The Holden _child_. Edwards had spoken of her as
“little Ina.”
Though the papers had been full of accounts of the Holden kidnapping case
for the last five days, he, Carlson, had read nothing but the headings,
and his impression from them and from Edwards’ talk was that Ina was a
small girl, quite a child. And yet this was a woman, or a well-grown girl
of 16 or 17 at the least. He looked up at her bandaged face.
“How long ago did you have this operation?”
“I—when I was a child.”
“How long ago was that?”
“About eight or nine years ago.”
“Ah——”
“You’re takin’ a hell of a long time, doc. Has she got smallpox?” The man
still stood with his back to the foot of the bed, but Carlson realized
that he could not temporize much longer.
“Just about a minute more and I can tell you,” he said, as nonchalantly
as he could say the words.
How could he get rid of the kidnappers and telephone for the police? Then
came an idea—a wild, forlorn hope; but he would try it.
“I will have to examine her throat,” he said, with professional voice.
He walked to the table where his medical bags were and took out a
circular mirror with an aperture in the center, a small electric bulb,
and a black elastic band with a buckle in it. Next, he detached a
connecting-plug from a cell battery in the bottom of the bag, being
careful to conceal the battery from the gimletlike eyes of the two men
and the woman. With the plug hidden in his hand he crushed the two
contactors together.
Then he adjusted the elastic band and mirror to his forehead, connected
the two wires with the small bulb on the head mirror and deliberately
unscrewed the bulb from the table lamp. He drew a deep breath; then
quickly inserted the crushed battery plug into the lamp socket.
_Flash!_ The room was in complete darkness. Carlson had short-circuited
the current and fulminated the fuse, probably for the whole house.
“Damn it!” he exclaimed, ostentatiously. “What am I going to do now?”
Almost instantly the beam of a pocket flashlight came from the hand of
the “boss.”
“Take this, doc,” he said, holding it toward Carlson.
He took it, asked the girl to open her mouth, and looked within.
“No good at all. I _must_ have the electric light. Where is the fuse box?”
The “boss” looked at Teresa.
“It’s in the cellar with the meter,” she said.
“Go down and put in a new fuse.”
“I don’t know how. You’ll have to come with me.”
The man hesitated. He glared at Carlson through his mask, and at the sick
girl on the bed, and then at the giant near the door.
“Tony!”
“Huh?”
“Come here!”
The giant slouched nearer.
“Where’s your flash-light?”
He produced it.
“Good! Now stay right here till we come back. If the doctor tries to
leave this room, or if he talks to the girl—you know what to do.”
Tony grunted, and showed a magazine pistol in his other hand. The other
man and Teresa left the room. The man slammed the door and locked it on
the outside.
Carlson felt almost overcome by a feeling of powerlessness and despair.
He and the girl were alone with the giant Tony, who sat stolidly by a
table in the center of the room, flash-light in one hand, the automatic
pistol in the other. His narrow, piglike eyes gleamed through the mask
and seemed never to relax their sinister gaze.
Carlson’s plan was completely frustrated by the baleful presence of this
Frankenstein Monster.
Suddenly he heard the blindfolded girl give a sob, and he saw her
shoulders trembling. At the sound of that despairing sob a new impulse to
action surged through him. Her only hope lay in him. He would not fail
her. He would save her or die in the trying.
He took her nearest and burning hand in both of his.
“There, there. Everything will be all right.”
As her fingers gripped his convulsively, a horrible snarling sound, as
from an angry hippopotamus, came from Tony. Carlson disengaged the girl’s
hand and faced the giant.
“Tony!” he said commandingly.
“Huh?”
“Help me to fix up this head light of mine. Bend those points out
straight—so!”
Carlson had seen some remarkable demonstrations in hypnotism in Zurich,
and he had been told by Professor Jung that he had exceptional personal
power in that line, if he chose to develop it. He remembered that advice
now, and he was trying it on Tony.
The giant hesitated, but at last obeyed the imperative and hypnotic voice
of the young doctor. He laid the pistol and flash-light on the table,
but just within reach of his hand, and then held out one hand for the
electric plug.
“There—twist them out again, right there,” said Carlson in a slow,
monotonous voice. As he spoke, his other hand closed over a heavy glass
paper weight that lay at the farther end of the table. Tony put the plug
on the table and bent his face over it.
Carlson felt that he could soon have Tony completely under his own
hypnotic power. But time was too precious to wait for that. The “boss”
might return any minute. There was only one thing to do, and Carlson did
it.
He raised the paper weight slowly, and just beyond Tony’s field of vision
and then—he brought it down on the giant’s head with all the force he
could put into the blow.
Tony dropped the electric plug and swayed to one side, only slightly
stunned by a blow that would have fractured the skull of another man. But
before he could recover, Carlson dealt him a second, and then a third
blow, the last on the angle of the jaw.
Tony crumpled up and fell face downward across the table. But Carlson, to
make sure, gave him a final and terrible blow, which seemed to give back
a crushing sound.
_V_
He rushed to the door and bolted it; then back to the bedside.
“Are you Ina Holden?”
“Yes!”
“Then get out of bed instantly. I’m going to save you.”
As she started up, he seized her in his arms, lifted her out bodily, and
plumped her into the nearest upholstered chair.
“Take off that bandage as quickly as you can!”
He flew back to the huge bed and began dragging it toward the door. It
was heavy as a safe, and incredibly hard to move. Suddenly it became
easier, and to his amazement he saw that the girl was helping him. When
they had placed it so that the head completely blocked the door, Carlson
ran to Tony.
“Help me drag this carcass against the foot of the bed. Take the feet—so!
That will brace the bed better. Now take this pistol. You know how to use
it?”
“O, yes!”
“Fine! Watch that beast while I telephone the police. If he moves, shoot
him.”
Carlson rushed into the smaller room, kicking two small chairs out of his
way and looked behind the screen. Praise be to God! It _was_ a telephone.
He jerked the receiver to his ear and began jiggling the instrument
frantically. After a few interminable seconds came the blessed words:
“Number, please?”
“Listen, operator—this is a case of life and death. First take down this
number—Cartwright 872.... Yes.... No! No!!—for God’s sake don’t _call_
it. _This_ is it. Now listen. Have you got this number written down?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“Listen, I tell you!”
“I am listening!”
“Ina Holden is a prisoner in this house, with telephone Cartwright 872.
Do you know who Ina Holden is?”
“You mean the kidnapped girl?”
“Yes. Now get me police headquarters at once. Then, while I am talking
with them, you look up Cartwright 872 and phone the police station
nearest this place. _Quick_, for God’s sake!”