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"If you had been in Dartmoor three years," I said, with a rather well-forced laugh, "you would find several excellent reasons for wanting a week in London." My acting must have been good, for I could have sworn I saw a faint expression of relieved contempt flicker across McMurtrie's face. "I see. A little holiday a brief taste of the pleasures of liberty!
I had had all the discourtesy I required during my three years in Princetown. My purchases at the Off-Licence consisted of three bottles of whisky and two more of some rather obscure brand of champagne. It was possible, of course, that McMurtrie's ideas of catering included such luxuries, but there seemed no reason for running any unnecessary risk.
I had not been on one since my arrest, and besides that the idea of travelling along the streets in open view of the British public rather appealed to me. Since my interview with Tommy I was beginning to feel the most encouraging confidence in McMurtrie's handiwork.
After that there was silence for perhaps twenty minutes while my two hosts were presumably talking together in one of the rooms below. Whether Sonia was with them or not I could not tell. At last I heard some one mounting the stairs, and a moment later McMurtrie's figure framed itself in the doorway.
Besides, everything that had happened from the moment I had crept in through the kitchen window at McMurtrie's house pointed to the same conclusion. I may appear stupid not to have seen through the doctor earlier, but after all a gang of professional spies is hardly the sort of thing one expects to run up against in a Devonshire village.
What worried me most in the matter was my apparent good luck in having fallen on my feet in this amazing fashion. There is a limit to one's belief in coincidences, and the extraordinary combination of chances suggested by McMurtrie's smooth explanations was just a little too stiff for me to swallow.
"The German Government have made us a very good offer for your invention, provided of course that it will do what you claim." "It will do what I claim all right," I said coolly, "but I don't wish to sell it to the German Government." There was a sort of explosive gasp from von Brünig and Savaroff, and I saw McMurtrie's eyes narrow into two dangerous cat-like slits.
McMurtrie's gentleman?" This seemed an accurate if not altogether flattering description of me, so I nodded my head. "That's right," I said. "I'm Mr. Nicholson." Then, as the heavily laden taxi-man staggered up the steps, I added: "And these are my belongings." With another bob she turned round, and leading the way into the house opened a door on the right-hand side of the passage.
She let go my fingers gently, and picking up her bag which was lying on the table, opened it and took out an envelope. "Shall I read it now?" I asked. She nodded. I slit up the flap and pulled out a folded sheet of foolscap from inside. It was in McMurtrie's handwriting, but there was no date and no address.
It's just possible Latimer would take me into his confidence. He would either have to do that or else pretend that the whole thing was a joke." "I'm quite sure there was no joke about it," I said. "Whether the chap with the scar belongs to McMurtrie's crowd or not, I'm as certain as I am that I'm standing here that he drugged that wine.
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