Sexton Blake and the Great War by Mark Hodder

Sexton Blake and the Great War by Mark Hodder

Author:Mark Hodder [Hodder, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction
ISBN: 9781786182555
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


SIR JAMES SAT at his writing-table in his room near Whitehall. His face was more haggard and lined than before, and a silver clock, at which he glanced anxiously from time to time, stood just beneath the green-shaded reading-lamp.

There were papers before him—small, neat bundles of official documents—but they lay unread and unheeded. His mind was far away from them and their contents, and quite unconsciously he drew idle scrawls on the blotting-pad in front of him, and then glanced at the clock again.

There was a whir of the telephone-buzzer on the table at his elbow, and he started nervously. He was overstrained by long extra hours of work and lack of a proper amount of sleep. He took up the receiver.

“What is it?” he said testily.

“Two gentlemen to see you, sir. Important business, they say.”

Sir James swore softly under his breath. He had been pestered day and night for months by requests for interviews from people on important business.

About one percent of them really had any business at all, the rest were mostly touts for contracts, or looking for a soft job with good pay and nothing to do. Still, he felt bound to see them all, in case he should miss the man with the real business.

“Very well, show them up,” he said reluctantly, and turned back to his aimless scribbling. Then he took a blank telegraph-form, wrote an address on it, and glanced at the clock once more. He hesitated for a moment, and then dashed off a brief message.

There came a tap at the door.

“Come in!”

The door swung open, and Blake and Tinker came in, both in immaculate evening-dress.

“Good-evening, Sir James!” said Blake.

“Good heavens!” said Sir James, starting up. “I had given you up for lost! See!” He pointed with a quivering forefinger. “I had just written out the telegram for your successor, and ordered him to report for duty early to-morrow. Ten days was the time-limit you mentioned. It is now over—a quarter-past twelve. I know your punctual ways. Can you blame me if I fancied you had failed?”

Blake glanced at his wrist-watch, walked to the window, and threw it open.

“We have not failed,” he said quietly. “Listen!”

Big Ben was just striking the hour of midnight.

“It is your clock that has failed; in fact, we have arrived in the nick of time—with a couple of minutes or so to spare.

“I’ll tell you what made us run it so fine. Your Antwerp agent—there is no need to mention names—was murdered a minute or two before we reached him. He was in a state of collapse, but retained strength to gasp out a word or two before the end. So we took the paper on to Stiltz. I haven’t the receipt for it, for the simple reason that I was obliged to light a cigarette with it under the eyes of a German officer. But you can take my word for it that it is now in the right hands.

“Incidentally, we were travelling with false passports, which



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.