"Concussion of the brain," he said in a cool matter of fact tone. "By Jove, it's Dr. Derbyshire. Here, police; hurry up with the ambulance; he must be removed to Charing Cross at once."
With no spiritual indigestion troubling him, Mr. James Chase, late of the _New York Chanticleer_, now of the _Morning Telephone_, lighted a cigarette at the corner of Harley Street. The night was young and there was plenty of time for him to mature his plans. He had got what he called an "almighty scoop" in his pocket, indeed in the whole history of yellow journalism he could remember no greater. London dried up like a withered sponge and absolutely devoid of water! London with the liquid plague bursting from every subterranean pipe and fountain! The whirling headlines were revolving in Chase's close-cropped head.
He reached the offices of the _Telephone_ at length and crawled up a dingy flight of stairs. Without knocking he passed the barrier of a door marked "strictly private." The controlling genius of the _Telephone_ sat limp and bereft of coat and vest. His greeting of Chase was not burdened with flattering politeness. He merely asked what the blazes he wanted. Chase nodded sweetly and drew a large sheet of paper before him. After a little thought he dashed in half-a-dozen vigorous lines with a blue pencil.
"Things pretty slack lately," he remarked amicably. "So hot that even the East End can't rise to its weekly brutal murder. Still you get on to a pearl sometimes. Grady, my boy, what do you think of that for a contents bill?"
He held the white sheet aloft so that the flare of the gas should fall upon it. The tired look faded from Grady's eyes; he sat up alert and vigorous. Here was the tonic that his fretted soul craved for.
"Chapter and Verse?" he said, speaking fast as if he had run far.
[Illustration: "I overheard a conversation between him and Doctor Langdale."]
"Got it all from Derbyshire," Chase replied. "I overheard a conversation between him and Doctor Longdale in his own house. Also I managed to get hold of some notes to copy."
"It wants pluck," Grady remarked, "A scare like that might ruin the Empire; if----"
"None of that," Chase cut in. "Take it or leave it. If you haven't got the grit, Sutton of the _Flashlight_ will jump at the chance."