Dredlinton drew away from the telephone for a moment.  He dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief.  He looked like a man on the verge of collapse.

“Something unusual seems to have happened,” Wingate remarked softly.

Dredlinton was listening once more to the voice at the other end of the telephone.

“You’ve tried his club?  Eh?  And the restaurant where he was to have dined?  What do you say?  Kept them waiting and never turned up?  You’ve rung up the police?—­What do they say?—­Doing their best?—­My God!”

The receiver slipped from his nerveless fingers.  He turned around to face Wingate, crouching over the table, his arms resting upon it, his eyes blood-shot, a slave to abject fear.

“Peter Phipps has disappeared!” he gasped weakly.

The atmosphere of the room seemed to have completely changed during the last few minutes.  Wingate was no longer the conventional and casual caller.  His face had hardened, his eyes were brighter, his manner ominous.  He was the modern figure of Fate, playing for a desperate stake with cold and deadly earnestness.  Dredlinton was simply panic-stricken.  He was white to the lips; his eyes were filled with the frightened gleam of the trapped animal; he shook and twitched in a paroxysm of nervous collapse.  He seemed terrified yet fascinated by the strange metamorphosis in his visitor.

“This is your doing?” he cried.

“It is my doing,” Wingate admitted, with his eyes still fixed upon the other’s face.

Dredlinton stumbled to the fireplace, found the bell and pressed it violently.  A gleam of reassurance came to him.

“My servants shall hear you repeat that!” he exclaimed.  “I will have them all in to witness your confession.  You are pleading guilty to a crime!  I shall send out for the police!  I shall hand you over from here!”

“Not a bad idea,” Wingate acknowledged.  “By the by, though,” he added, a moment or two later, “your servants don’t seem in a great hurry to answer that bell.”

Dredlinton pressed it more violently than ever.  By listening intently both men could hear its faraway summons.  But nothing happened.  The house itself seemed empty.  There was not even the sound of a footfall.

“You will really have to change your servants,” Wingate continued.  “Fancy not answering a bell!  They must hear it pealing away.  Still, you have the telephone.  Why not ring up Scotland Yard direct?”

Dredlinton, dazed now with terror, took his fingers from the bell and snatched up the telephone receiver.  All the time his eyes were riveted upon his companion’s, their weak depths filled with a nameless horror.

“Quick!” he shouted down the receiver.  “Scotland Yard!  Put me straight through to Scotland Yard!—­Can you hear me, Exchange?  I am Lord Dredlinton, 1887 Mayfair.  If I am cut off, ring through to Scotland Yard yourself.  Tell them I am in danger of my life!  Tell them to rush here at once!”