Poke Compton’s office was little more than a large cupboard adjacent to the bar. It contained a roll-top desk, a couple of questionable chairs, and an electric wall clock designed to resemble a frying pan. The hands of this clock were now accurately registering twenty-two minutes after eight.
Packed into the room’s stale stuffiness were Buran, Henry, and six of Buran’s men who had been alerted by telephone from Brandgwyn and ordered to get to Compton’s quietly—no sirens, not even a use of the interrupted-red-lights.
Buran’s problem, as he saw it, was as nasty, as delicately tricky a one as you could face. Nothing about it was positive to work on beyond the fact of Miss Gilland’s danger. As a result the situation had to be assumed at its possible worst.
Mrs. Millay was its dynamite. He h
