Storm got his answer in about ten minutes, and then he set down the receiver and whistled musically, strolling up and down the room. The expression on his face made it unnecessary for Mr. Teal to ask any questions. The Triangle had scored again, right under their noses. The fake van must have been waiting for just such an emergency, and the Apex had had all the odds in his favour--he had heard Storm and Teal come, heard their plans, and was already tapped in on the telephone to waylay their message and send a totally different one along to his confederates. The luck of the game had been his down to the last milligramme. "The only consolation is that the Press won't hear about our wiped eyes," said Teal gloomily, and Storm stopped whistling to grin. "Don't bet on it," he recommended. "The Triangle might mail a graphic account to all the News Agencies. If I were the Apex, and I'd scooped the kitty like that with a pair of deuces, I'll say I'd sing about it!" It took a lot to upset Storm. The inevitable cigarette lofted heavenwards between his smiling lips, his hands were deep in his pockets--that boyish enthusiasm, which nothing could damp, shone in his eyes. It was an attribute of his which, delightful in the ordinary way, could be incredibly aggravating in moments of stress, and Inspector Teal glared at him moodily. _Zzzzzzing! ... Zzzzzzing-zing! ..._ Through the other flat the hall bell jingled shrilly. "One rings!" said Storm brightly. "Teal, be a good boy and come greet the visitor!" He went through to answer the door, Teal following. As he flung it wide the corridor light outside showed up a stumpy, rotund form surmounted by a chubby pink face which split in a jovial beam as it recognised the two men who stood in the hall surveying it. Teal reached out a languid arm and took the newcomer by the wrist, drawing him inside and kicking the door shut behind him. "Come right in, Uncle Joe," said Mr. Teal with savage cordiality. "Come right in and open your sweet heart to old Uncle Claud Eustace. He wants to hear a little fairy tale about loud-speaking telephones!" CHAPTER XIX NCl3 Joe Blaythwayt waddled into the sitting-room. He turned and gaped at the detective. "Loud Speaking Telephones?" he repeated in an awed whisper. "My dear sir--my Very Dear Sir--I--er--I--I--I----" His fishlike mouth closed with a smack. "Why, what a coincidence! Finding you here, I mean. I didn't know you were friends of Jimmy's." A gargantuan grin overspread Teal's homely features with the slow ponderous momentum of an incoming tide. Jimmy; James Norman Mattock. The connection with Joan Sands had eluded Mr. Teal, but now it had been suggested to him his mind invested it with all the immutable actuality of proven fact. The truth sounds almost sacrilegious, but it is that Claud Eustace Teal, flushed with the joy of discovery, was composing a little song on the lines of a well-known nursery rhyme. It ran something like this--