'Let's ask Harbor. Harbor,' shouted Hemming, coming across the store, while a further reinforcement of half a dozen police officers poured in at the door. 'Where is he?'
They discovered David grovelling on his knees, looking particularly white about the gills.
'Felt a little upset,' he explained lamely. 'What's happened? Have you taken the Russians?'
There was little doubt but that he had actually lost consciousness while the officers were discussing matters, and now was puzzled to know what they had been doing. Hemming helped him to his feet and looked sharply at his lodger. He wondered what had caused David to fall to the floor, and never guessed the reason.
'Too much excitement, perhaps,' he thought 'Anyway, we'll give him a draft. Here, Sergeant, some sal volatile for this youngster.'
They mixed the stuff before his face, and David drained the glass at a gulp.
'They're upstairs right enough,' said the sergeant. 'I heard 'em a moment ago. How are they placed? Give us an idea as to how we can get at them? Suppose they're armed?'
The young fellow, looking so exceedingly pale still, took the officer by the sleeve and led him into the lift. Then he switched on the light and invited him to inspect the roof.
'Goodness! There are a dozen holes, bullet holes. And--blood on the floor. Whose? Yours?'
He swung round on David instantly, and like Hemming treated him to a very critical stare.
'A mere nothing,' said our hero, somewhat feebly, smiling all the same.
'Done already,' came the prompt answer. 'I placed the men as soon as we heard there was an alarm.'
'Put two at the entrance to the basement staircase, and send two more down to the large cupboard with its back to the wall--here's the key. Let them go through the hole these burglars entered by, at the back of the cupboard, and learn what happened there, whose premises they are, and all that.'
'He's like an officer,' cried the sergeant. 'Hole in the wall! You don't mean to say these fellows broke through from outside premises, and cloaked the entrance by means of a cupboard? That looks like an inside accomplice.'
'He's there,' said David promptly, jerking his finger at the form lying amid the debris of broken glass and the contents of the overturned case. 'Henricksen we knew him as; from the jewellery department. Sergeant, there's a steel flap on the outside of the fire doors I closed on those Russians. Second floor, don't forget. A man might see them through it. Then we might rush them through the door or get at them by the lift.'
