Chapter 18

Obedient to a power which, seemingly entering at the ear, proceeded thence through every tortured nerve of his person, rendering him helpless, inert, down dropped the big, hulking figure. It chanced that none was there to see. Yet the exhibition was an odd one. “Repeat, after me, ‘I humbly beg, sir——’” “Police!” gasped the man, and strove to get at O’Hagan with his hands. Abruptly he dropped them; his big face grew livid. The Captain, holding the ear in that vice-grip, had merely turned it slightly backward. The ma…