So the day passed. They lunched together and dined together. In the

intervals they walked upon the sunny front, for the weather was

perfect and the sun shone as it only shines at Brighton. Madame, I am

quite sure, did not sit upon the sand. It appears also that they

visited a succession of picture houses. Madame declares that she is

fascinated by this form of entertainment; the variety and rapid

movement delight her--as I admit they do my dull self--and she deeply

enjoys the blatant crudity of cinematic drama. "It is so entirely

unlike life that it transports one to another world," says she. "Here

in this strange visionary world of the pictures one lives in a

maelstrom of emotions. Boys and girls meet, embrace, and marry all

within the space of a few minutes upon the screen and of an hour or

two of dramatic action. Children are conceived and born by some

lightning process which it would be a happiness for the human kind to

learn. Heroes die while strong men bare their heads in grief, and ten

minutes later the corpse is capering joyously in a new piece. By

attending three or four houses in one afternoon one sups upon emotions

and feeds without restraint upon rich, satisfying laughter. Yes, _mon

ami_, I love the cinema. Rust did not, I think, greatly interest

himself in the pictures, but was happy in the darkness--holding my

hand."

She laughed as I broke into growls. "Is it not, _mon cher_" she went

on, "that the cinemas will always be most popular--however dull may be

the pictures--so long as boys and girls, men and women, who love,

desire to fondle one another's hands in the dark?"

"You and Rust did not love one another," I grunted.

"No. We were not the real thing, but we made ourselves into quite a

plausible imitation."

Madame pursued her programme with indefatigable ardour and patience.

She impressed again and again upon Rust's imagination a picture of

herself sleeping unprotected, in a room not far distant from his own,

while beneath her pillow reposed a paper precious and mysterious

beyond words to describe. She even hinted that a dread of fire, from

which she always suffered when sleeping at hotels, forbade the locking

of her door. "I am not afraid to die," said she, "for what have I to

bind me to life now that I can never visit the spot where repose the

shattered fragments of my beloved Capitaine Guilbert? But to be

burned, helpless, while rescue was cut off from me by a locked door! I

shrink from so terrible a fate." Subtlety, she had discovered, was

thrown away upon the obtuseness of Rust. She was compelled to be

brutally plain, and so she drove into his thick head the tempting fact

that nothing interposed during the hours of darkness between his eager

hands and the paper which she had taught him to covet. If she awoke

and mistook his motives--if she thought that he had ventured into her

room with designs upon her honour--Rust felt sure that her kind heart

would forgive him, by breakfast-time, though she would certainly

dismiss him from her bedside with the most haughty of reproaches. If

he could not find some other way before they separated for the night,

he had almost decided to essay the venture. She slept very soundly,

said Madame; she had not awakened in her _appartement_ in Paris upon

one night when a bomb from a Prussian aeroplane had exploded within

two hundred yards of her house. Another way was still possible, and

Rust, while he was dressing for dinner, determined to try it; it was a

way, too, which thrilled him with pleasurable anticipation.

At dinner Madame declined champagne, which she said was a poor, feeble

drink. Let them for once share a bottle of sparkling Burgundy, a royal

wine, the Wine of Courage. The patron brought them the bottle himself,

and lamented that they would not indulge themselves in a second.

Madame had no desire that Rust should, under its influence, become too

enterprising. The evening was warm, and afterwards they moved into the

pleasant garden behind the hotel and sat together in a quiet corner.

Other guests were in the garden, but it had become tacitly agreed

among them that Madame and Rust--the "dear French things"--should be

permitted to console one another in seclusion. No one could perceive

that the black-sleeved arm of Rust had found a happy resting-place

around Madame's black-covered waist, or that her glowing head was not

far from his shoulder. Her Paris evening frock was cut low, though

never by the fraction of an inch would Madame permit her _couturier_

to exceed the limits of perfect taste. Looking down over her shoulder

Rust could see, protruding from the white lace below her bodice, the

corner of a paper. She talked little. It seemed to give her pleasure

to lean against his shoulder and dreamily, half asleep, to rest there

reposefully like a tired child. "But, _mon ami"_ said Madame to me in

relating these tender details with the greatest satisfaction, "I was

very wide awake indeed."

Rust eyed that corner of paper and waited without speaking until his

companion should become almost unconscious of his movements. Then

gently he moved his right arm from her waist and placed it over her

shoulder. She moved slightly, but it was only to nestle more closely

against him. His dangling fingers moved little by little towards the

opening of her corsage, they descended, and with his thumb and

forefinger he gripped the paper. Madame did not move her body nor, to

Rust, did she seem to suspect his intentions. But her right arm lifted

slowly up, she gently grasped his hand in hers, pressed it kindly for

a moment, and then, still holding it, removed his arm from her

shoulder to her waist. "Your coat sleeve scratches my shoulder," she

murmured. Rust, who had instantly released the paper when Madame took

his hand, never again got an opportunity of touching it, for she kept

her arm pressed over his during the whole time that they sat together.

"I gave him the chance," explained Madame to me, "and it worked

beautifully. But once was enough. From that moment I became really

suspicious of Rust. Before I had only been puzzled. What he was I

could not guess, but I was dead set on finding out before the night

was over. Till then I had allowed only little freedoms, but when I

rose to go into the hotel and he bent over me I let him kiss me on my

lips. It was a severe disappointment, that kiss," added Madame

contemplatively.

"Spare me the loathsome details," said I crossly.

When at last Madame Gilbert went to her room she was smiling gaily and

showing no signs of fatigue at the tiresome exercises of the day.

Though it was approaching midnight the faithful Marie was waiting to

assist her toilet. "Ah, madame," sighed Marie in her frank Parisienne

fashion, "le Capitaine is so beautiful and devoted. He regards you as

one who would devour. I marvel that you have the heart to separate

from him."

"Marie," said Madame, laughing, "you are a naughty girl, a corrupter

of my youthful morals. I am afraid that _le bon Capitaine_ must go

hungry. For--" and then she pranced off upon that wearisome old story

about the blown-up Territorial bore of _le Grand Couronné_. Fidelity

to the scattered corpse of a husband--_un mari assommant, mon Dieu,

pas un amant joyeux_!--seemed to Marie the most wasted of emotions.

She, in common with all the other Frenchmen and women in the hotel,

was an ardent partisan of Captain Rouille.

"If my bell rings in the night, come quickly, Marie," said Madame, as

she dismissed the girl. "I shall need you _à la grande vitesse_."

Madame slipped the seductive paper and something else under her

pillow, saw that the electric and the light switch were close to her

hand upon the bedside table, and snuggled down contentedly. "The trap

is set and baited," she murmured; "I hope that the bird will not keep

me waiting."

An hour passed slowly. Rust has told me little of his feelings, but

admitted that he was in the "devil of a funk." He had determined to

make a daring shot at the paper and the solution of Madame's identity,

but he shivered at the prospect of her wrath should she awake and

catch him in the act. "She would have thought the worst of me, and,

like you, Copplestone, I cherish her beautiful friendship as the most

precious of privileges. On my honour I was only after the paper."

Madame found the waiting time very tedious, but I am sure that her

pulse did not quicken by a beat. She has a wonderful nerve.

At one o'clock, when the hotel was very quiet, and the boot-cleaner

had made his round of collection, Madame heard the handle of her door

move and the door itself push slowly open. Through her partly closed

eyes she saw the momentary flash of an electric torch with which Rust

took his bearings, and then she felt, rather than saw or heard, a

figure draw gently towards her bed. Her right hand was under the

pillow grasping that something, not the paper, which she had laid

there in readiness. Rust approached, bent over her, and his fingers

felt for the pillow. They touched her hair, and she knew that the

moment for action had come. Out stretched her arm, holding the pistol

well clear of his body, for she was loath to hurt him, and a sharp

report within a couple of feet of his side frightened Rust more

thoroughly than had the hottest of "crumps" in Flanders. He sprang

away, and darted for the door; but in an instant the lights went up,

and a loud, commanding voice--utterly unlike Madame's soft musical

social tones--called to him to halt. "Halt!" cried Madame in English.

"Right about turn! 'Shun!" The familiar words of command brought him

round in prompt obedience, and there before him he saw Madame Gilbert

sitting up in her bed, pointing a most business-like automatic pistol

straight for his heart. Her hand held it true, without a quiver, and

along the sights glittered an eye remorseless as blue steel. This was

a woman wholly different from that kindly yielding creature whom he

had embraced and kissed a couple of hours earlier!

"You will please stand quite still," said Madame, speaking the

slightly tinged Irish-English of her birth, "for if I shoot, le

Capitaine Rouille will be no more. See! Upon my dressing-table behind

you is a small vase supporting a rose. I will cut off its stem," She

quickly moved the pistol, and fired. "You may turn round." He obeyed,

and saw that the vase was unbroken, but that the rose, cut off at the

stem, lay upon the dressing-table. Behind it appeared a bullet-hole in

the plaster of the wall.

Madame flicked the spent cartridge off her counterpane, where it had

fallen upon ejection, and resumed. "I have rung the bell, and in a

moment there will be a most interested audience. You will then please

explain what brings you to my bedroom."

He had faced round towards her again, and his poor mind was a blank.

The situation was too big for him. He had fallen into a trap, but why

it had been set he could not guess. Who was this calmly capable,

straight-shooting widow who, with the copper hair falling over her

shoulders and streaming down the front of her dainty nightdress,

appeared in action even more lovely than in repose?

The first to arrive was Marie, then followed another _femme de

chambre_, then came the night porter, then the boot-collector, last,

with eyes opened wide at the surprising spectacle of a beautiful young

woman receiving her lover at the point of a pistol, appeared _monsieur

le patron_ himself. They clustered in a group by the door. "I think,"

said Madame serenely, "that we have enough. Marie, the house is full;

shut the door and lock it." The order was obeyed. "Now," went on the

commanding voice from the bed, using French for the effective shutting

out of the English boot-cleaner and night porter, "if you men will

turn your backs, and Marie will hand me my dressing-gown, I will

prepare myself for the examination of Monsieur le Capitaine Rouille.

It is not seemly that a court of inquiry should be conducted in a

nightdress."

The men turned round, or were pushed round. Marie--gasping with wonder

at the whole incredible business, so unlike that which she had

suggested--brought the silk dressing-gown and robed Madame, who

skipped out of bed for the purpose. Then the fair _juge

d'instruction,_ wrapped to the neck in blue silk, and looking prettier

than ever, propped herself upon the pillows and opened the court.

"Captain Rouille," ordered she in French, "please tell these others

why you came to my bedroom."

I regret to record that Marie and the other girl looked towards one

another and sniggered. The patron lifted up his hands in amazement.

_Mon Dieu_, what a question! The two English servants did not

understand French.

Rust said nothing. Madame, who had observed the excusable

misunderstanding of her French audience, condescended to explain. "I

am sure," she said, "that Captain Rouille will not suggest that his

visit was designed to attack my honour."

"_Quelle dame extraordinaire_!" moaned the patron. "_C'est

incroyable la sangfroid de celle-là."_

"Of course not," cried Rust, speaking for the first time. "Never would

I have dared to think of such a thing. Madame Gilbert is a lady of the

highest virtue. It was not to compromise her that I entered her room."

"The man," groaned the patron, "is no less extraordinary than the

woman. Why in God's name this pistol, this scene so public! They are

lovers, beyond doubt, yet they spring upon my hotel this scene of the

most scandalous. It is not the way of France; I do not understand such

goings on."

Madame drew a paper from her bed, and held it up. "Was it for this

that you came?"

"Yes," said Rust, "for that and that only."

"_Un billet doux_" said the patron, playing without design the part of

a bewildered chorus, "Why should not madame have given it to him if

she wished to write that which she was too modest to say?"

"Why did you want it?"

"What more natural," cried the patron, "than that the brave captain

should be eager to read the sweet confession of your love?" Madame

missed not a word which dribbled from the lips of the poor, puzzled

patron, who contributed the comic sauce which titillated her humorous

palate. The patron to her was a sheer joy.

"Why did you want it?" repeated Madame sternly.

"Because," said Rust, "you said that it contained the most important

of secrets."

"What have you to do with secrets which concern the fate of nations at

war?"

"Nations! War!" muttered the patron. "What words are these to find

upon the lips of lovers? By now they should, had they not both been

quite mad, have forgotten war in their mutual embraces."

Rust was silent, considering what he should say. He had not the wit to

invent a plausible story, and to such men there is only one safe

rule--when in doubt, tell the truth. He told the truth.

"I wanted that paper because I am a member of the Secret Service."

"Of Germany?" snapped Madame, flashing violet lightning from her eyes.

Sensation! The two French women broke into screams of rage, dreadful

to hear; the patron raised his clenched hands, and roared like a

furious beast. Rust, a brave man, shrank for a long, startled moment.

His flesh quivered, as if it felt fierce French nails fasten into it.

He saw the blood-lust flame in the eyes which searched his face. He

trembled, but spoke up firmly.

"No. The Secret Service of England."

"Liar!" roared the patron. "_Menteur! Espion_! Foul seducer of a

desolate _veuve de France_! Die, traitor! Madame, raise your pistol;

shoot--shoot instantly for the honour of France!" The man, a fat,

comfortable bourgeois, was transfigured with frightful, murderous

rage. He had become a figure almost heroic.

But Madame did not shoot. In ten seconds her swift brain had recalled

the whole series of incidents during her commerce with Rust; she

penetrated to the heart of the mystery, and immediately became

convinced that he spoke the truth.

"No," said she. "_Monsieur le patron_ and you, _mes demoiselles_,

cease your cries. You do the brave Capitaine Rouille a very grave

injustice for which you must pray his forgiveness _sur le champ_. He

is a soldier of France, and of our noble Allies, the English. He is an

officer of the English Secret Service. The mistake was mine, for

which, _mon capitaine_, I implore your pardon."

She lay back in her bed, and the laughter poured out of her in one

unbroken flood. She laughed until she became weak as a baby, for the

idiotic comedy which they two had played--at the expense of the

British Treasury--was beyond any other means of expression. Rust, who

began to grasp something of the truth, also broke into a laugh, and

the amusement of the principals brought instant conviction to the

audience. The repentance of those who had thirsted for Rust's blood a

moment since was very pleasant to witness. The women begged permission

to kiss his brave hands, which had slain the foul Boches, and the

patron cast his burly person upon Rust's pyjama-clad bosom and saluted

him on both cheeks. He had a stiff, hard beard!

"And now," cried the patron, "this scene, so deplorable and

scandalous, is happily ended. Our beautiful Madame and the brave

captain, their mistakes and misunderstandings removed, are again

lovers of the fondest. Let us go, my friends, and leave them to

forgive one another as they will desire to do in decent privacy.

_Allons, allons, vite_!"

He drove away the boot-collector and the night porter, who had not

understood one word of the quick French which had been spoken. They

explained the scene satisfactorily to themselves by the one word,

"French." The women would also have gone if Madame, who was still

laughing, had not hastily recalled Marie.

"Marie," she whispered, spluttering with cheerful impropriety, "lead

that captain away and lock him into his room or my reputation is gone

for ever. Take Rouille away, and then leave me, for I want to laugh

and then to sleep."

But Rust, blushing deeply at the preposterous closing of the scene,

had sneaked quietly out of the room.

* * * * *

They met at breakfast without embarrassment. At least Madame was

perfectly tranquil; I cannot answer so surely for Rust. In the eyes of

the little world of the hotel nothing had been changed. They retained

their assumed characters as a Widow and Soldier of France, who

consorted with the freedom of old friends.

"So," said Madame, when all had been explained, "you were put on by

our dear, fiery Froissart, and I by the dear, secretive Dawson. We

blundered up against one another, and the rest followed naturally. You

were such an one as I looked for, and I was of the kind pictured by

the imaginative Froissart. It has all been most amusing, especially

when one reflects that the English Government has paid for all our

delightful lunches, teas, dinners, and motor runs. I doubt, though,

whether we can with easy consciences send in the bill for this

week-end."

"No. We will divide the cost between ourselves, for I am sure that you

will refuse to be my guest. All I ask is that you do not cut our

holiday the shorter on account of what has passed."

"Not by an hour," replied Madame heartily. "I like you, Captain Rust;

we will enjoy ourselves to-day as colleagues _en vacance_, and

to-morrow we will report at headquarters. We will leave Dawson and

Froissart to sort out the responsibility for the whole comedy. It has

been a most pleasing experience. Never shall I forget that scene of

last night and the bewilderment of the poor patron. His comments were

a delight, and the conclusion was so purely French in its artless

conception that I felt for your innocent blushes."

"The patron was the limit," muttered Rust, flushing deeply.

"He was. And yet no one could convince him that the reconciliation so

desired by him was not the most natural and decorous for us. I am

still sore with excessive laughter. Again and again in the night I

woke up and simply bellowed."

The Sunday was again a very fine day, and Rust speaks of it still with

enthusiasm. Madame revealed herself to him, no longer as the seductive

siren, but as a true-hearted colleague and helper. He saw her not only

as a beautiful and most compelling fascinator, before whom he had

grovelled, but as a big-brained and big-souled friend. "She is the

only woman whom I have ever met with whom I would go tiger-shooting,"

said Rust to me. I will accept that one sentence as his considered

verdict; no greater tribute could be paid by a man to a woman.

At first he did not fully grasp that the Madame of that Sunday, the

real Madame, was wholly different from the one he had known before. As

they sat together upon the cliffs towards Rottingdean, he slipped his

arm about her waist. Gently, but very decidedly, she removed it. "No,

_mon ami_," said she. "All that has passed with the necessity for its

exercise. I do not play with my friends."

"Thank you," replied he--it was the brightest speech which Madame has

recorded of him. There is hope that Rust will, with years and

experience, develop in intelligence.

When Madame returned to London on the Monday, she sought an audience

of Chief Inspector Dawson, and told the whole story. He was not

pleased, but handsomely conceded that she had carried out her duties

with skill and enterprise. "The farce was not your fault," said he;

"it was entirely due to that French ass Froissart, who has no right to

play games of his own without consulting me. I will make a protest to

the Chief."

"Don't do that," urged Madame. "Froissart is rather a dear, and you

know that the fault was partly yours, for not taking him into your

confidence. I have determined to cultivate Froissart, and shall

endeavour to persuade him that your feminine assistants are not all of

microscopic intelligence and of repulsive appearance."

"You will succeed," said Dawson handsomely.

Froissart, to whom Rust reported, gleaned some consolation from the

failure of his agent. "This wonder of a woman, of whom I must

instantly make the honourable acquaintance, has saved the detested

Dawson from the deeps of humiliation. But we have scored off him most

surely. He has shown himself to be a blundering, conceited English

pig, and I will protest to the Chief that never again must he keep me

in ignorance of his projects. I shall laugh at him; all our people

here will laugh. I shall be revenged. _Conspuez_ Dawson!"

"Don't be too hard on Dawson," urged Rust. "Madame Gilbert thinks a

lot of him, and would be pained if he suffered discredit through any

fault of hers."

"Fault!" shouted the gallant Froissart. "_La belle Madame_ is _sans

faute_, peerless, a prodigy of skill and discretion! She is superb. If

she implores me to spare the man Dawson, then I will consent, though

my heart is rent in fragments. As for you, _mon ami_, I fear that in

her hands you were not a figure of admiration. She twisted you about

her pretty fingers like a skein of wool. I do not think that you are,

what you call, cut out for the Secret Service."

"That is quite my own opinion," assented he gloomily.

PART III

_TO SEE IS TO BELIEVE_

CHAPTER XII

DAWSON PRESCRIBES

The mind of Dawson has the queerest limitations. He is entirely free

from any sense of proportion. If I wrote of those incidents which he

pressed upon me, this book would be intolerably dull. He sees no

interest in any episode which is not Dawson, Dawson, all the time. The

emotion which was aroused in the hearts of Cary and myself by

Trehayne's letter caused Dawson no small anxiety. He feared lest in

rendering this episode I should turn the limelight upon Trehayne and

leave the private of Marines in the shadows. Which is precisely what I

have done. From his "sick bed" he sent me a letter explaining that his

own honourable weakness of sympathy with an enemy spy was physical,

not moral--reprehensible failing induced by lack of sleep. He laboured

to convince me that the spirit of Dawson in the full flush of health

was of a frightfulness wholly Prussian in its logical completeness.

But I smiled, went my own way, and Dawson, when he comes to read this

book, can swear as loudly as he pleases.

If I had depended only upon Dawson, I should never have secured the

details of the story which I am about to write. It was Froissart who

first put me upon the track of it during one of those visits which I

paid to him when I was investigating _l'affaire_ Rust. Froissart, in

imaginative insight, is as much superior to Dawson as the average

Frenchman is to the average Englishman. But in execution he admits

sorrowfully that he cannot hold a candle to his brutal secretive

English chief. "I have genius," exclaimed Froissart, "of which the

sacred dog Dawson has not a particle. I know not whence come his

ideas, the most penetrative. It cannot be from _son Esprit_ of which

he has none; his brain reposes, without doubt, in his stomach. Yet,

_ma foi_, that man whom I detest and to whom I am a colleague most

loyal, is of a practical ingenuity most wonderful. Did you ever learn

how he hid the great cruisers _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ from the

watching eyes of the Boche, and won, here in England, a glorious

victory for the English Navy, eight thousand miles away? I was with

him, and at the end, falling upon his bosom in generous admiration, I

kissed him on both cheeks. And what was my reward? It was to receive a

short-arm blow upon the diaphragm. That man of mud took my wind, as he

called it, and I was laid gasping upon the floor. It was in this

fashion that he repulsed me--me a Count of _l'ancien régime_. I could

have his blood."

I soothed Froissart, and extracted enough from him in rapid French

spasms--his idiomatic staccato French is often beyond my

understanding--to give me a general idea of what Dawson had done.

Thereafter I pursued my inquiries, pumping Dawson himself--who, for

some reason, did not greatly value the affair--tackling others who

knew more than they were always willing to tell, even to me their

friend. Yet in many ways, of which it were well not to be particular,

I arrived at the full story which I now tell. To my mind it shows

Dawson at his best, and Dawson's best is very good indeed.

* * * * *

It was early in November, three months after war had begun. Dawson, to

whom had been committed the general supervision of all known enemy

spies in London, and who had already put in force that combination of

tight net and loose string which I have described, received a summons

from his Chief the moment he arrived at his office at the Yard. "You

are wanted at the Admiralty," said the Commissioner--"and wanted

badly. You are to report at once in the First Lord's private room."

"What is the game?" inquired Dawson. "I have lots to do here which I

cannot well leave."

"I don't know. But I have orders to send you, and to relieve you from

all other duties. If you want help, you can take Froissart, that

French detective who has just been sent to us from Paris as a sort of

liaison officer. He is strongly recommended as a first-class man."

"Hum," said Dawson, between whom and his Chief was a very close

friendship. "I suppose I must toddle round and see what the little man

wants this time. Last month he had secret wireless installations on

the brain."

Dawson found the First Lord striding up and down his big room. All

round the walls were set great maps bristling with pins to which were

attached numbered labels. Each pin represented a ship, and each ship

was obedient to an order flashed from the big aerials overhead. Here

was the Holy of Holies, the nerve ganglion of the English Navy, and

here, striding up and down, the man who could jab the nerve-centre

with his finger whenever he pleased. He often pleased. Then he would

gloat over the pins as they skipped about the maps.

Chief Inspector Dawson was announced, and stood to attention.

"Ha!" cried the First Lord, "so you are Dawson, the Master of Spies.

We need you, Dawson; the country needs you; I need you. You have a

great chance this day to show your quality, Dawson. Those of whom I

approve, I advance. They become great men. Am I to approve of you?"

Dawson observed that he could not well say until he learned what was

wanted of him.

"Ha!" cried the First Lord again, "you are a man of few words. I like

those with me who do not talk. When there is talking to be done--well,

I can do a little in that line myself. Among my instruments I demand

silence."

Dawson said nothing. The First Lord struck a bell; a servant in blue

uniform appeared. "Will you please tell his lordship that Chief

Inspector Dawson is here, and that I await his presence."

The man retired and presently returned. "His lordship is in his room

making out the orders for the Fleet. He bids me say that he is quite

at your service."

The First Lord flushed, and glanced hurriedly at Dawson, who stood at

attention, stolid, silent, immovable. It would seem that he read

nothing in the message.

"The Mountain is old and stiff in his joints," remarked the First Lord

playfully. "When he settles into his chair, it would take a bomb to

lift him out. We are young and active; we must consider the

infirmities of age. Mahomet will go to the Mountain, and you will

please to follow."

Mahomet, swinging his long coat-tails, strode out of the room and down

a passage, whence they emerged into another room also set about with

pin-studded maps.

"Ha!" said the First Lord, "as you would not come to us, we have

unbent our dignity and come to you. This is Chief Inspector Dawson."

"So I supposed," growled the grizzled old man, who sat at a big desk

upon which was piled many flimsies. It was the great Lord Jacquetot,

who for all his French name was English of the English.

"Will you explain to Mr. Dawson what we want of him or shall I?"

inquired the First Lord. Lord Jacquetot rose from his chair, showing

nothing of the infirmities of age. He approached Dawson, looked over

him keenly, and said, "You don't look like a civilian policeman. Where

have you served?"

Dawson explained that he had in former days been a Red Marine.

"I thought as much," said Jacquetot. "There is no mistaking the back

and shoulders of them. Once a Pongo, always a Pongo." He held out his

hand, which Dawson shook diffidently. An ex-private of Marines does

not often shake the hand of a First Sea Lord.

Lord Jacquetot walked over to one of the maps and beckoned to Dawson

to follow. The First Lord hovered in the background, ready to put in a

word at the first opportunity.

"There has been a serious naval disaster in the South Seas," said

Jacquetot, "and we must clean up the mess, pretty damn quick. The news

came yesterday. Orders were wired at once that two battle-cruisers,

the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_, should be sent at full speed from

Scotland to Devonport to dock, coal, and complete with stores. To keep

them outside the enemy's observation, and to avoid any risk of mines

or submarines in the Irish Channel, they have been sent far out round

the west coast of Ireland. Here they are; we get messages from them

every hour." He indicated two pins. Just then a messenger entered and

handed to the First Sea Lord a wireless flimsy. Jacquetot read it,

slipped a scale along the map, took out the two pins, and shifted them

further south. "They are going well," said he; "doing twenty-five

knots. They should be off Plymouth Sound by to-morrow evening."

"It is a long way," put in Dawson, deeply interested. "Fifteen hundred

miles."

"There or thereabouts. The coast lights are all out, so that they will

steer a bit wide. They should do it in sixty hours."

"I gave the order within thirty minutes of getting the news of the

disaster," remarked the First Lord, smacking his lips.

Jacquetot made no reply, though his eyes hardened and his mouth drew

into a stiff line. It was his province to give Orders to the Fleet.

"Those battle-cruisers," went on Lord Jacquetot, addressing Dawson,

"will go into dock at Devonport as soon as they arrive. They will be

there forty-eight hours at least. They must be clean ships before they

go through the hot tropical water if their speed is to be kept up.

They have gun power, but power without speed is useless for the work

which they have to do. After leaving England it will be a month before

the Squadron, of which they are to form the chief part, will be

concentrated in the South Seas. For two days at Devonport, and for

four weeks while at sea, there must be the completest secrecy if our

plans are to succeed. Without absolute secrecy we shall fail. The

Board of Admiralty is responsible for the sea, but not for the land.

We can make certain that no news of the despatch of these two cruisers

gets out at sea; can you, Mr. Chief Inspector Dawson, undertake that

no news gets out on land--that no whisper of their sailing reaches the

enemy by means of his spies on land?"

"It is a large order," said Dawson thoughtfully.

"It is a very large order," asserted Lord Jacquetot, frowning.

"But large or small, the thing must be done," broke in the First Lord.

"If this news gets out, and we fail to come up with the German

Squadron down south, the effect upon the public will be horrible. The

English people may even lose their perfect, their sublime, faith in

ME."

"They may lose their faith in the Navy," muttered Jacquetot.

"It is the same thing," said the First Lord.

"Can you let me know more details, my lord?" asked Dawson. "What is

the programme? I don't see at present how the arrival, docking, and

sailing of the battle-cruisers can possibly be kept secret, but there

may be a way if one could only think of it."

"If the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ arrive according to programme," said

Jacquetot, "they will not come up the Sound till after dark. Then in

the small hours they will slip into dock, and no one but the regular

dockyard hands will know that they are there. We will haul them out

also in the middle of the night, and they will be clear away by

daybreak, forty-eight hours after arrival. Coal and other stores are

on the spot in plenty, and the shells and cordite for the twelve-inch

guns can soon be got down from the Plymouth magazines. The secrecy of

the operation seems to me to turn on whether we can trust the dockyard

hands."

Dawson shook his head. "I wouldn't plump on that, my lord. There have

been enemy agents working in every dockyard in the kingdom for years

past, and we haven't spotted all of them. Still, we have our own men

working alongside of them--Scotland Yard men engaged from among the

shipbuilding trades unions--accounting for every one, so that no man

can be away from his post without our knowing and shadowing him. It is

not easy to get any information out of the country nowadays. The

secret wireless stories are all humbug. Wireless gives itself away at

once. If one wants to get news to the enemy, one has to carry it

oneself, or hire some one else to carry it. Most of that which goes we

allow to go for our own purposes. I am pretty sure that no dockyard

hand could get anything away to Holland without our knowledge, so that

it doesn't matter whether they are trustworthy or not so long as we're

not fools enough to trust them. You may not know it, but I have my own

Yard men among your messengers here in this building, and among your

clerks too."

"What!" cried the First Lord. "You don't even trust the Admiralty!"

"Least of all," said Dawson grimly. "If I was head of the German

Secret Service, I would have my own man as your private secretary."

The First Lord sat down gasping. Jacquetot nodded kindly to Dawson,

and laughed in his grim old way. "You are the man we want," said he.

"I am not thinking much of the dockyard hands," went on Dawson; "I can

look after them. They're all provided for. The danger is in the gossip

of a seaport town. I have lived in Portsmouth for years, and Plymouth

is just like it. You may take my word for it that the arrival of the

_Terrific_ and _Intrepid_ in dock at Devonport will be known all over

the Three Towns half an hour after they get there. Their mission will

be discussed in every bar, and it won't be difficult to make a pretty

useful guess. Here is a disaster in the South Seas--which will be

published all over the country by to-morrow morning--and here are two

of our fastest battle-cruisers summoned in hot haste from Scotland to

be cleaned and loaded for a long voyage. Any child, let alone a

longshoreman, could put the two things together. 'So the _Intrepid_

and _Terrific_ are off to the South Seas to biff old Fritz in the

eye.' That is what they will say in the Three Towns where there must

be hundreds of men--British subjects, too, the swine, and many of them

natural born--who would take risks to shove the news through to

Holland if they could get enough dirty money for it. Our worst spies

are not German, you bet; they are Irish and Scotch and Welsh and

English. That's where our difficulties come in. I am not afraid of the

dockyards, but the gossip of the Three Towns gives me the creeps."

"Then what can we possibly do?" wailed the First Lord, who saw his

prospect of a brilliant coup wilt away like a fair mirage. "The secret

will get out, our plans will fail, and MY Administration, my beautiful

Administration, will have to stand the racket. How shall I defend

myself in the House?"

"That won't matter much to the country," put in Jacquetot bluntly.

"What matters, is that we should do everything possible to keep the

secret in spite of all the inherent difficulties. Sit down, Mr.

Dawson, and do some hard thinking."

"I prefer to stand, my lord. When I want to think I do a bit of

sentry-go."

"So do I!" exclaimed the First Lord. "All my most famous speeches were

composed while I walked up and down my dressing-room before my--" He

broke off hastily, but as neither Jacquetot nor Dawson were listening,

he might have completed the sentence without revealing the secrets of

his looking-glass.

"May I speak my mind, my lords?" asked Dawson.

"It is what you are here for," replied Jacquetot.

"I always work on certain general principles. They apply here. People

will talk; that is certain. If one doesn't want them to talk about

something really important, one puts up something else conspicuous,

harmless, and exciting to occupy their minds. In your politics"

--turning to the First Lord with an air of simplicity--"when

you've made a thorough mess of governing England, and don't want to be

found out, you set the people fighting about Home Rule for Ireland. I

don't mean you, sir, but politicians generally."

"Quite so," said the First Lord, blinking.

"Well, see here. We don't want any talk about the _Intrepid_ and

_Terrific_. So, before they arrive, we must give the people of the

Three Towns a real titbit of excitement. Battle-cruisers come to dock

in Devonport quite often when they are damaged. Two battle-cruisers

which had been mined or submarined, one towing the other, would be a

pretty picture in the Sound. It would set all the folk talking for

days, and no one would think that two damaged cruisers had anything to

do with the South Seas. Everybody would say, 'What cruel luck. If the

_Terrific_ and _Intrepid_ hadn't got blown up they would be just right

and handy to send down south. As it is--' And then the German agents

would somehow get the news to Holland--we would help them all we could

in a quiet way--that the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_, two fast

battle-cruisers, had been nearly lost, and were being patched up at

Devonport. The Germans, hearing the glorious news, would hug

themselves and say that now was the time for the High Seas Fleet to

come out and smash Jellicoe. The last thing in their minds would be

any concentration in the south against their own Pacific Squadron.

That's how I apply my general principles to this case. Meanwhile, of

course, the _Terrific_ and _Intrepid_, well and sound, would be racing

away down to the South Seas and no one in the Three Towns--except the

dockyard hands, whom we would look after--and no one at all in

Germany, would have a glimmer of the real truth."

While Dawson was thinking aloud in this rather halting, stumbling way,

the First Lord and his chief naval colleague were looking hard at one

another. The politician, with his quick House-of-Commons wits, jumped

to the idea before his slower thinking expert colleague could sort out

the two battle-cruisers who were to be mined or submarined from the

two which were to speed away south to avenge the recent disaster.

"If the two battle-cruisers are mined or submarined--which God

forbid," said Jacquetot, "how can they sail for the south?"

"Need they be the same ships?" inquired Dawson, whose eyes had begun

to flash with excitement. "Need they be the same?"

"Don't you see?" interposed the First Lord. "The idea is quite good. I

was just about to suggest something of the kind myself when Mr. Dawson

anticipated me. That is where the mind with a wide universal training

has a great advantage over the narrow intensive intelligence of the

professional expert. Even in war. What I propose, what Mr. Dawson here

proposes with my full concurrence, is that two severely damaged

battle-cruisers, known temporarily as the _Terrific_ and _Intrepid_,

should be brought into the Sound in broad day and displayed before the

eyes of the curious in the Three Towns. The real ships will slip in,

be docked and coaled, and slip out again. The two others, upon whom

public attention has been concentrated, shall be put aground somewhere

in the Sound to be salved with great and leisurely ostentation. We

will keep them well away from the Hoe, and allow no one whatever to

approach them. We will, unofficially, allow the news of their sorry

state to get out of country and into the Dutch papers. Meanwhile, as

Mr. Dawson says, the real _Terrific_ and _Intrepid_ will be speeding

towards the south, and the saving for the nation's service of my

invaluable public reputation for accurate judgment and quick decision.

Mr. Dawson's suggestion--I should, perhaps, rather say my own

suggestion--shall be laid before the Board at once."

Though the stiff mind of Lord Jacquetot was not very quick to take in

a new idea, no man alive was better equipped for practically working

out a naval scheme. While the First Lord was assuming that sorely

damaged battle-cruisers, or vessels which could be passed off in place

of them, needed but his summons to spring from the deeps, Jacquetot

had pressed a bell and ordered a messenger to request the immediate

presence of the Fourth Sea Lord, within whose province was the whole

art and mystery of ship construction. Upon the appearance of this

officer the plan was gone over anew, and he was asked whence and

within what time he could produce two presentable dummies to do duty

in the Sound for the entertainment of the population of Plymouth,

Devonport, and Stonehouse. There were, said he, two if not three at

Portsmouth, constructed out of old cargo tramp hulls for the

mystification of the enemy. They had already done duty as newly

completed battleships, but with a little alteration to the canvas of

their funnels, the lath and plaster of their turrets and conning

towers, and the wood of their guns, they might be made into perfect

likenesses--at a distance--of the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_. The

ships' carpenters, he explained, could make the changes while the

dummies were coming round to Plymouth. Seated at the desk of Lord

Jacquetot he wrote the necessary orders in code, his Chief signed

them, and they were put at once on the wires for Portsmouth. The

sea-cocks, said the Fourth Lord, would be opened twenty miles from

land so that the "_Intrepid"_ might come in sadly down by the bows,

and the "_Terrific"_ with a list of twenty degrees, pluckily towing

her sorely crippled sister. With a chart of Plymouth Sound before

them, the two officers settled the precise spot, sufficiently remote,

yet well within sight of the Hoe, at which the two unhappy

battle-cruisers should come to rest upon the mud. "It will be a most

pathetic spectacle," said the Fourth Lord laughing, "and I will bet a

month's pay and allowances that at the distance not a man in the Three

Towns will have the smallest suspicion that the genuine

copper-bottomed _Terrific_ and _Intrepid_ are not ditched before his

blooming eyes." He rose from the table, upon which the chart had been

laid, walked over to Dawson and shook him warmly by the hand. "You

won't get any credit for the idea," he whispered. "One never does. But

it was a damned good notion. What are you going to do now?"

"I am going to Plymouth this afternoon to make sure that the German

truth gets over the water to Holland, and that the English truth stays

safely behind. If you will all do your part, I will do mine."

CHAPTER XIII

THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN

"Every man to his trade," said Dawson. "I didn't go into the

difficulties of our job to those high folks at the Admiralty, but they

are not at all small. You have a head on you, Froissart, though it has

the misfortune to be French; set it going on double shifts."

The two men were sitting in a specially reserved first-class

compartment in the Paddington-Plymouth express; as companions they

were hopelessly uncongenial, yet as colleagues formed a strong

combination in which the qualities of the one served to neutralise the

defects of the other. Dawson, in spite of his love for the Defence of

the Realm Regulations, was still sometimes unconsciously hampered by

an ingrained respect for the ordinary law and the rights of civilians;

Froissart, like all French detective officers, held the law in

contempt, and was by nature and training utterly lawless. The more

reputable a suspect, the more remorseless was his pursuit. They were,

professionally, a terrible pair who could have been passed through a

hair sieve without leaving behind a grain of moral scruple.

Froissart, when he would be at the trouble, understood and spoke

English quite well, though with me he used nothing but the raciest of

boulevard French. "My friend," said he, "your promise to those

Ministers of Marines was rash; for, unless there is the most perfect

execution of your scheme and the most sleepless watching of those whom

you call dockyard hands--_ceux qui travaillent dans les chantiers, ne

c'est pas_?--the sailing of these _grands croiseurs_ will be told to

Germany. There are too many who will know. We are upon _une folle

enterprise_--a chase of the wild goose."

"You do not know my system if you think that," remarked Dawson,

frowning.

"And if I do not, of whom is the fault?" inquired Froissart blandly;

"for, my faith, you never tell what you would be doing."

"A secret," said Dawson sententiously, "is a secret when known to one

only. If two know of it there is grave danger. If three, one might as

well shout it from the housetops. Therefore I keep my own counsel."

"That is just what I said," cried Froissart triumphantly. "If the

secret of these _grand croiseurs_ is known to one hundred, two

hundred, _le bon Dieu_ knows how many hundreds of dockyard hands, one

might as well print it in these dull English _journaux_. You attempt

the impossible, _mon ami_."

"They are Englishmen," proclaimed Dawson, who felt compelled to uphold

the character of his countrymen in the presence of a foreigner. "They

are patriots. Not a man of them would sell his country."

"I would not bank on their patriotism, my friend, when there is much

Boche gold to be won and much beer to be drunk."

"And who said that I did bank upon it?" cried Dawson testily,

forgetting his noble, words of two minutes earlier. "I wouldn't trust

one of them out of my sight. I have two dozen of my own men working

alongside of those dockyard hands, watching them by night and day. We

know if a man drinks two glasses of beer when he used to drink one,

and takes home to his wife eighteenpence above his ordinary wage. Do

you take me for a fool?"

"You'll be a bigger fool than I take you for if you do not play

straight this time with me, and tell me your plans in detail. I have

to work with you, and I cannot give service blindfold."

"You are not a bad fellow, Froissart," said Dawson thoughtfully--the

name in his mouth became Froy-zart--"and I will tell you here and now

more of my mind than I have yet shown even to the great Chief of us

all. It will take all your brains--for you have some brains--and all

of mine to keep the secret of those battle-cruisers."

* * * * *

In the morning the newspapers published the meagre details of the

disaster in the South Seas, and the Three Towns were shaken to their

foundations. For when naval ships go down, they take with them crews

of whom half have their homes in Devon. The disaster meant that eight

hundred families in the West mourned a son or a father. Ever since the

days of the Great Queen--whose name in the West is not Victoria, but

Elizabeth--Devon has paid in the lives of its best men the price of

Admiralty. The Three Towns mourned with a grief made more bitter by

the realisation that the disaster was one which never should have

happened. Bad slow English ships had been sent against good fast

German ships, and had been sunk with all hands without hurt to the

enemy. The Three Towns know the speed and power of every fighting ship

afloat, British or foreign, as you or I before the war knew the public

form of every leading golfer or cricketer. In every bar where

sailormen met one another, and met, too, the brothers and fathers of

sailormen, the Lords of the Admiralty were weighed and condemned. It

is a thing most serious when in the cradles of the Navy, Portsmouth

and the Three Towns, faith in the wisdom of Whitehall becomes shaken.

One may muzzle the Press, but no muzzle yet devised can close the

mouths of sailormen and their friends in dockyard towns.

In the afternoon of the same day, while the news of the disaster was

still fresh, there came a whisper, which gained in loudness and in

precision of detail as it passed from mouth to ear and from ear to

mouth, that the worst had not yet been told. There had been not one,

but two disasters. Two battle-cruisers, it was declared, had been sunk

in the Channel by German mines or submarines. What were their names?

inquired the white-faced women. The names were not yet known, but they

would soon come. A little later the severity of the rumour became

softened. The battle-cruisers had not, it appeared, been sunk, but

severely damaged. They were at that moment on their way to the Sound,

crippled sorely, yet afloat. Men groaned. Two battle-cruisers blown up

in the Channel; what in God's name were two battle-cruisers doing in

the mine-strewn Channel when their proper place was in one of the safe

eyries overlooking the North Sea? A plausible explanation was offered.

The two battle-cruisers had been coming to Plymouth to take in stores

that they might speed away south to avenge those other two cruisers

sunk by the Germans as had been told in the morning's papers. If this

were indeed true, the news was of the worst; England's prestige afloat

was gone. She could not spare two other whole battle-cruisers to

proceed upon a mission of vengeance to the South Seas while the

Germans' Battle Squadrons in the North Sea ports were still

undefeated. Meanwhile the Germans far away to the south could do what

they pleased; they could sink and burn our merchant steamers at will.

The command of the Pacific had passed from England to Germany, and the

White Ensign hung draggled and shamed for all the world to sneer at.

The Three Towns almost forgot their personal grief for drowned friends

in their horror at the disgrace which had come to their own sacred

Service.

It was still light, though late in the afternoon, when the anxious

watchers upon the Hoe made out, beyond Drake's Island, two big ships

coming in round the western end of the breakwater. Though deep in the

water they towered above their escort of destroyers and fast patrol

boats. The leading ship was listing badly, her tripod mast with its

spotting top hung far over to port, and she was towing stern first a

sister ship whose bows were almost hidden under water. The Three

Towns, which can recognise the outlines of warships afar off, rapidly

pronounced judgment. "That's the _Intrepid_" they declared, "and the

one she's towing is a battle-cruiser of the same class--the

_Terrific_ or _Tremendous_. They're both badly holed." "Gawd

A'mighty," cried a grizzled longshoreman, who might have sailed with

Drake or Hawkins--as no doubt his forbears had done--"look to the list

of un! And thicky with her bows down under, being towed by the stern

to keep her from swamping entire. If it worn't for them bulk'eads un

wouldn't never have made the Sound." It was plain to those who had

glasses turned on the damaged ships that they were drawing far too

much water to be brought into the Hamoaze and over the sill of the dry

dock at Devonport, so that no one felt surprise when the

battle-cruisers were seen to pull out of the deep fairway and make

towards the shore. The purpose was plain to read. They were to be put

aground under Mount Edgcumbe, patched up, and pumped dry, and then

would go into dock for repairs. It was a job of weeks, and during all

that time the Fleet would be short of two battle-cruisers which might

have swept the South Seas clear of the German Ensign. It was cruel

luck, and the Three Towns had enough to talk of to keep them occupied

for many days. Presently more news came, authentic news, and passed

rapidly from mouth to mouth. The vessels were the _Intrepid_, the

flagship of Admiral Stocky, and her sister the _Terrific_, a pair of

fast Dreadnought cruisers. They had, as was surmised, been speeding

down from Scotland to dock at Plymouth on their way to clean up the

mess made in the far South. They had come safely through the Irish Sea

and round the Land's End, but when near their journey's end off Fowey

they had run into a patch of mines laid by German submarines. The

_Terrific_ had had her bow plates ripped into slivers of ragged steel,

and the three fore compartments flooded. The _Intrepid_ had picked up

the wire of a twin mine, got caught badly on the port side, but had

luckily escaped to starboard. She had taken her crippled sister in

tow, and brought her in safely. Both ships could easily be repaired,

but it would take time. The voyage to the South Seas was off. Nothing

could have been more convincing than the story which quickly got

about; the ships had been seen and recognised by the Three

Towns--there was no concealment and no mystery. For once the Silent

Navy appeared to be talkative. The hearts of German agents in the

Towns swelled with pride and joy. Here was convincing proof of the

kindly hand of the Prussian Gott. If the great news could be carried

through to the Kaiser and von Tirpitz, there would be much ringing of

church bells in the Fatherland. But these English, since the war

began, had become very watchful, very suspicious. The problem was: how

to get the glad news through.

* * * * *

It was two o'clock in the morning and very dark. The big dry docks at

Devonport were deserted except for a few picked hands, not more than

two score at the outside, told off on night shift for special duty.

Against all workmen who had not been warned for this duty the big

gates would be closed for two whole days. There were important jobs

awaiting completion, but they must wait. One hundred and twenty men,

working in three eight-hour shifts per day--forty at a time--could do

all that was needed to the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_, and not one man

was included who had not served at Devonport for at least ten years.

Dawson had been very firm, and the Commander-in-Chief had backed him

with full authority. "Don't make any mistake," said Dawson. "Among

even one hundred and twenty, though picked in this way, there will be

some few who would sell us if they could. One would have to go back

more than ten years to weed out all those whom the Germans have

corrupted. But out of this lot there should not be more than two or

three swine, and I can look after them." He did not say that he had

already been in touch with the Scotland Yard officer at Devonport, and

had arranged that a dozen out of his precious twenty-four

counter-spies should be put among the chosen hundred and twenty.

Dawson never did allow his left hand to know the wiles of his right.

Under the thick cover of the autumn night two massive silent forms,

which had crept with all lights out into the Sound after their long

fast voyage from the northern mists, were warped into dock; the

supporting shores were fitted, and the water around them run out. Long

before the flagship _Intrepid_ stood clear and dry on the dock floor,

Dawson, in his uniform of a private of Marines--"A Marine can go

anywhere and do anything," he would say--had slipped on board and

shown the Commander credentials from the Board of Admiralty which made

that hardened officer open his eyes. "My word," exclaimed he, "you

must be some Marine! Come along quick to the Admiral." So Dawson went,

not a little nervous--the moment his foot trod the decks of a King's

ship all his assurance dropped off, his old sense of discipline flowed

back over him, and an Admiral became a very mighty potentate indeed.

Ashore Dawson could face up to the Lord Jacquetot himself; on board

ship a two-ring lieutenant was to him a god! He followed the

Commander, and was ushered into the Admiral's presence. "What!" cried

Stocky, stern in manner always, but very kindly at heart towards those

whom he found to be true men. "A private of Marines with plenary

powers from the First Lord? Take the papers off him and chuck the

damned comedian into the ditch. We have no time here for the First

Lord's humour." The Commander drew near and whispered. "What!

Authority endorsed by Jacquetot? There is something queer about this.

Look here, my fine fellow, who the devil are you? Are you a Marine, or

a too clever German spy, or what? Make haste. There is still enough

water left over the side to pitch you into without breaking your dirty

neck."

Dawson knew his man. He had served in the same ship with Stocky when

that officer had been a lieutenant; he had waited upon him in the

wardroom. He had felt the rasp of his tongue in old days. He

approached, and without saying a word handed the letters given him by

the First Lord and Jacquetot, adding his official card. The Admiral

read the papers slowly and came at last to the card. Then his frowning

brows softened, and he smiled. It was the old smile of Lieutenant

Stocky. "Why, it's Dawson who was my servant in the old _Olympus_; now

Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard. That explains all. But why the hell,

man, do you dress up as a Marine?"

"Once a Marine, always a Marine," replied Dawson, who felt happier now

that the Admiral had recognised him. "I can't keep out of the uniform,

sir. Besides, it's very useful when I want to be about the docks."

"My orders," said the Admiral, "are to dock, clean, coal, and be off.

I am expecting more detailed instructions, but they have not yet come.

These letters say that you will explain the programme here, and that

you have been charged with full responsibility for keeping our

movements secret. I am to give you all possible assistance. All right.

Go ahead. What do you want of us?"

Dawson rapidly told how the two dummy battle-cruisers had come

stumbling into the Sound in the afternoon, and how the Three Towns

believed that the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ were at that moment lying

on the shoals out of service for weeks to come. "No one must guess,"

he concluded, "that the real _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ are here safe

in dock, that they will go out two days hence in the middle of the

night, and dash away south to wipe Fritz's flag off the seas. We have

picked the dockyard hands with the greatest care, and have them under

watch like mice with cats all about them. If a single one of your

officers or men goes out of the dock gates the game will be up and I

won't answer for the consequences. Everything rests with you, sir.

Will you give orders that no one, no one, not even you yourself, shall

leave either of the battle-cruisers while they are in dock--no one,

not for a minute."

The Admiral laughed, and the officers in his room respectfully joined

in. "So we have been mined and are aground somewhere yonder on the mud

surrounded by sorrowing patrols. And the Three Towns are dropping salt

tears into their beer. It is a fine game, Dawson. I didn't believe

much in Lord Jacquetot's dummies, but they've come in darned useful

this time. Are you going to keep Plymouth and Devonport in the dumps

for long?"

"Until you've done your work, sir," said Dawson.

"So until then the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ will lie crippled in the

Sound for all the world to see and for Fritz to believe. If this very

bright scheme is yours, Dawson, we will all drink your health down

south as soon as our work has been done. For the credit will be yours

rather than ours. I will help you all I can; it is my duty and my very

keen desire. A man who can make so brilliant a plan for confounding

the enemy's spies is worth a statue of gold. He is even worth the

sacrifice of two day's leave while one's ship is in dock. What do you

say, gentlemen?"

"I never thought," said the Flag Captain, "that I would willingly

spend two days shut up in a smelly dock, but you may count me in, sir.

I won't head a mutiny when all leave is refused."

"You shall have your way, Dawson. All leave stopped in both ships. Not

a man is to go ashore on any pretence, no matter what the excuse. The

mothers of the lower decks may all die--they always do when a ship is

in port--but not a man shall leave to bury them. Give the orders in

the _Intrepid_, and ask the captain of the _Terrific_ to be so good as

to come aboard."

* * * * *

"So far, good," exclaimed Dawson when he got back to his hotel and

found Froissart sitting up for him. "The ships are in and no one is to

be allowed ashore. I shall be in a fever till both of them are away

again. We are on very thin ice, Froissart. It is lucky that the

dockyard is on the Hamoaze, out of sight even of most of Devonport,

and far away from Plymouth and Stonehouse. I have seen all the foremen

of the dockyard myself, told them the whole trick which we are playing

on the Huns, and put them on their mettle to tackle their men. They

will pitch it fine and strong on the honour and patriotism of complete

silence, but not neglect to throw in a hint of the Defence of the

Realm Act and penal servitude. Never threaten an Englishman,

Froissart, but always let him know that behind your fine honourable

sentiments there is something devilish nasty. Preach as loud as you

can about the beauty of virtue, but don't forget to chuck in a

description of the fiery Hell which awaits wrongdoers. I don't depend

much either on the sentiments or the hints of punishment. I've got

every man of that hundred and twenty on my string, and if one of them

asks leave, within the next day or two, to go and bury his mother on

the East Coast, he shall go--but I shall go with him, and he shall

have a jolly little funeral of his own. Every letter which they write

will be read, every telegram copied for me, every message by 'phone

taken down. They are on my string, Froissart--every man."

"You do everything, Mr. Dawson," grumbled Froissart. "Where do I come

in?"

"You have helped me a lot already," replied Dawson handsomely. "You

being a foreigner make me talk very simple and plain, and think out my

plans so that I can explain them to you. One sees the weak points of a

scheme when one has to make it clear to a foreigner. You don't always

twig my meaning, Froissart, and sometimes your remarks are a bit

foolish; but you mean well, and, for a Frenchman, are quite

intelligent. I will say that for you, Froissart--quite intelligent."

"_Sacré nom d'un chien_--" began Froissart hotly; but Dawson paid no

heed. He just went on talking, and Froissart, realising that Dawson

could not understand his French, and that he himself could not give

words to his feelings in English, relapsed into wrathful silence. Much

as I respect and admire Dawson, I should not care to be his

subordinate.

"We must keep the cinema show going nice and lively for the Three

Towns," went on Dawson. "A big salvage steamer is coming down

to-morrow to give an air of verisimilitude to the proceedings. Patrol

boats will buzz about the Sound, and the potentates, naval and civil,

will gather from all parts. The unfortunate wrecks out at Picklecombe

Point will be guarded so that no shore boat can get within half a

mile. They won't bear a very close inspection. I hope that none of the

guns will break loose and float about the harbour. That would be what

you might call a blooming contretemps. I shall be pretty busy all the

next two days myself. Though I am a strict teetotaller, I shall get

into shore rig and spend my days in the public bars. I must know what

the Three Towns are talking about, and whether any suspicion of the

truth gets wind. I don't think that it can; at least, for some time.

The stage management has been too good. Later on there may be some

wonderment because none of the men from the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_

are allowed ashore. A lot of wives and families must be around here,

especially as the _Intrepid_ is a Plymouth ship. Of course it must be

given out that they are all needed to help with the salvage

operations, and no leave is allowed. You, Froissart, might spend your

time reading copies of all telegrams sent out from the Towns. If any

German agent wants to get news of the damage to the battle-cruisers

over to Holland, he will probably travel up to the East Coast and send

a wire on ahead. That is what I hope for. You shall then follow him

up, and make smooth the path of crime. Half our trouble will be lost

unless we can help the spoof news over to the Kaiser, bless him. The

job, at first, will be pretty dull for you, Froissart, and not over

lively for me. I hate pubs, yet for two days I must loaf about them,

pretending to drink. You can read the telegrams, but you can't

understand English well enough to pick up the gossip of the bars. I

must do that myself."

"You have stopped all leave on the battle-cruisers--the real ones, I

mean--but what about the dockyard men," inquired Froissart. "Are they

to be allowed to go to their homes when they come off their shifts?"

"I have thought of that and weighed both sides. It will be safer to

let them go home as usual. If we locked them all up in the dockyard

till the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ were both safe away, there would be

no end of curiosity and gossip. What so very special, people would

ask, could be going on in the yard that no one was allowed out for two

days. I don't want wives and families and neighbours to come smelling

round those dockyard gates. They might see the spotting tops of the

cruisers inside. Of course there is a regular forest of masts and

gantries showing, and a couple of spotting tops more or less might not

be noticed. But my general idea is to concentrate attention on those

dear old dummies down at Picklecombe Point. They are the centre of

interest, the eye of the picture--the cynosure, as a scholar would

say. I am not a bad scholar myself. I passed the seventh standard, and

went to school all the time I was in the Red Marines. I was a

sergeant, which takes a bit of doing. But see here, Froissart,"

exclaimed Dawson, looking at his watch, "it is five o'clock, and we

must get quick to bed so as to be bright and lively in the morning."

Dawson carried out his programme. Though a strict teetotaller, he

passed hours at public houses, especially in the evenings, listening

to the talk of the port. It was all about the disaster in the South

Seas, the heavy casualties suffered by the Three Towns, and the rotten

ill-luck of the avenging battle-cruisers running upon the German

mines. Not a whisper could Dawson hear of suspicion that the ships

beached under Mount Edgcumbe were other than the genuine article. The

salvage steamer with her big arc lights glowing through the darkness

had been the last artistic touch which brought complete conviction.

Gold-laced officers, including the Commander-in-Chief himself, had

been coming and going all day; the acting of the Navy had been

perfect. Dawson blessed the four bones of old Jacquetot, who, when he

tackles a job, does it very thoroughly indeed. "I should not be

surprised," thought he, "if the Mountain, as that young Jackanapes

called him, came trotting down here himself just to make the show

complete." And sure enough he did, accompanied by the Fourth Sea Lord

who had worked out all the convincing details. Dawson was ordered to

meet them in the Admiral's quarters of the _Intrepid_. He went,

looking a very different person from the private of Marines of some

thirty hours earlier, and had the honour of being invited to luncheon.

That lunch was the one scene in the comedy upon which he dwelt in

telling the story to me. "Lord Jacquetot," he said, "clinked glasses

with me and wished me the best of luck and success. It was as much as

he could do, he said, to keep the First Lord from coming down and

monkeying the whole affair. Luckily there was a debate in Parliament

that he wanted to figure in, and so couldn't get away. Lord Jacquetot

said that the First Lord had grabbed the whole scheme as his very own,

and forgotten that I had any part in it. I don't mind. The Secret

Service never gets any credit for anything. If it did, it wouldn't be

Secret very long."

"No credit," I remarked, "and not much cash I expect."

"Little enough, sir," replied Dawson. "I suppose we do the job for the

love of it. There's no sport like it. Our real work never gets into

the papers or the story-books."

"Never?" I asked slily. "What about that story of mine in the

_Cornhill Magazine_, which you still carry about next your heart?"

Dawson changed the subject. He never will appreciate chaff.

At midnight of the day of the luncheon party the _Intrepid_ and

_Terrific_, clean and fully loaded, cleared out of dock and slipped

off into the darkness attended by their destroyer escort, whose duty

it was to see them safe round Ushant. Eight hours later Dawson came

down to breakfast and found that Froissart, satisfied with his _petit

déjeuner_ of coffee and rolls, had already gone out. Dawson felt

satisfied with himself, and was confident now that his work in the

Three Towns had been well and truly done. The rest could be left to

the Navy, and to his Secret Service agents. He sat down to a hearty

meal, but was not destined to finish it. First came a messenger from

the Officer in charge of the Dockyard, who handed over a sealed note

and took a receipt for it. Dawson broke the seal. "Dear Mr. Dawson,"

he read, "You will be interested to learn that one of the hands

engaged upon the work we know of has asked for three days' leave--that

he may bury his mother in Essex. She died, he says, at Burnham. I

await your views before granting the leave asked for. The man has been

in our service for sixteen years, and bears the best of characters."

"Now what do I know of Burnham?" muttered Dawson. "The name seems

familiar." He rang the bell, asked for an atlas, and studied carefully

the coast of Essex. Burnham stood upon the river Crouch, which Dawson

had heard of as a famous resort for motor-boats. His eyes gleamed, and

he threw up his head, which had been bent over the map. "The man shall

have his leave," murmured he. "But I don't think it will be his mother

who is buried."

Just at that moment in came Froissart, looking, as Dawson at once

remarked, merry and bright. "It is no wonder," said he, "for see this

telegram of which I have just had a copy. It was spotted at once at

the Bureau, and the man who despatched it has been shadowed by a

police officer." The telegram read, "Coming to-day by South Western.

Meet me this evening at usual place." It was addressed to

Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex.

Dawson picked up the note which he had received and passed it to

Froissart, who read it slowly. "The same place!" cried he.

"Yes," said Dawson slowly, "the same place, and a famous resort for

motor-boats. We have not finished yet, my friend, with the _Intrepid_

and _Terrific_"

CHAPTER XIV

A COFFIN AND AN OWL

Dawson laid the letter and the telegram upon his breakfast-table, and

bent his head over them. In a few minutes he had weighed them up,

sorted out their relative significance, and spoke. "We have here,

Froissart, two distinct people. I am almost sure of that. My man of

the dockyard who wants leave to bury his mother in Essex has not yet

received permission from his Chief. He would not therefore be

telegraphing about his train. He does not know yet whether he will be

permitted to go at all. Your man is quite confident that his movements

are in no way restricted. As I read between the lines I judge that my

man, who knows the actual truth about the docking and sailing of the

battle-cruisers, wants to reach the East Coast, whence he has means of

transmitting the priceless news to Germany. Your man is of one of the

Towns; he has seen the dummy cruisers ashore in the Sound; he believes

them to be genuine, and he also wants to transmit the news to his

paymasters in Germany, He will be an ordinary German agent. The

identity of place whither both wish to go is partly a coincidence, and

partly explained by its excellence as a jumping-off place for fast

motor-boats, which, during these long autumn nights, could race over

to and get back again between sunset and dawn. We have coast watchers

always about for the very purpose of stopping such lines of

communication. You shall accompany your own man, and make sure that he

is allowed to get through. If he does not himself cross, arrest him as

soon as his boat has gone. If he does go, watch for his return and

arrest him, and his boat and all on board, the moment that they

return. In any event the boat and its crew must be seized upon return

to Essex. Are you quite clear about what you have to do?"

"Quite," said Froissart. "The spies and their boat must be caught

red-handed, but not till after the false news of the mining of the

battle-cruisers has been carried to Holland. But how shall we make

certain that the sleepless English Navy will not butt in and catch the

boat at sea before it gets across to Holland. The Narrow Seas swarm

with fast patrols."

"I will provide for that. I will write at once for you a letter to the

Inspector of police at Burnham, and enclose copies of my credentials

from the Admiralty. I will also wire to Lord Jacquetot in private

code. You will find on arrival that the responsible naval authorities

of the district will be entirely at your service. That motor-boat with

the news of the great spoof shall be shepherded across most craftily,

but when it comes to return will find that the way of transgressors is

very hard. Get ready and be off, Froissart; we depend upon your skill

and discretion. Get a good view of your man--the police will point him

out--before he boards the train, and then don't let him out of your

sight. Take two plain-clothes officers with you. Run no unnecessary

risks of being spotted. You are rather easily recognisable with those

shining black eyes and black beard, but no one here has seen you

officially, and you should pass unsuspected as a Scotland Yard man.

Can I trust you?"

"_Mais certainement_," said Froissart crossly. "This is simple police

work, which I have done a thousand times. I could do it on my head."

"Your train leaves at 10.8; the South Western station. I will give you

the letters at once, and then you can start."

Within a quarter of an hour Dawson--his breakfast forgotten--had given

Froissart his letters, sent a long telegram by special messenger to

the Commander-in-Chief for despatch in code to Jacquetot. Not even to

Dawson would the Admiralty entrust its private cypher. Then, as soon

as Froissart had disappeared, he called up the Chief of the Dockyard

on the telephone and arranged to come at once to his office.

"I had given the easy job to Froissart," he explained to me long

afterwards. "It was, as he called it, simple police work. He had,

without arousing suspicion, to make smooth the path for his spy just

as you and I opened the door to the Hook for the late-lamented Hagan,

and escorted him across in the mail-boat. We have helped false news

over to the Germans scores of times. It is grand sport. My job was

something much more tricky. I had to get plain proof that my man was a

spy in the dockyard, to keep him playing on my line to the very last

minute, but to make dead certain of stopping him at the fifty-fifth

second of the eleventh hour."

"Why did you not cut out your difficulties by just stopping him from

going to Essex? At a word from you his Chief would have refused

leave."

Dawson smiled at me in a fashion which I find intensely aggravating.

He has no tact; when he feels superior, he lets one see it plainly.

"The fat would have been in the fire then," exclaimed he. "Suppose he

lay low for a day or two, took French leave, and went. I should have

been off his track. Shadowing is all very well, but it does not always

succeed in a crowded district like the Three Towns. If he had got away

without me beside him, the man might have reached Essex and done there

what he pleased. Besides, he might have had accomplices unknown to me.

No, it was the only possible course to give him leave and follow him

up close. Then whatever he did would be under my own eye."

Dawson gulped down a cup of coffee, sadly regarded his rapidly

congealing bacon, and skipped off to the dockyard. "Who is this man of

yours whose mother has died at so very inconvenient a moment for us?

What the deuce is he doing with a mother in Essex at all? He ought to

be a Devon man."

"He isn't, anyway. I have been making close inquiries. Though he has

been with us for sixteen years, he did come originally from somewhere

in the East. The man is one of the best I have--never drinks, keeps

good time, and works hard. He makes big wages, and carries them

virtuously home to his wife. He has money in the savings bank, and

holds Consols, poor chap, on which he must have wasted the good toil

of years. I can't imagine any one less likely to take German gold than

this man Maynard. Sure you haven't a bee in your bonnet, Dawson? To a

police officer every one is a probable criminal, but some of us now

and then are passably honest. I will bet my commission that Maynard is

honest."

Dawson sniffed. "The honest men, with the excellent characters and the

virtuous wives, are always the most dangerous because least likely to

arouse suspicion. How do you know that Maynard hasn't a second

establishment hidden away somewhere in the Three Towns? The upper and

middle classes have no monopoly in illicit love affairs. Their working

class betters do a bit that way too."

"All right. Have it your own way. We will assume for the sake of

security that Maynard is a spy, that he has no dead mother whom he

wants leave to bury, and that he has sold his country for the sake of

some bit of fluff in Plymouth. The point is: what am I to do? Shall I

grant leave?"

"Yes," said Dawson, "and do it handsomely. Give him four days and run

the sympathetic stunt. Offer him a Service pass by the Great Western.

Say how grieved you are and all the rest of the tosh. Have him up now,

and put me somewhere close so that I can take a good look at the swine

when he comes in and when he goes out."

The Chief of the Dockyards shrugged his shoulders, placed Dawson in an

adjoining room, and summoned Maynard from the yard. The man, who was

dressed in the awful dead black of his class when a funeral is in

prospect, came up, and Dawson got a full sight of him. Maynard was

about thirty-five, well set up--for he had served in the

Territorials--and looked what he was, a first-rate workman of the best

type. Even Dawson, who trusted no one, was slightly shaken. "I have

never seen a man who looked less like a spy," muttered he; "but then,

those always make the most dangerous of spies. Why has he a mother in

Essex, and why has she died just now? Real mothers don't do these

things; they've more sense."

Maynard received his third-class pass, respectfully thanked his

Officer for his kindly expressed sympathy--which in his case was quite

genuine--and disappeared. Dawson jumped into the room again to take a

word of farewell. "I should know him anywhere," he cried. "I am going

by the same train in the same carriage. Good-bye."

Maynard reached the Great Western station in good time, and found a

carriage which was not overcrowded. He was carrying a small handbag.

At the last moment before the train started a prosperous-looking

passenger, with "commercial gentleman" written all over him, stepped

into the same compartment and seated himself in a vacant seat opposite

the bereaved workman. It was Dawson in one of his favourite rôles.

"There is nothing less like a detective," he would say, "than a

middle-aged commercial traveller. They are such genial, unsuspicious,

open-handed folk. This comes of wandering about the country at other

people's expense."

The 10.15 fast express from the Three Towns to Paddington is an

excellent one, and the journey was not more tedious than five hours

spent in a train are bound to be. All through the journey Dawson, from

behind his stock of papers and magazines, studied Maynard, and became,

not, perhaps shaken in his conviction, but certainly puzzled. "He

looked," he explained to me, "like a sick and sorrowful man. One who

had really lost a beloved mother far away would look just like that.

But so might one who had been unfaithful to a trusting wife and was

now risking his neck to pour gold into the greedy lap of a frowsy

mistress. One must never judge by appearances. A man may look as sick

over backing the wrong horse as at losing an only son in the trenches.

Human means of expression are limited."

"It takes time to learn that you are not such a beast as you pretend,"

I observed. Dawson grinned.

At Paddington Maynard took the Tube to Liverpool Street, and did not

observe that his fellow passenger of the brown tweed suit and the fat,

self-satisfied, rather oily face followed by the same route. Dawson,

who was famished, rejoiced to see Maynard make for the

refreshment-room. He could not lunch on the train, since the workman,

upon whom he attended, had economically fed himself upon sandwiches

put up in a "nosebag."

"No breakfast, no lunch," groaned Dawson. "What a day!" He did his

best during five minutes in the refreshment-room at Liverpool Street

to fill up the howling void in his person, and then watched Maynard

enter a train for Burnham-on-Crouch. In two minutes he had opened up

communications with a station Inspector of Police, made himself known,

and secured the services of a constable to travel in Maynard's

carriage. He did not wish to be seen again himself just at present. He

yearned, too, for a first-class compartment and an ample tea-basket.

Dawson's brain is a martyr to duty, but his stomach continually rises

in rebellion. It was a fast train which would not stop until the Essex

coast was reached, so that Dawson did not doubt that his quarry would

be upon the platform when he himself got out So he was, and so, too,

was a girl in deep mourning who had come to meet him. Dawson was

staggered; a girl, also in funeral blacks, upset the picture which he

had painted to himself. The man and girl talked together for a few

minutes, and then walked slowly arm in arm out of the station towards

the village. Dawson picked up his police assistant and followed. He

gave no explanation of the reasons for his shadowing of the man

Maynard, for he was just beginning to feel uneasy. Slowly the party of

four threaded through the pretty little place, bright under the

pleasant autumn twilight. Maynard and the girl were in front, Dawson

and his policeman followed some fifty yards behind. In a side street,

at the door of a small cottage--one of a humble row--the pair of

mourners stopped, opened the iron gate, and entered. Dawson waited,

watching. He could see through the windows into a little parlour where

some half a dozen people, all in deep black, were gathered. Presently,

as if they had waited only for the arrival of Maynard--which indeed

was the fact--the heavy steps of men clumping down wooden stairs

resounded from the open door, and there emerged into the street a

coffin borne upon the shoulders of six bearers. The moment that the

coffin appeared Dawson realised his blunder. Maynard had really lost

his mother, and, like a dutiful son, had come all the way from the

Three Towns to bury her! Off flew Dawson's hat, and he nudged the

policeman hard in the ribs. "Take off your helmet, you chump," he

growled savagely. "Don't you see that it's a funeral." The man, rather

dazed--he had been plucked away from Liverpool Street at a moment's

notice and sent upon what he thought was police service--did what he

was told. The group of mourners formed behind the coffin, which was

carried to the cemetery not far off. Still following, with their heads

bowed, Dawson and the bewildered policeman attended the funeral, heard

the beautiful service read, and the last offices completed. Then they

turned away and made for the railway station.

"Why, sir," asked the policeman, looking sideways rather fearfully at

his superior officer's stern face--"why, sir, did we come to this

place?"

"Why? Haven't you seen?" snapped Dawson. "To attend a funeral, of

course."

* * * * *

I have never met that policeman. To have conversed with him and to

have sought to chop a way through the tangled recesses of his mind

would have gratified me hugely. For, if police constables think at

all, in what a bewildered whirl of confused speculation must his poor

brain have been occupied during the return journey to London! Dawson

tossed him into a compartment of the first train which came along, one

of extreme slowness, and then dismissed him into cold space without a

scrap of remorse. The humble creature, discharging his station duties

with the precision of daily habit, had swung into the overpowering

orbit of Chief Inspector Dawson, been caught up, dumped without

instructions upon an unknown journey in attendance upon an unknown

workman. Then when the train had stopped, he had been spewed out upon

a strange country platform, led through strange mean streets, and

forced with head bared to the autumn chill of evening, to attend the

obsequies of a total stranger. At the end, without a word of

explanation, still less of apology, he had been returned as an empty

rejected package to the platform at Liverpool Street. Yes, I should

dearly love to have met and cross-questioned that policeman, and have

listened to the bizarre solution which he had to offer to it all. But

most probably, in his stolid, faithful way, he never gave the subject

any thought at all. To be tossed about at the whims of superiors was

an experience which he would take as composedly as he would those

exiguous weekly wages which were the derisory compensation.

Dawson went to the small hotel which he had picked out with Froissart

as a convenient rendezvous. There he sat for hours doing nothing, for

he was far too wise a man to push his head into another man's

business, even though that one were a subordinate and a foreigner. He

had failed once; he could not afford, by deputy, to fail a second

time. Besides, he knew nothing of the movements of Froissart and his

quarry. They had not appeared within the visible horizon of

Burnham-on-Crouch, though they had had ample time in which to arrive.

I am afraid that his temper got the better of him, and as the night

drew on, unsolaced by a word from Froissart, and unrelieved by any

literature more engrossing than old railway time-tables and hotel

advertisements, he consigned to the Bottomless Pit the Chief of the

Devonport Dockyard, the disgustingly virtuous and unenterprising

Maynard, and even the harmless soul of his lately buried mother.

Dawson in a royal rage is no pleasant spectacle.

It had gone half-past eleven before Froissart came, a boisterous,

triumphant Froissart, bragging of his skill and his success in the

manner of a born Gascon.

"It was tremendous, _mon ami_," roared Froissart, unchecked by

Dawson's scowls. "I have done the blooming trick: the boat has gone to

Holland, and the filthy spy is in the strong lock-up. My vigilance, my

astuteness, my resource unfathomable, my flair, my soul of an artist,

my patience inexhaustible, my address so firm and yet so delicate, my

mastery of the minds of those others less gifted, my--"

"Oh, stow it!" roared Dawson.

"Unfailing insight, _mon esprit français_, my genius for the service

of police, my unshakable courage and élan, have had their just and

inevitable reward. The boat with the message so false has gone to

Holland for the German Kaiser to gloat over, and the filthy spy is in

the safe lock-up. I took him with my own hands--I, le Comte de

Froissart, I bemired my hands by contact with his foul carcase. The

boat it flew down the river; _ma foi_, like a flash of the lightning,

going they said thirty knots, _presque cinquante kilomètres par

heure_. The glorious _Marine Anglaise_ will see that it reaches les

Pays Bas, and then when it is of return your sailors so splendid, with

sang-froid so perfect, will gobble it up. Just gobble it up. As I will

gobble up this cold beef upon your table. _Peste_, I am of a hunger

excruciating. I have not eaten for five, six, ten hours."

Froissart sat down at Dawson's table, where still lay the cold remains

of his supper--he had had the decency to reflect that his colleague

Froissart might be hungry upon arrival--and fell to eating copiously

and loudly. The French are least admirable when they are seen

devouring food.

Froissart ate while Dawson writhed. Though his colleague's success

would plant laurels upon his own brow--little would he ever say at the

Yard of that journey to Burnham and the preposterous funeral--he was

jealous, bitterly jealous. I am by special appointment the Boswell of

Dawson, yet I do not spare the feelings of my subject. Rather do I go

over them with a rake--for the ultimate good of Dawson's variegated

soul. He was bitterly jealous, but from natural curiosity yearned to

know the details of those feats of which Froissart prated so

triumphantly. And all the while, unconscious, heedless of his wrathful

exasperated chieftain, Froissart devoured food in immense quantities.

It was a disgusting exhibition.

Satisfied at last, Froissart broke away from the table, lit a

cigarette, and sat himself down beside Dawson before the fire. It was

well past midnight, but to these men regular habits were unknown, and

the hours of work and of sleep always indeterminate.