It was a very cheerful little party dining that night at the Dormy House
Club. There was Granet; Geoffrey Anselman, his cousin, who played for
Cambridge and rowed two; Major Harrison, whose leave had been extended
another three weeks; and the secretary of the club, who made up the
quartette.
“By-the-bye, where were you this afternoon, Captain Granet?” the latter
asked. “You left Anselman to play our best ball. Jolly good hiding he
gave us, too.”
“Went out for a spin,” Granet explained, “and afterwards fell fast
asleep in my room. Wonderful air, yours, you know,” he went on.
“I slept like a top last night,” Major Harrison declared. “The first
three nights I was home I never closed my eyes.”
Granet leaned across the table to the secretary.
“Dickens,” he remarked, “that’s a queer-looking fellow at the further
end of the room. Who is he?”
The secretary glanced around and smiled.
“You mean that little fellow with the glasses and the stoop? He arrived
last night and asked for a match this morning. You see what a miserable
wizened-up looking creature he is? I found him a twelve man and he wiped
the floor with me. Guess what his handicap is?”
“No idea,” Granet replied. “Forty, I should think.”
“Scratch at St. Andrews,” Dickens told them. “His name’s Collins. I
don’t’ know anything else about him. He’s paid for a week and we’re
jolly glad to get visitors at all these times.”
“Bridge or billiards?” young Anselman asked, rising.
“Let’s play billiards,” Granet suggested. “The stretching across the
table does me good.”
“We’ll have a snooker, then,” Major Harrison decided.
They played for some time. The wizened-looking little man came and
watched them benevolently, peering every now and then through his
spectacles, and applauding mildly any particularly good stroke. At
eleven o’clock they turned out the lights and made their way to their
rooms. Shortly before midnight, Granet, in his dressing-gown, stole
softly across the passage and opened, without knocking, the door of a
room opposite to him. The wizened-looking little man was seated upon the
edge of the bed, half-dressed. Granet turned the key in the lock, stood
for a moment listening and swung slowly around.
“Well?” he exclaimed softly.
The tenant of the room nodded. He had taken off his glasses and their
absence revealed a face of strong individuality. He spoke quietly but
distinctly.
“You have explored the house?”
“As far as I could,” Granet replied. “The place is almost in a state of
siege.”
“Proves that we are on the right track, any way. What’s that building
that seems to stand out in the water?”
“How do you know about it?” Granet demanded.
“I sailed out this evening, hired a boat at Brancaster Staithe. The
fellow wouldn’t go anywhere near Market Burnham, though, and I’m rather
sorry I tried to make him. They’ve got the scares here, right enough,
Granet. I asked him to let me the boat for a week and he wasn’t even
civil about it. Didn’t want no strangers around these shores, he told
me. When I paid him for the afternoon he was surly about it and kept
looking at my field-glasses.”
Granet frowned heavily.
“It isn’t going to be an easy matter,” he confessed. “I hear the
Admiralty are going to take over the whole thing within the next few
days, and are sending Marines down. How’s the time?”
They glanced at their watches. It was five minutes before midnight.
As though by common consent, they both crossed to the window and stood
looking out into the darkness. A slight wind was moving amongst the
treetops, the night was clear but moonless. About half a mile away they
could just discern a corner of the club-house. They stood watching it
in silence. At five minutes past twelve, Granet shut his watch with a
click.
“Not to-night, then,” he whispered. “Collins!”
“Well?”
“What is going on in that wooden shanty?”
The little man dropped his voice.
“Germany lost two submarines in one day,” he murmured. “The device
which got them came from that little workshop of Worth’s. The plans are
probably there or on the premises somewhere.”
Granet groaned.
“As a matter of fact I have been within a few yards of the thing,” he
said. “It was all fenced around with match-boarding.”
“Do you mean that you have been allowed on board the _Scorpion_?”
Granet nodded.
“I had the rottenest luck,” he declared. “I took Miss Conyers and her
friend down to see her brother, Commander Conyers. We were invited to
lunch on board. At the last moment we were turned off. Through some
glasses from the roof of the ‘Ship’ I saw some workmen pull down the
match-boarding, but I couldn’t make out what the structure was.”
“I can give you an idea,” Collins remarked. “This fellow Worth has got
hold of some system of concentric lenses, with extraordinary reflectors
which enable him to see distinctly at least thirty feet under water.
Then they have a recording instrument, according to which they alter the
gradient of a new gun, with shells that explode under water. Von Lowitz
was on the track of something of this sort last year, but he gave it up
chiefly because Krupps wouldn’t guarantee him a shell.”
“Krupps gave it up a little too soon, then,” Granet muttered. “Collins,
if we can’t smash up this little establishment there’ll be a dozen
destroyers before long rigged up with this infernal contrivance.”
The little man stood before the window and gazed steadfastly out
seawards.
“They’ll be here this week,” he said confidently. “You’d better go now,
Granet. It’s all over for to-night.”
Granet nodded and left the room quietly. Every one in the Dormy House
was sound asleep. He made his way back to his own apartment without
difficulty. Only the little man remained seated at the window, with his
eyes fixed upon the bank of murky clouds which lowered over the sea.