PART II

THE SECRET SERVICE SUBMARINE

A STORY OF THE PRESENT WAR

BY GUY THORNE

NEW YORK

SULLY & KLEINTEICH

1915

The verses used as preface appeared in the issue of _Truth_ for 4th

November 1914. They are reproduced here by special and courteous

permission of the Editor. The verses were published anonymously, but

the author has kindly allowed me to mention his name. He is Mr.

William Booth.

THE SONG OF THE SUBMARINE

This is the song of the submarine

Afloat on the waters wide.

Like a sleeping whale

In the starlight pale,

Just flush with the swirling tide.

The salt sea ripples against her plates

The salt wind is her breath,

Like the spear of fate

She lies in wait,

And her name is "Sudden Death."

I watch the swift destroyers come,

Like greyhounds lank and lean,

And their long hulks sleek

Play hide-and-seek

With me on the waters green.

I watch them with my single eye,

I see their funnels flame,

And I sing Ho! Ho!

As I sink below,

Ho! Ho! for a glorious game!

I roam the seas from Scapa Flow

To the Bight of Heligoland;

In the Dover Strait

I lie in wait

On the edge of Goodwin's Sand.

I am here and there and everywhere,

Like the phantom of a dream,

And I sing Ho! Ho!

Through the winds that blow,

The song of the submarine!

WILLIAM BOOTH.

CONTENTS

PART I

I. REJECTED FOR SERVICE. MR. JOHN CAREY'S EXPLANATION 11

II. "THERE IS SOMETHING VERY WRONG ABOUT THIS HOUSE" 23

III. BERNARD CAREY, LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER OF SUBMARINES 37

IV. DORIS AND MARJORIE GIVE A SUPPER PARTY. THE ARROW

FLIES IN MORSTONE SEA-WOOD 59

PART II

V. AT MIDNIGHT ON THE MARSHES. THE SECRET OF THE OLD

HULK 77

VI. HOW JOHN CAREY FOUGHT WITH THE GERMAN GIANT IN THE

SALOON, AND "MR. JONES" MET UNEXPECTED THINGS IN

THE NIGHT 103

VII. THE MURDER OF MR. LOCKHART 122

VIII. THE TRUTH AT LAST, THE INCREDIBLE TRUTH! AND HOW

THEY FOUGHT FOR THE SUBMARINE 128

PART III

IX. OUT IN THE NORTH SEA. PREPARING FOR ACTION 145

X. THE SPEAR OF FOAM 154

XI. THE SUBMARINE FIGHTS FOR ENGLAND 164

XII. THE LAST CHAPTER--IN TWO PARTS--

DORIS AND MARJORIE HAVE A LATE VISITOR 177

RETURN OF THE SEVEN HEROES 184

[ILLUSTRATION: JOHN CAREY'S MAP OF THE MARSHES]

THE SECRET SERVICE SUBMARINE

PART I

CHAPTER I

REJECTED FOR SERVICE. MR. JOHN CAREY'S EXPLANATION

On thinking it over, I date the extraordinary affairs which so thrilled

England and brought me such undeserved good fortune from the day on

which I tried to enlist.

The position was this. My father was an engineer with a small, but

apparently thriving, foundry at Derby. My mother died and my father sent

me to Oxford, my younger brother, Bernard Carey, being an officer in the

Navy. At Oxford, I was one of that perennial tribe of young asses who

play what used to be called the "Giddy Goat" in those days with the

greatest aplomb and satisfaction to themselves. I was at a good

college--Exeter--for originally we were west-country people, and all

sons of Devon and Cornwall go to Exeter.

I was immensely strong and healthy. I did not row, but played Rugby

football, being chosen to play in the Freshmen's match, and

subsequently got my "Blue." I did no reading whatever. My father gave me

a more than sufficient allowance, and in my second year, having sprained

myself badly, I bought a motor car--an expensive Rolls-Royce--on credit,

and became a "blood." I could not play games any more, though I was

healthy enough, so I used to go constantly to London "to see my

dentist," which, of course, meant dinner at the Café Royal, too many

cocktails at the Empire, and a wild rush home in the car to get to

College before twelve o'clock at night.

When any musical comedy company visited Oxford, I, in company with my

friends, used to invite the ladies of the chorus to tea. I did all the

silly things possible, got sent down for a term, and eventually only

just managed to scrape through a pass degree, after being ploughed

several times in this or that "Group."

Then my father died, and it was found that he had nothing whatever to

leave us. His works were in the hands of his creditors--it seems that

things had been going wrong for years--and there was I, with a game leg,

an excellent taste in such dubious vintages as the Oxford wine merchants

provide, a somewhat exact knowledge of ties, waist-coats, and socks, a

smattering of engineering which I had picked up from my father purely

from a liking of the subject, and, when my bills were paid, exactly £14,

7_s._ 3_d._

Knowing nothing whatever of the slightest value to anybody, myself

included, I naturally decided to devote my attention to the education

of youth. My "Blue," short as the time was that I enjoyed it, would be

an asset, I imagined; and, for the rest, to teach urchins their Latin

grammar for a few hours a day could not be a very arduous occupation.

Accordingly, I went to see a suave gentleman in the Strand, who received

me courteously, but without enthusiasm. This gentleman was one of the

mediums by which those who would instruct the young find a field for

their activities. I paid him a guinea, I think it was, and he then took

down my qualifications.

When I mentioned my "Blue" with pride, he shook his head.

"My dear sir, 'Blues' are now a drug in the market," he said. "Surely

you read the daily papers, especially the _Daily Wire_"?

"No," I replied, "I am no bookworm."

He coughed rather nastily and I began to get irritated with the fellow.

"Then I must explain," he continued, "that there has been a great outcry

against over-athleticism in the public schools, in all schools, in fact,

and I fear your 'Blue' is not worth ..."

"Quite so," I broke in; "'not worth a damn,' you were going to say."

"I was going to say no such thing, Mr. Carey," he replied stiffly. "At

any rate, we will do our best for you. You cannot hope for more than a

private school at first, and your success in the profession you

have--er--chosen, will depend entirely upon your success in a

comparatively humble sphere."

A week afterwards, I received two or three little forms telling me to

apply to various headmasters.

Prospects were not cheering, and the salaries offered would about have

kept me in cigarettes at Oxford. To cut a long story short, I eventually

became third master--there were only three of us--in Morstone House

School in Norfolk, at a salary of eighty pounds a year and all

found--except washing.

Morstone House School was a sort of discreet modern edition of Dotheboys

Hall. I do not mean to say, of course, in these enlightened days, that

the boys were starved or ill-treated. But everything was cut down to the

very margin--to the margarine, as my colleague Lockhart, who was a

cripple, and a wit--the Head got him cheap for that--would occasionally

remark.

For two years I remained at Morstone, a miserable enough life for an

ex-blood, you will say--only there were consolations. One of them, and

to me it was a very great one indeed, was that Morstone was situated in

a remote village on the east coast, on the edge of vast saltings or sea

marshes intersected by great creeks of sullen, tidal water. It was five

miles to the nearest little town, Blankington-on-Sea, and as lonely a

place as well could be conceived. Nevertheless, these vast marshes

stretching for many miles on either side formed one of the finest

wild-fowl districts in the whole of England. I was, and always had been,

passionately fond of shooting. I had saved my guns from the wreck, and

the whole of my leisure time in winter was taken up with perhaps the

most fascinating of all sports.

The wild geese would fly at night over the lonely mud-flats with a noise

like a pack of hounds in the sky. Duck of all sorts abounded, teal,

widgeon, mallard, and the rarer pintail and even the crested grebe.

There were plenty of snipe, stint, golden plover and shank--in short, it

was a paradise for the sportsman. I kept fit and well from the first day

of August to the last day of February. My work at the school was easy

enough, and I had an absolutely absorbing pursuit to take me out of

myself and make me forget what a very sorry part I was playing in the

battle of life--for I think it only due to myself to remark that I was a

young ass without being a fool. This is a nice distinction, but there

are those who will understand my meaning.

The second consolation--I do not put it second because it was the lesser

of the two, but from a somewhat natural reluctance to speak of it until

the last necessary moment--was Doris.

This brings me to that extraordinary man, my chief. I am not going to

discount the interest of this narrative by saying too much of this

gentleman at the outset. His name is familiar enough to England now. I

will merely describe him and his surroundings.

The Headmaster of Morstone House School was Doctor Upjelly. His

qualifications for the position he held were, to say the least of it,

peculiar. He was "Doctor" by virtue of a German degree obtained during

what must have been a singularly misspent youth--they are coarse brutes

at these German universities, or I should be the last to refer to early

indiscretions!--at Heidelberg. Love of teaching he had none. Love of

money seemed to be his predominating characteristic, though he was as

keen on wild-fowling as I was myself. This was the only thing that made

me regard him as human--that is to say, at the beginning.

What Doctor Upjelly's early life had been, nobody knew. He had travelled

much abroad, at any rate, and spoke French, German, and Italian

fluently. He had been in England for a great many years, the last six of

which he had spent at Morstone House. He had purchased the school from

the decayed clergyman who ran it before him, and seemed to be perfectly

contented with his life, though he often made visits to London and

occasionally entertained visitors at Morstone. He had married an

Englishwoman in Germany, we always understood, a lady with two daughters

by a former marriage, Doris and Marjorie Joyce. Doris was twenty-two and

Marjorie twenty-one. They lived at Morstone and kept house for their

stepfather, supervised the school accounts, and generally did work which

ought to have been done by the matron, a sinister old hag called Mrs.

Gaunt, and apparently the only person in whom Doctor Upjelly ever

confided.

To say that Doris and Marjorie hated their stepfather would be to put

it with extreme mildness. They were both young and high-spirited girls,

and they would have left him like a shot had it not been for some

promise extorted from them by their dying mother, which they felt bound

to observe. This was Mrs. Joyce's only bequest to her daughters, and,

like most promises given to a semi-conscious person probably quite

unaware of what she is saying, about as cruel and immoral a thing as

ever bound quixotic inexperience.

Old Upjelly was a tyrant. He did not interfere in the affairs of the

school much--that was to his daughters' and the masters' gain, to say

nothing of the wretched boys. But the girls were forced to lead a

semi-monastic life. They were not allowed to accept invitations to

tennis parties at local rectories, or even to play duets at the nasty

little schoolroom concerts which were always being got up by fussy

parsons' wives. And most of all, they were not allowed to have anything

to do with the assistant masters.

Now, as both Doris and Marjorie, of whom I naturally saw a great deal,

confided to me, they had never wished to have anything to do with the

assistant masters until my arrival. This did not make me vain, in view

of my two other colleagues and of some who had preceded me and of whom I

had heard.

The first master, who lived in a cottage in the village with a wife as

senile and decrepit as himself, was the Reverend Albert Pugmire. In dim

and distant days, he had held various curacies, from which he had been

politely requested to retire owing to a somewhat excessive fondness for

Old Tom Gin. I understand there had never been any actual inhibition on

the part of a justly outraged bishop, but Mr. Pugmire, at any rate, had

become chief drudge to Doctor Upjelly.

Pugmire was about sixty-two. In appearance he was exactly like one of

those tapers with which one lights the gas, thin, white, ghostly, except

for one vivid splash of colour, a nose resembling nothing so much as a

piece of coral, which he averred was the result of indigestion. He

really was a classical scholar of remarkable attainments. He would even

teach a boy who wanted to learn, and once, when the son of a local

clergyman with a taste for the classics wormed his way into the horrid

old man's confidence, I remember with what a thunderclap of amazement it

came upon us all when this young Philips gained an open scholarship at

Magdalen. The event was so unprecedented that I saw Doctor Upjelly at a

loss for the first time in his life. He did not know what to say, and

that night old Pugmire had to be carried home. The affair, however, soon

sank into oblivion and was never mentioned.

The second master, who taught such mathematics as each imp condescended

to learn, was poor little Lockhart, a misshapen bundle of bones, as

hollow and bitter as a dried lemon. When a baby, his nurse, during a

heated altercation with the cook, had thrown him at the latter lady, and

the poor chap had never known any happiness since. He had an income of

his own of about a hundred a year and was able enough in his way, but he

was too acid for ordinary intercourse--though, as will presently appear,

he had unsuspected qualities.

Then I came, the ex-Blue with the game leg.

Having said so much, it will be fairly obvious that the second

consolation I have mentioned in my life was Doris.

The Great War broke out and, in common with every other decent

Englishman of my own age, I heard the call of the country. I am not

going to sentimentalise about this--there is no necessity--but, of

course, I was keen as mustard to go.

I was exactly six feet high; my eyesight was far above the average--the

man who does most of his shooting at twilight, by moonlight, or in early

dawn and at long ranges, has far keener sight than most men. My teeth

were so good that I could eat Upjelly's mutton with ease, if not with

satisfaction. As far as personal strength went, I was as strong as a

bull--indeed, if the music halls had remained in their pristine

simplicity and had not been given over to the elaborate spectacle, I

could have earned a living as a weight-lifter in a leopard skin and pink

tights; but, and here was the thing that made me lie awake at night

grinding my teeth and cursing fate--not knowing what she had in store

for me--there was my leg.

Now, I could walk and outwalk most men I knew on the marshes, the most

difficult form of progression probably known to man, as anyone who has

tramped the thick, black mud and the marrum grass well knows. No

professional wild-fowler from Stiffkey or Cockthorpe could outdo me.

Yet, when I went to Norwich and offered myself for the East Norfolk

Territorial Battalion, a fool of a doctor in goggles, with whom I

wouldn't have cleaned my ten-bore, rejected me at once, despite all I

could say or do--and, what is more, told me that I would have no

possible chance elsewhere. I told him what I thought of him, and nearly

cried. Then I went out into an adjacent pub, had some beer, and cursed

bitterly, until the recruiting sergeant whom I had first interviewed,

likewise in search of beer, happened to come into the private bar. He

was a decent sort of johnny and told me a few eye-opening things about

doctors. He said that he would be proud to have me in his company, and

he gave me an invaluable tip. Finding out that I knew something about

engineering, he suggested that I should go to London and try and get

into the Royal Naval Flying Corps. At that time, the great fleet of

armoured motor cars was being got ready. I could drive a car with any

man and I was a fairly good motor mechanic.

My brother, Bernard, was, as I said, in the Navy. He was, by this time,

Lieutenant-Commander in the submarine section, and he was in London,

having been shot in the arm during a little scrap off Heligoland.

I got leave from old Upjelly, who, for some queer reason or other, did

not seem to take to the idea of my enlisting--though, heaven knows, he

had never shown any appreciation of my services--and went up to town. I

found Bernard just out of hospital. He had to rest for another month,

and, as he had hardly any money beyond his pay and special allowances,

he wanted to do it on the cheap. I suggested that he should come down to

Morstone and stay in the village pub. He was as keen on shooting as I,

and he hailed the idea with joy.

He took me to the then depôt of the R.N.F.C., at the big _Daily Mail_

air-ship shed at Wormwood Scrubbs, and he used every possible bit of

influence he had got to get me in.

The naval people were all awfully jolly, but regulations were strict,

and though they moved heaven and earth for me, it could not be done.

I said good-bye to my brother, who was to come down to Morstone almost

immediately, and one dull, bitter afternoon in the middle of December, I

found myself in a third-class carriage going home--once more a hopeless

failure.

I could see old Upjelly's mocking sneer, I could hear little Lockhart's

titter; old Pugmire would say, "A gin and soda is clearly indicated in

this crisis." And Doris--what would Doris say?

Well, Doris, poor Doris, would weep. She would know it was not my fault,

dear little girl, but she would weep. And for many days I should read my

newspaper, which arrived in the evening, over the fire in my

sitting-room in the north wing at the end of the dormitory, and if I did

not weep too, it would be because I was a man and not a girl. Other

people would be doing glorious things. Two-thirds of the men of my own

college were already either at the front or in training. Some smug, who

could not get into the second fifteen at Exeter, would become D.S.O. or

V.C. Morstone would be full of farm lads, who had gone out louts and

come back wounded heroes. And for me, only what some priggish hymn or

other describes as "the daily round, the common task," how damnably

common, only I myself knew.

The afternoon, as I have said, was dark and lowering, and as I changed

at Heacham for the local train, a bitter wind, which cut like a knife,

swept over the vast flats, straight from Heligoland, the Kiel Canal, and

the tossing wastes of the North Sea.

We crawled along slowly, stopping at half a dozen stations, until, with

a groan, the train drew up in the God-forsaken little terminus of

Blankington-on-Sea. The sea was two miles away over the mud flats, and

Blankington consisted of an enormous church, five maltsters' yards, a

few fly-blown shops, and seventeen public-houses, where the townspeople

and labourers on the weekly market day defied the marsh fogs with ardent

spirits.

Wordingham, the husband of the woman who kept the Morstone Inn, was

waiting with his dog-cart. I hoisted in my kit-bag and jumped up beside

him and we started off. It was pitch dark, and we had five miles to go

along a level road.

On the right were huge fields of barley stubble, all in the great shoot

of the Earl of Blankington, whose yearly head of "birds," as partridges

are called in Norfolk, to say nothing of pheasants, was second only to

that of Sandringham itself, not so very far away. To the left were a few

more fields where some plovers wailed mysteriously, "it's dark and

late," or "it's late and dark," and beyond, the vast creeks and saltings

towards the ocean. Even as we got out of the little town, I heard the

great boom of a double ten-bore far away. Well, I could at least go back

to my wild-fowling, and Wordingham told me that the geese were working

backwards and forwards in skeins of at least a hundred, right over the

Morstone miels.

CHAPTER II

"THERE IS SOMETHING VERY WRONG ABOUT THIS HOUSE"

We bowled along through the night, and I turned up the collar of my

thick ulster, for it was bitterly cold.

"Well," I said, "any news, Wordingham?"

Wordingham was a big, strong, nut-brown, silent man, who took time

before he spoke. At last he did so, but without replying to my question.

"My missus," he said slowly, "has got the parlour behind the bar ready

for your brother, sir. It is a snug, ship-shape little place, and we

will do our best to make him comfortable. And if you and I can't show

the Captain a bit of sport, well, there's no one in this part of the

country who can."

"Good," I said. "My brother has still got a month to get thoroughly fit

before he goes back to join the North Sea Squadron. I want him to have

as much shooting as possible."

Wordingham nodded and flicked up his horse. He was a well-known

wild-fowler in East Norfolk and, if report spoke true, a very skilful

poacher too. The marshes were free to everyone, right up to where the

sea came on rare spring tides. Wordingham had an excellent mahogany

punt, with a long, black-powder gun, and he would often get as many as

thirty brace of duck at a single shot after hours of cautious

water-stalking.

But, apart from the wild birds of the saltings, Morstone was in the very

heart of one of the most famous shoots in England. The villagers were

poachers to a man, and it was well known that fast motor cars often made

sudden appearances at night, whereby the poulterers of Leadenhall Market

were greatly enriched next morning. Many and many were the "old things"

that found their way into the capacious side-pockets of my friend--"old

thing" being the local name for hare, a word which is never spoken aloud

in a Norfolk village by those who find it "their delight of a moonlight

night," &c. &c.

I thought none the worse of Sam Wordingham for that. I had no big shoot

and no expensive machinery of game-keepers and night-watchers to keep

up. I, myself, was a bit of an Ishmael, to say nothing of a lover of

sport.

"I am sure we can do my brother very well," I said. "It is a fine

fowling year with all this cold, and there are a lot of worthy fowl

about, as many as I have ever seen. But has there been no news in the

village since I left?"

"You will be surprised to hear as the Doctor himself dropped in to the

private bar yesterday evening."

"Doctor Upjelly?"

Sam nodded. "It was about nine o'clock. Mr. Pugmire was settin' by the

fire, not to say boozed, but as is usual about nine o'clock. 'Muzzy' is

how I put it. Thinks I, 'Here's the Doctor come after Mr. Pugmire,'

though I never knew such a thing in all these years before, and everyone

knows Mr. Pugmire's little failings, the Doctor included."

"Was it that?"

"No, it weren't," and Sam turned his big, brown face toward me.

I knew Sam. Many and many a midnight had we spent together waiting for

flighting time. I forbore in anticipation.

"'E sets himself down and 'e calls for a bottle of strong, old

ale--fowlers' tipple. 'E nods quite pleasant to Mr. Pugmire, what was

looking at him like a cat looks when you catch it stealin' cream.

'Pugmire,' says he, 'you will join me in a little refreshment?' But the

old gentleman, he was too scairt, and 'e mumbles something and shuffles

off 'ome--and I'll lay that's the first time Mr. Pugmire has been 'ome

partly sober this year. Then the Doctor, he makes 'imself very pleasant,

'e does. My missus comes in and he begins asking about--what do you

think 'e arst about, sir?"

"I haven't an idea."

"About the Captain, about your brother."

I was startled. I hadn't told the Doctor that my brother was coming to

stay in the village--it was no business of his, and we had few

confidences on any subject. Lockhart knew and, of course, Doris and her

sister, but they were not likely to have said anything.

"What did he want to know?" I asked.

"Where he was sleeping, and if we were going to make the gentleman

comfortable, and if he had a taste for shooting, had I heard? Regular

lot of questions!"

"Well, it's very kind of the Doctor to take an interest in my brother,"

I replied.

"Very, sir," Wordingham answered dryly. "Mr. Jones, he came down last

night at ten o'clock, came down from London in his motor car, 'e did.

He's at the school now, or leastways, with this tide and the moon

getting up in an hour or so, he will be out on the marshes with the

Doctor. I heard tell that they was to be out all night. Bill Jack

Pearson, from the school, 'e told me."

Again there was silence, while I thought over this little bit of

information, for anything is news in such a stagnant hole as Morstone.

Mr. Jones was a friend of the Doctor's who often came to see him. He

was a short, sturdy, red-faced man with bright blue eyes and a very

reserved manner. We always understood that he was in business in the

city, and well-to-do. Like the Doctor, he had a passion for

wild-fowling, or that, at any rate, was supposed to be the reason for

his visits, though Doris had more than once hinted to me that she

thought Marjorie, her younger sister, was a bit of an attraction too.

"Ever been out with Mr. Jones, sir?" Wordingham asked.

"Not I. Why, I've only been out with the Doctor once in all the time

I've been at Morstone. He seems to prefer to be alone."

"Aye, he's a solitary man, is the Doctor. On that time you went out with

him, did you get anything, sir?"

"I got a couple of brent geese, but the Doctor was not in form at all

and missed his one chance when they came over."

"Now, would you be surprised, sir, if I was to tell you that the Doctor

is one of the worst shots in the parish?"

"I should be very surprised indeed. Why? He gets awfully good bags night

after night--whenever he goes out, in fact."

"You know Jim Long up at Cockthorpe?"--he was mentioning a famous

professional wild-fowler who lived by supplying the markets with duck

and taking out sportsmen from London over the difficult and intricate

marshes at night.

"Of course I do. Been out with him lots of times."

"Well, sir, don't say as I told you, don't mention it to Jim and don't

mention it to a living soul, but I found out only last month, accidental

like, that Jim's been supplying the Doctor with teal and widgeon and

grey geese and plover and what not for goodness knows 'ow long. 'E

leaves a nice little bag in the Doctor's old hulk in Thirty Main Creek,

and the Doctor finds 'em there and brings 'em home. And, what's more,

Mr. Jones, 'e can't shoot for nuts, neither. I've see'd 'im firing off

their guns, to get 'em dirty, from the deck of the hulk!"

At this I began to laugh, though the news was a bit of a shock to me,

for I had always regarded the Doctor and his friend as true sportsmen. I

saw no reason to disbelieve what Wordingham had said, for he was not a

man who spoke rashly, and, comic though the business was, I could not

help that sort of odd discomfort one feels when an illusion is

shattered. The only good thing I knew of Upjelly was now a thing of the

past. Of course, I had heard of the type of sportsman who buys a creel

of trout at the fishmonger's on his way home, or gets his pheasants at

the poulterer's--about the cheapest and nastiest form of vanity that

exists, I should think. But I had never heard of anything of the sort in

connection with wild-fowling; and indeed, a man who, night after night,

will go through the extraordinary discomforts, the freezing cold, the

occasional real danger, the weary hours of waiting in the dark, merely

to get a reputation as a fowler, must be king and skipper of all the

humbugs and pretenders since Mr. Pecksniff himself.

I had little more conversation with Sam, his news occupied all my

thoughts and for a time I forgot my own troubles. I remember thinking,

in a childish sort of way, what a rag it would be to stalk old Upjelly

one night, and catch him in the very act. What a hold I should have over

him afterwards!

We approached the village. The wind cried in the chimneys of the houses

with a strange, wailing note. The moon just peeped out behind the gaunt

church tower, amid the scud of ghostly clouds, and its light grew

brighter as we turned to the left towards the school itself. At the same

moment, the wind, smelling salt of the marshes and of the open sea a

mile beyond, and carrying particles of sand, struck me with its full

force, so that I had to bow my head.

In three minutes we were at Morstone House School. It was a long, low

building of considerable extent, shaped like the letter L. The shorter

arm was three storeys high and was the Doctor's own quarters, together

with his cook, housemaid, and the old matron, Mrs. Gaunt. The longer

wing contained the schoolrooms on the ground floor, a bare apartment

known as the dining-hall, and two dormitories in each of which there

were about fifteen boys, the whole school consisting of some fifty boys,

thirty of whom were boarders. This part of the building was only two

storeys high, save at one end, where there was a small tower. Just

outside each dormitory was a master's sitting-room and bedroom. One of

these was mine--the top one--the other, down below, that of Lockhart.

There were three main entrances to the school. One, the front door, in

the middle of the longer portion of the building, another, a small door

in the angle, used only by the masters, and the Doctor's private

entrance, opening out into his garden on the other side of the block.

It was just ten o'clock as I drove through the playing fields and on to

the gravel sweep in front of the house. Bill Jack Pearson, the school

porter, opened the masters' door and took my bag. He was a pleasant,

cheery fellow, who liked me.

"Well, Bill Jack," I said, "everything all right?"

"Everything all right, Mr. Carey. The Doctor and Mr. Jones, who came

last night, have gone out towards Cockthorpe. The geese are working

there, and they won't be back till dawn. There's some supper in your

room, and I've lit the fire."

Then I asked a question which the porter quite understood.

"And Mrs. Gaunt?"

"The old cat's gone to bed, sir," he said in a lower voice. "I've just

come from the Doctor's kitchen, and Cook told me."

I passed through the little paved lobby which led to the long corridor

of class-rooms, and hurried up the bare, wooden stairs. There was a good

fire in my room and the lamp was lit upon the supper-table, where a jug

of beer flanked a cold wild goose--and ordinary mortals who have not

tasted that delicacy have missed a lot.

I took off my coat, went into my bedroom and washed my hands, peeped

into the dormitory, where only a single lamp was burning dimly and all

the boys seemed asleep, and then returned.

As I closed the door and saw my own familiar things around me, the

remembrance of what had happened came over me in a great flood. I

groaned aloud. Upon the walls, washed with terra-cotta, were my college

groups, reminding me of Oxford and happier days. There were some silver

cups upon a shelf. In a glass-fronted cupboard by the side of the

fireplace were my guns. Over the mirror on the mantelpiece was a faded

blue cap, and on the writing-table was a pile of filthy, dogs-eared,

little exercise books, in which reluctant urchins had been scribbling

attempts at Latin prose.

I bit my lip hard and sat down to supper, which did not take more than

five or six minutes. Then I prepared myself for something that was yet

to come.

Against the wall by the window was a bookshelf containing the few

volumes I possessed and such schoolbooks as I used in my work. I took

down Smith's classical dictionary, and Liddell and Scott's Greek ditto,

and, inserting my hand in the place this left, withdrew a pleasant

little instrument which I had bought for twenty-seven-and-six--see

advertisement in the _Strand Magazine_--from a scientific toy-shop in

Holborn. This was known as "Our Portable House Telephone," and, not to

elaborate the mystery, a little wire ran out of my window, through the

ivy, and round the angle of the building to the Doctor's block, where it

found unobtrusive entry through another window. At this end was an

instrument exactly like the one I held in my hand, but which rested in a

hole made in the plaster of the wall and was concealed by that touching

engraving, "The Soul's Awakening." I had fixed up the whole thing myself

some two months before, when the Doctor was away in London, Mrs. Gaunt

at market in Blankington-on-Sea, and the boys engaged in a paper chase.

Doris was waiting, of course.

"Dearest, so you've got back--I heard the trap!"

"Yes; can you come?"

"In a minute. The connecting door to the school is locked, but I made

Bill Jack lend me his key."

"Right-O!"--and I waited breathlessly for Doris.

I daresay such a proceeding as this may strike the ultra-proper with

dismay. But we loved each other, there was no harm in it, and, besides,

what the deuce were we to do? It was the only way we could meet at all,

and even then, it only happened now and again.

The door of my sitting-room opened without a sound and Doris entered.

Doris's hair is dark red, and, when it is down, it reaches almost to

her heels. Titian red, I believe, is the right name for it, though I'm

sure I don't know why. Her eyes are dark blue, like the blue on the wing

of a freshly killed mallard--I am not good at this sort of thing, but

she is a ripper. Directly she had closed the door, which she did

noiselessly, she saw from my face what had happened. I felt a rotten

tout, I can tell you, to stand there, chucked again.

"Well, here I am," I said, "returned empty, declined with thanks, His

Majesty having no use for my services! Same old game, Doris dear, and if

they lose the war now, they can't blame me!" I spoke bitterly, but

lightly also; yet when Doris put her arms round my neck and I held her

close, when I could feel warm tears upon my cheek, I was as near

breaking down as I have ever been in my life.

"Never mind, Johnny darling, never mind," she whispered, "I love you

just the same--you've always got me--and it isn't your fault. You've

tried as hard as you possibly can to go."

She could only stay a quarter of an hour; it wasn't safe longer.

Marjorie was keeping cave, for the sisters occupied the same room. I

told her everything as shortly as I could, and with a sigh, we both

agreed that we must make the best of it. She wanted me to go, she longed

for me to go, I knew that. What patriotism there was in Morstone House

School was confined to the boys and to the Doctor's stepdaughters.

Upjelly himself seemed to take very little interest in the

conflagration of the world, or, if he did, he never showed it. But I

knew as well as I knew anything that Doris would rather have had me go

to the Front and get a bullet through my head than that I should stay at

home; which, I may remark, is the right sort of girl.

"Well," she said at length, "let us hope the Germans invade us--it will

be somewhere about here, I suppose, if they do--and then you can have a

smack at them with your single eight-bore, Johnny; that would be

something, wouldn't it?"

She told me the news of the school, such as it was, and then, with a

final kiss, we separated and I was left alone.

The bitterness was still in my heart, a deep sort of fire at the bottom

of everything which I can't put into words--like the gentlemen in the

boys' historical novels, who always begin: "I am but a plain, unlettered

yeoman, and more handy with the sword than with the pen"--you know what

I mean. Still, I was a man and a strong one, and an Englishman whose

brother was fighting for his King. I did not know before that life could

hurt so badly as it was hurting now. For nearly an hour, I suppose, I

walked up and down my room, until the fire grew low and the wailing of

the wind outside seemed to speak of disaster and complete the innuendo

of the time.

And then, quite suddenly, I do not know what it was, my spirits began to

clear. It was like a thick sea-mist on the marshes, which hangs like a

dull, grey blanket for hours, with the birds calling all round, only you

cannot get a shot at them. Suddenly the sun, or a puff of wind, makes

the whole thing roll up like a curtain, and you see a herd of curlew or

a wisp of snipe quite close to you. That is how I felt. I caught sight

of my face in the glass, and I was surprised. It was positively

glowing--just as if I had been made Commander-in-Chief of the R.N.F.C.

and Admiral Jellicoe had asked me to come and have a drink.

I am not used to analysing my feelings, which seem to me like

chemicals--the more you analyse them, the worse they smell; so I could

not account in the least for this sudden change.

Well, I was wondering at it and thinking that I had better turn in

before I got the black dog on my shoulders again, when there was a tap

at the door, and in shuffled little Lockhart. He had a bottle of whisky

under one arm and a syphon under the other, and he looked, as usual,

like a plucked spring chicken that had not been properly fed--bones

sticking out everywhere.

"Thought perhaps you hadn't any whisky," he said--and then, "Hallo!

pulled it off this time?" He was looking at my face.

I started, because there was something in his voice I had not heard

before, and something in his eyes I had not seen.

"My dear chap," he went on, banging down the whisky on the table and

holding out his hand. "I can't tell you how glad I am!"

Well, this made it rather hard. Of course, I had to tell him that I had

got the kick out again, but I didn't feel the depression coming back,

all the same. What I did feel, though, was a sudden liking for the odd

little fellow who was my colleague. We had always got on well enough

together, never had rows or anything of that sort, but he was too

cynical for me as a rule. In five minutes, however, I found myself

sitting on one side of the fire--which we made up--with Lockhart on the

other, talking away as if we had been intimate friends for years.

By Jove, how the little fellow came out! If his body was maimed and

crippled, he had a big soul, if ever a man had. I can recognise

beautiful English when I hear it or read it. This man seemed inspired.

His talk of England and what we were going through and of what we still

had to go through was like that wonderful passage in Richard II which I

had been trying to make my idiot boys learn for rep. He was so awfully

kind and sympathetic, too. He said all that Doris had said, though in

quite another way. It was like a wise man, who had known and done

everything, comforting one.

When he had finished, and sat looking at the fire, I had to tell him

what I felt.

"I'm awfully indebted to you, Lockhart," was what I said. "You've pulled

me together and made a man of me again, and I can't thank you enough.

I'm afraid we haven't been such friends as we ought to have been"--and I

held out my hand. He took it and there was a strained smile upon his

wizened little face.

"Carey," he said, "don't you be downhearted, for you are going to have

your chance yet, unless I am very much mistaken."

"What do you mean?" I asked, for there was obviously something behind

his words.

For answer, he did a curious thing. He slipped out of his arm-chair,

hopped across the room like a sparrow, and as quietly, and opened the

door, looking into the passage. Then he closed it and came back into the

middle of the room.

"In the first place, John Carey," he said, "I mean that there is

something very wrong about this house."

CHAPTER III

BERNARD CAREY, LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER OF SUBMARINES

I had just finished my tub the next morning, and was about to shave,

when there was a knock at my bedroom door. The school porter came in

with a message--"the Doctor sends his compliments, sir, and will you

give him the pleasure of your company at breakfast this morning?"

This was quite unusual on the part of my chief. He always breakfasted

alone in his own house; even his daughters did not share the meal with

him. Lockhart and myself breakfasted with the boys--that is to say, we

sat at a table at one end of the room, while old Mrs. Gaunt, the matron,

presided over the bread-and-scrape and the urn of wishy-washy tea which

was all the boarders got, unless they provided delicacies for

themselves.

About half-past eight, I went downstairs, round the rectangular wing,

into the Doctor's garden, and knocked at his front door. I was almost

immediately shown into the breakfast-room, a comfortable place, with a

good many books and a fine view over the marshes.

Old Upjelly was standing upon the hearthrug as I entered, and I must

describe for you a very remarkable personality indeed.

The Doctor was six feet high and proportionately broad. He was not only

broad from shoulder to shoulder, but thick in the chest, a big, powerful

man of fifty years of age. His face was enormous, as big as a ham

almost, and it was of a uniform pallor, rather like badly-cooked tripe,

as I once heard Lockhart describe it. A parrot-like nose projected in

the centre of this fleshy expanse; small, but very bright eyes, sunk in

caverns of flesh, looked out under bushy, black brows which squirted

out--there is no other word. He was clean-shaved and his mouth was

large, firm and curiously watchful, if I may so express it. Upjelly

could make his eyes say anything he pleased, but I have always thought

that the mouth is the feature in the human face which tells more than

any other. And if Upjelly's mouth revealed anything, it was

secretiveness, while there was a curious Chinese insensitiveness about

it. Lockhart, who had rather a genius for description, used to say that

he could conceive Doctor Upjelly locking himself up in his study and

sitting down to spend a quiet and solitary afternoon torturing a cat.

He greeted me with his soft, rather guttural voice and with something

meant for an expansive smile.

"Ah, here we are," he said, "and tell me at once, Mr. Carey, if you have

been successful in your application."

Of course, I was quite prepared for this question and briefly related

the facts of the case, explaining that even my brother's influence had

failed to secure my entry into the Royal Naval Flying Corps.

"I am truly sorry," he said, with the unctuous manner he reserved for

parents, "truly sorry; but you must remember, Mr. Carey, that 'they also

serve who only stand and wait.'" And as he said it, or was it my fancy,

there came a curious gleam into those little bits of glistening black

glass he called his eyes.

A minute or two afterwards, and just as the maid was bringing in various

hot dishes, the door opened and Mr. Jones entered.

I had been introduced to Mr. Jones some months before, though neither he

nor Upjelly had ever invited me to shoot with them. I had only met him

for a few minutes and had never formed a very definite opinion about him

one way or the other.

He shook hands with me kindly enough, and I noticed how extremely firm

and capable his grip was. It was not at all the sort of grip one would

expect from the ordinary city man, though, of course, nowadays everybody

plays golf or does something of the kind, even in business circles.

Mr. Jones' face was clean-shaved, too, and rather pleasant than

otherwise, though it was somewhat heavy. His eyes were bright blue, his

hair, thinning a little at the top, a light yellowish colour. He walked

with a slight roll or, shall I say swagger?--I really hardly know how to

describe it--which somehow or other seemed reminiscent, and he spoke

almost pedantically good English. When I say good English, I mean to say

that he chose his words with more care than most Englishmen do--almost

as if he were writing it down.

We sat down to breakfast, and I saw at once that neither Doris nor her

sister were to be there. The meal was elaborate; I had no idea Upjelly

did himself in such style, for except at Oxford or Cambridge, or in big

country houses, breakfast is not generally a very complicated affair in

an ordinary English family. The coffee was excellent--there was no

tea--and there was a succession of hot dishes. I noticed, however, that

Mr. Jones took nothing but coffee, French rolls--I suppose the Doctor's

cook knew how to make them--and a little butter. And I noticed also

that, after all, he could not be of very great importance or good

breeding, because he tucked his table-napkin into his collar round his

chin, an odd proceeding enough!

We began about the war, of course. Upjelly asked me my impressions of

London, and was most interested when I told him of all I had seen going

on at the R.N.F.C. Depôt at Wormwood Scrubbs, especially about the great

Rolls-Royce cars and the guns they were mounting on them. I never

thought the man took such an interest in anything outside his food and

his shooting--if indeed he took an interest even in shooting, which

Wordingham's story of last night led me to doubt.

Somehow or other, I was convinced that Upjelly did not care either way

about my failure to enlist. He said the conventional things, but I knew

he was inwardly indifferent. It was not the same with Mr. Jones, whom I

began to like. He seemed genuinely sorry.

"I can understand, Mr. Carey," he said, "that you have been extremely

disappointed. I can sympathise with you most thoroughly. It is the duty

and the privilege of every man who is capable of bearing arms to fight

for the Fatherland which has given him birth."

Of course, this was a bit highfalutin, but he meant well.

"Thank you," I said, "it certainly has been pretty rotten, but perhaps I

may get something to do yet. I would give anything just to have one go

at those swines of Germans! You saw what they did yesterday at the

little village of Oostcamp, in Belgium?"

"We must not believe all we read in the papers, Mr. Carey," Upjelly

said, wagging his head and piling his plate with ham--the beast ate

butter with his ham!

"I know," I replied; "of course, it is not all true, but there have been

enough atrocities absolutely proved to show what utter soulless beasts

the Germans are. It is a pity that we are not at war with a nation of

gentlemen, like the French, if we have to be at war at all!"

The Doctor flushed a little. I suppose he thought I was too outspoken.

"I have lived much in Germany in my youth," he said, "and always found

them most hospitable and kind. You must not condemn a nation for the

deeds of a few."

"Well, you may have been in Germany," I thought, "but you can't explain

away Louvain, for instance, or lots of other places!"

Still, it was not my place to shove my oar in too much, and I turned to

Jones.

"What do you think, Mr. Jones?" I asked.

He hesitated for two or three seconds, as if he was trying to make up

his mind. "No one deplores certain incidents in Belgium more than I do,"

he said at length, "but we must hope that, as Doctor Upjelly says, there

is a brighter side to the picture. You must remember that even a German

probably loves his country just as much as an Englishman."

Well, of course I knew that was all rot. I had never been in Germany,

but people who let a chap like the Kaiser rule them and who live on

sausages and beer about as interesting as ditchwater, must be thorough

blighters! However, I changed the subject.

"Now, the Navy," I said, "from all accounts, are quite a decent lot of

chaps. What a sportsman von Müller was till we bagged the _Emden_. He

behaved like a white man all through, and we let him keep his sword,

which I think we were quite right in doing."

Mr. Jones smiled suddenly, revealing a row of very white and even teeth.

"You," he began, "I mean we, are an arrogant people, we English!" and he

chuckled as if he were amused at what I had said. "I quite agree with

you, however," he went on, "that the German naval officer is a fine

fellow. Your brother, by the way, is in our Navy, isn't he?"

"Yes," I said; "he was wounded in a little affair off Heligoland the

other day. But he is getting fit now. Oh, by the way, Doctor, he is

coming down here to get some shooting. He is going to stay at the

Morstone Arms."

"So I heard," Upjelly answered--the old fox, I thought I was going to

catch him out!--"I went in there last night, a thing I don't often do,

in order to see if I could find old Mr. Pugmire, and I heard from Mrs.

Wordingham. I shall hope to have the pleasure of making his acquaintance

when I return."

"You are going away, Doctor?"

"Yes. That was one of the things I wanted to see you about. Mr. Jones

is very kindly going to drive me up to town in his car this morning, and

I shall be away for a couple of days. I want to leave you in charge as

my representative."

"But Lockhart----" I began.

"Mr. Lockhart is not quite as capable of keeping discipline in the

school as you are, Carey."

"Thank you very much, sir," I replied; "I will do my best."

The meal continued and we all got on very well. Upjelly seemed really

interested in my brother and, after a cigarette, when I rose to go into

school, both he and Jones shook me very cordially by the hand.

As I was leaving the room, I noticed one curious thing. There was a

little writing-table by the door and on it I distinctly saw the Navy

List for that month, obviously fresh from London. What old Upjelly could

want with a Navy List, a book which, of course, I had upstairs, I could

not conceive, and it gave me food for thought, especially in view of

what I shall have to relate very shortly.

At the eleven o'clock break, when the boys had come out and were punting

about a soccer ball in front of the school, I saw Mr. Jones' big green

car, with himself at the wheel and the Doctor by his side, come round

the house and start off for London.

I felt as if a great oppression was removed. My brother would arrive

that afternoon; Upjelly was out of the way; I was in charge of the whole

place. It would be hard if I did not see more of Doris than I had been

able to do for months past.

We went into school again. I was taking what, in a pitiful attempt at

persuading ourselves we were a public school, we called the Sixth Form,

in Virgil. My boys, there were about ten of them, were a pleasant enough

set of lads, ranging from fifteen to the two eldest boys, both of whom

were seventeen. They were twins, Dickson max. and Dickson major, the

sons of a poor clergyman near Norwich, who could not afford to send them

to a better school. They had tried for entrance scholarships at Repton

and at Denstone, but had failed, and at all that concerns books or

learning were rather duffers. Yet they were clever boys in their way,

good sportsmen and, despite a perfectly abnormal talent for mischief,

could be depended on in the main. I liked them both and I was sorry for

them. Their one hope was that the war would last long enough for them to

enlist, for their father was too poor even to pay the necessary expenses

to send them into the Public Schools Corps, where lads of such physique

and cheery manners could have been sure of a welcome.

"_Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum_," droned out Dickson max.,

in painful endeavour to bury a dead language in the very stiff clay of

his mind. "Through various causes ..."

"Now how can you say 'causes,' Dickson? You know perfectly well what it

is that Aeneas is saying. He is exhorting his followers to press

towards Rome against all sorts of bad luck. '_Casus_' should have been

translated 'chances.' '_Per tot discrimina rerum_' is, of course,

'through so many changes of fortune.' Imagine Aeneas is Sir John French,

pressing onwards to Berlin."

It was fatal; that gave the signal.

"Sir," said Dickson major instantly, "did you see any of the Royal Naval

Flying Corps in London?"

Dickson max. put down his Virgil. "Is it true, sir, that they have got a

hundred armoured motor cars, each one with a maxim gun on

it?"--questions from eager faces were fired at me from all parts of the

room.

I trust I am no precisian, as the people in Stevenson's stories are

always saying, and I confess that, for the next quarter of an hour I

held forth in an animated fashion about all that I had seen and done in

London. After all, it is the duty of a schoolmaster to encourage

patriotism, isn't it? I was just describing some of the new aerial guns

that we are mounting on some of the principal London buildings for the

defence of the city against Zeppelins, when there was a most appalling

crash and howl outside in the corridor.

There was dead silence for an instant, then I jumped down from my desk

and rushed out. An unpleasant, almost a terrifying spectacle met my

eyes. Old Mrs. Gaunt, the matron, was rolling upon the flags of the

corridor like a wounded ostrich, yelping, there is really no other word

for it, as if in agony. Her face was pale as linen and her mouth was

twisted. She was obviously in great pain.

"Whatever has happened?" I said, trying to help her, but as I lifted the

old thing by the shoulder she shrieked loudly and I had to lay her down

again.

"My leg's broken!" she cried, "my leg's broken! One of those filthy boys

left his ball about, and I trod on it"--and indeed I saw, a few yards

away, the white fives ball which had been the cause of her disaster.

The porter was summoned, we improvised an ambulance somehow, and took

the poor old thing to her room in the Doctor's wing, Doris and Marjorie

attending to her, while the porter rushed off on his bicycle for the

nearest doctor.

In about an hour the doctor came. It was perfectly true, Mrs. Gaunt had

broken her leg. It was a simple fracture and, as the Doctor told me

afterwards, the woman was as tough as an old turkey, but she would be

confined to her bed for a fortnight at least, and the injured limb was

already encased in plaster of Paris.

It was strictly against the rules for any boy to leave a fives ball

about. An accident had nearly happened once before for the same reason.

At lunch, I conducted a stern inquisition as to the culprit's identity.

It was Dickson max., who owned up at once, and I told him to come to my

room after the meal.

I could not very well cane a boy of seventeen who would have been at

Sandhurst if his people could have afforded. Besides, I was too

inwardly grateful to him to have the slightest wish to do anything of

the sort. I gave him a thousand Latin lines and told him to stay in that

afternoon, which was a half-holiday, and on three subsequent halves, and

I am sorry to say that he grinned in my face as I did so. It was not an

impudent grin, or I should have known how to deal with it, but it was

one of perfect comprehension, and I fear I blushed as I told the young

beggar to clear out as quickly as possible.

Certainly the fates were working well for me, though I had, even then,

not the least idea of what an eventful day this was to prove. Nothing

came to tell me that I was already embarked upon the greatest enterprise

of my life. I was to know more before night.

Now one of my most cherished possessions at that time was a motor

bicycle. It was of an antiquated pattern and more often in the workshop

than on the road. Fortunately, such engineering knowledge as I had

enabled me to tinker at it for myself. To-day, though it had recently

been running with a most horrid cacophony resembling the screams of a

dying elephant and a machine gun alternately, it would still get along,

and I mounted it for Blankington-on-Sea to meet my brother Bernard.

I put it up at the hotel--I saw the yard attendant wink at the stable

boy as he housed it--ordered a trap and went to the station. The train

came in to time and my brother descended from a first-carriage. I had

seen him in London only a day before, and despite his natural annoyance

at the failure to get me into the R.N.F.C., he had been particularly

cheery. As we shook hands and the porter took his kit-bags and gun-cases

to the trap, I saw that he had something on his mind. He hardly even

smiled. I jumped to a wrong conclusion.

"Bernard," I said, "would you like a whisky-soda before we start? You

look as if you had been enjoying yourself too much last night."

He shook his head. "No peg for me, thanks; let us get on the road."

We went out of the station together and as we came into the yard he said

in a low voice: "I have a deuce of a lot to tell you, but not now."

Then we started for Morstone.

Little more than an hour later we were seated in the parlour at the inn.

A comfortable fire glowed upon the hearth and sent red reflections round

the homely room, lighting up the stuffed pintail in its case, the

old-fashioned, muzzle-loading marsh gun over the mantelpiece, the

gleaming lustre ware upon a dresser of old oak, and an engraving of old

Colonel Hawker himself, the king of wild-fowlers and a name to conjure

with in East Anglia. Upon the table was a country tea, piping hot scones

made by good Mrs. Wordingham, a regiment of eggs, a Gargantuan dish of

blackberry jam.

"By Jove, this is a good place!" Bernard said. "Two lumps and lots of

cream, please. Look at this egg! Upon my word, I would like to shake by

the hand the fowl that laid it!"

We made an enormous meal and then, as he pulled out a blackened "B.B.B."

and filled it with "John Cotton," my brother began to talk.

"We are quite safe here, I suppose?" he said; "nobody can overhear us?"

"Safe as houses."

"Very well, then; now look here, old chap, you noticed I seemed a bit

off colour when you met me. Well, I'm not off colour, but I've had some

very serious news and, what is more, a sort of commission in connection

with it. After I saw you off yesterday I went to the Army and Navy Club.

There I found a letter from Admiral Noyes, written at the Admiralty and

asking me to call at once. I was shipmate with Noyes when he was captain

of the old _Terrific_, and he has helped me a lot in my service career.

It was he who got me transferred into Submarines--where, you know, I

have made a bit of a hit. Well, now Noyes is Chief of the Naval

Intelligence Department. He sent for me and asked me a lot of questions,

specially about Kiel and the Frisian Islands. I was at Kiel for the

manoeuvres two years ago and I know all that coast like my hat. I

didn't quite see the drift of his questions until he told me what was

going on. It seems"--and here Bernard's voice sank very low--"it seems

that, recently, there has been a tremendous leakage of information to

the enemy--Naval information, I mean. We have our people on the

look-out, and there is no doubt whatever that, during the last two

months, over and over again the German ships have got information about

our movements."

"I know. There is a whole lot about it in the _Daily Wire_: flash

signals from the Yorkshire coast at night, round about Whitby, and so

on."

"Oh yes, I saw that too; but the leakage is not there, my boy. That's

newspaper talk. The Admiralty know to a dead certainty that the leakage

is going on in East Norfolk, round about here."

I whistled. "I don't see how that can be," I said. "There is no wireless

station anywhere near. The few boats that come into Blankington-on-Sea

are only small coasters and they are very carefully scrutinised; and as

for flash signals, I am out on the marshes nearly every night, the

foreshore is patrolled by sentries, and nothing of the sort has ever

been hinted at."

"Exactly; that is the point. But that there is a leakage and that it is

doing irreparable harm, you may take as an absolute certainty. Noyes

knew that I was coming down to Norfolk for a rest and for some shooting.

When I applied for leave, I had to state my destination and so forth.

Noyes got hold of it by chance and sent for me, knowing he could trust

me. The long and short of it is, Johnny, that I have got a roving

commission to keep my eyes very wide open indeed, to see if I can't find

something out. Don't mistake me. This is not a mere trifling matter. It

is one of the gravest things and one of the most perfectly organised

systems that has happened during the war. Why," he said, bringing his

fist down upon the table so that the cups rattled, his face set and

stern, "the safety of the whole of England may depend upon this being

discovered and stopped!"

"But surely," I asked, "they have had people down here already?"

Bernard nodded. "Oh yes," he said, "the coastguards are specially

warned, there have been thorough searches, quietly carried out, reports

are constantly made from every village by accredited agents--and the

Admiralty has not a single clue. Now, old chap, if you can help me, and

if we can do anything together, well, here's our chance! There won't be

any difficulty about your getting into the R.N.F.C., or any other corps

you like, if we can only throw light upon this dark spot."

I caught fire from his words. "By Jove!" I cried, "if only there was a

chance! I would do anything! But I know every man, woman, and child in

this village and the surrounding ones. There is not one of them capable

of acting as a spy. There are no suspicious strangers. Even the

wild-fowlers who come down here are all regular and known visitors,

above suspicion." I said this in all good faith, and then, suddenly, a

light came to me like a flash of lightning, and I rose slowly from my

chair. Bernard told me afterwards that I had grown paper-white and was

trembling.

"What is it?" he said quickly.

"I hardly dare say," I replied. "It seems wild foolishness and yet----"

He waited very patiently, and still I could not bring myself to speak.

Then it was his turn to take away my breath. He leant forward on the

table and pulled out a pocket-book.

"Supposing, John," he said, "that you have been living in a fool's

paradise for months. Supposing that, by some means unknown to me and the

Admiralty, unknown to anyone, you are actually living in the centre of a

cunningly woven web of espionage, whose strands reach from Berlin to

Wilhelmshaven, from Kiel to London!"

He took a piece of paper from his pocket-book. I saw that there were

figures upon it, not letters, but he read it as if they were print.

"'Paul Upjelly,'" he said, "'Paul Upjelly, Ph.D.; English subject;

possessed of private means; has been for eight years headmaster of

Morstone House School; habits'--h'm--h'm--you know all about his habits,

John--'man whose past cannot be traced for more than ten years; known to

have lived in Germany in youth; no suspicion at present attaches.'"

"What on earth does this mean?" I gasped.

"It only means that in this pocket-book I have lists of forty or fifty

people round these coasts who might or might not be in the pay of

Germany. There is not the slightest suspicion attaching to any one of

them, but I saw you stand up suddenly and grow pale--well, I played into

your strong suit, that was all. Was I right?"

"Last night," I said, "I had a very curious and significant talk with a

brother-master of mine, whose name is Lockhart."

"Get him to come here and have a chat as soon as possible."

"That isn't necessary, because Upjelly is away in London and an old

beast of a housekeeper he keeps, who tells him everything, is in bed

with a broken leg. We can go up to the school all right, and I

particularly want to introduce you to Miss Joyce, who is--er----"

He nodded. "I know," he said. "You bored me to tears about the young

lady last time I saw you. Delighted to meet her. We will toddle up to

the school as soon as ever you like and I will hear what Mr. Lockhart

has got to say. I suppose you can trust him?"

"I am absolutely certain of it," and, with that, things began to fall

together in my mind as the glass pieces in a kaleidoscope fall and make

a pattern. I mentioned the Navy List that I had seen at breakfast that

morning, and I told Bernard what Wordingham had told me concerning the

Doctor's knowledge of his visit.

A gleam came into his eyes. "Ah!" he said, very softly, and that was

all.

We got up to go, and as Bernard walked across the room to find his

overcoat, for night had fallen and it was bitter cold, I exclaimed

aloud. I knew what had puzzled me at breakfast when Mr. Jones came into

the room. He walked exactly like my brother. If you go to Chatham,

Portsmouth, or Plymouth, almost every other man in the street walks

like that.

We went straight to the school, only a quarter of a mile away, and

entered by the masters' door. I lit the lamp in my sitting-room, put on

some coals, and rang a bell which communicated with the upper boys'

room, where they were now at preparation. In a minute, there was a knock

at the door and Dickson max. entered.

"Dickson," I said, "I want you to find Mr. Lockhart and ask him if he

would be so very kind as to come to my room--oh and, by the way, this is

my brother, Commander Carey, Dickson."

The boy grew pale for an instant and then flushed a deep, rosy red. He

was a cool young wretch as a rule and I had never seen him so excited

before. I loved him for it. The boys knew all about my brother. They had

read of his exploits in the Submarine E8. I was always being pestered

with questions about him.

Bernard shook hands. "I am glad to meet you," he said.

Dickson was tongue-tied, but he gazed with an almost painful reverence

at Bernard.

"Oh, sir," he stammered, "oh, sir"--and then could get no further. In

desperation he turned to me. "I've done five hundred of the lines, sir,"

he said.

"Oh well, you needn't do any more," I answered.

"And please, sir, I've taken some more snapshots which I think you might

like"--and with that the lad pulled out a little bundle of recently

developed and printed photographs--he had a small kodak--and laid them

on the table. Then he bolted and we could hear him leaping downstairs,

bursting with the great news.

"He's got it badly," I remarked--"hero worship."

"Jolly good thing," my brother answered. "Lord, I remember when I was a

midshipman of signals, how I worshipped the flag-lieutenant. I ran after

him like a little dog, and I thought he was God. Healthy!"

We sat without speaking, waiting for Lockhart. My brother took up the

little bundle of snapshots and looked through them. Then we heard a

shuffling footstep in the passage and Lockhart entered. I introduced him

and we shut and locked the door. Bernard looked the little man up and

down for a minute or two, talking on indifferent subjects. And then, as

if satisfied, he plunged into business. He didn't tell my colleague all

that he had told me, but he told him enough to set Lockhart quivering

with eagerness and excitement.

"You shall hear all I know, Commander Carey," he said. "After all, it

isn't much, though"--he hesitated for a moment and then began:

"This man, Upjelly, our chief, is absolutely unfitted to be a

schoolmaster. He takes not the slightest interest in the school. John,

here, has found out, what I long more than suspected, that the Doctor's

wild-fowling is really a colossal pretence."

"Does the school pay?" my brother asked.

"Just about. There may be a small profit, but not enough to keep any man

tied down here if he has the slightest ambition or is anybody at all.

And, you haven't met the Doctor, but you may take it from me that he is

no ordinary man. There has always been an air of mystery and

secretiveness about him. He neither asks nor gives confidences. It

struck me from the very first that he was a man with an absorbing mental

interest of some sort or other. What was it?--that is what I asked

myself.

"Three weeks ago, the Doctor had a guest. It was a Mr. Jones, who

frequently visits him, apparently for the shooting. My bedroom is on the

floor below this. As you see, I am a cripple and an invalid. I often

pass nights of pain, when I cannot sleep. On one such night, three weeks

ago, the window of my bedroom was open and I lay in the dark. About

half-past three in the morning I heard footsteps on the gravel outside,

and the Doctor's voice. The night was quite still, though pitch dark.

Then I heard another voice which I recognised as that of the man Jones.

"The voices drew nearer until the men were almost underneath my window.

They were coming back from the marshes. I only know a few words of

German, but I recognise the language when I hear it. They were speaking

German."

My brother nodded.

"That Jones," I put in, "I have already told you, Bernard, was here when

I arrived last night. He left for London this morning, taking the

Doctor up with him in his car."

"Four days ago," Lockhart continued, "I wanted some waste paper to wrap

up a pair of boots I was sending to be mended. I was in my room and I

told one of the boys of my dormitory to go downstairs and get some. It

was about nine o'clock at night. The boy brought back two or three

newspapers. One of them was the _Cologne Gazette_, very crumpled and

torn, but with the date of only five days before. I have got it locked

up in my writing-desk.

"To-day, being a half-holiday, I thought I would go out for a walk upon

the foreshore. An overcoat rather impedes my movements, though I have to

wear one sometimes. I thought I would take a scarf instead. I went into

the hall, knowing that my scarf was in the pocket of my overcoat, and

felt for it. The hall is rather dark and I could not see very well what

I was doing. What I brought out of the pocket in which I felt was not my

scarf, but--this!"

Lockhart quietly laid something upon the table, and we bent over to look

at it. To me, at any rate, it was an extraordinary object. It was a sort

of cross between a large watch and a compass, with a curious little

handle. There were letters or figures, for a moment I could not say

which, in a double row round the dial.

"Can you tell me what it is?"

My brother was shaken from his calm at last. He gave an exclamation.

"Yes, I can!" he said. "I know very well. But first, when was this

photograph taken?"

With dramatic suddenness, he held out one of Dickson's prints. It was a

picture of Mr. Jones' motor, with that gentleman at the wheel and the

Doctor sitting on the far side, taken that very morning as they left for

London.

"This morning," I said. "That is the Doctor and Mr. Jones going off to

town."

"Mr. Jones at the wheel?" my brother asked.

"Yes, that is the fellow."

"Let me get it quite clear. The man, you say, walks like me?"

"Yes."

"Ah!" said my brother again, and his eyes had the look of a bloodhound

on a leash. "And now I will proceed to explain to you the use of this

pretty thing."

CHAPTER IV

DORIS AND MARJORIE GIVE A SUPPER PARTY. THE ARROW FLIES IN MORSTONE SEA

WOOD

"This," said my brother, "is what is known as Charles Wheatstone's

Cipher Instrument. It is a machine for writing in cipher. You see it has

a sort of watch-face, which has the alphabet inscribed round its outer

margin in the usual order, plus a blank space. A second alphabet is

written on a card or paper and attached to the watch-face within the

first alphabet. This has no blank space, and so there are but twenty-six

divisions as against twenty-seven in the outer ring. Two hands are

attached which travel at different speeds when the handle is turned.

Accordingly, each time the long hand is carried forward to the blank

space at the end of a word, the short hand will have moved forward one

division on the inner ring of letters. Then a word is chosen as a key,

written down in separate letters and the remaining letters of the

alphabet are written in order beneath it. I'll show you. Suppose, for

example, we choose the word 'English,' thus." He took a pencil and

scribbled for a moment upon the back of one of Dickson's photographs:

ENGLISH

ABCDFJK

MOPQRTU

VWXYZ.

"Now, if you read these letters downwards, you get this arrangement:

EAMVNBOWGCPXLDQYIFRZSJTHKU.

"This cryptographic alphabet is written on the inner card of the

instrument, beginning at a point previously agreed on. Then, when a

despatch is to be translated into cipher, the long hand is moved to that

letter in the outer alphabet, and the letter to which the short hand

points in the inner ring is written down. I need not go on, but I am

sure the principle will be clear to you. These machines are in use in

our Secret Service. But what I should like to point out to you in regard

to this example is that the alphabet here _is in German_."

[Illustration: THE CIPHER MACHINE THAT MR. LOCKHART FOUND]

We all looked at each other in silence.

"That is conclusive proof," I said at length. "Of course, you will have

Doctor Upjelly arrested directly he comes back."

"_And_ thank you!" said my brother. "So kind of you to put up your

little turn, Johnny! Will you have a cigar or a cocoanut? My dear boy,

if we had this man arrested, ten to one his tracks would be absolutely

covered and we could prove nothing. Don't you see, what we want to do is

to catch him in the act, to find out what he does and how he does it. No

such rough and ready methods!"--his voice became very grave and stern.

"Quarter-deck!" I thought to myself.

"This has not got to be taken lightly," he went on. "I believe that fate

has put my finger upon the very pulse of what has been puzzling the

Admiralty for weeks. I honestly believe that here, in this lonely house,

is hidden the intellect of the Master Spy of Germany. We are up against

it. We must work in silence and in the dark. The slightest slip would be

fatal. I cannot exaggerate the importance of this affair, nor," he

concluded, looking keenly at Lockhart and myself, "nor the danger."

Little Lockhart's face positively brightened at this. "Danger!" he

cried, as if someone had made him a present. "Then I shall be able to do

something to help! We shall all be able to do something and----"

Lockhart started and broke off. At that moment, from behind Smith's

classical dictionary and Liddell and Scott's Greek ditto there came a

faint, muffled whirr.

"Good God, what's that?" said Lockhart.

"Oh, it's all right," I answered, and I expect I looked about as big an

ass as I felt. "That is--er--a little contrivance of my own. By the way,

you fellows must keep it absolutely dark."

To say that they watched me with interest is to put it mildly. I

withdrew "Our House Telephone, Not a Toy, 27_s._ 6_d._ net" from its

hiding place. Doris was speaking. She knew that my brother had come and

she was dying to meet him. Old Mrs. Gaunt was sleeping peacefully; in

fact I fear, so prone are all of us to error, that Doris had

administered just twice the amount of opiate that the doctor had

prescribed.

Doris suggested that she and Marjorie should come at once to my room.

They also suggested that we should dine there, with the connivance of a

friendly housemaid. I told her to hold the line for a minute, and

explained.

My brother's face lost all preoccupation. He was a naval officer, you

will remember, and, though a distinguished one, was as young gentlemen

in that Service usually are in both age and inclination.

"Can a duck swim?" said my brother.

"Well, I'll go," Lockhart remarked, with just a trace of his old

bitterness.

"You sit where you are, old soul," I told him. "Bernard, both the girls

are only stepdaughters of the Doctor, who, they have told me, did not

treat their mother very well and who is a perfect tyrant to them.

They're as true as steel; I can answer for them. They will be of

tremendous help."

"Leave it all to me," he replied. "I am skipper of this from now

onwards. You follow my lead."

A minute or two afterwards the girls came in. Doris, as I have already

explained, was as pretty as Venus, Cleopatra, and Gertie Millar all in

one, and she only beat Marjorie by a short head. All the other girls

I've ever met were simply "also ran."

Marjorie's hair was black. She was a brunette with olive-coloured skin

and green eyes, like very dark, clear emeralds. She was extraordinarily

lovely. Indeed, all three of us had seriously considered starting a

picture postcard firm, with the girls as models and I to manage it, so

that Doris and I could get married and have Marjorie to live with us.

Rather a good scheme, only it would have needed at least two hundred

pounds capital, which we hadn't got! Doris had on her engagement ring,

which she generally wore on a string round her neck, underneath her

blouse. I had put thirty shillings each way on "Baby Mine" for the Grand

National and it had come off--hence the ring.

"Let me introduce you to my fiancée, Miss Joyce," I said to Bernard.

He took her hand and bowed over it, looking out of the corner of his

eyes at Marjorie.

Little Lockhart gasped. "Babe that I am!" he said, "blind mole! To think

that I have lived in this house with young John Carey for so long, the

house honeycombed with secret wires, and an illicit engagement in

progress under my nose, and I knew nothing of it!"

"Well, you are not the only person, Mr. Lockhart," Marjorie said. "And

now I am going to fetch up dinner. Cook is out for the evening. Amy is

in the plot. We've got soup--only tinned, but quite nice; there's a

round of cold beef; and we will make an omelette on John's fire."

"I'll come and help you carry the things," said my brother, and they

left the room as friendly as if they had known each other for years.

"Well, what do you think of my brother?" I asked Doris. I'm afraid my

arm was round her waist and I had forgotten Lockhart.

"I'm decidedly of the opinion," she said, "that Commander Carey knows

more than enough to come indoors when it rains."

Lockhart here revealed qualities of an unsuspected nature--I had never

really appreciated Lockhart until the night before.

"I happen to have, locked up in the cupboard of my sitting-room," he

said, "a bottle of claret wine and a bottle of sherry wine. I will go

and fetch them to grace this feast."

"You nasty, horrid villain, so you drink in secret, do you?" I remarked.

"Only Bovril, but please don't let it be known," was the reply, and then

Doris and I were alone.

I have never been one of those people who kiss and tell, so I will pass

over the next minute; but after some business of no importance, she put

her hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the face.

"John," she said, "there is something up!"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't exactly know, but there is something up. I can feel it--and

something has happened, too, that I have got to tell you about. Before

the Doctor left this morning, he told Marjorie that Mr. Jones had fallen

in love with her and that she would have to marry him after the war was

over, when he has straightened out his business affairs."

"Good Lord!" I said, "that thing? Why----"

"What have you got against him?" she asked quickly. "He's wealthy, the

Doctor says, he has got good manners; of course, he's older than

Marjorie, but he's not an old man. I thought you said you rather liked

him?"

"I did say so, and I liked him better than ever after meeting him this

morning. You know I had breakfast with the Doctor?"

"I know, and there is something up. Something to do with your brother--I

am certain of it. But why do you object to Mr. Jones for Marjorie?"

"What does Marjorie say herself?"

"She told the Doctor"--the girls would never call the Doctor

"Father"--"that if Mr. Jones had a million a minute and was the last man

left on earth after a second flood, she would rather spend her life in

the garden eating worms than marry him!"

"Marjorie's plenty of pluck," I answered, "and is obviously of romantic

temperament. Anyone else in the wind?"

"Anyone else?" she said, with a bitter note in her voice, "whom do we

ever see? We live as prisoners here, as you very well know, Johnny, and

if it were not for you I should long ago have jumped into Thirty Main

Creek and ended it all."

I held her close to me. "Dear," I said, "it will all come right, I am

certain. Somehow or other, we shall be able to be married soon, and then

you need never see Morstone or the Doctor any more."

"I love Morstone," she replied. "I love the lonely marshes and the

bird-noises and the great red dawns and the sweet salt air, but"--she

shuddered--"that fiend who married my poor dear mother and drove her to

death, I would see burnt to-morrow without a pang of remorse. He has

been worse lately, John, far worse. Mrs. Gaunt has been put to watch us

like a spy. I can't tell whether he suspects anything about you and me.

He may or may not. At any rate, there is something going on which

frightens me. I've no doubt you will think me quite hysterical, quite

foolish, and I feel it rather than know it, but I am frightened. Only

this morning, the Doctor said things to dear Marjorie which were awful.

He caught her by the arm and twisted it when she defied him, and his

voice was so ugly and cruel, it seemed so inhuman, that I felt as if

someone had put ice to the back of my neck. Oh, take me away soon, take

Marjorie away too!"

She clung to me in a passion of appeal, and then and there I resolved

that, come what might, we would marry and leave this ill-omened and

mysterious place.

"What a long time they are!" Doris said after a moment or two, when I

had soothed her. "Oh, here they come!"

But it wasn't, it was only Lockhart, who knocked at the door loudly and

waited for several seconds before coming in with his contribution to the

dinner.

"I'll run down and hurry them up, as there is no one about," I said.

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" she replied quickly. "Really, what a

babe you are, John!"

I was just the least bit in the world offended, not seeing why I should

not hurry up the truants, especially as I was extremely hungry again;

but they came at last, carrying two piled trays of provisions. I had

never seen Marjorie look prettier. Her eyes were brighter than ever, and

she showed not the slightest trace of unhappiness. Obviously, she had

quite forgotten the events of the morning.

I cannot tell you what fun the dinner was. The soup was top-hole--mock

turtle, and one of Elizabeth Lazenby's finest efforts. Lockhart was a

tremendous success as butler, and the "claret wine"--I should have

thrown it at my scout's head at Oxford--tasted like "Château la Rose" at

least.

Bernard and Marjorie made the omelette over my fire, while the rest of

us sat waiting and Lockhart and I smoked a cigarette. Marjorie ordered

my brother about most unmercifully. Suddenly, it was nearing a critical

moment and both of them were crouching over the pan, I happened to turn

my eyes in their direction. They were not looking at the omelette at

all. They were looking at each other and their faces were almost solemn.

Then it burst upon me and I fear I was indiscreet. I said aloud: "The

very thing! Oh, my holy aunt, the very thing!"

They whipped round.

"What is?" Bernard asked.

"Why, the omelette, you blighter!" I replied, and kicked Doris under the

table. She understood at once. Girls are so quick, aren't they?

When we had eaten the omelette and the round of cold beef had "ebbed

some," as I once heard a Rhodes' Scholar say at Oxford, my brother rose,

glass in hand.

"Mr. Vice," he said, "the King!"

I had dined in the wardroom with Bernard when he was on board the

_Terrific_, and I knew what to do.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the King!" I said, and we drank that loyal toast

in silence. Somehow it altered the mood of each individual. A gravity

fell upon us, not sadness or boredom, but we stopped to think, as it

were. Only two hundred miles away, over the marshes and over the sea,

the great German battleships were waiting. Nearer than Penzance is to

London, the armies of England at that moment were shivering in the

trenches round Ostend. And in Morstone House School--what was there that

hung undefined, but heavy and secret, like a miasma upon the air?

Then Bernard said: "Miss Joyce, I have taken the liberty to bring you a

little present from London."

"'Doris,' please," she answered.

"Very well then, Doris. It is a bracelet, a little affair of turquoises

and pearls, to commemorate our meeting and in the hope that you will

always be a good girl and love your brother-in-law."

"Oh, Commander Carey!"

"'Bernard,' please!"

"Well then, Bernard, how sweet of you!"

Poor Doris, and Marjorie too, were not in the way of getting many

presents. Upjelly saw to that!

My brother put his hand in his pocket, and then into another pocket,

finally into a third. He hesitated, he stammered, and looked positively

frightened. It was the first and last time I ever saw the old sport

thoroughly done in.

"Damn!" he said, and then grew more embarrassed still. "I am the biggest

fool in the Service. I remember now I left the case on my dressing-room

table at the Morstone Arms."

Poor little Doris's face fell. She could not help it. But I had a bright

idea.

"Oh, that's all right," I said. "There's a certain young imp of mine

called Dickson max----"

"Dear boy!" Marjorie murmured, and my brother looked at her quickly.

"He's seventeen, and quite trustworthy," I went on. "He will be delighted

to run and fetch it. Anything to be out of school at night!--and as I

am headmaster of this East Anglian Eton, I can do as I like. I will ring

for him."

Lockhart looked slightly upset, but I didn't care.

"But I thought," my brother remarked, "that this was somewhat in the

nature of a--well, shall we say 'secure-from-observation' dinner party."

"Oh, Billy Dickson won't breathe a word," Marjorie said emphatically.

"Well, you command this ship," my brother said, "and it is up to you.

Certainly I should like to send for the bracelet, and if you don't keep

Whale Island discipline aboard, it's not my affair."

I rang for Dickson max. He arrived, knocked at the door, stepped in, and

then his eyes grew very round indeed, but he said not a word. I told him

what was wanted and asked him if he would go.

"Rather, sir," he said, "I would be only too delighted."

I gave him the key of the masters' door.

"It's a bitter cold night," my brother put in, "supposing you take my

coat and this shooting hat. It'll keep you as warm as toast."

Of course Dickson max. would have scorned the idea of an overcoat under

ordinary circumstances, though Bernard didn't know that. But the

opportunity of wearing the ulster of a Wing-Commander of Submarines, who

had been wounded off Heligoland, was too much for the youthful mind. He

flushed with pleasure, and I won't swear that, as he went out into the

passage, he didn't salute.

I went downstairs with him, helped him on with the big coat--he was the

same height as Bernard and much the same figure--and pressed the

heather-mixture shooting hat on his head.

"Now scoot as hard as you can go," I told him, opening the door, and he

was gone like a flash into the dark night.

When I got back there was a curious silence. Somehow or other we none of

us seemed to know what to say. I can't account for it, but there it was.

It was then that my brother came in and I found a side of him I had only

suspected but never seen before.

Leaning forward in his chair, he began to talk very quietly, but with

great earnestness. I saw what he was up to. He was leading the

conversation very near home indeed. It was astonishing how he dominated

us all, how we hung on his words and how the sense of sinister

surroundings grew and grew as he spoke.

It was the girls who responded. The skill with which he introduced the

subject was enormous, but they were marvellously "quick in the uptake."

It was Marjorie who leant forward, her great eyes flashing and her lips

compressed to a thin line of scarlet.

"Commander Carey," she said, "don't think that I or my sister are

entirely ignorant that there is something very wrong about this place.

You have turned our thoughts into a new channel."

She was wearing a blouse with loose sleeves, ending in some filmy lace.

Suddenly, with her right hand, she pulled up the left-arm sleeve. There

were three dark purple marks upon her white arm.

"That was this morning," she said, nodding once or twice. "And now speak

out, if you have anything to tell us, about the man who killed my mother

as surely as if he did it with a gun, and who has done his best to ruin

the lives of my sister and myself. Speak without fear!"

Then Bernard, in crisp, low sentences, told the girls and Lockhart

exactly what he believed. The wind howled outside and hissing drops of

rain fell upon the window-pane. The fire crackled on the hearth, the

smoke of our cigarettes rose in grey spirals in the pleasant, lamp-lit

room. It was a strange night, how fraught with consequences to England,

the two beautiful girls, the little cripple, the third-rate

schoolmaster, and even the young naval officer himself, did not know!

"It has long been suspected," my brother concluded, and his voice sank

almost to a whisper, "that one master-mind has been behind all the

German espionage, both before and during the war. There is in existence,

our Intelligence Department has had indubitable evidence of it, a King

of Spies, so subtle of brain, so fertile in resource, that, even now, we

cannot find him. We do not know for certain, but it is rumoured that

this man's real name is Graf Botho von Vedal, though what name he passes

under now none can say."

Doris's eyes clouded. She seemed as if she was making an effort of

memory.

"Was he once 'Wirklicher Geheimrat'--Privy Councillor to the German

Emperor?" she asked.

Bernard stared at her. "So I am told," he said. "What do you know about

him?"

"I can't tell you," she answered with a dazed look upon her face--"some

childish memory. The name was familiar. My sister and I speak German as

well as we speak English, you know."

"If I could put my finger upon that man," my brother continued, "then

one of the gravest perils to which England lies open at the moment would

be removed."

"Where is he?" Lockhart asked, speaking like a man in a dream.

We all looked at each other, and there was dawning consciousness and

horror in every eye.

"Yes," came from my brother at length, and as he spoke he withdrew one

of Dickson's little photographs from his pocket--I hadn't seen him put

it there--"and also, what is Admiral Kiderlen-Waechter doing in

England?"

We all knew that name. The papers had been full of it at the beginning

of the war. Kiderlen-Waechter was the chief of the German Submarine

Flotillas. It was owing to his ingenuity and resource that ship after

ship of our gallant Navy had been torpedoed, even in the Straits of

Dover themselves.

"What do you mean?" I gasped.

"What I say, John. For, unless I am much mistaken--of course, I may

easily be mistaken--the gentleman who drove away with Doctor Upjelly to

London this morning is that very man."

"Mr. Jones?" Marjorie cried. "The man the Doctor swore that I must marry

when the war is over?"

Bernard's eyes blazed. "What?" he said quickly, "I heard nothing of

that!"

The two were looking at each other very strangely when there was a knock

at the door. It opened and Dickson max. came in.

He went up to my brother and put down a little case of red morocco by

his side.

"There you are, sir," he said.

I looked up sharply. There was something unusual in the lad's voice. He

caught hold of the back of Lockhart's chair and swayed as he stood. Then

we saw that beneath the upturned collar of the overcoat one cheek was

all red and bleeding. There was a line across it like the cut from a

knife.

"What on earth is the matter?" I cried, in great alarm.

"Oh nothing, sir," he answered, "only as I was coming through the Sea

Wood--I took the shorter way--I thought I heard someone behind me. I

turned round, and just as I did so there was a noise like a banjo

string, and something went past my head singing like a wasp. Then I

found my cheek all cut."

"What did you do? Who was it?"

"I plunged into the bushes, sir, but could not find anyone. Then I

pulled out my electric torch, and, sticking in the trunk of a tree, I

found this."

The boy unbuttoned his coat and held out a long, slim shaft. It was an

arrow, such as is used in archery competitions, but the edge had been

filed sharp.

"Some silly blighter trying to frighten me," said Dickson max., and

then, with a little sob, he fell in a faint upon the floor.

I bent over him and forced some wine between his lips. Bernard looked

round the room with a set, stern face.

"They are not losing any time," he said quietly. "You see, they know

that I am here, already."

NOTE.--For convenience sake I end the first portion of this

narrative at this point. It divides itself into three parts quite

naturally, as I think my readers will agree when they have read it

all. At any rate, on this night was formed that oddly assorted, but

famous, companionship which led to such great results. We swore no

oaths, we made no protestations. There was no need for that.

END OF PART I

PART II