In a way, their meeting the next morning was fortuitous enough, yet it had also its significance for both of them. Geraldine’s greeting was almost studiously formal.
“You are not going to scold me for my memory, are you?” Captain Granet asked, looking down at her with a faintly humorous uplifting of the eyebrows. “I must have exercise, you know.”
“I don’t even remember telling you that I came into the Park in the mornings,” Geraldine replied.
“You didn’t—that is to say you didn’t mention the Park particularly,” he admitted. “You told me you always took these five dogs out for a walk directly after breakfast, and for the rest I used my intelligence.”
“I might have gone into Regent’s Park or St. James’ Park,” she reminded him.
“In which case,” he observed, “I should have walked up and down until I had had enough of it, and then gone away in a bad temper.”
“Don’t be foolish,” she laughed. “I decline absolutely to believe that you had a single thought of me when you turned in here. Do you mind if I say that I prefer not to believe it?”
He accepted the reproof gracefully.
“Well, since we do happen to have met,” he suggested, “might I walk with you a little way? You see,” he went on, “it’s rather dull hobbling along here all alone.”
“Of course you may, if you like,” she assented, glancing sympathetically at his stick. “How is your leg getting on?”
“It’s better—getting on finely. So far as my leg is concerned, I believe I shall be fit to go out again within ten days. It’s my arm that bothers me a little. One of the nerves, the doctor said, must be wrong. I can only just lift it. You’ve no idea,” he went on, “how a game leg and a trussed-up arm interfere with the little round of one’s daily life. I can’t ride, can’t play golf or billiards, and for an unintelligent chap like me,” he wound up with a sigh, “there aren’t a great many other ways of passing the time.”
“Why do you call yourself unintelligent?” she protested. “You couldn’t have got through your soldiering so well if you had been.”
“Oh! I know all the soldier stuff,” he admitted, “know my job, that is to say, all right, and of course I am moderately good at languages, but that finishes me. I haven’t any brains like your friend Thomson, for instance.”
“Major Thomson is very clever, I believe,” she said a little coldly.
“And a little censorious, I am afraid,” Granet added with a slight grimace. “I suppose he thinks I am a garrulous sort of ass but I really can’t see why he needed to go for your brother last night just because he was gratifying a very reasonable curiosity on my part. It isn’t as though I wasn’t in the Service. The Army and the Navy are the same thing, any way, and we are always glad to give a Navy man a hint as to how we are getting on.”
“I really couldn’t quite understand Major Thomson myself,” she agreed.
“May I ask—do you mind?” he began,—“have you been engaged to him long?”
She looked away for a moment. Her tone, when she replied, was meant to convey some slight annoyance at the question.
“About three months.”
Captain Granet kicked a pebble away from the path in front of him with his sound foot.
“I should think he must be a very good surgeon,” he remarked in a measured tone. “Looks as though he had lots of nerve, and that sort of thing. To tell you the truth, though, he rather frightens me. I don’t think that he has much sympathy with my type.”
She became a little more indulgent and smiled faintly as she looked at him.
“I wonder what your type is?” she asked reflectively.
“Fairly obvious, I am afraid,” he confessed, with a sigh. “I love my soldiering, of course, and I am ashamed to think how keen I have been on games, and should be still if I had the chance. Outside that I don’t read much, I am not musical, and I am very much predisposed to let the future look after itself. There are thousands just like me,” he continued thoughtfully. “We don’t do any particular harm in the world but I don’t suppose we do much good.”
“Don’t be silly,” she protested. “For one thing, it is splendid to be a capable soldier. You are just what the country wants to-day. But apart from that I am quite sure that you have brains.”
“Have I?” he murmured. “Perhaps it’s the incentive I lack.”
They were silent for a few moments. Then they began to talk more lightly. They discussed dogs and horses, their mutual friends, and their engagements for the next few days. They did not once refer to Thomson. Presently Geraldine paused to speak to some friends. Granet leaned upon his stick in the background and watched her. She was wearing a plain tailor made suit and a becoming little hat, from underneath which little wisps of golden hair had somehow detached themselves in a fascinating disorder. There was a delicate pink colour in her cheeks, the movements and lines of her body were all splendidly free and graceful. As she talked to her friends her eyes for the moment seemed to have lost their seriousness. Her youth had reasserted itself—her youth and splendid physical health. He watched her eagerly, and some shadow seemed to pass from his own face—the shadow of his suffering or his pain. He, too, seemed to grow younger. The simplest and yet the most wonderful joy in life was thrilling him. At last she bade farewell to her friends and came smiling towards him.
“I am so sorry to have kept you all this time!” she exclaimed. “Lady Anne has just told me the time and I am horrified. I meant to walk here for an hour and we have been here for two. Stop that taxi for me, please. I cannot spare the time even to walk home.”
He handed her into the cab and whistled for the dogs, who all scrambled in after her.
“Thanks to much for looking after a helpless cripple,” he said pleasantly, as they shook hands. “You mustn’t grudge the time. Doing your duty to the country, you know.”
He tactfully avoided any mention of a future meeting and was rewarded with a little wave of her hand from the window of the cab. He himself left the Park at the same time, strolled along Piccadilly as far as Sackville Street and let himself into his rooms. His servant came forward to meet him from the inner room, and took his cap and stick.
“Any telephone messages, Jarvis?”
“Nothing, sir.”
Granet moved towards the easy-chair. On the way he stopped. The door of one of the cupboards in the sideboard was half open. He frowned.
“Haven’t I told you, Jarvis, that I wish those cupboards kept locked?” he asked a little curtly.
The man was staring towards the sideboard in some surprise.
“I am very sorry, sir,” he said. “I certainly believed that I locked it last night.”
Granet opened it wide and looked inside. His first glance was careless enough, then his expression changed. He stared incredulously at the small array of bottles and turned swiftly around.
“Have you moved anything from here?”
“Certainly not, sir,” was the prompt reply.
Granet closed the cupboard slowly. Then he walked to the window for a moment, his hands behind his back.
“Any one been here this morning at all, Jarvis?” he inquired.
“A man for the laundry, sir, and a person to test the electric light.”
“Left alone in the room at all?”
“The electric light man was here for a few minutes, sir.”
The master and servant exchanged quick glances. The latter was looking pale and nervous.
“Is anything missing, sir?” he asked.
“Yes!” Granet replied. “Did you notice the gentleman who called last evening—Surgeon-Major Thomson?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You haven’t seen him since? He hasn’t been here?”
“No, sir!”
Granet stood, for a moment, thinking. The servant remained motionless. The silence in the room was ominous; so, also, was the strange look of disquietude in the two men’s faces.
“Jarvis,” his master said at last, “remember this. I am not finding fault. I know you are always careful. But from tonight be more vigilant than ever. There is a new hand in the game. He may not suspect us yet but he will. You understand, Jarvis?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
The man withdrew noiselessly. Once more Granet walked to the window. He looked down for a few minutes at the passers-by but he saw nothing. Grave thoughts were gathering together in his mind. He was travelling along the road of horrors and at the further end of it a man stood waiting. He saw himself draw nearer and nearer to the meeting his name almost frame itself upon his lips, the name of the man whom he had grown to hate.
Considering the crowded state of the waiting-room and the number of highly important people who were there for the same purpose, Surgeon-Major Thomson seemed to have remarkably little difficulty in procuring the interview he desired. He was conducted by a boy scout into a room on the second floor of the War Office, within a few minutes of his arrival. A tall, grey-haired man in the uniform of a general looked up and nodded with an air of intimacy as soon as the door had been closed.
“Sit down, Thomson. We’ve been expecting you. Any news?”
“I have come to you for that, sir,” the other replied.
The General sighed.
“I am afraid you will be disappointed,” he said. “I received your report and I went to a certain official myself—saw him in his own house before breakfast this morning. I had reports of three other men occupying responsible positions in the city, Thomson, against whom there was really tangible and serious evidence. Our friend had the effrontery almost to laugh at me.”
There was a little glitter in Thomson’s eyes.
“These damned civilians!” he murmured softly. “They’ve done their best to ruin Great Britain by crabbing every sort of national service during the last ten years. They feed and pamper the vermin who are eating away the foundations of the country, and, damn it all, when we put a clear case to them, when we show them men whom we know to be dangerous, they laugh at us and tell us that it isn’t our department! They look upon us as amateurs and speak of Scotland Yard with bated breath. My God! If I had a free hand for ten minutes, there’d be two Cabinet Ministers eating bread and water instead of their dinners to-night.”
The General raised his eyebrows. He knew Thomson well enough to be aware how unusual such an ebullition of feeling on his part was.
“Got you a bit worked up, Major,” he remarked.
“Isn’t it enough to make any man’s blood boil?” the other replied. “The country to-day looks to its army and its navy to save it from the humiliation these black-coated parasites have encouraged, and yet even now we haven’t a free hand. You and I, who control the secret service of the army, denounce certain men, upon no slight evidence, either, as spies, and we are laughed at! One of those very blatant idiots whose blundering is costing the country millions of money and thousands of brave men, has still enough authority to treat our reports as so much waste paper.”
“I am bound to say I agree with you, Thomson,” the General declared, a little hopelessly. “It’s the weakest spot of our whole organisation, this depending on the civil powers. Two of my cases were absolutely flagrant. As regards yours, Thomson, I am not at all sure that we shouldn’t be well-advised to get just a little more evidence before we press the matter.”
“And meanwhile,” Thomson retorted bitterly, “leave him a free hand to do what mischief he can. But for the merest accident in the world, the night before last he would have learnt our new scheme for keeping the Channel communication free from submarines.”
The General frowned.
“Who’s been talking?” he demanded.
“No one who is to be blamed,” Thomson replied. “Can’t you realise the position? Here’s a fellow Service man, a soldier, a D. S. O., who has been specially mentioned for bravery and who very nearly got the Victoria Cross, comes here with the halo of a brilliant escape from the Germans, wounded, a young man of good family and connections, and apparently as keen as mustard to get back again in the fighting line. Good Heavens! The most careful sailor in the world might just drop a hint to that sort of man. What nearly happened last night may happen a dozen times within the next week. Even our great secret, General,” Thomson continued, dropping his voice a little, “even that might come to his ears.”
The General was undoubtedly disturbed. He searched amongst the papers on his desk and brought out at last a flimsy half-sheet of notepaper which he studied carefully.
“Just read this, Thomson.”
Thomson rose and looked over his shoulder. The letter was an autograph one of a few lines only, and dated from a village in the North of France—
My dear Brice,
This is a special request to you. Arrange it any way you please but don’t send me Captain Granet out again in any capacity. Keep him at home. Mind, I am not saying word against him as a soldier. He has done some splendid work on more than one occasion, but notwithstanding this I do not wish to see him again with any of the forces under my command.
Ever yours,F.
“Did you show this to our friend?” Thomson inquired.
“I gave him a digest of its contents,” the General replied. “He smiled in a supercilious manner and said I had better do as I was asked.”
Thomson said nothing for a moment. His face was very set and he had the air of a man desperately but quietly angry.
“As a matter of fact,” General Brice continued, glancing at the clock on his desk, “Granet is in my anteroom at the present moment, I expect. He asked for an interview this afternoon.”
“Have him in, if you don’t mind,” the other suggested. “I can sit at the empty desk over there. I can be making some calculations with reference to the number of hospital beds for each transport. I want to hear him talk to you.”
The General nodded and touched a bell.
“You can show Captain Granet in,” he told the boy scout who answered it.
Thomson took his place in the far corner of the room and bent over a sheaf of papers. Presently Granet was ushered in. He was leaning a little less heavily upon his stick and he had taken his arm from the sling for a moment. He saluted the General respectfully and glanced across the room towards where Thomson was at work. If he recognised him, however, he made no sign.
“Well, Granet,” the General inquired, “how are you getting on?”
“Wonderfully, sir,” was the brisk reply. “I have seen my own doctor this morning and he thinks I might come up before the Board on Saturday.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I want to get back again, sir,” Granet replied eagerly.
The General stroked his grey moustache and looked searchingly at the young officer. He was standing full in the light of a ray of sunshine which came streaming through the high, uncurtained windows. Although he was still a little haggard, his eyes were bright, his lips were parted in an anticipatory smile, his whole expression was engaging. General Brice, studying him closely, felt compelled to admit the improbability of his vague suspicions.
“That’s all very well, you know,” he reminded him quietly, “but you won’t be fit enough for active service for some time to come.”
The young man’s face fell.
“I am sure they must be wanting me back, sir,” he said naively.
The General shook his head.
“I don’t want to disappoint you, young fellow,” he continued, “but I heard from your Brigadier only yesterday. He has been obliged to fill up your place and I don’t think he has room for any one on his staff.”
Granet looked a little hurt.
“I thought he might have made a temporary appointment,” he said gloomily.
“This is no time to consider individuals,” the General pointed out. “What about finding you a billet at home for a time, eh? You’ve seen a bit of the rough side of the war, you know.”
“I’d sooner go out and dig trenches!”
Thomson had risen slowly from his place and, with a sheet of foolscap in his hand, closely covered with writing, crossed the room.
“You might get taken prisoner again, Captain Granet,” he remarked drily.
There was a moment’s rather tense silence. The young man’s lips had come together, his eyes flashed.
“I did not recognise you, Major Thomson,” he said calmly. “Have you found a new billet?”
“My old one is sufficiently absorbing just at present,” the other replied laying his calculations on the General’s desk. “Forgive my interrupting you, sir, but you told me to let you have this as soon as I had finished. That is my estimate of the number of beds we could stow away in the cubic feet you offer us.”
The General glanced at the paper and nodded.
“Don’t go, Thomson,” he said. “I’ll talk to you about this later on. Well, Captain Granet,” he added, “you’d better leave things in my hands. I’ll do the best I can for you.”
“I shall be very disappointed if I don’t get out to the Front again soon, sir,” the young man declared simply.
“I’ll do the best I can,” the General repeated, touching his bell.
Granet was shown out and the door was closed. General Brice turned towards his companion.
“Thomson,” he said, “frankly, I can’t believe it. However, we’ll find him a billet where he can’t possibly do any mischief.”
“If you found him a billet where I should like to see him,” Surgeon-Major Thomson observed bitterly, “he would never do any more mischief in this world! Any dispatches from the Front, sir?”
General Brice raised his eyebrows.
“Are you off again?” he asked.
“I am going to see that young man’s General,” Thomson replied. “I shall cross over to-day and be back to-morrow night or Saturday morning.”
General Brice nodded thoughtfully.
“Perhaps you are right,” he assented. “Yes, I shall have a few reports. You’d better let them know at the Admiralty, and what time you want to go over.”
Surgeon-Major Thomson shook hands with the General and turned towards the door.
“When I come back,” he said, “I hope I’ll be able to convince even you, sir.”
Surgeon-Major Thomson awoke about twelve hours later with a start. He had been sleeping so heavily that he was at first unable to remember his whereabouts. His mind moved sluggishly across the brief panorama of his hurried journey—the special train from Victoria to Folkestone; the destroyer which had brought him and a few other soldiers across the Channel, black with darkness, at a pace which made even the promenade deck impossible; the landing at Boulogne, a hive of industry notwithstanding the darkness; the clanking of waggons, the shrieking of locomotives, the jostling of crowds, the occasional flashing of an electric torch. And then the ride in the great automobile through the misty night. He rubbed his eyes and looked around him. A grey morning was breaking. The car had come to a standstill before a white gate, in front of which was stationed a British soldier, with drawn bayonet. Surgeon-Major Thomson pulled himself together and answered the challenge.
“A friend,” he answered,—“Surgeon-Major Thomson, on his Majesty’s service.”
He leaned from the car for a moment and held out something in the hollow of his hand. The man saluted and drew back. The car went along a rough road which led across a great stretch of pastureland. On the ridge of the hills on his right, little groups of men were at work unlimbering guns. Once or twice, with a queer, screeching sound, a shell, like a little puff of white smoke, passed high over the car and fell somewhere in the grey valley below. In the distance he could see the movements of a body of troops through the trees, soldiers on the way to relieve their comrades in the trenches. As the morning broke, the trenches themselves came into view—long, zig-zag lines, silent, and with no sign of the men who crawled about inside like ants. He passed a great brewery transformed into a canteen, from which a line of waggons, going and returning, were passing all the time backwards and forwards into the valley. Every now and then through the stillness came the sharp crack of a rifle from the snipers lying hidden in the little stretches of woodland and marshland away on the right. A motor-omnibus, with its advertisement signs still displayed but a great red cross floating above it, came rocking down the road on its way to the field hospital in the distance. As yet, however, the business of fighting seemed scarcely to have commenced.
They passed several small houses and farms, in front of each of which was stationed a sentry. Once, from the hills behind, a great white-winged aeroplane glided over his head on its way to make a reconnaissance. Queerest sight of all, here and there were peasants at work in the fields. One old man leaned upon his spade and watched as the car passed. Not a dozen yards from him was a great hole in the ground where a shell had burst, and a little further away a barn in ruins. The car was forced to stop here to let a cavalcade of ammunition waggons pass by. Surgeon-Major Thomson leaned from his seat and spoke to the old man.
“You are not afraid of the German shells, then?” he asked.
“Monsieur,” the old man answered, “one must live or die—it does not matter which. For the rest, if one is to live, one must eat. Therefore I work. Four sons I have and a nephew away yonder,” he added, waving his hand southwards. “That is why I dig alone. Why do you not send us more soldiers, Monsieur l’Anglais?”
“Wait but a little time longer,” Thomson answered cheerfully.
The old man looked sadly at his ruined barn.
“It is always ‘wait,’” he muttered, “and one grows old and tired. Bonjour, monsieur!”
The car passed on again and suddenly dropped into a little protected valley. They came to a standstill before a tiny chateau, in front of which stretched what might once have been an ornamental garden, but which was now torn to pieces by gun carriages, convoy waggons, and every description of vehicle. From the top of the house stretched many wires. A sentry stood at the iron gates and passed Major Thomson after a perfunctory challenge. An office with mud-stained boots and wind-tossed hair, who looked as though he had been out all night, stood on the steps of the house and welcomed Thomson.
“Hullo, Major,” he called out, “just across, eh?”
“This moment,” Thomson assented. “Anything fresh?”
“Nothing to speak of,” the other replied. “We’ve just had a message in that the French have been giving them a knock. We’ve had a quiet time the last two days. They’re bringing up some more Bavarians, we think.”
“Do you think I could have a few words with the General?” Major Thomson asked.
“Come in and have some coffee. Yes, he’ll see you, of course. He is in his own room with two of the flying men, just for the moment. I’ll let you know when you can go in.”
They passed into an apartment which had once been the dining-room of the chateau, and in which a long table was laid. One or two staff officers greeted Thomson, and the man who had brought him in attended to his wants.
“The General had his breakfast an hour ago,” the latter observed. “We’re pretty well forward here and we have to keep on the qui vive. We got some shells yesterday dropped within a quarter of a mile of us. I think we’re going to try and give them a push back on the left flank. I’ll go in and see about you, Thomson.”
“Good fellow! You might tell them to give my chauffeur something. The destroyer that brought me over is waiting at Boulogne, and I want to be in London to-night.”
One of the officers from the other side of the table, smiled queerly.
“London! My God!” he muttered. “There is still a London, I suppose? Savoy and Carlton going still? Pall Mall where it was?”
“And very much as it was,” Thomson assured him. “London’s wonderfully unchanged. You been out long?”
“September the second,” was the cheerful reply. “I keep on getting promised a week but I can’t bring it off.”
“He’s such a nut with the telephones,” the man by his side explained, helping himself to marmalade. “The General positively can’t spare him.”
“Oh, chuck it!” the other exclaimed in disgust. “What about you?—the only man with an eye to a Heaven-ordained gun position, as old Wattles declared one day. We’re all living wonders, Major,” he went on, turning to Thomson, “but if I don’t get a Sole Colbert and a grill at the Savoy, and a front seat at the Alhambra, before many weeks have passed, I shall get stale—that’s what’ll happen to me.”
“Hope you’ll have your hair cut before you go back,” a man from the other end of the table remarked. “Your own mother wouldn’t know you like that—much less your sweetheart.”
The young man fingered his locks reflectively.
“Chap who was going to cut it for me got shot yesterday,” he grumbled. “Anything doing as you came over the ridge, Major?”
Thomson shook his head.
“One aeroplane and a few shells.”
“That would be Johnny Oates going out in his Bleriot,” some one remarked. “He’ll be back here before long with a report.”
The officer who had met Thomson in the garden, re-entered the room.
“General says he’ll see you at once,” he announced.
Thomson followed his guide into a small back room. An officer was seated before a desk, writing, another was shouting down a telephone, and a third was making some measurements upon a large Ordnance map nailed upon one of the walls. The General was standing with his back to the fire and a pipe in his mouth. He nodded cheerily to Thomson.
“When did you leave London?” he asked.
“Nine o’clock last evening, sir,” Thomson replied. “Rather a record trip. We had a special down and a destroyer over.”
“And I’m going to tell you what you want to know,” the General continued glancing at a document in his hand. “Well, close the door, Harewood. Out with it?”
“It’s about Captain Granet of Harrison’s staff,” Thomson began.
The General frowned and knocked the ashes from his pipe.
“Well,” he asked, “what is it?”
“We’ve reasons of our own for wishing to know exactly what you meant by asking the War Office not to send him back again,” Thomson continued.
The General hesitated.
“Well, what are they?”
“They are a little intangible, sir,” Thomson confessed, “but exceedingly important. Without any direct evidence, I have come to the conclusion that Captain Granet is a mysterious person and needs watching. As usual, we are in trouble with the civil authorities, and, to be frank with you, I am trying to strengthen my case.”
The General shrugged his shoulders.
“Very well,” he decided, “under the circumstances you have the right to know what my message meant. We sent Granet back because of a suspicion which may be altogether unjustifiable. The suspicion was there, however, and it was sufficiently strong for me to make up my mind that I should prefer not to have him back again. Now you shall know the facts very briefly. Granet was taken prisoner twice. No one saw him taken—as a matter of fact, both of the affairs were night attacks. He seemed suddenly to disappear—got too far ahead of his men, was his explanation. All I can say is that he was luckier than most of them. Anything wandering about loose in a British uniform—but there, I won’t go on with that. He came back each time with information as to what he had seen. Each time we planned an attack on the strength of that information. Each time that information proved to be misleading and our attack failed, costing us heavy losses. Of course, dispositions might have been changed since his observations were made, but there the fact remains. Further,” the General continued, filling his pipe slowly and pressing in the tobacco, “on the second occasion we had four hundred men thrown forward into the village of Ossray. They were moved in the pitch darkness, and silently. It was impossible for any word of their presence in Ossray to have been known to the Germans. Yet the night of Granet’s capture the village was shelled, and those who escaped were cut off and made prisoners. Follow me, Major?”
“Yes, sir!” Thomson acquiesced.
“Those are just the facts,” the General concluded. “Now on the other hand, Granet has handled his men well, shown great personal bravery, and has all the appearance of a keen soldier. I hate to do him a wrong even in my thoughts but there were others besides myself to whom these coincidences seemed amazing. We simply decided that they’d better give Granet a billet at home. That’s the reason of my message.”
“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” Thomson said slowly. “You have given me exactly the information which we desire.”
The General was called away for a moment to give some instructions to the young officer who was sitting in a distant corner of the room with a telephone band around his head. He signed to Thomson, however, to remain.
“Now that I have gratified your curiosity,” he said, when he returned, “perhaps you will gratify mine? Will you tell me just how you over in England have come to have suspicions of this man?”
“That,” Thomson explained, “is almost a personal matter with me. Three months ago I spent the night with the Third Army Corps up by Niemen. I was there on other business, as you may imagine, but there was some hot fighting and I went out to help. I was attending to some of our fellows and got very near to the German lines. I became separated from the others a little and was groping about when I heard voices talking German within a few feet of me. I couldn’t hear what they said but I could just distinguish two figures. One of them made off towards the German lines. The other, after standing still for a moment, came in my direction. I took out my revolver, and to tell you the truth I very nearly fired on sight, for it would have been an exceedingly awkward matter for me to have been taken prisoner just then. Just as my finger was on the trigger, I became conscious that the man who was approaching was humming ‘Tipperary.’ I flashed my light on his face and saw at once that he was a British officer. He addressed me quickly in German. I answered him in English. I fancied for a moment that he seemed annoyed. ‘We’d better get out of this,’ he whispered. ‘We’re within a hundred yards of the German trenches and they are bringing searchlights up.’ ‘Who were you talking to just now?’ I asked, as we stole along. ‘No one at all,’ he answered. I didn’t take the thing seriously for the moment, although it seemed to me queer. Afterwards I regretted, however, that I hadn’t set myself to discover the meaning of what was apparently a deliberate lie. The next time I met Granet was at a luncheon party at the Ritz, a few days ago. I recognised his face at once, although I had only seen it by the flash of my electric lamp. From that moment I have had my suspicions.”
The General nodded. He was looking a little grave.
“It’s a hateful thing to believe,” he said, “that any one wearing his Majesty’s uniform could ever play such a dastardly part. However, on the whole I am rather glad that I passed in that request to the War Office. Anything more we can do for you, Major?”
Thomson took the hint and departed. A few minutes later he was in his car and on his way back to Boulogne.
Olive Moreton gave a little start as the long, grey, racing car came noiselessly to a standstill by the side of the kerbstone. Captain Granet raised his hat and leaned from the driving seat towards her.
“Hope I didn’t frighten you, Miss Moreton?”
“Not at all,” she replied. “What a perfectly lovely car!”
He assented eagerly.
“Isn’t she! My uncle’s present to me to pass away the time until I can do some more soldiering. They only brought it round to me early this morning. Can I take you anywhere?”
“I was just going to see Geraldine Conyers,” she began.
“Do you know, I guessed that,” he remarked, leaning on one side and opening the door. “Do let me take you. I haven’t had a passenger yet.”
She stepped in at once.
“As a matter of fact,” she told him, “I was looking for a taxicab. I have had a telegram from Ralph. He wants us to go down to Portsmouth by the first train we can catch this morning. He says that if we can get down there in time to have lunch at two o’clock, he can show us over theScorpion.After to-day she will be closed to visitors, even his own relations. I was just going to see if Geraldine could come.”
Granet was thoughtful for a moment. He glanced at the little clock on the dashboard opposite to him.
“I tell you what,” he suggested, “why not let me motor you and Miss Conyers down? I don’t believe there’s another fast train before one o’clock, and we’d get down in a couple of hours, easily. It’s just what I’m longing for, a good stretch into the country.”
“I should love it,” the girl exclaimed, “and I should think Geraldine would. Will you wait while I run in and see her?”
“Of course,” Granet replied. “Here we are, and there’s Miss Conyers at the window. You go in and talk her over and I’ll just see that we’ve got lots of petrol. I’ll have you down there within two hours, all right, if we can get away before the roads are crowded.”
She hurried into the house. Geraldine met her on the threshold and they talked together for a few moments. Then Olive reappeared, her face beaming.
“Geraldine would simply love it,” she announced. “She will be here in five minutes. Could we just stop at my house for a motor-coat?”
“Certainly!” Granet agreed, glancing at his watch. “This is absolutely ripping! We shall be down there by one o’clock. Why is this to be Conyers’ last day for entertaining?”
“I don’t know,” she answered indifferently. “Some Admiralty regulation, I suppose.”
He sighed.
“After all,” he declared, “I am not sure whether I chose the right profession. There is so much that is mysterious about the Navy. They are always inventing something or trying something new.”
Geraldine came down the steps, waving her hand.
“This is the most delightful idea!” she exclaimed, as Granet held the door open. “Do you really mean that you are going to take us down to Portsmouth and come and see Ralph?”
“I am not going to worry your brother,” he answered, smiling, “but I am going to take you down to Portsmouth, if I may. We shall be there long before you could get there by train, and—well, what do you think of my new toy?”
“Simply wonderful,” Geraldine declared. “Olive told me that your uncle had just given it you. What a lucky person you are, Captain Granet!”
He laughed a little shortly as they glided off.
“Do you think so?” he answered. “Well, I am lucky in my uncle, at any rate. He is one of those few people who have a great deal of money and don’t mind spending it. I was getting bored to death with my game leg and arm, and certainly this makes one forget both of them. Six cylinders, you see, Miss Conyers, and I wouldn’t like to tell you what we can touch if we were pressed.”
“You won’t frighten us,” Geraldine assured him.
Granet glanced once more at the clock in front of him.
“For a time,” he remarked, “I am your chauffeur. I just want to see what she’ll do—to experiment a little.”
From that point conversation became scanty. The girls leaned back in their seats. Granet sat bolt upright, with his eyes fixed upon the road. Shortly before one o’clock they entered Portsmouth.
“The most wonderful ride I ever had in my life!” Geraldine exclaimed.
“Marvelous!” Olive echoed. “Captain Granet, Ralph promised that there should be a pinnace at number seven dock from one until three.”
Granet pointed with his finger.
“Number seven dock is there,” he said, “and there’s the pinnace. I shall go back to the hotel for lunch and wait for you there.”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” Geraldine insisted. “Ralph would be furious if you didn’t come with us.”
“Of course!” Olive interposed. “How could you think of anything so ridiculous! It’s entirely owing to you that we were able to get here.”
Captain Granet looked for a moment doubtful.
“You see, just now,” he explained, “I know the regulations for visiting ships in commission are very strict. Perhaps an extra visitor might embarrass your brother.”
“How can you be so absurd!” Geraldine protested. “You—a soldier! Why, of course he’d be delighted to have you.”
Granet swung the car around into the archway of a hotel exactly opposite the dock.
“All right,” he agreed. “We’ll leave the car here. Of course, I’d like to come all right.”
They crossed the cobbled street and made their way to the dock. The pinnace was waiting for them and in a very few minutes they were on their way across the harbour. TheScorpionwas lying well away from other craft, her four squat funnels emitting faint wreaths of smoke. She rode very low in the water and her appearance was certainly menacing.
“Personally,” Geraldine observed, leaning a little forward to look at her, “I think a destroyer is one of the most vicious, the most hideous things I ever saw. I do hope that Ralph will be quick and get a cruiser.”
“Is that theScorpionjust ahead of us?” Granet asked.
Geraldine nodded.
“Did you ever see anything so ugly? She looks as though she would spit out death from every little crevice.”
“She’s a fine boat,” Granet muttered. “What did your brother say she could do?”
“Thirty-nine knots,” Geraldine replied. “It seems wonderful, doesn’t it?”
The officer in charge of the pinnace smiled.
“Our speeds are only nominal, any way,” he remarked. “If our chief engineer there had the proper message, there’s none of us would like to say what he could get out of those new engines.”
He turned and shouted an order. In a moment or two they swung around and drew up by the side of the vessel. Ralph waved his hand to them from the top of the gangway.
“Well done, you people!” he exclaimed. “Hullo Granet! Have you brought the girls down?”
“In the most wonderful racing car you ever saw!” Geraldine told him, as they climbed up the gangway. “We shouldn’t have been here for hours if we had waited for the train.”
“I met Captain Granet this morning by accident,” Olive explained, as she stepped on deck, “and he insisted on bringing us down.”
“I hope I’m not in the way at all?” Granet asked anxiously. “If I am, you have only to say the word and put me on shore, and I’ll wait, with pleasure, until the young ladies come off. I have a lot of pals down here, too, I could look up.”
“Don’t be silly,” Conyers replied. “Our dear old lady friend Thomson isn’t here to worry so I think we can make you free of the ship. Come along down and try a cocktail. Mind your heads. We’re not on a battleship, you know. You will find my quarters a little cramped, I’m afraid.”
They drank cocktails cheerfully, and afterwards Geraldine exclaimed, taking a long breath. “If Olive weren’t so fearfully in love, she’d be suffocated.”
Granet paused and looked before him with a puzzled frown.
“What in heaven’s name is this?”
Exactly opposite to them was an erection of light framework, obviously built around some hidden object for purposes of concealment. A Marine was standing on guard before it, with drawn cutlass. Granet was in the act of addressing him when an officer ran lightly down the fore part of the ship, and saluted.
“Very sorry, sir,” he said, “but would you mind keeping to the other side? This deck is closed, for the present.”
“What on earth have you got there?” Granet asked good-humouredly,—“that is if it’s anything a landsman may know about?”
The young officer piloted them across to the other side.
“It’s just a little something we are not permitted to talk about just now,” he replied. “I didn’t know the commander expected any visitors to-day or we should have had it roped off. Anything I can show you on this deck?” he inquired politely.
“Nothing at all, thanks,” Geraldine assured him. “We’ll just stroll about for a little time.”
They leaned over the rail together. The young officer saluted and withdrew. A freshening breeze blew in their faces and the sunshine danced upon the foam-flecked sea. The harbour was lively with small craft, an aeroplane was circling overhead, and out in the Roads several warships were lying anchored.
“I was in luck this morning,” Granet asserted.
“So were we,” Geraldine replied. “I never enjoyed motoring more. Your new car is wonderful.”
“She is a beauty, isn’t she?” Granet assented enthusiastically. “What she could touch upon fourth speed I wouldn’t dare to say. We were going over sixty plenty of times this morning, and yet one scarcely noticed it. You see, she’s so beautifully hung.”
“You are fortunate,” she remarked, “to have an appreciative uncle.”
“He is rather a brick,” Granet acknowledged. “He’s done me awfully well all my life.”
She nodded.
“You really are rather to be envied, aren’t you, Captain Granet? You have most of the things a man wants. You’ve had your opportunity, too of doing just the finest things a man can, and you’ve done them.”
He looked gloomily out seawards.
“I am lucky in one way,” he admitted. “In others I am not so sure.”
She kept her head turned from him. Somehow or other, she divined quite well what was in his mind. She tried to think of something to say, something to dispel the seriousness which she felt to be in the atmosphere, but words failed her. It was he who broke the silence.
“May I ask you a question, Miss Conyers?”
“A question? Why not?”
“Are you really engaged to Major Thomson?”
She did not answer him at once. She still kept her eyes resolutely turned away from his. When at last she spoke, her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.
“Certainly I am,” she assented.
He leaned a little closer towards her. His voice sounded to her very deep and firm. It was the voice of a man immensely in earnest.
“I am going to be an awful rotter,” he said. “I suppose I ought to take your answer to my question as final. I won’t that’s all. He came along first but that isn’t everything. It’s a fair fight between him and me. He hates me and takes no pains to hide it. He hates me because I care for you—you know that. I couldn’t keep it to myself even if I would.”
She drew a little away but he forced her to look at him. There was something else besides appeal in her eyes.
“You’ve been the victim of a mistake,” he insisted, his hand resting upon hers. “I don’t believe that you really care for him at all. He doesn’t seem the right sort for you, he’s so much older and graver. You mustn’t be angry. You must forgive me, please, if I have said more than I ought—if I say more now—because I am going to tell you, now that we are alone together for a moment, that I love you.”
She turned upon him a little indignantly, though the distress in her face was still apparent.
“Captain Granet!” she exclaimed. “You should not say that! You have no right—no right at all.”
“On the contrary, I have every right,” he answered doggedly. “It isn’t as though Thomson were my friend. He hates me and I dislike him. Every man has a right to do his best to win the girl he cares for. It’s the first time I’ve felt anything of this sort. I’ve never wanted the big things before from any woman. And now—”
She turned impetuously away from him. Over their head an electric message was sparkling and crackling. She stood looking up, her hand outstretched as though to keep him away.
“I cannot listen any more,” she declared. “If you say another word I shall go below.”
He remained for a moment gloomily silent. A young officer stepped out of the wireless room and saluted Geraldine.
“Very sorry for you people, Miss Conyers,” he announced, “but I am afraid we’ll have to put you on shore. We’ve an urgent message here from the flag-ship to clear off all guests.”
“But we haven’t had lunch yet!” Geraldine protested.
Conyers suddenly made his appearance in the gangway, followed by Olive.
“What’s the message, Howard?” he inquired.
The officer saluted and handed over a folded piece of paper. Conyers read it with a frown and stepped at once out on to the deck. He gave a few orders, then he turned back to his guests.
“Gels,” he explained, “and you, Granet, I’m frightfully sorry but I can’t keep you here another second. I have ordered the pinnace round. You must get on shore and have lunch at the ‘Ship.’ I’ll come along as soon as I can. Frightfully sorry, Granet, but I needn’t apologise to you, need I? War’s war, you know and this is a matter of urgency.”
“You’re not going out this tide?” Geraldine demanded breathlessly.
Conyers shook his head.
“It isn’t that,” he replied. “We’ve got some engineers coming over to do some work on deck, and I’ve had a private tip from my chief to clear out any guests I may have on board.”
“Is it anything to do with this wonderful screened-up thing?” Olive asked, strolling towards the framework-covered edifice.
Conyers shrugged his shoulders.
“Can’t disclose Government secrets! Between just us four—our friend Thomson isn’t here, is he?” he added, smiling,—“we are planning a little Hell for the submarines.”
They glanced curiously at the mysterious erection. Granet sighed.
“Secretive chaps, you sailors,” he observed. “Never mind, I have a pal in the Admiralty who gives me a few hints now and then. I shall go and pump him.”
“Don’t you breathe a word about having been board theScorpion,” Conyers begged quickly. “They wink at it down here, so long as it’s done discreetly, but it’s positively against the rules, you know.”
“Righto!” Granet agreed. “There isn’t a soul I’m likely to mention it to.”
“I’ll come over to the ‘Ship’ as soon as I can get away,” Conyers promised.
They raced across the mile of broken water to the landing-stage. They were all a little silent. Olive was frankly disappointed, Geraldine was busy with her thoughts. Granet’s gaze seemed rivetted upon theScorpion.Another pinnace had drawn up alongside and a little company of men were boarding her.
“I only hope that they really have hit upon a device to rid the sea of these cursed submarines!” he remarked, as they made their way across the dock. “I see the brutes have taken to sinking fishing boats now.”
“Ralph believes that they have got something,” Olive declared eagerly. “He is simply aching to get to work.”
“Sailors are all so jolly sanguine,” Granet reminded her. “They are doing something pretty useful with nets, of course, in the way your brother was beginning to explain to me when Major Thomson chipped in, but they could only keep a fixed channel clear in that way. What they really need is some way of tackling them when they are under water. Here we are at last. I hope you girls are as hungry as I am.”
They lunched in leisurely fashion, Olive in particular glancing often towards the door, and afterwards they sat about in the lounge, drinking their coffee. Granet had seemed to be in high spirits throughout the meal, and told the girls many little anecdotes of his adventures at the Front. Afterwards, however, he became silent, and finally, with a word of excuse, strolled off alone. Olive looked once more at the clock.
“Ralph doesn’t seem to be coming back, does he?” she sighed. “Let’s walk a little way down to the landing-stage.”
The two girls strolled out and made their way towards the harbour. They could see theScorpionbut there was no sign of any pinnace leaving her. Reluctantly they turned back towards the hotel.
“I wonder what has become of Captain Granet?” Olive asked.
Geraldine stopped short. There was a little frown gathering upon her forehead. She pointed up to the roof of the hotel, where a man was crouching with a telescope glued to his eyes. He lowered it almost as they paused, and waved his hand to them.
“Can’t see any sign of Conyers,” he shouted. “I’m waiting for the pinnace. Come up here. There’s such a ripping view.”
They entered the hotel in silence.
“I don’t believe,” Geraldine remarked uneasily, “that Ralph would like that.”
They made their way to the top of the house and were escorted by a buxom chambermaid to what was practically a step-ladder opening out on to a skylight. From here they crawled on to the roof, where they found Granet comfortably ensconced with his back to a chimney, smoking a cigarette.
“This is rather one on your brother,” he chuckled.
“Where did you find the telescope?” Geraldine asked.
“I borrowed it from downstairs,” he answered. “Do come and have a look. You can see theScorpionquite distinctly. All the officers seem to be gathered around that mysterious structure on the upper deck. I thought at first it was a stand for a gun but it isn’t.”
Olive held out her hand for the telescope but Geraldine shook her head. There was a troubled expression in her eyes.
“I suppose it’s awfully silly, Captain Granet,” she said, “but honestly, I don’t think Ralph would take it as a joke at all if he knew that we were up here, trying to find out what was going on.”
Olive set down the telescope promptly.
“I didn’t think of that,” she murmured.
Granet laughed easily.
“Perhaps you are right,” he admitted. “All the same, we are a little exceptionally placed, aren’t we?—his sister, his fiancee, and—”
He broke off suddenly. A hand had been laid upon his shoulder. A small, dark man, who had come round the corner of the chimney unperceived, was standing immediately behind him.
“I must trouble you all for your names and addresses, if you please,” he announced quietly.
The two girls stared at him, dumbfounded. Granet, however, remained perfectly at his ease. He laid down the telescope and scrutinised the newcomer.
“I really don’t altogether see,” he remarked good humouredly, “why I should give my name and address to a perfect stranger just because he asks for it.”
The man opened his coat and displayed a badge.
“I am on Government service, sir.”
“Well, I am Captain Granet, back from the Front with dispatches a few days ago,” Granet told him. “This is Miss Conyers, sister of Commander Conyers of theScorpion,and Miss Olive Moreton, his fiancee. We are waiting for Commander Conyers at the present moment, and we were just looking to see if the pinnace had started. Is it against the law to use a telescope in Portsmouth?”
The man made a few notes in his pocket-book. Then he opened the trapdoor and stood on one side.
“No one is allowed out here, sir,” he said. “The hotel people are to blame for not having the door locked. I shall have to make a report but I have no doubt that your explanation will be accepted. Will you be so good as to descend, please?”
Granet struggled to his feet and turned towards his companions.
“The fellow’s quite right,” he decided. “I am only glad that the Government are looking after things so. The Admiralty are much more go-ahead in this way than we are. I vote we have out the car and go down the front to Southsea—unless we are under arrest?” he added pleasantly, turning towards the man who had accosted them.
“You are at liberty to do whatever you please, sir,” was the polite reply. “In any case, I think it would be quite useless of you to wait for Commander Conyers.”
“Why?” Olive asked quickly.
“TheScorpionhas just received orders to leave on this evening’s tide, madam,” the man announced. “You can see that she is moving even now.”
They looked out across the harbour. The smoke was pouring from the funnels of the destroyer. Already she had swung around and was steaming slowly towards the Channel.
“She’s off, right enough!” Granet exclaimed. “Nothing left for us, then, but London.”