Granet emerged from the Tregarten Hotel at St. Mary’s on the following morning, about half-past eight, and strolled down the narrow strip of lawn which bordered the village street. A couple of boatmen advanced at once to meet him. Granet greeted them cheerily.
“Yes, I want a boat,” he admitted. “I’d like to do a bit of sailing. A friend of mine was here and had a chap named Rowsell—Job Rowsell. Either of you answer to that name, by chance?”
The elder of the two shook his head.
“My name’s Matthew Nichols,” he announced, “and this is my brother-in-law, Joe Lethbridge. We’ve both of us got stout sailing craft and all the recommendations a man need have. As for Job Rowsell, well, he ain’t here—not just at this moment, so to speak.”
Granet considered the matter briefly.
“Well,” he decided, “it seems to me I must talk to this chap Rowsell before I do anything. I’m under a sort of promise.”
The two boatmen looked at one another. The one who had addressed him first turned a little away.
“Just as you like, sir,” he announced. “No doubt Rowsell will be up this way towards afternoon.”
“Afternoon? But I want to go out at once,” Granet protested.
Matthew Nichols removed his pipe from his mouth and spat upon the ground thoughtfully.
“I doubt whether you’ll get Job Rowsell to shift before mid-day. I’m none so sure he’ll go out at all with this nor-wester blowing.”
“What’s the matter with him?” Granet asked. “Is he lazy?”
The man who as yet had scarcely spoken, swung round on his heel.
“He’s no lazy, sir,” he said. “That’s not the right word. But he’s come into money some way or other, Job Rowsell has. There’s none of us knows how, and it ain’t our business, but he spends most of his time in the public-house and he seems to have taken a fancy for night sailing alone, which to my mind, and there are others of us as say the same, ain’t none too healthy an occupation. And that’s all there is to be said of Job Rowsell, as I knows of.”
“It’s a good deal, too,” Granet remarked thoughtfully. “Where does he live?”
“Fourth house on the left in yonder street,” Matthew Nichols replied, pointing with his pipe. “Maybe he’ll come if you send for him, maybe he won’t.”
“I must try to keep my word to my friend,” Granet decided. “If I don’t find him, I’ll come back and look for you fellows again.”
He turned back to the little writing-room, scribbled a note and sent it down by the boots. In about half an hour he was called once more out into the garden. A huge, loose-jointed man was standing there, unshaven, untidily dressed, and with the look in his eyes of a man who has been drinking heavily.
“Are you Job Rowsell?” Granet inquired.
“That’s my name,” the man admitted. “Is there anything wrong with it?”
“Not that I know of,” Granet replied. “I want you to take me out sailing. Is your boat ready?”
The man glanced up at the sky.
“I don’t know as I want to go,” he grumbled. “There’s dirty weather about.”
“I think you’d better,” Granet urged. “I’m not a bad payer and I can help with the boat. Let’s go and look at her any way.”
They walked together down to the harbour. Granet said very little, his companion nothing at all. They stood on the jetty and gazed across to where the sailing boats were anchored.
“That’s the Saucy Jane,” Job Rowsell indicated, stretching out a forefinger.
Granet scrambled down into a small dinghy which was tied to the side of the stone wall.
“We’d better be getting on board,” he suggested.
Rowsell stared at him for a moment but acquiesced. They pulled across and boarded the Saucy Jane. A boy whom they found on the deck took the boat back. Rowsell set his sails slowly but with precision. The moment he stepped on board he seemed to become an altered man.
“Where might you be wanting to go?” he asked. “You’ll need them oilskins, sure.”
“I want to run out to the Bishop Lighthouse,” Granet announced.
Rowsell shook his head.
“It’s no sort of a day to face the Atlantic, sir,” he declared. “We’ll try a spin round St. Mary and White Island, if you like.”
Granet fastened his oilskins and stooped for a moment to alter one of the sails.
“Look here,” he said, taking his seat at the tiller, “this is my show, Job Rowsell. There’s a five pound note for you at the end of the day, if you go where I tell you and nowhere else.”
The man eyed him sullenly. A few minutes later they were rushing out of the harbour.
“It’s a poor job, sailing a pleasure boat,” he muttered. “Not many of us as wouldn’t sell his soul for five pounds.”
They reached St. Agnes before they came round on the first tack. Then, with the spray beating in their faces, they swung around and made for the opening between the two islands. For a time the business of sailing kept them both occupied. In two hours’ time they were standing out towards Bishop Lighthouse. Job Rowsell took a long breath and filled a pipe with tobacco. He was looking more himself now.
“I’ll bring her round the point there,” he said, “and we’ll come up the Channel and home by Bryher.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Granet ordered. “Keep her head out for the open sea till I tell you to swing round.”
Rowsell looked at his passenger with troubled face.
“Are you another of ‘em?” he asked abruptly.
“Don’t you mind who I am,” Granet answered. “I’m on a job I’m going to see through. If a fiver isn’t enough for you, make it a tenner, but keep her going where I put her.”
Rowsell obeyed but his face grew darker. He leaned towards his passenger.
“What’s your game?” he demanded hoarsely. “There’s some of them on the island’d have me by the throat if they only knew the things I could tell ‘em. What’s your game here, eh? Are you on the cross?”
“I am not,” Granet replied, “or I shouldn’t have needed to bring you to sea. I know all about you, Job Rowsell. You’re doing very well and you may do a bit better by and by. Now sit tight and keep a still tongue in your head.”
They were in a queer part of the broken, rocky island group. There was a great indenture in the rocks up which the sea came hissing; to the left, round the corner, the lighthouse. Granet drew what looked to be a large pocket-handkerchief from the inner pocket of his coat, pulled down their pennant with nimble fingers, tied on another and hauled it up. Job Rowsell stared at him.
“What’s that?”
“It’s the German flag, you fool,” Granet answered.
“I’ll have none of that on my boat,” the man declared surlily. “An odd fiver for a kindness—”
“Shut up!” Granet snapped, drawing his revolver from his pocket. “You run the boat and mind your own business, Rowsell. I’m not out here to be fooled with.... My God!”
Almost at their side the periscope of a submarine had suddenly appeared. Slowly it rose to the surface. An officer in German naval uniform struggled up and called out. Granet spoke to him rapidly in German. Job Rowsell started at them both, then he drew a flask from his pocket and took a long pull. The submarine grew nearer and Granet tossed a small roll of paper across the chasm of waters. All that passed between the two men was to Job Rowsell unintelligible. The last few words, however, the German repeated in English.
“The Princess Hilda from Southampton, tomorrow at midnight,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Well, it’s a big business.”
“It’s worth it,” Granet assured him. “They may call it a hospital ship but it isn’t. I am convinced that the one man who is more dangerous to us than any other Englishman, will be on board.”
“It shall then be done,” the other promised. “So!”
He looked upward to the flag and saluted Granet. A great sea bore them a little apart. Granet pulled down the German flag, tied up a stone inside it and threw it into the next wave.
“You can take me back now,” he told the boatman.
They were four hours making the harbour. Three times they failed to get round the last point, met at each time by clouds of hissing spray. When at last they sailed in, there was a little crowd to watch them. Nichols and Lethbridge stood on one side with gloomy faces.
“It’s a queer day for pleasure sailing,” Nicholas remarked to Job Rowsell, as he came up the wet steps of the pier.
“It’s all I want of it for a bit, any way,” Rowsell muttered, pushing his way along the quay. “If there’s any of you for a drink, I’m your man. What-ho, Nichols?—Lethbridge?”
Lethbridge muttered something and turned away. Nichols, too, declined.
“I am not sure, Job Rowsell,” the latter declared, “that I like your money nor the way you earn it.”
Job Rowsell stopped for a minute. There was an ugly look in his sullen face.
“If you weren’t my own bother-in-law, Matthew Nichols,” he said, “I’d shove those words down your throat.”
“And if you weren’t my sister’s husband,” Nichols retorted, turning away, “I’d take a little trip over to Penzance and say a few words at the Police Station there.”
Granet laughed good-humouredly.
“You fellows don’t need to get bad-tempered with one another,” he observed. “Look here, I shall have three days here. I’ll take one of you each day—make a fair thing of it, eh? You to-morrow, Nichols, and you the next day Lethbridge. I’m not particular about the weather, as Job Rowsell can tell you, and I’ve sailed a boat since I was a boy. I’m no land-lubber, am I, Rowsell?”
“No, you can sail the boat all right,” Rowsell admitted, looking back over his shoulder. “You’d sail it into Hell itself, if one’d let you. Come on, you boys, if there’s any one of you as fancies to drink. I’m wet to the skin.”
Nichols’ boat was duly prepared at nine o’clock on the following morning. Lethbridge shouted to him from the rails.
“Gentleman’s changed his mind, I reckon. He went off on the eight o’clock boat for Penzance.”
Nichols commenced stolidly to furl his sails again.
“It’s my thinking Lethbridge,” he said, as he clambered into the dinghy, “that there’s things going on in this island which you and me don’t understand. I’m for a few plain words with Job Rowsell, though he’s my own sister’s husband.”
“Plain words is more than you’ll get from Job,” Lethbridge replied gloomily. “He slept last night on the floor at the ‘Blue Crown,’ and he’s there this morning, clamouring for brandy and pawing the air. He’s got the blue devils, that’s what he’s got.”
“There’s money,” Nichols declared solemnly, “some money, that is, that does no one any good.”
There was a shrill whistle from the captain’s bridge, and the steamer, which had scarcely yet gathered way, swung slowly around. Rushing up towards it through the mists came a little naval launch, in the stern of which a single man was seated. In an incredibly short space of time it was alongside, the passenger had climbed up the rope ladder, the pinnace had sheered off and the steamer was once more heading towards the Channel.
The newly-arrived passenger was making his way towards the saloon when a voice which seemed to come from behind a pile of rugs heaped around a steamer-chair, arrested his progress.
“Hugh! Major Thomson!”
He stopped short. Geraldine shook herself free from her rugs and sat up. They looked at one another in astonishment.
“Why, Geraldine,” he exclaimed, “where are you off to?”
“To Boulogne, of course,” she answered. “Don’t pretend that you are surprised. Why, you got me the appointment yourself.”
“Of course,” he agreed, “only I had no idea that you were going just yet, or that you were on this boat.”
“They told me to come out this week,” she said, as he drew a chair to her side, “and so many of the nurses and doctors were going by this boat that I thought I would come, too. I feel quite a professional already. Nearly all the women here are in nurse’s uniform and three-quarters of the men on board are doctors. Where are you going, Hugh?”
“Just to the Base and back again to-morrow,” he told here. “There’s a court martial I want to attend.”
“Still mysterious,” she laughed. “What have you to do with courts martial, Hugh?”
“Too much, just for the moment,” he answered lightly. “Would you like some coffee or anything?”
She shook her head.
“No, thank you. I had an excellent supper before we started. I looked at some of the cabins but I decided to spend the night on deck. What about you? You seem to have arrived in a hurry.”
“I missed the train in London,” he explained. “They kept me at the War Office. Then I had to come down in a Government car and we couldn’t quite catch up. Any news from Ralph?”
“I had a letter days ago,” she told him. “It was posted at Harwich but he couldn’t say where he was, and of course he couldn’t give me any news. Father came back from the Admiralty very excited yesterday, though. He says that we have sunk four or five more submarines, and that Ralph’s new equipment is an immense success. By-the-bye, is there any danger of submarines here?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Thomson answered. “They are very busy round the Scilly Islands but we seem to have been able to keep them out of the Channel. I thought we should have been convoyed, though.”
“In any case,” she remarked, “we are a hospital ship. I expect they’d leave us alone. Major Thomson,” she went on, “I wonder, do you really believe all these stories of the horrible doings of the Germans—the way they have treated drowning people attacked by their submarines, and these hateful stories of Belgium? Sometimes it seems to me as though there was a fog of hatred which had sprung up between the two countries, and we could neither of us quite see clearly what the other was doing.”
“I think there is something in that,” Major Thomson agreed. “On the other hand I think it is part of the German principle to make war ruthlessly. I have seen things in Belgium which I shall never forget. As to the submarine business, if half the things are true that we have read, they seem to have behaved like brutes. It’s queer, too,” he went on, “for as a rule seamen are never cruel.”
They were silent for a time. For some reason or other, they both avoided mention of the one subject which was in the minds of both. It was not until after the steward had brought him some coffee and they were more than half-way across, that Thomson a little abruptly asked her a question.
“Have you seen anything of Captain Granet lately?”
“Nothing,” she replied.
He turned his head slightly towards her.
“Would it trouble you very much if he never came to see you again?”
She was watching the misty dawn.
“I do not know,” she answered, “but I think that he will come.”
“I am not so sure,” he told her.
“Do you mean that he is in any fresh trouble?” she asked quickly.
“I don’t think he needs any fresh trouble exactly,” Thomson remarked, “but suppose we leave him alone for a little time? Our meeting was so unexpected, and, for me, such a pleasure. Don’t let us spoil it.”
“Let us talk of other things,” she agreed readily. “Tell me, for instance, just what does a submarine look like when it pops up out of the sea?”
“I have never seen one close to,” he admitted, “except on the surface. Why do you ask?”
She pointed with her forefinger to a little spot almost between two banks of mist.
“Because I fancied just now that I saw something sticking up out of the water there, something which might have been the periscope of a submarine,” she replied.
He looked in the direction which she indicated but shook his head.
“I can see nothing,” he said, “but in any case I don’t think they would attack a hospital ship. This is a dangerous area for them, too. We are bound to have a few destroyers close at hand. I wonder if Ralph—”
He never finished his sentence. The shock which they had both read about but never dreamed of experiencing, flung them without a moment’s warning onto their hands and feet. The steamer seemed as though it had been lifted out of the water. There was a report as though some great cannon had been fired off in their very ears. Looking along the deck, it suddenly seemed to Thomson that her bows were pointing to the sky. The after portion, where they were seated, was vibrating and shaking as though they had struck a rock, and only a few yards away from them, towards the middle of the boat, the end of the cabin was riven bare to the heavens. Timbers were creaking and splintering in every direction. There was a great gap already in the side of the steamer, as though some one had taken a cut out of it. Then, high above the shrieking of the escaped steam and the cracking of woodwork, the siren of the boat screamed out its frantic summons for help. Geraldine for the moment lost her nerve. She began to shriek, and ran towards the nearest boat, into which the people were climbing like ants. Thomson drew her back.
“Don’t hurry,” he begged. “Here!”
He threw open the door of a cabin which leaned over them, snatched two of the lifebelts from the berth and rapidly fastened one on her. There was some semblance of order on deck now that the first confusion had passed. The men were all rushing to quarters. Three of the boats had been blown into splinters upon their davits. The fourth, terribly overloaded, was being lowered. Thomson, working like a madman, was tying some spare belts on to a table which had floated out from the cabin. More than once the boat gave a great plunge and they had to hold on to the cabin doors. A huge wave broke completely over them, drenching them from head to foot. The top of the rail now was on a level with the sea. Thomson stood up for a moment and looked around. Then he turned to Geraldine.
“Look here,” he said, “there’ll be plenty of craft around to pick us up. This thing can’t sink. Keep the lifebelt on and get your arms through the belt I have tied on to the table, so. That’s right. Now come over to the side.”
“You’re not going to jump overboard?” she cried.
“We are going to just step overboard,” he explained. “It’s the only chance. Throw off your fur cloak. You see, if we stay a moment later we shall be dragged down after the steamer. We must get clear while we can.”
“I can swim,” he answered quickly, throwing off his coat and waistcoat. “This thing will support me easily. Believe me, Geraldine, there’s nothing to be frightened about. We can keep her afloat for half-a-dozen hours, if necessary, with this only don’t let go of it. Keep your arms through, and—by God! Quick!”
A huge wave broke right over their heads. The boat, which had nearly reached the level of the water, was overturned, and the air seemed full of the screaming of women, the loud shouting of orders from the bridge, where the captain was standing with his hands upon the fast sinking rail. The water was up to their waists now. In a moment they ceased to feel anything beneath their feet. Geraldine found herself suddenly buoyant. Thomson, swimming with one arm, locked the other in their raft.
“Push yourself away from everything as well as you can,” he whispered, “and, Geraldine—if anything should happen to us, I never changed—not for a moment.”
“I don’t believe I ever did, either,” she sobbed, holding out her hand.
Another wave broke over them. They came up, however. He gripped her wet hand for a moment. All around them were articles of ship’s furniture, broken planks, here and there a man swimming. From close at hand came the shriek of the vanishing siren.
“Look!” Geraldine cried.
Barely fifty feet away from them was the submarine. The captain and four or five of the men were on deck. Thomson shouted to him.
“Can’t you save some of these women?”
The answer was a laugh—hoarse, brutal, derisive. The submarine glided away. Thomson’s face as he looked after it, was black with anger. The next moment he recovered himself, however. He had need of all his strength.
“Don’t listen to anything, Geraldine,” he begged her. “They will nearly all be saved. Can’t you hear the sirens already? There are plenty of ships coming up. Remember, we can’t go down so long as we keep hold here.”
“But you’ve no lifebelt on,” she faltered.
“I don’t need it,” he assured her. “I can keep afloat perfectly well. You’re not cold?”
“No,” she gasped, “but I feel so low down. The sky seems suddenly further away. Oh, if some one would come!”
There were sirens now, and plenty of them, close at hand. Out of the mist they saw a great black hull looming.
“They’re here all right!” he cried. “Courage, Geraldine! It’s only another five minutes.”
Thirty miles an hour into a fog of mist, with the spray falling like a fountain and the hiss of the seawater like devil’s music in their ears. Then the haze lifted like the curtain before the stage of a theatre, and rolled away into the dim distance. An officer stood by Conyers’ side.
“Hospital ship Princess Hilda just torpedoed by a submarine, sir. They’re picking up the survivors already. We’re right into ‘em sir.”
Even as he spoke, the moonlight shone down. There were two trawlers and a patrol boat in sight, and twenty or thirty boats rowing to the scene of the disaster. Suddenly there was a shout.
“Submarine on the port bow!”
They swung around. The sea seemed churned into a mass of soapy foam. Conyers gripped the rail in front of him. The orders had scarcely left his lips before the guns were thundering out. The covered-in structure on the lower deck blazed with an unexpected light. The gun below swung slowly downwards, moved by some unseen instrument. Columns of spray leapt into the air, the roar of the guns was deafening. Then there was another shout—a hoarse yell of excitement. Barely a hundred yards away, the submarine, wobbling strangely, appeared on the surface. An officer in the stern held up the white flag.
“We are sinking!” he shouted. “We surrender!”
For a single second Conyers hesitated. Then he looked downwards. The corpse of a woman went floating by; a child, tied on to a table, was bobbing against the side. The red fires flashed before his eyes; the thunder of his voice broke the momentary stillness. In obedience to his command, the guns belched out a level line of flame,—there was nothing more left of the submarine, or of the men clinging on to it like flies. Conyers watched them disappear without the slightest change of expression.
“Hell’s the only place for them!” he muttered. “Send out the boats, Johnson, and cruise around. There may be something else left to be picked up.”
The word of command was passed forward and immediately a boat was lowered.
“A man and a woman clinging to a table, sir,” an officer reported to Conyers. “We’re bringing them on board.”
Conyers moved to the side of the bridge. He saw Geraldine lifted into the boat, and Thomson, as soon as she was safe, clamber in after her. He watched them hauled up on to the deck of the destroyer and suddenly he recognised them.
“My God!” he exclaimed, as he dashed down the ladder. “It’s Geraldine!”
She was standing on the deck, the wet streaming from her, supported by a sailor on either side. She gasped a little when she saw him. She was quite conscious and her voice was steady.
“We are both here, Ralph,” she cried, “Hugh and I. He saved my life. Thank heavens you are here!”
Already the steward was hastening forward with brandy. Geraldine sipped a little and passed the glass to Thomson. Then she turned swiftly to her brother. There was an unfamiliar look in her face.
“Ralph,” she muttered, “don’t bother about us. Don’t stop for anything else. Can’t you find that submarine? I saw them all—the men—laughing as they passed away!”
Conyers’ eyes blazed for a moment with reminiscent fury. Then his lips parted and he broke into strange, discordant merriment.
“They’ll laugh no more in this world, Geraldine,” he cried, in fierce triumph. “They’re down at the bottom of the sea, every man and dog of them!”
She gripped him by the shoulder—Geraldine, who had never willingly hurt and insect.
“Ralph,” she sobbed, “thank God! Thank God you did it!”
It was towards the close of an unusually long day’s work and Major Thomson sighed with relief as he realised that at last his anteroom was empty. He lit a cigarette and stretched himself in his chair. He had been interviewed by all manner of people, had listened to dozens of suspicious stories. His work had been intricate and at times full of detail. On the whole, a good day’s work, he decided, and he had been warmly thanked over the wires by a Brigadier-General at Harwich for his arrest and exposure of a man who had in his possession a very wonderful plan of the Felixstowe land defences. He lit a cigarette and glanced at his watch. Just then the door was hurriedly opened. Ambrose came in without even the usual ceremony of knocking. He held a worn piece of paper in his hand. There was a triumphant ring in his tone as he looked up from it towards his chief.
“I’ve done it, sir!” he exclaimed. “Stumbled across it quite by accident. I’ve got the whole code. It’s based upon the leading articles in the Times of certain dates. Here’s this last message—‘Leave London June 4th. Have flares midnight Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s steps, gardens in front of Savoy. Your last report received.’”
“‘Leave London June 4th,’” Thomson repeated, glancing at his calendar,—“to-day! ‘Have flares,’—Zeppelins, Ambrose!”
The clerk nodded.
“I thought of them at once, sir,” he agreed. “That’s a very plain and distinct warning in a remarkably complicated code, and it’s addressed—to Sir Alfred Anselman.”
A smouldering light flashed in Thomson’s eyes.
“Ambrose,” he declared, “you’re a brick. I sha’n’t forget this. Just find out at once if the Chief’s in his room, please.”
There followed half an hour of breathless happenings. From the Chief’s room Thomson hurried over to the Admiralty. Here he was taken by one of the men whom he had called to see, on to the flat roof, and they stood there, facing eastwards. Twilight was falling and there was scarcely a breath of air.
“It’s a perfect night,” the official remarked. “If they start at the right time, they’ll get here before any one can see them. All the same, we’re warning the whole coast, and our gun-stations will be served all night.”
“Shall we have a chance, do you think, of hitting any of them?” Thomson asked.
The sailor winked.
“There are a couple of gun-stations I know of not far from here,” he said. “I tell you they’ve got armament there which will make our friends tear their hair’ shells that burst in the air, mind, too, which you needn’t mind letting ‘em have as quick as we can fire ‘em off. I shall try and get on to one of those stations myself at midnight.”
“What time do you think they’d attack if they do get over?”
The other took out his watch and considered the subject.
“Of course,” he reflected, “they’ll want to make the most of the darkness, but I think what they’ll aim at chiefly is to get here unobserved. Therefore, I think they won’t start until it’s dark, probably from three or four different bases. That means they’ll be here a little before dawn. I shall just motor my people up to Harrow and get back again by midnight.”
Thomson left the Admiralty, a little later, and took a taxi to Berkeley Square. The servant hesitated a little at his inquiry.
“Miss Geraldine is in, sir, I believe,” he said. “She is in the morning-room at the moment.”
“I shall not keep her,” Thomson promised. “I know that it is nearly dinner-time.”
The man ushered him across the hall and threw open the door of the little room at the back of the stairs.
“Major Thomson, madam,” he announced.
Geraldine rose slowly from the couch on which she had been seated. Standing only a few feet away from her was Granet. The three looked at one another for a moment and no word was spoken. It was Geraldine who first recovered herself.
“Hugh!” she exclaimed warmly. “Why, you are another unexpected visitor!”
“I should not have come at such a time,” Thomson explained, “but I wanted just to have a word with you, Geraldine. If you are engaged, your mother would do.”
“I am not in the least engaged,” Geraldine assured him, “and I have been expecting to hear from you all day. I got back from Boulogne last night.”
“None the worse, I am glad to see,” Thomson remarked.
She shivered a little. Then she looked him full in the face and her eyes were full of unspoken things.
“Thanks to you,” she murmured. “However,” she added, with a little laugh, “I don’t want to frighten you away, and I know what would happen if I began to talk about our adventure. I am sorry, Captain Granet,” she went on, turning towards where he was standing, “but I cannot possibly accept your aunt’s invitation. It was very good of her to ask me and very kind of you to want me to go so much, but to-night I could not leave my mother. She has been having rather a fit of nerves about Ralph the last few days, and she hates being left alone.”
“Captain Granet is trying to persuade you to leave London this evening?” Thomson asked quietly.
“He wants me very much to go down to Lady Anselman’s at Reigate to-night,” Geraldine explained. “I really accepted Lady Anselman’s invitation some days ago, but that was before mother was so unwell. I have written your aunt, Captain Granet,” she continued, turning to him. “Do please explain to her how disappointed I am, and it was very nice of you to come and ask me to change my mind.”
There was brief but rather curious silence. Granet had turned away form Geraldine as though to address Thomson. He was meeting now the silent, half contemptuous challenge of the latter’s eyes.
“Captain Granet is showing great consideration for your comfort and safety,” Thomson remarked.
Granet for a moment forgot himself. His eyes flashed. He was half angry, half terrified.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
Thomson made no immediate answer. He seemed to be pondering over his words, his expression was inscrutable. Geraldine looked from one to the other.
“There is something between you two which I don’t understand,” she declared.
“There is a very great deal about Captain Granet which I am only just beginning to understand,” Thomson said calmly. “You should find his solicitude about your movements this evening a great compliment, Geraldine. It arises entirely from his desire to spare you the shock of what may turn out yet to be a very lamentable catastrophe.”
“You two men are quite incomprehensible,” Geraldine sighed. “If only either of you would speak plainly!”
Thomson bowed.
“Perhaps I may be able to indulge you presently,” he observed. “Since you have failed to persuade Miss Conyers to leave London, Captain Granet,” he went on, turning towards the latter, “may I ask what your own movements are likely to be?”
“You may not,” was the passionate reply. “They are no concern of yours.”
“They are unfortunately,” Thomson retorted, “my very intimate concern. This, you will remember, is your ninth day of grace. It is not my desire that you should suffer unduly for your humane visit here, but I might remind you that under the circumstances it is a little compromising. No, don’t interrupt me! We understand one another, I am quite sure.”
Granet had taken a step backwards. His face for a moment was blanched, his lips opened but closed again without speech. Thomson was watching him closely.
“Precisely,” he went on. “You have guessed the truth, I can see. We have been able, within the last few hours, to decode that very interesting message which reached your uncle some little time ago.”
Geraldine’s bewilderment increased. Granet’s almost stupefied silence seemed to amaze her.
“Hugh, what does it all mean?” she cried. “Is Captain Granet in trouble because he has come here to warn me of something? He has not said a word except to beg me to go down into the country tonight.”
“And he as begged you to do that,” Thomson said, “because he is one of those privileged few who have been warned that to-night or to-morrow morning is the time selected for the Zeppelin raid on London of which we have heard so much. Oh! He knows all about it, and his uncle, and a great many of the guests they have gathered together. They’ll all be safe enough at Reigate! Come, Captain Granet, what have you to say about it?”
Granet drew himself up. He looked every inch a soldier, and, curiously enough, he seemed in his bearing and attitude to be respecting the higher rank by virtue of which Thomson had spoken.
“To-morrow, as you have reminded me, is my tenth day, sir,” he said. “I shall report myself at your office at nine o’clock. Good-bye, Miss Conyers! I hope that even though I have failed, Major Thomson may persuade you to change your mind.”
He left the room. Geraldine was so amazed that she made no movement towards ringing the bell. She turned instead towards Thomson.
“What does it mean? You must tell me!” she insisted. “I am not a child.”
“It means that what I have told you all along is the truth,” Thomson replied earnestly. “You thought, Geraldine, that I was narrow and suspicious. I had powers and an office and responsibilities, too, which you knew nothing of. That young man who has just left the room is in the pay of Germany. So is his uncle.”
“What, Sir Alfred Anselman?” she exclaimed. “Are you mad, Hugh?”
“Not in the least,” he assured her. “These are bald facts.”
“But Sir Alfred Anselman! He has done such wonderful things for the country. They all say that he ought to have been in the Cabinet. Hugh, you can’t be serious!”
“I am so far serious,” Thomson declared grimly, “that an hour ago we succeeded in decoding a message from Holland to Sir Alfred Anselman, advising him to leave London to-day. We are guessing what that means. We may be right and we may be wrong. We shall see. I come to beg you to leave the city for twenty-four hours. I find Granet on the same errand.”
“But they may have warned him—some personal friend may have done it,” she insisted. “He is a man with world-wide friends and world-wide connections.”
“They why didn’t he bring the warning straight to the Admiralty?” Thomson argued. “If he were a patriotic Englishman, do you think that any other course was open to him? It won’t do, Geraldine. I know more about Captain Granet than I am going to tell you at this moment. Shall we leave that subject? Can’t we do something to persuade your mother to take you a little way from town? You can collect some of your friends, if you like. You ought to take Olive, for instance. We don’t want a panic, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t tell any of your friends quietly.”
The door was suddenly opened. The Admiral put his head in.
“Sorry!” he apologised. “I thought I heard that young Granet was here.”
“He has been and gone, father,” Geraldine told him. “You’d better see what you can do with father,” she added, turning to Thomson.
“What’s wrong, eh? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” the Admiral demanded.
“The fact is, Sir Seymour,” Thomson explained, “we’ve had notice—not exactly notice, but we’ve decoded a secret dispatch which gives us reason to believe that a Zeppelin raid will be attempted on London during the next twenty-four hours. I came round to try and induce Geraldine to have you all move away until the thing’s over.”
“I’ll be damned if I do!” the Admiral grunted. “What, sneak off and leave five or six million others who haven’t had the tip, to see all the fun? Not I! If what you say is true, Thomson,—and I am going straight back to the Admiralty,—I shall find my way on to one of the air stations myself, and the women can stay at home and get ready to be useful.”
Geraldine passed her hand through her father’s arm.
“That’s the sort of people we are,” she laughed, turning to Thomson. “All the same, Hugh, it was very nice of you to come,” she added. “I couldn’t see us scuttling away into the country, you know. I shall go round and persuade Olive to stay with me. I am expecting to return to Boulogne almost at once, to the hospital there, to bring some more wounded back. I may get a little practice here.”
Thomson picked up his hat.
“Well,” he said quietly, “I cannot complain of your decision. After all, it is exactly what I expected.”
He made his adieux and departed. The Admiral sniffed as he glanced after him.
“Very good chap, Thomson,” he remarked, “but he doesn’t quite understand. I bet you that fine young fellow Granet would never have suggested our running away like frightened sheep! Come along, my dear, we’ll go and dine.”