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THE SPY IN BLACK
J. STORER CLOUSTON





THE SPY IN BLACK
BY
cº
J. STORER CLOUSTON
AUTHOR OF "THE LUNATIC AT LARGE,” ETC.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
*Y*1
YNKS


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
97'3828A
ASTOR, LENºx A*, *)
TILDEN Fut'...}}ara, N3
it. 1933 L
COPYRIGHT, 1918,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


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CONTENTS
PART I. : THE NARRATIVE OF LIEUTEN-
ANT WON BELKE (OF THE
GERMAN NAVY)
cEarter PAGE
I. The Landing . - - - - -
II. Night in the Ruined House . . . . 21
III. Behind the Wall . . . . . . . 31
IV. The Nails . . . . . . . . . 45
W. Waiting . . . . . . . . . 56
PART II. : A FEW CHAPTERS BY
THE EDITOR
I. The Pleasant Stranger . . . . . 63
II. The Chauffeur . . . . . . . 73
III. On the Cliff . . . . . . . . 84
IV. Mr. Drummond’s Visitor . . . . 91
W. On the Mail Boat . . . . . . 102
VI. The Vanishing Governess . . . . 115
PART III. : LIEUTENANT WON BELKE'S
NARRATIVE RESUMED
I. The Meeting . . . . . . . . . 129
II. Tiel’s Story . . . . . . . . 139


PART I
THE NARRATIVE OF
LIEUTENANT VON BELKE
(OF THE GERMAN NAVY)





10 THE SPY IN BLACK
horn (and especially on the south) into high
dark cliffs.
I suppose a bird or two may have been cry-
ing then as they were a little later, but there
was not a light nor a sign of anything human
being within a hundred miles. If one of the
Vikings who used to live in those islands had
revisited that particular glimpse of the moon,
he could never have guessed that his old haunts
had altered a tittle. But if he had waited a
while he would have rubbed his eyes and won-
dered. Right between the headlands he would
have seen it dimly:—a great thing that was not
a fish rising out of the calm water, and then
very stealthily creeping in and in towards the
southern shore.
When we were fairly on the surface I came
on deck and gazed over the dark waters to the
darker shore, with—I don't mind confessing it
now—a rather curious sensation. To tell the
truth, I was a little nervous, but I think I
showed no sign of it to Wiedermann.
“You have thought of everything you can
possibly need?” he asked in a low voice.
“Everything, sir, I think,” I answered con-
fidently.


THE LANDING II
“No need to give you tips!” he said with a
laugh.
I felt flattered—but still my heart was beat-
ing just a little faster than usuall
In we crept closer and closer, with the gen-
tlest pulsation of our engines that could not
have been heard above the lapping of the waves
on the pebbles. An invisible gull or two
wheeled and cried above us, but otherwise there
was an almost too perfect stillness. I could
not help an uncomfortable suspicion that some-
one was watching. Someone would soon be
giving the alarm, someone would presently be
playing the devil with my schemes. It was
sheer nonsense, but then I had never played
the spy before—at least, not in war-time.
Along the middle of the bay ran a beach of
sand and pebbles, with dunes and grass links
above, but at the southern end the water was
deep close inshore, and there were several con-
venient ledges of rock between the end of this
beach and the beginning of the cliffs. The
submarine came in as close as she dared, and
then, without an instant's delay, the boat was
launched. Wiedermann, myself, two sailors,
and the motor-bicycle just managed to squeeze


12 THE SPY IN BLACK
in, and we cautiously pulled for the ledges.
The tide was just right (we had thought of
everything, I must say that), and after a min-
ute or two's groping along the rocks, we
found a capital landing. Wiedermann and I
jumped ashore as easily as if it had been a quay,
and my bicycle should have been landed with-
out a hitch. How it happened I know not, but
just as the sailors were lifting it out, the boat
swayed a little and one of the clumsy fellows
let his end of it slip. A splash of spray broke
over it; a mere nothing, it seemed at the time,
and then I had hold of it and we lifted it on to
the ledge.
Wiedermann spoke sharply to the man, but I
assured him no harm had been done, and be-
tween us we wheeled the thing over the flat
rocks, and pulled it up to the top of the grass
bank beyond.
“I can manage all right by myself now,”
I said. “Good-bye, sir!”
He gave my hand a hard clasp.
“This is Thursday night,” he said. “We
shall be back on Sunday, Monday, and Tues-
day nights, remember.”


THE LANDING 13
“The British Navy and the weather permit-
ting!” I laughed.
“Do not fear!” said he. “I shall be here,
and we shall get you aboard somehow. Come
any one of those nights that suits him.”
“That suits him?” I laughed. “Say rather
that suits Providence!”
“Well,” he repeated, “I’ll be here anyhow.
Good luck!”
We saluted, and I started on my way, wheel-
ing my bicycle over the grass. I confess, how-
ever, that I had not gone many yards before I
stopped and looked back. Wiedermann had
disappeared from the top of the bank, and in a
moment I heard the faint sounds of the boat
rowing back. Very dimly against the grey
sea I could just pick out the conning tower and
low sides of the submarine. The gulls were
still crying, but in a more sombre key, I
fancied.
So here was I, Conrad von Belke, lieutenant
in the German Navy, treading British turf un-
derfoot, cut off from any hope of escape for
three full days at least! And it was not
ordinary British turf either. I was on the


14 THE SPY IN BLACK
holy of holies, actually landed on those sacred,
jealously-guarded islands (which, I presume,
I must not even name here), where the Grand
Fleet had its lair. As to the mere act of land-
ing, well, you have just seen that there was no
insuperable difficulty in stepping ashore from
a submarine at certain places, if the conditions
were favourable and the moment cunningly
chosen; but I proposed to penetrate to the
innermost sanctuary, and spend at least three
days there—a very different proposition!
I had been chosen for this service for three
reasons: because I was supposed to be a cool
hand in what the English call a “tight place”;
because I could talk English not merely flu-
ently, but with the real accent and intonation
—like a native, in fact; and I believe because
they thought me not quite a fool. As you shall
hear, there was to be one much wiser than I to
guide me. He was indeed the brain of this
desperate enterprise, and I but his messenger
and assistant. Still, one wants a messenger
with certain qualities, and as it is the chief
object of this narrative to clear my honour in
the eyes of those who sent me, I wish to point
out that they deliberately chose me for this job


THE LANDING 15
—I did not select myself—and that I did my
best.
It was my own idea to take a motor-
bicycle, but it was an idea cordially approved
by those above me. There were several ob-
vious advantages. A motor-cyclist is not an
uncommon object on the roads even of those
out-of-the-way islands, so that my mere ap-
pearance would attract no suspicion; and be-
sides, they would scarcely expect a visitor of
my sort to come ashore equipped with such an
article. Also, I would cover the ground
quickly, and, if it came to the worst, might have
a chance of evading pursuit. But there was
one reason which particularly appealed to me:
I could wear my naval uniform underneath a
suit of cyclist's overalls, and so if I were caught
might make a strong plea to escape the fate of
a spy; in fact, I told myself I was not a spy,
simply a venturesome scout. Whether the
British would take the same view of me was
another question! Still, the motor-cycle did
give me a chance.
My first task was to cover the better part of
twenty miles before daybreak and join forces
with “him” in the very innermost shrine of this


16 THE SPY IN BLACK
sanctuary—or rather, on the shore of it. This
seemed a simple enough job; I had plenty of
time, the roads, I knew, were good, nobody
would be stirring (or anyhow, ought to be) at
that hour, and the arrangements for my safe
reception were, as you shall hear, remarkably
ingenious. If I once struck the hard main
road, I really saw nothing that could stop me.
The first thing was to strike this road. Of
course I knew the map by heart, and had a copy
in my pocket as a precaution that was almost
superfluous, but working by map-memory in
the dark is not so easy when one is going across
country.
The grassy bank fell gently before me as the
land sloped down from the cliffs to the beach,
and I knew that within a couple of hundred
yards I should find a rough road which fol-
lowed the shore for a short way, and then when
it reached the links above the beach, turned at
right angles across them to join the highroad.
Accordingly I bumped my motor-cycle pa-
tiently over the rough grass, keeping close to
the edge of the bank so as to guide myself, and
every now and then making a detour of a few
yards inland to see whether the road had begun.


18 THE SPY IN BLACK
might still be on the surface, and Wiedermann
might see the flash and dub me an idiot. I cer-
tainly needed a smoke very badly and took
some credit to myself for refraining (though
perhaps I ought really have given it to Wieder-
mann). And then I decided to turn back,
slanting, however, a little away from the sea
so as to try and cut across the road. A minute
or two later I tumbled into a small chasm and
came down with the bicycle on top of me. I
had found my road.
The fact was that the thing, though marked
on the large-scale map as a road of the third,
fourth, or tenth quality (I forget which), was
actually nothing more or less than three par-
allel crevasses in the turf filled with loose sand.
It was into these crevasses that I had twice
stumbled already.
Now with my back to the sea and keeping a
yard or two away from this wretched track,
but with its white sand to guide me, I pushed
my motor-cycle laboriously over the rough turf
for what seemed the better part of half an
hour. In reality I suppose it was under ten
minutes, but with the night passing and that
long ride before me, I never want a more


THE LANDING 19
patience-testing job. And then suddenly the
white sand ceased. I stepped across to see
what was the matter, and found myself on a
hard highroad. It was a branch of the main
road that led towards the shore, and for the
moment I had quite forgotten its existence. I
could have shouted for joy.
“Now,” I said to myself, “I’m off!”
And off I went, phut-phut-phutting through
the cool night air, with a heart extraordinarily
lightened. That little bit of trouble at the
start had made the rest of the whole wild enter-
prise seem quite simple now that it was safely
OWer.
I reached the end of this branch, swung
round to the right into the highroad proper and
buzzed along like a tornado. The sea by this
time had vanished, but I saw the glimmer of a
loch on my left, and close at hand low walls and
dim vistas of cultivated fields. A dark low
building whizzed by, and then a gaunt eerie-
looking standing stone, and then came a dip
and beyond it a little rise in the ground. As I
took this rise there suddenly came upon me a
terrible sinking of the heart. Phut-phut! went
my cycle, loudly and emphatically, and then


20 THE SPY IN BLACK
came a horrible pause. Phut! once more; then
two or three feeble explosions, and then silence.
My way stopped; I threw over my leg and
landed on the road.
“What the devil!” I muttered.
I had cleaned the thing, oiled it, seen that
everything was in order; what in heaven's name
could be the matter? And then with a dread-
ful sensation I remembered that wave of salt
Water.


II
NIGHT IN THE RUINED HOUSE
OU may smile to think of a sailor being
dismayed by a splash of salt water; but
not if you are a motor-cyclist! Several very
diabolical consequences may ensue.
In the middle of that empty road, in that
alien land, under the hostile stars, I took my
electric torch and endeavoured to discover
what was the matter. From the moment I
remembered the probable salt, wet cause of my
mishap I had a pretty hopeless feeling. At
the end of ten minutes I felt not merely quite
hopeless, but utterly helpless. Helpless as a
child before a charging elephant, hopeless as a
man at the bottom of an Alpine crevasse, Ig-
nition, carburettor, what had been damaged?
In good daylight it might take me an hour or
two first to discover and then to mend. By the
radiance of my torch I would probably spend
a night or two, and be none the wiser.
21


22 THE SPY IN BLACK
And meantime the precious dark hours were
slipping away, and scattered all over the miles
of country lay foemen sleeping—nothing but
foes. I was in a sea-girt isle with but one
solitary friend, and he was nearly twenty miles
away, and I had the strictest orders not to ap-
proach him save under the cover of darkness.
Enough cause for a few pretty black moments,
I think you will allow.
And then I took myself by the scruff of the
neck and gave myself a hearty shake. Had I
been picked for this errand because I was a
coward or a resourceless fool? No! Well,
then, I must keep my head and use my wits,
and if I could not achieve the best thing, I must
try to do the second best. I ran over all the
factors in the problem.
Firstly, to wait in the middle of that road
trying to accomplish a job which I knew per-
fectly well it was a thousand chances to one
against my managing, was sheer perverse
folly.
Secondly, to leave my cycle in a ditch and
try to cover the distance on my own two legs
before daybreak was a physical impossibility.
My cycle being one of the modern kind with


NIGHT IN THE RUINED HOUSE 23
no pedals I could not even essay the dreadful
task of grinding it along with my feet.
Therefore I could not reach my haven to-night
by any conceivable means.
On the other hand, I would still be expected
to-morrow night, for our plans were laid to
allow something for mischances; so if I could
conceal myself and my cycle through the com-
ing day, all might yet be well. Therefore I
must devise some plan for concealing myself.
Logic had brought me beautifully so far, but
now came the rub—Where was I to hide?
These islands, you may or may not know, are
to all practical purposes treeless and hedgeless.
They have many moors and waste places, but
of an abominable kind for a fugitive—espe-
cially a fugitive with a motor-cycle. The
slopes are long and usually gentle and quite
exposed; ravines and dells are few and far be-
tween and farther still to reach. Caves and
clefts among the rocks might be found no
doubt, but I should probably break my neck
looking for them in the dark. Conceive of a
man with a motor-bicycle looking for a cave by
starlight!
And then a heaven-sent inspiration visited


24 THE SPY IN BLACK
me. On board we had of course maps with
every house marked, however small, and who
lived in it, and so on. We do things thor-
oughly, even though at the moment there may
not be any apparent reason for some of the de-
tails. I blessed our system now, for suddenly
in my mind's eye I saw a certain group of farm
buildings marked “ruinous and uninhabited.”
And now where the devil was it?
My own pocket map of course had no such
minute details and I had to work my memory
hard. And then in a flash I saw the map as
distinctly as if it had really been under my eye
instead of safely under the Atlantic.
“I have a chance still,” I said to myself.
By the light of my torch I had a careful look
at my small map, and then I set forth pushing
my lifeless cycle. To get to my refuge I had
to turn back and retrace my steps (or perhaps
I should rather say my revolutions) part way
to the shore till I came to a road branching
southwards, roughly parallel to the coast. It
ascended continuously and pretty steeply, and
I can assure you it was stiff work pushing a
motor-cycle up that interminable hill, espe-
cially when one was clad for warmth and


NIGHT IN THE RUINED HOUSE 25
not for exercise. Dimly in the waxing moon-
light I could see low farm buildings here and
there, but luckily not a light shone nor a dog
barked from one of them. Glancing over my
shoulder I saw the sea, now quite distinct and
with a faint sheen upon its surface, widening
and widening as I rose. But I merely glanced
at it enviously and concentrated my attention
on the task of finding my “ruinous and unin-
habited” farm.
I twice nearly turned off the road too soon,
but I did find it at last—a low tumble-down
group of little buildings some two hundred
yards or so off the road on the right, or seaward
side. Here the cultivated fields stopped, and
beyond them the road ascended through barren
moorland. My refuge was, in fact, the very
last of the farms as one went up the hill. It
lay pretty isolated from the others, and there
was a track leading to it that enabled me to
push my cycle along fairly comfortably.
“I might have come to a much worse place!”
I said to myself hopefully.
Though there was not a sign of life about the
place, and not a sound of any kind, I still pro-
ceeded warily as I explored the derelict farm.


26 THE SPY IN BLACK
I dared not even use my torch till I had stooped
through an open door, and was safely within
one of the buildings. When I flashed it round
me I saw then that I stood in a small and abso-
lutely empty room, which might at one time
have been anything from a parlour to a byre,
but now seemed consecrated to the cultivation
of nettles. It had part of a roof overhead, and
seemed as likely to suit my purpose as any other
of the dilapidated group, so I brought my cycle
in, flattened a square yard or two of nettles,
and sat down on the floor with my back against
the wall. And then I lit a cigarette and med-
itated.
“My young friend,” I said to myself, “you
are in an awkward position, but, remember, you
have been in awkward positions before when
there were no such compensating advan-
tages! Let us consider these advantages and
grow cheerful. You are privileged to render
your country such a service as few single Ger-
mans have been able to render her—if this plan
succeeds! If it fails, your sacrifice will not be
unknown or unappreciated. Whatever hap-
pens, you will have climbed a rung or two up
the ladder of duty, and perhaps of fame.”


NIGHT IN THE RUINED HOUSE 27
This eloquence pleased my young friend so
much that he lit another cigarette.
“Consider again,” I resumed, “what an op-
portunity you have been unexpectedly pre-
sented with for exhibiting your resourcefulness
and your coolness and your nerve! If it had
not been for that wave of salt water your task
would have been almost too simple. Your
own share of the enterprise would merely have
consisted in a couple of easy rides on a motor-
cycle, and perhaps the giving of a few sugges-
tions, or the making of a few objections, which
would probably have been brushed aside as
worthless. Now you have really something to
to test you!”
This oration produced a less exhilarating ef-
fect. In fact, it set me to wondering very
gravely how I could best justify this implied
tribute to my powers of surmounting difficul-
ties. Till the day broke all I had to do was to
sit still, but after that—what? I pondered for
a few minutes, and then I came to the con-
clusion that an hour or two's sleep would prob-
ably freshen my wits. I knew I could count
on waking when the sun rose, and so I closed
my eyes, and presently was fast asleep.


NIGHT IN THE RUINED HOUSE 29
The next thing obviously was to overhaul
my motor-cycle, and this I set about at once,
though all the time my thoughts kept working.
In the course of an hour or so I had located
the trouble in the carburettor and put it right
again, and I had also begun to realise a few
of the pros and cons of the situation.
I now ate a few sandwiches, had a pull at
my flask, lit a cigarette, and put the case to
myself squarely.
“With a motor-cycle, the whole island at
my disposal, and daylight in which to search
it through, I can surely find a hiding-place a
little farther removed from inquisitive neigh-
bours,” I said to myself. “So the sooner I
am off the better.”
But then I answered back—
“On the other hand it may take me some
hours to find a better spot than this, and a
man tearing about the country on a motor-
cycle is decidedly more conspicuous in the early
morning than in the middle of the day or the
afternoon when cyclists are natural objects.
“But again, if I do think of leaving this
place I certainly ought not to be seen in the
act of emerging from a ruinous house push-


30 THE SPY IN BLACK
ing my cycle—not, at least, if I wish to be
considered a normal feature of the landscape.
I have a chance of escaping now unobserved;
shall I have such a chance later in the day?”
Finally I decided to compromise. I should
stay where I was till the hour when all the
farmers had their midday meal. Then I
might well hope to slip out unobserved, and
thereafter scour the country looking for the
ideal hiding-place without attracting any
particular attention. But whatever merits
this scheme may have had were destined never
to be tested.
From my seat amid the nettles I could see
right through the open door, and my eyes all
this while were resting on the glimpse of grey
building outside. All at once I held my
breath, and the hand that was lifting a cigar-
ette to my lips grew rigid. A thin wisp of
smoke was rising from the chimney.


III
BEHIND THE WALL
$6 UINOUS” these farm buildings cer-
tainly were; but “uninhabited”—ob-
viously not quite! I rose stealthily and crossed
to the door, and just as I reached it the door
of the other house began to open. I stepped
back and peered round the corner for quite
a minute before anything more happened.
My neighbour, whoever he was, seemed uncon-
scionably slow in his movements.
And then a very old, bent, and withered
woman appeared, with a grey shawl about
her head. As she looked slowly round her,
first to one side and then to the other, I cau-
tiously drew back; but even as I did so I knew
it was too late. A wisp of smoke had given
us both away. This time it was a trail from
my cigarette which I could see quite plainly
drifting through the open door.
I heard her steps coming towards me, and
then her shadow filled the doorway. There
31


30 THE SPY IN - -
º
ing my cycle—not, at :
considered a normal fea - -thur-
I have a chance of esca --
shall I have such a chan ºr-
Finally I decided to . -vedi’ tº
stay where I was till -: star- " -
farmers had their no mirnº -
might well hope to slº specte
thereafter scour the c y hers
ideal hiding-place v. 20purs"
particular attention “I tº
this scheme may have tinue tº
to be tested. Sr* = .
From my seat ar. Isºrº
right through the o -n.
this while were rest -** - - -
building outside. -----
breath, and the hº * * *
ette to my lips * -- * =
Smoke was risin; - - - - - -


HE WALL º
down. I — ºr -
inging it = <= -- *
turned izºn r = **
have a near = r - T
- ertinent: I →-- ****
– t convenier: Z-- 1 exit
'elessly.
n the rain -a-…" sº sº-
litted, “a rººf its sºr *3-
she, “you've beer ºr a rºº
s been no rain sº I were:--
it say I came here for sº."
at me again for a fe" ºr
lying first one thing and then the
pronounced.
ined to tell her that she had missed
* m. What a terrible specimen of
2. "...at:-- cross-examining lawyer she
ºr


32 THE SPY IN BLACK
was nothing for it but taking the bull by the
horns.
“Good morning!” I said genially.
She did not start. She did not speak. She
just stared at me out of as unpleasant-looking
a pair of old eyes as I have ever looked into. I
suspected at once why the old crone lived here
by herself; she did not look as if she would be
popular among her neighbours.
“I think it is going to be a fine day,” I con-
tinued breezily.
She simply continued to stare; and if ever
I saw suspicion in human eyes, I saw it in hers.
“What do you think yourself?” I inquired
with a smile. “I have no doubt you are more
weatherwise than I.”
Then at last she spoke, and I thought I had
never heard a more sinister remark.
“Maybe it will be a fine day for some,” she
replied.
“I hope I may be one of them!” I said as
cheerfully as possible.
She said not one word in reply, and her si-
lence completed the ominous innuendo.
It struck me that a word of explanation
would be advisable.
*


BEHIND THE WALL 33
“My bicycle broke down,” I said, “and I
took the liberty of bringing it in here to re-
pair it.”
Her baleful gaze turned upon my hapless
motor-cycle.
“What for did you have to mend it in here?”
she inquired; very pertinently, I could not but
admit.
“It was the most convenient place I could
find,” I replied carelessly.
“To keep it from the rain maybe?” she sug-
gested.
“Well,” I admitted, “a roof has some ad-
vantages.”
“Then,” said she, “you've been here a long
while, for there's been no rain since I wakened
up.”
“But I didn't say I came here for shelter,”
I said hastily.
She stared at me again for a few mo-
ments.
“You’re saying first one thing and then the
other,” she pronounced.
I felt inclined to tell her that she had missed
her vocation. What a terrible specimen of
the brow-beating, cross-examining lawyer she


34 THE SPY IN BLACK
would have made! However, I decided that
my safest line was cheerful politeness.
“Have it your own way, my good dame!”
I said lightly.
Her evil eyes transfixed me.
“You’ll be a foreigner,” she said.
“A foreigner!” I exclaimed; “why on earth
should you think that?”
“You’re using queer words,” she replied.
“What words?” I demanded.
“Dame is the German for an old woman,”
said she.
This astonishing philological discovery might
have amused me at another time, but at this
moment it only showed me too clearly how her
thoughts were running.
“Well,” said I, “if it's German, I can only
say it is the first word of that beastly language
I've ever spoken!”
Again I was answered by a very ominous
silence. It occurred to me very forcibly that
the sooner I removed myself from this neigh-
bourhood the better.
“Well,” I said, “my bicycle is mended now,
so I had better be off.”
“You had that,” she agreed.


BEHIND THE WALL 35
“Good-bye!” I cried as I led my cycle
out, but she never spoke a syllable in re-
ply.
“Fate has not lost much time in forcing my
hand!” I said to myself as I pushed my motor-
cycle along the track towards the highroad. I
thought it wiser not to look round but just be-
fore I reached the road I glanced over my left
shoulder and there was the old woman cross-
ing the fields at a much brisker pace than I
should have given her credit for and heading
straight for the nearest farm. My hand was
being forced with a vengeance.
Instinctively I should liked to have turned
uphill and got clear of this district immedi-
ately, but I was not sure how my cycle would
behave itself, and dared not risk a stiff ascent
to begin with. So I set off at top speed down
the road I had come the night before, passing
the old crone at a little distance off, and no-
ticing more than one labourer in the fields or
woman at a house door, staring with interest
at this early morning rider. When the news
had spread of where he had come from, and
with what language he interlarded his speech,
they might do something more than stare.


36 THE SPY IN BLACK
There was a telegraph-office not at all far
away.
As I sped down that hill and swung round
away from the sea at the foot, I did a heap
of quick thinking. As things had turned out
I dared not make for any place of conceal-
ment far off the highroads. Now that there
was a probability of the hue and cry being
raised, or at least of a look-out being kept for
me, the chances of successfully slipping up the
valley of some burn without any one's notice
were enormously decreased. I had but to
glance round at the openness of the country-
side to realise that. No; on the highroads I
could at least run away, but up in the moors
I should be a mere trapped rat.
Then I had the bright thought of touring in
zigzag fashion round and round the island,
stopping every here and there to address an
inhabitant and leave a false clue, so as to con-
fuse my possible pursuers. But what about
my petrol? I might need every drop if I ac-
tually did come to be chased. So I gave up
that scheme.
Finally, I decided upon a plan which really
seems to me now to be as promising as any


BEHIND THE WALL 37
I could think of. About the least likely place
to look for me would be a few miles farther
along the same road that ran past my last
night's refuge, in the opposite direction from
that in which people had seen me start. I re-
solved to make a detour and then work back
to that road.
I had arrived at this decision by the time I
reached the scene of last night's mishap. For-
tunately my cycle was running like a deer now,
and I swept up the little slope in a few sec-
onds and sped round the loch, opening up fresh
vistas of round-topped heather hills and wide
green or brown valleys every minute. At a
lonely bit of the road I jumped off, studied my
map afresh, and then dashed on again.
Presently a side road opened, leading back
towards the coast, and round the corner I sped;
but even as I did so the utter hopelessness of
my performance struck me vividly—that is to
say, if a really serious and organised hunt for
me were to be set afoot. For the roadside was
dotted with houses, often at considerable in-
tervals it is true, but then all of them had such
confoundedly wide views over that open coun-
try. There was a house or two at the very cor-


38 THE SPY IN BLACK
ner where I turned, and I distinctly saw a face
appearing at a window to watch me thunder
past. The noise these motor-cycles make is
simply infernal!
It was then that I fell into the true spirit
for such an adventure. Since the chances
were everywhere against me if my enemies
took certain steps, well then, the only thing
to do was to hope they did not take them and
dismiss that matter from my mind. I was
taking the best precautions I could think of,
and the cooler I kept and better spirits I was
in, the more likely would luck be to follow me.
For luck is a discerning lady and likes those
who trust her. Accordingly, the sun being
now out and the morning beautifully fine, I
decided to enjoy the scenery and make the
most of a day ashore.
My first step was to ease up and ride just
as slowly as I could, and then I saw at once
that I was doing the wisest thing in every way.
I made less noise and less dust, and was alto-
gether much less of a phenomenon. And this
encouraged me greatly to keep to my new reso-
lution.


BEHIND THE WALL 39
“If I leave it all to luck, she will advise me
well!” I said to myself.
I headed coastwards through a wide marshy
valley with but few houses about, and in a short
time saw the sea widening before me and pres-
ently struck the road I was seeking. At the
junction I obeyed an impulse, and, jumping
off my cycle, paused to survey the scenery. A
fertile vale fell from where I stood, down to
a small bay between headlands. It was filled
with little farms, and all at once there came
over me an extraordinary impression of peace-
fulness and rest. Could it actually be that
this was a country at war; that naval war, in-
deed, was very very close at hand, and beneath
those shining waters a submarine might even
now be stealing or a loose mine drifting? The
wide, sunshiny, placid atmosphere of the scene,
with its vast expanse of clear blue sky, larks
singing high up and sea-birds crying about the
shore, soothed my spirits like a magician's
wand. I mounted and rode on again in an
amazingly pleasant frame of mind for a spy
within a hair's-breadth of capture, and very
probably of ignominious death.


40 THE SPY IN BLACK
Up a long hill my engine gently throbbed,
with moorland on either side that seemed to
be so desolated by the gales and sea spray
that even heather could scarcely flourish. I
meant to stop and rest by the wayside, but
after a look at the map I thought on the whole
I had better put another mile or two between
me and the lady with the baleful eyes. At the
top I had a very wide prospect of inland coun-
try to the left, a treeless northern-looking
scene, all green and brown with many lakes
reflecting the sunshine. A more hopeless land
to hide in I never beheld, and I was confirmed
in my reckless resolution. Chance alone must
protect me.
Down a still steeper hill I rode, only now
amid numberless small farms and with another
bay shining ahead. The road ran nearly
straight into the water and then bent sud-
denly and followed the rim of the bay, with
nothing but empty sea-links on the landward
side. The farms were left behind, a mansion-
house by the shore was still a little distance
ahead, and there was not a living soul in sight
as I came to a small stone-walled enclosure
squeezed in between the road and the beach


BEHIND THE WALL 41
below. I jumped off, led my cycle round this
and laid it on the ground, and then seated my-
self with my back against the low wall of loose
stones and my feet almost projecting over the
edge of the steep slope of pebbles that fell
down to the sand.
I was only just out of sight, but unless any
one should walk along the beach, out of sight
I certainly was, and it struck me forcibly that
ever since I had given myself up to luck, every
impulse had been an inspiration. If I were
conducting the search for myself, would I ever
dream of looking for the mysterious runaway
behind a wall three feet high within twenty
paces of a public road and absolutely exposed
to a wide sweep of beach? “No,” I told my-
self, “I certainly should not!”
There I sat for hour after hour basking in
the sunshine, and yet despite my heavy cloth-
ing kept at a bearable temperature by gentle
airs of cool breeze off the sea. The tide, which
was pretty high when I arrived, crept slowly
down the sands, but save for the cruising and
running of gulls and little piping shore-birds,
that was all the movement on the beach. Not
a soul appeared below me all that time. The


42 THE SPY IN BLACK
calm shining sea remained absolutely empty
except once for quarter of an hour or so when
a destroyer was creeping past far out. To the
seaward there was not a hint of danger or the
least cause for apprehension.
On the road behind me I did hear sounds
several times, which I confess disturbed my
equanimity much more than I meant to let
them. Once a motor-car buzzed past, and not
to hold my breath as the sound swelled so rap-
idly and formidably was more than I could
achieve. The jogging of a horse and trap
twice set me wondering, despite myself,
whether there were a couple of men with car-
bines aboard. But the slow prolonged rattling
and creaking of carts was perhaps the sound
that worried me most. They took such an in-
terminable time to pass! I conceived a very
violent distaste for carts.
I do take some credit to myself that not
once did I yield to the temptation to peep over
my wall and see who it was that passed along
the road. I did not even turn and try to peer
through the chinks in the stones, but simply
sat like a limpet till the sounds had died com-
pletely away. The only precaution I took was


BEHIND THE WALL 43
to extinguish my cigarette if I chanced at the
moment to be smoking.
In the course of my long bask in that sun
bath I ate most of my remaining sandwiches
and a cake or two of chocolate, but kept the
remainder against emergencies. At last as the
sun wore round, gradually descending till it
shone right into my eyes, and I realised that
the afternoon was getting far through, hope
began to rise higher and higher. It actually
seemed as if I were going to be allowed to re-
main within twenty yards of a highroad till
night fell. “And then let them look for me!”
I thought.
I don't think my access of optimism caused
me to make any incautious movement. I
know I was not smoking, in fact it must sim-
ply have been luck determined to show me that
I was not her only favourite. Anyhow, when
I first heard a footstep it was on the grass
within five yards of me, and the next moment
a man came round the corner of the wall and
stopped dead short at the sight of me.
He was a countryman, a small farmer or
hired man, I should judge—a broad-faced, red-
bearded, wide-shouldered, pleasant-looking fel-


44 THE SPY IN BLACK
low, and he must have been walking for some
distance on the grass by the roadside, though
what made him step the few yards out of his
way to look round the corner of the wall, I
have never discovered to this day. Possibly
he meant to descend to the beach at that point.
Anyhow there he was, and as we looked into
one another's eyes for a moment in silence I
could tell as surely as if he had said the words
that he had heard the story of the suspicious
motor-cyclist.


IV
THE NAILS
4 & FINE afternoon,” I remarked, with-
out rising, and I hope without show-
ing any sign of emotion other than pleasure at
making an acquaintance.
“Aye,” said he, briefly and warily.
This discouraging manner was very ominous,
for the man was as good-natured and agree-
able-looking a fellow as I ever met.
“The weather looks like keeping up,” I said.
He continued to look at me steadily, and
made no answer at all this time. Then he
turned his back to me very deliberately, lifted
his felt hat, and waved it two or three times
round his head, evidently to some one in the
distance. I saw instantly that mischief was
afoot and time precious, yet the fellow was
evidently determined and stout-hearted, be-
sides being physically very powerful, and it
would never do to rouse his suspicions to the
45


46 THE SPY IN BLACK
pitch of grappling with me. Of course I
might use my revolver, but I had no wish to
add a civilian's death to the other charge I
might have to face before that sun had set.
Suddenly luck served me well again by putting
into my head a well-known English cant
phrase.
“Are you often taken like that?” I inquired
with a smile.
He turned round again and stared blankly.
I imitated the movement of waving a hat, and
laughed.
“Or is it a family custom?” I asked.
He was utterly taken aback, and looked
rather foolish. I sat still and continued to
smile at him. And then he broke into a smile
himself.
“I was just waving on a friend,” he ex-
plained, and I could detect a note of apology
in his voice. For the moment he was com-
pletely hoodwinked. How long it would last
Heaven knew, but I clearly could not afford
to imitate Mr. Asquith, and “wait and see.”
“Oh,” I said with a laugh, “I see!”
And then I glanced at my wristlet watch,
and sprang to my feet with an exclamation.


THE NAILS 47
“By Jove, I’ll be late!” I said, and picking
up my cycle wheeled it briskly to the road, re-
marking genially as I went, “the days are not
so long as they were!”
I never saw a man more obviously divided
in mind. Was I the suspicious person he fan-
cied at first? Or was I an honest and peace-
able gentleman? Meanwhile I had cast one
brief but sufficient glance along the road.
Just at the foot of the steep hill down which
I had come in the morning a man was mount-
ing a motor-cycle. Beside him stood one or
two others—country folk, so far as I could
judge at the distance, and piecing things to-
gether, it seemed plain that my friend had
lately been one of the party, and that the man
they had been gossiping with was a motor-
cyclist in search of me, who had actually paused
to make inquiries within little over a quarter of
a mile from where I sat. Quite possibly he
had been there for some time, and almost cer-
tainly he would have ridden past without sus-
pecting my presence if it had not been for the
diabolical mishap of this chance encounter.
I had planted my cycle on the road, and
was ready to mount before my friend had made


48 THE SPY IN BLACK
up his mind what to do. Even then his pro-
cedure luckily lacked decision.
“Beg pardon, sir—!” he began, making a
step towards me.
“Good evening!” I shouted, and the next
instant the engine had started, and I was in
my saddle.
Even then my pursuer had got up so much
speed that he must surely have caught me
had he not stopped to make inquiry of my
late acquaintance. I was rounding a corner at
the moment, and so was able to glance over
my shoulder and see what was happening.
The cyclist was then in the act of remounting,
and I noted that he was in very dark clothes.
It might or might not have been a uniform,
but I fancied it was. Anyhow, I felt pecu-
liarly little enthusiasm for making his acquaint-
ance.
On I sped, working rapidly up to forty
miles an hour, and quite careless now of any
little sensation I might cause. I had sensa-
tions myself, and did not grudge them to other
people. The road quickly left the coast and
turned directly inland, and presently it began
to wind along the edge of a long reedy stretch


THE NAILS 49
of water, with a steep bank above it on the
other side. The windings gave me several
chances of catching a glimpse of my pursuer,
and I saw that I was gaining nothing; in fact,
if anything he was overhauling me.
“I’ll try them!” I said to myself.
“Them” were nails. Wiedermann had done
me no more than justice in assuming I had
come well provided against possible contin-
gencies. Each of my side-pockets had a lit-
tle packet of large-headed, sharp-pointed nails.
I had several times thrown them experimen-
tally on the floor of my cabin, and found that
a gratifying number lay point upwards. I
devoutly prayed they would behave as reason-
ably now.
This stretch of road was ideal for their use
—narrow, and with not a house to give succour
or a spectator to witness such a very suspicious
performance. I threw a handful behind me,
and at the next turn of the road glanced round
to see results. The man was still going strong.
I threw another handful and then a third, but
after that the road ran straight for a space,
and it was only when it bent to the right round
the head of the loch that I was able to see him


50 THE SPY IN BLACK
again. He had stopped far back, and was
examining his tyres.
The shadows by this time were growing
long, but there were still some hours before
darkness would really shelter me, and in the
meantime what was I to do with myself, and
where to turn? Judging from the long time
that had elapsed between my discovery in the
early morning and the appearance of this
cyclist at the very place which I had thought
would be the last where they would seek me,
the rest of the island had probably been
searched and the hue and cry had died down
by this time. So for some time I ought to
be fairly safe anywhere: until, in fact, my pur-
suer had reached a telegraph office, and other
scouts had then been collected and sent out.
And if my man was an average human being,
he would certainly waste a lot of precious time
in trying to pump up his tyres or mend them
before giving it up as a bad job and walking
to a telegraph office.
That, in fact, was what he did, for in this
open country I was able a few minutes later
to see him in the far distance still stopping by
that loch shore. But though I believe in trust-


THE NAILS 51
ing to chance, I like to give myself as many
chances as possible. I knew where all the
telegraph offices were, and one was a little
nearer him than I quite liked. So half a mile
farther on, at a quiet spot on a hill, I jumped
off and swarmed up one of the telegraph-posts
by the roadside, and then I took out of my
pocket another happy inspiration. When I
came down again, there was a gap in the
wire.
There was now quite a good chance that I
might retain my freedom till night fell, and
if I could hold out so long as that—well, we
should see what happened then! But what
was to be done in the meantime? A strong
temptation assailed me, and I yielded to it. I
should get as near to my night's rendezvous
as possible, and try to find some secluded spot
there. It was not perhaps the very wisest
thing to risk being seen there by daylight and
bring suspicion on the neighbourhood where I
meant to spend two or three days; but you will
presently see why I was so strongly tempted.
So great, in fact, was the temptation that till
I got there I hardly thought of the risk.
I rode for a little longer through the same


52 THE SPY IN BLACK
kind of undulating, loch-strewn inland coun-
try, and then I came again close to the sea.
But it was not the open sea this time. It was
a fairly wide sound that led from the ocean
into a very important place, and immediately
I began to see things. What things they were
precisely I may not say, but they had to do
with warfare, with making this sound about as
easy for a hostile ship to get through, whether
above the water or below, as a pane of glass
is for a bluebottle. As I rode very leisurely,
with my head half turned round all the while,
I felt that my time was not wasted if I escaped
safely, having seen simply what I now noted.
For my eye could put interpretations on fea-
tures that would convey nothing to the ordi-
nary traveller.
Gradually up and up a long gentle incline
I rode, with the sound falling below me and
a mass of high dark hills rising beyond it. Be-
hind me the sun was now low, and my shadow
stretched long on the empty road ahead. For
it was singularly empty, and the country-side
was utterly peaceful; only at sea was there
life—with death very close beside it. And
now and then there rose at intervals a succes-


- THE NAILS 53
sion of dull, heavy sounds that made the earth
quiver. I knew what they meant!
Then came a dip, and then a very steep long
hill through moorland country. And then
quite suddenly and abruptly I came to the top.
It was a mere knife-edge, with the road in-
stantly beginning to descend steeply on the
other side, but I did not descend with the road.
I jumped off and stared with bated breath.
Ahead of me and far below, a wide island-
encircled sheet of water lay placid and smil-
ing in the late afternoon sunshine. Strung
along one side of it were lines of grey ships,
with a little smoke rising from most of their
funnels, but lying quite still and silent—as
still and silent as the farms and fields on shore.
Those distant patches of grey, with the thin
drifts of smoke and the masts encrusted with
small grey blobs rising out of their midst, those
were the cause of all my country's troubles.
But for them peace would have long since been
dictated and a mightier German Empire would
be towering above all other States in the world.
How I hated—and yet (being a sailor my-
self) how I respected them!


54 THE SPY IN BLACK
One solitary monster of this Armada was
slowly moving across the land-locked basin.
Parallel to her and far away moved a tiny ves-
sel with a small square thing following her at
an even distance, and the sun shining on this
showed its colour red. Suddenly out of the
monster shot a series of long bright flashes.
Nothing else happened for several seconds, and
then almost simultaneously “Boom! boom!
boom!” hit my ear, and a group of tall white
fountains sprang up around the distant red
target. The Grand Fleet of England was
preparing for “The Day”!
I knew the big vessel at a glance; I knew
her, at least, as one of a certain four, and for
some moments I watched her gunnery prac-
tice, too fascinated to stir. I noted how the
fall of her shells was spread—in fact I noted
several things; and then it occurred to me
abruptly that I stood a remarkably good chance
of having a wall at my back and a handker-
chief over my eyes if I lingered in this open
road much longer. And the plea that I was
enjoying the excellent gun-practice made by
H.M.S. Blank would scarcely be accepted as
an extenuating circumstance!


THE NAILS 55
I glanced quickly round, and then I realised
how wonderfully luck was standing by me.
At the summit of that hill there were naturally
no houses, and as the descending road on either
side made a sharp twist almost immediately, I
stood quite invisible on my outlook tower.
The road, moreover, ran through a kind of
neck, with heather rising on either side; and in
a moment I had hauled my cycle up the bank
on the landward side, and was out of sight over
the edge, even should any traveller appear.
After a few minutes’ laborious dragging of
my cycle I found myself in a small depression
in the heather, where, by lying down, I could
remain quite out of sight unless some one
walked right into me—and it seemed improb-
able that any one should take such a promenade
with the good road so close at hand. By rais-
ing myself on my knees I could command the
same engrossing view I had seen from the road,
only I now also saw something of the country
that sloped down to the sea; and with a thrill
of exultation I realised that this prospect ac-
tually included our rendezvous.


V
WAITING
HAT I saw when I cautiously peered
over the rim of that little hollow was
(beginning at the top) a vast expanse of pale-
blue sky, with fleecy clouds down near the
horizon already tinged with pink reflections
from the sunset far off behind my back. Then
came a shining glimpse of the North Sea; then
a rim of green islands, rising on the right to
high heather hills; then the land-locked waters
and the grey ships now getting blurred and less
distinct; then some portions of the green land
that sloped up to where I lay; and among these
fields, and not far away from me, the steep roof
and gable-top of a grey, old-fashioned house.
It was the parish manse, the pacific abode of
the professional exponent and exemplar of
peace—the parish minister; and yet, curiously
enough, it was that house which my eyes de-
voured.
The single ship had now ceased firing and
56


WAITING 57
anchored with her consorts, the fleet had grown
too indistinct to note anything of its composi-
tion, and there was nothing to distract my at-
tention from the house. I looked at it hard
and long and studied the lie of the ground be-
tween it and me, and then I lay down on a
couch of soft heather and began to think.
So far as I could see I had done nothing
yet to draw suspicion to this particular spot,
for no one at all seemed to have seen me, but
it was manifest that there would be a hard
and close hunt for the mysterious motor-
cyclist on the morrow. I began to half re-
gret that I had cut that telegraph wire and
advertised myself so patently for what I was.
Now it was quite obvious that for some days
to come motor-cycling would be an unhealthy
pastime in these islands. Even at night how
many ears would be listening for my “phut-
phut-phut,” and how many eyes would be scan-
ning the dark roads? A few judiciously
placed and very simple barricades—a mere bar
on two uprights, with a sentry beside each—
and what chance would I have of getting back
to that distant bay, especially as I had just
been seen so near it?


58 THE SPY IN BLACK
“However,” I said to myself, “that is look-
ing too far ahead. It was not my fault I
brought this hornets' nest about my ears.
Just bad luck and a clumsy sailor!”
Just then I heard something approaching
on the road below me, and in a minute or two
it became unmistakably the sound of a horse
and trap. At one place I could catch a
glimpse of this road between the hummocks of
heather, and I raised myself again and looked
out. In a moment the horse and trap ap-
peared and I got a sensation I shall not soon
forget. Not that there seemed to the casual
passer-by anything in the least sensational
about this equipage. He would merely have
noticed that it contained, besides the driver, a
few articles of luggage and a gentleman in a
flat-looking felt hat and an overcoat—both of
them black. This gentleman was sitting with
his back to me (he was in a small waggonette),
but I could scarcely doubt who it was. But
only arriving to-night!
Curiosity and anxiety so devoured me that
I ran a little risk. Getting out of my hollow,
I crawled forward on my hands and knees till
I could catch a glimpse of the side road lead-


WAITING - 59
ing to that house; and there I lay flat on my
face and watched.
Down the steep hill the horse proceeded at
a walk, and what between my impatience to
make sure, and my consciousness of my own
rashness in quitting even for a moment my
sheltered hollow, I passed a few very uncom-
fortable minutes. The light by this time was
failing fast, but it was quite clear enough to
see (or be seen), and at last I caught one more
glimpse of that horse and trap—turning off
the road just where I expected. And then I
was crawling back with more haste than dig-
nity.
It was “him”! And he had only arrived
to-night. If it had not been for my accident,
in what a nice dilemma I should have been
landed! Never did I bless any one more fer-
vently than that awkward sailor who had let
my cycle slip, and as for the wave of salt
water which wet it, it seemed to have sprung
from the age of miracles.
The trouble of my discovery and its pos-
sible consequences still remained, but I thought
little enough of that now, so thankful did I
feel for what had not happened. And then


60 THE SPY IN BLACK
I stretched myself out again on the heather,
waiting with all the patience I could muster for
the falling of night.
At this point Lieutenant von Belke's narra-
tive is interrupted, to be resumed in Part III.
A few chapters from the records of the Secret
Service, which were very courteously placed
at the Editor's disposal, continue the story.
They describe certain important incidents that
happened before the Lieutenant made his land-
Ing.


PART II
A FEW CHAPTERS BY THE
EDITOR





PART II
A FEW CHAPTERS BY THE
EDITOR
I
THE PLEASANT STRANGER
T was in July of that same year that the
Rev. Alexander Burnett was abashed to
find himself inadvertently conspicuous. He
had very heartily permitted himself to be pho-
tographed in the centre of a small group of
lads from his parish who had heard their coun-
try's call and were home in their khaki for a
last leave-taking. Moreover, the excellence
of the photograph and the undeniably close re-
semblance of his own portrait to the reflection
he surveyed each morning when shaving, had
decidedly pleased him. But the appearance
of this group, first as an illustration in a local
paper and then in one that enjoyed a very
63


64 THE SPY IN BLACK
wide circulation indeed, embarrassed him not
a little. For he was a modest, publicity-avoid-
ing man, and also he felt he ought to have been
in khaki too.
Not that Mr. Burnett had anything really
to reproach himself with, for he was in the
forties, some years above military age. But
he was a widower without a family, who had
already spent fifteen years in a sparsely in-
habited parish in the south-east of Scotland
not very far from the Border; and ever since
he lost his wife had been uneasy in mind and
a little morbid, and anxious for change of scene
and fresh experiences. He was to get them,
and little though he dreamt it, that group was
their beginning. Indeed, it would have taken
as cunning a brain to scent danger in the tri-
fling incidents with which his strange adven-
ture began as it took to arrange them. And
Mr. Burnett was not at all cunning, being a
simple, quiet man. In appearance he was
rather tall, with a clean-shaven, thoughtful
face, and hair beginning to turn grey.
A few days later a newspaper arrived by
post. He had received several already from
well-meaning friends, each with that group in
*
*


THE PLEASANT STRANGER 65
it, and he sighed as he opened this one. It
was quite a different paper, however, with no
illustrations, but with a certain page indicated
in blue pencil, and a blue pencil mark in the
margin of that page. What his attention was
called to was simply the announcement that the
Rev. Mr. Maxwell, minister of the parish of
Myredale, had been appointed to another
charge, and that there was now a vacancy there.
Mr. Burnett looked at the wrapper, but his
name and address had been typewritten and
gave him no clue. He wondered who had sent
him the paper, and then his thoughts naturally
turned to the vacant parish. He knew that
it lay in a certain group of northern islands,
which we may call here the Windy Isles, and
he presumed that the stipend would not be
great. Still, it was probably a better living
than his own small parish, and as for its re-
moteness, well, he liked quiet, out-of-the-way
places, and it would certainly be a complete
change of scene. He let the matter lie in the
back of his mind, and there it would very likely
have remained but for a curious circumstance
on the following Sunday.
His little parish church was seldom visited


66 THE SPY IN BLACK
by strangers, and when by any chance one did
appear, the minister was very quickly con-
scious of the fact. He always took stock of
his congregation during the first psalm, and
on this Sabbath his experienced eye had noted
a stranger before the end of the opening verse.
A pleasant-looking gentleman in spectacles he
appeared to be, and of a most exemplary and
devout habit of mind. In fact, he hardly once
seemed to take his spectacled gaze off the min-
ister's face during the whole service; and Mr.
Burnett believed in giving his congregation
good measure.
It was a fine day, and when service was
over the minister walked back to his manse
at a very leisurely pace, enjoying the sun-
shine after a week of showery weather. The
road he followed crossed the river, and as he
approached the bridge he saw the same stranger
leaning over the parapet, smoking a cigar, and
gazing at the brown stream. Near him at the
side of the road was drawn up a large dark-
green touring car, which apparently the gen-
tleman had driven himself, for there was no
sign of a chauffeur.
“Good day, sir!” said the stranger affably,


THE PLEASANT STRANGER 67
as the minister came up to him. “Lovely
weather!”
Mr. Burnett, nothing loath to hear a fresh
voice, stopped and smiled and agreed that the
day was fine. He saw now that the stranger
was a middle-sized man with a full fair mous-
tache, jovial eyes behind his gold-rimmed spec-
tacles, and a rosy healthy colour; while his
manner was friendliness itself. The minister
felt pleasantly impressed with him at once.
“Any trout in this stream?” inquired the
stranger.
Mr. Burnett answered that it was famed as
a fishing river, at which the stranger seemed
vastly interested and pleased, and put several
questions regarding the baskets that were
caught. Then he grew a little more serious
and said—
“I hope you will pardon me, sir, for thank-
ing you for a very excellent sermon. As I
happened to be motoring past just as church
was going in I thought I'd look in too. But
I assure you I had no suspicion I should hear
so good a discourse. I appreciated it highly.”
Though a modest man, Mr. Burnett granted
the stranger's pardon very readily. Indeed,


68 THE SPY IN BLACK
he became more favourably impressed with him
than ever.
“I am very pleased to hear you say so,” he
replied, “for in an out-of-the-way place like
this one is apt to get very rusty.”
“I don't agree with you at all, sir,” said the
stranger energetically, “if you'll pardon my
saying so. In my experience—which is pretty
wide, I may add—the best thinking is done in
out-of-the-way places. I don't say the show-
iest, mind you, but the best!”
Again the minister pardoned him without
difficulty.
“Of course one needs a change now and
then, I admit,” continued the stranger. “But,
my dear sir, whatever you do, don't go and
bury yourself in a crowd!”
This struck Mr. Burnett as a novel and
very interesting way of putting the matter.
He forgot all about the dinner awaiting him
at the manse, and when the stranger offered
him a very promising-looking cigar, he ac-
cepted it with pleasure, and leaned over the
parapet beside him. There, with his eyes on
the running water, he listened and talked for
some time.


THE PLEASANT STRANGER 69
The stranger began to talk about the vari-
ous charming out-of-the-way places in Scot-
land. It seemed he was a perfervid admirer
of everything Scottish, and had motored or
tramped all over the country from Berwick
to the Pentland Firth. In fact, he had even
crossed the waters, for he presently burst forth
into a eulogy of the Windy Islands.
“The most delightful spot, sir, I have ever
visited!” he said enthusiastically. “There is
a peacefulness and charm, and at the same time
something stimulating in the air I simply can't
describe. In body and mind I felt a new man
after a week there!”
The minister was so clearly struck by this,
and his interest so roused, that the stranger
pursued the topic and added a number of en-
ticing details.
“By the way,” he exclaimed presently, “do
you happen to know a fellow-clergyman there
called Maxwell? His parish is—let me see—
Ah, Myredale, that's the name.”
This struck Mr. Burnett as quite extraor-
dinary.
“I don't know him personally,” he began.
“A very sensible fellow,” continued the


70 THE SPY IN BLACK
stranger impetuously. “He told me his par-
ish was as like heaven as anything on this mor-
tal earth!”
“He has just left it,” said Mr. Burnett.
The stranger seemed surprised and inter-
ested.
“What a chance for some one!” he ex-
claimed.
Mr. Burnett gazed thoughtfully through the
smoke of his cigar into the brown water of the
river below him.
“I have had thoughts of making a change my-
self,” he said slowly. “But of course they might
not select me even if I applied for Myredale.”
“In the Scottish Church the custom is to go
to the vacant parish to preach a trial sermon,
isn't it?” inquired the stranger.
The minister nodded. “A system I disap-
prove of, I may say,” said he.
“I quite agree with you,” said the stranger
sympathetically. “Still, so long as that is the
system, why not try your luck? Mind you, I
talk as one who knows the place, and knows
Mr. Maxwell and his opinion of it. You'll
have an enviable visit, whatever happens.”
“It is a very long way,” said Mr. Burnett.


THE PLEASANT STRANGER 71
“Don’t they pay your expenses?”
“Yes,” admitted the minister. “But then
I understand that those islands are very diffi-
cult for a stranger to enter at present. The
naval authorities are extremely strict.”
The stranger laughed jovially.
“My dear sir,” he cried, “can you imagine
even the British Navy standing between a
Scotch congregation and its sermon! You are
the one kind of stranger who will be admitted.
All you have to do is to get a passport—and
there you are!”
“Are they difficult to get?”
The stranger laughed again.
“I know nothing about that kind of thing,”
said he. “I’m a Lancashire lad, and the buzz
of machinery is my game; but I can safely
say this: that you will have no difficulty in get-
ting a passport.”
Mr. Burnett again gazed at the water in si-
lence.
Then he looked up and said with a serious
face—
“I must really tell you, sir, of a very re-
markable coincidence. Only a few days ago
some unknown friend sent me a copy of a news-


72 THE SPY IN BLACK
paper with a notice of this very vacancy marked
in it!” -
The Lancashire lad looked almost thunder-
struck by this extraordinary disclosure.
“Well, I'm hanged!” he cried—adding hur-
riedly, “if you'll forgive my strong language,
sir.”
“It seeems to me to be providential,” said
Mr. Burnett in a low and very serious voice.
With equal solemnity the stranger declared
that though not an unusually good man him-
self, this solution had already struck him for-
cibly.
At this point the minister became conscious
of the distant ringing of a bell, and recognised
with a start the strident note of his own dinner
bell swung with a vigorous arm somewhere in
the road ahead. He shook hands cordially
with the stranger, thanked him for the very
interesting talk he had enjoyed, and hurried
off towards his over-cooked roast.
The stranger remained for a few moments
still leaning against the parapet. His jovial
face had been wreathed in smiles throughout
the whole conversation; he still smiled now,
but with rather a different expression.


II
THE CHAUFFEUR
R. BURNETT was somewhat slow in
coming to decisions, but once he had
taken an idea to do a thing he generally car-
ried it out. In the course of a week or ten
days he had presented himself as a candidate
for the vacant church of Myredale, and made
arrangements for appearing in the pulpit there
on a certain Sunday in August. He was to
arrive in the islands on the Thursday, spend
the week-end in the empty manse, preach on
Sunday, and return on Monday or Tuesday.
His old friend Mr. Drummond in Edinburgh,
hearing of the plan, invited him to break his
journey at his house, arriving on Tuesday
afternoon, and going on by the North train
on Wednesday night. Accordingly, he ar-
ranged to have a trap at the manse on Tuesday
afternoon, drive to Berwick and catch the
Scotch express, getting into Edinburgh at 6.15.
78


74 THE SPY IN BLACK
He was a reticent man, and in any case had
few neighbours to gossip with, so that as far
as he himself knew, the Drummonds alone had
been informed of all these details. But he
had in the manse a very valuable domestic,
who added to her more ordinary virtues a pas-
sion for conversation.
On the Saturday afternoon before he was
due to start, he was returning from a walk,
when he caught a glimpse of a man's figure
disappearing into a small pine wood at the
back of his house, and when his invaluable
Mary brought him in his tea, he inquired who
her visitor had been.
“Oh, sic a nice young felly!” said Mary en-
thusiastically. “He’s been a soger, wounded
at Mons he was, and walking to Berwick to
look for a job.”
Though simple, the minister was not with-
out some sad experience of human nature, par-
ticularly the nature of wounded heroes, tramp-
ing the country for jobs.
“I hope you didn't give him any money,”
said he. -
“He never askit for money!” cried Mary.
“Oh, he was not that kind at a'! A maist


THE CHAUFFEUR 75
civil young chap he was, and maist interested
to hear where you were gaun, and sic like.”
The minister shook his head.
“You told him when I was leaving, and all
about it, I suppose?”
“There was nae secret, was there?” de-
manded Mary.
Mr. Burnett looked at her seriously.
“As like as not,” said he; “he just wished
to know when the man of the house would be
away. Mind and keep the doors locked,
Mary, and if he comes back, don't let him into
the kitchen whatever cock-and-bull story he
tells.”
He knew that Mary was a sensible enough
woman, and having given her this warning, he
forgot the whole incident—till later.
Tuesday was fine and warm, a perfect day
on which to start a journey, and about mid-
day Mr. Burnett was packing a couple of bags
with a sense of pleasant anticipation, when a
telegram arrived. This was exactly how it
Tân :-
“My friend Taylor motoring to Edinburgh
to-day. Will pick you and luggage up at


76 THE SPY IN BLACK
Manse about six, and bring you to my house.
Don't trouble reply, assume this suits, shall
be out till late. DRUMMOND.”
“There's no answer,” said Mr. Burnett with
a smile.
He was delighted with this change in his
programme, and at once countermanded his
trap, and ordered Mary to set about making
scones and a currant cake for tea.
“This Mr. Taylor will surely be wanting
his tea before he starts,” said he, “though it's
likely he won’t want to waste too much time
over it, or it will be dark long before we get
to Edinburgh. So have everything ready,
Mary, but just the infusing of the tea.”
Then with an easy mind, feeling that there
was no hurry now, he sat down to his early
dinner. As he dined he studied the telegram
more carefully, and it was then that one or
two slight peculiarities struck him. They
seemed to him very trifling, but they set him
wondering and smiling a little to himself.
He knew most of the Drummonds' friends,
and yet never before had he heard of an af-
fluent motor-driving Mr. Taylor among them.


THE CHAUFFEUR 77
Still, there was nothing surprising about that,
for one may make a new friend any day, and
one's old friends never hear of him for long
enough.
The really unusual features about this tele-
gram were its length and clearness and the
elaborate injunctions against troubling to an-
swer it.
Robert Drummond was an excellent and
Christian man, but he had never been remark-
able for profuse expenditure. In fact, he
guarded his bawbees very carefully indeed, and
among other judicious precautions he never
sent telegrams if he could help it, and when
fate forced his hand, kept very rigorously
within the twelve-word limit. His telegrams
in consequence were celebrated more for their
conciseness than their clarity. Yet here he
was sending a telegram thirty-four words long,
apart from the address and signature, and
spending halfpenny after halfpenny with reck-
less profusion to make every detail explicit!
Particularly curious were the three clauses
all devoted to saving Mr. Burnett the trouble
of replying. Never before had Mr. Drum-
mond shown such extraordinary consideration


78 THE SPY IN BLACK
for a friend's purse, and it is a discouraging
feature of human nature that even the worthy
Mr. Burnett felt more puzzled than touched
by his generous thoughtfulness.
“Robert Drummond never wrote out that
wire himself,” he concluded. “He must just
have told some one what he wanted to say, and
they must have written it themselves. Well,
we'll hope they paid for it too, or Robert will
be terribly annoyed.” -
The afternoon wore on, and as six o'clock
drew near, the minister began to look out for
Mr. Taylor and his car. But six o'clock
passed, and quarter-past six, and still there
was no sign of him. The minister began to
grow a little worried lest they should have to
do most of the journey in the dark, for he was
an inexperienced motorist, and such a long
drive by night seemed to him a formidable and
risky undertaking.
At last at half-past six the thrum of a car
was heard, and a few minutes later a long,
raking, dark-green touring car dashed up to
the door of the modest manse. The minister
hurried out to welcome his guest, and then


THE CHAUFFEUR 79
stopped dead short in sheer astonishment.
Mr. Taylor was none other than the Lanca-
shire lad.
On his part, Mr. Taylor seemed almost
equally surprised.
“Well, I'm blowed!” he cried jovially. “If
this isn't the most extraordinary coincidence!
When I got Robert Drummond's note, and no-
ticed the part of the country you lived in, I
wondered if you could possibly be the same
minister I'd met; but it really seemed too good
to be true! Delighted to meet you again!”
He laughed loud and cheerfully, and wrung
the minister's hand like an old friend. Mr.
Burnett, though less demonstrative, felt heart-
ily pleased, and led his guest cordially into the
manse parlour.
“You’ll have some tea before you start, I
hope?” he inquired.
“Ra-ther!” cried Mr. Taylor. “I’ve a Lan-
cashire appetite for tea! Ha, ha, ha!”
“Well, I’ll have it in at once,” said the min-
ister, ringing the bell, “for I suppose we ought
not to postpone our start too long.”
“No hurry at all, my dear fellow,” said Mr.


80 THE SPY IN BLACK
Taylor, throwing himself into the easiest chair
the minister possessed. “I mean to have a
jolly good tuck in before I start!”
At that moment Mr. Burnett remembered
that this time he had seen a chauffeur in the
car. He went hospitably out of the room and
turned towards the front door. But hardly
had he turned in that direction when he heard
Mr. Taylor call out—
“Hallo! Where are you going?”
And the next moment he was after the min-
ister and had him by the arm just as they
reached the open front door. Mr. Burnett
ever afterwards remembered the curious im-
pression produced on him by the note in Mr.
Taylor's voice, and that hurried grip of the
arm. Suspicion, alarm, a note of anger, all
seemed to be blended.
“I—I was only going to ask your driver to
come and have a cup of tea in the kitchen,”
stammered the embarrassed minister.
“My dear sir, he doesn't want any; I’ve
asked him already!” said Mr. Taylor. “I as-
sure you honestly I have!”
Mr. Burnett suffered himself to be led back
wondering greatly. He had caught a glimpse


THE CHAUFFEUR 81
of the chauffeur, a clean-shaven, well-turned-
out man, sitting back in his seat with his cap
far over his eyes, and even in that hurried
glance at part of his face he had been struck
with something curiously familiar about the
man; though whether he had seen him before,
or, if not, who he reminded him of, he was quite
unable to say. And then there was Mr. Tay-
lor's extraordinary change of manner the very
moment he started to see the chauffeur. He
could make nothing of it at all, but for some
little time afterwards he had a vague sense of
disquiet.
Mr. Taylor, on his part, had recovered his
cheerfulness as quickly as he had lost it.
“Forgive me, my dear Mr. Burnett,” he said
earnestly, yet always with the rich jolly note in
his voice. “I must have seemed a perfect ma-
niac. The truth is, between ourselves, I had a
terrible suspicion you were going to offer my
good James whisky!”
“Oh,” said the minister. “Is he then—er—
an abstainer?”
Mr. Taylor laughed pleasantly.
“I wish he were! A wee drappie is his one
failing; ha, ha! I never allow my chauffeur


82 THE SPY IN BLACK
to touch a drop while I'm on the road, Mr. Bur-
nett—never, sir!”
Mr. Burnett was slow to suspect ill of any
one, but he was just as slow in getting rid of a
suspicion. With all his simplicity, he could
not but think that Mr. Taylor jumped extraor-
dinarily quickly to conclusions and got excited
on smaller provocation than any one he had
ever met. Over his first cup of tea he sat very
silent.
In the meantime the sociable Mary had been
suffering from a sense of disappointment.
Surely the beautiful liveried figure in the car
would require his tea and eggs like his master?
For a little she sat awaiting his arrival in the
kitchen, with her cap neatly arranged, and an
expectant smile. But gradually disappoint-
ment deepened. She considered the matter
judicially. Clearly, she decided, Mr. Burnett
had forgotten the tradition of hospitality as-
sociated with that and every other manse.
And then she decided that her own duty was
plain.
She went out of the back door and round
the house. There stood the car, with the re-
splendent figure leaning back in his seat, his


THE CHAUFFEUR 83
cap still over his eyes, and his face now resting
on his hand, so that she could barely see more
than the tip of his nose. He heard nothing of
her approach till she was fairly at his side, and
in her high and penetrating voice cried—
“Will ye not be for a cup of tea and an egg
to it, eh?”
The chauffeur started, and Mary started
too. She had seen his face for an instant,
though he covered it quickly, but apparently
quite naturally, with his hand.
“No, thanks,” he said brusquely, and turned
away his eyes.
Mary went back to the kitchen divided be-
tween annoyance at the rebuff and wonder.
The liveried figure might have been the twin-
brother of the minister.


ON THE CLIFF 85
Mr. Burnett took the passport out of his
pocket and showed it to him. His guest
closely examined the minister's photograph
which was attached, went through all the par-
ticulars carefully, and pronounced everything
in order, as far as an ignorant outsider like
himself could judge.
“Of course,” he said, “I’m a business man,
Mr. Burnett, and I can tell when a thing looks
businesslike, though I know no more about
what the authorities require and why they ask
for all these particulars than you do. It's all
red tape, I suppose.”
As a further precaution he recommended his
host to slip a few letters and a receipted bill or
two into his pocket-book, so that he would have
a ready means of establishing his identity if
any difficulty arose. Mr. Burnett was some-
what surprised, but accepted his guest’s word
for it, as a shrewd Lancashire lad, that these
little tips were well worth taking.
By this time the evening was falling, and
at length Mr. Taylor declared himself ready
for the road. He had drunk four cups of tea,
and hurried over none of them. For a mo-
ment Mr. Burnett half wondered if he had any


86 THE SPY IN BLACK
reason for delaying their start, but immedi-
ately reproached himself for harbouring such
a thought. Indeed, why should he think so?
There seemed nothing whatever to be gained
by delay, with the dusk falling so fast and a
long road ahead.
The minister's rug and umbrella and two
leather bags were put into the car, he and Mr.
Taylor got aboard, and off they went at last.
Mr. Burnett had another glance at the chauf-
feur, and again was haunted by an odd sense
of familiarity; but once they had started, the
view of his back in the gathering dusk sug-
gested nothing more explicit.
Presently they passed a corner, and the min-
ister looked round uneasily.
“What road are you taking?” he asked.
“We’re going to join the coast road from
Berwick,” said Mr. Taylor.
“Isn’t that rather roundabout?”
Mr. Taylor laughed jovially.
“My good James has his own ideas,” said
he. “As a matter of fact, I fancy he knows
the coast road and isn't sure of the other.
However, we needn't worry about that. With


ON THE CLIFF 87
a car like this the difference in time will be a
flea-bite!”
He had provided the minister with another
excellent cigar, and smoking in comfort behind
a glass wind-screen, with the dim country slip-
ping by and the first pale star faintly shining
overhead, the pair fell into easy discourse.
Mr. Taylor was a remarkably sympathetic
talker, the minister found. He kept the con-
versation entirely on his companion's affairs,
putting innumerable questions as to his habits
and way of life, and indeed his whole history,
and exhibiting a flattering interest in his an-
swers. Mr. Burnett said to himself at last,
with a smile, that this inquiring gentleman
would soon know as much about him as he
knew himself.
Once or twice the minister wondered how
fast they were really going. They did not
seem to him to be achieving any very extraor-
dinary speed, but possibly that was only be-
cause the big car ran so easily. In fact, when
he once questioned his companion, Mr. Taylor
assured him that actually was the explanation.
It was thus pretty dark when they struck the


88 THE SPY IN BLACK
coast road, and it grew ever darker as they ran
northward through a bare, treeless country,
with the cliff edge never far away and the
North Sea glimmering beyond.
They had reached an absolutely lonely
stretch of road that hugged the shore closely
when the car suddenly stopped.
“Hallo!” exclaimed Mr. Taylor, “what's
up ?”
The chauffeur half-turned round and said
in a low voice—
“Did you see that light, sir?”
“Which light?”
The chauffeur pointed to the dark stretch
of turf between them and the edge of the cliffs.
“Just there, sir. I saw it flash for a second.
I got a glimpse of some one moving too, sir.”
Mr. Taylor became intensely excited.
“A spy signalling!” he exclaimed.
“Looks like it, sir,” said the chauffeur.
Mr. Taylor turned to the minister with an
eager, resolute air.
“Our duty's clear, Mr. Burnett,” said he.
“As loyal subjects of King George—God bless
him!—we've got to have a look into this!”
With that he jumped out and stood by the


ON THE CLIFF 89
open door, evidently expecting the minister to
follow. For a moment Mr. Burnett hesitated.
A vague sense that all was not well suddenly
affected him. “Do not go!” something seemed
to say to him. And yet as a man and a loyal
subject how could he possibly decline to assist
in an effort to foil the King's enemies? Re-
luctantly he descended from the car, and once
he was on the road, Mr. Taylor gave him no
time for further debate.
“Come on!” he whispered eagerly; and then
turning to the chauffeur, “come along too,
James!”
Close by there was a gate in the fence, and
they all three went through this and quietly
crossed the short stretch of grass between the
road and the cliffs, Mr. Taylor and the min-
ister walking in front and the chauffeur follow-
ing close at their heels. Now that the car was
silent, they could hear the soft lapping of the
water at the cliff foot, but that and the fall
of their feet on the short crisp turf were the
only sounds.
Mr. Burnett peered hard into the darkness,
but he could see absolutely nothing. All at
once he realised that they were getting very


90 THE SPY IN BLACK
close to the brink, and that if there were any
one in front they would certainly be silhouetted
against the sky. There could not possibly be
any use in going further; why then did they
continue to advance? At that a clear and
terrifying instinct of danger seized him. He
turned round sharply, and uttered one loud
ringing cry.
He was looking straight into the chauf-
feur's face, and it seemed as though he were
looking into his own, distorted by murderous
intention. Above it the man's hand was al-
ready raised. It descended, and the minister
fell on the turf with a gasp. He knew no more
of that night's adventure.


92 THE SPY IN BLACK
should have come, a telegram arrived instead.
It ran—
“Unavoidably prevented from coming to
stay with you. Shall explain later. Many
regrets. Don't trouble reply. Leaving home
immediately.
“BURNETT.”
As Mr. Drummond studied this telegram he
began to feel not only disappointed but a trifle
critical.
“Alec Burnett must have come into a for-
tune!” he said to himself. “Six words—the
whole of threepence—wasted in telling me not
to reply! As if I’d be spending my money on
anything so foolish. I never saw such extrav-
agance!”
On the following morning Mr. Drummond
was as usual up betimes. He had retired a
year or two before from a responsible position
in an insurance office, but he still retained his
active business habits, and by eight o'clock
every morning of the summer was out and busy
in his garden. It still wanted ten minutes to
eight, and he was just buttoning up his waist-
coat when he heard the front-door bell ring.


MR. DRUMMOND'S VISITOR 93
A minute or two later the maid announced that
Mr. Topham was desirous of seeing Mr.
Drummond immediately.
“Mr. Topham?” he asked.
“He’s a Navy Officer, sir,” said the maid.
Vaguely perturbed, Mr. Drummond hurried
downstairs, and found in his study a purpose-
ful-looking young man, with the two zigzag
stripes on his sleeve of a lieutenant in the Royal
Naval Reserve.
“Mr. Drummond?” he inquired.
“The same,” said Mr. Drummond, firmly
yet cautiously.
“You expected a visit from a Mr. Burnett
yesterday, I believe?”
“I had been expecting him till I got his
wire.”
“His wire!” exclaimed Lieutenant Topham.
“Did he telegraph to you?”
“Yes; he said he couldn't come.”
“May I see that telegram?”
Caution had always been Mr. Drummond's
most valuable asset.
“Is it important?” he inquired.
“Extremely,” said the lieutenant a trifle
brusquely.
>


94 THE SPY IN BLACK
Mr. Drummond went to his desk and handed
him the telegram. He could see Topham's
eyebrows rise as he read it.
“Thank you,” he said when he had finished.
“May I keep it?”
Without waiting for permission, he put it
in his pocket, and with a grave air said—
“I am afraid I have rather serious news to
give you about Mr. Burnett.”
“Tear me!” cried Mr. Drummond. “It’s
not mental trouble, I hope? That was a queer
wire he sent me!”
“He didn't send you that wire,” said Lieu-
tenant Topham.
“What!” exclaimed Mr. Drummond.
“Really—you don't say so? Then who did?”
“That's what we’ve got to find out.”
The lieutenant glanced at the door, an
added— -
“I think we had better come a little farther
away from the door.”
They moved to the farther end of the room
and sat down.
“Mr. Burnett has been knocked on the head
and then nearly drowned,” said the lieutenant.
*
*.
ſ


MR. DRUMMOND'S VISITOR 95
Mr. Drummond cried aloud in horror.
Topham made a warning gesture.
“This is not to be talked about at present,”
he said in a guarded voice. “The facts simply
are that I'm in command of a patrol-boat, and
last night we were off the Berwickshire coast
when we found your friend in the water with
a bad wound in his head and a piece of cord
tied round his feet.”
“You mean some one had tried to muſier
him?” cried Mr. Drummond.
“It looked rather like it,” said Topham
drily.
“And him a minister too!” gasped Mr.
Drummond.
“So we found later.”
“But you'd surely tell that from his clothes!”
“He had no clothes when we found him.”
“No clothes on! Then do you mean 92
“We took him straight back to the base,”
continued the lieutenant quickly, “and finally
he came round and was able to talk a little.
Then we learned his name and heard of you,
and Captain Blacklock asked me to run up
and let you know he was safe, and also get you


96 THE SPY IN BLACK
to check one or two of his statements. Mr.
Burnett is naturally a little light-headed at
present.”
Mr. Drummond was a persistent gentleman.
“But do you mean you found him with no
clothes on right out at sea?”
“No; close under the cliffs.”
“Did you see him fall into the water?”
“We heard a cry, and picked him up shortly
afterwards,” said the lieutenant, rather evas-
ively, Mr. Drummond thought. “However,
the main thing is that he will recover all right.
You can rest assured he is being well looked
after.”
“I’d like to know more about this,” said Mr.
Drummond with an air of determination.
“So would we,” said Topham drily, “and I’d
just like to ask you one or two questions, if I
may. Mr. Burnett was on his way to the
Windy Islands, I believe?”
“He was. He had got all his papers and
everything ready to start to-night.”
“You feel sure of that?”
“He wrote and told me so himself.”
Lieutenant Topham nodded in silence.
Then he inquired—


MR. DRUMMOND'S VISITOR 97
“Do you know a Mr. Taylor?”
“Taylor? I know a John Taylor 25
“Who comes from Lancashire and keeps a
motor-car?”
“No,” said Mr. Drummond. “I don’t know
that one. Why?”
“Then you didn't send a long telegram to
Mr. Burnett yesterday telling him that Mr.
Taylor would call for him in his motor-car
and drive him to your house?”
“Certainly not!” cried Mr. Drummond in-
dignantly. “I never sent a long telegram to
any one in my life. I tell you I don’t know
anything about this Mr. Taylor or his motor-
car. If Mr. Burnett told you that, he's light-
headed indeed!”
“Those are merely the questions Captain
Blacklock asked me to put,” said the lieuten-
ant soothingly.
“Is he the officer in command of the
base?” demanded Mr. Drummond a little
fiercely.
“No,” said Topham briefly; “Commander
Blacklock is an officer on special service at
present.”
“Commander!” exclaimed Mr. Drummond


MR. DRUMMOND'S VISITOR 99
“The affair is not in my hands, Mr. Drum-
mond.”
“Then whose hands is it in?”
“I have not been consulted on that point.”
Ever since the war broke out Mr. Drum-
mond's views concerning the Navy had been
in a state of painful flux. Sometimes he felt
a genuine pride as a taxpayer in having pro-
vided himself with such an efficient and heroic
service; at other times he sadly suspected that
his money had been wasted, and used to urge
upon all his acquaintance the strong opinion
that the Navy should really “do something”—
and be quick about it too!
Lieutenant Topham depressed him greatly.
There seemed such an extraordinary lack of
intelligent interest about the fellow. How
differently Nelson would have replied!
“Well, there's one thing I absolutely insist
upon getting at the bottom of,” he said reso-
lutely. “I am accused of sending a long tele-
gram to Mr. Burnett about a Mr. Taylor.
Now I want to know the meaning of that!”
Lieutenant Topham smiled, but his smile
instead of soothing, merely provoked the in-
dignant householder.
97.3333A


100 THE SPY IN BLACK
“Neither you nor Mr. Burnett are accused
of sending telegrams. We only know that
you received them.”
“Then who sent them, I'd like to know?”
“That, no doubt, will appear in time. I
must get back now, Mr. Drummond; but I
must first ask you not to mention a word to
any one of this—in the meantime anyhow.”
The householder looked considerably taken
aback. He had anticipated making a very
pleasant sensation among his friends.
“I–er—of course shall use great discre-
tion ” he began.
Lieutenant Topham shook his head.
“I am directed to ask you to tell nobody.”
“Of course Mrs. Drummond—”
“Not even Mrs. Drummond.”
“But this is really very high-handed, sir!
Mr. Burnett is a very old friend of mine—”
The Lieutenant came a step nearer to him,
and said very earnestly and persuasively—
“You have an opportunity, Mr. Drummond,
of doing a service to your country by keeping
absolute silence. We can trust you to do that
for England, surely?”
“For Great Britain,” corrected Mr. Drum-


MR. DRUMMOND'S VISITOR 101
mond, who was a member of a society for pio-
pagating bagpipe music and of another for
commemorating Bannockburn,-"well, yes, if
you put it like that—Oh, certainly, certainly.
Yes, you can trust me, Mr. Topham. But—
er—what am I to say to Mrs. Drummond
about your visit?”
“Say that I was sent to ask you to keep
your lights obscured,” suggested the lieuten-
ant with a smile.
“Capital!” said the householder. “I’ve
warned her several times about the pantry
window. That will kill two birds with one
stone!”
“Good morning, sir. Thank you very
much,” said the lieutenant.
Mr. Drummond was left in a very divided
state of mind regarding the Navy's compet-
ence, Mr. Burnett's sanity, and his own judg-
ment.


V
ON THE MAIL BOAT
PROCESSION came down the long
slope at the head of the bay. Each ve-
hicle but one rumbled behind a pair of leisurely
horses. That one, a car with a passenger and
his luggage, hooted from tail to head of the
procession, and vanished in the dust towards
the pier. The sea stretched like a sheet of
brilliant glass right out across the bay and the
firth beyond to the great blue island hills, calm
as far as the eye could search it; on the green
treeless shores, with their dusty roads and their
dykes of flagstones set on edge, there was
scarcely enough breeze to stir the grasses.
“We shall have a fine crossing,” said the pas-
sengers in the coaches to one another.
They bent round the corner of the bay and
passed the little row of houses, pressed close
beneath the high grassy bank, and rumbled on
to the pier. The sentries and the naval guard
102


ON THE MAIL BOAT 103
eyed the passengers with professional suspicion
as they gathered in a cue to show their pass-
ports, and then gradually straggled towards
the mail boat. But there was one passenger
who was particularly eyed; though if all the
glances toward her were prompted by sus-
picion, it was well concealed. She was a girl
of anything from twenty-two to twenty-five,
lithe, dressed to a miracle, dark-haired, and
more than merely pretty. Her dark eyebrows
nearly meeting, her bright and singularly in-
telligent eyes, her firm mouth and resolute
chin, the mixture of thoughtfulness in her ex-
pression and decision in her movements, were
not the usual ingredients of prettiness. Yet
her features were so fine and her complexion so
clear, and there was so much charm as well as
thought in her expression, that the whole effect
of her was delightful. Undoubtedly she was
beautiful.
She was clearly travelling alone, and evi-
dently a stranger to those parts. No one on
the pier or steamer touched a hat or greeted
her, and from her quick looks of interest it
was plain that everything was fresh to her.
The string of passengers was blocked for a


104 THE SPY IN BLACK
moment on the narrow deck, and just where
she paused stood a tall man who had come
aboard a minute or two before. He took his
eyes discreetly off her face, and they fell upon
her bag. There on the label he could plainly
read, “Miss Eileen Holland.” Then she
passed on, and the tall man kept looking after
her.
Having piled her lighter luggage on a seat
in a very brisk and business-like fashion, Miss
Holland strolled across the deck and leaned
with her back against the railings and her
hands in the pockets of her loose tweed coat,
studying with a shrewd glance her fellow-pass-
engers. They included a number of soldiers
in khaki, on leave apparently; several nonde-
script and uninteresting people, mostly female;
and the tall man. At him she glanced several
times. He was very obviously a clergyman of
some sort, in the conventional black felt hat
and a long dark overcoat; and yet though his
face was not at all unclerical, it seemed to her
that he was not exactly the usual type. Then
she saw his eyes turn on her again, and she
gazed for some minutes at the pier just above
their heads.


ON THE MAIL BOAT 105
The cable was cast off and the little steamer
backed through the foam of her own wake, and
wheeling, set forth for the Isles. For a while
Miss Holland watched the green semicircle
slowly receding astern and the shining waters
opening ahead, and then turned to a more prac-
tical matter. Other passengers were eyeing
the laden deck-seat.
“I’m afraid mythings are in your way,” she
said, and crossing the deck took up a bag and
looked round where to put it.
The clergyman was beside her in a stride.
“Allow me. I’ll stow it away for you,” he
said.
He spoke with a smile, but with an air of
complete decision and quiet command, and with
a murmur of thanks she yielded the bag almost
automatically. As he moved off with it, it
struck her that here was a clergyman appar-
ently accustomed to very prompt obedience
from his flock.
. They had been standing just aft of the
deck-house, and with the bag in his hand he
passed by this to where a pile of lighter lug-
gage had been arranged on the deck. As he
went he looked at the bag curiously, and then


106 THE SPY IN BLACK
before putting it down he glanced over his
shoulder. The lady was not in sight, and very
swiftly but keenly he studied it more closely.
It was a suit-case made of an unusual brown,
light material. Turning one end up quickly
he read on a little plate this assurance by the
makers, “Garantirt echt Vulcanfibre.” And
then slowly, and apparently rather thought-
fully, he strolled back.
“You’ll find it among the other luggage,
just beyond the deck-house,” he said, and then
with an air of sudden thought added, “Per-
haps I ought to have put it with your other
things, wherever they are.”
“I have practically nothing else,” said she,
“except a trunk in the hold.”
“You are travelling very light,” he re-
marked. “That wasn't a very substantial suit-
case.”
For a moment she seemed to be a little
doubtful whether to consider him a somewhat
forward stranger. Then she said with a frank
smile—
“No; it was made in Germany.”
As she spoke he glanced at her with a curious


ON THE MAIL BOAT 107
sudden intensity, that might have been an or-
dinary trick of manner.
“Oh,” he said with a smile. “Before the
war, I presume?”
“Yes,” she answered briefly, and looked
round her as though wondering whether she
should move.
But the clergyman seemed oblivious to the
hint.
“Do you know Germany well?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Do you?”
He nodded.
“Yes, pretty well—as it was before the war,
of course. I had some good friends there
at one time.”
“So had I,” she said.
“All in the past tense now,” said he.
“I suppose so,” she answered; “yet I some-
times find it hard to believe that they are all as
poisoned against England and as ignorant and
callous as people think. I can't picture some
of my friends like that!”
She seemed to have got over her first touch
of resentment. There was certainly an air of
good-breeding and even of distinction about


108 THE SPY IN BLACK
the man, and after all, his extreme assurance
sat very naturally on him. It had an unpre-
meditated matter-of-course quality that made
it difficult to remain offended.
“It is hard to picture a good many things,”
he said thoughtfully. “Were you long in Ger-
many?”
She told him two years, and then questioned
him in return; but he seemed to have a gift for
conveying exceedingly little information with
an air of remarkable finality—as though he had
given a complete report and there was an end
of it. On the other hand, he had an equal gift
for putting questions in a way that made it im-
possible not to answer without churlishness.
For his manner never lacked courtesy and
he showed a flattering interest in each word of
her replies. She felt that she had never met a
man who had put her more on her mettle and
made her instinctively wish more to show her-
self to advantage.
Yet she seemed fully capable of holding her
own, for after half an hour's conversation it
would have been remarkably difficult to essay
a biographical sketch of Miss Eileen Holland.
She had spent a number of years abroad, and


ON THE MAIL BOAT 109
confessed to being a fair linguist; she was go-
ing to the Islands “to stay with some people”;
and she had previously done “a little” war work
—so little, apparently, that she had been ad-
vised to seek a change of air, as her companion
observed with a smile.
“Anyhow, I have not done enough,” she said
with a sudden intensity of suppressed feeling
in her voice.
The keen-faced clergyman glanced at her
quickly, but said nothing. A minute or two
later he announced that he had some corre-
spondence to look over, and thereupon he left
her with the same air of decision instantly acted
on with which he had first addressed her. He
passed through the door of the deck-house, and
she got a glimpse of his head going down the
companion. Her face remained quite com-
posed, but in her eyes there seemed to be the
trace of a suggestion that she was unused to
see gentlemen quit her side quite so promptly.
A few minutes later she went down herself
to the ladies' cabin. Coming out, the foot of
the companion was immediately opposite, and
beyond stretched the saloon. At the far end
of this sat the clergyman, and at the sight of


110 THE SPY IN BLACK
him Miss Holland paused for a moment at the
foot of the ladder and looked at him with a
face that seemed to show both a little amuse-
ment and a little wonder. He sat quite by
himself, with a bundle of papers on the table at
his elbow. One of these was in his hand, and
he was reading it with an air of extraordinary
concentration. He had carelessly pushed back
his black felt hat, and what arrested her was
the odd impression this produced. With his
hat thus rakishly tilted, all traces of his clerical
profession seemed mysteriously to have van-
ished. The white dog-collar was there all
right, but unaided it seemed singularly incapa-
ble of making him into a conventional minister.
Miss Holland went up on deck rather thought-
fully.
The little mail boat was now far out in the
midst of a waste of waters. The ill-omened
tideway was on its best behaviour; but even so,
there was a constant gentle roll as the oily
swell swung in from the Atlantic. Ahead, on
the starboard bow, loomed the vast island
precipices; astern the long Scottish coast faded
into haze. One other vessel alone was to be
seen—a long, low, black ship with a single spike


ON THE MAIL BOAT 111
of a mast and several squat funnels behind it.
An eccentric vessel this seemed; for she first
meandered towards the mail boat and then
meandered away again, with no visible busi-
ness on the waters.
The girl moved along the deck till she came
to the place where her suit-case had been
stowed. Close beside it were two leather kit-
bags, and as she paused there it was on these
that her eyes fell. She looked at them, in
fact, very attentively. On each were the in-
itials “A.B.,” and on their labels the legend,
“The Rev. Alex. Burnett.” She came a step
nearer and studied them still more closely. A
few old luggage-labels were still affixed, and
one at least of these bore the word “Berwick.”
Miss Holland seemed curiously interested by
her observations.
A little later the clergyman reappeared, and
approached her like an old acquaintance. By
this time they were running close under the
cliffs, and they gazed together up to the dizzy
heights a thousand feet above their heads,
where dots of sea-birds circled hardly to be dis-
tinguished by the eye, and then down to the
green swell and bursting foam at the foot of


112 THE SPY IN BLACK
that stupendous wall. In the afternoon sun
it glowed like a wall of copper. For a few
minutes both were instinctively silent. There
was nothing to be said of such a spectacle.
Then Miss Holland suddenly asked—
“Do you live near the sea?”
“Not very,” he answered with his air of final-
ity.
But this time she persisted.
“What is your part of the country?”
“Berwickshire,” he said briefly.
“Do you happen to know a minister there—
a Mr. Burnett?” she inquired.
“That is my own name,” he said quietly.
“Mr. Alexander Burnett?”
He nodded.
“That is very funny,” she said. “There
must be two of you. I happen to have stayed
in those parts and met the other.”
There seemed to be no expression at all in his
eyes as they met hers; nor did hers reveal any-
thing. Then he looked round them quietly.
There were several passengers not far away.
“It would be rather pleasant in the bows,”
he suggested. “Shall we move along there for
a little?”


ON THE MAIL BOAT II3
He made the proposal very courteously, and
yet it sounded almost as much a command as
a suggestion, and he began to move even as he
spoke. She started too, and exchanging a
casual sentence as they went, they made their
way forward till they stood together in the
very prow with the bow wave beneath their
feet, and the air beating cold upon their faces,
—a striking solitary couple.
“I’m wondering if yon's a married meenis-
ter!” said one of their fellow-passengers—a
facetious gentleman.
“It’s no' his wife, anyhow!” grinned his
friend.
A little later the wit wondered again.
“I’m wondering how long thae two are gaun
tae stand there!” he said this time.
The cliffs fell and a green sound, opened.
The mail boat turned into the sound, opening
inland prospects all the while. A snug bay
followed the sound, with a little grey-gabled
town clinging to the very wash of the tide, and
a host of little vessels in the midst. Into the
bay pounded the mail boat and up towards the
town, and only then did the gallant minister
and his fair acquaintance stroll back from the


114 THE SPY IN BLACK
bows. The wag and his friend looked at them
curiously, but they had to admit that such a
prolonged flirtation had seldom left fewer visi-
ble traces. They might have been brother
and sister, they both looked so indifferent.
The gangway shot aboard, and with a brief
hand-shake the pair parted. A few minutes
later Miss Holland was being greeted by an
elderly gentleman in a heavy ulster, whilst the
minister was following a porter towards a
small waggonette.


VI
THE WANISHING GOVERNESS
HE house of Breck was a mansion of tol-
erable antiquity as mansions went in the
islands, and several curious stories had already
had time to encrust it, like lichen on an aged
wall. But none of them were stranger than
the quite up-to-date and literally true story of
the vanishing governess.
Richard Craigie, Esq., of Breck, the popu-
lar, and more or less respected, laird of the
mansion and estate, was a stout grey-bearded
gentleman, with a twinkling blue eye, and one
of the easiest-going dispositions probably in
Europe. His wife, the respected, and more or
less popular, mistress of the mansion, was lean
and short, and very energetic. Their sons
were employed at present like everybody else's
Sons, and do not concern this narrative. But
their two daughters, aged fifteen and fourteen,
were at home, and do concern it materially.
115


THE WANISHING GOVERNESS 117
yesterday. It's a governess to-day. Have
you forced the safe?”
“Which safe?” demanded the unsuspecting
lady.
“At the bank. I've no more money of my
own, I can tell you. However, send for your
governess—get a couple of them as you're at
it!”
The humourist was clearly so pleased with
his jest that no further debate was to be ap-
prehended, and his wife went out to write the
letter. Mr. Craigie lit his sixteenth pipe since
breakfast and chewed the cud of his wit very
happily.
A fortnight later he returned one evening in
the car, bringing Miss Eileen Holland with
her trunk and her brown suit-case.
“My hat, Selina!” said he to his wife, as soon
as the girls had led Miss Holland out of hear-
ing, “that's the kind of governess for me! You
don't mind my telling her to call me Dick, do
you? It slipped out when she was squeezing
my hand.”
“I don't mind you're being undignified,” re-
plied Mrs. Craigie in a chilly voice, “but I do
wish you wouldn't be vulgar.”


118 THE SPY IN BLACK
As Mr. Craigie's chief joys in life were en-
tertaining his daughters and getting a rise out
of his wife, and as he also had a very genuine
admiration for a pretty face, he was in the
seventh heaven of happiness, and remained
there for the next three days. Pipe in mouth,
he invaded the schoolroom constantly and un-
seasonably, and reduced his daughters to a
state of incoherent giggling by retailing to
Miss Holland various ingenious schemes for
their corporal punishment, airing humorous
fragments of a language he called French, and
questioning their instructor on supposititious
romantic episodes in her career. He thought
Miss Holland hardly laughed as much as she
ought; still, she was a fine girl.
At table he kept his wife continually scan-
dalised by his jocularities; such as hoarsely
whispering, “I’ve lost my half of the sixpence,
Miss Holland,” or repeating, with a thought-
ful air, “Under the apple-tree when the moon
rises—I must try and not forget the hour!”
Miss Holland was even less responsive to these
sallies, but he enjoyed them enormously him-
self, and still maintained she was a fine girl.
Mrs. Craigie's opinion of her new acquisition


120 THE SPY IN BLACK
she simply put it in her pocket and volunteered
no explanation. He went away feeling that
he had wasted a happy quip.
After lunch Mrs. Craigie and the girls were
going out in the car, and Miss Holland was
to have accompanied them. It was then that
she made her only reference to the telegram.
She had got a wire, she said, and had a long
letter to write, and so begged to be excused.
Accordingly the car went off without her.
Not five minutes later Mr. Craigie was
smoking a pipe and trying to summon up en-
ergy to go for a stroll, when Miss Holland
entered the smoking-room. He noticed that
she had never looked so smiling and charming.
“Oh, Mr. Craigie,” she said, “I want you
to help me. I'm preparing a little surprise!”
“For the girls?”
“For all of you!”
The laird loved a practical jest, and scented
happiness at once.
“I’m your man!” said he. “What can I do
for you?”
“I’ll come down again in half an hour,” said
she. “And then I want you to help me to
carry something.”


122 THE SPY IN BLACK
eral more observations, chiefly regarding the
weather prospects, and tending to become rap-
idly humorous. And then he remembered his
appointment in the smoking-room.
“Well,” said he, “good day to you! I must
be moving, I’m afraid.”
“Good day,” said the stranger courteously,
and moved off promptly as he spoke.
“I wonder who will that minister be?” said
Mr. Craigie to himself as he strolled back.
“It's funny I never saw the man before. And
I wonder, too, where he was going?”
And then it occurred to him as an odd cir-
cumstance that the minister had started to go
back again, not to continue as he had been
walking.
“That's a funny thing,” he thought.
He had hardly got back to his smoking-room
when Miss Holland appeared, dressed to go
out, in hat and tweed coat, and dragging, of
all things, her brown suit-case. It seemed to
be heavily laden.
She smiled at him confidentially, as one fel-
low-conspirator at another.
“Do you mind giving me a hand with this?”
said she.


THE WANISHING GOVERNESS 123
“Hullo!” cried the laird. “What's this—an
elopement? Can you not wait till I pack my
things too? The minister's in no hurry. I’ve
just been speaking to him.”
It struck him that Miss Holland took his
jest rather seriously.
“The minister?” said she in rather an odd
voice. “You’ve spoken to him?”
“He was only asking if I had got the
license,” winked Mr. Craigie.
The curious look passed from her face, and
she laughed as pleasantly as he could wish.
“I’ll take the bag myself,” said the laird.
“Oh, it's no weight for me. I used to be rather
a dab at throwing the hammer in my day. But
where am I to take it?”
“I’ll show you,” said she.
So out they set, Mr. Craigie carrying the
suit-case, and Miss Holland in the most de-
lightful humour beside him. He felt he could
have carried it for a very long way. She led
him through the garden and out into a side lane
between the wall and a hedge.
“Just put it down here,” she said. “And
now I want you to come back for something
else, if you don't mind.”


126 THE SPY IN BLACK
open at night, so that she can get in again if
she's wanting to; or »
“It's your duty to inform the authorities,
Richard!”
“Duty?” repeated the laird, still more sur-
prised. “Fancy me starting to do my duty
at my time of life!”
“Anyhow,” cried Mrs. Craigie, “we’ve still
got her trunk!”
“Ah,” said Mr. Craigie, happily at last, “so
we have! Well, that's all right then.”
And with a benign expression the philoso-
pher contentedly lit another pipe.
This completes the facts to be gleaned from
the Secret Service records concerning the ear-
lier stages of the story; or rather, from such of
those records as the Editor obtained access to.
He would like to take the opportunity of again
thanking the official who ran considerable risk
of departmental censure in procuring this in-
formation. The story is now resumed by
Lieutenant von Belke.





PART III
LIEUTENANT WON BELKE’S NAR-
RATIVE RESUMED
I
THE MEETING
S the dusk rapidly thickened and I lay in
the heather waiting for the signal, I gave
myself one last bit of good advice. Of “him”
I was to meet, I had received officially a pretty
accurate description, and unofficially heard
one or two curious stories. I had also, of
course, had my exact relationship to him offi-
cially defined. I was to be under his orders,
generally speaking; but in purely naval mat-
ters, or at least on matters of naval detail, my
judgment would be accepted by him. My last
word of advice to myself simply was to be per-
fectly firm on any such point, and permit no
scheme to be set afoot, however tempting, un-
129 -


130 THE SPY IN BLACK
less it was thoroughly practical from the naval
point of view.
From the rim of my hollow there on the hill-
side I could see several of the farms below me,
as well as the manse, and I noted one little sign
of British efficiency—no glimmer of light
shone from any of their windows. At sea a
light or two twinkled intermittently, and a
searchlight was playing, though fortunately
not in my direction. Otherwise land and
water were alike plunged in darkness. And
then at last one single window of the manse
glowed red for an instant. A few seconds
passed, and it shone red again. Finally it
showed a brighter yellow light twice in swift
succession.
I rose and very carefully led my cycle over
the heather down to the road, and then, still
pushing it, walked quickly down the steep hill
to where the side road turned off. There was
not a sound save my footfall as I approached
the house. A dark mass loomed in front of
me, which I saw in a moment to be a garden
wall with a few of the low wind-bent island
trees showing above it. This side road led
right up to an iron gate in the wall, and just as


132 THE SPY IN BLACK
He took it from me, and as we walked side
by side towards the house he said—
“Permit me, Mr. Belke, to give you one lit-
tle word of caution. While you are here, for-
get that you can talk German! Think in Eng-
lish, if you can. We are walking on a tight-
rope, not on the pavement. No precaution is
excessive!”
“I understand,” I said briefly.
There was in his voice, perfectly courteous
though it was, a note of command which made
one instinctively reply briefly—and obediently.
I felt disposed to be favourably impressed
with my ally.
He left me standing for a moment in the
drive while he led my motor-cycle round to
some shed at the back, and then we entered
the house by the front door.
“My servant doesn't spend the night here,”
he explained, “so we are safe enough after
dark, as long as we make no sound that can
be heard outside.”
It was pitch-dark inside, and only when he
had closed and bolted the front door behind
us, did Tiel flash his electric torch. Then I
saw that we stood in a small porch which


THE MEETING 133
opened into a little hall, with a staircase facing
us, and a passage opening beside it into the
back of the house. At either side was a door,
and Tiel opened that on the right and led me
into a pleasant, low, lamp-lit room with a
bright peat fire blazing and a table laid for
Supper. I learned afterwards that the clergy-
man who had just vacated the parish had left
hurriedly, and that his books and furniture had
not yet followed him. Hence the room, and
indeed the whole house, looked habitable and
comfortable. -
“This is the place I have been looking for
for a long time!” I cried cheerfully, for indeed
it made a pleasant contrast to a ruinous farm
or the interior of a submarine.
Tiel smiled. He had a pleasant smile, but
it generally passed from his face very swiftly,
and left his expression cool, alert, composed,
and a trifle dominating.
“You had better take off your overalls and
begin,” he said. “There is an English warn-
ing against conversation between a full man
and a fasting. I have had supper already.”
When I took off my overalls, I noticed that
he gave me a quick look of surprise.


134 THE SPY IN BLACK
“In uniform!” he exclaimed.
“It may not be much use if I’m caught,” I
laughed, “but I thought it a precaution worth
taking.”
“Excellent!” he agreed, and he seemed gen-
uinely pleased. “It was very well thought of.
Do you drink whisky-and-soda?”
“You have no beer?”
He smiled and shook his head.
“I am a Scottish divine,” he said, “and I am
afraid my guests must submit to whisky.
Even in these little details it is well to be cor-
rect.”
For the next half-hour there was little con-
versation. To tell you the truth I was nearly
famished, and had something better to do than
talk. Tiel on his part opened a newspaper,
and now and then read extracts aloud. It was
an English newspaper, of course, and I
laughed once or twice at its items. He smiled
too, but he did not seem much given to laugh-
ter. And all the while I took stock of my new
acquaintance very carefully.
In appearance Adolph Tiel was just as he
had been described to me, and very much as
my imagination had filled in the picture: a


THE MEETING 135
man tall, though not very tall, clean-shaved,
rather thin, decidedly English in his general
aspect, distinctly good-looking, with hair be-
ginning to turn grey, and cleverness marked
clearly in his face. What I had not been quite
prepared for was his air of good-breeding and
authority. Not that there was any real reason
why these qualities should have been absent,
but as a naval officer of a country whose mili-
tary services have pretty strong prejudices, I
had scarcely expected to find in a secret-service
agent quite this air.
Also what I had heard of Tiel had prepared
me to meet a gentleman in whom cleverness
was more conspicuous than dignity. Even
those who professed to know something about
him had admitted that he was a bit of a mys-
tery. He was said to come either from Alsace
or Lorraine, and to be of mixed parentage and
the most cosmopolitan experience. One story
had it that he served at one period of his very
diverse career in the navy of a certain South
American State, and this story I very soon
came to the conclusion was correct, for he
showed a considerable knowledge of naval af-
fairs. Even when he professed ignorance of


136 THE SPY IN BLACK
certain points, I was inclined to suspect he was
simply trying to throw doubt upon the reports
which he supposed I had heard, for rumour
also said that he had quitted the service of his
adopted country under circumstances which
reflected more credit on his brains than his hon-
esty.
In fact, my informants were agreed that
Herr Tiel's brains were very remarkable in-
deed, and that his nerve and address were
equal to his ability. He was undoubtedly
very completely in the confidence of my own
Government, and I could mention at least two
rather serious mishaps that had befallen Eng-
land which were credited to him by people who
certainly ought to have known the facts.
Looking at him attentively as he sat before
the fire studying The Scotsman (the latest pa-
per to be obtained in those parts), I thought
to myself that here was a man I should a very
great deal sooner have on my side than against
me. If ever I had seen a wolf in sheep's
clothing, it seemed to me that I beheld one
now in the person of Adolph Tiel, attired as a
Scottish clergyman, reading a solid Scottish
newspaper over the peat fire of this remote


THE MEETING 137
and peaceful manse. And, to complete the
picture, there sat I arrayed in a German naval
uniform, with the unsuspecting Grand Fleet
on the other side of those shuttered and cur-
tained windows. The piquancy of the whole
situation struck me so forcibly that I laughed
aloud.
Tiel looked up and laid down his paper, and
his eyebrows rose inquiringly. He was not a
man who wasted many words.
“We are a nice pair!” I exclaimed.
I seemed to read approval of my spirit in his
eye.
“You seem none the worse of your adven-
tures,” he said with a smile.
“No thanks to you!” I laughed.
Again he gave me that keen look of inquiry.
“I landed on this infernal island last night!”
I explained.
“The deuce you did!” said he. “I was afraid
you might, but as things turned out I couldn't
get here sooner. What did you do with your-
self?”
“First give me one of those cigars,” I said,
“and then I'll tell you.”
He handed me the box of cigars and I drew


138 THE SPY IN BLACK
up an easy-chair on the other side of the fire.
And then I told him my adventures, and as I
was not unwilling that this redoubtable ad-
venturer should see that he had a not wholly
unworthy accomplice, I told them in pretty
full detail. He was an excellent listener, I
must say that for him. With an amused yet
appreciative smile, putting in now and then a
question shrewd and to the point, he heard my
tale to the end. And then he said in a quiet
manner which I already realised detracted
nothing from the value of his approval—
“You did remarkably well, Mr. Belke. I
congratulate you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tiel,” I replied. “And
now may I ask you your adventures?”
“Certainly,” said he. “I owe you an ex-
planation.”


II
TIEL’s STORY
46 OW much do you know of our
scheme?” asked Tiel.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Merely that you were going to impersonate
a clergyman who was due to come here and
preach this next Sunday. How you were go-
ing to achieve this feat I wasn't told.”
He leaned back in his chair and sucked at
his pipe, and then he began his story with a
curious detached air, as though he were sur-
veying his own handiwork from the point of
view of an impartial connoisseur.
“The idea was distinctly ingenious,” said he,
“and I think I may also venture to claim for
it a little originality. I won’t trouble you with
the machinery by which we learn things. It's
enough to mention that among the little things
we did learn was the fact that the minister of
this parish had left for another charge, and
that the parishioners were choosing his suc-
139


140 THE SPY IN BLACK
cessor after the Scottish custom—by hearing a
number of candidates each preach a trial ser-
mon.” He broke off and asked, “Do you hap-
pen to have heard of Schumann?”
“You don't mean the great Schumann?”
“I mean a certain gentleman engaged in the
same quiet line of business as myself. He is
known of course under another name in Eng-
land, where he is considered a very fine speci-
men of John Bull at his best—a jovial, talk-
ative, commercial gentleman with nice spec-
tacles like Mr. Pickwick, who subscribes to all
the war charities and is never tired of telling
his friends what he would do with the Kaiser
if he caught him.”
I laughed aloud at this happy description
of a typical John Bull.
“Well,” he continued, “I suggested to Schu-
mann the wild idea—as it seemed to us at first
—of getting into the islands in the guise of
a candidate for the parish of Myredale. Two
days later Schumann came to me with his spec-
tacles twinkling with excitement.
“‘Look at this!” said he.
“He showed me a photograph in an illus-
trated paper. It was the portrait of a certain


144 THE SPY IN BLACK
It was with a conscious effort that I was able
to ask calmly—
“How did you manage it?”
“Mr. Taylor, with his car and his chauffeur,
called at the manse. The chauffeur remained
in the car, keeping his face unostentatiously
concealed. Mr. Taylor enjoyed the minister's
hospitality till the evening had sufficiently
fallen. Then we took him to Edinburgh by
the coast road.”
Tiel paused and looked at me, as though to
see how I was enjoying the gruesome tale. I
am afraid I made it pretty clear that I was
not enjoying it in the least. The idea of first
partaking of the wretched man's hospitality,
and then coolly murdering him, was a little
too much for my stomach. Tiel, however,
seemed rather amused than otherwise with my
attitude.
“We knocked him on the head at a quiet
part of the road, stripped him of every stitch
of clothing, tied a large stone to his feet, and
pitched him over the cliff,” he said calmly.
“And his clothes—,” I began, shrinking
back a little in my chair.


TIEL’S STORY I45
“Are these,” said Tiel, indicating his re-
spectable-looking suit of black.
Curiously enough this was the only time I
heard the man tell a tale of this sort, and in
this diabolical, deliberate, almost flippant way.
It was in marked contrast to his usually brief,
concise manner of speaking. Possibly it was
my reception of his story that discouraged him
from exhibiting this side of his nature again.
I certainly made no effort to conceal my dis-
taste now.
“Thank God, I am not in the secret serv-
ice!” I said devoutly.
“I understand you are in the submarine serv-
ice,” said Tiel in a dry voice.
“I am—and I am proud of it!”
“Have you never fired a torpedo at an in-
offensive merchant ship?”
“That is very different!” I replied hotly.
“It is certainly more wholesale,” said he.
I sprang up.
“Mr. Tiel,” I said, “kindly understand that
a German naval officer is not in the habit of
enduring affronts to his service!”
“But you think a German secret-service


TIEL'S STORY 147
it. If we both respect that, there will be no
danger of our quarrelling.”
He glanced at me for a moment in an odd
way, and then said merely—
“Well, are you going to have another cigar,
or would you like to go to bed?”
“With your permission I shall go to bed,”
I said.
He conducted me through the hall and down
the passage that led to the back premises. At
the end rose a steep and narrow stair. We
ascended this, and at the top found a narrow
landing with a door at either end of it.
“This is your private flat,” he explained in
a low voice. “The old house, you will see, has
been built in two separate instalments, which
have separate stairs and no communication
with one another on the upper landing. These
two rooms are supposed to be locked up and
not in use at present, but I have secured their
keys.”
He unlocked one of the doors, and we en-
tered the room. It was square, and of quite
a fair size. On two sides the walls sloped attic-
wise, in a third was a fire-place and a window,
and in the fourth two doors—the second open-


TIEL’S STORY 149
lived, it seemed, at a neighbouring farm; and
Tiel assured me there was nothing to be feared
from her provided I was reasonably careful.
I had brought with me a razor, a tooth-
brush, and a brush and comb, and Tiel had
very thoughtfully brought a spare sleeping
suit and a pair of slippers. I was not at all
sure that I was disposed to like the man, but
I had to admit that his thoroughness and his
consideration for my comfort were highly
praiseworthy. In fact, I told him so frankly,
and we parted for the night on friendly terms.
Tiel quietly descended the stairs, while I sat
down before my fire and smoked a last ciga-
rette, and then very gratefully turned into my
comfortable bed.


III
THE PLAN
SLEPT like a log, and only awakened
when Tiel came into my room next morn-
ing, bringing my breakfast on a tray. He
had sent the servant over to the farm for milk,
he explained, and while I ate he sat down be-
side my bed.
“Can you talk business now?” I asked.
“This afternoon,” said he.
I made a grimace. -
“I naturally don't want to waste my time,”
I observed.
“You won’t,” he assured me.
“But why this afternoon rather than this
morning? You can send the servant out for
a message whenever you choose.”
“I hope to have a pleasant little surprise for
you in the afternoon.”
I was aware of the fondness of these secret-
service agents for a bit of mystery, and I
150


152 THE SPY IN BLACK
catch a glimpse of the sea, but then my neigh-
bours would catch a glimpse of me. I expostu-
lated with Tiel as soon as I realised how the
room faced, but he points out that the servant
may go into any room in the front part of the
house, whereas this part is supposed to be
closed. I can see that he is right, but it is
nevertheless very tantalising.
On that Saturday afternoon Tiel came back
to my room some hours later, and under his
quiet manner I could see that he bore tidings
of importance. No one could come quicker
to the point when he chose, and this time he
came to it at once.
“You remember the affair of the Hailey-
bury?” he demanded.
“The British cruiser which was mined early
in the war?”
He nodded.
“Perfectly,” I said.
“You never at any time came across her
captain? His name was Ashington.”
“No,” I said, “I have met very few British
officers.”
“I don't know whether you heard that she


THE PLAN I53
was supposed to be two miles out of her proper
course, contrary to orders, did you?”
“Was she?”
“Ashington says ‘no.” But he was court-
martialled, and now he's in command of a small
boat—the Yellowhammer. Before the loss of
his ship he was considered one of the most
promising officers in the British service;
In OW p'
Tiel made an expressive gesture and his eyes
smiled at me oddly. I began to understand.
“Now he is an acquaintance of yours?”
Tiel nodded.
“But has he knowledge? Has he special in-
formation?”
“His younger brother is on the flagship, and
he has several very influential friends. I see
that my friends obtain knowledge.”
I looked at him hard.
“You are quite sure this is all right? Such
men are the last to be trusted—even by those
who pay them.” -
“Do you know many ‘such men’?” he in-
quired.
“None, I am thankful to say.”


154 THE SPY IN BLACK
“They are queer fish,” said Tiel in a rem-
iniscent way, “but they generally do the thing
pretty thoroughly, especially when one has a
firm enough hold of them. Ashington is abso-
lutely reliable.”
“Where is he to be seen?”
“He went out for a walk this afternoon,”
said Tiel drily, “and happened to call at the
manse to see if he could get a cup of tea—a
very natural thing to do. Come—the coast is
clear.”
He led the way downstairs and I followed
him, not a little excited, I confess. How my
mission was going to develop, I had no clear
idea when I set forth upon it, but though I
had imagined several possible developments,
I was not quite prepared for this. To have
an officer of the Grand Fleet actually assist-
ing at our councils was decidedly unexpected.
I began to realise more and more that Adolph
Tiel was a remarkable person.
In the front parlour an officer rose as we
entered, and the British and German uniforms
bowed to each other under circumstances which
were possibly unique. Because, though Ash-
ingtons do exist and these things sometimes


THE PLAN 155
happen, they generally happen in mufti. I
looked at our visitor very hard. On his part,
he looked at me sharply for a moment, and
then averted his eyes. I should certainly have
done the same in his place.
He was a big burly man, dark, and getting
bald. His voice was deep and rich; his skin
shone with physical fitness; altogether he was
a fine gross animal, and had his spirit been
as frank and jovial as his appearance sug-
gested, I could have pictured him the jolliest
of company in the ward-room and the life and
soul of a desperate enterprise. But he main-
tained a frowning aspect, and was clearly a
man whose sullen temper and sense of injury
had led him into my friend's subtle net. How-
ever, here he was, and it was manifestly my
business not to criticise but to make the most
of him.
“Well, gentlemen,” began Tiel, “I don't
think we need beat about the bush. Captain
Ashington has an idea, and it is for Lieutenant
von Belke to approve of it or not. I know
enough myself about naval affairs to see that
there are great possibilities in the suggestion,
but I don't know enough to advise on it.”


158 THE SPY IN BLACK
the mine-fields were shown and the course pre-
cisely laid down.
“Well,” said Tiel, “I think this suggests
something, Belke.”
By this time I was inwardly burning with
excitement.
“I hope to have the pleasure of being pres-
ent just about that spot,” I said, pointing to
the chart.
“Or there,” suggested Ashington.
“Either would do very nicely, so far as I
can judge,” said Tiel. “How many subma-
rines can you concentrate, and how long will
it take you to concentrate them?”
I considered the question.
“I am afraid there is no use in concentrating
more than two or three in such narrow wa-
ters,” I said. “Squadronal handling of sub-
marines of course is impossible except on the
surface. And we clearly can't keep on the
surface!”
Captain Ashington looked at me in a way I
did not at all like.
“We run a few risks in the British navy,”
he said. “D–n it, you'll have a sitting tar-


THE PLAN 159
get! I'd crowd in every blank submarine the
water would float if I were running this stunt!”
“You don't happen to be running it,” I said
coldly.
Tiel touched me lightly on the shoulder and
gave me a swift smile, pleasant but admoni-
tory.
“The happy mean seems to be suggested,”
he said soothingly. “There's a great deal to
be said for both points of view. On the one
hand you risk submarines: on the other hand
you make the battle-fleet run risks. One has
simply to balance those. What about half a
dozen submarines?”
I shook my head.
“Too many,” I said. “Besides, we couldn't
concentrate them in the time.”
“How many could you?”
“Four,” I said; “if I can get back to my
boat on Monday, we'll have them there on
Thursday.”
Tiel produced a bottle of whisky and syphons
and we sat over the chart discussing details for
some time longer. It was finally handed over
to me, and Captain Ashington rose to go.


160 THE SPY IN BLACK
“By the way,” I said, “there is one very
important preliminary to be arranged. How
am I to get back to my boat?”
“That will be all right,” said Tiel confi-
dently; “I have just heard from Captain Ash-
ington that they have arrested the wrong man
on suspicion of being the gentleman who toured
the country yesterday. The only thing is that
they can't find his cycle. Now I think if we
could arrange to have your motor-cycle quietly
left near his house and discovered by the au-
thorities, they are not likely to watch the roads
any longer.”
“I’ll fix that up,” said Captain Ashington
promptly.
“How will you mange it?” I asked.
“Trust him,” said Tiel.
“But then how shall I get back?”
“I shall drive you over,” smiled Tiel.
“There will probably be a dying woman who
desires the consolations of religion in that
neighbourhood on Monday night.”
I smiled too, but merely at the cunning of
the man, not at the thought of parting with my
motor-cycle. However, I saw perfectly well
that it would be folly to ride it over, and if I


THE PLAN 161
left it behind at the manse—well, I was
scarcely likely to call for it again!
“Now, Belke,” said Tiel, “we had better get
you safely back to your turret-chamber. You
have been away quite as long as is safe.”
I bowed to Captain Ashington—I could not
bring myself to touch his hand, and we left his
great gross figure sipping whisky-and-soda.
“What do you think of him?” asked Tiel.
“He seems extremely competent,” I an-
swered candidly. “But what an unspeakable
scoundrel!”
“We mustn't quarrel with our instruments,”
said he philosophically. “He is doing Ger-
many a good turn. Surely that is enough.”
“I should like to think that Germany did not
need to stoop to use such characters!”
“Yes,” he agreed, though in a colourless
voice, “one would indeed like to think so.”
I could see that Adolph Tiel had not many
scruples left after his cosmopolitan experi-
enCCS,


IV
WHAT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY
HAT evening when we had the house to
ourselves, I joined Tiel in the parlour,
and we had a long talk on naval matters, Brit-
ish and German. He knew less of British
naval affairs than I did, but quite enough about
German to make him a keen listener and a
very suggestive talker. In fact I found him
excellent company. I even suspected him at
last of being a man of good birth, and quite
fitting company for a German officer. But of
course he may have acquired his air of breeding
from mixing with men like myself. As for his
name, that of course gave no guide, for I
scarcely supposed that he had been Tiel
throughout his adventurous career. I threw
out one or two “feelers” on the subject, but no
oyster could be more secretive than Adolph
Tiel when he chose.
That night I heard the wind wandering nois-
162


164 THE SPY IN BLACK
“Ah,” said he, “the German navy has to
keep on its pedestal. But the secret service
must sometimes creep about in the dust.”
His eyes suddenly twinkled as he added—
“But never fear, I shall give them a beauti-
ful sermon! The text will be the passage
about Joshua and the spies, and the first hymn
will be, “Onward Christian Sailors.’”
He threw me a humorous glance and went
out. I smiled back, but I confess I was not
very much amused. Neither the irreverence
nor the jest about the sailors (since it referred
apparently to me) struck me as in the best of
taste.
That morning was one of the dreariest I
ever spent. The wind rose to half a gale, and
the fine rain beat in torrents on the panes. I
wrote diligently for some time, but after a
while I grew tired of that and paced the floor
in my stockinged feet (for the sake of quiet-
ness) like a caged animal. My one consola-
tion was that to-morrow would see the end of
my visit. Already I longed for the cramped
quarters and perpetual risks of the submarine,
and detested these islands even more bitterly
than I hated any other part of Britain.


WHAT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY 165
In the early afternoon I had a pleasant sur-
prise. Tiel came in and told me that his serv-
ant had gone out for the rest of the day, and
that I could safely come down to the parlour.
There I had a late luncheon in comparative
comfort, and moreover I could look out of the
windows on to the sea. And what a dreary
prospect I saw! Under a heavy sky and with
grey showers rolling over it, that open treeless
country looked desolation itself. As for the
waters, white-caps chased each other over the
wind-whipped expanse of grey, fading into a
wet blur of moving rain a few miles out.
Through this loomed the nearer lines of giant
ships, while the farther were blotted clean out.
I thought of the long winters when one day of
this weather followed another for week after
week, month after month; when the northern
days were brief and the nights interminable,
and this armada lay in these remote isles en-
during and waiting. The German navy has
had its gloomy and impatient seasons, but not
such a prolonged purgatory as that. We have
a different arrangement. Probably every-
body knows what it is—still, one must not
say.


166 THE SPY IN BLACK
After lunch, when we had lit our cigars,
Tiel said—
“By the way, you will be pleased to hear
that my efforts this morning were so successful
that the people want me to give them another
dose next Sunday.”
I stared at him.
“Really?” I exclaimed.
He nodded.
“But I thought there would be another
preacher next Sunday.”
“Oh, by no means. There was no one for
next Sunday, and they were only too glad to
have the pulpit filled.”
“But will you risk it?”
He smiled confidently.
“If there is any danger, I shall get warning
in plenty of time.”
“To ensure your escape?”
“To vanish somehow.”
“But why should you wait?”
He looked at me seriously and said delib-
erately—
“I have other schemes in my head—some-
thing even bigger. It is too early to talk yet,
but it is worth running a little risk for.”


WHAT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY 167
I looked at this astonishing man with uncon-
cealed admiration. Regulations, authorities,
precautions, dangers, he seemed to treat as al-
most negligible. And I had seen how he could
contrive and what he could effect.
“I am afraid I shall have to ask you to stay
with me for a few days longer,” he added.
I don’t think I ever got a more unpleasant
shock.
“You mean you wish me not to rejoin my
ship to-morrow night?”
“I know it is asking a great deal of you;
but, my dear Belke, duty is duty.”
“My duty is with my ship,” I said quickly.
“Besides, it is the post of danger—and of hon-
our. Think of Thursday night!”
“Do you honestly think you are essential to
the success of a torpedo attack?”
“Every officer will be required.”
“My dear Belke, you didn't answer my ques-
tion. Are you essential?” "
“My dear Tiel,” I replied firmly, for I was
quite resolved I should not remain cooped up
in this infernal house, exposed to hourly risk
of being shot as a spy, while my ship was going
into action, “I am sorry to seem disobliging;


168 THE SPY IN BLACK
but I am a naval officer, and my first duty is
quite clear to me.”
“Pardon me for reminding you that you are
at present under my orders,” said he.
“While this affair is being arranged only.”
“But I say that I have not yet finished my
arrangements.”
I saw that I was in something of a dilemma,
for indeed it was difficult to say exactly how
my injunctions met the case.
“Well,” I said, “I shall tell you what I
shall do. I shall put it to my superior offi-
cer, Commander Wiedermann, and ask him
whether he desires me to absent myself any
longer.”
This was a happy inspiration, for I felt cer-
tain what Wiedermann would say.
“Then I shall not know till to-morrow night
whether to count on you—and then I shall very
probably lose you?”
I shrugged my shoulders, but said nothing.
Suddenly his face cleared.
“My dear fellow,” he said, “I won't press
you. Rejoin your ship if you think it your
duty.”
By mutual consent we changed the subject,


WHAT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY 169
and discussed the question of submarines
versus surface ships, a subject in which Tiel
showed both interest and acumen, though I
had naturally more knowledge, and could con-
tribute much from my own personal experi-
ence. I must add that it is a pleasure to dis-
cuss such matters with him, for he has a frank
and genuine respect for those who really un-
derstand what they are talking about.
Towards evening I went back to my room,
and fell to writing this narrative again, but
about ten o'clock I had another visit from Tiel;
and again he disconcerted me, though not so
seriously this time.
“I had a message from Ashington, asking
to see me,” he explained, “and I have just re-
turned from a meeting with him. He tells
me that the date of the fleet's sailing will prob-
ably be altered to Friday, but he will let me
know definitely to-morrow or Tuesday.”
“Or Tuesday!” I exclaimed. “Then I may
have to stay here for another night!”
“I’m sorry,” said he, “but I'm afraid it can't
be helped.”
“But can we ever be sure that the fleet will
keep to a programme? I have just been


170 THE SPY IN BLACK
thinking it over, and the question struck me—
why are they making this arrangement so far
ahead?”
“That struck me too,” said Tiel, “and also
Ashington. But he has found out now.
There is some big scheme on. Some think it is
Heligoland, and some think the Baltic. Any-
how, there is a definite programme, and they
will certainly keep to it. The only uncertain
thing is the actual day of sailing.”
“It is a plan which will be nicely upset if we
get our torpedoes into three or four of their
super-dreadnoughts!” I exclaimed.
He nodded grimly.
“And for that, we want to have the timing
earact,” he said. “Be patient, my friend; we
shall know by Tuesday morning at the latest.”
I tried to be as philosophical as I could, but
it was a dreary evening, with the rain still beat-
ing on my window and another day's confine-
ment to look forward to.


V
A MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE
ONDAY morning broke wet and windy,
but with every sign of clearing up.
Tiel looked in for a very few minutes, but he
was in his most uncommunicative mood, and
merely told me that he would have to be out
for the first part of the day, but would be back
in the afternoon. I could not help suspecting
that he was still a little sore over my refusal
to remain with him, and was paying me out by
this display of secrecy. Such petty affronts
to officers from those unfortunate enough to
be outside that class are not unknown. I was
of course above taking offence, but I admit
that it made me feel less anxious to consult his
wishes at every turn.
In this humour I wrote for a time, and at
last got up and stared impatiently out of the
window. It had become quite a fine day, and
the prospect of gazing for the greater part of
171


172 THE SPY IN BLACK
it at a few acres of inland landscape, with that
fascinating spectacle to be seen from the front
windows, irritated me more and more. And
then, to add to my annoyance, I heard “Boom!
Boom! Boom!” crashing from the seaward
side, and shaking the very foundations of the
house. I began to feel emphatically that it
was my duty to watch the British fleet at gun-
nery practice.
Just then two women appeared, walking
slowly away from the house. One had an
apron and no hat, and though I had only once
caught a fleeting glimpse of the back view of
our servant, I made quite certain it was she.
I watched them till they reached a farm
about quarter of a mile away, and turned into
the house, and then I said to myself—
“There can be no danger now!”
And thereupon I unlocked my door, walked
boldly downstairs, and went into the front par-
lour.
I saw a vastly different scene from yester-
day. A fresh breeze rippled the blue waters,
patches of sunshine and cloud-shadow chased
each other over sea and land, and distinct and
imposing in its hateful majesty lay the British


ZA MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE 173
fleet. A light cruiser of an interesting new
type was firing her 6-inch guns at a distant
target, and for about five minutes I thoroughly
enjoyed myself. And then I heard a sound.
I turned instantly, to see the door opening;
and very hurriedly I stepped back behind the
nearest window curtain. And then in came
our servant—not the lady I had seen depart-
ing from the house, I need scarcely say! I
was fully half exposed and I dared not make a
movement to draw the curtain round me; in
fact, even if I had, my feet would have re-
mained perfectly visible. All I could do was
to stand as still as a statue and pray that
Heaven would blind her.
She walked in briskly, a middle-aged cap-
able-looking woman, holding a broom, and
glanced all round the room in a purposeful
way. Among the things she looked at was me,
but to my utter astonishment she paid no more
attention than if I had been a piece of furni-
ture. For a moment I thought she was blind;
but her sharp glances clearly came from no
sightless eyes. Then I wondered whether she
could have such a horrible squint that when she
seemed to look at me she was really looking in


174 THE SPY IN BLACK
another direction. But I could see no sign
of a cast in those eyes either. And then she
picked up an armful of small articles and
walked quickly out, leaving the door wide open.
What had saved me I had no idea, but I
was resolved not to trust to that curtain any
longer. In the middle of the room was a
square table of moderate size with a cloth over
it. Without stopping to think twice, I dived
under the cloth and crouched upon the floor.
The next instant in she came again, and I
found that my table-cloth was so scanty that I
could follow her movements perfectly. She
took some more things out, and then more
again, and finally she proceeded to set the fur-
niture piece by piece back against the wall, till
the table was left lonely and horribly conspicu-
ous in the middle of the floor. And then she
began to sweep out that room.
There was small scope for an exhibition of
resource, but I was as resourceful as I was
able. I very gently pulled the scanty table-
cloth first in one direction and then in the other,
according to the side of the room she was
sweeping, and as noiselessly as possible I crept
a foot or two farther away from her each time.


A MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE 175
And all the while the dust rose in clouds, and
the hateful broom came so near me that it
sometimes brushed my boots. And yet the
extraordinary woman never showed by a single
sign that she had any suspicion of my presence!
At last when the whole floor had been swept
—except of course under the table—she
paused, and from the glimpse I could get of
her attitude she seemed to be ruminating.
And then she stooped, lifted the edge of the
cloth, and said in an absolutely matter-of-fact
voice— -
“Will you not better get out till I'm through
with my sweeping?”
Too utterly bewildered to speak, I crept out
and rose to my feet.
“You can get under the table again when
I’m finished,” she observed as she pulled off
the cloth.
To such an observation there seemed no
adequate reply, or at least I could think of
none. I turned in silence and hurried back to
my bedroom. And there I sat for a space too
dumbfounded for coherent thought.
Gradually I began to recover my wits and
ponder over this mysterious affair, and a theory


A MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE 177
I am bound to say this of Tiel, that there is
something very reassuring in his calm voice.
I told him hurriedly. He looked at me for
a moment, began to Smile, and then checked
himself.
“I owe you an apology, Belke,” he said, “I
ought to have explained that that woman is in
my pay.”
“In your pay?” I cried. “And she has been
so all the time?”
He nodded.
“And yet you never told me, but let me hide
up in this room like a rat in a hole?”
“The truth is,” he replied, “that till I had
got to know you pretty well, I was afraid you
might be rash—or at least careless, if you knew
that woman was one of us.”
“So you treated me like an infant, Mr.
Tiel?”
“The life I have lived,” said Tiel quietly,
“has not been conducive to creating a feeling
of confidence in my fellowmen's discretion—
until I know them. I know you now, and I
feel sorry I took this precaution. Please ac-
cept my apologies.”
“I accept your apology,” I said stiffly; “but


178 THE SPY IN BLACK
in future, Mr. Tiel, things will be pleasanter if
you trust me.”
He bowed slightly and said simply—
“I shall.”
And then in a different voice he said—
“We have a visitor coming this afternoon to
stay with us.”
“To stay here!” I exclaimed.
“Another of us,” he explained.
“Another—in these islands? Who is he?”
As I spoke we heard a bell ring.
“Ah, here she is,” said Tiel, going to the
door. “Come down and be introduced when-
ever you like.”
For a moment I stood stock still, lost in
doubt and wonder.
“She?” I repeated to myself.


VI
THE VISITOR
Y feelings as I approached the parlour
were anything but happy. Some voice
seemed to warn me that I was in the presence
of something sinister, that some unknown peril
stalked at my elbow. This third party—this
“she”—filled me with forebodings. If ever
anybody had a presentiment, I had one, and
all I can say now is that within thirty seconds
of opening the parlour door, I had ceased to
believe in presentiments, entirely and finally.
The vision I beheld nearly took my breath
away.
“Let me introduce you to my sister, Miss
Burnett,” said Tiel. “She is so devoted to
her brother that she has insisted on coming
to look after him for the few days he is forced
to spend in this lonely manse.”
He said this with a smile, and of course never
intended me to believe a word of his statement,
yet as he gave her no other name, and as that
179


180 THE SPY IN BLACK
was the only account of her circulated in the
neighbourhood, I shall simply refer to her in
the meantime as Miss Burnett. It is the only
name that I have to call her by to her face.
As to her appearance, I can only say that
she is the most beautiful woman I have ever
met in my life. The delicacy and distinction
of her features, her dark eyebrows, her en-
trancing eye, and her thoughtful mouth, so
firm and yet so sweet, her delicious figure and
graceful carriage—heavens, I have never seen
any girl to approach her! What is more, she
has a face which I trust. I have had some
experience of women, and I could feel at the
first exchange of glances and of words that
here was one of those rare women on whom a
man could implicitly rely.
“Have you just landed upon these islands?”
I inquired.
“Not to-day,” she said; and indeed, when I
came to think of it, she would not have had
time to reach the house in that case.
“Did you have much difficulty?” I asked.
“The minister's sister is always admitted,”
said Tiel with his dry smile.


THE VISITOR 181
I asked presently if she had travelled far.
She shrugged her shoulders, gave a delightful
little laugh, and said—
“We get so used to travelling that I have
forgotten what ‘far’ is!”
Meanwhile tea was brought in, and Miss
Burnett sat down and poured it out with the
graceful nonchalant air of a charming hostess
in her own drawing-room, while Tiel talked
of the weather and referred carelessly to the
latest news just like any gentleman who might
have called casually upon her. I, on my part,
tried as best I could to catch the same air, and
we all talked away very pleasantly indeed.
We spoke English, of course, all the time, and
indeed, any one overhearing us and not seeing
my uniform would never have dreamt for a
moment that we were anything but three de-
voted subjects of King George.
On the other hand, we were surely proceed-
ing on the assumption that nobody was be-
hind a curtain or listening at the keyhole, and
that being so, I could not help feeling that
the elaborate pretence of being a mere party
of ordinary acquaintances was a little unneces-


182 THE SPY IN BLACK
sary. At last I could not help saying some-
thing of what was in my mind.
“Is the war over?” I asked suddenly.
Both the others seemed surprised.
“I wish it were, Mr. Belke!” said Miss Bur-
nett with a sudden and moving change of seri-
OUISIles S.
“Then if it is not, why are we pretending
so religiously that we have no business here but
to drink tea, Miss Burnett?”
“I am not pretending; I am drinking it,”
she smiled.
“Yes, yes,” I said, “but you know what I
mean. It seems to me so un-German!”
They both looked at me rather hard.
“I’m afraid,” said Miss Burnett, “that we
of the secret service grow terribly cosmopoli-
tan. Our habits are those of no country—or
rather of all countries.”
“I had almost forgotten,” said Tiel, “that I
once thought and felt like Mr. Belke.” And
then he added this singular opinion: “It is
Germany's greatest calamity—greater even
than the coming in of Britain against her, or
the Battle of the Marne—that those who guide
her destinies have not forgotten it too.”


THE VISITOR 183
“What do you mean?” I demanded, a little
indignantly I must own.
“At every tea-party for many years Ger-
many has talked about what interested herself
—and that was chiefly war. At no tea-party
has she tried to learn the thoughts and interests
of the other guests. In consequence she does
not yet understand the forces against her, why
they act as they do, and how strong they are.
But her enemies understand too well.”
“You mean that she has been honest and
they dishonest?”
“Yes,” said Miss Burnett promptly and
with a little smile, “my brother means that in
order really to deceive people one has to act
as we are acting now.”
I laughed.
“But unfortunately now there is no one to
deceive!”
She laughed too.
“But they might suddenly walk in!”
Tiel was not a frequent laugher, but he con-
descended to smile.
“Remember, Belke,” he said, “I warned you
on the first night we met that you must not
only talk but think in English. If we don't


184 THE SPY IN BLACK
do that constantly and continually when no one
is watching us, how can we count on doing it
constantly and continually when some one may
be watching us?”
“Personally I should think it sufficient to
wait till some one was watching,” I said.
“There speaks Germany,” smiled Tiel.
“Germany disdains to act a part all the
time!” I cried.
I confess I was nettled by his tone, but his
charming “sister” disarmed me instantly.
“Mr. Belke means that he wants footlights
and an orchestra and an audience before he
mutters ‘Hush! I hear her coming!' He
doesn't believe in saying ‘Hush!" in the corner
of every railway carriage or under his um-
brella. And I really think it makes him much
less alarming company!”
“You explain things very happily, Eileen,”
said Tiel.
I was watching her face (for which there
was every excuse!) and I saw that she started
ever so slightly when he called her by her
first name. This pleased me—I must confess
it. It showed that they had not played this
farce of brother and sister together before,


THE VISITOR I85
and already I had begun to dislike a little the
idea that they were old and intimate confeder-
ates. I also fancied that it showed she did not
quite enjoy the familiarity. But she got her
own back again instantly.
“It is my one desire to enlighten you, Alex-
ander,” she replied with a very serious air.
I could not help laughing aloud, and I must
confess that Tiel laughed frankly too.
The next question that I remember our dis-
cussing was one of very immediate and vital in-
terest to us all. It began with a remark by
Eileen (as I simply must call her behind her
back; “Miss Burnett’smacks too much of Tiel's
disguises—and besides it is too British). We
were talking of the English, and she said—
“Well, anyhow they are not a very suspicious
people. Look at this little party!”
“Sometimes I feel that they are almost in-
credibly unsuspicious,” I said seriously. “In
Germany this house would surely be either
visited or watched!”
Tiel shook his head.
“In Kiel or Wilhelmshaven an English party
could live just as unmolested,” he replied,
“provided that not the least trace of suspi-


188 THE SPY IN BLACK
or inquiry. So that I know that both my sis-
ter and I passed the barrier without raising a
question in anybody's mind.”
“But how do you know that Ashington can
be absolutely relied on?” I persisted.
“Yes,” put in Eileen, “I was wondering
too.”
“Because Ashington will certainly share my
fate—whatever that may be,” said Tiel grimly.
“He knows that; in fact he knows that I have
probably taken steps to ensure that happen-
ing, in case there might be any loophole for
him.”
“But can't a man turn King's evidence
(isn't that the term?) and get pardoned?”
asked Eileen.
“Not a naval officer,” said Tiel.
“No,” I agreed. “I must say that for the
British Navy. An officer would have no more
chance of pardon in it than in our own navy.”
“Well,” smiled Eileen, “I feel relieved
Don't you, Mr. Belke?”
“Yes,” I said, “I begin to understand the
whole situation more clearly. I pray that
suspicion may not begin!”
“In that case,” said Tiel, “you realise now,


190 THE SPY IN BLACK
the parlour as anywhere. In his mystery-
making, ultra-cautious way, he insisted that a
visitor might appear (he even suggested the
police—though he had just previously said they
had no suspicion!) and that he was going to
run no risks. Eileen said a word on his side
—though with a very kind look at me—and I
consented to go. And then he requested me to
stay there for the rest of the evening! Again
Eileen saved a strained situation, and I said
farewell stiffly to him and very differently to
her; in fact I made a point of accentuating
the difference.
I reached my room, lit a cigar, and for a
time paced the floor in a state of mind which
I found hard to analyse. I can only say that
my feelings were both mixed and strong, and
that at last, to give me relief, I sat down to
write my narrative, and by nine o'clock in the
evening had brought it up nearly to this point.
By that time of course the curtains were
drawn and my lamp was lit, and as it was a
windy chilly night, my fire was blazing
brightly. Higher and higher rose the wind
till it began to make a very heavy and con-
stant booming in the chimney, like distant


THE VISITOR 191
salvoes of great guns. Apart from the wind
the old house was utterly quiet, and when the
wooden stair suddenly creaked I dropped my
pen and sat up very sharply. More and more
distinctly I heard a firm but light tread com-
ing up and up, until at last it ceased on the
landing. And then came a gentle tap upon my
door.


VII
AT NIGHT
ITH a curious sense of excitement I
crossed the room. I opened the door
—and there stood Eileen. She had taken off
her hat, and without it looked even more beau-
tiful, for what hat could rival her masses of
dark hair so artfully arranged and yet with a
rippling wave all through them that utterly
defied restraint?
“May I come in for a little?” she said.
She asked in such a friendly smiling way,
so modest and yet so unafraid, that even the
greatest Don Juan could not have mistaken
her honest intention.
“I shall be more than charmed to have
your company,” I said.
“I'm afraid we soon forget the convention-
alities in our service,” she said simply. “Tiel
has gone out, and I was getting very tired of
my own company.”
192


AT NIGHT 193
“Imagine how tired I have got of mine!” I
cried.
She gave a little understanding nod.
“It must be dreadfully dull for you,” she
agreed with great sincerity—and she added,
as she seated herself in my wicker chair, “I
have another excuse for calling on you, and
that is, that the more clearly we all three
understand what we are doing, the better.
Don't you think so?”
“Decidedly! In fact I only wish we all
thought the same.”
She looked at me inquiringly, and yet as
though she comprehended quite well.
“You mean ?”
“Well, to be quite frank, I mean Tiel. He
is very clever, and he knows his work. Mein
Gott, we can teach him nothing! And per-
haps he trusts you implicitly and is quite can-
did. But he certainly tells me no more than
he can help.”
“He tells nobody more than he can help,”
she said. “You are no worse treated than any
one else he works with. But it is a little an-
noying sometimes.”


194 THE SPY IN BLACK
“For instance, do you know what he is
doing to-night?” I asked.
There was no mistaking the criticism in the
little shrug with which she replied—
“I half suspect he is walking about in the
dark by himself just to make me think he is
busy on some mysterious affair!”
“Do you actually mean that?” I exclaimed.
“No, no,” she said hastily, “not really quite
that! But he sometimes tempts one to say
these things.”
“Have you worked with him often before?”
“Enough to know his little peculiarities.”
She smiled suddenly. “Oh, he is a very won-
derful man, is my dear brother!”
Again I was delighted (I confess it shame-
lessly!) to hear that unmistakable note of
criticism.
“‘Wonderful’ may have several meanings,”
I suggested.
“It has in his case,” she said frankly. “He
really is extraordinarily clever.”
She added nothing more, but the implication
was very clear that the other meanings were
not quite so flattering. I felt already that this
strange little household was divided into two


AT NIGHT 195
camps, and that Eileen and I were together in
One.
“But we have talked enough about Herr
Tiel!” she exclaimed in a different voice. “Be-
cause we really can get no further. It is like
discussing what is inside a locked box! We
can trust his judgment in this business; I think
you will agree to that.”
“Oh yes,” I said, “I have seen enough to
respect his abilities very thoroughly.”
“Then,” said she, “let us talk of something
more amusing.”
“Yourself,” I said frankly, though perhaps
a little too boldly, for she did not respond im-
mediately. I felt that I had better proceed
more diplomatically.
“I was wondering whether you were a pure
German,” I added.
“My feelings towards Germany are as strong
as yours, Mr. Belke,” she answered. “Indeed
I don’t think any one can be more loyal to
their country than I am, but I am not purely
German by blood. My mother was Irish,
hence my name—Eileen.”
“Then that is your real name?” I cried, be-
tween surprise and delight.


196 THE SPY IN BLACK
“Yes, that is the one genuine thing about
me,” she smiled.
“But if you are half English »
“Irish,” she corrected.
“Ah!” I cried. “I see—of course! I was
going to ask whether your sympathies were not
at all divided. But Irish is very different.
Then you hate the English with a double
hatred?”
“With one or two exceptions—friends I
have made—I abhor the whole race I am fight-
ing against quite as much as you could possi-
bly wish me to! Indeed, I wish it were fight-
ing and not merely plotting!”
There was an earnestness and intensity in
her voice and a kindling of her eye as she said
this that thrilled and inspired me like a trum-
pet.
“We shall defeat them—never fear!” I
cried. “We shall trample on the pride of
England. It will be hard to do, but I have no
doubt as to the result; have you?”
“None,” she said, quietly but with absolute
confidence.
Then that quick smile of hers, a little grave
but very charming, broke over her face.


AT NIGHT 197
“But let us get away for a little from war,”
she said. “You aren't smoking. Please do,
if you wish to.”
I lit a cigarette, and offered one to her, but
she said she did not smoke. And I liked her
all the better. We talked more lightly for a
while, or perhaps I should rather say less ear-
nestly, for our situation did not lend itself to
frivolity. It did lend itself however to
romance,—we two sitting on either side of the
peat fire, with a shaded lamp and the friendly
flames throwing odd lights and shadows
through the low, primitive room with its slop-
ing attic-like walls and its scanty furniture;
and the wind all the while tempestuously boom-
ing in the chimney and scouring land and sea.
And neither on land nor sea was there a single
friend; surrounded by enemies who would have
given a heavy price to have learned who sat
in that room, we talked of many things.
At last, all too soon, she rose and wished me
good-night. A demon of perversity seized me.
“I shall escort you down to Mr. Tiel, and
the devil take his precautions!” I exclaimed.
“Oh no,” she protested. “After all he is in
command.”


198 THE SPY IN BLACK
She really seemed quite concerned at my in-
tention, but I can be very obstinate when I
choose.
“Tuts!” I said. “It is sheer rubbish to pre-
tend that there is any risk at this time of night.
Probably he is still out, and anyhow he will
not have visitors at this hour.”
She looked at me very hard and quickly as
if to see if I were possible to argue with, and
then she gave a little laugh and merely said—
“You are terribly wilful, Mr. Belke!”
And she ran downstairs very quickly, as
though to run away from me. I followed fast,
but she was some paces ahead of me as we went
down the dark passage to the front of the
house. And then suddenly I heard guarded
voices, and stopped dead.
There was a bend in the passage just before
it reached the hall, and Eileen had passed this
while I had not, and so I could see nothing
ahead. Then I heard the voice of Tiel say—
“Well?”
It was a simple word of little significance,
but the voice in which it was said filled me with
a very unpleasant sensation. The man spoke
in such a familiar, confidential way that I sud-


AT NIGHT 199
denly felt I could have shot him cheerfully.
For the instant I forgot the problem of the
other voice I had heard.
“Mr. Belke is with me! He insisted,” she
cried.
At this I knew that the unknown voice could
not belong to an enemy, and I advanced again.
As I passed the bend in the passage I was just
in time to see Tiel closing the front door be-
hind a man in a long dark coat with a gleam of
brass buttons, and to hear him say,
“Good-night, Ashington.”
Eileen passed into the parlour with a smil-
ing glance for me to follow, and Tiel came in
after us. I was not in the most pleasant tem-
per. In fact, for some reason I was in a
very black humour.
“I thought you had gone out,” I said to him
at once.
“I did go out.”
“But now I understand that the worthy
Captain Ashington has been visiting you
here!”
“Both these remarkable events have oc-
curred,” said Tiel drily.
When I recalled how long Eileen had been


200 THE SPY IN BLACK
up in my room, I realised that this was quite
possible, but this did not, for some reason,
soothe me.
“Why did he come?” I asked.
“The fleet is going out on Friday.”
“Aha!” I exclaimed, forgetting my annoy-
ance for the moment.
“So that is settled at last,” said Tiel with
a satisfied smile.
He happened to turn his smile on Eileen
also, and my annoyance returned.
“You dismissed our dear friend Ashington
very quickly when you heard me coming,” I
remarked in no very amiable tone.
Tiel looked at me gravely.
“Belke,” he said, “you might quite well have
done serious mischief by showing your dislike
for Ashington so palpably the other day.
Even a man of that sort has feelings. I have
soothed them, I am glad to say, but he was not
very anxious to meet you again.”
“So much the better!” said I. “Traitors
are not the usual company a German officer
keeps.”
“Many of us have to mix with strange com-
pany nowadays, Mr. Belke,” said Eileen.


THE DECISION 203
“You think a great deal of risks,” I ob-
served.
“Yes,” said he. “I am a nervous man.”
Eileen laughed merrily, and I could not but
confess that for once he had scored. I re-
solved not to give him the chance again. He
then proceeded to draw the table towards one
end of the room, pulled the nearest curtain
part way across, and then locked the front
door. But I made no comments this time.
At breakfast Eileen acted as hostess, and so
charming and natural was she that the little
cloud seemed to blow over, and we all three
discussed our coming plan of attack on the fleet
fully and quite freely. Tiel made several sug-
gestions, which he said he had been discussing
with Ashington, and, as they seemed extremely
sound, I made notes of them and promised to
lay them before Wiedermann.
When we had finished and had a smoke,
Tiel rose and said he must go out “on parish
business.” I asked him what he meant, and
learned to my amusement that in his capacity
of the Rev. Alexander Burnett he had to at-
tend a meeting of what he called the “kirk-
session.” We both laughed, and wished him


THE DECISION 205
must have revealed something of what I felt.
“Tiel told me you absolutely refused to lis-
ten to him when he wished you to remain.”
“Oh no!” I cried. “That is putting it far
too strongly. I offered to put the case to Com-
mander Wiedermann, and then Tiel at once
assumed I was going to leave him, and told me
to say no more about it.”
“Really! That is somewhat extraordin-
aryl” she exclaimed in rather a low voice, as
though she were much struck with this. She
had been standing, and she sat as she spoke.
I felt that she wished to go further into this
matter, and I sat down again too.
“What is extraordinary about it?” I asked.
“Do you mean to say that Tiel didn't press
you?”
“No,” I said.
“Mr. Belke,” she said earnestly, “I know
enough of the orders under which we are act-
ing and the plans that Tiel has got to further,
to be quite certain that you were intended to
stay and assist him. It is most important.”
“You are quite sure of this?”
“Absolutely.”


206 THE SPY IN BLACK
“Then why did Tiel give up trying to per-
suade me so readily? Why didn't he try to use
more authority?”
“I wonder,” she said in a musing tone, and
yet I could see from her eye that she had an
idea.
“You know!” I exclaimed. “Tell me what
is in your mind!”
Already I guessed, but I dared not put it
into words.
“It is difficult to guess Tiel's motives—ex-
actly,” she said rather slowly.
I felt I had to say it outright.
“Are you his motive?” I demanded.
She looked at me quickly, but quite can-
didly.
“I scarcely like to say—or even think such a
thing, but »
She broke off, and I finished her sentence
for her.
“But you know he admires you, and is not
the man to stick at anything in order to get
what he wants.”
“Ah! Don't be unjust to him,” she an-
swered; and then in a different voice added,
“But to think of his letting you go like that!”


THE DECISION 207
“So it was to get rid of me, and have you
alone here with him?”
“He must have had some motive,” she ad-
mitted, for you ought to stay.”
“I shall stay!” I said.
She gave me her brightest smile.
“Really? Oh, how good of you! Or rather
—how brave of you, for it is certainly running
a risk.”
If I had been decided before, I was doubly
decided now.
“It is not the German navy's way to fear
risks,” I said. “It is my duty to stay—for
two reasons—and I am going to stay!”
“And Commander Wiedermann?”
“I shall simply tell him I am under higher
orders, given me by Herr Tiel.”
“If you added that there is a second plan
directed against the British navy, and that you
are needed to advise on the details, it might
help to convince Commander Wiedermann how
essential your presence here is,” she suggested.
“Yes,” I agreed, “it would be well to men-
tion that.”
“Also,” she said, “you would require to have
all the details of this first plan so fully written


208 THE SPY IN BLACK
out that he would not need to keep you to ex-
plain anything.”
“You think of everything!” I cried with an
admiration I made no pretence of concealing.
“I shall go now and set to work.”
“Do!” she cried, “and when Tiel comes in
I shall tell him you are going to stay. I won-
der what he will say!”
“I wonder too,” said I. “But do you care
what he says?”
“No,” she replied, “because of course he
won't say it. He will only think.”
“Let him think!” I laughed.
I went back to my room in a strange state
of exhilaration for a man who had just decided
to forgo the thing he had most looked forward
to, and run a horrible risk instead. For I felt
in my bones that uniform or no uniform I
should be shot if I were caught. I put little
trust in English justice or clemency. But, as
I said before, when I am obstinate, I am very
obstinate; and I was firmly resolved that if
Wiedermann wanted me back on board to-
night, he would have to call a guard and carry
me! However, acting on Eileen's sugges-


THE DECISION 209
tions, I had little doubt I should convince him.
And thereupon I set to work on my notes.
By evening I had everything so fully writ-
ten out and so clearly explained that I felt I
could say with a clear conscience that even
my own presence at a council of war could add
no further information.
In the course of the day I had a talk with
Tiel, and just as Eileen had anticipated, he
left one to guess at what was in his mind. He
certainly professed to be glad I had changed
my mind, and he thanked me with every ap-
pearance of cordiality.
“Your are doing the right thing, Belke,”
he said. “And, let me tell you, I appreciate
your courage.”
There was a ring of evident sincerity in his
voice as he said this, and whatever I might
think of the man's moral character, a compli-
ment from Tiel on one's courage was not a
thing to despise.
In the late afternoon he set out to obtain a
motor-car for the evening's expedition, but
through what ingenious machinery of lies he
got it, I was too busy to inquire.


210 THE SPY IN BLACK
Finally, about ten o'clock at night we sat
down to a little supper, my pockets bulging
with my notes, and my cyclist's overalls lying
ready to be donned once more.


212 THE SPY IN BLACK
“I am quite sure,” she smiled.
More than ever I felt glad I was staying
beside her.
Tiel sat in front and drove, and Eileen and
I got behind. He offered no objections to
this arrangement, though as she seated herself
while he was starting the engine, he was cer-
tainly not given much choice. And then with
a deep purr we rolled off into the night.
There would be no moon till getting on to-
wards morning, but the rain had luckily ceased
and the wind fallen, and overhead the stars
were everywhere breaking through the last
wisps of cloud. Already they gave light
enough to distinguish sea from land quite
plainly, and very soon they faintly lit the
whole wide treeless countryside. The car was
a good one, however Tiel had come by it, and
the engine was pulling well, and we swept
along the lonely roads at a great pace, one
bare telegraph post after another flitting
swiftly out of the gloom ahead into the gloom
behind, and the night air rushing against our
faces. At first I looked round me and recog-
nised some features of the way we had come,
the steep hill, and the sound that led to the


ON THE SHORE 213
western ocean, and the dark mass of hills be-
yond, but very soon my thoughts and my eyes
alike had ceased to wander out of the car.
We said little, just enough to serve as an
excuse for my looking constantly at her profile,
and, the longer I looked, admiring the more
every line and every curve. All at once she
leaned towards me and said in a low beseeching
voice—
“You will come back, won't you?”
“I swear it!” I answered fervently, and to
give force to my oath I gently took her hand
and pressed it. If it did not return the pres-
sure, it at least did not shrink from my clasp.
And for the rest of the way I sat holding it.
Presently I in turn leaned towards her and
whispered—
“One thing I have been wondering. Should
I take Tiel with me to see Wiedermann? It
might perhaps be expected.”
“No!” she replied emphatically.
“You feel Sure?”
For reply she very gently pressed my hand at
last. So confident did I feel of her sure judg-
ment that I considered that question settled.
“By the way,” she said in a moment, “I


ON THE SHORE 217
“Haven't you settled anything?” he de-
manded.
“Something,” I said, “but there is more to
be done.”
I told him then concisely and clearly what
we had arranged, and handed him the chart
and all my notes. That he was honestly de-
lighted with my news, and satisfied with my
own performance, there could be no doubt.
He shook me warmly by the hand and said—
“Splendid, Belke! I knew we could count
on you! It's lucky you have a chest broad
enough to hold all your decorations! For you
will get them—never doubt it. But what is
all this about staying on shore? What else
are you needed for? And who the devil has
given you such orders?”
“Herr Tiel,” I said. “I was placed under
his orders, as you will remember, sir.”
“But what does he want you for? And how
long does he imagine the British are going to
let you stay in this house of yours unsuspected?
They are not idiots! It seems to me you have
been extraordinarily lucky to have escaped de-
tection so far. Surely you are not going to
risk a longer stay?”


218 THE SPY IN BLACK
“If it is my duty I must run the risk.”
“But is it your duty? I am just wondering,
Belke, whether I can spare you, with this at-
tack coming on, and whether I ought to over-
ride Herr Tiel's orders and damn the conse-
quences!”
I knew his independence and resolution, but
just at that moment there passed before my
mind's eye such a distinct, sweet picture of
Eileen, that I was filled with a resolution and
independence even greater than his.
“If it were not my duty, sir,” I said firmly,
“clearly and strongly pointed out by Herr
Tiel, I should never dream of asking you to
spare me for a little longer.”
“He was then very clear and strong on the
question?”
“Extremely.”
“And this other scheme of his—do you feel
yourself that it is feasible enough to justify
you in leaving your ship and running such a
terrible risk? Remember, you will be a man
lost to Germany!”
I have put down exactly what he said,
though it convicts me of having departed a
little from the truth when I answered—


ON THE SHORE 219
“Yes, it will justify the risk.”
After all, I had confidence enough in Tiel's
abilities to feel sure that I was really justified
in saying this; but I determined to press him
for some details of his plans to-morrow.
Wiedermann stood silent for a moment;
then he held out his hand and said in a sad
voice—
“Good-bye! But my mind misgives me. I
fear we may never meet again.”
“That is nonsense, sir!” I cried as cheerfully
as I could. “We shall meet again very soon.
And if you wish something to cheer you, just
study those plans!”
And so we parted, he descending the bank
without another word, and I setting out along
the path that by now was beginning to feel
quite familiar. I did not even pause to look
back this time. My boats were burnt and I
felt it was better to hurry on without dwell-
ing longer on the parting. Besides, there was
a meeting awaiting me.
When I reached the end of the road, I found
that Tiel had been spending the time in turn-
ing the car, and now he and Eileen stood be-
side it, but apparently not conversing.


PART IV
LIEUTENANT VON BELKE’S NAR-
RATIVE CONCLUDED





PART IV
LIEUTENANT VON BELKE'S NAR-
RATIVE CONCLUDED
I
WEDNESDAY
WOKE on Wednesday morning with an
outlook so changed that I felt as if some
magician must have altered my nature. Theo-
retically I had taken a momentous and dan-
gerous decision at the call of duty, and all
my energies ought to have concentrated on
the task of carrying it through safely, thor-
oughly, and warily. I had need of more cau-
tion than ever, and of the most constant
vigilance—both for the sake of my skin and
my country. As a matter of fact I was pos-
sessed with the recklessness of a man drifting
on a plank down a rapid, where taking thought
will not serve him an iota. In vain I preached
223


224 THE SPY IN BLACK
theoretical caution to myself—exactly how
vainly may be judged by my first performance
in the morning when I found myself alone
with Eileen in the parlour. She suggested
that for my own sake I had better be getting
back to my room.
“Will you come and sit there with me?” I
asked.
“I may pay a call upon you perhaps.”
“After hours of loneliness! And then leave
me lonelier than ever! No, thank you, I shall
stay down here.”
“In your uniform?” she asked, opening her
eyes a little. “No, no, Mr. Belke!”
“Well then, get me a suit of mufti
She looked at me hard.
“You will really run that risk?”
“It is now worth it,” I said with meaning.
She looked away, and for a moment I
thought she was pained—not displeased, I am
sure, but as if something had given her a pang
of sorrow. Then the look passed, and she
cried—
“Well, if Tiel agrees!”
“Tiel be hanged! I don't care what he
says!”
p?


WEDNESDAY 225
She began to smile.
“Do you propose to wear my clothes?” she
inquired.
“Yours!” I exclaimed.
“Otherwise,” she continued, “you must per-
suade Tiel to agree, for it is only he who can
provide you with a suit of mufti.”
Presently Tiel came in and I put the demand
to him at once. He looked a little surprised,
but, somewhat to my surprise, raised no serious
objections. His motives are hard to fathom,
but I cannot help suspecting that despite his
air of self-confidence and authority, he has an
instinctive respect for an officer and acknowl-
edges in his heart that I am really his superior.
“You mustn't go outside the house, of
course,” he said, “and if by any evil chance any
visitor were to come in unexpectedly, you must
have some kind of a story ready.”
“Have you had many visitors yet?” I asked
with a touch of sarcasm.
“You never know your luck,” said he, “and
I believe in guarding against all chances. If
you are surprised, please remember that your
name is Mr. Wilson.”
“Wilson?” I said with some disgust. “Am


226 THE SPY IN BLACK
I named in honour of that swine in America?”
“You are named Wilson,” said he, “because
it is very like Watson and Williams and sev-
eral other common names. The less conspicu-
ous and more easily forgotten a name one
takes, the better.”
There is no doubt about the thoroughness of
the man and the cunning with which he lays
even the smallest plans, and though I was a
little contemptuous of his finesse at the mo-
ment, I must confess I was thankful enough
for it not so very long afterwards.
“As for your business,” added Tiel, “you are
a Government inspector.”
“Of what?” I asked.
“If you are asked, look deep and say noth-
ing,” said he. “The islands are full of people
on what they call in the Navy ‘hush' jobs.”
“You seem pretty intimately acquainted
with the British Navy down to its slang,” I
observed.
My nerves were perhaps a little strained this
morning, and I meant by this to make a sar-
castic allusion to the kind of blackguards he
dealt with—such as Ashington. I glanced at
Eileen as I spoke, and I was surprised to see


WEDNESDAY 227
a sudden look, almost of alarm, in her eye. It
was turned on Tiel, but he appeared absolutely
indifferent. I presumed she feared he might
take offence and make a row, but she need not
have worried. It would take a very pointed
insult to rouse that calculating machine.
“Can you get a suit of mufti for me?” I in-
quired.
“I’ll look one out presently,” said he.
“I presume you keep a few disguises!” I
added.
“A few,” said he with one of his brief smiles.
“You had better go up to your room in the
meantime, and I’ll bring it to you.”
I fumed at the idea of any delay, and as I
went to the door I said—
“Don’t be long about it, please!”
More and more the thought of leaving those
two alone together, even for a short while,
filled me with angry uneasiness, and I paced
my bedroom floor impatiently enough. Judge
then of my relief and delight when within a
few minutes Eileen knocked at my door and
said—
: “I have come to pay you a morning call if
I may.”


228 THE SPY IN BLACK
I began to wish then that Herr Tiel would
spend an hour or two in looking out clothes
for me, and as a matter of fact he did. Eileen
explained that he had said he must do some
errand in his capacity as parish minister, but
what the mystery-monger was really about,
Heaven knows!
“Now,” said I to Eileen, when we were
seated and I had lit a cigarette, “I want to
ask you something about this new scheme that
we three are embarked upon.”
She began to shake her head at once.
“I am very much in the dark,” said she.
“Tiel tells me as little as he tells you.”
“You must surely know one thing. What
is your own part in it? Why were you brought
into the islands? Such risks are not run for
nothing.”
“What is a woman's part in such a plan
usually?” she asked in a quiet voice.
I was a little taken aback. It was not ex-
actly pleasant to think of—in connection with
Eileen.
“I believe they sometimes act as decoys,” I
said bluntly.
She merely nodded.


WEDNESDAY 229
“Then that is your rôle?”
“I presume so,” she said frankly.
“Who are you going to decoy?” I asked, and
I felt that my voice was harsh.
“Ask Herr Tiel,” she answered.
“Not that gross brute Ashington surely!”
She shook her head emphatically, and I felt
a little relieved.
“You have seen for yourself that he needs
no further decoying,” she said.
“Then it must be some even higher game
you're to be flown at.”
“I wonder!” she said, and smiled a little.
I hated to see her smile.
“I don't like to think of you doing this,” I
exclaimed suddenly.
“Not even for Germany?” she asked.
I was silenced, but my blood continued to
boil at the thought of what might not be asked
of her. º
“Would you go to any lengths?” I asked
abruptly.
“For my country I would, to any lengths!”
she answered proudly.
Again I felt rebuked, yet still more savage
at the thought.


WEDNESDAY 231
Yet my only feeling was gladness that I need
no longer stay cooped up in my room while
those two spent their hours together down-
stairs.
That afternoon, when we were all three to-
gether, I asked Tiel for some definite informa-
tion regarding his scheme, and we had a long,
and I must say a very interesting, talk. The
details of this plan it would scarcely be safe to
put down on paper at present. Or rather, I
should say, the outline of it, for we have
scarcely reached the stage of details yet. It is
a bold scheme, as was only to be expected of
Tiel, and necessitated going very thoroughly
into the relative naval strengths of Germany
and Britain, so that most of the time for the
rest of the day was taken up with a discussion
of facts and figures. And through it all
Eileen sat listening. I wonder if such a talk
ever before had such a charming background?
Now at last I am in my room, writing this
narrative up to this very point. It is long past
midnight, but sleep is keeping very far away
from me. The weather has changed to a
steady drizzle of rain. Outside, the night is
black as pitch, and mild and windless. It may


232 THE SPY IN BLACK
partly be this close damp air that drives sleep
away, but I know it is something else as well.
I am actually wondering if I can marry her!
She must surrender; that is certain, for I have
willed it, and what a German wills with all his
soul takes place. It must! As to her heart,
I feel sure that her kindness means what a
woman's kindness always means—that a man
has only to persevere. But marriage?
I shall never meet another woman like her;
that is certain! Yet an adventuress, a paid
agent of the Secret Service, marrying a von
Belke—is it quite conceivable? On the whole
I think no. But we can be very happy with-
out that! I never loved a woman so much be-
fore—that is my last word for the night!


II
THURSDAY.
RIDAY morning (very early).-The
events of yesterday and last night have
left me with more to think about than I seem
to have wits to think with. Mein Gott, if I
could see daylight through everything! What
is ahead, Heaven knows, but here is what is
behind.
Yesterday morning passed as the afternoon
before had passed, in further discussion of
naval statistics with Tiel—with a background
of Eileen. Then we had lunch, and soon
afterwards Tiel put on an oilskin coat and went
out. A thin fine drizzle still filled the air,
drifting in clouds before a rising wind and
blotting out the view of the sea almost com-
pletely. Behind it the ships were doing we
knew not what; certainly they were not firing,
but we could see nothing of them at all.
A little later Eileen insisted on putting on
a waterproof and going out too. As the min-
233


THURSDAY 235
“When Miss Holland comes in, tell her Mr.
Craigie is waiting to see her,” said he; and
with that he closed the door and became aware
of my presence.
For a moment we looked at one another.
My visitor, I saw, had a grey beard, a large
rosy face, and twinkling blue eyes. He
looked harmless enough, but I eyed him very
warily, as you can readily believe.
“It's an awful wet day,” said he in a most
friendly and affable tone.
I agreed that it was detestable.
“It's fine for the crops all the same. The
oats is looking very well; do you not think
so?”
I perceived that my friend was an agricul-
turist, and endeavoured to humour him.
“They are looking splendid!” I said with
enthusiasm.
He sat down, and we exchanged a few more
remarks on the weather and the crops, in the
course of which he had filled and lit a pipe and
made himself entirely at home.
“Are you staying with the minister?” he in-
quired presently.
“I am visiting him,” I replied evasively.


THURSDAY 239
“Why's the Kaiser like my boots?”
I gave it up at once.
“Because he'll be sold again soon!” he
chuckled. “That's one of my latest, Mr. Wil-
son. I’ve little to do in these weary times but
make riddles to amuse my girls and think of
dodges for getting a rise out of my wife. I
had her beautifully the other day! We’ve two
sons at the front, you must know, and one of
them's called Bob. Well, I got a letter from
him, and suddenly I looked awful grave and
cried, “My God, Bob's been blown up'-you
should have seen Mrs. Craigie jump-by his
Colonelſ’ said I, and I tell you she was nearly
as put about to find I’d been pulling her leg as
if he'd really been blown to smithereens.
Women are funny things.”
I fear I scarcely laughed as much as he
expected at this extraordinary instance of
woman's obtuseness, but he did not seem to
mind. He was already filling another pipe,
and having found an audience, was evidently
settling down to an afternoon's conversation
—or rather an afternoon's monologue, for it
was quite clear he was independent of any
assistance from me. I was resolved, however,


THURSDAY 24I
In spite of the need for caution, my impa-
tience was fast overcoming me.
“Then you have been sent by Mrs. Craigie
to make inquiries about Miss Holland?” I in-
terrupted a trifle brusquely.
Mr. Craigie seemed at least to have the
merit of not taking offence readily.
“That's the idea,” he agreed. “You see, it's
this way: my wife's been at me ever since our
governess bolted, as she calls it. Well now,
what's the good in making inquiries about a
thing that's happened and finished and come to
an end? If it was a case of engaging another
governess, that’s a different story. I'd take
care not to have any German spies next time!”
“German spies!” I exclaimed, with I hope
well-simulated horror; “you don't mean to
suspect Miss Holland of that surely!”
“Oh, “German Spy' is just a kind of term
nowadays for any one you don't know all
about,” said Mr. Craigie easily. “Every one
you haven’t seen before is a German Spy. I
spotted five myself in my own parish at the
beginning of the war, and Mrs. Craigie wrote
straight off to the Naval Authorities and re-
ported them all.”


242 THE SPY IN BLACK
“And were they actually spies?” I asked a
trifle uncomfortably.
“Not one of them!” laughed he. “The
nearest approach was a tinker who'd had Ger-
man measles! Ha, ha! It's no good my wife
reporting any more spies, and I just reminded
her of that whenever she worried me, and
pulled her leg a bit about me and Miss Hol-
land being in the game together, and so it was
all right till she got wind of a girl who was the
image of the disappearing governess being
here at the manse as Mr. Burnett's sister, and
then there was simply no quieting her till I’d
taken the car and run over to see what there
was in the story. Mind you, I didn't think
there was a word of truth in it myself; but when
I’d got here, by Jingo, there I saw Miss Hol-
land's tweed coat in the hall! Now that’s a
funny kettle of fish, isn't it?”
I didn't say so, but I had to admit that he
was not so very far wrong. The audacity of
the performance was quite worthy of Tiel, but
its utter recklessness seemed not in the least
like him. Had the vanishing governess's em-
ployer been any one less easy-going than Mr.
Craigie, how readily our whole scheme might


THURSDAY 243
have been wrecked! Even as it was, I saw de-
tection staring me straight in the face. How-
ever, I put on as cool and composed a face as
I could.
“I understood that Miss Holland's brother
had written to you about it,” I said brazenly.
“Oh! he is really her brother, is he?” said he,
looking at me very knowingly.
“Certainly.”
“He being Burnett and she Holland, eh?”
“You have heard of half-brothers, haven't
you?” I inquired with a condescending smile.
“Oh, I have heard of them,” winked Mr.
Craigie as good-humouredly as ever; “only I
never happened to have heard before of half-
sisters running away from a situation they'd
taken without a word of warning, just when-
ever their half-brothers whistled.”
“Did Mr. Burnett whistle?” I inquired, with
(I hope) an air of calm and slightly superior
amusement.
“Some one sent her a wire, and I presume
it was Mr. Burnett,” said he. “By Jingo!”
He stopped suddenly with an air as nearly
approaching excitement as was conceivable in
such a gentleman.


244 THE SPY IN BLACK
“What's the matter?” I asked a trifle anx-
iously.
“One might get a good one about how to
make a governess explode, the answer being
‘Burn it!' By Jove, I must think that out.”
Before I could recover from my amazement
at this extraordinary attitude, he had sud-
denly resumed his shrewd quizzical look.
“Are you an old friend of Mr. Burnett?” he
inquired.
“Oh, not very,” I said carelessly.
“Then perhaps you'll not be offended by
my saying that he seems a rum kind of bird,”
he said confidentially.
“In what way?”
“Well, coming up here just for a Sunday
to preach a sermon, and then not preaching it,
but staying on as if he'd taken a lease of the
manse—him and his twelve-twenty-fourths of
a sister!”
“But,” I stammered, before I could think
what I was saying, “I thought he did preach
last Sunday!”
“Not him! Oh, people are talking a lot
about it.”
This revelation left me absolutely speech-


THURSDAY 245
less. Tiel had told me distinctly and delib-
erately that he had gone through the farce of
preaching last Sunday—and now I learned
that this was a lie. What was worse, he had
assured me that he was causing no comment,
and I now was told that people were “talking.”
Coming straight on top of my discovery of his
reckless conduct of Eileen's affair, what was
I to think of him?
It was at this black moment that Tiel and
Eileen entered the room. My heart stood still
for an instant at the thought that, in their first
surprise, something might be disclosed or some
slip made by one of us. But the next instant
I saw that they had learned who was here and
were perfectly prepared.
“How do you do, Mr. Craigie!” cried Eileen
radiantly.
Mr. Craigie seemed distinctly taken aback
by the absence of all signs of guilt or confusion.
“I’m keeping as well as I can, thank you,
considering my anxiety,” said he.
“About my sister, sir?” inquired Tiel with
his most brazen effrontery, coming forward and
smiling cordially. “Surely you got my letter?”
I started. The man clearly had been at the


246 THE SPY IN BLACK
key-hole during the latter part of our conver-
sation, or he could hardly have made this re-
mark fit so well into what I had said.
“I’m afraid I didn't.”
“Tut, tut!” said Tiel, with a marvellously
well-assumed air of annoyance. “The local
posts seem to have become utterly disorgan-
ised. Apparently they pay no attention to
civilian letters at all.”
“You’re right there,” replied Mr. Craigie
with feeling. “The only use we are for is just
to be taxed.”
“What must you think of us?” cried Eileen,
whose acting was fully the equal of Tiel's.
“However, my brother will explain everything
now.”
“Yes,” said Tiel; “if Mr. Craigie happens
to be going—and I'm afraid we've kept him
very late already—I’ll tell him all about it as
we walk back to his car.”
He gave Mr. Craigie a confidential glance
as though to indicate that he had something
private for his ear. Our visitor, on his part,
was obviously reluctant to leave an audience of
three, especially as it included his admired gov-
erness; but Tiel handled the situation with


THURSDAY 247
quite extraordinary urbanity and skill. He
managed to open the door and all but pushed
Mr. Craigie out of the room, without a hint of
inhospitality, and solely as though he were
seeking only his convenience. I could scarcely
believe that this was the man who had made at
least two fatal mistakes—mistakes, at all
events, which had an ominously fatal appear-
8. In Ce.
When Mr. Craigie had wished us both a
very friendly good-bye and the door had closed
behind him, I turned instantly to Eileen and
cried, perhaps more hotly than politely—
“Well, I have been nicely deceived!”
“By whom?” she asked quietly.
“By you a little and by Tiel very much!”
“How have I deceived you?”
I looked at her a trifle foolishly. After
all, I ought to have realised that she must have
had some curious adventure in getting into
the islands. She had never told me she hadn't,
and now I had merely found out what it was.
“You never told me about your governess
adventure—or Mr. Craigie—or that you were
called Holland,” I said rather lamely.
She merely laughed.


248 THE SPY IN BLACK
“You never asked me about my adventures,
or I should have. They were not very dis-
creditable after all.”
“Well, anyhow,” I said, “Tiel has deceived
me grossly, and I am going to wring an ex-
planation out of him!”
She laid her hand beseechingly on my arm.
“Don’t quarrel with him!” she said ear-
nestly. “It will do no good. We may think
what we like of some of the things he does, but
we have got to trust him!”
“Trust him! But how can I? He told me
he preached last Sunday, I find it was a lie.
He said nobody in the parish suspected any-
thing, in consequence of his not preaching, I
find they are all “talking.” He mismanaged
your coming here so badly that if old Craigie
weren't next door to an imbecile we should all
have been arrested days ago. How can I
trust him now?”
“Say nothing to him now,” she said in a low
voice. “Wait till to-morrow! I think he will
tell you then very frankly.”
There was something so significant and yet
beseeching in her voice that I consented, though
not very graciously.


THURSDAY 249
“I can hardly picture Herr Tiel being very
‘frank’l” I replied. “But if you ask me—”
I bowed my obedience, and then catching up
her hand pressed it to my lips, saying—
“I trust you absolutely!”
When I looked up I caught a look in her
eye that I could make nothing of at all. It
was beyond question very kind, yet there
seemed to be something sorrowful too. It
made her look so ravishing that I think I would
have taken her in my arms there and then, had
not Tiel returned at that moment.
“Well,” asked Eileen, “what did you tell
Mr. Craigie?”
“I said that you were secretly married to
Mr. Wilson, whose parents would cut him off
without a penny if they suspected the entan-
glement, and this was the only plan by which
you could spend a few days together. Of
course I swore him to secrecy.”
For a moment I hesitated whether to resent
this liberty, or to feel a little pleased, or to be
amused. Eileen laughed gaily, and so I
laughed too. And that was the end (so far)
of my afternoon adventure.


III
THURSDAY NIGHT
WENT up to my room early in the even-
ing. Eileen had been very silent, and
about nine o'clock she bade us good-night and
left us. To sit alone with Tiel, feeling as I
did and yet bound by a promise not to upbraid
him, was intolerable, and so I left the parlour
a few minutes after she did. As I went down
the passage to the back, my way lit only by the
candle I was carrying, I was struck with a
sound I had heard in that house before, only
never so loudly. It was the droning of the
wind through the crevices of some door, and
the whining melancholy note in the stillness of
that house of divided plotters and confidences
withheld, did nothing to raise my spirits.
When I reached my room I realised what
had caused the droning. The wind had
changed to a new quarter, and as another con-
sequence my chimney was smoking badly and
250


THURSDAY NIGHT 251
the room was filled with a pungent blue cloud.
It is curious how events arise as consequences
of trifling and utterly different circumstances.
I tried opening my door and then my window,
but still the fire smoked and the cloud refused
to disperse. Then I had an inspiration. I
have mentioned a large cupboard. It was so
large as almost to be a minute room, and I re-
membered that it had a skylight in its sloping
roof. I opened this, and as the room at once
began to clear, I left it open.
And then I paced the floor and smoked and
thought. What was to be made of these very
disquieting events? Clearly Tiel was either a
much less capable and clever man than he was
reputed—a bit of a fraud in fact—or else he
was carrying his fondness for mystery and for
suddenly springing brilliant surprises, like
conjuring tricks, upon people, to the most ex-
treme lengths. If he were really carrying out
a cunning deliberate policy in not preaching
last Sunday, good and well, but it was intoler-
able that he should have deceived me about it.
It seemed quite a feasible theory to suppose
that he had got out of conducting the service on
some excuse in order that he might be asked to


252 THE SPY IN BLACK
stay longer and preach next Sunday instead.
But then he had deliberately told me he had
preached, and that the people had been so
pleased that they had invited him to preach
again. It sounded like a schoolboy's boast-
fulness!
Of course if he were the sort of man who
would (like myself) have drawn the line at
conducting a bogus religious service, I could
quite well understand his getting out of it
somehow. But when I remembered his tale of
the murder of the real Mr. Burnett, I dis-
missed that hypothesis. Besides, why deceive
me in any case? I daresay I should have felt
a little anxious as to the result if he had evaded
the duty he had professed to come up and per-
form, but would he care twopence about that?
I did not believe it.
And then his method of getting Eileen into
the islands, though ingenious enough (if not
very original), had been marred by the most
inconceivable recklessness. Surely some bet-
ter scheme could have been devised for getting
her out of the Craigies' house than a sudden
flight without a word of explanation—and a
flight, moreover, to another house in the same


254 THE SPY IN BLACK
/
brought a chair along, stood on it, and looked
out, with my head projecting from the midst of
the sloping slates, and a beautiful cool breeze
refreshing my face. -
So cool was the wind that there was evi-
dently north in it, and this was confirmed by
the sky, which literally blazed with stars. I
could see dimly but pretty distinctly the out-
buildings at the back of the house, and the road
that led to the highway, and the dark rim of
hills beyond. Suddenly I heard the back door
gently open, and still as I had stood on my
chair before, I became like a statue now. In
a moment the figure of Tiel appeared, and
from a flash of light I saw that he carried his
electric torch. He walked slowly towards the
highroad till he came to a low wall that divided
the fields at the side, and then from behind the
wall up jumped the form of a man, illuminated
for an instant by a flash from the torch, and
then just distinguishable in the gloom.
I held my breath and waited for the crack
of a pistol-shot, gently withdrawing my head a
little, and prepared to rush down and take part
in the fray. But there was not a sound save a
low murmur of voices, far too distant and too


THURSDAY NIGHT 257
urgently—and ominously—called for! And
then I slipped downstairs, went to the front
hall, and up the other stairs, and quietly called
“Tiel!” For I confess I was not disposed to
sit for two or three hours waiting for informa-
tion.
At my second cry he appeared at his bed-
room door, prompt as usual.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
“Who did you speak to last night?” I asked
point-blank.
He looked at me for an instant and then
smiled.
“Good heavens, it wasn't you, was it?” he
inquired.
“Me!” I exclaimed.
“I wondered how you knew otherwise.”
I told him briefly. -
“And now tell me exactly what happened!”
I demanded.
“Certainly,” said he quietly. “I went out,
as I often do last thing at night, to see that the
coast is clear, and this time I found it wasn’t.
A man jumped up from behind the wall just as
you saw.”
“Who was he?”


FRIDAY 261
“Yes, there is,” I said urgently. “We
might get out of this house and look for some
other refuge!”
He shook his head.
“Not by daylight, if it is being watched.”
“Besides,” said Eileen, “this is the day we
have been waiting for. We don't want to be
far away, do we?”
“Personally,” I said, “it seems to me that
as I cannot be where I ought to be” (and here
I looked at Tiel somewhat bitterly), “with my
brave comrades in their attack on our enemies.
I should much prefer to make for a safer place
than this—if one can be found.”
“It can't,” said Tiel briefly.
And that indeed became more and more
obvious the longer we talked it over. Had our
house stood in the midst of a wood, or had a
kindly fog blown out of the North Sea, we
might have made a move. As it was, I had to
agree that it would be sheer folly, before night-
fall anyhow; and there was nothing for it but
waiting.
To add to the painfulness of this ordeal, I
found myself obliged to remain in my room,
now that I had resumed my uniform. This


FRIDAY 263
I tried to distract myself by reading novels;
but they were English novels, and every word
in them seemed to gall me. I implored Eileen
to come and keep me company. She came up
once for a little, but the devil seemed to have
possessed her, for I felt no sympathy coming
from her at all; and when at last I tried to be
a little affectionate she first repulsed me, say-
ing it was no time for that, and then she left
me. With baffled love added to acute anxiety,
you can picture my condition!
For the first part of that horrible day I kept
listening for some sign of the police, and now
and then looking out from the skylight at the
back, but the watcher was no longer visible,
and not a fresh step or voice was to be heard
in the house. My door stood locked, my fire
was blazing, and my papers lay ready to be
consumed, and at moments I positively longed
to see them blazing and myself arrested, and
get it over, yet nothing happened.
In the afternoon the direction of my
thoughts began to change as the hour ap-
proached when the fleet should sail and my
country reap the reward of the enterprise and
fidelity which I felt conscious I had shown,


264 THE SPY IN BLACK
and the sacrifice which I feared I should have
to make. I began to make brief visits to the
parlour to look out of the window and see if
I could see any signs of movement in the Ar-
mada. And then for the second time I saw
Tiel in a genial cheerful humour, and this time
there was no doubt of the cause. He too was
in a state of tension, and his mind, like mine,
was running on the coming drama. In fact, as
the afternoon wore on, his thoughts were so
entirely wrapped up in this that he frankly
talked of nothing else. Was I sure we should
have at least four submarines? he asked me;
and would they be brought well in and take the
risk? Indeed, I never heard him ask so many
questions, or appear so pleased as he did when
I reassured him on all these points.
As for Eileen, she was quite as excited as
either of us, and when Tiel was not asking me
questions, she was; until once again prudence
drove me back to my room. On one of my
visits she gave us some tea, but that is the only
meal I remember any of us eating between
our early and hurried lunch and the evening
when the crash came.
The one thing I looked for as I gazed out of


FRIDAY 265
that window was the rising of smoke from the
battle-fleet, and at last I saw it. Stream after
stream, black or grey, gradually mounted, first
from one leviathan and then from another, till
the air was darkened hundreds of feet above
them, and if our flotilla were in such a posi-
tion that they could look for this sign, they
must have seen it. This time I returned to
my room with a heart a little lightened.
“I have done my duty,” I said to myself,
“come what may of it!”
And I do not think that any impartial
reader will deny that, so far as my own share of
this enterprise was concerned, I had done my
very utmost to make it succeed.
The next time I came down my spirits rose
higher still, and for the moment I quite forgot
the danger in which I stood. The light
cruisers, the advance-guard of the fleet, were
beginning to move! This time when I went
back to my room I forced myself to read two
whole chapters of a futile novel before I again
took off the lid and peeped in to see how the
stew was cooking. The instant I had finished
the second chapter I leapt up and opened the
door—and then I stood stock-still and listened.


FRIDAY 271
“Then I understand I am betrayed?” I
asked as calmly as I could.
“You’re nabbed,” said Captain Phipps, with
brutal British slang, “and let me tell you that's
better than being dead, which you would have
been if you'd rejoined your boat.”
I could not quite control my feelings.
“What has happened?” I cried.
“We’ve bagged the whole four—just at the
very spot on the chart which you and I ar-
ranged!” chuckled the great brute.
At this point Lieutenant von Belke's com-
ments become a little too acid for publication,
and it has been considered advisable that the
narrative should be finished by the Editor.








PART V.
A FEW CONCLUDING CHAPTERS
BY THE EDITOR
I
TIEL's Journey
R the moment the fortitude of the hap-
less young lieutenant completely broke
down when he heard these tidings. It took
him a minute to control his voice, and then he
said—
“Please give me back my revolver. I give
you my word of honour not to use it on any
of you three.”
Commander Blacklock shook his head.
“I am sorry we can't oblige you,” said he.
“Poor old chap,” said Phipps with genial
sympathy; “it’s rotten bad luck on you, I must
admit.”
These well-meant words seemed only to in-
cense the captive.
275


TIEL’S JOURNEY 277
“Eye-wash!” he said. “It’s the only way
to treat a Hun—show him the stick!”
The hint had certainly produced its effect.
Von Belke shrugged his shoulders, and merely
remarked—
“I am your prisoner. I say nothing more.”
“That's distinctly wiser,” said Captain
Phipps, with a formidable scowl at the captive
and a wink at Miss Holland.
For a few moments von Belke kept his word,
and sat doggedly silent. Then suddenly he
exclaimed—
“But I do not understand all this! How
should a German agent be a British officer?
My Government knew all about Tiel—I was
told to be under his orders—it is impossible
you can be hel”
Blacklock turned to the other two.
“I almost think I owe Mr. Belke an explan-
ation,” he said with a smile.
“Yes,” cried Eileen eagerly, “do tell him,
and then—then he will understand a little
better.”
Blacklock filled a pipe and leaned his back
against the fireplace, a curious mixture of
clergyman in his attire and keen professional


TIEL’S JOURNEY 279
“No,” commented Phipps; “I suppose you
spotted that pretty quick.”
“Practically at once. A clergyman on his
way here—clothes and passport stolen—left
for murdered—chauffeur so like him that the
minister noticed the resemblance himself in the
instant the man was knocking him down,
what was the inference? Pretty obvious,
you'll agree. Well, the first step was simple.
The pair had separated; but we got Tiel at
Inverness on his way North, and Schumann
within twenty-four hours afterwards at Liver-
pool.”
“Good business!” said Phipps. “I hadn't
heard about Schumann before.”
“Well,” continued Blacklock, “I inter-
viewed Mr. Tiel, and I found I’d struck just
about the worst thing in the way of rascals it
has ever been my luck to run up against. He
began to bargain at once. If his life was
spared he would give me certain very valuable
information.”
“Mein Gott!” cried Belke. “Did a German
actually say that?”
“Tiel belongs to no country,” said Black-
lock. “He is a cosmopolitan adventurer with-


280 THE SPY IN BLACK
out patriotism or morals. I told him his skin
would be safe if his information really proved
valuable; and when I heard his story, I may
say that he did save his skin. He gave the
whole show away, down to the passwords that
were to pass between you when you met.”
He suddenly turned to Phipps and smiled.
“It’s curious how the idea came to me. I’ve
done a good bit of secret service work myself,
and felt in such a funk sometimes that I’ve
realised the temptation to give the show away
if I were nailed. Well, as I looked at Tiel, I
said to myself, “There, but for the grace of
God, stands Robin Blacklock!’ And then
suddenly it flashed into my mind that we were
really not at all unlike one another—same
height, and tin-opener nose, and a few streaks
of anno domini in our hair, and so on.”
“I know, old thing,” said his friend, “it’s the
wife-poisoning type. You see 'em by the
dozen in the Chamber of Horrors.”
Their Teutonic captive seemed to wax a lit-
tle impatient.
“What happened then?” he demanded.
“What happened was that I decided to con-
tinue Mr. Tiel's journey for him. The arrest


TIEL’S JOURNEY 281
and so on had lost a day, but I knew that the
night of your arrival was left open, and I had
to risk it. That splash of salt water on your
motor bike, and your resource in dodging pur-
suit, just saved the situation, and we arrived at
the house on the same night.”
“So that was why you were late!” exclaimed
von Belke. “Fool that I was not to have ques-
tioned and suspected!”
“It might have been rather a nasty bunker,”
admitted Blacklock, “but luckily I got you to
lose your temper with me when I reached that
delicate part of my story, and you forgot to
ask me.”
“You always were a tactful fellow, Robin,”
murmured Phipps.
“Of course,” resumed Blacklock, “I was in
touch with certain people who advised me what
scheme to recommend. My only suggestion
was that the officer sent to advise us profes-
sionally should be one whose appearance might
lead those who did not know him to suspect
him capable of treasonable inclinations. My
old friend, Captain Phipps 32
“Robin!” roared his old friend, “I read your
bloomin’ message. You asked for the best-


282 THE SPY IN BLACK
looking officer on the staff, and the one with
the nicest manners. Get on with your story!”
These interludes seemed to perplex their
captive considerably.
“You got a pretended traitor? I see,” he
said gravely.
“Exactly. I tried you first with Ashington
of the Haileybury—whom Islandered grossly
by the way. If you had happened to know
him by sight I should have passed on to an-
other captain, till I got one you didn't know.
Well, I needn't recall what happened at our
council of war, but now we come to rather
8. ” he hesitated and glanced for an instant
at Miss Holland,-‘‘well, rather a delicate
point in the story. I think it's only fair to
those concerned to tell you pretty fully what
happened. I believe I am right in thinking
that they would like me to do so.”
Again he glanced at the girl, and this time
she gave a little assenting nod.
“That night, after you left us, Mr. Belke,
Captain Phipps and I had a long discussion
over a very knotty point. How were we to
get you back again here after you had deliv-
ered your message to your submarine?”


TIEL’S JOURNEY 283
“I do not see exactly why you wished me to
return?” said von Belke.
“There were at least three vital reasons.
In the first place some one you spoke to might
have known too much about Tiel and have
spotted the fraud. Then again, some one
might easily have known the real Captain Ash-
ington, and it would be a little difficult to
describe Captain Phipps in such a way as to
confound him with any one else. Finally, we
wished to extract a little more information
from you.”
Von Belke leapt from his seat with an ex-
clamation.
“What have I not told you!” he cried
hoarsely. “Mein Gott, I had forgotten that!
Give me that pistol! Come, give it to me!
Why keep me alive?”
“I suppose because it is an English cus-
tom,” replied Commander Blacklock quietly.
“Also, you will be exceedingly glad some
day to find yourself still alive. Please
sit down and listen. I am anxious to
explain this point fully, for a very good
reason.”
With a groan their captive sat down, but


286 THE SPY IN BLACK
“Is there really any need to deceive me fur-
ther?” he inquired.
“I am telling you the simple truth,” said
Blacklock unruffled. “I had the great good
fortune to make Miss Holland's acquaintance
on the mail-boat crossing to these islands. She
was going to visit Mr. Craigie—that intellec-
tual gentleman you met yesterday—under the
precise circumstances he described. I noticed
Miss Holland the moment she came aboard
the boat.” He paused for a moment, and
then turned to Eileen with a smile. “I have
a confession to make to you, Miss Holland,
which I may as well get off my chest now. My
mind, naturally enough perhaps, was rather
running on spies, and when I discovered that
you were travelling with a suit-case of German
manufacture I had a few minutes' grave sus-
picion. I now apologise.”
Eileen laughed.
“Only a few minutes!” she exclaimed. “It
seems to me I got off very easily!”
“That was why I was somewhat persistent
in my conversation,” he continued, still smil-
ing a little, “but it quickly served the purpose
of satisfying me absolutely that my guns were


288 THE SPY IN BLACK
“Well, I decided on the spot to take Miss
Holland into my confidence—and I should like
to say that confidence was never better justi-
fied. She seemed inclined to do what she could
for her country.” Commander Blacklock
paused for an instant, and added apologet-
ically, “I am putting it very mildly and very
badly, but you know what I mean. She was,
in fact, ready to do anything I asked her on
receipt of a summons from me. I had thought
of her even when talking to Captain Phipps,
but I felt a little reluctant to involve her in the
business, with all it entailed, unless no other
course remained open. And no other course
was open. And so I first telegraphed to her
and then went over and fetched her. That
was how she came to play the part she did,
entirely at my request and instigation.”
“You—you then told her to-to make me
admire her?” asked von Belke in an unsteady
voice.
“Frankly I did. Of course it was not for
me to teach a lady how to be attractive, but I
may say that we rehearsed several of the scenes
very carefully indeed,—I mean in connection
with such matters as the things you should say


THE LADY 291
“There seem to have been some rum goings-
on behind your back, Mr. Belke!”
Von Belke seemed to be realising this fact
himself, and resenting it.
“You seem to have amused yourself very
much by deceiving me,” he remarked.
“I assure you I did nothing for fun,” said
Blacklock gravely, yet with a twinkle in his
eye. “It was all in the way of business.”
“The story that you preached, for in-
stance!”
“Would you have felt quite happy if I had
told you I had omitted to do the one thing I
had professed to come here for?”
Von Belke gave a little sound that might
have meant anything. Then he exclaimed—
“But your servant who was not supposed to
know anything—that was to annoy me, I sup-
pose!”
“To isolate you. I didn't want you to speak
to a soul but me.”
The captive sat silent for a moment, and
then said—
“You had the house watched by the police—
I see that now.”
“A compliment to you, Mr. Belke,” smiled


III
THE EMPTY ENVELOPE
OMMANDER BLACKLOCK closed
the front door.
“Chilly night,” he observed.
“It is rather,” said Eileen.
The wind droned through a distant keyhole
mournfully and continuously. That melan-
choly piping sound never rose and never fell;
monotonous and unvarying it piped on and on.
Otherwise the house had that peculiar feeling
of quiet which houses have when stirring events
are over and people have departed.
The two remaining inhabitants re-entered
the parlour, glanced at one another with a half
smile, and then seemed simultaneously to find
a little difficulty in knowing what to do next.
“Well,” said Blacklock, “our business seems
over.”
He felt he had spoken a little more abruptly
than he intended, and would have liked to re-
295


296 THE SPY IN BLACK
peat his observations in a more genial tone.
“Yes,” said she almost as casually, “there is
nothing more to be done to-night, I suppose.”
“I shall have to write up my report of our
friend Mr. Belke's life and last words,” said
he with a half laugh.
“And I have got to get over to Mrs.
Brown's,” she replied, “and so I had better go
at once.”
“Oh, there's no such desperate hurry,” he
said hastily; “I haven't much to write up to-
night. We must have some supper first.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “I suppose we shall be-
gin to feel hungry soon if we don't. I’ll see
about it. What would you like?”
“The cold ham and a couple of boiled eggs
will suit me.”
She agreed again.
“That won't take long, and then you can
begin your report.”
Again he protested hastily.
“Oh, but there's no hurry about that, I as-
sure you. I only wanted to save trouble.”
While she was away he stood before the
fire, gazing absently into space and scarcely


THE EMPTY ENVELOPE 297
moving a muscle. The ham and boiled eggs
appeared, and a little more animation became
apparent, but it was not a lively feast. She
talked for a little in an ordinary, cheerful way,
just as though there was no very special sub-
ject for conversation; but he seemed too absent-
minded and silent to respond even to these over-
tures, except with a brief smile and a briefer
word. They had both been quite silent for
about five minutes, when he suddenly said in
a constrained manner, but with quite a differ-
ent intonation—
“Well, I am afraid our ways part now.
What are you going to do next?”
“I’ve been wondering,” she said; “and I
think if Mrs. Craigie still wants me I ought
to go back to her.”
“Back to the Craigies!” he exclaimed.
“And become—er—a governess again?”
“It will be rather dull at first,” she laughed;
“but one can't have such adventures as this
every day, and I really have treated the Crai-
gies rather badly. You see you told Mr.
Craigie the truth about my desertion of them,
and they may forgive me. If they do, and


300 THE SPY IN BLACK
expression he did not quite understand; then
she looked away and seemed for a moment a
little embarrassed, and then she looked at him
again, and he thought he had never seen
franker eyes.
“You’re as kind and considerate as—as, well,
as you're clever!” she said with a half laugh.
“But, if you only knew, if you only even had
the least guess how I’ve longed to do some-
thing for my country—something really use-
ful, I mean; how unutterably wretched I felt
when the trifling work I was doing was stopped
by a miserable neglected cold and I had to have
a change, and as I’d no money I had to take
this stupid job of teaching; and how I envied
the women who were more fortunate and really
were doing useful things; oh, then you'd know
how grateful I feel to you! If I could make
every officer in the German navy—and the
army too—fall in love with me, and then hand
them over to you, I'd do it fifty times over!
Don't, please, talk nonsense, or think non-
sense! Good-night, Mr. Tiel, and perhaps it's
good-bye.”
She laughed as she gave him his nom-de-
guerre, and held out her hand as frankly as


THE EMPTY ENVELOPE 301
she had spoken. He did not take it, however.
“I’m going to escort you over to Mrs.
Brown's,” he said with a very different ex-
pression now in his eyes.
“It’s very good of you,” she said; “you are
sure you have time?”
“Loads!” he assured her.
He opened the door for her, but she stopped
on the threshold. A young woman was wait-
ing in the hall.
“Mrs. Brown has sent her girl to escort me,”
she said, “so we'll have to”—she corrected her-
self—“we must say good-night now. Is it
good-bye, or shall I see you in the morning?”
His face had become very long again.
“I’m very much afraid not. I've got to re-
port myself with the lark. Good-bye.”
The front door closed behind her, and Com-
mander Blacklock strode back to the fire and
gazed at it for some moments.
“Well,” he said to himself, “I suppose, look-
ing at things as they ought to be looked at,
Mrs. Brown's girl has saved me from making
a damned fool of myself! Now to work: that's
my proper stunt.”
He threw some sheets of foolscap on the


302 THE SPY IN BLACK
table, took out his pen, and sat down to his
work. For about five minutes he stared at
the foolscap, but the pen never made a move-
ment. Then abruptly he jumped up and ex-
claimed—
“Dash it, I must!”
Snatching up an envelope, he thrust it in his
pocket, and a moment later was out of the
house.
# * # * * #
Miss Holland and her escort were about fifty
yards from Mrs. Brown's house when the girl
started and looked back.
“There's some one crying on you!” she ex-
claimed.
Eileen stopped and peered back into the
night. It had clouded over and was very dark.
, Very vaguely something seemed to loom up
in the path behind them.
“Miss Holland!” cried a voice.
“It’s the minister!” said the girl.
“The-who?” exclaimed Eileen; and added
hastily, “Oh, yes, I know who you mean.”
A tall figure disengaged itself from the sur-
rounding night.
“Sorry to trouble you,” said the voice in curi-


304 THE SPY IN BLACK
of myself as Belke. But I couldn't let you go
without asking—well, whether I am merely
making a fool of myself. If you know what
I mean and think I am, well, please just tell
me you can manage to see yourself safely home
—I know it's only about fifty yards—and I'll
go and get that wretched envelope back from
the girl and tell her another lie.”
“Why should I think you are making a
fool of yourself?” she asked in a voice that
was very quiet, but not quite as even as she
Imeant.
“Let's turn back a little way,” he suggested
quickly.
She said nothing, but she turned.
“Take my arm, won't you,” he suggested.
In the bitterness of his heart he was con-
scious that he had rapped out this proposal in
his sharpest quarter-deck manner. And he
had meant to speak so gently! Yet she took
his arm, a little timidly it is true, but no won-
der, thought he. For a few moments they
walked in silence, falling slower and slower
with each step; and then they stopped. At
that, speech seemed to be jerked out of him
at last.


THE EMPTY ENVELOPE 305
“I wonder if it's conceivable that you'd ever
look upon me as anything but a calculating
machine?” he inquired.
“I never thought of you in the least as that!”
she exclaimed.
The gallant Commander evidently regarded
this as a charitable exaggeration. He shook
his head.
“You must sometimes. I know I must have
seemed that sort of person.”
“Not to me,” she said.
He seemed encouraged, but still a little in-
credulous.
“Then did you ever really think of me as
a human being—as a-as a-" he hesitated
painfully—“as a friend?”
“Yes,” she said, “of course I did—always as
a friend.”
“Could you possibly—conceivably—think of
me as”—he hesitated, and then blurted out—
“as, dash it all, head over ears in love with
you?”
And then suddenly the Commander realised
that he had not made a fool of himself after all.
The empty envelope was duly delivered, but
no explanation was required. Mrs. Brown's





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