"Well then, Bernard, how sweet of you!"
Poor Doris, and Marjorie too, were not in the way of getting many presents. Upjelly saw to that!
My brother put his hand in his pocket, and then into another pocket, finally into a third. He hesitated, he stammered, and looked positively frightened. It was the first and last time I ever saw the old sport thoroughly done in.
"d.a.m.n!" he said, and then grew more embarra.s.sed still. "I am the biggest fool in the Service. I remember now I left the case on my dressing-room table at the Morstone Arms."
Poor little Doris"s face fell. She could not help it. But I had a bright idea.
"Oh, that"s all right," I said. "There"s a certain young imp of mine called d.i.c.kson max----"
"Dear boy!" Marjorie murmured, and my brother looked at her quickly.
"He"s seventeen, and quite trustworthy," I went on. "He will be delighted to run and fetch it. Anything to be out of school at night!--and as I am headmaster of this East Anglian Eton, I can do as I like. I will ring for him."
Lockhart looked slightly upset, but I didn"t care.
"But I thought," my brother remarked, "that this was somewhat in the nature of a--well, shall we say "secure-from-observation" dinner party."
"Oh, Billy d.i.c.kson won"t breathe a word," Marjorie said emphatically.
"Well, you command this ship," my brother said, "and it is up to you.
Certainly I should like to send for the bracelet, and if you don"t keep Whale Island discipline aboard, it"s not my affair."
I rang for d.i.c.kson max. He arrived, knocked at the door, stepped in, and then his eyes grew very round indeed, but he said not a word. I told him what was wanted and asked him if he would go.
"Rather, sir," he said, "I would be only too delighted."
I gave him the key of the masters" door.
"It"s a bitter cold night," my brother put in, "supposing you take my coat and this shooting hat. It"ll keep you as warm as toast."
Of course d.i.c.kson max. would have scorned the idea of an overcoat under ordinary circ.u.mstances, though Bernard didn"t know that. But the opportunity of wearing the ulster of a Wing-Commander of Submarines, who had been wounded off Heligoland, was too much for the youthful mind. He flushed with pleasure, and I won"t swear that, as he went out into the pa.s.sage, he didn"t salute.
I went downstairs with him, helped him on with the big coat--he was the same height as Bernard and much the same figure--and pressed the heather-mixture shooting hat on his head.
"Now scoot as hard as you can go," I told him, opening the door, and he was gone like a flash into the dark night.
When I got back there was a curious silence. Somehow or other we none of us seemed to know what to say. I can"t account for it, but there it was.
It was then that my brother came in and I found a side of him I had only suspected but never seen before.
Leaning forward in his chair, he began to talk very quietly, but with great earnestness. I saw what he was up to. He was leading the conversation very near home indeed. It was astonishing how he dominated us all, how we hung on his words and how the sense of sinister surroundings grew and grew as he spoke.
It was the girls who responded. The skill with which he introduced the subject was enormous, but they were marvellously "quick in the uptake."
It was Marjorie who leant forward, her great eyes flashing and her lips compressed to a thin line of scarlet.
"Commander Carey," she said, "don"t think that I or my sister are entirely ignorant that there is something very wrong about this place.
You have turned our thoughts into a new channel."
She was wearing a blouse with loose sleeves, ending in some filmy lace.
Suddenly, with her right hand, she pulled up the left-arm sleeve. There were three dark purple marks upon her white arm.
"That was this morning," she said, nodding once or twice. "And now speak out, if you have anything to tell us, about the man who killed my mother as surely as if he did it with a gun, and who has done his best to ruin the lives of my sister and myself. Speak without fear!"
Then Bernard, in crisp, low sentences, told the girls and Lockhart exactly what he believed. The wind howled outside and hissing drops of rain fell upon the window-pane. The fire crackled on the hearth, the smoke of our cigarettes rose in grey spirals in the pleasant, lamp-lit room. It was a strange night, how fraught with consequences to England, the two beautiful girls, the little cripple, the third-rate schoolmaster, and even the young naval officer himself, did not know!
"It has long been suspected," my brother concluded, and his voice sank almost to a whisper, "that one master-mind has been behind all the German espionage, both before and during the war. There is in existence, our Intelligence Department has had indubitable evidence of it, a King of Spies, so subtle of brain, so fertile in resource, that, even now, we cannot find him. We do not know for certain, but it is rumoured that this man"s real name is Graf Botho von Vedal, though what name he pa.s.ses under now none can say."
Doris"s eyes clouded. She seemed as if she was making an effort of memory.
"Was he once "Wirklicher Geheimrat"--Privy Councillor to the German Emperor?" she asked.
Bernard stared at her. "So I am told," he said. "What do you know about him?"
"I can"t tell you," she answered with a dazed look upon her face--"some childish memory. The name was familiar. My sister and I speak German as well as we speak English, you know."
"If I could put my finger upon that man," my brother continued, "then one of the gravest perils to which England lies open at the moment would be removed."
"Where is he?" Lockhart asked, speaking like a man in a dream.
We all looked at each other, and there was dawning consciousness and horror in every eye.
"Yes," came from my brother at length, and as he spoke he withdrew one of d.i.c.kson"s little photographs from his pocket--I hadn"t seen him put it there--"and also, what is Admiral Kiderlen-Waechter doing in England?"
We all knew that name. The papers had been full of it at the beginning of the war. Kiderlen-Waechter was the chief of the German Submarine Flotillas. It was owing to his ingenuity and resource that ship after ship of our gallant Navy had been torpedoed, even in the Straits of Dover themselves.
"What do you mean?" I gasped.
"What I say, John. For, unless I am much mistaken--of course, I may easily be mistaken--the gentleman who drove away with Doctor Upjelly to London this morning is that very man."
"Mr. Jones?" Marjorie cried. "The man the Doctor swore that I must marry when the war is over?"
Bernard"s eyes blazed. "What?" he said quickly, "I heard nothing of that!"
The two were looking at each other very strangely when there was a knock at the door. It opened and d.i.c.kson max. came in.
He went up to my brother and put down a little case of red morocco by his side.
"There you are, sir," he said.
I looked up sharply. There was something unusual in the lad"s voice. He caught hold of the back of Lockhart"s chair and swayed as he stood. Then we saw that beneath the upturned collar of the overcoat one cheek was all red and bleeding. There was a line across it like the cut from a knife.
"What on earth is the matter?" I cried, in great alarm.
"Oh nothing, sir," he answered, "only as I was coming through the Sea Wood--I took the shorter way--I thought I heard someone behind me. I turned round, and just as I did so there was a noise like a banjo string, and something went past my head singing like a wasp. Then I found my cheek all cut."
"What did you do? Who was it?"
"I plunged into the bushes, sir, but could not find anyone. Then I pulled out my electric torch, and, sticking in the trunk of a tree, I found this."