The Zeppelin's Passenger
present you with some little article of plate. You've a good time
coming, Henry.”
“Talk sense, there's a good fellow,” the other begged. “You go and see
the Chief and put it to him. There isn't a single reason why I shouldn't
own up now.”
“I'll see what I can do,” Rayton promised, “but what about this fellow
Lessingham, or whatever else he calls himself, down there? There's a
chap named Griffiths--Commandant, isn't he?--been writing us about him.”
“I won't have Lessingham touched,” Sir Henry insisted. “He can't do any
particular harm down there, and there isn't a line or a drawing of mine
down at Dreymarsh which he isn't welcome to.”
Lord Rayton rose to his feet.
“Look here, Henry, old fellow,” he said, “I do sympathise with you up
to a certain point. I tell you what I'll do. I shall have to answer
Philippa's letter, and I'll answer it in such a way that if she is as
clever a little woman as I think she is, she'll get a hint. Of course,”
he went on ruminatively, “it is rather a misfortune that the Princess
Ollaneff and her sister are such jolly good-looking women. Makes it look
a little fishy, doesn't it? What I mean to say is, it's a far cry
from fishing for whiting in the North Sea to lunching with a beautiful
princess at the Carlton--when you think your wife's down in Norfolk.”
Sir Henry threw open the door.
“Look here, I've had enough of you, Rayton,” he declared. “You get back
and do an hour's work, if you can bring your mind to it.”
The latter assumed a sudden dignity, necessitated by the sound of voices
in the corridor, and departed. The door had scarcely been closed
when two younger men presented themselves--Miles Ensol, Sir Henry's
secretary, a typical-looking young sailor minus his left arm; and a
pale-faced, clean-shaven man of uncertain age, in civilian clothes. Sir
Henry shook hands with the latter and pointed to the easy-chair which
his previous visitor had just vacated.
“Welcome back again, Horridge,” he said cordially. “Miles, I'll ring
when I want you.”
“Very good, sir,” the secretary replied. “There's a fisherman from
Norfolk downstairs, when you're at liberty.”
Sir Henry nodded.
“I'll see him presently. Shut him up somewhere where he can smoke.”
The young man withdrew, carefully closing the door, around which Sir
Henry, with a word of apology, arranged a screen.
“I don't think,” he explained, “that eavesdropping extends to these
premises, or that our voices could reach outside. Still, a ha'porth of
prevention, eh? Have a cigar, Horridge.”
“I'm not smoking for a day or two, thank you, sir.”
“You look as though they'd put you through it,” Sir Henry remarked.
His visitor smiled.
“I've travelled fourteen miles in a barrel,” he said, “and we were
out for twenty-four hours in a Danish sailing skiff. You know what the
weather's been like in the North Sea. Before that, the last word of
writing I saw on German soil was a placard, offering a reward of five
thousand marks for my detention, with a disgustingly lifelike photograph
at the top. I had about fifty yards of quay to walk in broad daylight,
and every other man I passed turned to stare after me. It gives you the
cold shivers down your back when you daren't look round to see if you're
being followed.”
Sir Henry groped in the cupboard of his desk, and produced a bottle of
whisky and a syphon of soda water. His visitor nodded approvingly.
“I've touched nothing until I've reached what I consider sanctuary,” he
observed. “My nerves have gone rotten for the first time in my life. Do
you mind, sir, if I lock the door?”
“Go ahead,” Sir Henry assented.
He brought the whisky and soda himself across the room. Horridge resumed
his seat and held out his hand almost eagerly. For a moment or two he
shook as though he had an ague. Then, just as suddenly as it had come
upon him, the fit passed. He drained the contents of the tumbler at a
gulp, set it down empty by his side, and stretched out his hand for a
cigar.
“The end of my journey didn't help matters any,” he went on. “I daren't
even make for a Dutch port, and we were picked up eventually by a tramp
steamer from Newcastle to London with coals. I hadn't been on board more
than an hour before a submarine which had been following overhauled us.
I thought it was all up then, but the fog lifted, and we found ourselves
almost in the midst of a squadron of destroyers from Harwich. I made
another transfer, and they landed me in time to catch the early morning
train from Felixstowe.”
“Did they get the submarine?” his listener asked eagerly.
“Get it!” the other repeated, with a smile. “They blew it into scrap
metal.”
“Plenty of movement in your life!”
“I've run the gauntlet over there once too often,” Horridge said grimly.
“Just look at me now, Sir Henry. I'm twenty-nine years old, and it's
only two years and a half since I was invalided out of the navy and
took this job on. The last person I asked to guess my age put me down at
fifty. What should you have said?”
“Somewhere near it,” was the candid admission. “Never mind, Horridge,
you've done your bit. You shall pass on your experience to a new hand,
take your pension and try the south coast of England for a few months.
Now let's get on with it. You know what I want to hear about.”
Horridge produced from his pocket a long strip of paper.
“They're there, sir,” he announced, “coaled to the scuppers, every man
standing to stations and steam up. There's the list.”
He handed the paper across to Sir Henry, who glanced it down.
“The fast cruiser squadron,” he observed. “Hm! Three new ships we
haven't any note of. No transports, then, Horridge?'”
“Not a sign of one, sir,” was the reply. “They're after a bombardment.”
He rose to his feet, walked to a giant map of England, and touched a
certain port on the east coast. Sir Henry's eyes glistened.
“You're sure?”
“It is a certainty,” Horridge replied. “I've been on three of those
ships. I've dined with four of the officers. They're under sealed
orders, and the crew believes that they're going to escort out half
a dozen commerce destroyers. But I have the truth. That's their
objective,” Horridge repeated, touching once more the spot upon the map,
“and they are waiting just for one thing.”
Sir Henry smiled thoughtfully.
“I know what they're waiting for,” he said. “Perhaps if they'd a Herr
Horridge to send over here for it, they'd have got it before now. As
it is--well, I'm not sure,” he went on. “It seems a pity to disappoint
them, doesn't it? I'd love to give them a run for their money.”
Horridge smiled faintly. He knew a good deal about his companion.
“They're spoiling for it, sir,” he admitted. Sir Henry spoke down a
telephone and a few minutes later Ensol reappeared.
“Find Mr. Horridge a comfortable room,” his chief directed, “and one of
our confidential typists. You can make out your report at your leisure,”
he went on. “Come in and see me when it's all finished.”
“Certainly, sir,” Horridge replied, rising.
Sir Henry held out his hand. He looked with something like wonder at
the nerve-shattered man who had risen to his feet with a certain air of
briskness.
“Horridge,” he said, “I wish I had your pluck.”
“I don't know any one in the service from whom you need borrow any,
sir,” was the quiet reply.
CHAPTER XIX
Lessingham sat upon a fallen tree on Dutchman's Common near the scene
of his romantic descent, and looked rather ruefully over the moorland,
seawards. Above him, the sky was covered with little masses of quickly
scudding clouds. A fugitive and watery sunshine shone feebly upon a
wind-tossed sea and a rain-sodden landscape. He found a certain grim
satisfaction in comparing the disorderliness of the day with the tumult
in his own life. He felt that he had embarked upon an enterprise greater
than his capacity, for which he was in many ways entirely unsuitable.
And behind him was the scourge of the telegram which he had received a
few hours ago, a telegram harmless enough to all appearance, but which,
decoded, was like a scourge to his back.
Your work is unsatisfactory and your slackness deserves reprobation.
Great events wait upon you. The object of your search is necessary for
our imminent operations.
The sound of a horse's hoofs disturbed him. Captain Griffiths, on a
great bay mare, glanced curiously at the lonely figure by the roadside,
and then pulled up.
“Back again, Mr. Lessingham?” he remarked.
“As you see.”
The Commandant fidgeted with his horse for a moment. Then he approached
a little nearer to Lessingham's side.
“You are a good walker, I perceive, Mr. Lessingham,” he remarked.
“When the fancy takes me,” was the equable reply.
“Have you come out to see our new guns?”
“I had no idea,” Lessingham answered indifferently, “that you had any.”
Griffiths smiled.
“We have a small battery of anti-aircraft guns, newly arrived from
the south of England,” he said. “The secret of their coming and their
locality has kept the neighbourhood in a state of ferment for the last
week.”
Lessingham remained profoundly uninterested.
“They most of them spotted the guns,” his companion continued, “but not
many of them have found the searchlights yet.”
“It seems a little late in the year,” Lessingham observed, “to be making
preparations against Zeppelins.”
“Well, they cross here pretty often, you know,” Griffiths reminded him.
“It's only a matter of a few weeks ago that one almost came to grief
on this common. We picked up their observation car not fifty yards from
where you are sitting.”
“I remember hearing about it,” Lessingham acknowledged.
“By-the-by,” the Commandant continued, smoothing his horse's neck,
“didn't you arrive that evening or the evening after?”
“I believe I did.”
“Liverpool Street or King's Cross? The King's Cross train was very
nearly held up.”
“I didn't come by train at all,” Lessingham replied, glancing for a
moment into the clouds, “And now I come to think of it, it must have
been the evening after.”
“Fine county for motoring,” Griffiths continued, stroking his horse's
head.
“The roads I have been on seem very good,” was the somewhat bored
admission.
“You haven't a car of your own here, have you?”
“Not at present.”
Captain Griffiths glanced between his horse's ears for a few moments.
Then he turned once more towards his companion.
“Mr. Lessingham,” he said, “you are aware that I am Commandant here?”
“I believe,” Lessingham replied, “that Lady Cranston told me so.”
“It is my duty, therefore,” Griffiths went on, “to take a little more
than ordinary interest in casual visitors, especially at this time
of the year. The fact that you are well-known to Lady Cranston is, of
course, an entirely satisfactory explanation of your presence here.
At the same time, there is certain information concerning strangers of
which we keep a record, and in your case there is a line or two which we
have not been able to fill up.”
“If I can be of any service,” Lessingham murmured.
“Precisely,” the other interrupted. “I knew you would feel like that.
Now your arrival here--we have the date, I think--October 6th. As you
have just remarked, you didn't come by train. How did you come?”
Lessingham's surprise was apparently quite genuine.
“Is that a question which you ask me to answer--officially?” he
enquired.
His interlocutor shrugged his shoulders.
“I am not putting official questions to you at all,” he replied, “nor
am I cross-examining you, as might be my duty, under the circumstances,
simply because your friendship with the Cranstons is, of course, a
guarantee as to your position. But on the other hand, I think it would
be reasonable if you were to answer my question.”
Lessingham nodded.