“I have been doing my aunt’s behests,” he explained. “My strict orders were to make myself agreeable to a young woman who lives in a sort of bluebeard’s house, where no visitors are allowed and smiling is prohibited.”
Geraldine looked across at Isabel Worth.
“I never met Miss Worth before,” she said. “I believe her father is wonderfully clever. Did I hear you say that you were going out of town?”
Granet nodded.
“I am going away for a few days. I am going away,” he added, dropping his voice, “ostensibly for a change of air. I have another reason for going.”
He looked at her steadfastly and she forgot her vague misgivings of a few minutes ago. After all, his perceptions were right. It was better for him to leave London for a time.
“I hope the change will do you good,” she said quietly. “I think, perhaps, you are right to go.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Table of Contents
Granet, a few days later, brought his car to a standstill in front of an ordinary five-barred gate upon which was painted in white letters “Market Burnham Hall.” A slight grey mist was falling and the country inland was almost blotted from sight. On the other side of the gate a sandy driver disappeared into an avenue of ragged and stunted elm trees, which effectually concealed any view of the house.
“Seems as though the girl were right,” Granet muttered to himself. “However, here goes.”
He backed his car close to the side of the hedge, and laying his hand upon the latch of the gate, prepared to swing it open. Almost immediately a figure stepped out from the shrubs.
“Halt!”
Granet looked with surprise at the khaki-clad figure.
“Your name and destination?” the man demanded.
“Captain Granet of the Royal Fusiliers, home from the Front on leave,” Granet replied. “I was going up to the Hall to call on Miss Worth.”
“Stay where you are, if you please, sir,” the man replied.
He stepped back into the sentry box and spoke through a telephone. In a moment or two he reappeared.
“Pass on, please, sir,” he said.
Granet walked slowly up the avenue, his hands behind him, a frown upon his forehead. Perhaps, after all, things were not to be so easy for him. On either side he could see the stretches of sand, and here and there the long creeks of salt water. As he came nearer to the house, the smell of the sea grew stronger, the tops of the trees were more bowed than ever, sand was blown everywhere across the hopeless flower-beds. The house itself, suddenly revealed, was a grim weather-beaten structure, built on the very edge of a queer, barrow-like tongue of land which ended with the house itself. The sea was breaking on the few yards of beach sheer below the windows. To his right was a walled garden, some lawns and greenhouses; to the left, stables, a garage, and two or three labourer’s cottages. At the front door another soldier was stationed doing sentry duty. He stood on one side, however, and allowed Granet to ring the bell.
“Officers quartered here?” Granet inquired.
“Only one, sir,” the man replied.
The door was opened almost immediately by a woman-servant. She did not wait for Granet to announce himself but motioned him to follow her into a large, circular, stone hall, across which she led him quickly and threw open the door of the drawing-room. Isabel Worth was standing just inside the room, as though listening. She held out her hand and there was no doubt about her welcome.
“Captain Granet,” she said almost in a whisper, “of course you’ll think we are all mad, but would you mind coming upstairs into my little sitting-room?”
“Of course not,” Granet acquiesced. “I’ll come anywhere, with pleasure. What a view you have from here!”
He glanced through the high windows at the other end of the room. She laid her fingers upon his arm and led him towards the door.
“Quietly, please,” she whispered. “Try and imagine that you are in a house of conspirators.”
She led him up the quaint stone staircase, spiral-shaped, to the first floor. Arrived there, she paused to listen for a moment, then breathed a little more freely and led him to a small sitting-room at the end of a long passage. It was a pleasant little apartment and looked sheer out over the sea. She threw herself down upon a sofa with a sigh of relief, and pointed to a chair.
“Do sit down, Captain Granet,” she begged. “I am really not in the least insane but father is. You know, I got back on Wednesday night and was met at once with stern orders that no visitors of any sort were to be received, that the tradespeople were to be interviewed at the front gates—in fact that the house was to be in a state of siege.”
Granet appeared puzzled.
“But why?”
“Simply because dad has gone out of his senses,” she replied wearily. “Look here.”
She led him cautiously to the window and pointed downwards. About fifty yards out at sea was a queer wooden structure, set up on strong supports. From where they were, nothing was to be seen but a windowless wall of framework and a rope ladder. Underneath, a boat was tethered to one of the supports. About thirty yards away, a man was rowing leisurely around in another small boat.
“That’s where father spends about twelve hours a day,” she said. “What he is doing no one knows. He won’t even allow me to speak of it. When we meet at meals, I am not supposed to allude to the fact that he has been out in that crazy place. If ever he happens to speak of it, he calls it his workshop.”
“But he is not alone there?” Granet asked.
“Oh, no! There are two or three men from London, and an American, working with him. Then do you see the corner of the garden there?”
She pointed to a long barn or boathouse almost upon the beach. Before the door two sentries were standing. Even from where they sat they could hear the faint whirr of a dynamo.
“There are twenty men at work in there,” she said. “They all sleep in the barn or the potting sheds. They are not allowed even to go down to the village. Now, perhaps, you can begin to understand, Captain Granet, what it is like to be here.”
“Well, it all sounds very interesting,” he remarked, “but I should think it must be deadly for you. Your father invents no end of wonderful things, doesn’t he?”
“If he does, he never speaks about it,” the girl answered a little bitterly. “All that he wants from me is my absence or my silence. When I came back the other night, he was furious. If he’d thought about it, I’m sure he’d have had me stay in London. Now that I am here, though, I am simply a prisoner.”
Granet resumed his seat and lit the cigarette which she insisted upon his smoking.
“Well,” he observed, “it does seem hard upon you, Miss Worth. On the other hand, it really is rather interesting, isn’t it, to think that your father is such a man of mysteries?”
The girl sighed.
“I suppose so,” she admitted, “but then, you see, father is almost brutal about taking any one into his confidence. He never tells even me a thing, or encourages me to ask a question. I think for that reason I have grown rather to resent his work and the ridiculous restriction he places upon my freedom because of it.”
A parlourmaid entered with tea, a few minutes later, and Granet moved to his hostess’ side upon the sofa. He showed no more interest in outside happenings. He was an adept at light conversation and he made himself thoroughly agreeable for the next hour. Then he rose quickly to his feet.
“I must go,” he declared.
She sighed.
“It has been so nice to have you here,” she said, “but if you only knew how difficult it was to arrange, it, you’d understand why I hesitate to ask you to come again.”
“Why shouldn’t you come and lunch with me to-morrow at the Golf Club?” he asked.
She hesitated. It was obvious that the suggestion appealed to her.
“I believe I could,” she assented. “Captain Chalmers has a small motor-car he’d lend me, and if I go out with my golf clubs it woul
d be all right. Very likely father will sleep out there and we sha’n’t see anything of him until to-morrow.”
Granet stepped once more to the window. The mists had rolled up more thickly than ever and the queer little structure was almost invisible. A bright light, however, fell upon the water a little distance away.
“Your father has electric light out there,” he remarked.
“Yes, they have a wire from the shed,” she told him. “Whatever he’s trying to do, he needs a very intense and concentrated light at times.”
Granet drew a little sigh.
“Well, I hope it’s something that’ll do us a bit of good,” he said. “We need it. The Germans are miles ahead of us with regard to all new-fangled ideas.”
She opened her lips and closed them again. Granet, who had suddenly stiffened into rigid attention, felt a quick impulse of disappointment.
“I have rung the bell for my own maid,” she said. “She will show you out of the place. Don’t let any one see you, if you can help it.”
“And to-morrow?” he asked. “You will lunch with me?”
“I will be at the Golf Club,” she promised, “at one o’clock.”
Granet was conducted almost stealthily down the stairs and into the avenue. Half-way to the gate he paused to listen. He was hidden from sight now by the gathering twilight and the rolling mists. From behind the house came the softly muffled roar of the tide sweeping in, and, with sharper insistence, the whirr of machinery from the boathouse. Granet lit a cigarette and walked thoughtfully away. Just as he climbed into the car, a peculiar light through the trees startled him. He stood up and watched. From the top of the house a slowly revolving searchlight played upon the waters.
CHAPTER XIX
Table of Contents
It was a very cheerful little party dining that night at the Dormy House Club. There was Granet; Geoffrey Anselman, his cousin, who played for Cambridge and rowed two; Major Harrison, whose leave had been extended another three weeks; and the secretary of the club, who made up the quartette.
“By-the-bye, where were you this afternoon, Captain Granet?” the latter asked. “You left Anselman to play our best ball. Jolly good hiding he gave us, too.”
“Went out for a spin,” Granet explained, “and afterwards fell fast asleep in my room. Wonderful air, yours, you know,” he went on.
“I slept like a top last night,” Major Harrison declared. “The first three nights I was home I never closed my eyes.”
Granet leaned across the table to the secretary.
“Dickens,” he remarked, “that’s a queer-looking fellow at the further end of the room. Who is he?”
The secretary glanced around and smiled.
“You mean that little fellow with the glasses and the stoop? He arrived last night and asked for a match this morning. You see what a miserable wizened-up looking creature he is? I found him a twelve man and he wiped the floor with me. Guess what his handicap is?”
“No idea,” Granet replied. “Forty, I should think.”
“Scratch at St. Andrews,” Dickens told them. “His name’s Collins. I don’t’ know anything else about him. He’s paid for a week and we’re jolly glad to get visitors at all these times.”
“Bridge or billiards?” young Anselman asked, rising.
“Let’s play billiards,” Granet suggested. “The stretching across the table does me good.”
“We’ll have a snooker, then,” Major Harrison decided.
They played for some time. The wizened-looking little man came and watched them benevolently, peering every now and then through his spectacles, and applauding mildly any particularly good stroke. At eleven o’clock they turned out the lights and made their way to their rooms. Shortly before midnight, Granet, in his dressing-gown, stole softly across the passage and opened, without knocking, the door of a room opposite to him. The wizened-looking little man was seated upon the edge of the bed, half-dressed. Granet turned the key in the lock, stood for a moment listening and swung slowly around.
“Well?” he exclaimed softly.
The tenant of the room nodded. He had taken off his glasses and their absence revealed a face of strong individuality. He spoke quietly but distinctly.
“You have explored the house?”
“As far as I could,” Granet replied. “The place is almost in a state of siege.”
“Proves that we are on the right track, any way. What’s that building that seems to stand out in the water?”
“How do you know about it?” Granet demanded.
“I sailed out this evening, hired a boat at Brancaster Staithe. The fellow wouldn’t go anywhere near Market Burnham, though, and I’m rather sorry I tried to make him. They’ve got the scares here, right enough, Granet. I asked him to let me the boat for a week and he wasn’t even civil about it. Didn’t want no strangers around these shores, he told me. When I paid him for the afternoon he was surly about it and kept looking at my field-glasses.”
Granet frowned heavily.
“It isn’t going to be an easy matter,” he confessed. “I hear the Admiralty are going to take over the whole thing within the next few days, and are sending Marines down. How’s the time?”
They glanced at their watches. It was five minutes before midnight. As though by common consent, they both crossed to the window and stood looking out into the darkness. A slight wind was moving amongst the treetops, the night was clear but moonless. About half a mile away they could just discern a corner of the club-house. They stood watching it in silence. At five minutes past twelve, Granet shut his watch with a click.
“Not to-night, then,” he whispered. “Collins!”
“Well?”
“What is going on in that wooden shanty?”
The little man dropped his voice.
“Germany lost two submarines in one day,” he murmured. “The device which got them came from that little workshop of Worth’s. The plans are probably there or on the premises somewhere.”
Granet groaned.
“As a matter of fact I have been within a few yards of the thing,” he said. “It was all fenced around with match-boarding.”
“Do you mean that you have been allowed on board the Scorpion?”
Granet nodded.
“I had the rottenest luck,” he declared. “I took Miss Conyers and her friend down to see her brother, Commander Conyers. We were invited to lunch on board. At the last moment we were turned off. Through some glasses from the roof of the ‘Ship’ I saw some workmen pull down the match-boarding, but I couldn’t make out what the structure was.”
“I can give you an idea,” Collins remarked. “This fellow Worth has got hold of some system of concentric lenses, with extraordinary reflectors which enable him to see distinctly at least thirty feet under water. Then they have a recording instrument, according to which they alter the gradient of a new gun, with shells that explode under water. Von Lowitz was on the track of something of this sort last year, but he gave it up chiefly because Krupps wouldn’t guarantee him a shell.”
“Krupps gave it up a little too soon, then,” Granet muttered. “Collins, if we can’t smash up this little establishment there’ll be a dozen destroyers before long rigged up with this infernal contrivance.”
The little man stood before the window and gazed steadfastly out seawards.
“They’ll be here this week,” he said confidently. “You’d better go now, Granet. It’s all over for to-night.”
Granet nodded and left the room quietly. Every one in the Dormy House was sound asleep. He made his way back to his own apartment without difficulty. Only the little man remained seated at the window, with his eyes fixed upon the bank of murky clouds which lowered over the sea.
CHAPTER XX
Table of Contents
Isabel Worth leaned back in the comfortable seat by Granet’s side and breathed a little sigh of content. She had enjoyed her luncheon party a deux, their stroll along the sands afterwards, and she was fully
prepared to enjoy this short drive homewards.
“What a wonderful car yours is!” she murmured. “But do tell me—what on earth have you got in behind?”
“It’s just a little experimental invention of a friend of mine,” he explained. “Some day we are going to try it on one of these creeks. It’s a collapsible canvas boat.”
“Don’t try it anywhere near us,” she laughed. “Two of the fishermen from Wells sailed in a little too close to the shed yesterday and the soldiers fired a volley at them.”
Garnet made a grimace.
“Do you know I am becoming most frightfully curious about your father’s work?” he observed.
“Are you really?” she replied carelessly. “For my part, I wouldn’t even take the trouble to climb up the ladder into the workshop.”
“But you must know something about what is going on there?” Granet persisted.
“I really don’t,” she assured him. “It’s some wonderful invention, I believe, but I can’t help resenting anything that makes us live like hermits, suspect even the tradespeople, give up entertaining altogether, give up even seeing our friends. I hope you are not going to hurry away, Captain Granet. I haven’t had a soul to speak to down here for months.”
“I don’t think I shall go just yet,” he answered. “I want first to accomplish what I came here for.”
She turned her head very slowly and looked at him. There was quite a becoming flush upon her cheeks.
“What did you come for?” she asked softly.
He was silent for a moment. Already his foot was on the brake of the car; they were drawing near the plain, five-barred gates.
“Perhaps I am not quite sure about that myself,” he whispered.
They had come to a standstill. She descended reluctantly.
“I hate to send you away,” she sighed, “it seems so inhospitable. Will you come in for a little time? The worst that can happen, if we meet dad, is that he might be rather rude.”
“I’ll risk it with pleasure,” Granet replied.
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