"This is Peter Ramsay speaking," he said, "from the Hatchets' Light. I have just sighted three submarines due north of the Hatchets'."
He paused. Then, with a rush, he said:
"Trap! Germans in light-house, forcing me to say this!"
The hand of one of his captors struck down the hook of the receiver. In the same instant, the shot rang out, and Peter Ramsay dropped sidelong, a mere bundle of old clothes and white hair, dabbled with blood.
The German at the telephone replaced the receiver on the hook which he was still holding down.
"Crazy old fool," muttered Bernstein. He was staring at the red-lined scrap-book on the bed. It lay open at a page describing in Peter's big sprawling hand, an open-air service among some Welsh miners which he had once witnessed, a memorial service on the day of Gladstone's funeral. He had been greatly impressed by their choral singing of what was supposed to be Gladstone's favorite hymn, and it ended with a quotation:
"While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyelids close in death,
When I soar through tracts unknown,
See Thee on Thy Judgment Throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me.
Let me hide myself in Thee."
The murderer stooped and laid the revolver near the right hand of the dead man. One of his men touched him on the elbow as he did it, and pointed to Peter's own old-fashioned revolver on the little shelf beside the bed. Captain Bernstein nodded and smiled. The idea was a good one, and he put Peter's own revolver in his stiffening fingers. He had just succeeded in making it look quite a realistic suicide, when the telephone bell rang sharply, making him start upright, as if a hand were laid upon his shoulder. He took the receiver again and listened.
"Can't hear," he said, trying to imitate Peter's gruff voice. "No—I dropped the telephone on the floor—no—it was a mistake—no—I said three submarines—two hundred yards due north of the Hatchets' Light—all right, sir."
He hung the receiver up again, and looked at the others.