"This? No. Why?"
"I was curious, that's all." He looked at me with a queer, quizzical expression, and then laughed softly. "You will understand my question directly, but for the moment let us get on. What sort of person should you say made those drawings and wrote that description?"
I am no Sherlock Holmes; but any one who has had some acquaintance with engineers and their handiwork can recognise the professional touch.
"These drawings are the work of a trained draughtsman, and the writing is that of a draughtsman. One can tell by the neatness and the technique of the shading."
"Right first time," said Dawson approvingly. "At present I have that draughtsman comfortably locked up; we picked him out of the drawing office at ——" he named a famous yard in which had been built one of the ships of the class illustrated upon the paper in my hands.
"Poor devil," I said. "What is the cause—drink, women, or the pressure of high prices and a large family?"
"None of them. His employers give him the best of characters, he gets good pay, is a man over military age, and has, so far as the police can learn, no special embarrassments. He owns his house, and has two or three hundred pounds in the War Loan."
"Then why in the name of wonder has the schweinehund sold his country?"
"He declares that he never received a penny for supplying the information upon that paper, and we have no evidence of any outside payments to him. He did not attempt to conceal his handwriting, and when I made inquiries of his firm, he owned up at once that the paper was his work. He said that for years past he had given particulars of ships under construction to the same parties as on this occasion. He admitted that to do so was contrary to regulations, especially in wartime, but thought that under the circumstances he was doing no harm. I am not exactly a credulous person, and I have heard some tall stories in my time, but for once I am inclined to believe that the man is speaking the truth. I believe that he received no money, and was acting throughout in good faith."
"I am more and more puzzled. What in the world can the circumstances be which could induce an experienced middle-aged man, employed in highly confidential work in a great shipyard, not only to break faith and lose his job, but to stick his neck into a rope and his feet on the drop of a gallows. Reveal the mystery."