“Indeed!” Virginia exclaimed, arching her eyebrows. “What has he done?”
Gale’s grin broadened. “They accuse him of being a spy,” he declared.
“A spy!” cried the girl, with a nervous laugh. “Why, how perfectly absurd. Surely he will have no difficulty in disproving that charge.”
“Think so?” the reporter rejoined, a vestige of a sneer in his tone. “Well, I’m not so sure of that. It looks to me as if they’ve got the goods on him. He went out to the fortress last night and took a flash-light photograph of the fortifications. That’s a pretty serious business.”
“Flash light of the fortifications!” Virginia cried impulsively. “Is that what they think he was after?”
She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth, and would have given a great deal to be able to recall them, as she observed the astonished expression which came to the man’s face.
“What do you mean by that?” he demanded sharply. “Have you any reason to think that he was after anything else?”
The girl shrugged her shoulders. “How should I know what he was after?” she said indignantly. “What I meant was, that I scarcely thought it possible that he would have gone there for that reason. Mr. Hawley isn’t a spy; he is a newspaper man. It is much more logical to suppose that if he took any picture at all, it was a photograph of the fortress for publication in his paper.” A shade flitted across her face. “What does he say?” she demanded, striving desperately to keep all trace of anxiety out of her voice. “What explanation does he give?”
“That’s the queer part of it,” the reporter replied. “He won’t give any explanation at all. They tell me that he’s as tight-mouthed as a Wall Street magnate before a congressional investigation committee. To all questions they put to him last night he replied that he refused to answer, by advice of counsel. The idiot seems to take his arrest as a joke.”
An expression of admiration came to Virginia’s pretty face. She felt sure that she understood the reason for the Camera Chap’s uncommunicative attitude. It was not with an idea of making things easier for himself, she knew, that he had refused to answer their questions. It was because he was determined to make no statement which might lead Portiforo to suspect the truth, with disastrous results for the unfortunate captive of El Torro.