"That I shall not be able to twist the neck of that detestable little pig-dog, Billy, before I go. Ach, Anton, you do not know how I hate the little beast!"
"I do not love him myself," said the spy, seating himself beside her. "Listen, this is a good opportunity for us to talk without interruption, and there is much to be arranged. You will stay in London; I shall cross over to-morrow night from the usual place, for my information must be in the Kaiser's hands without delay. It is now June 20, and the great attack is to take place on the first day of July."
As he spoke he drew out a pocket-book, and the girl leaning over his shoulder read the words he wrote down rapidly while all he had overheard was still fresh in his memory.
"Is it possible?" murmured his female confederate. "Our time has not been wasted after all, then. Our people knew what they were doing when they sent us to this house."
"Our people always know what they are doing," said the sham Belgian, with a cunning leer. "What would you have? A family, the father of which is a brigadier-general at the front; the eldest son also a captain at the front; and the young boy on the point of joining the Army. They were just the very people likely to talk, to say nothing of that greatest fool of all, Uncle Staff Captain, who told me a great deal when he dined here on Wednesday. Ottilie, these English are lunatics, and it is not for nothing that we have opened their letters for the last six months without their discovering it. Still, I must confess I had never expected a piece of luck so complete and so timely as this," and he tapped the notebook in which he had recorded everything.
He stooped towards her and kissed with as much affection as lies in the German nature to bestow upon anyone outside itself, and when he spoke again his whisper was very earnest.
"You had a headache to-night—good. You can make the excuse in the morning to visit the pharmacy in Shaftesbury Avenue. I need not tell you where you will really go. But tell them that word must be sent to Fritz Hoffer to take me off at the old spot at seven o'clock to-morrow night."
"Are you certain of a train that will get you there in time?"
"I shall not bother about trains," he replied. "The Kilburn Rifles are doing coast duty there, and I will borrow Dennis Dashwood's motor-bike ten minutes after their car has left for Charing Cross. I shall be in the vicinity of Folkestone before their train arrives, and may possibly pass them in the Channel."