'You idiot!' he thundered. 'She isn't coming back! Now pull yourself together, do you hear? Listen to me. You're half drunk, but I am going to tell you something that ought to sober you. That woman Félanie is a born German, and a spy. What have you given her?'
Even through the bluster of his stormy denial, Lenwade was obviously shaken.
'What bally rot!' he exclaimed. 'She's a Frenchwoman to her finger-tips. They all love her. Didn't you hear her sing—Marseillaise? Frenchwoman to her finger——'
'Shut up!' Lavendale interrupted fiercely. 'I tell you I knew her nine years ago under another name. She is a German, and it's my belief she's a spy, she and Anders. What have they worked on you? Out with it, man!'
Lenwade swayed on his feet. He looked back across his shoulder to a roll-top writing desk which stood open. Then he snatched up a tumbler from the table by his side, filled it with soda-water and drank it off.
'Lavendale, you're not in earnest!'
'In God's own earnest, man! Quick, if you want to repair the mischief you've done, tell me what you gave her?'
'I've lent her my plans,' Lenwade faltered. 'I've been two months making them, up above the clouds. I'm the only real draughtsman amongst those who can keep high enough—plans of the German fortifications and the railways behind, from the coast beyond where our lines touch the French. I say, Lavendale——!'
There was no Lavendale. He sprang down the stairs three at a time, out into the street and at a double into Piccadilly, where he sprang into a passing taxicab.
'Milan! Look sharp!' he ordered.