“Why?”
Furley had risen to his feet. He threw open the door and listened for a moment in the passage. When he came back he was carrying some oilskins.
“Julian,” he said, “I know you are a bit of a cynic about espionage and that sort of thing. Of course, there has been a terrible lot of exaggeration, and heaps of fellows go gassing about secret service jobs, all the way up the coast from here to Scotland, who haven’t the least idea what the thing means. But there is a little bit of it done, and in my humble way they find me an occasional job or two down here. I won’t say that anything ever comes of our efforts—we’re rather like the special constables of the secret service—but just occasionally we come across something suspicious.”
“So that’s why you’re going out again to-night, is it?”
Furley nodded.
“This is my last night. I am off up to town on Monday and sha’n’t be able to get down again this season.”
“Had any adventures?”
“Not the ghost of one. I don’t mind admitting that I’ve had a good many wettings and a few scares on that stretch of marshland, but I’ve never seen or heard anything yet to send in a report about. It just happens, though, that to-night there’s a special vigilance whip out.”
“What does that mean?” Julian enquired curiously.
“Something supposed to be up,” was the dubious reply. “We’ve a very imaginative chief, I might tell you.”