“I guessed it,” Granet replied coolly. “I not only guessed it but I came very near the key of the whole thing.”
A waiter appeared with the next course, followed by the wine steward, carrying champagne. Sir Alfred nodded approvingly.
“Just four minutes in the ice,” he instructed, “not longer. What you tell me about the champagne country is, I must confess, a relief,” he added, turning to Granet. “It may not affect us quite so much, but personally I believe that the whole world is happier and better when champagne is cheap. It is the bottled gaiety of the nation. A nation of ginger ale drinkers would be doomed before they reached the second generation. 1900 Pommery, this, Ronnie, and I drink your health. If I may be allowed one moment’s sentiment,” he added, raising his glass, “let me say that I drink your health from the bottom of my hear, with all the admiration which a man of my age feels for you younger fellows who are fighting for us and our country.”
They drank the toast in silence. In a moment or two they were alone again.
“Go on, Ronnie,” his uncle said. “I am interested.”
“I met Conyers the other day,” Granet proceeded, “the man who commands the Scorpion. I managed to get an invitation down to Portsmouth to have lunch with him on his ship. I went down with his sister and the young lady he is engaged to marry. On deck there was a structure of some sort covered up. I tried to make inquires about it but they headed me off pretty quick. There was even a sentry standing on guard before it—wouldn’t let me even feel the shape of it. However, I hadn’t given up hope when there came a wireless—no guests to be allowed on board. Conyers had to pack us all off back to the hotel, without stopping even for lunch. From the hotel I got a telescope and I saw a pinnace with half-a-dozen workmen, and a pilot who was evidently an engineer, land on board. They seemed to be completing the adjustments of some new piece of mechanism. Then they steamed away out of sight of the land.”
“A busy life, yours, Ronnie,” Sir Alfred remarked, after a moments pause. “What about it now? I’ve had two urgent messages from Berlin this morning.”
“It’s pretty difficult,” Granet acknowledged. “The Scorpion’s out in the Channel or the North Sea. No getting at her. And I don’t believe there’s another destroyer yet fitted with this apparatus, whatever it may be.”
“They must be making them somewhere, though,” Sir Alfred remarked.
His nephew nodded.