"Why, they give me plenty of time to enjoy myself," he answered, with a light laugh. "They say in 1932——"
"Nineteen thirty-two!" Doctor Koch stepped lightly to the closed folding doors, trundled them back an inch to assure himself nobody was in the waiting-room, then closed and locked them. He did similarly by a hidden door on the opposite side of the room, which Woodhouse had not seen. After that he pulled a chair close to his visitor and sat down, his knees almost touching the other's. He spoke very low, in German:
"If your trouble is so serious that you will die—in 1932, I must, of course, examine you for—symptoms."
For half a minute the two men looked fixedly at each other. Woodhouse's right hand went slowly to the big green scarab stuck in his cravat. He pulled the pin out, turned it over in his fingers, and by pressure caused the scarab to pop out of the gold-backed setting holding it. The bit of green stone lay in the palm of his left hand, its back exposed. In the hollowed back of the beetle was a small square of paper, folded minutely. This Woodhouse removed, unfolded and passed to the physician. The latter seized it avidly, holding it close to his spectacled eyes, and then spreading it against the light as if to read a secret water mark. A smile struggled through the jungle of his beard. He found Woodhouse's hand and grasped it warmly.
"Your symptom tallies with my diagnosis, Nineteen Thirty-two," he began rapidly. "Five days ago we heard from—the Wilhelmstrasse—you would come. We have expected you each day, now. Already we have got word through to our friends at Gibraltar of the plan; they are waiting for you."
"Good!" Woodhouse commented. He was busy refolding the thin slip of paper that had been his talisman, and fitting it into the back of the scarab. "Woodhouse—he is already at the Hotel Khedive; saw his name on the register when I landed from the Castle this morning." Now the captain was talking in familiar German.
"Quite so," Doctor Koch put in. "Woodhouse came down from Wady Halfa yesterday. Our man up there had advised of the time of his arrival in Alexandria to the minute. The captain has his ticket for the Princess Mary, which sails for Gibraltar day after to-morrow at dawn."
Number Nineteen Thirty-two listened to Doctor Koch's outlining of the plot with set features; only his eyes showed that he was acutely alive to every detail. Said he:
"But Woodhouse—this British captain who's being transferred from the Nile country to the Rock; has he ever served there before? If he has, why, when I get there—when I am Captain Woodhouse, of the signal service—I will be embarrassed if I do not know the ropes."
"Seven years ago Woodhouse was there for a very short time," Doctor Koch explained. "New governor since then—changes all around in the personnel of the staff, I don't doubt. You'll have no trouble."