"Very good." Woodhouse slipped the roll into the breast pocket of his coat. Almer leaned forward in a gust of excitement, and, bringing his mouth close to the other's ear, whispered hoarsely:
"England's Mediterranean fleet—twenty-two dreadnaughts, with cruisers and destroyers—nearly a half of Britain's navy, will be here any day, hurrying back to guard the Channel. They will anchor in the straits. Our big moment—it will be here then! Listen! Room D in the signal tower—that is the room. All the electric switches are there. From Room D every mine in the harbor can be exploded in ten seconds."
"Yes, but how to get to Room D?" Woodhouse queried.
"Simple. Two doors to Room D, Captain; an outer door like any other; an inner door of steel, protected by a combination lock like a vault's door. Two men on the Rock have that combination: Major Bishop, chief signal officer, he has in it his head; the governor-general of the Rock, he has it in his safe."
"We can get it out of the safe easier than from Major Bishop's head," Woodhouse put in, with a smile.
"Right. We have a friend—in the governor's own house—a man with a number from the Wilhelmstrasse like you and me. At any moment in the last two months he could have laid a hand on that combination. But we thought it better to wait until necessity came. When the fleet arrives you will have that combination; you will go with it to Room D, and after that——"
"The deluge," the other finished.
"Yes—yes! Our country master of the sea at last, and by the work of the Wilhelmstrasse—despised spies who are shot like dogs when they're caught, but die heroes' deaths." The hotel proprietor checked himself in the midst of his rhapsody, and came back to more practical details:
"But this afternoon—that man from Alexandria who called you by name. That looked bad—very bad. He knows something?"
Woodhouse, who had been expecting the question, and who preferred not to share an anxiety he felt himself best fitted to cope with alone, turned the other's question aside: