"Show Mr. Reynolds out, Jaimihr!" the general ordered. "Then you may bring the young man in."
Mr. Billy Capper, who had, in truth, telephoned to Government House and secured the privilege of an interview even before the arrival of Woodhouse to report, and had paced the paths of the Alameda since, blowing hot and cold on his resolutions, followed the soft-footed Indian into the presence of General Crandall. The little spy was near a state of nervous breakdown. Following the surprising and unexpected collapse of his plan to do a murder, he had spent a wakeful and brandy-punctuated night, his brain on the rack. His desire to play informer, heightened now a hundred-fold by the flaying tongue of Louisa, was almost balanced by his fears of resultant consequences. Cupidity, the old instinct for preying, drove him to impart to the governor-general of Gibraltar information which, he hoped, would be worth its weight in gold; Louisa's promise of a party à deux before a firing squad, which he knew in his heart she would be capable of arranging in a desperate moment, halted him. After screwing up his courage to the point of telephoning for an appointment, Capper had wallowed in fear. He dared not stay away from Government House then for fear of arousing suspicion; equally he dared not involve the girl from the Wilhelmstrasse lest he find himself tangled in his own mesh.
At the desperate moment of his introduction to General Crandall, Capper determined to play it safe and see how the chips fell. His heart quailed as he heard the doors shut behind him.
"Awfully good of you to see me," he babbled as he stood before the desk, turning his hat brim through his fingers like a prayer wheel.
General Crandall bade him be seated. "I haven't forgotten you did me a service in Burma," he added.
"Oh, yes—of course," Capper managed to answer. "But that was my job. I got paid for that."
"You're not with the Brussels secret-service people any longer, then?"
The question hit Capper hard. His fingers fluttered to his lips.
"No, General. They—er—let me go. Suppose you heard that—and a lot of other things about me. That I was a rotter—that I drank——"
"What I heard was not altogether complimentary," the other answered judiciously. "I trust it was untrue."