“Very likely not; the weather was very thick, and the Dulce is very small.”
The incongruity of the whole business was striking me. Why should anyone want to kill Davies, and why should Davies, the soul of modesty and simplicity, imagine that anyone wanted to kill him? He must have cogent reasons, for he was the last man to give way to a morbid fancy.
“Go on,” I said. “What was his motive? A German finds an Englishman exploring a bit of German coast, determines to stop him, and even to get rid of him. It looks so far as if you were thought to be the spy.
Davies winced. “But he’s not a German,” he said, hotly. “He’s an Englishman.”
“An Englishman?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it. Not that I’ve much to go on. He professed to know very little English, and never spoke it, except a word or two now and then to help me out of a sentence; and as to his German, he seemed to me to speak it like a native; but, of course, I’m no judge.” Davies sighed. “That’s where I wanted someone like you. You would have spotted him at once, if he wasn’t German. I go more by a—what do you call it?—a——”
“General impression,” I suggested.
“Yes, that’s what I mean. It was something in his looks and manner; you know how different we are from foreigners. And it wasn’t only himself, it was the way he talked—I mean about cruising and the sea, especially. It’s true he let me do most of the talking; but, all the same—how can I explain it? I felt we understood one another, in a way that two foreigners wouldn’t.
“He pretended to think me a bit crazy for coming so far in a small boat, but I could swear he knew as much about the game as I did; for lots of little questions he asked had the right ring in them. Mind you, all this is an afterthought. I should never have bothered about it—I’m not cut out for a Sherlock Holmes—if it hadn’t been for what followed.”
“It’s rather vague,” I said. “Have you no more definite reason for thinking him English?”