Long before he had finished I had grasped the whole meaning of the last few days, and had read their meaning into scores of little incidents which had puzzled me.
“For goodness’ sake, don’t apologise,” I protested. “I could make confessions, too, if I liked. And I doubt if you’ve been such a fool as you think. I’m a patient that wants careful nursing, and it has been the merest chance all through that I haven’t rebelled and bolted. We’ve got a good deal to thank the weather for, and other little stimulants. And you don’t know yet my reasons for deciding to try your cure at all.”
“My cure?” said Davies; “what in the world do you mean? It was jolly decent of you to——”
“Never mind! There’s another view of it, but it doesn’t matter now. Let’s return to the point. What’s your plan of action?”
“It’s this,” was the prompt reply: “to get back to the North Sea, via Kiel and the ship canal. Then there will be two objects: one, to work back to Norderney, where I left off before, exploring all those channels through the estuaries and islands; the other, to find Dollmann, discover what he’s up to, and settle with him. The two things may overlap, we can’t tell yet. I don’t even know where he and his yacht are; but I’ll be bound they’re somewhere in those same waters, and probably back at Norderney.”
“It’s a delicate matter,” I mused, dubiously, “if your theory’s correct. Spying on a spy——”
“It’s not like that,” said Davies, indignantly. “Anyone who likes can sail about there and explore those waters. I say, you don’t really think it’s like that, do you?”
“I don’t think you’re likely to do anything dishonourable,” I hastened to explain. “I grant you the sea’s public property in your sense. I only mean that developments are possible, which you don’t reckon on. There must be more to find out than the mere navigation of those channels, and if that’s so, mightn’t we come to be genuine spies ourselves?”
“And, after all, hang it!” exclaimed Davies, “if it comes to that, why shouldn’t we? I look at it like this. The man’s an Englishman, and if he’s in with Germany he’s a traitor to us, and we as Englishmen have a right to expose him. If we can’t do it without spying we’ve a right to spy, at our own risk——”
“There’s a stronger argument than that. He tried to take your life.”