The Spy in Black

by J. Storer Clouston

"Suspect!" I cried. "We are not idiots, and why should we pretend to be?"

And so I went up to my room and spent the most miserable and restless day of my life. How slowly the hours passed, no words of mine can give the faintest idea. In my present state of mind writing was impossible, and I tried to distract myself by reading novels; but they were English novels, and every word in them seemed to gall me. I implored Eileen to come and keep me company. She came up once for a little, but the devil seemed to have possessed her, for I felt no sympathy coming from her at all; and when at last I tried to be a little affectionate she first repulsed me, saying it was no time for that, and then she left me. With baffled love added to acute anxiety, you can picture my condition!

For the first part of that horrible day I kept listening for some sign of the police, and now and then looking out from the skylight at the back, but the watcher was no longer visible, and not a fresh step or voice was to be heard in the house. My door stood locked, my fire was blazing, and my papers lay ready to be consumed, and at moments I positively longed to see them blazing and myself arrested, and get it over, yet nothing happened.

In the afternoon the direction of my thoughts began to change as the hour approached when the fleet should sail and my country reap the reward of the enterprise and fidelity which I felt conscious I had shown, and the sacrifice which I feared I should have to make. I began to make brief visits to the parlour to look out of the window and see if I could see any signs of movement in the Armada. And then for the second time I saw Tiel in a genial cheerful humour, and this time there was no doubt of the cause. He too was in a state of tension, and his mind, like mine, was running on the coming drama. In fact, as the afternoon wore on, his thoughts were so entirely wrapped up in this that he frankly talked of nothing else. Was I sure we should have at least four submarines? he asked me; and would they be brought well in and take the risk? Indeed, I never heard him ask so many questions, or appear so pleased as he did when I reassured him on all these points.

As for Eileen, she was quite as excited as either of us, and when Tiel was not asking me questions, she was; until once again prudence drove me back to my room. On one of my visits she gave us some tea, but that is the only meal I remember any of us eating between our early and hurried lunch and the evening when the crash came.

The one thing I looked for as I gazed out of that window was the rising of smoke from the battle-fleet, and at last I saw it. Stream after stream, black or grey, gradually mounted, first from one leviathan and then from another, till the air was darkened hundreds of feet above them, and if our flotilla were in such a position that they could look for this sign, they must have seen it. This time I returned to my room with a heart a little lightened.

"I have done my duty," I said to myself, "come what may of it!"

And I do not think that any impartial reader will deny that, so far as my own share of this enterprise was concerned, I had done my very utmost to make it succeed.

The next time I came down my spirits rose higher still, and for the moment I quite forgot the danger in which I stood. The light cruisers, the advance-guard of the fleet, were beginning to move! This time when I went back to my room I forced myself to read two whole chapters of a futile novel before I again took off the lid and peeped in to see how the stew was cooking. The instant I had finished the second chapter I leapt up and opened the door—and then I stood stock-still and listened. A distant sound of voices reached me, and a laugh rang out that was certainly neither Tiel's nor Eileen's.

I locked my door, slipped back again, and prepared to burn my papers; but though I stood over the fire for minute after minute, there was no sound of approaching steps. Very quietly I opened the door and listened once more, and still I heard voices. And thus I lingered and hesitated for more than an hour. By this time the attack had probably been made, and I could stand the suspense no longer, so I went recklessly downstairs, strode along the passage, and opened the parlour door.