"We'll have to get inside," he said under his breath to Dick. But the villager heard, and laughed.
"Easy enough, if you're friends of his," he said. "If not—look out, master! He's got signs up warning off trespassers, and traps and spring guns all over the place. Wants to be very private, and all that, he does."
"Thanks," said Harry. "Perhaps we'd better not pay him a visit, after all."
The village was a sleepy little place, one of the few spots Harry had seen to which the war fever had not penetrated. It was not on the line of the railway, and there was not even a telegraph station. By showing Colonel Throckmorton's letter, Harry and Dick could have obtained the right to search the property that they suspected. But that did not seem wise.
"I don't think the village constables here could help us much, Dick," said Harry. "They'd give everything away, and we probably wouldn't accomplish anything except to put them on their guard. I vote we wait until dark and try to find out what we can by ourselves. It's risky but even if they catch us, I don't think we need to be afraid of their doing anything."
"I'm with you," said Dick. "We'll do whatever you say."
They spent the rest of the afternoon scouting around the neighboring country on their motorcycles, studying the estate from the roads that surrounded it. Bray Park, it was called, and it had for centuries belonged to an old family, which, however, had been glad of the high rent it had been able to extract from the rich American who had taken the place.
What they saw was that the grounds seemed to be surrounded, near the wall, by heavy trees, which made it difficult to see much of what was within. But in one place there was a break, so that, looking across velvety green lawns, they could see a small part of an old and weatherbeaten grey house. It appeared to be on a rise, and to stand several stories above the ground, so that it might well be an ideal place for the establishment of a heliograph station. But Harry's suspicions were beginning to take a new turn.
"I believe this is the biggest find we've made yet, Dick," he said. "I think we'll find that if we discover what is really going on here, we'll be at the end of our task—or very near it. It's just the place for a headquarters."
"I believe it is, Harry. And if they've been so particular to keep everything about it secret, it certainly seems that there must be something important to hide," suggested Harry, thinking deeply.