"Pte. Sims, eight o'clock," he read.
Sims was on leave until eight.
"I'll wait and investigate," thought John, "when he is safely in his quarters."
He went to his room after that, took the cartridges out of his Colt automatic revolver and examined the weapon closely. Having reloaded the pistol, he slipped it into his hip pocket.
At eight o'clock, when John passed across the asphalt pavement between the officers' quarters and the kitchen, he was able to observe Sims, who was fond of his bake-house, sitting in the open doorway of the bakehouse itself, innocently reading the morning's paper. He appeared not to be aware of John's departure, and continued to read.
Manton, in the meantime, made his way towards the sentinel-guarded wire entanglements. A tall, double ladder, spanning the entanglement, here permitted exit on to the cliff edge behind the fort. The ladder was a temporary affair, drawn in always at night, thus making the fort, with the aid of the sentries, impregnable from the rear.
The sun was low in the west when John reached the expanse of sand whereon "Crumbs" had occupied himself. Once upon the shore, it was the simplest matter in the world to trace "Crumbs's" path. He walked briskly, following the man's footsteps, full of a keen desire to know what "Crumbs" had been doing. No ordinary purpose, thought John, had been at the back of "Crumbs's" operations. Nevertheless, an ordinary observer watching, as John had watched, would have entertained no suspicion at all.
"Perhaps," mused John, as he followed "Crumbs's" irregular footprints, "I am a fool for my pains! He may be the mere aimless nonentity he seems to be." He remembered that "Crumbs" was known to be a collector of shells, that he spent a good deal of time searching for specimens upon the foreshore. A baker and a conchologist are incongruous mixtures at any time. Especially were they incongruous on that coast where shells are almost non-existent. Keenly interested he drew nearer to the spot whereon "Crumbs" had occupied himself, but the smooth sand was undisturbed save for the man's heavy-footed indentations.
John's spirits instantly fell. There was nothing upon that spot which in the slightest degree could arouse his suspicions. The sand was smooth and firm, with round, sea-eroded pebbles plentifully scattered here and there—the usual pebbles that lay in thousands upon the beach.
"After all, I was a fool!" thought John.