"You owe me a double whisky," said Cumberleigh solemnly.
"By Jove, I do!" admitted the second-in-command. "You were right about that Fennelburt fellow. They are on his track, but I've had no news of his capture."
"That's why we were detained," explained Cumberleigh. "There's a 'tec—Entwistle is his name—on the spy's track. Almost nabbed him at York, but he managed to slip through the 'tec's fingers. This Entwistle came to Leith to ask us certain questions. It appears that Fennelburt's real name is Karl von Preussen, and he's a don hand at the game."
It was early on the following morning that the light-cruiser flotilla came into Auldhaig Harbour. All had their funnels blistered and stripped of paint, testifying to the efforts of the engine-room staff to break all records in the matter of speed. After them came the destroyers, a few showing signs of having been in action.
In single column line ahead they stole on at reduced speed, their passing greeted with resounding cheers from the crews of the vessels at anchor and from dense crowds of spectators who lined the shore. Silently, as if too modest to take unto themselves any credit for what they had done, the cruisers went to their appointed mooring-buoys and the destroyers disappeared from view within the entrance to the large basin in Auldhaig Dockyard.
But still the crowd refused to disperse.
They expected something more. Even the bald official Admiralty announcement—"One of our Light-Cruiser Squadrons, supported by destroyers, sighted and engaged enemy forces in the North Sea. Three enemy destroyers were sunk; the rest escaped, apparently heavily damaged. Our casualties were light"—had failed to keep one of the salient features of the action a secret. The inhabitants of Auldhaig remained on the shore, expecting, and were not disappointed of, a spectacle.
Well in the rear of the flotilla came three vessels, one towing another and the third steaming slowly a cable's length astern. Overhead, their envelopes glistening in the sunlight, were three coastal airships.
As the expected vessels drew nearer telescopes and field-glasses were levelled in a formidable battery by the throng.
"That's the Inattentive, sure," declared a man who wore a silver badge and had the appearance of a sailor despite the fact that one coat-sleeve was empty and pinned across his breast. "She's got the Q-boat in tow. Looks like the old Pylos coming up astern."