"By the way, you will be interested to hear something I have at first-hand from Clanronald. He has been, as perhaps you know, cruising with two ancient cronies, Lord Gaynor and Colonel Kaye, in his steam-yacht Helga, along the Danish West Coast of Jutland. He returns the richer by—what I may term a unique experience!"
Sir Roland said, meeting the Sirdar's eyes with great certainty:
"If I may guess at the nature of the experience, I should hazard that it was—an attempt in the kidnapping line?"
The other gave his short, gruff laugh:
"You have hit it. They carry a Wireless installation on the Helga, and sparked the story via Cullercoats to Bredingley, who was stopping a week-end at Doome. The yacht was at anchorage in the outer harbour of Esbjorg, some twenty-eight kilometres from the frontier of Danish-Germany. It was midnight. Everybody on board, including the watch, seems to have been asleep except Clanronald, who was roused by something scraping the side of the yacht. Presently he heard stealthy footsteps on deck, and whispering. He was squatting on his bunk with a brace of loaded revolvers and a Winchester repeating-rifle, when the intruders opened his cabin door!"
"Did any of them survive the intrusion? If so, Clanronald has—very much changed!"
The Sirdar returned, with the quirk of a smile lurking under the heavy moustache whose brown was getting flecked with grey:
"Well—the Helga has recently been re-enamelled, and Clanronald is faddy on the point of his new paint. Besides"—the quirk deepened into a laugh—"he thought it would be more useful to take them as live specimens of the kind of material that goes to make up the crew of a German submarine."
They looked at each other, laughing. Sir Roland inquired:
"I venture to hope that while Clanronald was about it—he collected the submarine?"