They shook hands and parted. It seemed a long week until the morrow when the secret of Robert Foulis came home to roost at Whitehall. But it ended, and twelve o'clock brought that keenly-desired opportunity of examining the cut lock-strap and the empty, knife-scored satchel in the official sanctum of the First Lord Commissioner for the Admiralty, and in the presence of that functionary.
"There seems—ah!" the First Lord mounted a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez, "to be something in the nature of an address scratched upon the leather!"
Sir Roland corroborated, after a brief inspection:
"There is, most undoubtedly. And the address is that of the London Headquarters of our Organisation, No. 1000, Victoria Street."
"Dear me—dear me! Most remarkable! Now here," said the Right Hon. gentleman, breathing asthmatically and twinkling through the gold-framed pebbles, "is something not so easily deciphered. A rude symbol, something like a fleur-de-lis with letters at either side, and a few other meaningless scrawls!"
"It is not a fleur-de-lis," Sir Roland answered, "but a fox-mask, with the number and signature of my Scout. He belonged to the Fox Patrol, 331st London. Here is his troop-number, 22, and here are his initials, B.M.S.—Bawne Mildare Saxham. It is perfectly in order! In this way he would be expected to sign a communication to his fellow-Scout. And the marks below, I can assure you, are not meaningless. They convey that there is trouble of a very definite kind. In addition the arrow, here, taking the top of the satchel for the North as in a map—signifies, 'Road to be followed East.'" He added with a stiffening of the facial muscles that made the keen face as hard as a mask carved in boxwood:
"And followed it shall be!"
It had been decided amongst those who controlled such matters that the British Public were to be fed with the tale. The tapes began to run out at the newspaper-offices as the General took leave of the First Lord and the War Minister and got into his waiting car, and sped away to Harley Street to tell the Dop Doctor how the Saxham pup had proved worthy of his breed.
The evening papers made great marvel out of the story, and at all the street corners of London and the suburbs broadsheets lined the gutters, proclaiming in huge inky capitals:
"MYSTERIES OF THE SEA. EXTRAORDINARY ATTEMPTED CAPTURE OF BRITISH YACHTSMAN BY PIRATES IN DANISH WATERS! MIRACULOUS RECOVERY OF CLANRONALD WAR-PLAN! SUBMARINE IN NORTH SEA FOULS BAG CONTAINING PRICELESS HEIRLOOM STOLEN FROM GWYLL CASTLE! LAST MESSAGE OF HERO BOY SCOUT!"