"I wish you two Scouts had been here five minutes ago," said Mr. Croucher, as they drew near him. "There was a stranger in conversation with me very much interested in the bombardment. You might have been able to tell him more about it than I could—especially about the arrest of Seligmann."
"I don't see what a stranger could want to know about Seligmann," said Mark. "What was he like? Was he English?"
"English? I suppose so; either English or Scotch. He spoke with a sort of accent. He was tall, fair, rather stout, and wore spectacles."
"Are you sure he wasn't German?" questioned Seth. "Perhaps he was a spy—a friend of Seligmann's wanting to know what had become of him."
"Nonsense," objected Mr. Croucher.
"He lighted a cigarette, didn't he?" said Mark, observing a dead match on the pavement.
"How do you know it wasn't a pipe or a cigar?" asked Mr. Croucher sharply. He was always being tripped up by these Sea Scouts, who seemed to know things by an extraordinary instinct.
"Because there's the fag end of a cigarette lying at your feet, with some ash beside it that the wind hasn't yet blown away," Mark Redisham quietly answered.
He had the curiosity to pick up and examine the fragment before handing it to his companion.
"What do you make of it, Seth?" he inquired meaningly.