Mr. Arnold Bilverstone, taking temporary leave from his duties at the naval base, had mustered all the Scouts in the town to give help in attending to the distressed refugees. He was busy in the public hall, making a list of the Belgians' names, when Seth Newruck went hurriedly up to him and plucked at his sleeve.
"Mr. Bilverstone, I've got something to tell you, sir," began Seth.
Mr. Bilverstone laid aside his fountain pen and prepared to listen.
"Yes," he smiled, "what is it? Some more families got accidentally mixed up? Children separated from their mothers and sent to the wrong billets?"
"No, sir, it's not that," Seth went on haltingly, as if fearing that after all his communication was of no importance. "It's something I've seen. I don't know if you noticed one of the Belgian boats, a small, yawl-rigged vessel, called La Belle Pucelle, of Blankenberghe? She was one of the last that came in, and about the most untidy of the lot. She was like a floating rag-bag."
"I didn't see her to my knowledge," returned Mr. Bilverstone, turning back a page of his list, "but I wrote her name within the last half-hour. Here it is, La Belle Pucelle, with the names of the thirty-nine refugees who crossed in her—twenty-two women, five children, four infants in arm's, three men, apart from a crew of four men and a boy, and two dogs of doubtful breed. That's the lot."
Seth Newruck was looking at the list over the Scoutmaster's shoulder.
"That is eight men, including the boy," he said. "But as a matter of fact, sir, there were nine, and you haven't got the ninth man's name, because he didn't get registered. He didn't come ashore in the same way as the rest of them. I watched him, sir. The reason why I took particular notice of him was that he looked of a different class from the others, and was about the only refugee of military age, apart from the fishermen who did the seamen's work."
"Well?" urged Mr. Bilverstone.
"He wore a very shabby overcoat," Seth continued, "but beneath it he had a good tweed suit. Just as the boat came alongside the quay he slipped behind the mainsail; and when he appeared again, he had taken off the overcoat, changed his cloth cap for a bowler, and was carrying a brown leather handbag. While the other refugees were pressing forward to receive the food that was handed down to them, he got round to the stern, stepped on the quarter rail, and from that on to the quay, where he quickly disappeared in the crowd."