With that in view he had crept along to the shed and, as he had hoped, found the doors unlocked. Quickly he entered and, by the aid of his flash-lamp, looked round.
At last the long tentacles of the German spy-bureau in the “Königgrätzerstrasse” had spread to the little village of Harbury.
Five minutes sufficed for the spy to complete his observations. At an engineer’s bench he halted and realised the technical details of a certain part of the secret silencer. But only a part, and by it he was pretty puzzled.
He held it in his hand in the light of his flash-lamp and, in German exclaimed:
“Ach! I wonder how that can be? If we could only obtain the secret of that silencer!” the Hun continued to himself. “But we shall—no doubt! I and my friends have not come here for nothing. We have work before us—and we shall complete it, if not to-day—then in the near to-morrow.”
The shabby stranger returned to the King’s Head and, letting himself in, retired to his room without a sound. Hardly had he undressed when he heard again that low swish of “The Hornet” on her return from her scouting circuit of the Thames estuary.
Hans Leffner, alias Bean, had not been trained as a spy for nothing. He was a crafty, clever cosmopolitan, whose little eyes and wide ears were ever upon the alert for information, and who could pose perfectly in half-a-dozen disguises. As the traveller of a Birmingham jewellery firm he could entirely deceive the cheap jeweller of any little town. He was one of many such men who were passing up and down Great Britain, learning all they could of our defences, our newest inventions, and our intentions.
Next day Mr. Bean remained indoors at the King’s Head, for it was a drenching day. But at last, when the weather cleared at eight o’clock, he lit his pipe and strolled out in the fading light.
Before leaving he had taken from the bottom of the bag containing his samples of cheap jewellery a small, thick screw-bolt about two inches long, and placed it in his pocket with an air of confidence.
Half-an-hour later he crept into the shed which sheltered “The Hornet” and, not finding the silencer upon the exhaust, as he had anticipated, turned his attention to the fusilage of the biplane. From this he quickly, and with expert hand, unscrewed a bolt, swiftly substituting in its stead the bolt he had brought, which he screwed in place carefully with his pocket wrench.