“Have you any reason for supposing that Cator is a German?” inquired Collins. “If he’s German, then what about his mother?”
“Well, it doesn’t follow that his mother is German. She may have been an English girl who married a German, you know.”
“If so, she certainly might be pro-German,” Collins remarked, as they sat together on the river-bank eating their sandwiches.
“I certainly think she is, because my daughter tells me that old Emma Green’s girl, who was housemaid at the Manor Farm when war was declared, says that Mrs. Cator, her son, and one of those gentlemen from London drank the health of the Kaiser in champagne that night.”
“Did the girl tell your daughter that?”
“Yes, she did. And I believe her.”
Collins was silent. These facts he had learnt were highly important.
“You see,” Mr. Haddon went on, “nowadays you dare not say anything about anybody you suspect, for fear of being had up for libel. The law somehow seems to protect the Germans in our midst. I feel confident that the Cators are a mysterious pair, and I told my suspicions to Mr. Rouse, our police-sergeant in the village. But he only shrugged his shoulders and said that as far as he knew they were all right. So why, after that, should anybody trouble?”
“Is it not an Englishman’s duty to oust the enemy?” Collins queried.
“Yes, it is; but if the enemy can live under laws which protect them, what can the average man do?”