“’E’s got a gentleman with him,” old Tom added.
“Don’t breathe a word that I’m here,” urged the spy, and then, slipping into the stuffy little bedroom, he closed the door and turned the key. Afterwards he stood listening eagerly for the arrival of the visitors.
In a few moments there was a loud knocking on the tarred door, and, with a grunt, Tom rose to open it.
“Hulloa, Tom!” cried the petty-officer of the coastguard cheerily. “’Morning! How are you?”
“Oh! pretty nicely, Muster Judd—if it warn’t for my confounded rheumatics. An’ now, to cap it all, I’ve got my girl laid up ’ere very bad. She only got ’ome last night.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mr Judd. “But I thought you had a gentleman visitor this morning?”
“Gentleman visitor? Yes. I’ve ’ad the doctor to my girl—a visitor I’ve got to pay—if that’s what you mean. She’s been awful bad all night, an’ Ted’s now gone into Skegness for some med’cine for ’er.”
The man who accompanied the coastguard-officer remarked:
“This is a lonely house of yours, Mr Small. A long way from the doctor—eh?”
“It is, sir, an’ no mistake. We don’t see many people out ’ere, except Mr Judd, or Mr Bennett—or one o’ the men on patrol.”