“I believe you’re playing us false, Small!” cried Rodwell, his eyes flashing angrily. “By Gad! if you have dared to do so you’ll pay dearly for it—I warn you both! Now confess!”
“I assure you, sir, that I haven’t. I was in here when Ted tested, as he does each evening. All was working well then.”
The younger man, a tall, big-limbed, fair-haired toiler of the sea, in a fisherman’s blouse of tanned canvas like his father, overhearing the conversation, entered the little room.
“It was all right at five, sir. I made a call, and got the answer.”
“Are you sure it was answered—quite sure?” queried the man from London.
“Positive, sir.”
“Then why in the name of your dear goddess Britannia, who thinks she rules the waves, can’t I get a reply now?” demanded Rodwell furiously.
“How can I tell, sir? I got signals—good strong signals.”
“Very well. I’ll try again. But remember that you and your father are bound up to us. And if you’ve played us false I shall see that you’re both shot as spies. Remember you won’t be the first. There’s Shrimpton, up at Gateshead, Paulett at Glasgow, and half a dozen more in prison paying the penalty of all traitors to their country. The British public haven’t yet heard of them. But they will before long—depend upon it. The thing was so simple. Germany, before the war, held out the bait for your good King-and-country English to swallow. That you English—or rather a section of you—will always swallow the money-bait we have known ever so long ago.”
“Mr Rodwell, you needn’t tell us more than we know,” protested the old fisherman. “You and your people ’ave got the better of us. We know that, to our cost, so don’t rub it in.”