Jack hesitated. He drew a long breath, as again across his troubled mind flashed that thought which had so constantly obsessed him ever since that afternoon before Jerome Jerrold had died so mysteriously.
“Yes, Elise,” he answered in a thick voice. “Yes, I do.”
Chapter Eleven.
The Enemy’s Cipher.
The afternoon of December 16th, 1914—the 135th day of the war—was grey and gloomy in Northumberland Avenue, that short thoroughfare of high uniform hotels and buildings.
The street-lamps had just been lit around Trafalgar Square when Lewin Rodwell passed out of the big hall of the Constitutional Club, and down the steps into the street. At the moment a newsboy dashed past crying the evening papers.
The words that fell upon Rodwell’s ear caused him to start; and, stopping the lad, he purchased a paper, and, halting, read the bold, startling headlines: “Bombardment of the East Coast this morning: Great destruction of seaside towns.”
“Ach!” he murmured with a grin of satisfaction. “Ach! Number 70 was not slow in acting upon my message. Instead of the German Fleet falling into the trap, they have taught these pigs of English a lesson. Not long ago one Minister declared that if the German Fleet did not come out of the Kiel Canal, that the brave British would dig them like rats out of a hole. Good! They have come out to respond to that challenge,” and he laughed in grim satisfaction. “Let’s see what they’ve done.”