But we had already had many such threats. So we only laughed at them.
We had, however, the satisfaction of exposing the spy to the firm which employed him, and we were present on the platform of the Central Station when, two days later, having given up his rooms and packed his belongings, he left the Tyne-side for London, evidently to consult his travelling-inspector, "Henry Lewis."
Several months passed. The attempt to obtain details of our new gun had passed completely from my mind.
An inquiry which Ray and I had been actively prosecuting into an attempt to learn the secrets of the "transmitting-room" of our new Dreadnoughts had led me to the south of Germany. I had had a rather exciting experience in Dresden and was now on my way back to London.
"Ah! Your London is such a strange place. So dull, so triste—so very damp and foggy," remarked the girl seated in the train before me.
"Not always, mademoiselle," I replied. "You have been there in winter. You should go in June. In the season it is as pleasant as anywhere else in the world."
"I have no desire to return. And yet——"
"Well?"
"And yet I have decided to go straight on from the Gare du Nord."
"The midday service! I shall cross by that also. We shall be fellow-travellers," I said.