Then, when our host and our two friends had been secured—not, however, before the room had been wrecked in a most desperate struggle—Inspector Pelham came forward to where Ray was standing with me, and said:
"My God, Mr. Raymond! You two have had a very narrow escape, and no mistake! Where are those bon-bons?"
We took him into the dining-room, showed him the remaining two, and told him we had been about to pull them.
"I know. We were watching you through the window. Those men were flying from the house when they ran into our arms!"
"Why?"
"Because they are a dangerous trio whom we want on several charges. In addition, all three, and also the two servants, are ingenious spies in the service of the German General Staff. They've been busy this last two years. They intended to wreak upon both of you a terrible revenge for your recent exposures of the German system of espionage in England and your constant prosecution of their spies."
"Revenge!" I gasped. "What revenge?"
"Well," replied the detective-inspector, "both these bon-bons contain powerful bombs, and had you pulled either of them you'd both have been blown to atoms. That was their dastardly intention. But fortunately we got wind of it, and were in time to watch and prevent it."
"And only just in the nick of time, too!" gasped Ray, pale-faced at thought of our narrow escape. "I somehow felt all along some vague presage that evil was intended."
The three spies were conveyed to Barnes police-station in cabs, and that was the last we ever saw of them. The Government again hushed up the matter in order to avoid international complications, I suppose, but a week later the interesting trio were deported by the police to Hamburg as undesirable aliens.