It was of how he had employed his time that he had been telling me when I had discovered the eavesdropper.
"I wonder why our conversation should prove so interesting to that maid?" he remarked thoughtfully, gazing into the fire. "She's rather good-looking for a German, isn't she?"
"Yes," I said. "But who is this Mrs. Hill-Mason? She seems a rather loud and buxom person, fond of the display of jewellery, dark, somewhat oleaginous, and devoted to bridge."
"Harry says his mother met her in Cairo last winter. She's one of the Somerset Masons—half-sister to the Countess of Thanet."
"Oh, she is known, then?"
"Of course. But we must get Vera to make some inquiry to-morrow as to where she obtained her maid," declared Ray. "The woman is interested in us, and we must discover the cause."
"Yes, I somehow mistrust her," I said. "I met her crossing the hall just before dinner, and I detected a curious look in her eyes as she glanced at me."
"Merely your fancy, Jack, old chap—because she's German," he laughed, stretching his long legs.
"Well, what you were telling me about Vera and her discovery has alarmed me," I said, tossing away the end of my cigar.
"Yes, she only returned last week from Emden, where she's been visiting her old German governess, who, it seems, is now married to an official in the construction department of the German Admiralty. From her friend she was able to learn a lot, which will, no doubt, cause our Lords of the Admiralty a bad quarter of an hour."