'I once was lent
a house there in this very month, and I used to go out at night to
the deep-sea fishing. The tide's ten minutes before Bradgate.'
I closed the book and looked round at the company.
'If one of those staircases has thirty-nine steps we have solved
the mystery, gentlemen,' I said. 'I want the loan of your car, Sir
Walter, and a map of the roads. If Mr MacGillivray will spare me
ten minutes, I think we can prepare something for tomorrow.'
It was ridiculous in me to take charge of the business like this,
but they didn't seem to mind, and after all I had been in the show
from the start. Besides, I was used to rough jobs, and these eminent
gentlemen were too clever not to see it. It was General Royer who
gave me my commission. 'I for one,' he said, 'am content to leave
the matter in Mr Hannay's hands.'
By half-past three I was tearing past the moonlit hedgerows of
Kent, with MacGillivray's best man on the seat beside me.
CHAPTER TEN
Various Parties Converging on the Sea
A pink and blue June morning found me at Bradgate looking from
the Griffin Hotel over a smooth sea to the lightship on the Cock
sands which seemed the size of a bell-buoy. A couple of miles
farther south and much nearer the shore a small destroyer was
anchored. Scaife, MacGillivray's man, who had been in the Navy,
knew the boat, and told me her name and her commander's, so I
sent off a wire to Sir Walter.
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