most of the night,
listening intently. The flat seemed to be more quiet even than usual.
There was little traffic in the street below, and hardly a step broke
the long silence of the night. Early in the morning--at six
B.S.T.--Cary slipped out of bed, stole down to his study, and pulled
open the deep drawer in which he had placed the bundle of faked Naval
Notes. They had gone! So the Spy-Burglar had come, and, carefully
shepherded by Dawson's sleuth-hounds, had found the primrose path easy
for his crime. To Cary, the simple, honest gentleman, the whole plot
seemed to be utterly revolting--justified, of course, by the country's
needs in time of war, but none the less revolting. There is nothing of
glamour in the Secret Service, nothing of romance, little even of
excitement. It is a cold-blooded exercise of wits against wits, of
spies against spies. The amateur plays a fish upon a line and gives
him a fair run for his life, but the professional fisherman--to whom a
salmon is a people's food--nets him coldly and expeditiously as he
comes in from the sea.

Shortly after breakfast there came a call from Dawson on the
telephone. "All goes well. Come to my office as soon as possible."
Cary found Dawson bubbling with professional satisfaction. "It was
beautiful," cried he. "Hagan was met at the train, taken to a place we
know of, and shadowed by us tight as wax. We now know all his
associates--the swine have not even the excuse of being German. He
burgled your flat himself while one of his gang watched outside. Never
mind where I was; you would be surprised if I told you; but I saw
everything. He has the faked papers, is busy making copies, and this
afternoon is going down the river in a steamer to get a glimpse of the
shipyards and docks and check your Notes as far as can be done. Will
they stand all right?"

"Quite all right," said Cary. "The obvious things were given
correctly."

"Good. We will be in the steamer."

Cary went that afternoon, quite unchanged in appearance by Dawson's
order. "If you try to disguise yourself," declared that expert, "you
will be spotted at once. Leave the refinements to us." Dawson himself
went as an elderly dug-out officer with the rank marks of a colonel,
and never spoke a word to Cary upon the whole trip down and up the
teeming river. Dawson's men were scattered here and there--one a
passenger of inquiring mind, another a deckhand, yet a third--a pretty
girl in khaki--sold tea and cakes