gar, and looking over
the paper. He touched him on the shoulder and whispered, in perfectly
idiomatic German:

"I thought you were a cleverer man than that, Count. Didn't I give you a
warning? God's thunder, man. You ought to have been miles away by this
time; haven't you a motor that would take you to Southampton in an hour,
and put you on the last of the German liners that's leaving? You know it
will be a shooting or a hanging matter if you're caught here. Come on
now. My name's Castellan, and that should be good enough for you. Come
on, now, and I'll see you safe."

The name of Castellan was already well known to every German
confidential agent, though it was not known that John Castellan had a
brother who was a Lieutenant in the British Navy.

Captain Count Karl von Eckstein got up, and took his hat down from the
pegs, pulled on his gloves, and said deliberately:

"I am very much obliged to you, Mr Castellan, for your warning, which I
ought to have taken at first, but I hope there is still time. I will go
and telephone for my motor at once."

"Yes, come along and do it," said Castellan, catching him by the arm.
"You haven't much time to lose, I can tell you."

They went out of the smoking-room, turned to the left, and went into the
hall. Then Castellan snatched his hand away from Eckstein's arm, took
him by the shoulders, and pitched him forward into the middle of the
semicircle of bluejackets, who were waiting for him, saying:

"That's your man, boys. Take him down to the pinnace, and put him on
board. I'll take the consequences, and I think the owners will, too,
when they know the facts."

Von Eckstein tried to shout, but a hand about half the size of a
shoulder of mutton came down hard over his mouth and nose. Other hands,
with grips like vices, picked him off his feet, and out he went, half
stifled, along the yard, and up to the Railway Pier.

"Rather summary proceedings, weren't they, Castellan?"

Denis drew himself up, formally saluted his superior officer, and said,
with a curious mixture of fun and seriousness in his voice:

"That man's the most dangerous German spy in the South of England, sir,
and all's fair in war and the other thing. We've got him. In half an
hour he'd have been aboard a fast yacht he's got here in the harbour,
and across to Dieppe, with a portmanteau full of plans and photographs
of our forts that would be worth millions in men and money to the people
we've got to fight. I