?" the
engineer replied. "I myself know her by sight."

"You know her!" cried the Englishman. "Why, I thought you only arrived
here from Germany two days ago. Where have you met her?"

"In Bremen, at the Krone Hotel, about three months ago. She call herself
Fraeulein Montague, and vos awaiting her mother who vos on her way from
New York."

"Did she recognise you?"

"I think not. I never spoke to her in the hotel. She was always a very
reserved but very shrewd young lady," replied Herr Otto Strantz, slowly
but grammatically. "I was surprised to meet her again."

"Montague!" the airman repeated. "Do you know her Christian name?"

"Jean Montague," was the German's response as he busied himself
carefully screwing down one of the terminals of an instrument.

Noel Barclay made a quick note of the name in a tiny memorandum-book
which he always carried in his flying-jacket.

He offered the German one of his cigarettes--an excellent brand smoked
in most of the ward-rooms of His Majesty's Navy--and then endeavoured to
obtain some further information concerning his dead shipmate's visitor.

But Herr Strantz, whose sole attention seemed centred upon the shore-end
of the new cable which was so soon to form yet another direct link
between Berlin and London, was in ignorance of anything connected with
the mysterious young person.

The statement that Harborne--the motor-cyclist who had spoken the
German language so well when he had accompanied the pretty young girl
the day before to watch the testing--was dead, seemed to cause the
cable-engineer considerable reflection. He said nothing, but a close
observer would have noticed that the report of the murder had had a
distinct effect upon him. He was in possession of some fact, and this,
as a stranger on that coast, and a foreigner to boot, it was not, after
all, very difficult to hide.

Noel, however, did not notice it. His mind was chiefly occupied in
considering the best and most diplomatic means by which the missing
lady, who lived in Bremen as Miss Montague, could be traced.

The two men smoked their cigarettes; Strantz pulling over the switch
every five minutes--always to the very tick of the round brass
clock--examining the tiny point of light which resulted, and carefully
registering the exact amount of current and the position of the ship
engaged in paying out the black, insulated line into the bed of the
German Ocean.

While Noel watched he also wondered whether,