ties of watching the woman
at close quarters. Her eyes were peculiarly set, very close together,
her lips were thin, and her cheek-bones rather high. Otherwise she was
not bad-looking. Mrs. Hill-Mason had, of course, no idea of her maid's
nocturnal motor-rides.

Whether the woman had any suspicion that she was being watched I know
not; but on the next night when Ray took a turn at keeping an eye upon
her, she did not go out, but on the next she went, and Ray followed her
to the park wall, but saw nothing more than I had done.

All this time, of course, Vera was greatly interested in the result of
our observations. Through her own maid, Batson, she discovered the room
occupied by the German, and to this I made my way, at considerable risk,
one morning while the maid was busy attending upon her mistress. I had a
good look through her belongings, finding in her trunk a small, flat
tin box, japanned dark green, strong, and secured by a lock of
well-known make. What, I wondered, did it contain?

Could I have but seen the number of the mysterious car I could have
discovered the identity of her nocturnal visitor.

The same day that I discovered the tin box in her trunk, Mrs.
Hill-Mason, however, returned to London, taking with her the mysterious
Fraeulein.

Three days more went by, and I was about to dismiss the affair as a
combination of curious circumstances. Vera and her aunt had left to pay
a visit in Worcestershire, and Ray I were due to go up to town that
morning, when he entered my room, saying abruptly:

"I'm not going to London yet, Jack. I shall go over to Cromer instead."

"Cromer!" I echoed. "Hardly the time of year for the seaside."

That same grey chilly afternoon, in the grey falling light, we sat upon
one of the seats of the pier at Cromer gazing seaward, towards where the
German coast lay beyond the indistinct horizon. The place was deserted
save for ourselves. On the cliff behind us stood the long red facade and
many gables of the Hotel de Paris, where we had put up, while in the
background rose the square old church tower, the landmark of mariners
from Haisborough Gat to the Dowsing.

"There's just a chance of us falling upon something interesting about
here," Ray was saying, as he pressed the tobacco into his pipe, and by
the expression upon his keen clean-shaven face I saw that he had scented
the presence of spies. "Has it never struck you," he went on, "that the
east coast, where we now are is t