I hesitated to interrupt Sir Henry. But he had got my interest
desperately worked up about what seemed to me great unjointed segments
of this affair, that one couldn't understand till they were put
together. I ventured a query.

"How did St. Alban come to be on the hospital transport?" I said. "Was
he in the English army in France?"

"Oh, no," he said. "When the war opened St. Alban was in the Home
Office, and, he set out to make England spy-proof. He organized the
Confidential Department, and he went to work to take every precaution.
He wasn't a great man in any direction, but he was a careful, thorough
man. And with tireless, never-ceasing, persistent effort, he very nearly
swept England clean of German espionage."

Sir Henry spoke with vigor and decision.

"Now, that's what St. Alban did in England--not because he was a man of
any marked ability, but because he was a persistent person dominated by
a single consuming idea. He started out to rid England of every form of
espionage. And when he had accomplished that, as the cases of Ernest,
Lody, and Schultz eloquently attest, he determined to see that every
move of the English expeditionary force on the Continent should be
guarded from German espionage."

Sir Henry paused and poured out a cup of tea. He tasted it. It was cold,
and he put the cup down on the table.

"That's how St. Alban came to be in France," he said. "The great drive
on the Somme had been planned at a meeting of military leaders in Paris.
The French were confident that they could keep their plans secret from
German espionage. They admitted frankly that signals were wirelessed out
of France. But they had taken such precautions that only the briefest
signals could go out.

"The Government radio stations were always alert. And they at once
negatived any unauthorized wireless so that German spies could only snap
out a signal or two at any time. They could do this, however.

"They had a wireless apparatus inside a factory chimney at Auteuil. It
wasn't located until the war was nearly over.

"The French didn't undertake to say that they could make their country
spy-proof. They knew that there were German agents in France that nobody
could tell from innocent French people. But they did undertake to say
that nothing could be carried over into the German lines. And they
justified that promise. They did see that nothing was carried out of
France." The Baronet looked at me across the table.

"Now, t