you
out to prevent, anyway?"

Furley relit his pipe, thrust a flask into his pocket, and picked up a
thick stick from a corner of the room.

"Can't tell," he replied laconically. "There's an idea, of course, that
communications are carried on with the enemy from somewhere down this
coast. Sorry to leave you, old fellow," he added. "Don't sit up. I never
fasten the door here. Remember to look after your fire upstairs, and the
whisky is on the sideboard here."

"I shall be all right, thanks," Julian assured his host. "No use my
offering to come with you, I suppose?"

"Not allowed," was the brief response.

"Thank heavens!" Julian exclaimed piously, as a storm of rain blew in
through the half-open door. "Good night and good luck, old chap!"

Furley's reply was drowned in the roar of wind. Julian secured the
door, underneath which a little stream of rain was creeping in. Then he
returned to the sitting room, threw a log upon the fire, and drew one of
the ancient easy-chairs close up to the blaze.

CHAPTER II

Julian, notwithstanding his deliberate intention of abandoning himself
to an hour's complete repose, became, after the first few minutes of
solitude, conscious of a peculiar and increasing sense of restlessness.
With the help of a rubber-shod stick which leaned against his chair,
he rose presently to his feet and moved about the room, revealing
a lameness which had the appearance of permanency. In the small,
white-ceilinged apartment his height became more than ever noticeable,
also the squareness of his shoulders and the lean vigour of his frame.
He handled his gun for a moment and laid it down; glanced at the card
stuck in the cheap looking glass, which announced that David Grice let
lodgings and conducted shooting parties; turned with a shiver from the
contemplation of two atrocious oleographs, a church calendar pinned upon
the wall, and a battered map of the neighbourhood, back to the table at
which he had been seated. He selected a cigarette and lit it. Presently
he began to talk to himself, a habit which had grown upon him during
the latter years of a life whose secret had entailed a certain amount of
solitude.

"Perhaps," he murmured, "I am psychic. Nevertheless, I am convinced that
something is happening, something not far away."

He stood for a while, listening intently, the cigarette burning away
between his fingers. Then, stooping a little, he passed out into the
narrow passage and opene