tments of some new piece of
mechanism. Then they steamed away out of sight of the land."

"A busy life, yours, Ronnie," Sir Alfred remarked, after a moments
pause. "What about it now? I've had two urgent messages from Berlin this
morning."

"It's pretty difficult," Granet acknowledged. "The _Scorpion's_ out in
the Channel or the North Sea. No getting at her. And I don't believe
there's another destroyer yet fitted with this apparatus, whatever it
may be."

"They must be making them somewhere, though," Sir Alfred remarked.

His nephew nodded.

"To think," he muttered, "that we've two hundred men spread out at
Tyneside, Woolwich and Portsmouth, and not one of them got on to this! A
nation of spies, indeed! They're mugs, uncle."

"Not altogether that," the banker replied. "We have some reports,
although they don't go far enough. I can put you on to the track of the
thing. The apparatus you saw is something in the nature of an inverted
telescope, with various extraordinary lenses treated by a new process.
You can see forty feet down under the surface of the water for a
distance of a mile, and we believe that attached to the same apparatus
is an instrument which brings any moving object within the range of what
they call a deep-water gun."

"Did that come from reports?" Granet asked eagerly.

"It did," Sir Alfred said. "Further than that, the main part of the
instrument is being made under the supervision of Sir Meyville Worth, in
a large workshop erected on his estate in a village near Brancaster in
Norfolk."

"I take it back," Granet remarked.

"The plans of the instrument should be worth a hundred thousand pounds,"
Sir Alfred continued calmly. "If that is impossible, the destruction of
the little plant would be the next consideration."

"Do I come in here?" Granet inquired.

"You do, Ronnie," his uncle replied. "The name of the village where Sir
Meyville Worth lives is Market Burnham, which, as I think I told you,
is within a few miles of Brancaster. Geoffrey, at my instigation, has
arranged a harmless little golf party to go to Brancaster the day after
to-morrow. You will accompany them. In the meantime, Miss Worth, Sir
Meyville Worth's only daughter, is staying in London until Wednesday.
She is lunching with your aunt at the Ritz to-morrow. I have made some
other arrangements in connection with your visit to Norfolk, which will
keep for the present. I see that some strangers have entered the room.
Tell m