whose brain never sleeps for a moment, who
is quick to seize the slightest hint, who can piece a plan together out
of a dozen bits of gossip. It's like--it's as if the Chief of the
Intelligence Department were suddenly to desert to the enemy ... The
ordinary spy knows only bits of unconnected facts. This man knows our
life and our way of thinking and everything about us.'

'Well, but a treatise on English life in time of war won't do much good
to the Boche.'

Sir Walter shook his head. 'Don't you realize the explosive stuff that
is lying about? Ivery knows enough to make the next German peace
offensive really deadly--not the blundering thing which it has been up
to now, but something which gets our weak spots on the raw. He knows
enough to wreck our campaign in the field. And the awful thing is that
we don't know just what he knows or what he is aiming for. This war's a
packet of surprises. Both sides are struggling for the margin, the
little fraction of advantage, and between evenly matched enemies it's
just the extra atom of foreknowledge that tells.'

'Then we've got to push off and get after him,' I said cheerfully.

'But what are you going to do?' asked Macgillivray. 'If it were merely
a question of destroying an organization it might be managed, for an
organization presents a big front. But it's a question of destroying
this one man, and his front is a razor edge. How are you going to find
him? It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, and such a needle! A
needle which can become a piece of straw or a tin-tack when it chooses!'

'All the same we've got to do it,' I said, remembering old Peter's
lesson on fortitude, though I can't say I was feeling very
stout-hearted.

Sir Walter flung himself wearily into an arm-chair. 'I wish I could be
an optimist,' he said, 'but it looks as if we must own defeat. I've
been at this work for twenty years, and, though I've been often beaten,
I've always held certain cards in the game. Now I'm hanged if I've any.
It looks like a knock-out, Hannay. It's no good deluding ourselves.
We're men enough to look facts in the face and tell ourselves the
truth. I don't see any ray of light in the business. We've missed our
shot by a hairsbreadth and that's the same as missing by miles.'

I remember he looked at Mary as if for confirmation, but she did not
smile or nod. Her face was very grave and her eyes looked steadily at
him. Then they moved and met mine, and they seemed to giv