ment in the room--in the
house--or within any possible reach from it. Yet somebody in that
building--somebody who could only know the things by standing in
that room and copying them, for never once had they been spoken of
by word of mouth--some invisible, impalpable, superhuman body was
wiring State secrets from it. How? And to whom?

Naturally, this state of affairs set the whole country by the ears
and evoked a panicky condition which was not lessened by the Press'
frothing and screaming.

Thus matters stood on the evening of Wednesday, the twenty-second of
May, and thus they still stood on the morning of the twenty-third,
when the telephone rang and Dollops rushed into Cleek's bedroom
crying excitedly and disjointedly:

"Mr. Narkom, sir. Ringing up from his own house. Wants you in a
hurry. National case, he says, and not a minute to lose."

Cleek was out of bed and at the instrument in a winking; but he had
no more than spoken the customary "Hello!" into the receiver, when
the superintendent's voice cut in cyclonically and swept everything
before it in a small tornado of excited words.

"Call of the Country, dear chap!" he cried. "That infernal dockyard
business at Portsmouth. Sir Charles Fordeck just sent through a call
for you. Rush like hell! Don't stop for anything! Train it over to
Guildford if you have to charter a special. Meet you there--in the
Portsmouth Road--with the limousine--at seven-thirty. We'll show
'em--by God, yes! Good-bye!"

Then "click!" went the instrument as the communication was cut off,
and away went Cleek, like a gunshot, on a wild rush for his clothes.

The sun was but just thrusting a crimson arc into view in the
transfigured east when he left the house--on a hard run; for part
at least of the way must be covered afoot, and the journey was
long--but by four o'clock it was almost as bright as midday, and the
possibility of securing a conveyance for the rest of the distance was
considerably increased by that fact; by five, he _had_ secured one,
and by seven he was in the Portsmouth Road at Guildford munching the
sandwiches Dollops had thoughtfully slipped into his pocket and
keeping a sharp lookout for the coming of the red limousine.

It swung up over the rise of the road and came panting toward him at
a nerve-racking pace while it still lacked ten minutes of being the
appointed half-hour, and so wild was the speed at which Lennard, in
his furious interest, was making it travel