ting, the tracing of the telegraph wires with the communications
of each wire, and dozens of other facts of supreme importance to the
invader.

"Great heavens!" I gasped. "Where did you get that?"

"Shayler will tell you, my dear fellow!" answered the Major. "It seems
that you've been guilty of some sad indiscretion."

"I am attached to the Special Department at New Scotland Yard,"
explained the dark-bearded man. "Two months ago a member of the secret
service in the employ of our Foreign Office made a report from Berlin
that a young girl, named Gertie Drew, living in a Bloomsbury
boarding-house, had approached the German military attache offering, for
three thousand pounds, to supply him with photographs of a number of
confidential plans of our eastern counties and of the Clyde defences.
The attache had reported to the War Office in Berlin, hence the
knowledge obtained by the British secret agent. The matter was at once
placed in my hands, and since that time I have kept careful observation
upon the girl--who has been a photographer's assistant--and those in
association with her. The result is that I have fortunately managed to
obtain possession of these negatives of your annotated plans."

"But how?" I demanded.

"By making a bold move," was the detective's reply. "The Germans were
already bargaining for these negatives when I became convinced that the
girl was only the tool of a man who had also been a photographer, and
who had led a very adventurous life--an American living away in the
country, near Colchester, under the name of Charles Sandford."

"Sandford!" I gasped, staring at him. "What is the girl like?"

"Here is her portrait," was the detective's reply.

Yes! It was the sweet face of my nightmare!

"What have you discovered regarding Sandford?" I asked presently, when I
had related to the two men the story of the meeting at Salisbury and
also my night's adventure.

"Though born in America and adopting an English name, his father was
German, and we strongly suspect him of having, on several occasions,
sold information to Germany. Yesterday, feeling quite certain of my
ground, I went down into Essex with a search warrant and made an
examination of the house. Upstairs I found a very complete photographic
plant, and concealed beneath the floor-boards in the dining-room was a
box containing these negatives, many of them being of your maps of the
Clyde defences, which they were just about to dispose of.