eard nothing until suddenly, at eight o'clock
one morning, Ray entered my bedroom before I was up.

"I've found out one thing about those Johnnies!" he exclaimed. "They've
been buying, in Clerkenwell, a whole lot of electrical appliances--coils
of wire, insulators, and batteries. Some of it has been sent direct to
the place they've taken here, and the rest has been sent to their house
down in Sydenham."

"What can they want that for?" I queried.

"Don't know, my dear chap. Let's wait and see."

"Perhaps, after all, they are about to set up in business," I said.
"Neither of them has struck me as being spies. Save that they've visited
Hartmann once or twice, their movements have not been very suspicious.
Many foreigners are setting up factories in England, owing to the recent
change in our patent laws."

"I know," said my friend. "Yet their confidential negotiations with
Hartmann have aroused my suspicions, and I feel confident we shall
discover something interesting before long. They came back by the same
train as I travelled."

After breakfast, we both strolled round to the factory. The ground it
covered was not much, and it was surrounded by a wall about twelve feet
high, so that no one could see within the courtyard. It had, at one
time, been a lead-mill, but for the past eight years had, we learned,
been untenanted.

Even as we loitered near, we saw the builder's men bringing long ladders
for the inspection of the chimney.

We watched for a whole week, but as each day passed, I became more
confident that we were upon a false scent.

The chimney had been inspected, the ladders taken down again, and once
more the German and the Belgian had returned south to that pleasant
London suburb.

In order to ascertain what was really in progress I called one morning
upon the solicitor in Whitefriargate, on pretext of being a likely
tenant of the factory. I was, however, informed by the managing clerk
that it was already let to a firm of electrical engineers.

Thus the purchase of electrical appliances was entirely accounted for.

Once again I returned to London. They seemed, by the electrical
accessories that had been delivered, to be fitting up a second factory
in their house in Sydenham.

That, being a private house, seemed somewhat mysterious.

They had become friendly also with a tall, rather well-dressed
Englishman named Fowler, who had the appearance of a superior clerk, and
who resided in a rather nice h