hey were playing the other end now.

"Listen!" he said.

They paused in the middle of the lawn. Granet held up his handkerchief
and turned his cheek seaward. There was still little more than a
floating breath of air but his cheek was covered with moisture.

"I have everything ready," he said. "Just before we go to bed to-night I
shall swear that I hear an aeroplane. You're sure your watch is right to
the second, Collins?"

"I am as sure that it is right," the other replied grimly, "as I am that
to-night you and I my young friend, are going to play with our lives a
little more carelessly than with this china ball. A good throw, that
I think," he went on, measuring it with his eye carefully. "Come, my
friend, you'll have to improve. My Scotch practice is beginning to
tell."

Geoffrey Anselman threw up the window and looked out.

"Pretty hot stuff, isn't he Ronnie?" he asked.

Granet glanced at his opponent, with his bent shoulders, his hard face,
hooked nose and thin gold spectacles.

"Yes," he admitted quietly, "he's too good for me."

CHAPTER XXI

At about half-past ten that evening, Granet suddenly threw down his
cue in the middle of a game of billiards, and stood, for a moment, in a
listening attitude.

"Jove, I believe that's an airship!" he exclaimed, and hurried out of
the room.

They all followed him. He was standing just outside the French-windows
of the sitting-room, upon the gravel walk, his head upturned, listening
intently. There was scarcely a breath of wind, no moon nor any stars.
Little clouds of grey mist hung about on the marshes, shutting out their
view of the sea. The stillness was more than usually intense.

"Can't hear a thing," young Anselman muttered at last.

"It may have been fancy," Granet admitted.

"A motor-cycle going along the Huntstanton Road," Major Harrison
suggested.

"It's a magnificent night for a raid," Dickens remarked glancing around.

"No chance of Zepps over here, I should say," Collins declared, a little
didactically. "I was looking at your map at the golf club only this
morning."

They all made their way back to the house. Granet, however, seemed still
dissatisfied.

"I'm going to see that my car's all right," he told them. "I left it in
the open shed."

He was absent for about twenty minutes. When he returned, they had
finished the game of snooker pool without him and were all sitting on
the lounge by the side of the billiard table, talking of the