"Look here," he confessed, "in a way this is a huge relief. I, like you, thought it was to last for three months and I thought I could stick it. While the excitement of the thing was about it was easy enough, but listen, uncle.
That Norfolk affair--I am not really out of that.""What do you mean?" Sir Alfred demanded anxiously. "This fellow Thomson?""Thomson, of course," Granet assented, "but the real trouble has come to me in a different way. I told you that the girl got me out of it. She couldn't stand the second cross-examination. She was driven into a corner, and finally, to clear herself, said that we were engaged to be married. She has come up to London, came to me to-night. She expects me to marry her.""How much does she know?" Sir Alfred asked.
"Everything," Granet groaned. "It was she who had told me of the waterway across the marshes. She saw me there with Collins, just before the flare was lit. She knew that I lied to them when they found me."Sir Alfred sighed.
"It's a big price, Ronnie," he said, "but you'll have to pay it. The sooner you marry the girl and close her mouth, the better.""If it hadn't been for that damned fellow Thomson," Granet muttered, "there would never have been a suspicion.""If it hadn't been for the same very enterprising gentleman," Sir Alfred observed, "my correspondence would never have been tampered with."Granet leaned a little forward.
"Thomson is our one remaining danger," he said. "I have had the feeling since first he half recognised me. We met, you know, in Belgium. It was just when I was coming out of the German lines. Somehow or other he must have been on my track ever since. I took no notice of it. I thought it was simply because--because he was engaged to Geraldine Conyers.""You are rivals in love, too, eh?" Sir Alfred remarked.
"Geraldine Conyers is the girl I want to marry," Granet admitted.
"Thomson," Sir Alfred murmured to himself,--"Surgeon-Major Hugh Thomson. He seems to be the only man, Ronnie, from whom we have the least danger to fear.
Personally, I think I am secure. I do not believe that that single letter will be ever deciphered, and if it is, three-parts of the Cabinet are my friends. I could ruin the Stock Exchange to-morrow, bring London's credit, for a time, at any rate, below the credit of Belgrade.""All the same, it seems to me," Granet declared grimly, "that we should both be more comfortable if there were no Surgeon-Major Thomson."The very last dispatches I had to deal with," Sir Alfred continued, "made allusion to him. They don't love some of his work in Berlin, I can tell you.
What sort of a man is he, Ronnie? Can he be bought? A hundred thousand pounds would be a fortune to a man like that.""There is only one way of dealing with him," Granet said fiercely. "I have tried it once. I expect I'll have to try again."Sir Alfred leaned across the table.
"Don't be rash, Ronnie," he advised. "And yet, remember this. The man is a real danger, both to you and to me. He is the only man who has had anything to do with the Intelligence Department here, who is worth a snap of the fingers. Now go home, Ronnie. You came here--well, never mind what you were when you came here. You are going back an Englishman. If they won't send you to the Front again, bother them for some work here, and stick to it. You will get no reports nor any visitors. I have strangled the whole system. You and I are cut loose from it. We are free-lances. Mind, I still believe that in the end German progress and German culture will dominate the world, but it may not be in our day. It just happens that we have stuck a little too soon. Let us make the best of things, Ronnie. You have many years of life. I have some of unabated power. Let us be thankful that we were wise enough to stop in time."Granet rose to his feet. His uncle watched him curiously.
"You're young, of course, Ronnie," he continued indulgently. "You haven't yet fitted your burden on to your shoulders properly. England or Germany, you have some of both in you. After all, it isn't a vital matter under which banner you travel. It isn't quite like that with me. I have lived here all my life and I wouldn't care to live anywhere else, but that's because I carry my own country with me. It's English air I breathe but it's a German heart Istill carry with me. Good night, Ronnie! Remember about Thomson."The two men wrung hands and Granet made his way towards the door.
"About Thomson," he repeated to himself, as the servant conducted him towards the door.
