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Sir Walter got up and left the room while we looked blankly at
the table. He came back in ten minutes with a long face. 'I have
spoken to Alloa,' he said. 'Had him out of bed - very grumpy. He
went straight home after Mulross's dinner.'
'I will tell you a tale,' he said. 'It happened many years ago in
Senegal. I was quartered in a remote station, and to pass the time
used to go fishing for big barbel in the river. A little Arab mare
used to carry my luncheon basket - one of the salted dun breed you
got at Timbuctoo in the old days. Well, one morning I had good
sport, and the mare was unaccountably restless. I could hear her
whinnying and squealing and stamping her feet, and I kept soothing
her with my voice while my mind was intent on fish. I could see
her all the time, as I thought, out of a corner of my eye, tethered
to a tree twenty yards away. After a couple of hours I began to
think of food. I collected my fish in a tarpaulin bag, and moved
down the stream towards the mare, trolling my line. When I got up
to her I flung the tarpaulin on her back -'
He paused and looked round.
'It was the smell that gave me warning. I turned my head and
found myself looking at a lion three feet off ... An old man-eater,
that was the terror of the village ... What was left of the mare, a
mass of blood and bones and hide, was behind him.'
'I stuffed my fishing-rod into his jaws, and I had a pistol. Also
my servants came presently with rifles. But he left his mark on me.'
He held up a hand which lacked three fingers.
'Consider,' he said. 'The mare had been dead more than an hour,
and the brute had been patiently watching me ever since. I never
saw the kill, for I was accustomed to the mare's fretting, and I
never marked her absence, for my consciousness of her was only of
something tawny, and the lion filled that part. If I could blunder
thus, gentlemen, in a land where men's senses are keen, why should
we busy preoccupied urban folk not err also?'
Sir Walter nodded. No one was ready to gainsay him.
'The one thing that puzzles me,' said the General, 'is what good
his visit here would do that spy fellow? He could not carry away
several pages of figures and strange names in his head.'
Whittaker was looking very glum. 'Did you tell Lord Alloa what
has happened?' he asked. 'No? Well, I can't speak with absolute
assurance, but I'm nearly certain we can't make any serious change
unless we alter the geography of England.'
'Another thing must be said,' it was Royer who spoke. 'I talked
freely when that man was here. I told something of the military
plans of my Government. I was permitted to say so much. But that
information would be worth many millions to our enemies. No, my
friends, I see no other way. The man who came here and his
confederates must be taken, and taken at once.'
'Besides,' said Whittaker, 'there is the post. By this time the news
will be on its way.'
'Don't you see it's a clue,' I shouted. 'Scudder knew where these
fellows laired - he knew where they were going to leave the
country, though he kept the name to himself. Tomorrow was the
day, and it was some place where high tide was at 10.17.'
'Not they. They have their own snug secret way, and they won't
be hurried. I know Germans, and they are mad about working to a
plan. Where the devil can I get a book of Tide Tables?'
We got into two of the waiting motor-cars - all but Sir Walter,
who went off to Scotland Yard - to 'mobilize MacGillivray', so he said.
We marched through empty corridors and big bare chambers
where the charwomen were busy, till we reached a little room lined
with books and maps. A resident clerk was unearthed, who
presently fetched from the library the Admiralty Tide Tables. I sat
at the desk and the others stood round, for somehow or other I had
got charge of this expedition.
But if it was a little port I couldn't see what the steps signified.
There were no sets of staircases on any harbour that I had ever
seen. It must be some place which a particular staircase identified,
and where the tide was full at 10.17. On the whole it seemed to me
that the place must be a bit of open coast. But the staircases kept
puzzling me.
All this was very loose guessing, and I don't pretend it was
ingenious or scientific. I wasn't any kind of Sherlock Holmes. But I
have always fancied I had a kind of instinct about questions like
this. I don't know if I can explain myself, but I used to use my
brains as far as they went, and after they came to a blank wall I
guessed, and I usually found my guesses pretty right.
FAIRLY CERTAIN
(1) Place where there are several sets of stairs; one that
matters distinguished by having thirty-nine steps.
(2) Full tide at 10.17 p.m. Leaving shore only possible at full
tide.
(3) Steps not dock steps, and so place probably not harbour.
(4) No regular night steamer at 10.17. Means of transport must
be tramp (unlikely), yacht, or fishing-boat.
GUESSED
'Here's the most I can make of it,' I said. 'We have got to find a
place where there are several staircases down to the beach, one of
which has thirty-nine steps. I think it's a piece of open coast with
biggish cliffs, somewhere between the Wash and the Channel. Also
it's a place where full tide is at 10.17 tomorrow night.'
Then an idea struck me. 'Is there no Inspector of Coastguards or
some fellow like that who knows the East Coast?'
'We want you to tell us the places you know on the East Coast
where there are cliffs, and where several sets of steps run down to
the beach.'
Sir Arthur looked towards me. 'We mean regular staircases,' I said.
I shook my head.
'It's got to be more retired than that,' I said.
'The big chalk headland in Kent, close to Bradgate. It's got a lot
of villas on the top, and some of the houses have staircases down to
a private beach. It's a very high-toned sort of place, and the residents
there like to keep by themselves.'
I tore open the Tide Tables and found Bradgate. High tide there
was at 10.17 P.m. on the 15th of June.
'We're on the scent at last,' I cried excitedly. 'How can I find out
what is the tide at the Ruff?'
'I can tell you that, Sir,' said the coastguard man. 'I once was lent
a house there in this very month, and I used to go out at night to
the deep-sea fishing. The tide's ten minutes before Bradgate.'