Part 48 (1/2)

Again Sonia shrugged her shoulders. ”I can't say. The doctor and my father never tell me anything that they can keep to themselves. Most of what I know I have picked up from listening to them and putting things together in my own head afterwards. I am useful to them, and to a certain point they trust me; but only so far. They know I hate them both.”

She made the statement with a detached bitterness that spoke volumes for its sincerity.

I felt too that she was telling me the truth about George. A man who could lie as he did at the trial was quite capable of betraying his country or anything else. Still, the infernal impudence and treachery of his selling my beautiful torpedo to the Germans filled me with a furious anger such as I had not felt since I crouched, dripping and hunted, in the Walkham woods.

I looked up at Sonia, who was leaning forward and watching me with those curious half-sullen, half-pa.s.sionate eyes of hers.

”Why did George tell those lies about me at the trial?” I asked.

”I don't know for certain; I think he wanted to get rid of you, so that he could steal your invention. Of course he saw how valuable it was. You had told him about the notes, and I think he felt that if you were safely out of the way he would be able to make use of them himself.”

”He must have been painfully disappointed,” I said. ”They were all jotted down in a private cypher. No one else could possibly have understood them.”

She nodded. ”I know. He offered to sell them to us. He suggested that the Germans might be willing to pay a good sum down for them on the chance of being able to make them out.”

Angry as I was, I couldn't help laughing. It was so exactly like George to try and make the best of a bad speculation.

”I can hardly see the doctor doing business on those lines,” I said.

”It was too late in any case,” she answered calmly. ”Just after he made the offer you escaped from prison.” There was another pause. ”And what were you all doing down in that G.o.d-forsaken part of the world?”

I demanded.

The question was a little superfluous as far as I was concerned, but I felt that Sonia would be expecting it.

”Oh, we weren't there for pleasure,” she said curtly. ”We wanted to be near Devonport, and at the same time we wanted a place that was quite quiet and out-of-the-way. Hoffman found the house for us, and we took it furnished for six months.”

”It was an extraordinary stroke of luck,” I said, ”that I should have come blundering in as I did.”

Sonia laughed venomously. ”It was the sort of thing that would happen to the doctor. The Devil looks after his friends.”

”As a matter of fact,” I objected, ”I was thinking more of myself.”

Sonia took no notice of my interruption. ”Why, it meant everything to him,” she went on eagerly. ”It practically gave him the power to dictate his own terms to the Germans. You see, he knew something about their plans. He knew--at least he could guess--that the moment war was declared they meant to make a surprise attack on all the big dockyards--just like the j.a.ps did at Port Arthur. Well, think of the difference an explosive as powerful as yours would make! Why, it would put England absolutely at their mercy. They could blow up Portsmouth, Sheerness, and Devonport before any one really knew that the war had started.”

She spoke rapidly, almost feverishly, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the table, till the skin showed white on her knuckles. I think I was equally excited, but I tried not to show it.

”Yes,” I said; ”it sounds a promising notion.”

”Promising!” she echoed. ”Well, it was promising enough for the Germans to offer us anything we wanted the moment we could give them the secret. Now perhaps you can understand why we were so hospitable and obliging to you.”

”And you believe McMurtrie never meant to keep his word to me?” I asked.

She laughed again scornfully. ”If you knew him as well as I do, you wouldn't need to ask that. He would simply have disappeared with the money and left you to rot or starve.”

I took out my case, and having given Sonia a cigarette, lit one myself.

”It's an unpleasant choice,” I said, ”but I gather there's a possible alternative.”

She lighted her own cigarette and threw away the match. Her dark eyes were alight with excitement.

”Listen,” she said. ”All the Germans want is the secret. Do you suppose they care in the least whom they get it from? You have only got to prove to them that you can do what you say, and they will pay you the money just as readily as they would the doctor.”