The White Lie

an-per

e was certainly a man of secr

affair. You, my dear Barclay, appear to b

with rolls at the ears, as he walked one August afternoon up the village street of Mundesley-on-Sea, in Norfolk, a quaint, old-world street swept by the fresh breeze of the North Sea. "Yesterday I flew ov

, in a suit of well-worn tweeds, presented the ideal type of the English landowner, as indeed he was-owne

d next we heard was that he was living a wandering, adventurous life on the Continent. I ran up against him in town once or twic

lared the man at his side

y and down-at-heel. He recognised me in an instant, and hurried on towards Piccadilly Circus. It was Dick-of that

e Navy, then what was his

ell-kept grass plot on the left, where stood the flagstaff and the white cottages of the coastguard. "He watched me get up, and then, I suppose, he started off on his bike for Norwich. What happened afterwards is entirely shrouded in mystery. He was seen to pass through the market-place of North Walsham, five miles a

hood a good deal of late. For what reason nobody knows. He's been living sometimes at t

e over to me at the air-station at Yarmout

what reall

officer. "A mere tramp doesn't kill a fellow of Dick

ustice of the Peace. "Let's hope something will come out at the inquest. Personally, I'm in

ead. He did not inc

od from Norwich or Beccles?" exclaimed Goring. "What could have been the at

strange rumours were afloat concerning him. Yet, after all, he was a real fine fellow, and as smart an officer as ever trod a quarter-deck. He was a splendid linguist, and had fine prospects

utsid

"By adventurer I mean that he led a strange, unconventional life. He was met by men who knew him in all sorts of out-of-the-world corner

staid British landowner-one of a class perhaps the

turer. Dick Harborne, though there were so many sinister whispers concerning him, was a gentleman-a shrewd, deep-thinking, patri

Navy and afloat-gunnery-lieutenant of one of His Majesty's first-class cruisers-there appears to have

ing the lighted end. "I've heard of him being seen in Cairo, Assouan, Monte Carlo, Aix, Berlin, Rome-all over the Contin

ar Barclay. Harborne was a man of secrets without a dou

nknown hand, and his secret, whatever it was, has, I believe,

re very busy,

unted to speak to his assailant. If he had been overthrown his machine would most probably have been damaged. The assassin wanted the motor-cycle intact to get away upon. Besi

nvestigate," replied the tall, country squire

. The head-waiter at the hotel knew him, for he had often lunched there. But yesterday he evidently came here with some fixed purpose, for he seemed to be eagerly expecting somebody, and at last, a little before two o'clock, a young lady arrived by the motor-bus from Cromer. They describe her as a neat, dark-haired, good-looking young person, rather well-dressed-and evidently a summer visitor. The pair walked about the village, and then went down to the beach and sat upon deck-ch

claimed the owner of Keswick Hall,

-and they are now searching for her in Cromer, Runton, and Sheringham, believing her to be staying somewhere along this coast. She was dressed in a pale

he'd be able to make a very interesting s

ast night," Noel Barclay s

n any way implicated. Per

I believe she is s

to see her, he might have motored to wherever she was staying, and not have brought her over here in a motor-bus. No, it was a s

front, the roadway, and indeed all down the "Gap" and across the sands to where the waves lapped the shore, had been recently opened, for upon the previous day the shore end of the new German telegraph-cable connecting England with Nordeney had been lai

e-black, coiled, and snake-like, about three inches in t

" asked Goring, just

said; and both turned into the little gate and asked

warmly in rather imperfect English, and bowed them into where, ranged on a long table, the whole length of the left-hand wall, stood a great quantity of mysterious-

polished, were two small brass lamps burning behind a long, narrow strip of transparent celluloid whereon was

und brass clock and noted that it was time to make the test-every fiv

d over the long ebonite handle of the switch, and, at the same inst

ined line, afterwards noting it in his book in cryptic figures, and th

etting along? Not quite so much excit

jes (buoys) before. Dey have already buried der line in der trench, as you see. Ach! Your

id all right?"

ld not be better. We have laid just over one

the roadside, stabbed in the throat, whi

he end of the green baize-covered

t hand was upon the k

hen the engineer made an enqui

-long and short, which meant "finish

break to-morrow. By noon there will be anot

er down the coast, the two existing cables went out to the German shore. But this additional line wo

anger really existed had at last been tardily admitted by the Government, and now with our Navy redistributed and centred in the North Sea, our destroyer-flotillas exercising nightly, and the establishment of the wireless at F

sted every evening in the military messes of t