"Certainly, Mr. Jacox," she said. "Jack is intensely anxious. He's very puzzled as to what they intend doing."
"Yes," I replied, "it's quite a mystery. But we shall discover something ere long, never fear."
Vera laughed as she sipped the glass of milk I had ordered.
Then I briefly explained all that I had discovered, telling her how the two men had evidently taken the factory on a lease, and how they were there every day, apparently making plans for future business.
"But what business do they intend starting?" she asked.
"Ah!" I said; "that's what we have to find out. And we shall do so before very long, if we are careful and vigilant."
"Trust me," she said; "I am entirely at your orders."
"Then I shall wait and hear your report," I said. "When you return to the hotel send a line to my room."
And with that arrangement we parted.
That day I spent idling in the vicinity of the hotel. It was mid-August, and the atmosphere was stifling. That district of Hull is not a very pleasant one, for it is one of mean provincial streets and of the noise of railway lorries rumbling over the granite setts.
The afternoon I spent in playing billiards with the marker, when about six o'clock a page-boy brought me a note from my enthusiastic little friend.
"I shall be in the station refreshment-room at half-past six. Meet me.--VERA."
Those were the words I found within the envelope.
Half an hour later, when I sat at the little marble-topped table with her, she related how she had been following the pair all day.
"They were in the factory from half-past one until four," she said.
"They've ordered a builder to put up ladders to examine the chimney.
They appear to think it isn't quite safe."
She told me the name of the builder, adding that the contract was to have the ladders in position during the next three days.
"They are leaving for London to-night by the last train," she added. "I heard the Belgian telling the hall-porter as I came out."
"Then we'll wire to Ray to meet them, and keep an eye upon them," I said. "I suppose you will go up to town?"
"I think so. And when they return I will follow them down if Ray deems it best," replied the pretty girl, who was just as enthusiastic in her patriotism as ourselves.
So still mystified I was compelled to remain inactive in Hull, while Vera and the two foreigners whom we suspected of espionage went up to London.
For the next four days I heard nothing until suddenly, at eight o'clock one morning, Ray entered my bedroom before I was up.
"I've found out one thing about those Johnnies!" he exclaimed. "They've been buying, in Clerkenwell, a whole lot of electrical appliances--coils of wire, insulators, and batteries. Some of it has been sent direct to the place they've taken here, and the rest has been sent to their house down in Sydenham."
"What can they want that for?" I queried.
"Don't know, my dear chap. Let's wait and see."
"Perhaps, after all, they are about to set up in business," I said.
"Neither of them has struck me as being spies. Save that they've visited Hartmann once or twice, their movements have not been very suspicious.
Many foreigners are setting up factories in England, owing to the recent change in our patent laws."
"I know," said my friend. "Yet their confidential negotiations with Hartmann have aroused my suspicions, and I feel confident we shall discover something interesting before long. They came back by the same train as I travelled."
After breakfast, we both strolled round to the factory. The ground it covered was not much, and it was surrounded by a wall about twelve feet high, so that no one could see within the courtyard. It had, at one time, been a lead-mill, but for the past eight years had, we learned, been untenanted.
Even as we loitered near, we saw the builder's men bringing long ladders for the inspection of the chimney.
We watched for a whole week, but as each day passed, I became more confident that we were upon a false scent.
The chimney had been inspected, the ladders taken down again, and once more the German and the Belgian had returned south to that pleasant London suburb.
In order to ascertain what was really in progress I called one morning upon the solicitor in Whitefriargate, on pretext of being a likely tenant of the factory. I was, however, informed by the managing clerk that it was already let to a firm of electrical engineers.
Thus the purchase of electrical appliances was entirely accounted for.
Once again I returned to London. They seemed, by the electrical accessories that had been delivered, to be fitting up a second factory in their house in Sydenham.
That, being a private house, seemed somewhat mysterious.
They had become friendly also with a tall, rather well-dressed Englishman named Fowler, who had the appearance of a superior clerk, and who resided in a rather nice house in Hopton Road, Streatham Hill.
Fowler had become a frequent visitor at their house, while, on several occasions, he dined with Dubois at De Keyser's Hotel, facing Blackfriars Bridge.
In consequence of some conversation I one evening overheard--a conversation in English, which the Belgian spoke fluently--I judged Fowler to be an electrician, and it seemed, later on, very much as though he had been, or was about to be, taken into partnership with them.
As far as we could discover, however, he had been told nothing about the factory in Hull. More than once I suspected that the two foreigners were swindlers, who intended to "do" the Englishman out of his money. This was impressed I upon me the more, because one evening a German woman was introduced to their newly-found friend as Frau Gessner, who had just arrived from Wiesbaden.
Whether she was really Gessner's wife I doubted. It was curious that, on keeping observation that evening, I found that the lady did not reside at Sydenham, but at a small hotel in Bloomsbury, not a stone's-throw from my own rooms.
There was certainly some deep game in progress. What could it be?
Vera had watched Fowler on several occasions, but beyond the fact that he was an electrical engineer, occupying a responsible position with a well-known telegraph construction company, we could discover nothing.
After nearly three weeks in London, Dubois and Gessner returned to Hull, where, while living at the Station Hotel, they spent each day at their "works." They engaged no assistant, and were bent apparently upon doing everything by themselves. They were joined one day by a shrivelled-up old man of rather seedy appearance, and typically German. His name was Busch, and he lived in lodgings out on the Beverley Road. He was taken to the works, and remained there all day.
A quantity of electrical appliances were delivered from London, and Dubois and Gessner received them and unpacked them themselves.
Ray Raymond was down at Sheerness upon another matter--a serious attempt to obtain some confidential naval information--therefore I remained in Hull anxiously watching. Vera had again offered her services, but at that moment she was down at Sheerness with Ray.
Day by day old Busch went regularly to the factory, and by the appearance of the trio when they came forth, it was apparent that they worked very hard. I was intensely inquisitive, and dearly wished to obtain a glance within the place. But that was quite out of the question.
Busch, it seemed, had lived in Hull for a considerable period. Inquiries of his neighbours revealed that he was a well-known figure. He did but little work, preferring to take long walks into the country.
One man told me that he had met him twice away near Spurn Head, at the estuary of the Humber, and on another occasion he had seen him wandering aimlessly along the low-lying coast in the vicinity of Hornsea. In explanation of this, it seemed that he had once lived for a whole summer in Withernsea, not far from Spurn Head, and had grown fond of the neighbourhood. Everybody looked upon him as a harmless old man, a trifle eccentric, and a great walker.
That constant rambling over that low-lying district of Holderness had aroused my suspicions, and I determined to turn my attention to him.