But Colonel Walton did not look up from the end of his cigar, which he was examining with great intentness. "I'm not a sceptic," remarked Malcolm Sage presently, as he gazed at his brilliantly-polished fingernails, "but I would give a great deal for a dumb patriot domiciled in Apthorpe Road." "Dumb?" queried Colonel Walton. Malcolm Sage nodded without raising his eyes from his finger-nails. "I have no doubt that Apthorpe Road is exclusively patriotic; but if we were to ask one of its residents to lend us a front-bedroom and, furthermore, if we spent all our days in the bedroom at the window----" He shrugged his shoulders. "There's always the domestic servant," suggested Colonel Walton. "Not much use in this case, chief," was the reply. "It means that Thompson has had to turn road-mender. Good man, Thompson," he added. "He'd extract facts from a futurist picture." Colonel Walton nodded. CHAPTER XVI FINLAY'S S.O.S. I "Well, I think it's spies," announced Marjorie Rogers, as she sat perched on the corner of John Dene's table, swinging a pretty foot. Dorothy looked up quickly. "But----" she began, then paused. "And it's all Mr. Llewellyn John's fault. He ought to intern all aliens. On raid-nights the Tube is simply disgusting." Dorothy smiled at the wise air of decision with which Marjorie settled political problems. The strain of the past week with its hopes and fears was beginning to tell upon her. There had been interminable interrogations by men in plain clothes, who with large hands and blunt pencils wrote copious notes in fat note-books. The atmosphere with which they surrounded themselves was so vague, so non-committal, that Dorothy began to feel that she was suspected of having stolen John Dene. "Oh, mother!" she had cried on the evening of the first day of her ordeal at the hands of Scotland Yard, "you should see your poor, defenceless daughter surrounded by men who do nothing but ask questions and look mysterious. They're so different from Mr. Sage," she had added as an afterthought. "If it isn't the spies," continued Marjorie, "then what is it?" Dorothy shook her head wearily. She missed John Dene. It was just beginning to dawn upon her how much she missed him. The days seemed interminable. There was nothing to do but answer the door to the repeated knocks, either of detectives or of journalists. It was a relief when Marjorie ran in to pick her up for lunch--Dorothy had felt it only fair to discontinue the elaborate lunches that were sent in--or on her way home in the evening. "A man doesn't get lost like a pawn-ticket," announced Marjorie. "What do you know about pawn-tickets, Rojjie?" "Oh, I often pop things when I'm hard up," she announced nonchalantly. "You don't!" cried Dorothy incredulously. "Of course. What should I do when I'm stoney if it wasn't for uncle." "You outrageous little creature!" cried Dorothy. "I should like to shake you."