Now no British workman will willingly give away any secret to a foreign Power, and we did not suspect that any one employed at the great Elswick Works would be guilty of treachery. In these days of socialistic, fire-brand oratory there is always, however, the danger of a discharged workman making revelations with objects of private vengeance, never realising that it is a nation's secrets that he may be betraying. Yet in the course of a fortnight's inquiry we learned nothing to lead us to suspect that our enemies would obtain the information they sought. Among the members of the secret German club--which, by the way, included in its membership several Swiss and Belgians--was a middle-aged man who went by the name of John Barker, but who was either a German or a Swede, and whose real name most probably ended in "burger." He was, we found, employed as foreign-correspondence clerk in the offices of a well-known shipping firm, and amateur photography seemed his chief hobby. He had a number of friends, one of whom was a man named Charles Rosser, a highly respectable, hardworking man, who was a foreman fitter at Elswick. We watched the pair closely, for our suspicions were at last aroused. Rosser often spent the evening with his friend Barker at theatres and music-halls, and it was evident that the shipping clerk paid for everything. Once or twice Barker went out to Rosser's house in Dilston Road, close to the Nun's Moor Recreation Ground, and there spent the evening with his wife and family. We took turns at keeping observation, but one night Ray, who had been out following the pair, entered my room at the hotel, saying: "Barker is persuading his friend to buy a new house in the Bentinck Road. It's a small, neat little red-brick villa, just completed, and the price is three hundred and fifty pounds." "Well?" I asked. "Well, to-night I overheard part of their conversation. Barker actually offers to lend his friend half the money." "Ah!" I cried. "On certain conditions, I suppose?" "No conditions were mentioned, but, no doubt, he intends to get poor Rosser into his toils, that he'll be compelled to supply some information in order to save himself and his family from ruin. The spies of Germany are quite unscrupulous, remember!" "Yes," I remarked. "The truth is quite clear. We must protect Rosser from this. He's no doubt tempting the unsuspecting fellow, and posing as a man of means. Rosser doesn't know that his generous friend is a spy." For the next few days it fell to my lot to watch Barker. I followed him on Saturday afternoon to Tynemouth, where it seemed his hobby was to snap-shot incoming and outgoing ships at the estuary, at the same time asking of seafaring men in the vicinity how far the boat would be from the shore where he was standing.