all telegrams addressed to the Continent should be sent
to the head telegraph office in London for examination.
Now within the first ten days one hundred and four
messages, sent, I should add, to a hundred and four
different addresses, were worded as follows----" He
waited a moment. "Are you following what I say,
Mrs. Blake?"

"Yes," she said quickly. "I think I understand.
You are telling me about some telegrams -- a great
many telegrams----"

But she was asking herself how this complicated
story could be connected with Anna Bauer.

"Well, I repeat that a hundred and four telegrams
were worded almost exactly alike: 'Father can come
back on about 14th. Boutet is expecting him.'"

Rose looked up at him. "Yes?" she said hesitatingly.
She was completely at a loss.

"Well, your old German servant, Mrs. Blake, sent
one of these telegrams on Monday, August 10th. She
explained that a stranger she met in the street had
asked her to send it off. She was, it seems, kept under
observation for a little while, after her connection with
this telegram had been discovered, but in all the circumstances,
the fact she was in your mother's service,
and so on, she was given the benefit of the doubt."

"But -- but I don't understand even now?" said Rose
slowly.

"I'll explain. All these messages were from German
agents in this country, who wished to tell their employers
about the secret despatch of our Expeditionary
Force. 'Boutet' meant Boulogne. Of course we have
no clue at all as to how your old servant got the information."

[[363]]

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v?