want Fritz to believe about the Navy. Make us out to be as rotten as
you plausibly can. Give him some heavy losses to gloat over and to
tempt him out of harbour. Don't overdo it, but mix up your fiction
with enough facts to keep it sweet and make it sound convincing. If
you do your work well--and the Naval authorities here seem to think a
lot of you--Hagan will believe in your Notes, and will try to get them
to his German friends at any cost or risk, which will be exactly what
we want of him. Then, when he has served our purpose, he will find
that we--have--no--more--use--for--him."

Dawson accompanied this slow, harmlessly sounding sentence with a grim
and nasty smile. Cary, before whose eyes flashed for a moment the
vision of a chill dawn, cold grey walls, and a silent firing party,
shuddered. It was a dirty task to lay so subtle a trap even for a
dirty Irish-American spy. His honest English soul revolted at the call
upon his brains and knowledge, but common sense told him that in this
way, Dawson's way, he could do his country a very real service. For a
few minutes he mused over the task set to his hand, and then spoke.

"All right. I think that I can put up exactly what you want. The faked
Notes shall be ready when you come to-morrow. I will give the whole
day to them."

In the morning the new set of Naval Papers was ready, and their
purport was explained in detail to Dawson, who chuckled joyously.
"This is exactly what Admiral ---- wants, and it shall get through to
Germany by Fritz's own channels. I have misjudged you, Mr. Cary; I
thought you little better than a fool, but that story here of a
collision in a fog and the list of damaged Queen Elizabeths in dock
would have taken in even me. Fritz will suck it down like cream. I