Hagan's driver also has had a police warning, so that our spy is in a
barbed-wire net. I shall hear before very long all about him."

Cary and Dawson spent the morning at the hotel with a telephone beside
them; every few minutes the bell would ring, and a whisper of Hagan's
movements steal over the wires into the ears of the spider Dawson. He
reported progress to Cary with ever-increasing satisfaction.

"Hagan has applied for and been granted a passport to Holland, and has
booked a passage in the boat which leaves Harwich to-night for the
Hook. We will go with him. The other two spies, with the copies,
haven't turned up yet, but they are all right. My men will see them
safe across into Dutch territory, and make sure that no blundering
Customs officer interferes with their papers. This time the way of
transgressors shall be very soft. As for Hagan, he is not going to
arrive."

"I don't quite understand why you carry on so long with him," said
Cary, who, though tired, could not but feel intense interest in the
perfection of the police system and in the serene confidence of
Dawson. The Yard could, it appeared, do unto the spies precisely what
Dawson chose to direct.

"Hagan is an American citizen," explained Dawson. "If he had been a
British subject I would have taken him at Euston--we have full
evidence of the burglary, and of the stolen papers in his suit-case.
But as he is a damned unbenevolent neutral we must prove his intention
to sell the papers to Germany. Then we can deal with him by secret
court-martial.[1] The journey to Holland will prove this intention.
Hagan has been most useful to us in Ireland, and now in the North of