"Look at me," Major Thomson continued thoughtfully. "Every secret
connected with our present and future plans practically passes
through my hands, yet no one watches me. Whisper a word at the War
Office that perhaps it would be as well--just for a week, say--to
test a few of my reports, and they'd laugh at you with the air of
superior beings listening to the chatter of a fool. Yet what is there
impossible about it? I may have some secret vice--avarice, perhaps.
Germany would give me the price of a kingdom for all that I could
tell them. Yet because I am an English officer I am above all
suspicion. It's magnificent, Ambrose, but it's damnably foolish."

The young man watched his chief for several moments. Thomson was
standing before the window, the cold spring light falling full upon
his face, with its nervous lines and strongly-cut, immobile features.
He felt a curious indisposition to speak, a queer sort of desire to
wait on the chance of hearing more.

"A single kink in my brain," Thomson continued, "a secret weakness,
perhaps even a dash of lunacy, and I might be quite reasonably the
master-spy of the world. I was in Berlin six weeks ago, Ambrose.
There wasn't a soul who ever knew it. I made no report, on purpose."

"Perhaps they knew and said nothing," Ambrose suggested softly.

There was a moment's silence. Thomson seemed to be considering the
idea with strange intensity. Then he shook his head.

"I think not," he decided. "When the history of this war is written,
Ambrose, with flamboyant phrases and copious rhetoric, there will be