blew out! But now he was not in uniform, but in a plain suit of
clothes.

"So you are spying on my house, are you?" he said. "And you lied
to me yesterday! No troops were sent to Croydon at all!"

"Well, you hadn't any business to ask us!" said Dick, pluckily.
"If you hadn't asked us any questions, we'd have told you no
lies."

"I think perhaps you know too much," said the spy, nodding his
head, "You had better come with me. We will look after you in
this house that interests you so greatly."

He made a movement forward. His hand dropped on Dick's shoulder.
But as it did so Harry's feet left the ground. He aimed for the
spy's legs, just below the knee, and brought him to the ground
with a beautiful diving tackle - the sort he had learned in his
American football days. It was the one attack of all others that
the spy did not anticipate, if, indeed, he looked for any
resistance at all. He wasn't a football player, so he didn't know
how to let his body give and strike the ground limply. The result
was that his head struck a piece of hard ground with abnormal
violence, and he lay prone and very still.

"Oh, that was ripping, Harry!" cried Dick. "But do you think
you've killed him?"

"Killed him? No!" said Harry, with a laugh.