"An improved pattern of the German Mauser pistol," was the
other's startling reply.
The Chief tapped a cigarette meditatively on the back of his
hand.
"Okewood," he said, "you are the very model of discretion. I have
put your reticence to a pretty severe test this morning, and you
have stood it very well. But I can see that you are bristling
with questions like a porcupine with quills. Zero hour has
arrived. You may fire away!"
They were sitting in the smoking-room of the United Service Club.
"The Senior," as men call it, is the very parliament of Britain's
professional navy and army. Even in these days when war has flung
wide the portals of the two services to all-comers, it retains a
touch of rigidity. Famous generals and admirals look down from
the lofty walls in silent testimony of wars that have been. Of
the war that is, you will hear in every cluster of men round the
little tables. Every day in the hour after luncheon battles are
fought over again, personalities criticized, and decisions
weighed with all the vigorous freedom of ward-room or the mess
ante-room.
And so to-day, as he sat in his padded leather chair, surveying
the Chief's quizzing face across the little table where their
coffee was steaming, Desmond felt the oddness of the contrast
between the direct, matter-of-fact personalities all around them,
and the extraordinary web of intrigue which seemed to have spun
itself round the little house at Seven Kings.
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