But a spy needs grit, he reflected, and Nur-el-Din had many
qualities which would enable her to win the confidence of men.
Hadn't she half-captivated him, the would-be spy-catcher,
already?
Desmond laughed ruefully to himself. Indeed, he mused, things
looked that way. What would the Chief say if he could see his
prize young man, his white-headed boy, sitting sentimentalizing
by the fire over a woman who was, by her own confession,
practically an accredited German agent? Desmond thrust his chin
out and shook himself together. He would put the feminine side of
Nur-el-Din out of his head. He must think of her henceforth only
as a member of the band that was spotting targets for those
sneaking, callous brutes of U-boat commanders.
He went back to the study of the list of Mr. Bellward's friends.
But he found it impossible to focus his mind upon it. Do what he
would, he could not rid himself of the sensation that he had
failed at the very outset of his mission. He was, indeed, he told
himself, the veriest tyro at the game. Here he had had under his
hand in turn Nur-el-Din and Mortimer (who, he made no doubt, was
the leader of the gang which was so sorely troubling the Chief),
and he had let both get away without eliciting from either even
as much as their address.
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