At a rough computation there must have been
several hundred cans in the recess. And they were all full.
In a flash Desmond realized what his discovery signified. The
motor-cycle in the shed without was the connecting link between
Bellward and the man with whom he was co-operating in the
organization. Under pretext of reading late in his library
Bellward would send old Martha to bed, and once the house was
quiet, sally forth by his secret exit and meet his confederate.
Even when he was supposed to be sleeping in London he could still
use the Mill House for a rendezvous, entering and leaving by the
secret door, and no one a bit the wiser. In that desolate part of
Essex, the roads are practically deserted after dark. Bellward
could come and go much as he pleased on his motor-cycle. Were he
stopped, he always had the excuse ready that he was going to--or
returning from the station. The few petrol cans that Desmond had
seen openly displayed in the shed without seemed to show that
Bellward received a small quantity of spirit from the Petrol
Board to take him to and from the railway.
The cache, so elaborately concealed, however, pointed to long
journeys. Did Bellward undertake these trips to fetch news or to
transmit it? And who was his confederate? Whom did he go to meet?
Not Mortimer; for he had only, corresponded with Bellward.
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