"
Bray's big pudgy hands still played idly with the mail on his desk.
Hughes went on: "Perhaps, as a clever detective, you will be
interested in the series of events which enabled me to win that
Homburg hat? You have heard, no doubt, that the man I have caught
is Von der Herts--ten years ago the best secret-service man in
the employ of the Berlin government, but for the past few years
mysteriously missing from our line of vision. We've been wondering
about him--at the War Office."
The colonel dropped into a chair, facing Bray.
"You know Von der Herts, of course?" he remarked casually.
"Of course," said Bray, still in that dead tired voice.
"He is the head of that crowd in England," went on Hughes. "Rather
a feather in my cap to get him--but I mustn't boast. Poor
Fraser-Freer would have got him if I hadn't--only Von der Herts
had the luck to get the captain first."
Bray raised his eyes.
"You said you were going to tell me--" he began.
"And so I am," said Hughes. "Captain Fraser-Freer got in rather
a mess in India and failed of promotion. It was suspected that he
was discontented, soured on the Service; and the Countess Sophie
de Graf was set to beguile him with her charms, to kill his loyalty
and win him over to her crowd.
"It was thought she had succeeded--the Wilhelmstrasse thought
so--we at the War Office thought so, as long as he stayed in India.
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