"How's the leg?" he enquired.
"Pretty nearly all right again," Furley answered cheerfully.
"Seems to me I was frightened before I was hurt. What about your
head?"
"No inconvenience at all," Julian declared, stretching himself
out. "I suppose I must have a pretty tough skull."
"Any news?"
"News enough, of a sort, if you haven't heard it. They caught the
man who sandbagged me, and who I presume sawed your plank through,
and shot him last night."
"The devil they did!" Furley exclaimed, taking his pipe from his
mouth. "Shot him? Who the mischief was he, then?"
"It appears," Julian replied, "that he was a German hairdresser,
who escaped from an internment camp two years ago and has been at
large ever since, keeping in touch, somehow or other, with his
friends on the other side. He must have known the game was up as
soon as he was caught. He didn't even attempt any defence."
"Shot, eh?" Furley repeated, relighting his pipe. "Serves him
damned well right!"
"You think so, do you?" Julian remarked pensively.
"Who wouldn't? I hate espionage. So does every Englishman.
That's why we are such duffers at the game, I suppose."
Julian watched his friend with a slight frown.
"How in thunder did you get mixed up with this affair, Furley?" he
asked quietly.
Furley's bewilderment was too natural to be assumed. He removed
his pipe from his teeth and stared at his friend.
"What the devil are you driving at, Julian?" he demanded.
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