The adventures of Heine

By Edgar Wallace

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Title: The adventures of Heine

Author: Edgar Wallace

Release date: July 8, 2025 [eBook #76462]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1929

Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF HEINE ***





 THE ADVENTURES
 OF HEINE

 BY
 EDGAR WALLACE
 Author of “Keepers of the King’s Peace,”
 “People of the River,” etc.




 WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
 LONDON AND MELBOURNE
 1929




 CONTENTS

 Chapter I. Alexander and the Lady
 Chapter II. The Man who Dwelt on a Hill
 Chapter III. The Lovely Miss Harrymore
 Chapter IV. The Affair of Mister Haynes
 Chapter V. The Man from the Stars
 Chapter VI. The Affair of the Allies’ Conference
 Chapter VII. The Word of a Prince
 Chapter VIII. The Jermyn Credit Bank
 Chapter IX. Mr. Collingrey, M.P.--Pacifist!
 Chapter X. The Grey Envelope
 Chapter XI. The Murderers
 Chapter XII. The Passing of Heine
 Chapter XIII. The U-Boat Adventure
 Chapter XIV. Brethren of the Order
 Chapter XV. The World Dictator
 Chapter XVI. The Syren
 Chapter XVII. The Coming of the Bolsheviks
 Chapter XVIII. The Going of Heine
 Endnotes




 THE ADVENTURES OF HEINE

 CHAPTER I.
 ALEXANDER AND THE LADY

Secret Service work is a joke in peace time and it is paid on joke
rates. People talk of the fabulous sums of money which our Government
spend on this kind of work, and I have no doubt a very large sum was
spent every year, but it had to go a long way. Even Herr Kressler, of
the Bremen-America Line, who gave me my monthly cheque, used to nod
and wink when he handed over my two hundred marks.

“Ah, my good Heine,” he would say, stroking his stubbly beard, “they
make a fool of me, the Government, but I suppose I mustn’t ask who is
your other paymaster?”

“Herr Kressler,” said I earnestly, “I assure you that this is the
whole sum I receive from the Government.”

“So!” he would say and shake his head: “Ah, you are close fellows and
I mustn’t ask questions!”

There was little to do save now and again to keep track of some of the
bad men, the extreme Socialists, and the fellows who ran away from
Germany to avoid military service. I often wished there were more,
because it would have been possible to have made a little on one’s
expenses. Fortunately, two or three of the very big men in New York
and Chicago knew the work I was doing, and credited me with a much
larger income than I possessed. The reputation of being well off is a
very useful one, and in my case, it brought me all sorts of
commissions and little tips which I could profitably exploit on Wall
Street, and in one way or another I lived comfortably, had a nice
apartment on Riverside Drive, backed horses, and enjoyed an occasional
trip to Washington, at my Government’s expense.

I first knew that war was likely to break out in July. I think we
Germans understood the European situation much better than the
English, and certainly much better than the Americans, and we knew
that the event at Serajevo--by the way, poor Klein of our service and
an old colleague of mine, was killed by the bomb which was intended
for the Archduke, though nobody seems to have noticed the fact--would
produce the war which Austria had been expecting or seeking an excuse
to wage for two years.

If I remember aright the assassination was committed on the Sunday
morning. The New York papers published the story on that day and on
the Monday afternoon I was summoned to Washington, and saw the
Secretary, who was in charge of our Department, on the Tuesday evening
after dinner.

All the big people, even his Excellency, called me by my Christian
name, for I was at college with many of the officials who are
prominent in the world to-day, and I served as volunteer in the
engineers of the guard and afterwards served a probation on the Great
General Staff, Survey Department.

The Secretary was very grave and told me that war was almost certain,
and that Austria was determined to settle with Serbia for good, but
that it was feared that Russia would come in and that the war could
not be localised because, if Russia made war, Germany and France would
also be involved.

Personally, I have never liked the French, and my French is not
particularly good. I was hoping that he was going to tell us that
England was concerned, and I asked him if this was not the case. To my
disappointment, he told me that England would certainly not fight;
that she would remain neutral, and that strict orders had been issued
that nothing was to be done which would in any way annoy the English.

“Their army,” he said, “is beneath contempt, but their navy is the
most powerful in the world and its employment might have very serious
consequences.”

It seemed very early to talk about war, with the newspapers still full
of long descriptions of the Serajevo murder and the removal of the
Archduke’s body, and I remembered after with what astounding assurance
our Secretary had spoken.

I must confess I was disappointed, because I had spent a very long
time in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, establishing touch with
good friends who, I felt, would work with advantage for me in the
event of war. I had prepared my way by founding the Chinese News
Bureau, a little concern that had an office in Fleet Street and was
ostensibly engaged in collecting items of news concerning China and
distributing them to the London and provincial press, and in
forwarding a London letter to certain journals in Pekin, Tientsien and
Shanghai.

Of course, the money was found by the Department, and it was not a
financial success, but it was a good start in case one ever had to
operate in London, since I was registered as a naturalised Chilian and
it was extremely unlikely that Chili would be at war with any European
Power.

I could not see what there was to do in New York, where the ground was
so effectively covered. We had a police force of our own associated
with the Bremen-America line. We had reservist organisations in every
big town, and both the military, naval and commercial investigation--I
will not use the hateful word “espionage”--was in good hands, and I
looked like being at a loose end and subordinate to people who were my
inferiors, if I remained in America.

On the 3rd August, 1914, I received a message from Washington in the
Departmental code, telling me that war with England was inevitable and
that I was to sail on the first boat and take up my duties in London
in full control of the British Department.

I was overjoyed with the news and I know that men like Stohwasser,
Wesser, and other men of my Department, looked at me with envy. They
did not think they had an easy task because the American Secret
Service is a very competent one; but they thought I was a lucky
pig--as indeed I was--to be operating in a country containing a
population of forty millions, most of whom, as one of their writers
said, were fools.

The English are, of course, a very thick-headed people, as I have
reason to know. They are childish and unsuspecting, and you have only
to ask for valuable information to get it. The Scotch, or Scots, are
shrewder in business, but very simple people, practically ignorant, as
are the English, of European politics, and very naïve in all matters
affecting the State.

Moreover, as I have discovered on several of my visits, the Scots are
not particularly well disposed to their southern neighbours, and I
have heard many insulting references made by one against the other. It
is quite a common thing to hear the expressions of scorn as a
“close-fisted Scot” or “a pudding-headed Englishman,” whilst in Wales
neither the Scots nor the English are popular.

Ireland, of course, was in a constant condition of rebellion, and I
looked forward with great pleasure to witnessing and inflaming the
little domestic quarrels which I knew would arise as soon as war broke
out.

I landed at Liverpool on August 11th. My passport was in order and I
immediately went forward to London. There was no trace of any
excitement. I saw a lot of soldiers on their way to their depôts; and
arriving in London, I immediately received the reports of our
innumerable agents.

With what pride did I contemplate the splendid smoothness of our
system!

When the Emperor pressed the button marked “Mobilise,” he called, in
addition to his soldiers, a thousand gallant hearts and brilliant
minds in a score of countries all eager and happy to work for the
aggrandisement of our beloved Fatherland.

Six of us met at a fashionable restaurant near Trafalgar Square. There
were Emil Stein, who called himself Robinson, Karl Besser--I need not
give all their aliases--Heine von Wetzl, Fritz von Kahn and Alexander
Koos.

Stein had arrived from Holland the night before and Fritz von Kahn had
come down from Glasgow where he had been acting as a hotel porter.
These men were, as I say, known to me, and to one another, but there
were thousands of unknowns who had their secret instructions, which
were only to be opened in case of war, and with whom we had to get in
touch.

I briefly explained the procedure and the method by which our agents
would be identified. Every German agent would prove his bonâ fides by
producing three used postage stamps of Nicaragua. It is a simple
method of identification, for there is nothing treasonable or
suspicious in a man carrying about in his pocket-book a ten, twenty or
a fifty centime stamp of a neutral country.

I sent Emil Stein away to Portsmouth and instructed him to make
contact with sailors of the Fleet, especially with officers. Besser
was dispatched to a West Coast shipping centre to report on all the
boats which left and entered. I sent Kahn and his family on a
motor-car tour to the East Coast with instructions to find out what
new coast defences were being instituted.

“You must exercise the greatest care,” I said; “even though these
English are very stupid, they may easily blunder into a discovery.
Make the briefest notes of all you see and hear and only use the
Number 3 code in case of urgent necessity.”

We finished our dinner and we drank to “The Day” and sang under our
breath “Deutschland über alles” and separated, Koos coming with me.

Koos was a staff officer of the Imperial Service, and though he was
not noble, he was held in the greatest respect. He was a fine,
handsome fellow, very popular with the girls, and typically British in
appearance. His English was as good as mine, and that is saying a
great deal. I sent him to Woolwich because in his character as an
American inventor--he had spent four years in the States--he was
admirably fitted to pick up such facts as were of the greatest
interest to the Government.

I did not see Koos for a few days and in the meantime I was very busy
arranging with my couriers who were to carry the result of our
discoveries through a neutral country to Germany. The system I adopted
was a very simple one. My notes, written in Indian ink, were
separately photographed by means of a camera. When I had finished the
twelve exposures, I opened the camera in a dark room, carefully
re-rolled the spool and sealed it so that it had the appearance of
being an unexposed pellicle. I argued that whilst the English military
authorities would confiscate photographs which had obviously been
taken, they might pass films which were apparently unused.

I had arranged to meet Koos on the night of August 17th, and made my
way to the rendezvous, engaging a table for two. I had hardly seated
myself when, to my surprise, Koos came in accompanied by a very pretty
English girl. He walked past me, merely giving me the slightest
side-glance, and seated himself at the next table. I was amused. I
knew the weakness of our good Koos for the ladies, but I knew also
that he was an excellent investigator and that he was probably
combining business with pleasure. In this I was right. The meal
finished--and the innocent laughter of the girl made me smile
again--and Koos walked out with the girl on his arm.

As he passed my table he dropped a slip of paper which I covered with
my table-napkin. When I was sure I was not observed, I read the note.


 “Making excellent progress. Meet me at a quarter to eleven outside
 Piccadilly Tube.”


I met him at the appointed time and we strolled into Jermyn Street.

“What do you think of her?” was Koos’ first question.

“Very pretty, my friend,” said I. “You have excellent taste.”

He chuckled.

“I have also excellent luck, my dear Heine.” Even well-born people
call me by my Christian name, as I have before remarked, though I do
not boast of this because my father’s mother was a von Kuhl-Hozeldorf
and I am in a sense related to the best Würtemberg nobility. “That
lady,” went on Koos, “is the daughter of one of the chief
gun-constructors at Woolwich.”

He looked at me to note the effect of his words, and I must confess I
was startled.

“Splendid, my dear fellow!” said I, warmly. “How did you come to meet
her?”

“A little act of gallantry,” he said airily; “a lady walking on
Blackheath twists her ankle, what more natural than that I should
offer her assistance to the nearest seat? Quite a babbling little
person--typically English,” he added dryly.

I laughed again.

“I could have done very well without her assistance, of course,” he
went on; “as a matter of fact, I had met one or two very excellent
Englishmen who, with their usual penchant for boastfulness, were able
to supply me with particulars of a new gun-lathe of which they are
very proud. In fact, I have got the rough drawings, but the little
lady----”

He raised his eyes to the heavens and chuckled joyfully.

“My dear friend,” he said impressively, “she is a mine of information.
An only daughter and a little spoilt, I am afraid, she knows no doubt
secrets of construction of which the technical experts of the
Government are ignorant. Can you imagine a German talking over
military affairs with his daughter?”

“The English are a little mad, as I have remarked before,” said I. I
then closely questioned Koos as to the activity of the police. It was
naturally to be expected that Woolwich would be well guarded and that
strangers would arouse suspicion.

“There is no English secret police,” said my friend cheerfully; “there
is a special department at Scotland Yard whose footsteps you can hear
a mile away, but a secret service, as it is understood in Germany, or
even in America, does not exist, except in the fervid imagination of
romantic novelists.”

“I only asked you,” I said hastily, “for fear that this girl should be
watched.”

“You can dismiss that possibility from your mind,” smiled Koos.

By this time we had reached the end of Jermyn Street and had turned
down St. James’s Street toward the Palace, and our conversation was
naturally interrupted, for we had to speak in English and there was
rather a crowd of people. It was not until we had reached the Mall,
comparatively deserted, that Koos continued this story.

“You need not worry. The girl is romantic--an idealist.”

“And you are the ideal, you dog!” said I.

He twisted his moustache, by no means ill-pleased at the accusation.

“Some men have that power of attraction,” he said modestly. “I am
rather sorry for the little thing.”

“What have you learnt from her?” I asked.

Koos did not reply for a moment, then he said:

“So far, very little. I am naturally anxious not to alarm her or
arouse her suspicions. She is willing to talk and she has access to
her father’s study and, from what I gather, she practically keeps all
the keys of the house. At present I am educating her to the necessity
for preserving secrecy about our friendship and to do her justice, she
is just as anxious that our clandestine meetings should not come to
the ears of her father as I am.”

We walked along in silence.

“This may be a very big thing,” I said.

“Bigger than you imagine,” replied Alexander; “there is certain to be
an exchange of confidential views about artillery between the Allies,
and though we have nothing to learn from the English, it is possible
that the French may send orders to Woolwich for armament. In that case
our little friend may be a mine of information. I am working with my
eyes a few months ahead,” he said, “and for that reason I am allowing
our friendship to develop slowly.”

I did not see Koos again for a week, except that I caught a glimpse of
him in the Café Riche with his fair companion. He did not see me,
however, and as it was desirable that I should not intrude, I made no
attempt to make my presence apparent.

At the end of the week we met by appointment, which we arranged
through the agony column of a certain London newspaper.

I was feeling very cheerful, for Stein, Besser, and Kahn had sent in
most excellent reports, and it only needed Alexander’s encouraging
news to complete my sum of happiness.

“You remember the gun-lathe I spoke to you about,” he said. “My
friend--you may regard the blue prints as in your hands.”

“How has this come about?”

“I just casually mentioned to my little girl that I was interested in
inventions and that I had just put a new lathe upon the market in
America and she was quite excited about it. She asked me if I had
heard about the lathe at Woolwich, and I said that I had heard rumours
that there was such a lathe. She was quite overjoyed at the
opportunity of giving me information and asked me whether in the event
of her showing me the prints I would keep the fact a great secret,
because,” he laughed softly, “she did not think her father would like
the print to leave his office!”

“You must be careful of this girl,” I said, “she may be detected.”

“There is no danger, my dear fellow,” said Alexander. “She is the
shrewdest little woman in the world. I am getting quite to like her if
one can like these abominable people--she is such a child!”

I told him to keep in communication with me and sent him off feeling
what the English call in “good form.” I dispatched a courier by the
morning train to the Continent, giving details of the British
Expeditionary Force. Only two brigades were in France--and that after
three weeks of preparation! In Germany every man was mobilized and at
his corps or army headquarters weeks ago--every regiment had moved up
to its order of battle position. Two brigades! It would be amusing if
it were not pathetic!

Besser came to me soon after lunch in a very excited state.

“The whole of the English Expeditionary Force of three divisions is in
France,” he said, “and, what is more, is in line.”

I smiled at him.

“My poor dear fellow, who has been pulling your foot?” I asked.

“It is confidentially communicated to the Press, and will be public
to-morrow,” he said.

“Lies,” said I calmly, “you are too credulous. The English are the
most stupid liars in the world.”

I was not so calm that night when I ran down in my car to Gorselton,
where our very good friend, the Baron von Hertz-Missenger, had a nice
little estate.

“Heine,” he said, after he had taken me to his study and shut the
door. “I have received a radio through my wireless from the
_Kriegsministerium_[1] to the effect that the whole of the British
Expeditionary Force has landed and is in line.”

“Impossible, Herr Baron,” I said, but he shook his head.

“It is true--our Intelligence in Belgium is infallible. Now, I do not
want to interfere with you, for I am but a humble volunteer in this
great work, but I advise you to give a little more attention to the
army. We may have underrated the military assistance which Britain can
offer.”

“The English army, Herr Baron,” said I firmly, “is almost as
insignificant a factor as--as well--the American army, which only
exists on paper! Nevertheless, I will take your advice.”

It was necessary to humour the good baron who, although a naturalised
British “subject” (which, of course, means absolutely nothing), is
nobly born and is indeed a member of the Hesse-Hohenlohe
princely-descended family.

We talked a little while about the British. I told the Herr Baron what
I had said about the British Secret Service, and he quite agreed.

“I have been in this country for twelve years and I have met everybody
of importance,” he said, “and I can assure you there is no Secret
Intelligence Department such as we Germans have brought to such
perfect efficiency. As you know, I am a racing man, and I meet with
all sorts of people, good and bad, and I can endorse all that you
say.”

I went back to town and dispatched another courier, for as yet the
Torpington Varnish Factory (about which I will tell you later) had not
been equipped with Radio.

That night I again saw Alexander. It was at supper at the Fritz, and
he looked a fine figure of a man. I felt proud of the country which
could produce such a type. Where, I ask you, amongst the paunchy
English and the scraggy Scotch, with their hairy knees and their
sheep-shank legs, could you find a counterpart of that _beau sabreur_?
Cower, treacherous Albion, shiver in your kilt, hateful Scotch (it is
not generally known that the Royal and High-Born Prince Rupprecht of
Bavaria is rightful King of Scotland), tremble, wild Wales and
unreliable Ireland, when you come in arms against a land which can
produce such men as Alexander Koos!

I never saw a girl look more radiantly happy than did the young woman
who was sitting _vis-à-vis_ my friend. There was a light in her eye
and a colour in her cheeks which were eloquent of her joy.

I saw Alexander afterwards. He came secretly to my rooms.

“Have you brought the blue print?” I asked.

He shook his head smilingly.

“To-morrow, my friend, not only the blue print of the lathe, not only
the new gun-mounting model, but the lady herself will come to me. I
want your permission to leave the day after to-morrow for home. I
cannot afford to wait for what the future may bring.”

“Can you smuggle the plans past the English police?” I asked, a little
relieved that he had volunteered to act as courier on so dangerous a
mission.

“Nothing easier.”

“And the girl--have you her passport?”

He nodded.

“How far shall you take her?”

“To Rotterdam,” he said promptly.

In a way I was sorry. Yes, I am sentimental, I fear, and “sentiment
does not live in an agent’s pocket,” as the saying goes. I wish it
could have been done without. I shrugged my shoulders and steeled my
soul with the thought that she was English and that it was all for the
Fatherland.

“You must come to the Café Riche to-night and witness our going,”
said Alexander; “you will observe that she will carry a leather case
such as schoolgirls use for their books and exercises. In that case,
my friend, will be enough material to keep our friends in Berlin busy
for a month.”

I took leave of him, giving him certain instructions as to the course
he was to take after reporting at Headquarters, and spent the rest of
the night coding a message for our Alexander to carry with him.

I snatched a few hours’ sleep between telephone calls, and rising at
noon I read the morning papers (full of lies, as are all British
papers, though the Americans are worse) and went through the picture
postcards which my kind friends von Kahn and von Wetzl had sent to me.
If you had seen those postcards with their long “holiday messages,” I
wonder if you would have taken a magnifying glass to search for minute
pinpricks under certain letters and words? I did, because I was a
chief of a bureau unequalled in the world for ingenuity and
prescience.

The hour at which Alexander was to meet the girl was eight o’clock in
the evening. His table (already booked) was No. 47, which is near the
window facing Piccadilly. I telephoned through to the café and booked
No. 46, for I was anxious to witness the comedy.

All was now moving like clockwork--and let me say that the smoothness
of the arrangements was due largely to the very thorough and
painstaking organisation-work which I had carried out in the piping
days of peace. We Germans have a passion for detail and for
thoroughness and for this reason (apart from the inherent qualities of
simplicity and honesty, apart from the superiority of our kultur and
our lofty idealism) we have been unconquerable throughout the ages.

For example, we had foreseen the necessity in organizing our
Intelligence Department, to employ, not Germans, but subjects of
neutral states wherever possible. People who talk of “German spies” or
“the uninterned German peril” cannot realise that from the moment war
broke out, all Germans, known as such, were under the observation of
the police, and not only the police but their own neighbours. It would
be impossible, as I had foreseen, for such men to offer assistance to
our great and splendid cause, because the least suspicious movement on
their parts would result in their arrest. I have a considerable
respect for the Scotland Yard routine investigation. No, my sirs, you
do us no justice when you talk of “German spies.” Search not for the
“Hun,” as in the bitterness of your impotent rage you call us, but for
the----

I think that I have said that much of my time was taken up by
answering telephone calls.

You must remember that I was in London as the representative of a
Chinese News Bureau. I was also an agent for a firm of importers in
Shanghai. It was therefore only natural that I should be called up all
hours of the day and night with offers of goods.

“I can let you have a hundred and twenty bales of Manchester goods at
125.”

Now 120 and 125 added together make 245, and turning to my “simple
code” to paragraph 245, I find the following:


 “2nd Battalion of the Graniteshire Regiment entrained to-day for
 embarkation.”


The minor agents carried this code (containing 1,400 simple sentences
to cover all naval or military movements) in a small volume. The code
is printed on one side of very thin paper leaves, and the leaves are
as porous and absorbent as blotting paper.

One blot of ink dropped upon a sheet will obliterate a dozen--a fact
which our careless agents have discovered.

Clipped in the centre of the book (as a pencil is clipped in an
ordinary book) is a tiny tube of the thinnest glass containing a
quantity of black dye-stuff. The agent fearing detection has only to
press the cover of the book sharply and the contents of the book are
reduced to black sodden pulp.

Need I say that this ingenious invention was German in its origin.[2]

My days were therefore very full. There came reports from all quarters
and some the most unlikely. How, you may ask, did our agents make
these discoveries?

There are many ways by which information is conveyed. The relations of
soldiers are always willing to talk about their men and will tell you,
if they know, when they are leaving, the ships they are leaving by,
and will sometimes give you other important facts, but particularly
about ports and dates of embarkations are they useful.

Also officers will occasionally talk at lunch and dinner and will tell
their women folk military secrets which a waiter can mentally note and
convey to the proper quarters. Our best agents, however, were barbers,
tailors, chiropodists, and dentists. English people will always
discuss matters with a barber or with the man who is fitting them with
their clothes, and as almost every tailor was making military uniforms
and a very large number of the tailors in London were either German or
Austrian, I had quite a wealth of news.

Tailors are useful because they work to time. Clothes have to be
delivered by a certain date and generally the man who has the suit
made will tell the fitter the date he expects to leave England. Other
useful investigators are Turkish-bath attendants and dentists. A man
in a dentist’s chair is always nervous and will try to make friends
with the surgeon who is operating on him. Of all agents the waiter is
in reality the least useful, because writers have been pointing out
for so many years the fact that most waiters were German. But the
truth is that most restaurant waiters are Italian, and it is amongst
the bedroom waiters that you find a preponderance of my fellow
countrymen.

Another department of my work which kept me busy was the money-lending
department. I had initiated a system of inquiry into the financial
affairs of officers and I was able to keep track of all officers who
were in financial difficulties. This department had been a very great
disappointment to us, for in spite of the fact that we had the power
to ruin hundreds of careers, we have never been able to employ that
power profitably. The British officer is absolutely unscrupulous and
has no sense of honour. Often our agents have offered to release them
from their liabilities in return for some trifling service and these
people have preferred to live under the odium of owing people money,
to securing an honourable release from their debts; by some simple
little obliging act, such as giving us particulars of their brother
officers’ losses at cards, and the like. And that is what is called
English honour!

Is it not more dishonourable to owe money you cannot pay than to
whisper a few little secrets about men who probably are as
dishonourable as yourself? However, to return to Alexander and his
inamorata.

Prompt at eight o’clock, I took my place at the table and ordered an
excellent dinner (my waiter was naturally a good German) and a bottle
of Rhenish wine. A few minutes after I had given my order Alexander
and the girl arrived. She was dressed in a long travelling coat of
tussore silk, and carried--as I was careful to note--a shiny brown
leather portfolio. This she placed carefully on her lap when she sat
down and raised her veil.

She looked a little pale, but smiled readily enough at Alexander’s
jests.

I watched her as she slowly peeled off her gloves and unbuttoned her
coat. Her eyes were fixed on vacancy. Doubtless her conscience was
pricking her.

Is it the thought of thy home, little maid, from whence thou hast fled
never to return? Is it the anguished picture of thy broken-hearted and
ruined father bemoaning his daughter and his honour? Have no fear,
little one, thy treason shall enrich the chosen of the German God, the
World Encirclers, Foreordained and Destined to Imperial Grandeur!

So I thought, watching her and listening.

“Are you sure that everything will be all right?” she asked anxiously.

“Please trust me,” smiled Alexander. (Oh, the deceiving rogue--how I
admired his sang-froid!)

“You are ready to go--you have packed!” she asked.

“As ready as you, my dear Elsie. Come--let me question you,” he
bantered; “have you all those wonderful plans which are going to make
our fortunes after we are married?”

So he had promised that--what would the gracious Frau Koos-Mettleheim
have said to this perfidy on the part of her husband?

“I have all the plans,” she began, but he hushed her with a warning
glance.

I watched the dinner proceed but heard very little more. All the time
she seemed to be plying him with anxious questions to which he
returned reassuring answers.

They had reached the sweets when she began to fumble at her pocket. I
guessed (rightly) that she was seeking a handkerchief and (wrongly)
that she was crying.

Her search was fruitless and she beckoned the waiter.

“I left a little bag in the ladies’ room--it has my handkerchief; will
you ask the attendant to send the bag?”

The waiter departed and presently returned with two men in the livery
of the hotel.

I was sitting side by side and could see the faces both of the girl
and Alexander, and I noticed the amusement in his face that two
attendants must come to carry one small bag.

Then I heard the girl speak.

“Put your hands, palms upward, on the table,” she said.

I was still looking at Alexander’s face.

First amazement and then anger showed--then I saw his face go grey and
into his eyes crept the fear of death.

The girl was holding an automatic pistol and the barrel was pointing
at Alexander’s breast. She half turned her head to the attendants.

“Here is your man, sergeant,” she said briskly. “Alexander Koos, alias
Ralph Burton-Smith. I charge him with espionage.”

They snapped the steel handcuffs upon Alexander’s wrists and led him
out, the girl following.

I rose unsteadily and followed.

In the vestibule was quite a small crowd which had gathered at the
first rumour of so remarkable a sensation. Here, for the first time,
Alexander spoke, and it was curious how in his agitation his perfect
English became broken and hoarse.

“Who you are? You have a mistake maken, my frient.”

“I am an officer of the British Intelligence Department,” said the
girl.

“Himmel! Secret Service!” gasped Alexander, “I thought it was not!”

I saw them take him away and stole home.

They had trapped him. The girl with the sprained ankle had been
waiting for him that day on Blackheath. She had led him on by talking
of the plans she could get until he had told her of the rough plans he
already had. Whilst (as he thought) he was tightening the net about
her, she was drawing the meshes tighter about him.… Phew! It makes me
hot to think of it!

Was there a secret service in England after all?

For myself, my tracks were too well covered; for Alexander I could do
nothing. He would not betray me. I was sure of that. Yet to be
perfectly certain I left the next night for Dundee, and I was in
Dundee when the news came that Alexander had been shot in the Tower of
London.




 CHAPTER II.
 THE MAN WHO DWELT ON A HILL

When I left London hurriedly, after the arrest of Alexander Koos, I
must confess that my mind was greatly disturbed. I sat half the night
in my sleeper, turning over all the circumstances leading up to the
arrest of my good friend. We Germans are the most logical people in
the world. We argue with precision from known facts, and we deduce
from those facts such subtle conclusions as naturally flow.

We do not indulge in frivolous speculations--we Germans are a serious
people with a passion for accurate data.

Thus I argued: (1) If a secret police force had been established it is
a post-war creation. Otherwise our general staff would have known of
its existence and have advised us. (2) Supposing a secret service had
been initiated where would its agents be found? Naturally in the
vicinity of the great arsenals and military camps. Under these
circumstances it was not surprising that Koos, confining his
investigations to Woolwich, had been brought into contact with a
member of this new organisation. (3) It was humanly impossible that
the operations of an improvised secret service could be extended in a
few days to areas other than military and arsenal areas. Therefore, it
behoved the investigator to avoid as far as possible arousing
suspicion by pursuing his inquiries in the neighbourhood of arsenals
and camps.

When I had reached this conclusion I was much comforted. I had no
desire to take unnecessary risks. It seemed certain to me at that
time, that the war would not last longer than three months. Koos had
thought it would be over in two months, but I felt that he erred on
the side of optimism. So that the period of risk was not a very
prolonged one, and if I were wise and discreet and succeeded in
impressing my subordinates with the necessity for similar discretion,
there was no reason why we should not return to the Fatherland with a
flawless record to receive those honours which the Supreme War Lord
bestowed upon the faithful servants of our beloved Deutschland.

At eight o’clock in the morning I was taking my breakfast in the
station-buffet at Edinburgh. Von Kahn was awaiting me, and over the
meal, served by a sleepy waitress, I had an opportunity of retailing
the events which had led to my hasty departure from London. Von Kahn
stroked his moustache thoughtfully.

“Koos was an impetuous man,” he said, “I am not surprised that he has
been detected. You must not forget, my dear Heine, that we Germans
have only one thought, only one goal, the welfare of the Fatherland.
Koos allowed his penchant for feminine society to overcome his
judgment. That is a mistake which I should never make.”

I looked at our good von Kahn, with his big red face and his short,
well-fed body, and I could not help thinking that it would be indeed a
remarkable circumstance if he allowed himself to be lured to
destruction in such a manner.

He joined the train and went on with me to Dundee. We had not gone far
from the station before the train stopped and an attendant came in and
pulled down all the blinds, removing, in spite of our protest, all our
baggage, which he locked in an empty compartment.

“What is the meaning of this?” I demanded.

“I am very sorry, sir,” said the man, “but those are my orders.”

For a moment I had a cold feeling inside me that I was suspected, but
his next words reassured me.

“We do it to everybody, sir, before we cross the ---- Bridge.”

When he had gone I turned to von Kahn.

“This is an extraordinary thing,” I said. “I never suspected the
English of taking such intelligent precautions.”

Von Kahn laughed.

“The English here are Scots,” he said, “and they are very cautious.”

I should have dearly liked to peep out when the rumble of the wheels
told me we were passing the famous bridge, but in the corridor outside
the carriage I discovered, to my amazement, a Scottish soldier with
fixed bayonet, and for some reason or other his eyes never left us.

It was not until we were a very long way past the bridge that the
attendant returned my bag and suit-case and pulled up the blind, and
not until we reached Dundee that I discussed the matter at all with
von Kahn.

“I have reason to believe,” he said, “that we have passed a portion of
the British Fleet, and it will be my endeavour during the next few
days to discover what units are at present in the region of Rosyth.”

He told me this in the cab on the way to our hotel and he also gave me
a great deal of information about the East Coast defences which it had
been his business to investigate.

“It is practically impossible to get near the important parts of the
coast,” he said, “and I think you must give up all idea of
establishing light-signal stations at X and Q.”

This was a sad disappointment to me, which I did not attempt to hide.

“My dear von Kahn,” I said testily, “you are getting hypnotised by the
English. You are giving them credit for gifts which are not theirs.
You are imagining that these people, these Scotch for example, have
the same keen national sense of suspicion as we Germans possess.”

We drove the rest of the journey to an hotel in silence. I registered
here in the name by which I was known to the Chilian Legation.

I had never been in Dundee before and I hope I may never see the town
again, for reasons which will be sufficiently obvious to all the good
friends who read my narrative.

Dundee is a sad, grey town, so grim on the rainy morning I arrived,
that I was filled with a strange sense of foreboding. It is a city of
high chimney-stacks that stream smoke, and of clanging tramway cars.

I don’t know whether it was my imagination, or due to the shock of
poor Koos’ arrest, but it also seemed that it was a town of
graveyards, for whichever way I went I seemed always to return to one
drear space of tombstones and sad trees.

My local agent here was a barber named Shmidt, and the first thing I
did on my arrival at the hotel was to send for a barber! What was more
natural than that a weary traveller should require shaving! Ah! do not
smile, my friends! By such acts of forethought and detail was our
great service built up and wonderfully established. Our good friend
came with his little black-leather bag and was admitted to my room.
The honest fellow was almost overcome by the sight of one whom he
regarded as being a veritable link between himself and his Supreme War
Lord.

“It is beautiful to be able to speak our noble German tongue again,”
he said; “think of it, Herr Heine! Here I am week in and week out
talking Scotch--not even English.”

He had much to tell me that I committed to memory. He even had had the
good fortune to be called in professionally to an admiral who was
passing through Dundee on the way to a certain town in the north.

“Naturally,” said Shmidt, “I was extremely tactful and
suspicion-avoiding. But, Herr Heine, not even the high officers of
State know discretion. Reticence is not!

“‘I wish you’d take me with you, Sir Jones,’ I said; he was well-born
and had been created a Sir for war knowledge.

“‘Come along,’ said Sir Jones, ‘but I’m afraid you will not be
comfortable when our fleet goes into action next week against
Heligoland.’

“‘That is a strong fortress, Admiral,’ I said.

“‘We have been undermining it for a month,’ said Sir Jones.

“Herr Heine, I nearly fainted with excitement. Consider the position.
Here was I, a faithful servant of the Fatherland, listening to one of
the most important military secrets from an Excellency of the English
Navy. I kept my blood cool and went on lathering without a tremble of
hand.’

“‘That must have been terribly difficult, Sir Jones,’ I said.

“‘Not at all,’ said Sir Jones; ‘we have a new submarine on wheels that
creeps along the bed of the ocean and fortunately there are beneath
Heligoland several very large caves in which our divers can store
explosives. I trust you will regard all I have told you as
confidential!’”

By the time Shmidt had finished I was on my feet. I knew that there
had been a secret vote or appropriation for the British Navy a year
before. So this was the reason.

“Send Herr von Kahn to me, you will find him in Room 84,” I said; and
long before my companion had arrived I was working at my codes.

“We must find a way to get this information to Germany,” I said.

“The way is simple,” said he; “the _Sven Gustavus_ is in harbour,
waiting to clear for Bergen. She has wireless, and outside of the
territorial waters she can get into touch with the Bremen wireless
station.”

The message I sent was a long one, and I have since learnt that it
created something like a sensation at the Admiralty. All the warships
in the vicinity of Heligoland were ordered away, the Corps of Divers
came from Cuxhaven and the foundations of the island were thoroughly
explored, although the Admiralty Marine Survey Department was emphatic
on the point that no caverns existed under the island.

As a matter of fact none were discovered, though a certain
suspicious-looking hole was found in one of the rocks.[3]

I cannot believe that a High Officer of State who was also a Sir would
condescend to a lie or be so frivolous as to invent such a story, and
to this day I believe that my promptitude in notifying Berlin in all
probability saved the Fatherland from an incalculable disaster. It was
after I had sent this message away, together with certain data which I
received from London, that I set about the business which had induced
me to choose Dundee as the scene of my sojourn.

Scotland had an importance in our scheme which many people have made
the mistake of under-estimating. To appreciate that importance, let us
examine the nature of the German Plan in the event of war. Britain’s
strength and weakness lay in her great extent and in the homogeneous
nature of her people. In this respect she resembled the Royal and
Imperial Empire of Austria-Hungary, with its German, Magyar, Czec,
Slav and Jugo-Slav, Italian, Serbian, and Roumanian subjects.
Austria-Hungary, however, had this advantage, that whatever views
might be held, whatever dissatisfaction and dissensions might exist
amongst the peoples, the Empire was organised for control by a certain
authority. Britain was not so organised. The English hated the Irish,
the Welsh hated the English, the Scotch despised both, and the Irish
hated everybody, including themselves. At the outbreak of war the
north and south of Ireland were on the brink of civil war, a great
strike was pending in Wales (of this more anon), and the Scottish
industrial classes, particularly on the Clyde, were in a state of
unrest.

Outside of the island kingdoms we had an Egypt ripe for rebellion,
with the Khedive on our side, we had India seething with sedition, and
South Africa organised for revolt under two of the most popular of the
Boer Generals in De la Rey and De Wet. Our task was, of course, to
drive the wedges of dissension still deeper, and largely my work was
specialised in this direction, for now the routine of gathering naval
and military information was so smoothly-running that there was
nothing for me to do but to sort out the news which came to me and
pass it along to the proper quarters.

And here I might explain that there were in reality two branches of
Investigation. There was my own, which comprehended all the hackwork
of espionage and propaganda, and there was the Higher Service with
which I was seldom brought into contact. The Higher Service was unpaid
but skilfully organised. Its members were practically unknown to one
another, though most of them were known to me and watched by my
agents. We Germans leave nothing to chance. In Scotland, living not a
very long way from Dundee, was one whom for certain reasons I regarded
as a good friend of ours and who was known locally as “Mr. Brown from
Australia.”

He had a cottage in the loveliest part of the Highlands,[4] where he
lived for three months in the year, spending his time in fishing one
of the little rivers in the neighbourhood. Beyond that he was
eccentric and had had a big flag-staff erected before his cottage on
which he used to fly the Australian flag, little was known of him.

He had few visitors. His cottage was on an inhospitable spur of the
hills, which was more often than not wreathed in the low-lying clouds
or mists which seem to be a permanent feature of this country.

Now and again a member of the Mounted Constabulary would ride up and
exchange a few words or even go inside for a glass of refreshment when
he saw the flag flying, which was always a sign that Mr. Brown was in
residence.

He had one servant, a Swiss youth, who was valet, groom and cook.

I have said about the Higher Service that I knew most of the members.
Some of the names had been officially supplied to me, before my return
to England to take up my work, by von Igel, who was practically in
charge of all the commercial work in New York. Some of them I had
already located on my previous visits to England; while some were so
important, so well-born and so well-connected with Illustrious
Excellencies, that not only were their names withheld from me but I
was discouraged whenever I applied to Headquarters for information.

My local agents in Scotland had already marked down Mr. Brown, of
Australia, and I had put through an inquiry about this gentleman,
informing the _Kriegsministerium_ that he was evidently well educated,
that he was a fluent German scholar, and that he belonged to a
superior London club, much frequented by ministers and attachés.
Obviously his name was not “Brown,” and the two surreptitious views I
secured of him, one close at hand and one through powerful
field-glasses, left no doubt in my mind that he was a son of the
Fatherland. We Germans have an instinct one for the other, a sort of
sixth sense due to our common kultur and to our higher human
development.

Headquarters could tell us nothing, and I thought I detected a certain
discouragement in the wording of the brief message which came through
to me, and drew my own conclusions. There were certain peculiarities
about Mr. Brown which strengthened my resolve, and von Kahn, who had
paid two visits to Glen Macintyre, was even more emphatic.

“It is not my desire, as you well know, von Kahn,” said I, “to intrude
myself into illustrious circles, but there is every reason, in view of
the fate of poor Koos, why we should get in touch with every friend we
can muster.”

There is only one other incident of my stay in Dundee to record, and
that is a curious one. In my rôle as a Chilian importer, I carried a
fairly large sum of money, and to emphasize my association with the
South American Republic, and the international character of my
business, it was my custom in every new town I visited to call either
on a money-changer or the principal bank, and request an exchange of
British money for my foreign notes.

Accordingly I went into the Dundee branch of the Bank of Tayside and
producing a small bundle of notes asked for their British equivalent.
There were, I remember, twelve hundred _peses_ notes of Chili, a
ten-condor note of Ecuador, a hundred-franc note of France and a
hundred-franc note of the Bank of Switzerland.

The teller took the money, counted it and jotted the totals down until
he came to the Swiss note. He looked at the note and then looked at
me. Then he pushed the note back.

“We cannot change Swiss money,” he said.

I scented a mystery--possibly some hidden diplomatic trouble with our
good Swiss neighbour.

“Why?” I asked. “The Swiss exchange is above parity.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the clerk decisively, “but we are not changing
Swiss notes.”

He added some lame story about a large number of Swiss forgeries being
in circulation, but I sought a deeper reason. There had been a
frontier incident. Two or three English newspaper correspondents had
been arrested at Bale and there had been certain hints in the Paris
newspapers that a member of the Swiss General Staff had been conveying
information to our own staff. Here was a matter on which I could very
well consult “Mr. Brown,” if von Kahn’s inquiries satisfied me as to
his bonâ fides.

I started off next morning, accompanied by von Kahn, who had left his
family at an East Coast watering place, fully determined to over-ride
the objections which Berlin had shown and to establish communication
with “the hermit of the Glen,” as I had, with a little touch of true
German sentimentality, described him.

We went across Scotland, changing at Stirling, and in the evening I
came to the little town which was the nearest point on the railway to
Mr. Brown’s residence.

Stirling was interesting. It was full of soldiers in their picturesque
kilts.

“Ah, my fine fellows,” thought I pityingly, “how little you know of
the humiliation in store for you!”

In six months’ time these proud regiments who were marching to the
station with bands and banners would come creeping back, possibly
under a German guard! Little did they think, these officers who sat
chattering so frivolously on the station, that the unobtrusive man in
knickerbockers and rough stockings, watching them so innocently, was a
member of the dominant race and an officer of that great secret
service which has no parallel in the world.

But to resume my narrative. The next morning, at six o’clock, I rose
and knocked on the door of von Kahn’s room. He was up and dressed, and
after a hasty breakfast we were soon flying through the morning
sunlight to our destination.

Four miles out of the town we left the main road and pursued a narrow
cart-track which led gradually up to the hills. The road crosses a
saddle of one of these ridges, then drops steeply into a broad green
valley, through which runs two rivers.

We stopped at the top of the hill and von Kahn pointed out the
shooting-box which stood on the crest of the farther rise--a little
white building.

“Our Mr. Brown is at home,” he said and pointed to the flag, a yellow
flag with a red lion in the centre, the same being the secret standard
of Scotland, which is always flown in defiance of the English, whose
banner is the Union Jack.

We had discussed our plans thoroughly the night before because,
obviously, nothing could be left to the last, and it would have been
extremely dangerous to have talked in the presence of the chauffeur of
our hired car.

I have always made it a point to have no dealings with anybody outside
our own service, and I had arranged with von Kahn to undertake all
negotiations with this stranger. I said good-bye to my friend and
wished him good luck, and I watched him as he descended a steep
footpath and walked along the little road that led to the farther
hill.

I sent the chauffeur back to the main road, telling him to rejoin me
at noon, and profitably spent the time of waiting by exploring ground
and coding a message on the Swiss incident, for transmission to
Germany. Through my glasses I could watch from time to time the
progress of my comrade. I saw him climb the hill and stand before the
door of the cottage, and presently a man came out. They talked
together for about ten minutes and then they both disappeared into the
interior.

It was not until half-past ten that von Kahn made his appearance
again. I saw him shake hands with his host and wave his hand cheerily,
and three-quarters of an hour later he rejoined me on the crest of the
hill.

“Well?” I asked.

There was no need to ask von Kahn. His eyes were gleaming with
triumph.

“I can only say,” said he, “that our Mr. Brown is a remarkable man.”

“In what way?”

“He speaks German, he reads German, and he is German,” said von Kahn
emphatically, “he has a library of all the German classics. I
discovered that when he was out of the room. His flag-post obviously
supports a wireless aerial in the night-time, and although he is bland
and uncommunicative, I have no doubt whatever about his character. He
is one of the Higher Service.”

I nodded.

“Did he give you any hint----?” I began.

“Not a word,” said von Kahn emphatically; “he speaks splendid English,
is well acquainted with Australia, and pretends that he is a wealthy
pleasure-seeker with no other interest than fishing and shooting.”

“I hope you were tactful,” I said suddenly.

Von Kahn smiled.

“My dear Heine,” he said, “you need have no apprehension. I whistled a
certain little tune you know, and he finished it without hesitation.
He is not only in the Higher Service, but he stands very high in the
Higher Service.”

To make absolutely sure, we returned that night, and in company with
von Kahn I crossed the valley and climbed the hill.

I was half-way up the hill when I heard a familiar sound. If you can
imagine the rattling of dried peas in a tin canister shaken at
irregular intervals, you know the sound that wireless makes, and that
a wireless message was being tapped from the cottage on the hill there
was no doubt. More than this, the unknown Mr. Brown had taken
elaborate precautions to avoid detection. We climbed the hill a little
higher and suddenly my foot caught an obstruction. I flashed my
electric lamp down and saw that I had snapped a tiny wire.

Instantly the “clickety-click” of the wireless ceased. There was a
stealthy footstep at the top of the hill and I guessed that the aerial
was being taken down and that it would be stowed and hidden, together
with the instruments, long before any intruder could reach the
cottage.

“Go up now,” I whispered to Kahn; “go quickly and reveal yourself.”

I handed him the message I had coded and which I had brought with me.

“Give him your official number, show him your credentials, and ask the
illustrious gentleman to send this message through.”

Kahn took the message without a word and began the ascent. I watched
him, not moving from my position and presently I heard him challenged
sharply.

“It is I,” said von Kahn’s voice and, like the bold fellow that he
was, he spoke in German.

Some one replied in the same language. There was a brief exchange of
question and answer, and the three--the Swiss valet was evidently
present--disappeared into the cottage, and a few minutes later I saw
the red glow of a light from the windows.

I was sorely tempted to creep up and listen. After all, there was no
reason why von Kahn alone should have an opportunity of meeting this
well-born gentleman who might be in a position to speak a favourable
word in the highest quarters regarding myself. Then, again, I was not
sure that von Kahn would fulfil his mission to my satisfaction.

We Germans trust nobody. Probably that is one of the reasons of our
phenomenal success in dealing with people of less kultural eminence
than ourselves.

I determined to risk it, and keeping as much in the shadow as
possible, and feeling gingerly for other wire signals, I made my way
to the little platform upon which the cottage stood. We had specially
put on rubber-soled shoes for the night’s work, and I moved
noiselessly. The door was closed, but there was no difficulty in
discovering the room to which von Kahn had been taken. I crept nearer
to the window.

The two men were talking and laughing and, thank heaven! their speech
was German.

“But how do I know,” I heard Mr. Brown say, “that you are not a member
of the British Secret Service?”

“For the matter of that,” said von Kahn jovially, “how am I to know
that your Excellency is not also of that phantom body?”

And they both laughed together.

I heard the clink of a bottle on a glass and two hearty “Prosits,” and
then Mr. Brown spoke again.

“Now what can I do for you? I suppose you know that you ought not to
have come anywhere near me? How did you find me out? Was it the
ever-to-be-condemned tune I whistled?”

Von Kahn chuckled.

“I have known about you for a long time,” he said, “and as I am in
need of help I thought I would take the bull by the horns and seek
this interview.”

“Are you alone?” asked Mr. Brown.

“Quite alone,” said von Kahn promptly.

“I mean, were you alone in making the discovery?”

“Quite alone,” said von Kahn again.

“Then you are a remarkably shrewd fellow,” laughed Brown.

I can tell you it made my blood boil to hear this swine-hound taking
all the credit for this discovery. Little he knew that I was standing
outside the window listening to his immodest perfidy! Could he not
have said, “No, Excellency; the credit is due entirely to my respected
chief, whose name I am forbidden to mention. I am merely an instrument
in a superior hand?” Oh, no! In his vanity and deceit he must take
full kudos to himself. Would he go any farther? Almost as I framed
this question he spoke.

“I would ask your Excellency,” he said, “if you ever refer to this
meeting to the illustrious Chief of Naval Intelligence that you will
give him a testimonial.”

I could hardly restrain myself. For one second it was in my mind to
rap sharply at the window and denounce this underling. But,
fortunately, I restrained myself, though I was boiling with rage. We
Germans have a keen sense of justice and are inherently, almost
transparently, honest, and nothing so distresses us, so angers us, as
duplicity and ingratitude.

“But surely,” said Mr. Brown’s voice, “you did not come alone
to-night.”

I waited.

Just as I had been anxious for von Kahn to give me full credit, so was
I now as anxious to hear him deny my presence. I do not know what it
was that brought this revulsion of feeling, whether it was something
in the tone of Mr. Brown or some instinctive flash of knowledge that
all was not well, but I sweated as I stood waiting for the answer
which seemed an eternity in coming, though in reality it was only a
second or so.

“No, I assure you, Herr Brown,” said von Kahn, “I came alone.”

“That makes matters simple,” said Brown’s voice, and as he spoke the
light went out. I heard von Kahn shout, but his voice was instantly
muffled.

There was a struggle, a thud that seemed to shake the little building,
a groan, and then silence.

I had my automatic pistol in my hand in a second.

Should I go to his rescue and take the risk of capture or should I
leave him to his fate? It was a terrible decision I was called upon to
make. We Germans do not shrink from our responsibilities, nor are we
governed by the foolish sentimentality which dictates the actions of
the commoner tribes. I made my way down the hill with great rapidity.
You may say that I was leaving a comrade to his fate, but I answer
that when one cog of a wheel breaks off do the other cogs disintegrate
themselves in sympathy. We were part of a great machine, von Kahn and
I, and my action, if it needed such justification, was justified by
the events which followed.

I was within fifty yards of the narrow road which winds along the base
of the hill when I thought I heard a sound before me and I stopped,
flattened myself on the ground between two bushes, and listened. There
was no doubt that I had reason for my suspicions. I heard, not one
stealthy footfall, but a dozen, and, peering up, I saw against the
artificial sky-line which I had created by lowering myself to the
earth, half a dozen shadowy figures. The nearest was ten yards away
and my heart came to my throat when I saw a gleam of light upon the
tunic of a policeman.

They were police, undoubtedly, and they were making their way up the
hill in such a manner as led me to believe that the hill itself was
practically surrounded. I watched, holding my breath. The first of the
figures passed not two yards away, the second on my right less than a
yard. I waited until they were well up the hill before I moved, and
then I wriggled forward with the utmost caution, for I thought it was
possible that they had left a guard on the road. This view proved to
be correct as I had not got far before I saw a man pacing the roadway.

Fortunately his beat was long and I was able to gain the road and
cross it.

I found myself in a field of cabbages. Here again luck was with me,
for running along two sides of the field was a deep ditch. Into this I
sank and with great labour reached the opposite hill, on the top of
which, hidden in a small copse, were the two motor bicycles which had
brought us on our night adventure.

Here again German forethought saved me from what might have been
destruction. Von Kahn had suggested we should have the chauffeur and
the car we had in the morning, but as I pointed out, this would have
aroused suspicion, and so instead we had hired two motor bicycles, not
from the town in which we were staying, but one five miles farther
along the line from whence we had set forth upon our quest.

Near by the copse, as I had seen earlier in the day, was a disused
quarry overgrown with vegetation. Swiftly I wheeled Kahn’s bicycle to
the edge and flung it over. It would remain undiscovered for at least
a few days, and possibly for ever, unless a search was made.

To leap upon the other motor cycle and to go flying down the road was
the work of a few minutes. I confess I was agitated and nervous. Who
was this mysterious man who lived at the top of the hill? How did he
know we were coming that night and was so sure of the hour that he
could surround his house with policemen to trap us? Why had he
assaulted my friend when he and his servant could have overcome him or
have held him at the point of a revolver until the police arrived?

My position was a precarious one. Von Kahn had been seen with me in
Dundee and obviously my business was to make myself scarce. It was
half past eleven that night when I rode up to the cycle dealer’s in
X----, and knocked at the door. The town was asleep and the street
deserted, but the man had been expecting our return and was waiting
up.

He looked surprised at my muddy appearance and more surprised at the
absence of my companion. I apologized to him, and told him that my
friend had been called away to London and had ridden down to a station
on the main line. I think he was most surprised when I offered to buy
the cycle I was using and also to buy that of von Kahn. I told him
that I had taken a liking to the machine and that von Kahn had
similarly expressed a wish to retain his. The price he fixed was a
fairly moderate one--we had already paid a large deposit--and I
concluded the bargain there and then.

I was anxious, of course, to finish this business of the motor-cycles
in order that I should not set on foot independent inquiries as to
their whereabouts, inquiries which would certainly have identified me
with von Kahn.

Taking on a supply of petrol and trimming my lamp, I set out for
Dundee, arriving at my hotel a little after four o’clock in the
morning. After some difficulty I aroused the night porter, a sleepy
old man whose name, I remembered, was Angus, and went to my room,
packed my small valise and, awaiting my opportunity, stole out of the
hotel, strapped my bag to the carrier of the bicycle, and rode through
the drear, menacing streets of Dundee for the last time.

Twenty miles out of Dundee all trace of the mysterious person who had
disappeared from his hotel leaving a £5 note to cover his bill and a
polite request that his letters should be forwarded to the Majestic
Hotel, London, vanished. A cool young Englishman joined an early
morning train to Edinburgh at an intermediate station, and certainly
that cool, young Englishman in his grey tweeds and his eye-glass bore
no resemblance to the muddy cyclist in soiled overalls who had crossed
the river at Perth and had excited the attention of a certain mounted
constable.

That cool young Englishman, perfect in every detail, might have been
seen leaving the Central Station at Glasgow that same afternoon not
only accompanied by his valise but by a large portmanteau which he had
taken from the cloak-room at the station and which with characteristic
German foresight he had caused to be forwarded to Glasgow on the night
he left London for Dundee.

I had communicated with London by telephone. Nothing had been heard of
von Kahn, but the whole of my service in England was now on the _qui
vive_. Posser, one of my assistants, was on his way to Glasgow to
confer with me, and half a dozen agents in that town were busy
investigating the mystery of the man on the hill.

I was sitting at dinner that night in one of the fashionable
restaurants of Glasgow, a restaurant approached through a magnificent
marble vestibule, searching the latest edition of the papers, hoping
for two lines which would give me a clue to von Kahn’s fate, when a
staring headline met my eye and I gasped.


    “Swiss Forgers: Sensational Arrests at Glen Macintyre.

 “The Sheriff’s Court at Stirling was crowded to-day when Emil
 Zimmwald, alias Brown, a Swiss, Louis Swart, Swiss, and Heinrich Kahn,
 also described as a Swiss, were remanded on a charge of forging Swiss
 bank notes. Inspector Macguire, of the Stirling Constabulary, stated
 that the prisoner Zimmwald, who called himself Brown, rented a cottage
 at Glen Macintyre, Swart posing as his valet. The two men were
 well-known international forgers, and had been engaged in printing a
 very large number of Swiss bank notes. The attention of the police had
 first been attracted to the house owing to the noise of working of the
 small printing machine which the prisoners used for their nefarious
 purpose. On raiding the premises the prisoner Kahn was discovered in a
 dazed condition. There had evidently been a quarrel and Kahn had been
 struck. The prisoner Zimmwald made a rambling statement to the effect
 that Kahn was a detective who had been sent to arrest him, but this
 highly improbable story will be investigated by the sheriff at a later
 sitting. The man Kahn resolutely refuses to make any statement at
 all.”


My poor von Kahn! Thou shalt go down in Scottish history as a
confederate of forgers and shall spend many years in that grim
penitentiary at Perth, pleading guilty to a crime abhorrent to thee,
lest the confession of thy true crime lead thee to a firing party in
the chilly dawn!




 CHAPTER III.
 THE LOVELY MISS HARRYMORE

In America, where the German and Austro-Hungarian population is so
much larger than in any other foreign country, the work of my
department is split up into three sections. There is a naval, a
military, and a commercial branch, each under an expert controlling
and distinct organization which could, however, be co-ordinated in the
event of war. In the United Kingdom there was no separation of
interests, and the root organization, that which I controlled,
covered, after the outbreak of the war, all three departments.

And let me say here for the information of my good friends who may
perhaps imagine I am boasting, that when I describe myself as
“controlling” the organization, I may inadvertently deceive. The exact
position was that I had organized my department, dug the channels
through which would flow the streams or rivulets of information; that
I myself had been in the position of the central reservoir which
collected and refined and transmitted the information so received. It
does not necessarily mean that because I was the architect that I was
necessarily the tenant of the fabric which I had created.

All the time in the first months of war there were great comings and
goings. Men arrived from Germany, from America, from Switzerland,
Sweden, and Holland, with forged passports, each charged with a
distinct and separate mission. Lody, whose name you may have heard,
came in the guise of a tourist agent, having certain definite
discoveries to make and certain propaganda to forward. Other men came
from America on similar missions. Some of these were gentlemen of the
very highest character who were not associated with me in any way, but
nevertheless sought me out in order to secure my assistance for the
development of their plans. Of their adventures I know little. Whether
they returned to Germany or not I am unable to say. Some got away and
some were caught, but in what manner I never knew.

I was loath to believe, and, indeed, did not believe, that a Secret
Service existed in Britain. There were, of course, detectives and
plain clothes policemen, whose task it was to watch railway and
steamship arrivals, but obviously it was impossible in the space of a
few weeks to create such a bureau as exists in the Wilhelmstrasse, or
that over which Captain von Treutchen presides with such distinguished
success in the Admiralty Buildings.

In November, 1914, I received orders direct from Berlin--the first I
had ever received--telling me that I must devote myself entirely to
industrial propaganda. I was informed that the sum of £12,000 had
been placed to my credit in the West London and Birmingham Bank, and I
was told to make my headquarters at Manchester in the capacity of
buyer for a well-known firm of Chilian importers with whom my chiefs
had a working arrangement.

I arrived at Manchester late one misty afternoon and made my way to
the best hotel, where rooms had been reserved for me.

I went to the desk and registered, and upon seeing my name the clerk
informed me that two gentlemen were waiting for me in the palm court.

“I don’t know whether you want to see them, sir,” he said; “I think
they are commercial travellers.”

“I will see them in my room, if you will be good enough to send them
up,” said I, and five minutes later the “commercial travellers” were
shown in to me and introduced themselves as representatives of the
Incorporated Carolina Cottonfields Company.

“I am afraid I am rather tired to-night,” said I; “but as you seem in
a hurry to do business I will compare your quotations.”

When the door had shut upon the waiter who had shown them in we got to
business. One, of course, was my friend Posser, and the other was
young Klein, one of those brilliant children of the Fatherland, who
had been in the service of the department ever since he left
Heidelberg.

“We are ordered to place ourselves at your disposal, Herr Heine,” said
Klein, “and we have been here two days investigating the conditions.”

“Are they favourable?” I asked.

“Extremely so,” said Posser; “but you will have an opportunity of
judging for yourself.”

We exchanged experiences, and half an hour later I rang the bell for
the waiter and my visitors were shown out. After I had dined I left
the hotel for the rendezvous I had made outside the post-office.

It was now raining heavily, and I would like to have taken a taxi, but
Klein suggested that we should make our way on foot to our
destination, which proved to be a very small hall in some unsavoury
part of Manchester. It was a dilapidated building, the entrance door
being flush with the street and had the appearance of being a mission
hall dedicated to one of those dour and unhappy sects which find a
virtue in the very dreariness of their environment.

Two nights a week it was used for religious services, but on the other
nights it was let out to whosoever cared to hire the place. On this
occasion some sort of Labour meeting seemed to be in progress and a
small bill attached to an inner baize door leading to the hall itself
announced an address by Mr. William Craigmair on “Labour and the War.”

The hall was sparsely filled and I do not suppose there were more than
fifty people present when we walked in and took our seats. The man who
was speaking was of the usual demagogic type, loud-mouthed, illogical,
full of bitter jibes at Capitalism, which he said was the cause of the
war and at the bottom of the whole European crisis.

Klein nudged me.

“Imagine this in Berlin!” he whispered.

I nodded. It was indeed pathetic, and only shows how wholly
inefficient the English police service is that it allowed such men to
be at large.

I sat through the tirade, a little bored if the truth be told, because
this was to be the least interesting part of the evening.

After the meeting was over Klein told us to go out and wait for him,
and presently he rejoined us accompanied by a man whom I recognized as
the speaker, Mr. Craigmair. He introduced us as sympathizers with the
cause of Labour, and I congratulated this gaunt Englishman upon his
“wonderful rhetoric,” though worse balderdash I had never heard in my
life.

The man’s harsh arrogance melted under this well-directed stream of
Teutonic flattery and he became almost human in the glow of our
admiration.

“I am much obliged to you, gents,” he said, grinning; “speakin’
impartially, I can say it wasn’t a bad speech for a self-taught man.
Any Sunday afternoon you happen to be in Finsbury Park you will find
me there addressing the proletariat.”

“Finsbury Park?” said I. “Do you come from London?”

“Yes,” said the man. “Our comrade here,” he nodded to Klein,
“persuaded me to go round delivering a few addresses to the working
classes. I’ve got a lot of friends in this part of the world,” he went
on, “and you mustn’t judge me on the audience I got to-night. I am
addressin’ the Junior Operatives’ League to-morrow and then you _will_
see an audience if you like.”

I murmured my intention of being present, expressed my sympathy with
the Labour movement, and invited him to meet me at lunch on the
following day.

When we had parted Klein told me that he had first heard the man
addressing meetings in London, either at Finsbury or in Hyde Park.

“He was such a fanatic, and he had, moreover, such a convincing way
that I thought we might find him useful. I know you think what he says
is nonsense,” Klein went on, addressing me; “but what is illogical to
us is sound sense to the common workman. To-morrow’s meeting, for
example, is of the greatest importance to us. The Junior Operatives
have threatened to strike against the advice of their Trade Union, and
as they have a working arrangement with the Carters’ Union, a strike
would be of the utmost importance. Whilst I do not expect we can do
very much in the early stage of the war to bring about a general
stoppage of labour, we can embarrass the Government, and who knows how
these little labour troubles may develop!”

I quite agreed with Klein, who is a psychologist of a very high order,
in addition to being well born, his mother being a
Frenheim-Hazebrucken, and her sister being married to Graf von
Metzenheim, an illustrious gentleman with whom I once had the honour
of taking wine.

Mr. Craigmair came to lunch the next day. In order not to excite
attention I arranged with him to meet me at Lytham, and there we spoke
frankly and freely. I told him how intensely interested we all were in
the Labour movement, and I pointed out that this war might be brought
to an end if some great leader arose from the people and seized his
opportunity.

“For, Mr. Craigmair,” said I, “what is war but a negation of all law?
Is it better that a few miserable capitalists and statesmen should be
chagrined, or that thousands of human lives should be sacrificed in
the red-hot pit of battle? Is it not better that these money-grabbers
should be ruined than that innocent people who have no concern in the
war and have no hatred towards any nation should be compelled to walk
into the shambles like dumb beasts? If they tell you that it is not
patriotic to attempt to stop a war, even though you may be acting
contrary to the maddened sentiments of the majority of the people, you
answer that there is no such thing as patriotism, that we owe our
chief duty to humanity which knows no frontier and no language. For
what is there more precious in the soil of England than in the soil of
Germany or in France? Do they not equally produce wheat and sustain
life? Has anyone a more precious value than another? Does one handful
of red earth contain a magic quality which is not possessed equally by
a handful of any other kind of earth? Patriotism is the shibboleth of
the capitalist and the ambitious statesman, my friend, and he who
opposes his will to that hateful creed is doing magnificent work for
mankind.”

I spoke in this vein and I could see that Mr. Craigmair was impressed.
He made little notes with the stub of a pencil upon what looked like a
laundry-book, interrupting my remarks with uncouth sounds of
admiration and approval.

I gave him £50, as a mark of my interest in his work.

“And on the day you bring the people out on strike I will give you
another £50,” I said; “not because I am anxious to promote industrial
discord, but because war is against my principles as a hateful and an
unnecessary evil.”

I went back to my hotel feeling that I had done a good day’s work. I
did not attend the meeting of the Junior Operatives, but I am told
that it was very enthusiastic and that by an overwhelming majority the
men and the women members had decided to strike, and had received a
promise of support from the transport workers.

My interest in the Labour movement was momentarily diverted that same
day by the receipt of a message from London--it was brought by courier
on the afternoon train. The message was an important one, and had been
received by radio direct from Potsdam, and had been decoded in London
and transmitted to me for report.

News had reached Berlin that the firm of Pollygay & Moxon, a chemical
firm on the outskirts of Manchester, were engaged in conducting secret
experiments with a new bomb. The news had reached Berlin from a very
reliable source. I believed that it had been mentioned after dinner at
a well-known Bohemian club in London by an under-secretary in a
certain Government department. He had spoken rather boastfully of
“something” very deadly which the Government were experimenting with,
and our agent, who was one of the party to whom this was told,
discovered by a well-timed display of scepticism that the experiments
were being conducted by Pollygay & Moxon, and had sent forward the
information which, had I been in London, must have gone through me.

I put Klein on to the job immediately, and he called in the assistance
of Craigmair, who apparently was in touch with workmen in most of the
big factories, and fortunately numbered among his acquaintances a
wretched German named Bluer, who was employed in the laboratories of
the firm. As a matter of fact, we did not know of the existence of
Bluer, a dour, taciturn man of the hateful socialistic type who had no
patriotism, no love for his Fatherland, and was tainted with poisonous
internationalism.[5]

This renegade, living in England, with excellent opportunity for
serving the Fatherland, had never put himself into touch with the
superior authorities, nor had he offered the slightest assistance to
the officers of State, and it was only by accident that we discovered
his existence. However, his internationalism served one good purpose.
Though he might earn his livelihood by preparing deadly weapons for
the destruction of his fellow-countrymen, he was in theory an opponent
of war, and Mr. Craigmair, after a while, enlisted his sympathies and
introduced him to Klein, who said he was an author engaged in writing
a book painting war in its most horrible aspects. He also told him
that he was compiling as long and as formidable a list of deadly
weapons as he could secure.

“And when I have finished, my friend,” said Klein, “we shall have the
most damning indictment of warfare that the world has ever seen.”

This interested Bluer and it was not long before he told of the secret
experiments which had been conducted on the firm’s private range with
the new hand grenade.

“I don’t know how it is made,” said Bluer, “because that is not in my
department, and all the chemical experiments have been in the hands of
the head chemist, but my brother-in-law is a night watchman and has
the entry to the records office and I daresay I could give you a rough
idea of what it is like.”

I was overjoyed to hear this news, the more so since I had received
another, and even more urgent, message from Headquarters, telling me
to spare no expense or pains to secure a specification.

I now come to the remarkable part of this narrative, one which I
cannot tell without a little shudder. Bluer and his relative certainly
made an attempt to locate the specifications and drawings. I will do
this un-German Teuton (to whom Klein was eventually compelled to
reveal something of his designs) the credit of saying that he tried
his best--but for a week he and his relative were unsuccessful.

The manager was a gentleman named Tyson, or Tynson, a good-looking man
of about twenty-eight. Naturally, I had set my people to work to find
out all particulars about every member of the firm, and it was
reported to me that Tyson had been frequently seen in the company of a
very beautiful lady, named Miss Harrymore.

I put my own men on to discover something about Miss Harrymore, and
found that she was a stranger to Manchester; that she had only arrived
a month previous to my appearance on the scene; and that she occupied
a small house which she had taken furnished in the most fashionable
suburb of the Lancashire city.

She had come from London and almost immediately had made friends with
the manager. This in itself was to me a most remarkable circumstance,
because Manchester people are very suspicious, almost as distrustful
as the Scotch, and I wondered what inducement there was to cause this
young man to contract so sudden a friendship. They used to dine
occasionally and they went to the theatre together once a week, but
there was no evidence that the friendship was a very warm one. Miss
Harrymore had been a dancer; but apparently had retired from the
stage--at least that was the story which her maid told Posser, who
investigated the matter.

I smoked many cigars over this friendship and formed certain
conclusions, especially after I had learnt that on the nights Mr.
Tyson was working late the lady had driven down to the factory in her
car, had spent some little time in the manager’s office, and had
driven that gentleman to supper.

I have already told you of my disbelief in the existence of a secret
service in England, but I had modified that view after the experience
of my poor friend Koos, who was brought to an untimely end through the
artfulness of a chit of a girl.

Naturally I was suspicious of beautiful ladies who were on terms of
furtive friendship with Government officials--and to all intents and
purposes Tyson was a Government official--and I kept my eyes
“skinned,” as they say in England.

The business of the bomb was worrying me more than I cared to confess
to my assistants. A third message had come through from Berlin, even
more urgent than the last, and one paragraph of that message
considerably disturbed me.

It ran:


 “Whilst we expect you to secure these plans we are leaving nothing to
 chance. We hope, however, that the credit for securing them will fall
 to you.”


I understood this significant passage. It meant that Berlin was
sending independent agents to England to try their luck, and I was
determined to justify myself in the eyes of the Fatherland.

I sent for Posser and Klein to come to my room and I outlined my views
and gave my final instructions. Posser gave me encouraging news. He
told me that Bluer had secured some information of the greatest
importance. It appears that the Government had sent for a rough
drawing of the bomb, and that one of the engineers was coming next
night to make the drawing and a copy of the secret specification, and
that the original was kept in a safe in the records office. The
combination safe opened to the word “Track” and the specification
would be found in No. 3 drawer, the lock of which could be picked.

So far, so good, but the situation was still desperate. It was as
clear as daylight that my chief difficulty was going to be, not to
circumvent the manager, but to get past the guard which the secret
service had set up. It was then a struggle between Miss Harrymore and
Heine. Very well! Heine picks up the gauntlet with a clear mind and a
high confidence in his German genius.

Klein saw Bluer on the following afternoon and an unexpected
difficulty arose. Bluer, if you please, had discovered a conscience!
This renegade, this traitor to the Fatherland, this dirty Swabian
refused to go any farther in the matter!

“The English have always treated me well,” he told Klein; “my children
have been born in the country and I have friends here. I cannot help
you any more, Herr Klein. I should not only be a traitor to the
English, but a traitor to the Internationale, if I betrayed my
employers. You have the combination word--I can do no more.”

“Are you a German?” asked Klein sternly.

“Ja!” replied Bluer, “but I’m not a fool.”

“If you refuse your help,” said Klein, who was by now filled with holy
annoyance, “you are a traitor to your Kaiser and to your Fatherland.
The curses of unborn generations of Germans will be upon you. Every
German will shun you and spit upon your name, which shall be
‘accursed.’”

“Herr Klein,” said Bluer with emotion, “I think that anyway all the
world will spit upon the name of a German after this war is over.”

Klein threatened and argued, pleaded and raved, but all to no purpose.

“I have told you where you will find the specifications,” said Bluer
doggedly; “you have a plan of the factory--which is not guarded--and
you know the way to the records room. In telling you this I have done
more than I ought to have done. If you threaten me any more I will go
for the police and tell them all I know.”

Ingrate! Rascal! Black swine of Würtemberg!

I paced my room cursing the villain, and Klein stood by in respectful
silence as I “let off steam,” as the British say.

However, I soon mastered my rage and sat down to evolve a plan. We
Germans can meet all contingencies and adapt our minds to any
difficulty which may arise. I drew out the plan of the factory and
soon Klein and I were deep in the discussion of the alternative
scheme.

The factory was a straggling collection of buildings, enclosed on
three sides by high walls and on the fourth by a canal, alongside of
which ran a double-track railway siding. There were three gates and
two small wickets, none of which were practical for our purpose, since
there would be a night watchman at each, and, moreover, the records
office was a fairly long distance from all. This squat building
adjoined the main warehouse near the canal-siding and obviously it was
from the canal that we must make our entrance. We had learnt that the
wharf was patrolled by a watchman who had a little hut at the northern
end of the quay, to which it was his habit to retire between eleven
and twelve at night to make his coffee or tea, or whatever refreshment
he favoured, and we decided that this should be the hour for our
attempt.

Our plan was to paddle down the canal in a small collapsible canoe (an
advertisement of which Klein had seen), wait our opportunity and land.
With Klein’s equipment of keys and instruments we should have no
difficulty in forcing an entrance, and the rest would be easy.

When we had agreed upon our scheme, Klein went off to Chester to
purchase the boat, whilst I elaborated my plan for conveying the
specifications to Germany.

I was working away at this all the afternoon, telephoning to certain
garages, arranging routes and rendezvous, and reporting points,
newspaper advertisement codes, etc., and had almost finished my
organization work when the waiter brought me a card.

I took the paste-board from the salver and as I read the name I felt
myself grow pale. It was--


                        Miss Angela Harrymore.


Yes, my friends, I confess it, in that second of time I experienced
the gripping fear-panic which comes to such men as myself perhaps
twice in a lifetime.

Prince Bismarck said: “We Germans fear God and nothing else,” but the
Illustrious Highness was either a very religious man or he had never
engaged himself in espionage work in an enemy country in the days of
war; he had never looked into the cold and merciless eyes of a woman
enemy; he had never confronted the possibilities of a grey dawn and a
firing party…

“Show the lady up,” I said.

As soon as the waiter was gone, I took my Browning from my pocket,
examined it and slipped its blank barrel under my left armpit, the
butt concealed by the fold of my coat. Only thus can a danger-waiting
man be sure that he has his pistol ready for use.

The door opened and I rose to meet the lady. She was, as far as I
could judge, about twenty-six years of age. She was tall and willowy,
and perfectly gowned in some blue stuff which admirably suited her
fair complexion.

About her neck and shoulders was a Chinchilla wrap, which I valued at
£250, and beneath the white kid gloves of one hand I saw the bulge of
many rings. Her features were regular and aristocratic, her eyes blue
and steadfast, her hair of pale gold. She was a type one meets as
frequently in England as in Northern Germany or Denmark. In fine, the
first impression I had was that she was of my own race, an impression
helped very cleverly by her greeting.

“Good day, Herr Cannelli,” she said (Cannelli being the name I traded
under), and she spoke in faultless German.

But, O gracious lady, Heine was on guard!

At all times, I think, I am clever and alert; at some times I may be a
little too clever, but never am I caught napping.

I frowned, smiled, and shook my head.

“You are speaking German, are you not?” I asked in English. “I am
afraid I do not speak that language.”

It was her turn to smile.

“Come, come!” she rallied me, “you are not going to pretend with me,”
and she laid two slim fingers on her chin, the old sign--the pre-war
sign--by which one recognized a member of the Admiralty Secret
Service.

Aha! Gracious lady, thought I, would you try an old trick upon an old
wolf! Do you not know that all the spy-revealing signs and
make-knowing phrases had been changed on the outbreak of war? On
me--on Heine--will you try these subterfuges!

“I do not speak your language, madam,” I said, shaking my head;
“_harla usted Espanol_.”

I saw a shade of disappointment dim for a moment the brightness of her
eyes, then she laughed.

“I don’t know why I thought you spoke German,” she said coolly and
speaking in perfect English; “but somehow you reminded me of a man I
once knew in New York--a gentleman called by his friends, ‘Heine.’”

She was watching me closely, but I never so much as blinked.

“I am indeed fortunate, madame, even to resemble one whom you have
remembered,” I said; “but I have never been to New York except on one
occasion, and then only for a few hours.”

“Then I’m sorry to have bothered you,” she smiled, and her smile was a
radiance. “I saw you at dinner the other night and I was almost sure
that you were the friend of other days who had sung ‘Es stehen
unbeweglich.’”

I could have laughed! Again the old song and the old “code of
recognition”--a code which had been changed for six months.

“My dear lady,” I said gently, “I have never sung in my life.”

She was baffled and showed signs of distress. She stood biting her
lips and frowning into the fire until, recovering her self-possession,
she smiled, shrugged her shoulders and offered me her hand.

“I am afraid you must think I am very stupid,” she said frankly, “but
I could have sworn I knew you.”

I took her hand and conducted her to the corridor and to the lift, and
summoned Posser.

Briefly I retailed all that had happened.

“There is no doubt about it at all,” said Posser; “she came to trap
you. We must get out of Manchester to-night, and we must take with us
the specifications.”

At eleven o’clock that night we slipped down the canal, Klein at the
bow and myself at the stern.

Fortunately it was a dark night, with a thin fog, and we moved
silently and unchallenged to our destination. Klein had made a very
careful survey of the wharf and he guided the canoe to one of the big
supporting piles up which ran a steel-runged ladder.

Klein made a reconnaissance. Looking along the wharf, we could see the
little glass-windowed hut and the night-watchman standing before a
small fire, evidently boiling his kettle. We tied the canoe to the
ladder and moved noiselessly across the wharf.

The factory was in darkness, but we had no difficulty in discovering
the records office, a small, dark building thrown out as an annex to
the main machinery warehouse. To open the outer door was the work of a
few seconds. We entered and closed the door behind us and found
ourselves in a little wooden vestibule from which opened yet another
door. To my surprise the inner door was not locked but still ajar.

Down the centre of the building ran a corridor and from this various
doors led to offices. Our objective was the last on the left and
quietly we crept forward and reached the door. I gently turned the
handle in order to secure a grip and was inserting my skeleton key
when I felt the door give. All my nerves were on edge. Things were
going much too easy and I pulled my gun and slipped down the safety
catch.

Now, as I pushed the door gently open I could have sworn I saw the
faint reflection of a light, such a reflection as you would expect
from the varnished matchboard-lining to the office, if some person had
incautiously shown a light for a second. I hesitated on the threshold.
The office was in darkness. There was no sound, no sign, and I thought
that the light I saw must have been a reflection from one of the
street lamps on the other side of the canal, until I remembered that
the fog was quite thick enough to veil any of the outside lights. I
stepped forward cautiously toward the safe, felt for and found the
handle, and had replaced my pistol in my jacket pocket and was feeling
for my electric lamp, when Klein whispered fiercely in my ear:

“_There’s someone in the room!_”

Almost as he spoke we heard a quick rustle and swish, and a figure
dimly seen flashed across the room and through the door. At that
moment I felt the safe-door swing back in my grasp, and I realized
that we had come too late.

I was out of the office in a trice, flashed my lamp along the
corridor, and caught just a glimpse of a woman’s figure as it
disappeared through the door at the other end. She fled across the
yard, we behind her, and disappeared in the gloom. There was no time
to search for her. We had to consider ourselves. We scurried down the
ladder and heard the hoarse challenge of the watchman. By this time we
were in mid-stream and paddling furiously. It was too dangerous to
keep to the canal, and at the first opportunity we found a landing
place and reached a street, an ill-favoured, dingy slum, which suited
our purpose very well.

Ten minutes rapid walking brought us to one of the main thoroughfares
where we found a taxi-cab, and in the brief space of time between this
discovery and our arrival at the hotel, I gave my instructions to
Klein.

“She is evidently a member of the secret police,” I said, “and she got
to know that we were after the specifications to-night and forestalled
us. I think Manchester is a little too hot for you and me, Klein, and
we will fade away.”

We dismissed the cab at the hotel and walked into the brightly-lighted
vestibule, and came face to face with Miss Harrymore!

There was no doubt in my mind. There she stood, her face flushed with
triumph. I could see the mud on her shoes, I recognized the fur-edged
coat, and I realized my danger. She probably had a motor-boat waiting
for her and had taken the short-cut back to the hotel in time to
confront and denounce us.

In that moment all the latent genius of our race came to the surface.
We Germans make our decisions quickly, boldly. With such rapidity did
I act that I even surprised myself. Extending my forefinger I pointed
at Miss Harrymore.

“This woman,” I said, “is a German spy. She has in her possession
certain specifications and plans of a new and secret weapon.”

I said this in a loud voice and a quiet-looking man who had been
sitting reading dropped his paper and springing up edged his way
through the little crowd which had collected about us. I saw the girl
go pale. I knew that she could not betray herself as a secret agent
and that, found in possession of the plans, she would not be able to
explain how she came by them.

The quiet-looking man moved to her side and caught her arm. “I am
Inspector Lovell, of the Manchester Detective Department,” he said,
“and on this gentleman’s accusation I shall take you to the Central
Police Station.”

He told us to follow, and led Miss Harrymore out of the hotel. I gave
a sign to Klein, and we followed, but not to the station.

Our big Mercédès was waiting round the corner and dawn found me in
London, so changed in appearance that I doubt if the admirable
Inspector Lovell would have recognized the man who had trapped Miss
Harrymore.

So far this comedy goes and now comes the tragedy. I found in London,
waiting for me, a code message from Berlin.

“Reference Polygay bomb. Fraulein von Liebmann of the Secret Service
is in Manchester under the name of Miss Harrymore. She has love affair
with manager and reports she can secure specifications. Assist her all
you can. Instruct her in new code.”

It was signed by the High Chief of the Admiralty Intelligence. For an
hour I was prostrate and then I coded my reply to Admiralty, Potsdam.


 “In spite my efforts, Fraulein von Liebmann arrested in possession of
 specifications, which she carried against my wishes.”


I think it was an admirable explanation. As for the fraulein, it will
be many years before she will be able to supply her personal
narrative!




 CHAPTER IV.
 THE AFFAIR OF MISTER HAYNES

In February, 1915, there occurred an event which I cannot pretend
did not give me a certain amount of satisfaction, tragic and
ever-to-be regretted as that event proved. I had constantly urged both
upon the naval and military Intelligence Departments in Berlin that
the work in England should be left entirely in my hands, and that I
should not be badgered or embarrassed by amateurs being sent to
operate in my territory, independent of my control and very often
without my being acquainted with their presence or purpose.

I have already shown how lamentable can be the results if the
illustrious Excellencies who direct our operations (in a manner, I
hasten to add, which reflects the greatest credit to themselves, and
brings the greatest profit to the Fatherland) take the work out of the
hands of the skilled and intimately-understanding officials who have
made Great Britain a life-long study, who appreciate the psychology,
and have an insight into the habits and customs of the people whom
Paoli (and not Napoleon) described as “Sono Mercanti,” or “a nation of
shopkeepers.”

For I pride myself that I understand not only British character but
British institutions. I am deeply intimate with the political sects
and with the system of British journalism, and although the affair of
Mister Haynes may seem to dispose of this latter claim, yet I think my
friends, for whom this memoir is designed, will agree that the
circumstances in the case of Mister Haynes were unusual. The event I
refer to was the arrest of Herr Blaumberg, who was sent from America
without my knowledge to secure an accurate list--“accurate” mark
you!--of the warships which the British were laying down, especially
in reference to the super-X battleships which were destined to prove
Mr. Churchill’s happiest experiment.

Herr Blaumberg had no sooner landed than he was arrested. I received
an inquiry from Wilhelmstrasse which was the first information I had
of Herr Blaumberg’s foolish attempt to meddle in matters which he
obviously did not understand. The second intimation was the official
notice in the English papers:


 “This morning a man, tried and convicted of espionage at the Central
 Criminal Court, was executed in the Tower of London.”


This, I believe, was Herr Blaumberg, and in my note to my superiors I
could not refrain from urging the unwisdom of entrusting delicate and
important work to any but those tried and trusted officials, who were
acquainted with every move of the game and able not only to
circumvent, but to anticipate the action of the official police.

Of course, the people in Berlin very emphatically restated their old
parrot cry that there was a formidable secret service in existence and
they sent me a cock-and-bull story (as the British say), that Herr
Blaumberg had been shadowed from the moment he left America to the
moment he arrived in the Mersey; that all his documents had been
scientifically burgled and the fullest particulars of his mission had
been transmitted by wireless long before he had reached England.

Thus do incompetent bureaucrats excuse their own lack of foresight!

I was in London when the news came, firmly established in my rôle of
Chilian importer, and so well did I play my part, that I had secured
certain little Government orders and was even assisted by Government
officials, all unknowing, you may be sure, to the pursuit of my
investigations.

It was on the very day that I read this doleful news of Herr
Blaumberg’s sad end, that I made the acquaintance of Mister Haynes. I
saw him standing on the corner of Bouverie and Fleet Streets--a tall,
young, unshaven man, wearing pince-nez, and a very shabby suit. With
one quick, comprehensive glance I sized him up. The bundle of various
coloured pencils and the fountain-pen in his left-hand waistcoat
pocket, the absence of watch and chain, the hat carelessly balanced on
the back of his head, the hands thrust into his trousers pockets, the
drooping cigarette and the listless eyes, which watched the traffic
passing up and down, told me as plainly as though his biography had
been handed to me, all the history I wished to know.

His linen was not clean, his collar was two or three days old, his
boots were down at heel.

With that decision which has always marked my actions I walked up to
him with a smile.

“I think I have met you before, have I not?” I said.

He turned his head and looked at me from the crown of my hat to the
soles of my boots.

“I daresay,” he said.

“Come and have a drink,” said I briskly, and he obeyed with alacrity.

We turned into the private bar of a public house, ordered our drinks
and withdrew to a little round table and a couple of chairs in a
corner of the saloon bar.

“I don’t remember your name,” said I, “but I know you are a newspaper
man and if I remember rightly you have not had a great deal of luck
lately?”

“You have a good memory,” he said, “and if mine was as good I could
tell you your name, your age, the place of your birth and the state of
your banking account, but, unfortunately, my memory is a little
groggy.”

He lifted his drink with a shaking hand. I saw the whole story.

Here was what is commonly called in England, a “liner,” or a
free-lance, a man not attached to any newspaper but contributing
whatever stories, interviews or articles that come his way. They are
not so common in Fleet Street as they used to be when I first came to
London. The great news agencies have killed them. The new system of
journalism has passed them by. But occasionally you meet a man with
that hungry, hard-up look, with a grievance against the world, and a
pretty taste in whisky-and-soda, and this was such a one.

Under the genial influence of a second drink he confirmed my
diagnosis. He had a grievance against all the papers and admitted that
he was on the black-list of three or four for sending in contributions
which were not exactly true.

I asked him why he had not enlisted and his lips curved in a sneer. He
said he was an Irishman, and that he hated England anyway, and that he
hated the army more poisonously than he hated anything else. He hated
the war, he hated the Northworths and a long string of other newspaper
proprietors, but most of all he hated Fleet Street, its editors,
sub-editors, reporters, advertisement managers; in fact, his hatred
extended to the very newsboys on the streets.

This was the man for my money. I explained to him that in addition to
being a Chilian importer I was running a Chinese news agency to
collect and distribute news pertaining or of interest to Europeans in
China, and when I told him that I was short of a reporter for news
collection and offered him £6 a week, he nearly jumped into the air
with delight.

In engaging him I was putting into practice a plan which I had long
formed. Here was an opportunity for collecting news without arousing
suspicion. A newspaper reporter can ask questions which none of my
agents would dare to frame. He can go up and down the country without
exciting suspicion, and the mere fact that he is a reporter, is
sufficient to give him an entrée into circles, admission to which we
could only risk at grave danger to ourselves. An ordinary reporter
might have been valueless, but a man with a grievance, a man who was
“broke to the wide,” to use Mister Haynes’s own expressive idiom, was
especially valuable.

I took him down to the news agency office, and there he had tangible
proof of the solidity and bonâ-fides of the agency. The two rooms in
Fleet Street, which I had fitted up, were well furnished. The name of
the agency was painted on the windows and on the glass panels of the
office door, the files of the newspapers were carefully kept by the
boy I employed. There were telephones and a “tape machine”--in fact,
it was the most convincing environment that German forethought could
design. I never saw a man so content as he was when I sat him down at
a new desk within reach of the telephone, handed him a £5 note on
account of expenses, and outlined the plan of inquiry.

“Do you speak any foreign language?” I asked.

He said he spoke French indifferently and German not at all, which was
excellent news.

“My principals,” I explained, “are very anxious, of course, to receive
news of the war. The London hospitals are filled with wounded, and I
have no doubt that you would be able to obtain admission to the wards
and collect the personal narratives of the men as they come home.”

“I get you, Steve,” he said. “You want stories of heroism in battle?”

“Exactly,” I said, “but don’t dwell so much upon the romantical side
of the war. Encourage the men to speak not of their own battalions but
of the gallant fellows who were fighting on their left and on their
right. Find out what other regiments are in their divisions. Learn
something about their officers. Who are the most popular and who are
the most unpopular. What sort of men are their colonels. We want to
see the war at a new angle,” I went on hurriedly, for he looked a
little dubious and disappointed, “and we can only do that if we get
off the beaten track. When you have written your matter you will hand
it to me and I will embody it in my weekly letter to--er--China.”

From the very first my scheme was a success. Not a day passed but
Mister Haynes brought into me precisely the information which
Headquarters required.

You must understand that unless you take prisoners it is almost
impossible to discover what is your enemy’s order of battle. Once you
have discovered where certain divisions fit in and what places
particular battalions take, you will no longer be in the dark in any
subsequent actions in which those divisions take part. For instance,
if the Wessex are on the right of the 99th Division and the Royal
Hertfordshires are in the centre, and you know the positions of every
other battalion, you have only to pick up one prisoner from one
battalion at any point of the line to know exactly the disposition of
the others.

And here is another matter. A soldier coming back wounded from the
front will perhaps tell you that whilst his battalion stood the brunt
of an offensive, the battalion on his left did not resist with the
same resolution and he will probably give you the reason for this. It
may be that the weak battalion has a weak commanding officer, or that
the discipline is slack, and once our staff know this they also know
where to thrust the arrowhead of subsequent attacks.

The information which was given to the Great General Staff by the
indiscriminate publication of soldiers’ letters cannot be exaggerated,
and I for one deeply regretted the decision of the English War Office
to prohibit their publication.

Mister Haynes brought information of the first class, but nothing so
enthralling as that which he brought one afternoon about three weeks
after he had started working. I remember the occasion so well. I can
see him almost as tangibly as though he stood before me leaning
against the desk, his rusty hat on the back of his head, his hands as
usual in his pockets.

“I got a queer story from one of those chaps at the London Hospital,”
he said, “I don’t know whether I can use it.”

“What is it?” I asked carelessly.

“This man said that every night our front line near Bois Grenier is
evacuated to save the men from the effect of the German shelling. As
soon as it gets dark the whole line on a front of six miles is
withdrawn to the support trenches, and he said he was wounded through
being ordered back to the front line before the German’s artillery
strafe had finished.”

“That is very interesting,” said I, “on a front of six miles you say?”

“That’s right,” he said, “from Bois Grenier down to Festubert. Do you
think I had better use the story?”

“I think not,” I said shaking my head, “I don’t think it would be
patriotic. Those horrid Germans might get hold of the information and
use it to destroy our brave soldiers.”

“That is what I thought,” said Mister Haynes, though he did not seem
very enthusiastic, and indeed, as he told me, his reluctance to impart
the information had less to do with the safety of the soldiers than
with his own. “I don’t want three months’ hard labour under the
Defence of the Realm Act,” he said.

You may be sure that I was not very long in coding this news, though
it was some time before I could get my telegram to Stockholm.
Apparently the British Government were holding up all messages for
forty-eight hours, but this did not worry me so long as it reached its
destination eventually.

Naturally I received a reply in a much shorter space of time. In fact,
Berlin acknowledged my message within twelve hours of its receipt.

You will remember that in the first week of February we Germans
delivered a sudden and fierce attack upon the British front line
positions between Festubert and Bois Grenier. Owing to some unhappy
and unfortunate change of plan the front lines of the English position
were filled with soldiers, but this was probably due to the
carelessness of General von Klaus who had assembled his troops for the
offensive in broad daylight under the eyes of the British airmen. Von
Klaus himself denied this, but that is the theory which I have formed,
because Mister Haynes afterwards told me that he had had his story
confirmed from three independent sources, and gave me the names of his
informants, and even showed me the photograph of one of them.

Klein, who was up on a brief visit to London--he was very busy in
South Wales on propaganda work with his friend Mr. Craigmair--was
anxious that I should send Mister Haynes to the West of England where
certain experiments were being made with a new kind of armoured car.
He had attempted to get into the camp, which was guarded as carefully
as any prison, and had narrowly escaped being arrested.

It is a well-known fact that long before the famous Tank--that
atrocious and unfair weapon which the English used, contrary to the
laws of the Hague Convention--came upon the scene, secret experiments
were being made. Potsdam had heard of these, and I had received
instructions to prosecute my investigations with the greatest vigour.

Naturally rumours were rife, and there were many mares’ nests before,
by a lucky chance, our good Klein heard of this experimental camp. I
had no difficulty in concocting a story for Mister Haynes. My
suggestion was that he should write an article on the marvellous
mechanical contrivances which the genius of Britain had brought into
being and I despatched him, with Klein, hot upon the scent to
investigate and report.

They left by the night train from Paddington and I saw them off. Klein
was very decorous, the picture of an English gentleman in his check
cap and his long travelling coat, his neat-gloved hands and his
English magazine, and Mister Haynes, as untidy as ever, curled up in
the corner of the carriage and, I should imagine, asleep before he
left the station.

What happened was told me by Klein on the telephone. It was a
happening so disconcerting, so mysterious, that I must confess that I
regarded the unlooked-for outcome of this adventure with more than
ordinary disquietude, even had there not been the more terrible
sequel.

They reached their destination, a small West Country town, in the
early hours of the morning and went to their hotel where they were
joined by Posser, who was working with Klein, and who, deeply
conscious of the importance of finding out details of this particular
machine, had been spending that day in making judicious inquiries.

They had breakfasted together the next morning, when, of course, no
mention was made of the camp or the new armoured car, Klein
introducing Posser as his secretary. I might explain that Klein was
posing as a Swedish mining engineer who had a patent for sale
connected with coal haulage. I had sent Mister Haynes on the same
train and in company with Klein, on the pretext that, as Mr. Klein was
a friend and was going to the same town, they might travel together
and that Mr. Klein might possibly give my reporter certain
introductions which would be useful.

Mister Haynes spoke about his mission quite openly, though Klein
advised him, laughingly, not to mention his business if he wanted to
secure the information he required. Apparently Mister Haynes met with
little success, and came back to the hotel to dinner and said that all
his efforts to induce any of the soldiers attached to the camp to give
him information or to secure admission had been fruitless.

Klein was not greatly perturbed. In fact, he was very much elated
because Posser had told him secretly that he intended making his way
into the camp that night in the guise of one of the waiters at the
officers’ mess. They all ostensibly went to bed soon after ten
o’clock. Mister Haynes went to his room and Klein went to his, though
not to sleep. He made himself comfortable and took up a book and began
reading. Presently he heard a scraping on his door, and smiled, for it
was the agreed-on signal that Posser was stealing out into the night
to secure his information.

The house was wrapt in sleep at eleven o’clock, and Klein read on.

At one o’clock he heard a tap on the door. His room was next to Mister
Haynes, and thinking that Posser could not have returned at so early
an hour and that it was Haynes who was knocking, he opened the door.
And to his amazement and delight, for he saw success shining on his
comrade’s honest face, he admitted Posser.

“I’ve got it!” whispered our good Posser.

“Wait,” said Klein, in the same tone, and kicking off his slippers he
went into the corridor, softly opened Haynes’s door and listened. He
heard the regular breathing of the reporter, closed the door as softly
and came back.

“Now tell me,” he said quickly.

Posser explained how he had walked boldly into the camp in the
darkness, and how he had reached the shed, crawling through the
sentries, and had seen “the most remarkable machine that the war has
produced.”

“It is a triumph, my dear Klein,” he said, his eyes shining, “I have
in my head,” he tapped the good, broad German forehead, “the whole
construction of this engine. In twelve hours I will give you a drawing
and notes which----”

“Hush, hush,” said Klein, for in his natural excitement, Posser’s
voice had risen.

“Here is the rough idea.” Posser rapidly sketched a now familiar shape
briefly, outlined with rough squares and oblongs the position of the
engine and the guns.

“I will keep this,” said Klein. “You must get to work at once, my dear
fellow, and give us a more detailed drawing. But first we will drink
mutual congratulations.”

Klein got out a bottle of champagne, pulled out the cork, and these
two fine fellows, true and loyal sons of the Fatherland, drank in a
whisper to the destruction of civilization’s enemy--England!

Klein accompanied Posser to his room. They pulled down the blinds
before they switched on the light. Quickly the drawing pads, the
rulers, the T-squares and the compasses were taken out of Posser’s
suit-case and arrayed on the table.

“Now I will leave you,” said Klein, shook hands heartily with the hero
of that night’s adventure and left the room, as he said, without a
sound.

He had scarcely got into his own room and shut the door when he heard
the click of the lock on Posser’s door and smiled his approval. It was
at a quarter to two when he went to bed and at half-past seven the
maid brought him a cup of coffee and some biscuits. He drank his
coffee and rose, slipped into his dressing-gown and went over to
Posser’s room anxious to know what was the result of the night’s work.
He tapped at the door. There was no answer. He tapped again. There was
still no answer. He tried the handle, remembering at the same time
that Herr Posser had locked the door. He was a little surprised to
find that the door yielded.

The room was in semi-darkness, the blinds were still drawn and he
walked to the window and let the blinds up with a crash.

What he saw, or rather what he did not see, struck him with amazement.
The bed had not been slept in. All the drawing material had been
cleared. Posser’s trunks were still in the position where he had left
them, but there was no sign of Posser.

He went back to his room and rang the bell. The night porter was
summoned, but neither he nor any of the servants had seen Posser, who
from that moment vanished from the earth as completely as though the
ground had opened and swallowed him, and not only vanished but had
taken with him whatever drawings he had made.

In his perturbation Klein went to the room of Mister Haynes, who was
still in bed and sleeping soundly.

“Get up!” said Klein testily; “have you seen Mr.----my secretary?”

Mister Haynes sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“What’s the time?” he asked.

“Confound it,” said Klein angrily, “what does it matter what the time
is? Have you seen my friend?”

“Why should I have seen your friend?” growled Haynes. “What has
happened to him?”

“He has disappeared,” said Klein.

“Gone out for a walk, I expect; it is a beautiful morning.”

“On the contrary, it is raining and blowing,” said Klein angrily; “why
should he go out on a morning like this?”

Haynes rose and dressed himself leisurely, spending an unconscionable
time in the bathroom for a man whom I never suspected of washing, and
turned up at breakfast, wholly unconcerned in his callous English
fashion as to what had happened to poor Posser.

Klein, who was all nerves, could eat nothing. He had questioned
everybody in the hotel, but nobody had heard a sound in the night and
the night-porter supplemented his previous statement, declaring that
it was impossible for Posser to leave the house except with his
knowledge.

Klein was not satisfied and made an examination of the outside of the
hotel, hoping to pick up some trace of his comrade.

Outside Posser’s window he made a discovery. A line of bushes grew
within a foot of the house-wall, and beneath Posser’s window these had
been broken as though by some heavy body having jumped or fallen upon
them. Moreover, he discovered a small pair of dividers which he
recognized as Posser’s.

Pursuing his investigations beyond the grounds of the hotel, he came
upon the track of motor-car wheels which he followed to the outskirts
of the town where he made another discovery. The road here was
undergoing repair and owing to the wetness of the morning the night
watchman was still on duty, not having been relieved as usually is the
case at the hour when the men started work.

This old man Klein questioned.

“Yes,” said the watchman, “I saw a motor-car. It was an ambulance with
green lights. It went past here a little after one this morning and
came back a little after two. It stopped very near the hotel, because
I could see its tail lights and I saw it turn round.”

Klein went back to the hotel with his nerves shaken and his usually
well-ordered mind in a condition of chaos.

“I am going back to town by the ten o’clock train,” he told Mister
Haynes. “I suppose you will be staying?”

“No,” said Mister Haynes with another yawn. “I shall go back, too.
There is nothing to be got out of this place.”

And so, much to the disgust of Klein, who in his state of mind would
have preferred to have been alone, they went back together.

They had to change at Basingstoke, and there finding that he would
have half an hour to wait, Klein crossed to the nearest hotel and got
me on the ’phone.

It was in this way that he related to me as far as he could with
safety the extraordinary happenings of the previous night.

“It is inexplicable, my dear Heine,” he said, speaking in Spanish. “I
am bewildered, stunned.”

I no less was agitated.

“Did he not communicate anything to you?” I asked.

“Yes, thank our good Gott!” said Klein’s voice; “he gave me a rough
sketch which may be sufficient. Whatever has happened to him the good
fellow’s work is not fruitless.”

Then suddenly his voice sank and he spoke hurriedly.

“I cannot say more,” he said, “that infernal reporter of yours is
outside the box. Does he understand Spanish?”

“He understands no language except bad French,” I replied, and heard
the click of the telephone receiver being hung up.

So distressed and puzzled was I that I went down to the station to
meet my friend.

I walked along the platform as the train came to a slow standstill,
and the first person I met was Mister Haynes, looking more untidy than
ever.

“Where is my friend?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Haynes, yawning; “he went over to the hotel to
telephone to somebody at Basingstoke and left before I did. In fact, I
had to run to catch the train,” he explained. “He is here somewhere.”

But there was no Klein. If he had been left behind he would have
telephoned me. I made inquiries of the guard.

“A gentleman in a check cap and a long ulster?” said that official.
“Yes, I remember him. He got on to the train at Basingstoke,
first-class passenger, wasn’t he? I particularly noticed he was in a
carriage by himself and was reading. This is the carriage,” he said,
pulling the door open, “here is his magazine.”

On the rack above was Klein’s suit-case. It was evident that it had
been rifled because the collars and night-shirt, brushes and combs,
were all mixed together in confusion.

I stared at Haynes and Haynes looked at me.

“How extraordinary!” said Mister Haynes.

It was not until that night that Klein’s body was recovered, lying in
a ditch by the side of the railway, shot through the heart, with every
pocket turned inside out, and yet, curiously enough, with all his
money, his watch and the rings left intact.

Of the rough drawing which he had promised to deliver me there was no
sign. Close at hand was his revolver with one chamber discharged.

Mister Haynes was in the office when the news came. He had been out
all the afternoon and had, he said, met with an accident, for his arm
was bandaged and in a sling. I was so upset by my anxiety over Klein
that I had barely noticed Mister Haynes’s injury, but now I looked at
him narrowly.

“What is the nature of your injury?” I asked.

He laughed.

“Mr. Cannelli,” he said, “I don’t know very much about you. You may be
a very honest man, the tool of very dishonest men.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It may be,” he went on, without taking any notice of my question,
“that you are being duped and that it is only coincidence that you
have friends who pursue extraordinary inquiries. All the records we
have of you,” my heart gave a throb and I could feel my hands
trembling, “all the records we have of you,” he repeated, “seem to be
in good order. I will give you two pieces of advice. The first is to
be careful in your choice of acquaintances. The second is to refrain
from allowing your very natural anxieties to lead you into further
inquiries as to the fate of Mr. Adolph Klein, alias Simpson, and if I
would add a third,” he said, looking out of the window and speaking in
his slow drawl, “it is to advise your friends in communicating with
you to avoid both the telephone and the Spanish language. Good
afternoon.”

He picked up his hat and went out, the picture of a broken-down
journalist, and I did not see him again until one day in Whitehall I
passed an officer, wearing the badge of the Intelligence Department,
who smiled and waved his hand to me. It was my reporter.




 CHAPTER V.
 THE MAN FROM THE STARS

It is an axiom of mine that news has no value unless it is based
upon somebody’s misfortune. Take your newspaper and scan its close-set
columns. Is there any item in these many pages which does not derive
its importance from a calamity which has overtaken somebody?

Your police courts, your divorce courts, your war--they yield interest
in ratio to the misfortune of one party or the other. Our great
victory is your great defeat, the liberation by the Divorce Court of
this woman is the exposure of that, startling crimes attract only by
the measure of the anguish they impose. In war, when neither army is
destroying the other we vote the news dull, and so I think would you
describe the faithful record of my commonplace days when all went as
smoothly and as evenly as the routine of a well-organized business.

And, after all, the spy’s work is more often than not the most dull
and boring of work. One of my men spent eight weeks in timber yards,
checking the supplies of box-wood and keeping track of its
destination. When a certain noble lord in charge of a great national
factory bought up all the box-wood, we knew by the extent of his
purchases that the work which was being done in his well-guarded
factory was shell-filling on a vast scale.

Here then was a form of “espionage” without adventure, humdrum,
soul-destroying and to all appearance unprofitable. There is no
material for narrative here, good friends. There is nothing of the
bizarre, nothing of the flash, the sparkle, and the thrill of the
work. Therefore, I do not offend you with the banal trivialities of my
profession, otherwise I might present what was little more than a
catalogue of appointments. As for example:


 March 3rd.

 10 o’clock.--Saw Hefferich and took report of spare ties and sleepers
 held by G.W. & C. Ry.

 10.15.--Phone message from Stael to say that there was a case of
 bubonic plague reported at Gravesend (East India liner _Ratapore_.)

 10.20.--Phone from Casey _re_ proscribed meeting at Connemara.

 10.30.--Phone weather report from Aberdeen.

 10.33.--Phone weather report from Llandudno.

 10.35.--Weather report from Southsea.

 10.38.--Saw van Heerden _re_ butter shipments for February.


and so and so forth. Yes, I was a weather bureau, and daily
transmitted the barometer reading to Germany--useful information for
our air service.

Many informative isobars would have been absent from the German
meteorological charts but for the industry and organization of Heine!
I have my critics and my enemies. Particularly do I single out amongst
the latter, Trade-Councillor Karl Wesselsmanns, of Hamburg, on the
staff of _Vorwarts_, who had the impertinence to write in his crude
language and un-German spirit that “the work of the Secret Service in
England was distinguished by bungling and stupidity. Whoever was in
control of that work seemed to spend his time getting Germans into
trouble and produced very few satisfactory results that are worthy of
notice.”

It is true that I did not blow up munition works. It is true that I
did not sink battleships like the heroic Weddigen, and that I did not
drop bombs on the Houses of Parliament. That was not my duty. That
that duty was ably performed I can prove by documents in my
possession, notably one from the illustrious and High Admiral von
Tirpitz, signed by his own hand, and I also adduce the statement of
that saviour of Germany, the excellent and illustrious Prussian
Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, who on one occasion mentioned me by
name, as I can prove, and stated that for all he knew I might be one
of the most useful men in the German service. All these things have
been said to me and I only repeat them in self-defence. I do not
boast. We Germans never indulge in frivolous talk nor do we use
sport-terms. Otherwise I would say that these attacks by the gutter
scourings of Altonia were not bally cricket, to use an English
expression. I admit there have been lamentable errors, and possibly in
the course of these memoirs I shall have to admit others by which
_interfering and unofficially appointed amateurs have fallen a prey to
their own arrogant ill-informedness_.

As for me I can look the whole world in the face and say humbly that
with no thanks for reward, and no hope of gain, facing an ignominious
death from hour to hour, I have served the Fatherland. It does not
matter to me whether I receive the Order of the Red Eagle, as I have
been half-promised, or whether I do not. I feel my superiors must make
some acknowledgment of my whole-hearted services on an inadequate and
miserably insufficient salary.

And if you dare to suggest, as this ink-slinging rascal on the
_Vorwarts_ has done, that I have made large sums of money out of the
expenses which the empire allow me for propaganda work, I fling the
accusation in your teeth. I admit I am well off, but that is due to my
private speculations on the Stock Exchange in the year 1914.[6] But
to return to my work and to an adventure which was, to say the least,
out of the ordinary.

In the summer of 1915, I received a request from Berlin which somewhat
surprised me. I was instructed to send to Holland as many good maps of
London as I could buy, and I was told also to prepare one special map,
marking the areas the street-lamps of which had been darkened. This
was followed (or it may have come in the same dispatch, I forget) by a
request that I should instruct my men to discover how it was that the
British Government knew we contemplated an air-raid on London.

I myself wondered what information the British Government had secured,
and how they had secured it. For months the streets had been lit as
gaily as in pre-war days. The theatre signs glowed and flashed, the
West End streets were bathed in radiance, and then, almost as by a
touch of the magician’s wand, London “went dark.” Street lamps were
shaded, the light signs outside the theatres were extinguished, and it
was almost impossible to pick your way through the streets.

I suppose my excellent friend, the High-Born Baron von
Hertz-Missenger, would have said, “English Secret Service.” He reminds
me of a character in Charles Dickens, the great English poet, who
invariably thought that his head was the head of King Charles II!

The explanation I offered was, that some of our too impetuous airmen
must have betrayed the fact by shouting with haughty insolence to the
English airmen they met in the air. As this has never been denied, it
is probably true. At any rate I set myself to work upon a map. It was
a long business, and very unsatisfactory, because the whole of London
was dark, and no place was more light than another. This I reported,
forwarding the maps by special courier.

And then I received a request from our Headquarters that I should
arrange light-signals which should be seen by Zeppelins. The idea was
to post three lights so that they formed a triangle, one near Albany
Park, one near Maidstone Road, and a third in the east, near
Shepherd’s Junction. The triangle thus made would contain all the
valuable city area which it was our Zeppelins’ intention to utterly
destroy.

Of the first raid in September, it is not necessary for me to tell. Of
how the cowardly Englishmen trembled beneath the midnight hail of
bombs, you have read.

I myself did not witness the raid, because, on receiving information
in the afternoon, Zeppelins were due, I had left London for Cornwall.
Since it was impossible for the brave fellows who piloted our good
Zeppelins to distinguish between a patriot and a hateful enemy, I
thought that in the interest of the Fatherland, it was necessary that
I should be as far away as possible when the dread visitation came.

I returned to London the next morning and arrived at eleven o’clock. O
what consternation there was. O what vile language these unkultured
Londoners used, what epithets, what adjectives, the A’s, and B’s, and
C’s, and D’s, they called us--but of that anon!

I was in some anxiety before my journey’s end was reached as to
whether I should have to walk a part of the journey, and I was greatly
relieved on questioning the conductor to learn that Paddington Station
had escaped the holocaust. When I arrived at Paddington everything was
going on as usual. To my amazement buses were running and cabs were
plying for hire.

“Where was the raid?” I asked.

“In the East End and the City,” was the reply.

So, I thought, my triangle had proved efficacious, and calling a cab,
I said:

“Will you please drive me to the ruined area?”

The poor, ignorant fellow thought at first that it was the name of a
public-house, and I had to enlighten him.

“Where the bombs struck,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” he said, brightening up, “I will ask a policeman where they
fell.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” I inquired, “that you don’t know? Perhaps
you haven’t been to the City?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied in the true boorish cabman spirit. “I’ve been
to the City three times, but I ain’t seen no place where the bombs
fell.”

This of course was “eye-wash.” For my part I had removed all my
archives from my office, and as that was on the edge of the City, I
drove there first and was pleased to find that my office had not been
touched. I drove up Ludgate Hill and apparently everything was as
usual, and it was not until we had driven farther on and had
penetrated a side street that I saw the wreckage of a house. It was
pleasing and yet disappointing. A number of windows had been smashed,
one house was in ruins and there was a big hole in a court-yard, but
the damage was such as might have been caused by an explosion of gas.

It took me a long time before I found the second place where a bomb
had fallen, and here again the results were not as I expected. I spent
the whole of that day wandering about looking for devastation. I went
east and south, and north, and although I saw some damaged houses, the
results of our gallant Zeppelins’ visit left much to be desired.

Returning to my office I was called on the ’phone and a code message
was sent through to me. As I expected, it was from Berlin asking for
full particulars of the damage done, and very faithfully I described
what I had seen, coded it and passed it on to the proper quarters.

To my wrath and humiliation, the next evening brought a peremptory
demand from Berlin. It had been sent by radio, picked up off the coast
by a little steamer flying the flag of----, and was brought to me from
an East Coast port by one of the couriers we employed for that
purpose.

The message was, as I say, peremptory, and there were tears in my
eyes, tears of sorrow and injury as I read it.


 “Cannot understand your message. Our pilots report Westminster Abbey
 was bombed. Whole streets of the City are in flames, Houses of
 Parliament partly destroyed, also London Bridge and Tower of London.
 Several ships in docks hit and sunk. Please personally investigate and
 report.”


Of course there was a chance that these cunning English had, by means
of scene painters and workmen labouring through the night, removed all
sign of the destruction, but I walked over London Bridge without any
difficulty, and as far as I could see the Tower of London was
uninjured.

I reported the same, and three days later, had this message back:


 “Be on south side of Three Mile Wood, north-north-east Saffron Walden,
 at eleven o’clock on the night of October 7th.”


I could not understand this message, and my new assistant, who had
arrived from America, Herr Wilhelm Peters, was as much puzzled as I.

However, on the 7th of October, I journeyed to Saffron Walden, which
is a little town in Essex, and by studying a map I discovered that
Three Mile Wood was inaccurately named because it was about seven
miles from the town. I decided to walk, and arrived in the
neighbourhood of the wood at about ten o’clock at night. Having
ascertained by consulting my compass which was the south side, I made
my way across fields and muddy ditches to a big meadow which was
exactly placed to the south of the sparsely-wooded little forest.

It was a clear night with a thin ground haze and was rather cold. I
had brought one of those walking-sticks, the top of which forms a
seat, and this I found very comfortable; for the inner man I had a
flask of brandy and some liver sandwiches, and I settled myself down
to my vigil, wondering what on earth had induced Headquarters to send
me upon this wild adventure.

Then suddenly my heart began beating at a tremendous rate as I divined
the reason! It was intended this night for our airships to reach
London, and they desired that I should be a witness. What folly! What
folly! What incomparable insanity to risk the life of a high Officer
of Intelligence, to place him in such horrible jeopardy.

I felt myself grow pale, but then with an effort I braced up. I was a
German! We Germans fear God and nothing else, and, besides, I thought
there might not be an air-raid after all.

But what satisfaction I got out of that thought was quickly
dissipated. Suddenly an ominous sound came to me. A double “boom!” far
away and to the east, was followed by three staccato explosions.
Another bomb fell, and suddenly the whole of the eastern sky was
illuminated by the tracing fingers of searchlights.

“Boom!” the sound was growing nearer and my mouth was dry. I felt
choking. I loosened my collar and wiped the sweat from my forehead and
stood up, my knees trembling.

I have thought the matter over since and I have come to the conclusion
that my agitation might be explained in this way, that I was trembling
with pride in the fearless exploits of our gallant airmen, those
intrepid messengers of death who sailed the midnight skies fearless of
foe; that I perspired because the liver sandwich was perhaps a little
too highly flavoured. Anyway, the cursed things were coming closer and
who knows what mistakes a blundering fool of a pilot might make. The
searchlights were suddenly extinguished, the guns were silent, and for
ten minutes I heard no sound save a faint but ever-growing-nearer hum
of an engine in the sky. Then there was a shrieking whistle, a crash
that seemed to shake the very earth, a blinding fan of flame and then
silence. In my rage I shook my fist at the sky.

“Stupid jackasses, miserable, bat-eyed swine-hound!” I cried. “Have
you not the highest instructions in your pockets to avoid bombing an
Intelligence Officer?”

The cursed thing passed overhead. It was roaring like a railway train
passing through a tunnel. I saw the bulk of it outlined against the
stars and then I saw something else, a little black dot that moved and
swayed against the sky.

I thought it might be some infernal machine and I nearly fainted.

Understand that my chief thought was of Germany. I had no fear for
myself. I was merely a cog in the wheel of the great machine and stood
ready at all hours and all days to sacrifice myself for our dear
Deutschland.

Fortunately, there was a fallen tree in my neighbourhood, and under
this I crept, looking out from time to time to see what had happened
to the strange thing in the air. Then I heard a thud, a rustle, and an
oath, and I jumped up, bruising the back of my head against the
tree-trunk, and ran toward the sound, for that oath was in good
German.

“Whars dar?” called a sharp voice.

“It is I, Heine,” I replied.

“Oh, good,” said the voice in German. “You are on the spot, I see.
Help free me from this doubly rotten parachute.”

I made my way to him and helped unbuckle some of the straps that
fastened him, and presently he was free.

“Have you got a pocket lamp?” he asked. “No, perhaps you had better
not use it. Where can I put the parachute?”

I suggested the tree under which I had been--I won’t say hiding, let
me rather say taking cover.

“Have you a car?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“You are an ass,” said he; “why haven’t you a car?”

I knew by the imperiousness of his tone that he was a true German
gentleman, probably highly born and connected by many social ties with
an old family of Prussia.

“I am the Baron von Treutzer,” he said, as though answering my
thoughts, “and I have been sent here to survey the damage that was
done in the last raid.”

“Your Excellency will discover that I have spoken nothing but the
truth,” I said humbly.

The sound of the Zeppelin’s engines, which had diminished, was now
increasing in volume.

“Is the airship returning?” I asked.

“Yes, yes,” he said testily.

He took from his pocket a small electric lamp and flashed it three
times in the air and immediately after three tiny sparks of light
showed in the sky.

“They won’t be dropping any more bombs, Herr Baron?” I asked
carelessly.

“Good heavens! What does it matter if they do?” he boomed--he was a
booming kind of man, born to command, typical of our virile
aristocracy which has placed Germany in the forefront of
world-nations.

“I only asked,” I said. “I am a mere observer.”

“We only dropped a few bombs,” he said, “just to explain our presence.
The real business of our visit is here.” I heard him slap his chest in
the darkness.

“I did not know where the raid was intended,” I said, “or I would have
arranged for a leader.”

“A leader?” he asked. “What the devil do you mean?”

“Evidently Herr Baron is not a member of the Zeppelin crew,” I said
humbly, “or he would know that the Zeppelins are ‘led’ to their
destination by motor-cars with strong head-lamps.”

“Of course I am not a member of the Zeppelin crew,” he said in deep
disgust, “I am a Royal Lieutenant of the 31st Regiment of the Prussian
Guard.”

“Does your Excellency intend staying here very long?” I asked, as we
trudged along the country road.

“For a week,” he replied, “after that I return----”

“By----?”

“That is my business,” he replied, “if a Zeppelin can bring me here, a
Zeppelin can take me away.”

Though I had never heard of parachutes that go up, I know all things
are possible owing to the inventive genius of our nation, so I
questioned him no further. Outside Saffron Walden we stopped whilst I
went to the hotel to collect the handbag which I had left there.

Needless to say the people in the hotel were in that condition of
cowardly funk which our Zeppelin always inspires. The children were
crying because they had not seen the airship, and again I heard in the
common bar of the hotel those terrible words which my modesty would
only allow me to designate by using certain letters of the alphabet.

I rejoined the Baron and we made our way to the railway station, which
was in darkness. Fortunately the train which came in was also darkened
and remained that way until we reached London and I was able to bring
the Baron to my flat without observation.

He was a tall, handsome gentleman, dressed in civilian clothes of a
noble cut and rich texture, and over a glass of whisky he graciously
unbent and told me that he had come to England by this curious method
to discover the extent of the damage, not only of the first raid, but
of a raid which was projected and by which it was hoped to lay London
entirely in ruins.

“On what day will that occur?” I asked.

“You will be notified in due time. It may be to-morrow, and it may be
the next day,” he replied.

“I only asked,” I said carelessly, “because it is necessary for me to
see one of my agents in North Devon one day this week, and I should
not like to miss the raid.”

“You will stay here until I go. That is an order. Why are you looking
so pale?”

“It is the pressure of work, your Excellency,” I replied. “I am afraid
I have rather taxed my strength. My doctor suggested that I ought to
go away at once to Cornwall or perhaps Scotland.”

“We hope to bomb Scotland,” said the Baron thoughtfully. “It would not
be a bad idea if you were there.”

“When I said Scotland,” I said hastily, “I should have said that my
doctor suggested I should go to Scotland in the spring. This of course
is the very worst weather. Are you likely to bomb Wales?”

“We cannot reach there. It is beyond our reach,” said the Baron.

“I only ask,” I said, “because he also suggested that I should go
there.”

“When the raids are over you can go to the devil. I only want your
assistance while they are on.”

“Did you say raids or raid?” I asked.

“There may be two,” he replied callously.

The next morning he expressed his intention of going through the City
and the East End to photograph the worst of the damage. I did not
offer to accompany him, and indeed, had he suggested that I should do
so, I should have firmly declined. Fortunately, he knew London very
well, for he had been an attaché at the German Embassy a few years
before the war broke out, so he had no need of my assistance or
guidance.

He left the flat at eleven o’clock and I arranged to meet him at a
restaurant in Piccadilly for lunch. I need hardly say that he was
armed with a passport; not only very completely filled in, but
endorsed with an exact imitation of the rubber stamps which were used
in those days by examining officers at Folkestone when passengers
landed.

I was waiting for him at one o’clock, but he did not arrive. Half-past
one came, a quarter to two, two o’clock, and I began to feel seriously
alarmed, and was thinking what an excellent text his arrest would
provide for a letter to Potsdam on the futility of sending amateurs,
when he came through the swing doors. He uttered no word till we were
sitting at the table, and the waiter had served the soup.

“These English people are very clever,” he said at last.

“In a way they are clever,” I said, “but by the side of the
German----”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Our German people are merely slavish imitators
of everybody else in the world. If Germany was not a nation of slaves
we should never have an army.”

This put an end to the easy flow of conversation, but presently I
ventured to ask:

“Why does your Excellency think the English are clever?”

“I am referring to the way they have cleared up the mess we made and
have run up new buildings.”

He looked up at me curiously as he spoke.

“Don’t you agree?”

“Naturally,” I said heartily, “I have reason to believe that hundreds
of thousands of workmen have been working day and night to restore the
damage.”

He laughed.

“In addition to being a fool, you are a liar,” he said, and I could
only smile at the good humour and buoyant frankness of this high-born
officer who was in all probability in the entourage of the All-Highest
himself and, at any rate, as I have since learnt, had frequently dined
with that exalted Prince whom we call the Hope of Germany.

“No,” Baron von Treutzer went on, “the Zeppelin did little or no
damage. It caused nothing of the smash that we expected it would. We
will see what to-night’s raid brings out.”

“To-night?” I said, half-rising from my seat.

“Did I say to-night?” he said in an off-hand way. “Well, whenever it
happens.”

But I knew that in a moment of incaution he had spoken the truth.

“By the way, I shall want you with me to-night,” he said.

“To-night?” I repeated. “I am very sorry but this is the one night I
cannot be with your Excellency. I have an important messenger coming
from Ireland with particulars of a rising, and the Foreign Office has
particularly asked me----”

“I shall want you to-night,” repeated the Herr Baron, “and you will
meet me at ten o’clock, let us say, in St. Paul’s Churchyard.”

“Himmel! Herr Baron!” I exploded, “that would be in the very centre of
the raid!”

“Did I ever say that it would not?” he asked coldly, “of course it
will be in the centre of the raid. You understand, at ten o’clock. The
War Office require a detailed account by eye-witnesses of the damage
which is done.”

“But my messenger arrives at Fishguard to-night,” I said with a tremor
in my voice. “Forgive me if I am agitated, Herr Baron, but I realize
the terrible importance, the absolute necessity, of meeting that
boat.”

“At ten o’clock you will be in St. Paul’s Churchyard,” said the Baron.

How I loathed and hated this tyrant. We Germans are naturally lovers
of freedom. We despise the sycophant and the toady. Tyranny to us is a
pestilential disease to be stamped out with an iron heel. Woe to those
who endeavour to enslave the German, for they are biting on granite!

I told the Baron that I would meet him at the appointed time.

“Don’t come before ten,” he said. “We will remain until the raid is
over.”

I lifted my hat and bowed as I parted from him in Piccadilly, and I
prayed, most fervently, that the earth would open and swallow this
pig, whose abominable manners and low attitude to men not so well born
as himself (though of that I am not sure, for there were many stories
about my mother’s friendship for the Graf von Maldesee, which I
sometimes reflect upon with a certain amount of satisfaction) aroused
in me the deepest scorn.

I could eat no dinner that night, I could do no work that afternoon. I
sat in my office until a quarter to ten, suffering, I think, from a
touch of malaria and ague which I contracted in America.

I arrived in St. Paul’s Churchyard, dark and gloomy and silent, on the
stroke of ten. I had arranged to meet the Baron at the corner of one
of the lanes which slope down to Upper Thames Street, and here I took
my station.

At quarter-past ten he had not arrived. At twenty minutes past ten a
hundred searchlights flashed into the sky and the first gun-shot woke
the sleeping city.

The Zeppelin was coming straight to the City, but was west of where I
stood. I heard the thud of its bombs and the devil’s chorus of the
guns. I saw the skies speckled with shrapnel bursts, but much of what
happened in that brief space of time between its appearance and its
disappearance is blotted from my memory.

I could only stand crouched in a friendly doorway, my hands before my
eyes, thinking of my dear friends, and particularly of a certain girl
in Chicago with whom I had exchanged photographs, of my dear home, my
little brothers, in fact all my life passed before me. I dare not go
out to look for the Herr Baron. How I envied him, that hardened man of
war to whom this terrible concatenation of sound was as the gentle
zephyrs; who could stand unmoved and watch with his stern military eye
the destruction that was going on about him, uncaring, unafraid,
contemptuous of danger, seeking only the information he required for
his superiors!

In that moment I almost loved the man, even though I hated to meet him
lest he mistook my ague for a more ignoble emotion, but presently I
plucked up courage and went out to look for him. He was not at the
corner of the lane nor was he on that pavement at all. I made a
circuit of the Cathedral without meeting him and then I realized that
the Zeppelins had not been near St. Paul’s but had passed westward.
Naturally he would have been informed at the last moment and would
have been on a spot where they would pass.

I did not attempt to join the throngs that gathered about the places
where the bombs had fallen, but made my way homeward. At one o’clock
he had not returned; two, three, and four passed. I still listened and
then the horror of the possibility seized me. This gallant man had
perhaps paid for his temerity with his life and I bought an early
morning paper as soon as one was procurable and searched in vain for
some indication of his fate. Such a man could not be stricken down
without attracting attention, but there was no reference whatever to
such a one as he. In a fever of anxiety I paced my room. I called up
my various agents but they could give me no information and I had
almost abandoned hope when, at half-past eleven, the Baron came,
debonair and calm into my office.

“You had a good view,” were the first words he said.

“Oh, Herr Baron,” I said. I grasped his hand and shook it (a most
presumptuous thing to do); “I am so glad to see you back! If you
missed me, I was on the spot.”

“I didn’t miss you,” he said.

“Where were you?”

“I was at Fishguard, meeting your man but apparently without success,
for he did not come.”

“You were at Fishguard?” I gasped.

“Naturally,” he said, “you don’t suppose I am such a silly fool that I
am going to stand under a bomb to see it burst, do you?”

Such a man was this mean-souled dog, von Treutzer!

Thank heaven! He disappeared in a week. He may have been picked up by
a descending Zeppelin. He may have been taken off by a
near-approaching submarine. I have had no news, but if I hear he got
back to Germany alive, I, Heine, will be sorry.




 CHAPTER VI.
 THE AFFAIR OF THE ALLIES’ CONFERENCE

By what strange fate, you may ask, did I, Heine, the chief of the
Intelligence Bureau in England, escape the detection which was the
fate of Koos, of Klein, of Posser and in a degree of von Kahn? Had I
not been associated with them? Had I not been identified with them? It
is possible that there would have been little reason to ask this
question, but I had been seen with Koos. The British Intelligence
Department knew that I was associated with Posser and Klein. I had
been seen in circumstances which, I am willing to admit, were
suspicious, in Manchester, and yet I, the head and brain of the
organization might walk at liberty and none question me as to my
comings and goings!

I had this matter thoroughly thrashed out with myself in the seclusion
of my room, for we Germans harbour no illusions. We have that gift of
introspection, of self-weighing, which gift no other nation can claim
with truth. We see the black side and the bright side. We see our own
faults, few though they are, our own national shortcomings, such as
modesty, sentimentality, and transparent honesty, and we are able to
balance delicately the pros and the cons, even though in so doing we
disparage in thought our own acts and thoughts. And after a night of
self-communion I came to this conclusion:

It is true that I had been seen in association with my unfortunate
friends, but then so had other men who were beyond any suspicion. It
was abundantly clear to me that I had escaped any unpleasantness as a
result of the thoroughness of my organization, my foresight, and the
well-devised methods I had adopted for covering my tracks. You might
come into my office any day and demand that my books should be seen.
You might go to my bank and look at my account. You might examine all
the records of my trading and find nothing there to support the
suggestion that I was not carrying on a legitimate business.

I had not been very well after the unhappy ending of Klein and the
disappearance of poor Posser. Who knows in what prison camp he
languishes, far from the sound of Hameln’s bells--he was a Hanoverian,
related to the well-born Graf von Welsich-Heidebrand--or with what
anguished tears he dreams of his beloved Fatherland? But enough of
sentiment! We Germans are a practical people, so practical that we
have aroused the envy and hatred of the whole world.

I think it must have been my association with the spurious journalist,
Haynes, that not only awoke a certain uneasiness in my breast, and
shook my confidence in my judgment as to the existence of a British
secret service, but it also showed me a way to dispel any suspicion
which I might have created in the bosom of the police, and also to
advertize my innocence to the great public. I began systematically to
write letters to the newspapers.

You may remember my long letter in the _Evening Post_ on the necessity
for limiting the supplies to neutrals. You may recall the letter which
was given due prominence in the _Post Telegraph_ on the urgent
necessity for a South American Federation to show a united front
against German “cruelties”--I felt a foul traitor to _Deutschtum_ when
I wrote this!--you may have clipped from numerous papers, both in
London and in the provinces, innumerable epistles, signed Francisco
Cannelli, on the heroism of France, on the splendour of Belgium, on
the necessity for learning Spanish, so that the good English could
come into South America and take away the wicked German’s trade, and
you would certainly have found my name against respectable amounts in
the subscription lists which were opened by various newspapers in the
early days of the war.

It was a scheme of colossal daring and how well I succeeded! No less
than seven newspapers published my photograph. I was interviewed for
the _Times-Herald_. I was referred to in other letters to the editor,
and my frankness and geniality were praised in the highest measure.
For, in the course of these letters, I admitted frankly that, quite
unwittingly--because of my foreign origin--I had been acquainted with
many notorious spies in England and I even suggested methods by which
the spy could be traced and brought to justice (this was in one of the
four letters I wrote on “The Unseen Hand”). I took up “The Unseen
Hand” idea with enthusiasm. It was a popular cry and who was I, that I
should not take advantage of the onrushing wave and ride to popularity
upon its crest?

To the everlasting honour of the illustrious and excellent chiefs of
my Department in Berlin, they recognized the object of my scheme, and
I could show you now, if the codes had not been destroyed, messages of
congratulation couched in the most gracious terms and signed by names
which indicated personages of the most exalted character.

There was living in England (in Kent to be exact) at this time, the
Baron von Hertz-Missenger, who was what was termed a naturalized
German, and as I have remarked on many occasions (and have been
complimented on my delicate wit) a naturalized German is a German in
his natural state.

The Herr Baron had a beautiful house and was in a position to secure
news both from the Fatherland and from certain exclusive circles in
London. From that high flag-staff of his, many a message has leapt
into the night and been caught by our vigilant radio operators at
Wilhelmshaven. From that closed study, with its rows upon rows of
books, its gorgeous Persian carpets and its shaded lamps, many a
British secret has been coded into a few meaningless words.

The Herr Baron and I were good friends, though we seldom met. I think
he was pleased with me because I never forgot the homage which is due
to the greatly-born, and he was certainly popular with me because he
had the ear of Potsdam and the All-Highest Confidence of He Whose Name
we will not mention. My reputation as a writer of letters had been
firmly established when I received a note asking me to meet the Baron
at a certain hotel in a South Coast watering place. Precisely on the
day, at the hour and to the minute of my appointment, I presented
myself in the private suite of his Excellency, who always received me
with the most gracious condescension.

“Heine,” he said, when he had closed the door, “I am very troubled
about you.”

“About me, your Excellency,” I said in surprise.

“Yes, about you,” he repeated. “It is clear to me that you are
suspect. I have heard all about the things which have happened in the
past, and knowing the British Secret Service as I do, I cannot imagine
that you have, as the Americans say, got away with it.”

“Secret service, your Excellency?” I smiled; “surely you do not
believe in a widely organized----?”

“Don’t be a fool, Heine,” said the Herr Baron sharply; even to be
called a fool by a man of his position and rank is a compliment,
implying as it does a friendliness and an intimacy which few of us
attain with our superiors. “Of course there is a Secret Police. The
whole country is overrun with them. It is the most deadly Secret
Police in the world, with the exception of the American, because it
doesn’t boast and it doesn’t talk. Its very silence is its strength.”

For my part, though I was not feeling strong, I was silent. One cannot
argue the point with an amateur, even a distinguished amateur, and
whilst I was always willing to admit that the police of England were
undoubtedly brilliant and extraordinarily lucky, I could not admit the
existence of an organization on the scale which the Herr Baron
outlined.

“You don’t believe this,” he said quickly, and before I could protest
my faith in anything he said, he went on: “I tell you, that this hotel
is filled with English spies. They probably saw you come into this
room, and it is fairly certain they followed you from London and will
go back with you. That is why I asked you in my telegram to come down
and have a friendly argument on the question of trade after the war,
as outlined in your letter to the _Post Herald_. That telegram was
read and re-read before it reached you. Have no doubt of that, Heine.
Here in England they know I am a German. They hope I am loyal. They do
not trust me any more than they trust you.”

“But surely, Herr Baron,” I smiled, “this does not mean that your
Excellency will not be able to serve the Fatherland in moments of
emergency?”

He shook his head.

“If by that you mean wireless, my answer is no,” he said, “my wireless
apparatus is dust and ashes. I have burnt it and destroyed every
single code. I have one more piece of work to do for Deutschland and
if I succeed, or if somebody else succeeds, I am finished, and leave
well alone. I cannot advise you to do the same, because it is your
business to take risks just as it is my business not to take risks.
Now I have called you down partly to warn you, and partly to give you
certain information. Whether you act on that information or not is
also your business. You have heard of Lord Leatham?”

I nodded.

“He has an estate in Shropshire. He is not a rich man, and some years
he used to let his estate to a tenant. He is a friend of a friend of
mine and I have learnt that it is the intention of the Government to
take over his property as a prison camp for German officers. Now, it
may be necessary--this is merely a conjecture, and I am only looking
ahead--to communicate with gentlemen who will be in that camp. Leatham
Priory is a very old house,” he spoke slowly and impressively, “at one
time it was in the possession of a persecuted Catholic family, and
there is a legend that beneath the grounds runs a secret subterranean
passage. That it was something more than a legend Lord Leatham
discovered twenty years ago, for a portion of this tunnel was
unearthed, but it seemed to lead to nowhere. What his Lordship does
_not_ know, is that that tunnel is virtually intact and that the
passage which was discovered was not the real one but was merely a
branch which was never completed and which was intended to lead to the
crypt of the village church. Remember that this is all I can tell you.
I know no more, and I merely pass on the information to you for what
it is worth.”

I went back to London that night, a little puzzled as to why the good
Baron had brought me all the way to Brighton to give me information of
this kind. It was not a certainty that any well-placed person would be
accommodated on Lord Leatham’s property, and it was less certain that
I could be of any assistance to such a prisoner, unless I was prepared
to take down a gang of workmen (which was obviously impossible) to
open up the hidden passage.

The whole scheme was impracticable and I could only put it down as an
excess of zeal for the Fatherland on the part of his Excellency.

At parting the Baron had given me a little plan showing the direction
of the tunnel, the entrance of which he said would be found in a tiny
ravine through which flowed a small river, and had also advised me to
look up particulars of Leatham Priory.

The first discovery I made when I began my investigations was that
Leatham Priory was not in Shropshire at all. It was in fact in
Buckinghamshire, midway between Maidenhead and the small town of
Beaconsfield. It was a remarkable mistake for the good Baron who, as a
sporting man, was well acquainted with England, to have made, or
rather it would have been remarkable, but for my knowledge of our
German characteristics. Naturally his Excellency was as vague as
possible. It was not his business to take risks, and if it should ever
come out that he had told me of Leatham Priory, or if he had been
overheard, how could anyone believe that this sport-racer, who had
dined and slept in almost all the country houses in England, could
make so great a mistake as to place Lord Leatham’s estate in
Shropshire, when it was in Buckinghamshire?

Oh, yes, Heine was alert and wide-awake!

I sent a good friend down into Buckingham (or Bucks as they call it)
to discover what was happening and he brought back the news that Lord
Leatham’s house, the Priory, was being extensively decorated and
refurnished.

Now, I know that the English, because of their fear of Germany, treat
German officer prisoners with the greatest kindness, but I could not
believe, in view of certain outcries in the public press to which I
contributed my share, that they would spend large sums of money to
furnish magnificently a country house for Germans, and I saw that even
as the Herr Baron had been inaccurate in one particular, so was it
likely that he had been wilfully “misinformed” in another.

I bided my time, for I knew that the significance of the Baron’s
communication would be revealed. In the meanwhile, I myself had paid a
visit to the ground and had discovered, not without a great deal of
difficulty, the end of the subterranean passage. It needed some
furtive digging, for the end had fallen in and was entirely covered
up, before I could make sure that I had discovered the entrance.

The day, or rather the very early morning, I wriggled through the
débris and found myself in a small paved tunnel, smelling terribly
musty, was the day on which I understood the purport of the Baron’s
communication. On that day the papers announced that there was to be a
great War Council in London. There had arrived military
representatives of all the Powers, and I, standing in Whitehall, had
seen these officers enter the War Office, where they remained for two
or three hours, when they were escorted by British officers to Downing
Street, where again they remained some time.

At half-past four in the afternoon six great motor-cars drew up in
Whitehall and the members of the Council entered the cars and were
driven off. From the end of Downing Street I saw they turned into St.
James’s Park and, hiring a taxi, I followed, giving the driver
instruction to keep the cars in sight as long as he could. They passed
through the park, up St. James’s Street, and I thought they were going
to their hotel, but instead of this they went straight along
Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner, where they turned into the park.
Realizing that I could not follow with my taxi, I put my head out of
the window and ordered my driver to go up Park Lane. At the Marble
Arch I picked them up again. They passed along the Bayswater Road and
in a flash their destination was revealed to me. It was in order to
entertain this Council that Lord Leatham’s house had been decorated!
It was here that the real conference was to be held!

It was a breathless, tremendous problem which the Herr Baron had set
me, but I am not a man easily baffled. There is something in our
German nature which rises superior to difficulties and which enables
us to meet the most tremendous problems in a calm spirit of
transcendent perception.

I flew back to my office as fast as the taxi could carry me, and for
an hour my telephone was busy. Understand that whatever risk I ran was
more than justified. For there were men in that Council whose names
were household words, whose faces were familiar even to the child of
the cottager; there were names to conjure with, reputations and
records that would have dazzled and frightened a man of a smaller
calibre than myself.

By twelve o’clock that night two desperate and well-armed men were
exploring the tunnel. They were men who were prepared at the call of
the Fatherland to lay down their lives, yea, even on an enemy’s soil.

I was not one of them.

I was sorely tempted to go, but common prudence dictated that the
brain of the movement should be far removed from the scene of danger.

Apparently the party met with no opposition and traversed the tunnel
which had collapsed in places until they reached the ruins of a flight
of circular stone stairs, which led up to a sort of shaft and
terminated abruptly at a circular stone flag.

In preparation for such an emergency they had brought collapsible
ladders and one of our friends mounted to the top. He could hear
footsteps above him, and I judge that he was in the old baronial
banqueting hall which is celebrated throughout England as the most
perfect type of Norman architecture extant in the country. Its
stone-flagged floor, its vaulted roof, its grim stone fire-place, its
great mullion windows, have been so often described in guide-books
that it is not necessary for me to attempt to rival our good friend
Karl Baedeker.

But every attempt which was made to raise the flagged trap-door, which
undoubtedly existed, was frustrated. I employed in this task one
Hermann Swartz, or, to give him his English name, Herbert Black, a
very skilled member of my staff who was also, curiously enough, a
stone mason. Finding their efforts unavailing, the party made their
way back to London and reported to me.

“I can tell you this, Herr Heine,” said Swartz, with that profound
earnestness which is the charm of the German working man who has no
peer in the world, “that if you let me bring my tools I will guarantee
to open that trap to-night, but I feel in this that I cannot assume
responsibility unless I am directed by a superior officer, and I
suggest that you should come with us.”

“My dear good Swartz,” said I testily, “why should I go with you? You
must understand that it is very necessary that I should not be
identified with any such enterprise as this, that I am the brains of a
great movement and that upon my safety depends, perhaps, the
ever-to-be desired security of the Fatherland.”

Whereupon Swartz (and I regret to have to report this, and have
already notified Berlin of the occurrence) refused to go except under
my leadership.

Having made a most exhaustive inquiry of all the circumstances, and
having discovered that there was very little danger of my detection, I
agreed, and at three o’clock in the morning, behold me crawling
stealthily through a square hole in the banqueting hall of Leatham
Priory. One dim electric light burned in the roof, giving the gaunt
apartment an air of size and mystery. Save along the centre, it was
uncarpeted. The smouldering ashes of a fire still burnt in the big
grate and from somewhere a great clock ticked solemnly. The room was
almost innocent of furniture. There was a long, an interminably long
table set upon the parallelogram of carpet and against this were
pushed about twenty chairs. There were three or four suits of armour,
two big pieces of tapestry covering the principal walls, a black oak
buffet or sideboard, half a dozen easy-chairs about the fire-place
and, so far as I could see, nothing else.

There were four doors leading from the room, two at each end, and I
gathered that those flanking the sideboard would lead to the kitchens
and servants’ apartments, and that the two doors facing them, which
were beautifully carved, and one of which was half hidden by a
portière, would lead to the wing in which Lord Leatham and his guests
were asleep.

I had pulled on felt slippers over my boots and made my quiet way to
the door which was covered by the portière. My objective you may
easily guess. These high nobilities who were visiting Lord Leatham
were members of a Conference, that Conference would be held possibly
in one of the great saloons and the portfolios containing the notes of
the meeting would be found in the high-born lord’s study or office.

I proceeded very stealthily, because I knew that in view of the
presence of such important people, watchers and sentries would be
placed about the house, and in this I was not mistaken, for looking
through one of the long windows--there were half a dozen in the
hall--I could see two policemen walking slowly along a path which ran
parallel with the house.

The only danger was that they would also post watchers inside the
house. As a matter of fact, there were two, but these men were posted
on the next floor, one at each end of a passage leading to the
apartments where the distinguished guests were sleeping. The study I
found after a tiresome search. It was situated in an annex and reached
by another passage which ran at right angles to the main corridor.

The door was fastened by a patent lock which, however, presented no
difficulties to Heinrich Falkenburg, one of my assistants, whose
services I am pleased to acknowledge. I made a very careful
examination of the door with my pocket-lamp and there appeared to be
no wires and no alarm signal.

You may wonder how I came to distinguish the study from the other
rooms. I will tell you. It was the only room that was locked. I opened
the door cautiously and listened for the sound of a bell. We stood for
nearly five minutes before we ventured into the room, and when we did,
we were rewarded. There was only one window and across that heavy
purple velvet curtains had been drawn. There was a large library-table
in the middle on which were several ash-trays filled with cigar ash.
There was no need for me to make this discovery, for the room was
heavy with the scent of cigar smoke and cedar wood.

So, thought I, the excellent plenipotentiaries have met here and not
in the saloon. I looked about and found some scraps of paper in the
waste-paper basket. Some were covered with figures, a few were just
fantastically scrawled designs such as men make when their minds are
occupied and their hands are idle. There were one or two blue books
relating to food supply, but nothing of any great moment, though I
very carefully pocketed all the written matter.

The search was necessarily slow since we depended upon our flash
lamps, though we might have switched on the lights with impunity. In
one corner of the room was a large and an old-fashioned safe. It stood
about two metres high and a metre broad and had two narrow doors. Upon
this Heinrich got to work and in half an hour I had the satisfaction
of seeing the doors swing open.

What a tribute to my perspicacity! What a triumphant vindication of a
“Hun’s” foresight! Call us “Boches,” call us by every vile name that
your kultural deficiencies may suggest, but bear ungrudging witness to
the everything-foreseeing perfections of German organization!

For there, stacked neatly, one on top of the other, were six black
portfolios, bulky and bulging. There was no need to ask whose
properties these were. The golden “R.F.” on one, the arms of Savoy on
another, the crowned eagles on a third, advertized their ownership.
Very carefully I removed them, handing them to my assistants.

The safe contained nothing else except a battered tin cash-box. I
lifted it with difficulty, for it was heavy.

“No,” thought I, “we are not burglars. We do not require this haughty
Lord’s treasure. We Germans are not pot-house thieves, horse-holders
and cut-throat hangdogs, to steal from a house like burglars! Let my
Lordship keep his gold. I have something better!”

I gave the signal and we crept forth along the corridor to the trap.
We had closed it for fear that somebody passing through the hall
should notice the opening and give the alarm.

Hermann knelt down and tried to lift the slab, but without success. He
used his pocket-knife and did no more than break off the blade. I
cursed his bungling stupidity so furiously that he cowered before me.

What undependable swine these German working classes are! What
brainless idiots, with no other thought than eating and beer-drinking!

“Wretched owl,” I hissed in his ear, “if we were in Germany I would
flay you alive!”

“Herr Heine,” he whined, “it is not my fault. I wanted to bring up my
tools, but you refused to let me.”

I could not waste any time arguing with this scum. In half-an-hour the
dawn would be breaking. There was only one way out and that was
through the kitchen. We passed through one of the doors behind the
buffet and found ourselves in another stone corridor lighted by little
stone-framed windows, but heavily barred.

At one end of the corridor was another door and Heinrich, after a vain
attempt to pick the lock, said it had been bolted from the outside.

“Have you no bolt-removing instrument?” I asked.

“No, Herr Heine,” he said apologetically, “that requires an apparatus
of considerable complication. The only thing to do is to cut a hole
through the door, and as the door is sheeted with iron I do not think
it is possible.”

We went down the corridor to the other portal. This door yielded to
the turn of a handle and we found ourselves in what was evidently a
servery. Here there was one window which was also barred and a kitchen
door, which, like the one at the farther end of the corridor, was
bolted on the other side.

“What!” I said bitterly, “have I trusted my safety and the safety of
the Empire to a monkey with the brains of a gnat?”

He was silent under my rebuke, for what could he say?

There remained only one possible egress and that was a skylight in the
servery, and here Fortune was with us, for we found a step-ladder
which enabled us to reach the ceiling.

I insisted upon Heinrich going first because it did not look very
safe, and how my heart bounded when the skylight yielded to his touch
and he was able to hoist himself, with the assistance of Hermann,
through the aperture. I followed immediately afterwards.

We found ourselves on a sloping roof, and edging my way down to the
guttering, I looked down and found that we had a drop of no more than
a dozen feet. In three minutes we were on the ground, moving
stealthily from bush to bush unchallenged by the cordon of policemen,
and reached the outside road without mishap.

We were now on the other side of the house, far away from the ravine
and my waiting motor-car. The first pale light of dawn was in the sky
and I knew that we could not afford to take the risk of searching for
the road by which we had come. Yet without the motor-car I was in a
quandary. How might I get these portfolios of such world-shaking
importance away without detection? I could not carry them myself and I
could not trust my companions, for we Germans trust nobody, and by our
caution-dictated suspicion we have eliminated half of the dangers
which ordinarily threaten a modern state.

We were in a residential road. About Leatham Priory quite a
respectable suburb has grown up and this was one of those better-class
thoroughfares made up of detached houses standing in their own
grounds, or, as the English advertisements put it, “Houses with every
modern convenience.” In a flash I had made my plans. I knew that there
was certain to be in such a road as this an empty house, and sure
enough the third of the houses we passed bore in the garden a board
(or rather two boards) saying it was “To Let.” I beckoned my party to
follow me.

Heinrich opened the door in a trice--it was child’s play to this
mechanic--and we entered the house, our footsteps sounding hollowly.
It was not wholly unfurnished, I discovered to my surprise, for on the
first floor there was a bedroom containing a few articles of
furniture, but apparently the room had not been used for some time.
The shutters were tightly fastened over the window and I guessed that
the room had been used by a caretaker until the owner had got tired of
paying his wages.

This view was fully confirmed later when I looked at the board
outside, for the words “Apply to caretaker” had been painted over and
a new address had been given at which the key might be obtained. In
this room there was a big cupboard, the key of which was in the lock
and into the cupboard I bundled the portfolios, locking the door, and
put the key into my pocket.

“Now,” I said to my comrades, “each will go his own way but avoid
observation as far as possible.”

“What about the car and the tools in the passage?” asked Hermann.

“I have told the car not to wait beyond daybreak,” I said (German
forethought again!) “and as for the tools you may collect them after
dark to-night.”

I got back safely to my apartment and turned up at ten o’clock at my
office, very well pleased with my night’s work. At the office I found
a messenger waiting for me. I recognized the man as the Herr Baron’s
valet, a trustworthy Bavarian who had naturalized himself at the same
time as my well-born patron. I opened the letter. It was from Baron
von Hertz-Missenger.

It read:


 “By this time you have probably understood the little riddle I set
 you. Don’t forget that it is of the utmost importance that certain
 things should be secured. I myself am working night and day _to obtain
 results_. _Leave no stone unturned._ If you fail notify me
 immediately. The Conference will last two more days. If you fail I am
 in a position to make the attempt myself.”


I put the letter down with a smile. With what joy would the good Baron
receive my news. If I failed; if I, Heine failed, the idea was
amazing!

I say here, before I proceed to the end of this incident, and I cannot
give too great emphasis to my words, that it would be well if the
Department in which I have the honour to serve--which is in other
respects conducted with serious cleverness--implicitly trust the
proved genius of their officers and would not allow amateurs, however
distinguished, to interfere with the operations of regular
departmental officers.

I burnt the letter and sent the good baron’s servant on his way
rejoicing with half-a-crown. It is always as well to keep the servants
of the high-born in good temper and favourably inclined.

Then I rang up Messrs. Hedley and Riddle. Yes, I had carefully noted
the name of the house agents. I got them on the ’phone and asked to
speak to the proprietor.

“You have a house to let near the village of Leatham Priory,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” he responded in the servile accent of an English house
agent.

“I would like to see the house. May I call to-day for the key?”

“Which house is it?” he asked.

Here again my forethought served me.

“It is the house called ‘Fairlawn.’”

“Certainly,” said the man, “my assistant has charge of this
department. He is at lunch now, but when he comes in I will tell him
to meet you at the station.”

“Don’t trouble,” said I; “will you have the key ready for me? You will
remember, it is ‘Fairlawn,’ and I want to have the first refusal, so
do not let anybody else see the house until I come.”

“Certainly not, sir,” said the servile hound.

I hung up the receiver and rubbed my hands, and at that moment there
came a knock at my door. I walked over to the door and opened it. An
officer with the green tabs of the British Intelligence Department
stood smiling on the mat and I recognized my treacherous “friend” of
other days, Mister Haynes or rather Major Haynes.

“Good morning, Major,” I said jovially, “have you come to ‘warn’ me
again?”

“Not a bit,” he said, walking inside and shaking hands, “I have just
come to ask you if you know anything about the Baron von
Hertz-Missenger.”

I pricked up my ears.

“I know the good Baron,” I said carelessly, “just a casual
acquaintance.”

“How unfortunate you are,” said Mister Haynes (I should say Major
Haynes) in tones of sadness.

“Why unfortunate, major?” I asked.

“All your friends seem to get into trouble,” sighed the major;
“perhaps you don’t know that a number of important documents were
stolen from Leatham Priory last night.”

“Great heavens, you don’t mean to say that,” I said with
well-simulated astonishment.

“Yes, fortunately, the most important, including secret cases, were
left behind. They were in a steel cash-box and the thief or thieves
did not trouble to examine its contents.”

I did not swoon. Nobody seeing me would imagine what thoughts were
swimming through my brain.

“The robbery was discovered this morning and naturally suspicion
attached to the Baron,” the major went on.

“Why to the Baron?” I asked.

“Well, you see,” said Haynes, “he has been hanging about the
neighbourhood and we discovered some time ago that he had arranged
with the clerk of a house agent to occupy a room in a house which was
ostensibly to let.”

My flesh went cold and like a goose’s.

“From his headquarters,” Mister Haynes went on, “he apparently sallied
forth from time to time making a very careful reconnaissance of the
Priory. He must have known that an important Conference was to be
held. We have established the fact that two of Lord Leatham’s servants
were in his pay, and so, naturally, when the portfolios were missing
we searched his lodging.”

“Oh, naturally,” said I weakly.

“And we discovered the stolen property.”

“How strange!” I said in a hollow voice.

“And you don’t know him,” said Mister Haynes, I mean Major Haynes.

“No, sir, I do not,” I said with firm determination.

“Well, you are unlucky,” said the major; “for if you don’t know him
now you never will know him,” and with those ominous words he left me.




 CHAPTER VII.
 THE WORD OF A PRINCE

If there was a moral to these narratives which were originally
written not so much for publication as to convey a true record of an
adventurous career, to one who was inexpressibly dear to me, the
learned and beautiful Miss Kathleen O’Mara, secretary (honorary, for
she would not accept payment for performing a national service) of the
German Gaelic League of Chicago, the most implacable, the most bitter
enemy proud Albion has ever had.

Thou sweet and slender flower of Erin, with thy shamrock eyes and thy
rosebud mouth, the unhappy writer of these lines will never again
tread a giddy measure at the Plumbers’ Ball where first I met thee.
Thy friend, whom thou hast admitted was more than friend, may yet fill
an unknown grave! Then, hadst thou been true, my voice would have
spoken to thee even though I floated in the Germanic Heaven amidst the
well-born saints of the Fatherland. As it is--I cry _pfui!_ to the
very thought of thee!

Reading this narrative over I think perhaps it would be more
consistent if I omitted these preliminary paragraphs in view of the
events which are recorded below. Should this story by chance obtain a
wider circulation than that which was intended, it would be perhaps
necessary to explain my honourable relationships with this sometime
belle of Irish freedom.

Miss O’Mara and I met in the halcyon days at a ball. What there was in
me that attracted her it is not for me to say. We Germans shrink from
the revelation of our secret souls. Our thoughts are too sacred for
vulgar expression, but this I may say, that it is a curious fact that
women find some subtle attraction in me which they cannot define.
There must be other men in the world of my height and build--even
stouter men. There must be eyes as blue as mine and hair as like
velvet pile of a deep sun-kissed auburn. There must be men with the
same deep, tender voice, and that there are men with the same taste
who dress as well, I can testify, for in one day in Chicago I have
seen a dozen gentlemen with the same patterned waistcoat, the same
pink tie, the same gold chain and wearing just as many rings as I
carry on my hands.

I think we must look for this fascination (if I may be allowed to use
the word, and I can think of no better) in a subtle mind, something
which cannot be reduced to words, an aura of understanding, a moral
up-lifting force which radiates from a vigorous and virile soul.

We Germans are rare sentimentalists, I admit. Materialism finds no
place in the true German heart. Enemies have made statements about me,
particularly in relation to a certain Flossie van Heever, a clerk at a
Detroit drug store, which I repudiate with scorn and indignation. The
girl utterly misinterpreted certain well-meaning words such as a
German gentleman would speak, certain innocent attention such as a
German gentleman can give, and I emphatically deny all the sordid
charges which this girl in a moment of delirium made against me.

Oh, Plato, Plato, what sins are committed in thy name! To what depth
will a woman sink in order to secure the man for whom her heart
craves!

But enough of these sordid affairs. It is sufficient that Miss
Kathleen O’Mara believed in me. I wrote to her every week from the day
I landed in England. I wrote about my life and about her work and that
peculiar hobby of hers that I had many times thought of utilizing for
the benefit of the Fatherland. Sometimes she would reply tenderly or
in holy rage when she thought of the wrongs of her down-trodden
countrymen (_i.e._, Irishmen) and sometimes she did not answer at all.
For three months before this story opened I had not heard from her.

I had posted my letter on the Friday afternoon and sauntered back to
my office to see if any news had come in. The boy I employed told me
there had been a caller, a gentleman who refused to give his name, but
said he would come back later. I do not like callers who refuse to
give their names, for though I do not believe there is a British
Secret Service, there is always a possibility that the regular police
may be going outside their province by prying into the lives and
habits of “respectable aliens,” as they call them.

“Did he leave no message?” I asked.

“No, sir,” said the boy, “he merely said that he would call again.”

It was not until the following day that my visitor made his
reappearance. It was Saturday and I was preparing to go home in the
English fashion at one o’clock, when the gentleman was announced.

He was a tall, pale man with a dark and heavy moustache, bristling
black eyebrows and that look of concentrated fierceness which so often
distinguishes the insurance agent.

“Come in,” I said, inviting him into my private office and closing the
door. “What can I do for you?”

“I have a message from Kathleen,” he said.

I seized him warmly by the hand and shook it.

“Any friend of Kathleen’s is a friend of mine,” I said: “sit down.”

I looked around uncomfortably and went again to the door and dismissed
the boy for the day, paying him his wages.

“You may speak in perfect security,” I said.

“Kathleen is coming home,” he whispered.

“Coming home?” I could not restrain the joy in my voice. “Do you mean
coming to----”

“To Ireland,” he said. “Things are going well over there.”

He need not have told me that. Indeed, I could have told him much more
than he could possibly have known. I could have explained why things
were going well. I could have made his hair stand on end if I had told
him the amount of money that had passed through my hands for
distribution to Dublin. I could have told him of stacks of arms landed
on the deserted coast by our submarines and of visits which were made
by the same vehicle of a certain distinguished Irishman, now unhappily
no longer with us.

I could have told him of the organization for which I, Heine, had been
responsible, which had provided the patriots of Ireland with
ammunition. But why continue the list? I did not tell him anything,
and I have reason to believe that he was disappointed.

A thought suddenly sobered me.

“Is it safe for Kathleen to come over at this juncture?” I asked. “By
the by, I don’t know your name.”

“I am Theopholos Hagan,” he said, and I seemed to remember the name.
“You have met me?” he went on.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said I, and curiously enough I had a dim
recollection of having met him somewhere, but for the life of me I
couldn’t remember the circumstances.

“Oh, yes, I remember you,” I said, for we Germans never admit
ignorance on any subject.

“There is something else I want to tell you about myself,” he said;
“but perhaps this is not the moment to give away secrets.”

“Tell me,” said I earnestly, “anything you know. It shall not leave
these four walls.”

I was curious to hear what his secret was, because our people in
Berlin were very anxious for news of what was going on in Ireland and
they had complained before that they were imperfectly informed.

“No,” said the man, “I will tell you later. I am going over to Ireland
to-morrow. If we have any luck we shall have a rising on Easter
Sunday. Kathleen wants you to be in Dublin when the trouble starts.”

I shook my head.

“That would be very unwise, very unwise indeed,” I said; “the more I
am kept out of it the better for the cause. When does she arrive?”

“She will be in Dublin a fortnight before the rising starts,” said he.

“I will endeavour to be there to see her,” I replied. “I shall not be
able to stay long because naturally I am very busy.”

I shook hands with him and saw him as far as the office door. After my
experience with Mister, or Major, Haynes, I did not deem it advisable
to be seen in public with gentlemen who might conceivably fall under
the displeasure of the British authorities, and I explained this to
him as a reason for my not coming to Euston Station to see him off.

I had spoken nothing but truth when I had said that I was very busy.
Extraordinary changes were going on in England and particularly in
London, where the constant alterations in the anti-aircraft gun
positions, the erratic systems of lighting their streets which the
British were adopting were turning my hair grey. It is said that I
sent a new map of London’s defences every week to Germany and that
every one was different, and this was true, but map-making was not my
only source of employment.

By this time there were quite a respectable number of German prisoners
in England, all of whom were anxious for help to make their escape,
and whilst, officially, I was not in touch with them, unofficially I
had a lot to do with such successes as they achieved. It was I who
provided the motor-car for the four officers who escaped from
Dabbington Hall. It was I who provided the tools for digging the
underground passage by which three officers escaped from the Marlow
camp. It was I who provided the clothing and disguises which enabled
four naval officers and a Zeppelin officer to cross England after they
had escaped from the Welsh camp. It is true they were all caught
again, but that was nothing to do with me. When I had freed them from
camp and set them on the road my work was finished and the rest was up
to their good German ingenuity and resourcefulness.

On the Sunday following the Saturday I had seen Mr. Theopholos Hagan I
was rung up on the telephone.

“Can you supply three dozen dress-collars for a gentleman from
Slough?” said a voice.

“Where does the gentleman live?” I asked calmly.

“Outside the White City. The collars are to be delivered at nine
o’clock,” was the reply.

“Thank you, I will attend to it,” I said, and hung up the receiver.

A curious place to live, you think, outside the principal entrance to
an exhibition ground? And is it not strange that a gentleman from
Slough required his collars delivered in London? I will make no
mystery of the matter. “Three dozen dress-collars” meant “I have
escaped and I want your help.” Slough was the place from which he had
escaped. The White City was the point at which I must meet him and the
hour was nine.

At nine o’clock to the moment my taxi-cab drew up in front of the
ornate entrance of the exhibition grounds. The place was of course in
darkness, and a man who was walking slowly along the curb turned to
the cab as it stopped and asked:

“Have you brought my collars?”

“Step in,” I said.

The cabman had his instructions and turned toward the City.

To meet these escaping-prisoner cases I had taken a furnished flat in
the Edgware Road. It was on the ground floor and had the advantage of
having no porter, so that one could go in and out without being spied
upon.

I opened the door of my flat and ushered my visitor in.

“Your name?” I demanded.

“Prinz,” he began.

“Highness,” said I quickly, “forgive my peremptory tone and please
command me. I am entirely at your disposition. If I have been a little
taciturn and quiet on the journey, and if I spoke to you a little
sharply, pray pardon an over-tired servant of the Empire.”

“With pleasure,” he said.

He was a little, short man, who wore glasses.

“My name,” he said, “is Prinz, Karl Frederick Prinz. I am a Lieutenant
of the 34th Selician Regiment.”

“Indeed,” I said a little coldly, “you led me to believe you were
highly-born. Now what the devil do you mean by doing that?”

“It is not my fault, Mr. Heine, that you were deceived,” he said
humbly.

“What do you expect me to do?” I asked angrily, for one cannot waste
time on a reserve lieutenant and such-like cattle. “You ought not to
have called me up at all,” I said, raising my voice; “it is
abominable. Have I nothing better to do.”

He stopped me with a gesture.

“Pray do not excite yourself unduly, Mr. Heine,” he said; “for any
trouble you may take, my father, the Colonial Secretary, will repay
you.”

“The illustrious Doctor Prinz?” I said. “Are you his son?”

I stretched out my hand and gripped his.

“Welcome, a thousand welcomes! I know your Councillor of State father
and his Excellency has frequently spoken to me of his son. Come,
come,” I said jovially, “help yourself to the good Rhine wine, for it
is not often that we are honoured by a visitor of your calibre, Herr
Lieutenant.”

We drank a bottle together, and then he told me his plans. The
difficulty of getting out of England is briefly to _get_ out of
England, to secure a place on board a ship is well-nigh impossible,
unless you are vouched for by Foreign Office officials, whilst the
punishment for stowing away is so heavy that few of the neutral
captains care to take the risk of allowing their ships to go out of
port, without conducting an independent search.

Herr Prinz, however, had received a message from his father by some
secret cipher to the effect that four times each month a submarine
would come in-shore off the Scottish coast. He was to reach a deserted
part of the foreshore, flash a signal from an electric lamp and a boat
would be put off to pick him up. This system would be put into
operation the moment the Herr Doctor Councillor of State, Prinz,
learnt from me that he was free.

“Content yourself, my dear lieutenant,” I said, “you are as good as in
the Fatherland. I will notify your august parent, to whom I trust you
will remember me forthwith.”

“I have already notified him and I desire that you should not
communicate,” he said, so I took no further steps.

There was no difficulty in getting the young man to Scotland, and I
ventured to take a little holiday and accompany him. After all, one
should show a little attention to men who have fought and bled for
one’s country, especially when they are nearly related to councillors
of State who, if not noble, are exalted personages on the way to
nobility.

I supplied the young man with passports and various documents to
identify him, and left him (with £50 which I advanced out of my
private purse) at an hotel in a small town not many miles from the
west coast of Scotland, under the care of a good German head-waiter
who promised to look after the lad. And there I thought I had heard
the last of him, and he had gone out of my mind, until I received an
urgent message from Scotland saying that the submarine had not come,
and asking me for another £50.

I went straight up to Scotland and found the Herr Lieutenant living at
the hotel and very weary.

“It is very strange, Heine, I have been at the appointed place every
night, on the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th, I have flashed my lamp and
nothing has happened.”

He told me he had waited on one occasion for four hours on the beach;
on another he waited till daybreak.

“It is very extraordinary,” I said. “When you fixed this scheme with
His Excellency the Councillor of State, Doctor Prinz, was it by
writing?”

“By secret cipher, and what is more, the message was written in secret
ink.”

“Did it reach you without having been opened?”

“Yes,” replied the Herr Lieutenant; “I have one of the letters in my
pocket now.”

He took the letter and opened it. Apparently it was an innocent letter
such as an affectionate father might write to his prisoner son.

“Now wait,” said the young officer. He sent for a glass of milk and
immersed the letter, then held it before the fire to dry.

There instantly appeared string after string of words which were
meaningless to me, apparently written in brown ink.

“I carry the code in my head,” he said.

I looked at the envelope, carrying it to the light. I noticed that the
stamp and the postmark had been torn off and inwardly I praised the
young man for his discretion. The flap was stuck down, though it had
of course been cut at the top where the letter was taken out, and to
all intents it had not been tampered with. I examined it with a
magnifying glass, however, and saw that suspicious gum line which can
always be seen in a letter that has been opened and surreptitiously
closed.

“This envelope has been steamed,” I said, “the letter has been read,
replaced, fastened down by a kind of spirit gum which the censors use,
and smoothed with a hot iron.”

“How do you know?” he asked in alarm.

“I have opened too many myself,” said I, with a smile, “not to
recognize the signs.”

“But supposing they had brought up the secret writing,” he said, “they
could not understand the code.”

I thought for a moment and presently I said:

“There is only one person in the world who can read that code and that
person is a woman. More than that, Herr Lieutenant,” I added proudly,
“that woman is the dearest friend I have in the world, Miss Kathleen
O’Mara of Chicago, U.S.A.”

And I told him something of this delightful girl’s history, of how her
father had been a Fenian and how she was bitterly anti-English. She
had taken up codes and ciphers as a hobby, and she had come to be so
expert that you were always reading in the Chicago papers articles
either written by her or about her. There was not a cryptograph that
ever appeared in the agony column of a London newspaper that she
couldn’t discover.

“You said her name was O’Mara,” said the Herr Lieutenant thoughtfully;
“is she a tall, slim girl, with dark hair and blue eyes?”

It was my turn to be amazed.

“Herr Lieutenant,” I said, “even your illustrious father could not
have described her more accurately.”

“And is her husband a tallish man with bristling black eyebrows and
fierce black moustache?”

I drew myself up stiffly.

“The lady’s husband, Herr Lieutenant, you see before you in prospect.
She is unmarried.”

He looked at me and shook his head.

“Well, then, it is not the same lady. This was a Mrs. Hagan, the wife
of Captain Hagan of the United States Secret Service.”

I stepped back and clasped my brows. Now I remembered the man! Hagan
from Washington! And she had married him. By heavens! When I think of
the depth of woman’s duplicity I could despise the race. She, the
Irish patriot, the strafer of England, to send that man to me in the
hope that I should commit myself! Thou perfidious betrayer of one who
entertained for thee naught but the tenderest, holiest feelings! Oh,
what a low woman!

“I see it all now, Herr Lieutenant,” I said, “this woman was brought
down to your camp to unravel your cipher. When did you receive it?”

He thought a moment.

“The night she left.”

“Now you understand,” I cried passionately, “no wonder you have waited
in vain upon the beach! No wonder the four submarines disappeared! No
wonder you were allowed to remain at liberty! These cursed,
treacherous British! Was there ever a nation that more deserved to be
obliterated?”

I made my plans quickly, as is my wont. Before leaving that night I
gave the Herr Lieutenant another £50, making £100 he had received
since his escape.

I myself was in considerable danger and if Hagan suspected me, the
traitorous Kathleen knew me. I sent a man especially to Dublin and
discovered that they were staying at an hotel in Sackville Street and
that so far from Hagan having arrived recently, both he and his wife
had been in Dublin for six months and they were undoubtedly in the pay
of the British Government.

Of the events which occurred on Easter Monday in Dublin, I do not
propose to speak. I sent very full reports to the Government, which
may be read with profit by any who have the entrée to the archives in
Wilhelmstrasse.

Two days after the rebellion started I saw Hagan and his wife in
Regent Street, they were looking in the window of a jeweller’s shop.
With me to think is to act. I stepped up to her and offered her my
hand.

“Congratulations, Mrs. Hagan,” I said.

“Sure, ’tis the little Dutchman, Mr. Heine,” she smiled. “You know my
husband?”

“I have that pleasure.” I bowed stiffly and hid my emotions behind an
inscrutable face.

“And what are you doing in an enemy’s country?” asked Kathleen
innocently.

“Enemy!” I laughed bitterly. “There was a time, madam, when there was
only one enemy for the honorary secretary of a German-Gaelic club and
that was--England!”

“There is only one enemy for me now,” she said, gripping her husband’s
arm foolishly, “and that is Theo’s enemy. Sure, a wild young girl
never knows her own mind, Mr. Heine, and she runs this way and that
way with divil an idea what she is seeking. I guess I was seeking
Theo, and now I’ve found him I have stopped hustling.”

We exchanged a few words. I strolled with them to Piccadilly Circus
and they accepted my invitation to lunch at Prince’s.

“By the way,” I said in the midst of the meal, “do you still keep up
your cryptograph investigations?”

I thought I saw a little look pass between her and her husband and
then she smiled.

“Oh, yes,” she said, she may have said “sure” (I will not swear as to
the exact words of any dialogue which I report), “oh, yes, faith it’s
highly amusing.”

“And profitable, too, I suppose,” I said carelessly, helping myself to
some celery.

“Faith, it is that,” she said; “many is the laugh I have had going
through silly ciphers that come from Germany--bad cess to the place,
and from Scotland too,” she said.

You observe she was shameless! There was no flush of guilt, no
faltering, no lowering of eyes. She stood detected, blatantly
confessed, an agent of the English!

“When Theo came over to look after the American crooks in London I
came with him,” she said, “that is how I got to know those boys at
Scotland Yard, and I sort of drifted into the work and took to it like
a duck to water.”

My hand was trembling, I could not help it. Righteous indignation
shook me from head to foot. I could have boxed her ears, but for my
German chivalry and the presence of her husband, who might have been
distressed at such a display of emotion, though I am sure he would
have agreed with me had he only known the amount of money I had spent
on that frail creature in flowers and theatre tickets and candy, to
say nothing of postage stamps.

“They would amuse you, Heine,” she went on, “especially the queer
things they say about you. There was a fellow the other day got a
letter, phwat was the boy’s name, Theo?”

“Prinz,” said her husband, who hitherto had not spoken a word.

“Sure that was his name,” said the girl, “’twas from his old dub of a
father and written in a very simple cipher.”

“A child could have read it,” agreed her husband, “and it was all
about you,” he nodded to me.

“It said go and see Heine,” said the girl. “Tell him your father’s a
prince, and if you haven’t got the pluck to do that, say you are the
son of Colonial Officer Prinz, and he will do anything for you. There
was a long bit about the lie he had to tell you. About submarines
going up to Scotland to fetch him. When we told the commandant he let
the boy go, he was safe. He was arrested yesterday and his father has
been interned.”

“His father interned?” I gasped; “who was his father?”

Kathleen looked at her husband and Hagan spoke.

“He was the head-waiter at the hotel where the boy was staying,” he
said, “’twas his way of getting the lad a vacation.”




 CHAPTER VIII.
 THE JERMYN CREDIT BANK

Theories and lofty idealism have ever been qualities identified with
Germanism. We Germans despise duplicity and double dealing. In our
bluff, hearty way, we are impatient with the jiggling nonsense of
diplomacy and the shining sword of Michael cuts through the cringing
wall of our enemies, opening the way to the rich streams of kultur
which are dammed in ever-increasing volume by the banks which the
envy, barbarism, and frivolity of our enemies erect.

There is a saying in my country: “Trust an Englishman, admire a
Frenchman, learn from a Russian, but never argue with an American.” I
think it is the deceit of the English race, the mean treachery
amounting to sneakiness which so appals we Germans.

I have previously related a certain adventure with a person called
Haynes who insinuated himself into my office disguised as a
journalist. I learnt that he was a member of the ridiculous secret
service which the English had improvised during the war and with which
it hoped to counteract the well-organized and foreseeing sagacity of
our bureau. I can prove that this same Haynes, an English gentleman
forsooth, was no better than an associate of common blackguards,
ruffians, and cutpurses of the worst description.

Such is English gentlemanliness!

What a scandal there would be revealed if on a certain day in 1916, I
could have walked into this man’s club where he sat with the pampered
aristocracy of England and have denounced him!

“Behold!” I would say, “a man who is little better than a common cad
of the golf links, and I can prove every word, gentlemen of the
British aristocracy!”

How sensational! But, alas! I had higher game than Mr. Haynes. I had
the interest and the future of the Fatherland to consider and these
matters were of infinitely greater importance than a thousand Haynes.

You must know that when I speak of the “well-organized and far-seeing
sagacity” of the German Intelligence Service, I am not in any way
exaggerating. For how many years had we been preparing for this most
gigantic and world-shocking conflict? How minutely were laid the plans
of the Intelligence Department! With what care and thoroughness and
brainy preparation did we patiently fashion the pieces of the game!

When I came to England I took charge, as I think I have explained
before, of the hundred and one departments which were in some way or
other associated with Intelligence. My task was to co-ordinate the
whole of the common service of Deutschstrum, to gather up all the
strings in my own fingers and to pull them each to serve the higher
purpose. One of the most important branches of our work had been
inaugurated ten years before I came to England, and I think if you
spent the whole of those ten years guessing you would not divine how
the business which had been established was to serve Germany in her
hour of need.

Perhaps you have noticed, you who have been to London, a modest, yet
substantial, building in Jermyn Street, which is known as the Jermyn
Credit Bank. It is, or was, a very unpretentious and serious building
with a modest facia and a small but imposing interior. If you had not
seen the place you would not fail to have seen the advertisements of
the bank which ran consistently in most of the English papers.

The advertisement was as follows:


 Gentlemen of position, officers of both services and officials of the
 British or Indian Civil Service may arrange loans on note of hand with
 the Jermyn Credit Bank. No security required. Interest 7 per cent. per
 annum. Apply by letter, which will be treated in the strictest
 confidence, to the Secretary, Jermyn Credit Bank, 642, Jermyn Street,
 St. James.


There was nothing flamboyant about the advertisement any more than
there was about the building. The advertisement occupied a space of
two inches in most of the newspapers, but generally in the more
respectable and conservative of newspapers. Those who called by
appointment were treated with the greatest courtesy. They were ushered
into the luxurious room of the manager, the needs of the client were
discussed, the question of security delicately touched upon--there is
always some security to be had even though the advertisement made a
point that none was required--and loans were arranged, very often for
considerable amounts.

The bank was very popular with officers of the army and navy. Men who
found themselves in a tight corner blessed the name of the Jermyn
Credit Bank. If, when their bills became due, there was any difficulty
about payment there was certainly no difficulty about renewing the
document on a very reasonable basis.

Sometimes, of course, it happened that the bank manager, a polite and
charming gentleman who was, alas! killed on the western front by the
treacherous English, could not, with all the best will in the world,
oblige the client. Needy professional men, doctors, lawyers and
unimportant journalists would learn that even with their security the
golden coffers of the Credit Bank remained tightly closed. But to any
officer, especially to an officer who had the magic letters P.S.C.
after his name, or any head of a civil department or any naval
gentleman, who had won the slightest distinction and promotion in his
profession, might be assured that if not the whole, at least part of
his necessities were met.

The business grew to an extraordinary extent. One officer would
introduce another. Mr. Rostenberg, the manager, would occasionally
give little dinner parties, to which he would invite one of his more
exalted clients, on the understanding that he would bring two or three
friends.

I cannot say that the business was particularly prosperous from our
point of view, but there were singularly few bad debts, and I do not
suppose it cost the Fatherland more than £10,000 a year to secure an
intimate financial history of every officer serving in the army, plus
a pull over such of the bank’s clients as were in its debt. For men
who borrow money are very grateful and a grateful man is talkative,
especially if conversation is assisted by a little Veuve Clicquot and
a chic dinner, and what is more natural than a man should talk about
his brother officers and their financial positions?

The bank had the reputation--so valuable--that it never dunned its
clients or brought an action against even the most backward and
unfaithful amongst them, and such a reputation helped considerably
when war broke out and Mr. Rostenberg was called upon by his directors
to resign immediately owing to his German origin and his place was
taken by Mr. Mathew Ritten, a neutral gentleman of great integrity.

As the English army increased so increased the business of the bank,
for young officers are impecunious all the world over. I am not going
to say what steps were taken to secure information. This, however, I
am willing to confess, that much news came to me which, otherwise, I
should not have heard, for Mr. Ritten gave little dinners and went to
clubs and met many men who were glad to talk to one who was so
enthusiastically an anti-German, and I, Heine, sitting in my little
Fleet Street office would receive short notes in the code and would
learn that the 10th Blankshires and the division to which the 10th
Blankshires were attached were being withdrawn to General Reserve, and
the 19th Wessex were training for attack behind the lines and being
taught by means of models the topography of the country to the east of
Lens.

For myself, I never went to the bank. If you had told me of its
existence I should have expressed surprise and wonder. I saw the
advertisements as everybody else saw them, but to me, Mr. Ritten was a
name and nothing more. We Germans have the reputation of devoting too
much attention to insignificant details, but let me tell you, my
friends, that the might of Germany was built upon details, expanded on
details, and came to its highest and most world-defying decision in
August, 1914, upon the faith which we had in the detailed plan.

Though I despised the English Secret Service, though I could shrug my
shoulders and snap my fingers at these amateurs, I was too much of a
German to rush bull-headed into danger. Realizing that Mister, or
Major, Haynes, was a man of duplicity and low cunning, I purposely
avoided associating myself in the slightest degree with the Jermyn
Credit Bank, though it was originally the idea of those who sent me to
England, that I should appear in London in the capacity of manager of
that bank.

Happily, I was too shrewd a fellow to agree to such stupidity. There
is a certain bat-eyed ignorance about the officials who direct the
Intelligence in Berlin, which is deplorable and incomprehensible. That
they need new blood at Headquarters, is acknowledged all over the
world. If they had had a man there with a knowledge of England and
America, a man who himself had carried out difficult and dangerous
tasks, and who, by reason of his long service in the department, was
well entitled to greater promotion than that which was grudgingly
given to him: if, in fact, they had such a man as I, many of the
mistakes which disfigured the administration during the years of war
would have been avoided.

They chose for me the most incompetent of helpers. They sent me all
sorts of impossible assistants, with whom I would not associate my
name and my proud record. They foisted upon me unskilful enthusiasts
who were often sent to England without any notification coming to me,
and these, in most cases, were detected and suffered at the hands of
the law. Do not think that I have any axe to grind. I am only
concerned with the welfare of the Fatherland, but there were moments
when even I, faithful servant and obedient subordinate of higher
authorities, “kicked myself against the pricks,” as the English say,
at the absurd lack of comprehension and seriousness which was shown.

One afternoon I had returned from the country, where I had been
superintending the erection of a temporary wireless plan, when my
office-boy informed me that a man was waiting to see me. I found him
sitting on the edge of the table, smoking the stump of a cigar. He was
a tall man, rather broad, and by the fact that he was wearing his hat
in my office, and that the room was filled with the rank smell of
tobacco, I gathered that he was an American of the lowest class. He
was dressed expensively but loudly. He wore a great bunch of seals
which dangled from a broad silk ribbon, and had two diamond rings upon
the little finger of his right hand. He nodded as I came in, but did
not attempt either to take off his hat or to stand on his feet. For
the moment I did not recognize him.

“May I ask to what I owe the honour of this visit?” I demanded
politely.

“Cut all that out, Heine,” he said coarsely. “Why, don’t you recognize
your old friend, Big Jim?”

“Don’t call me Heine,” I said hastily.

I recognized the man at once as one of the private detective staff of
the Hamburg-American line. It had been my duty to keep an eye upon
undesirable characters, and Big Jim Riley was as well known to New
York as he was to London as a “con.” man. He used to work the boats of
the Hamburg-American line in the days before the war, and for some
time was one of a gang of crooks that spent their lives crossing and
re-crossing the Atlantic.

Though we had many complaints about the man, he had too big a pull in
New York for us to interfere with him. I had lived with Big Jim and
his gang in that spirit of camaraderie and tolerance which typifies
the attitude of a shrewd German detective to the criminal classes.

“Why, so it is,” I said heartily, “but you must not call me Heine,
Jim.”

“Ain’t you a Dutchman?” he said.

“I never was a German!” I doubt whether he saw the subtle correction.
“I am a Chilian and I am happy to say that I hate the Germans and all
their work.”

Big Jim’s eyes opened wide.

“Well, now, if that don’t beat the band,” he said, “so that’s your
name, is it?”

He pointed to the name that was painted on the glass panel of the
door, and I nodded.

“Well,” he said, “I guess those people in New York have made some
mistake. Pretzl told me I was to come along and report to you and that
you might put some good work in my way. I don’t care what it is,” he
said, swinging his legs and puffing away at his cigar, “anything short
of a business that will send me to the Chair is good enough for me.”

“My dear Jim,” I said mildly. “I am afraid Herr Pretzl is under
altogether a wrong impression.” How I cursed that interfering swine
von Pretzl who had placed my life and freedom in the hands of a common
confidence man! I have frequently warned von Papen that Pretzl was an
old woman and a fool. How much was I justified!

“See here, Heine,” said Jim, speaking with great earnestness, “I want
some kinder job. There ain’t any suckers left in the world--I guess
they’re all gone to war. There’s nothing crossing the Atlantic now but
Dago acrobats on their way to join up with the Alpinis, and they’re
wrapped up so in life-savin’ suits that they couldn’t get at their wad
even if they wanted to give it to you. Them and feeble-minded old men
and women are all the passengers there are--and women as you know are
meaner than hell when it comes to a show-down of real money. I’ve been
across three times dodging submarines and mines and all I could raise
was a game of auction bridge at ten cents a hundred. Now you know the
ropes here. Put me wise to a few.”

I thought rapidly. He might be a useful man. Then again he might be a
source of grave danger. A man of that character would not come to
England without the British police force being informed and probably
he was shadowed. In the circumstances I rejected any offer of personal
help, but I gave him the address of two or three gambling clubs and
promised to call on the ’phone a good friend of mine who was the
proprietor of the largest. He cheered up when I told him this.

“If there is money to be made,” he said, “I am after it. Some of these
young officers have got plenty of money, you say.”

“Some of them are worth millions,” I said solemnly.

He shook hands heartily and I was glad to see the back of him. I
watched through the window his departure. There was a man standing on
the other side of the road, apparently watching the traffic, but as
soon as Jim made his appearance and turned westward the idler turned
too. Of course he was watched. The imbecility of sending such a man to
me with all the interests I represented!

I was in despair, but pulling myself together I put on my hat and
going out into the street hailed a cab and was driven off to my club,
where I told an amusing story to a few of the members who were loafing
in the smoke-room about this confidence man who had come to me with a
letter of introduction. I felt sure that somebody would repeat the
story, and in this I was not mistaken.

I heard no more of Big Jim, though I saw him one night at dinner at
the Ritz-Carlton, and from his prosperous appearance I gathered that
he was not in any immediate want. My friend, to whom I had given him
an introduction, told me that Jim had cleaned up a lot of money one
night at the gaming club, that he was friendly with a number of
officers, and that he had become _persona grata_ at a certain Bohemian
club, the members of which are mostly of the theatrical profession. I
remembered, when this was told me, that Big Jim, before he began his
nefarious career, had been an actor, if you can dignify with such a
name one who travelled one-night stands with a third-rate burlesque
company, and he was alternately comedian and baggage man.

What I expected, and what did not occur, was a visit from the police
in regard to Big Jim. For this I was prepared, but apparently the
story I told at the club must have been repeated in the proper
quarters, as I intended it should be, and nobody questioned me as to
my acquaintance with this undesirable American.

Whatever place Big Jim may have occupied in my mind was dispelled by a
piece of news which came to me one morning whilst I was in my bath--it
was Friday, that being the day I invariably bathe--which was of so
remarkable a character, and its possibilities so far-reaching, that
nothing else occupied my thoughts.

My servant knocked at the door and told me that there was an urgent
message awaiting me from “Mr. Thompson.” Now “Mr. Thompson” was the
telephone name for Mr. Ritten, and dressing myself hastily in my
bath-wrap I hurried to the room I used as a study, knowing that Ritten
would not call me at that unearthly hour unless something important
was afoot or unless he had secured some information of an unusual
character.

“It is I, Thompson,” said the voice, “can I see you? It is most
important.”

“My dear Thompson,” I said testily, “you know very well that it is
impossible that we should meet.”

“But I must see you,” he said, “it is a matter of the first
importance. I cannot communicate over the telephone.”

“Come then at once,” I said, “bringing some documents which would
excuse your presence.”

In ten minutes the bell of my flat rang, and Mr. Ritten was ushered
in. He was a suave, gentlemanly man, who was, I believe, well born in
his own country. With a preliminary apology for troubling me, which I
coldly dismissed, he laid before me the object of his visit.

“I have had a request for a loan of £20,000 for seven days,” he said.

“Twenty thousand pounds!” I was surprised at the largeness of the sum.
“That is an enormous amount. Who asks for it?”

“General Sir Stanley Magward!”

I whistled.

“Sir Stanley Magward!”

This was indeed a remarkable request. This general, as everybody
knows, commands one of the English armies. He is a famous strategist,
and marked for further promotion.

“Here is the letter. It arrived this morning,” said Ritten, and passed
me across a sheet of note-paper, which bore at the top the
inscription:


                “Headquarters of the 9th Army.”


The letter was brief and peremptory:


 “Dear Sirs,

 “I am in need of £20,000 to pay off a mortgage which falls due on my
 Somerset property this week. My brother-in-law, Mr. Hiram S. Carter,
 the well-known railroad magnate of America, is on the ocean
 homeward-bound, and I cannot, therefore, get in touch with him. Upon
 his arrival the debt will be liquidated. I agree to pay a sum
 equivalent to 10 per cent. per annum for the accommodation. I apply to
 you because I have no desire to let my banker into the secret of my
 embarrassment. I shall be in London the day after to-morrow, on short
 leave. A note delivered to the Senior Army Club will find me.”


“Well?” said Ritten, when I pushed the letter back to him.

“By all means let him have the money,” I said.

“You authorize it?”

“Certainly,” I replied.

“I have made inquiries,” said Ritten, “his brother-in-law is on the
homeward trip, but the date of his arrival is rather uncertain. The
mortgaged property is Penton Close, and the mortgagees are the London
and Manchester Bank.”

I nodded.

“That explains why he does not wish to bother his bankers,” I said.
“Send a note to the Senior Army Club and have the money ready for the
General--this may mean a lot to us. It is the kind of connection that
would be very useful.”

Well might I feel elated. That an army commander should place himself
in the hands of money-lenders, and such money-lenders, was distinctly
a feather in my cap. It would not be well for my Lord Magward that the
mighty War Office should know one of their trusted generals was
borrowing money. On the other hand, it might be well for the Jermyn
Credit Bank, if any question rose as to its _bonâ-fides_, that it had
amongst its clients so august a personage. Whichever way I looked it
was all to the good.

The letter was despatched, and on the Monday Mr. Ritten called me up
on the ’phone to say that the general was in his private office, and
had signed the necessary documents and was waiting whilst the cheque
was being cashed.

“Come round and meet him,” suggested Ritten.

“Am I a fool?” I replied sarcastically.

“He is very interesting,” said Ritten. “I have much to tell you when I
have the time. He has invited me to go to France to his headquarters,
and to bring any friends I wish.”

I could have hugged myself with delight.

“Accept the invitation,” I said quickly, “also discover where the
headquarters of the 9th Army are. Find out why he is on leave for such
a short time, and whether his army had many casualties in the last
offensive.”

Ritten acknowledged my instructions and hung up the receiver, and I
sat down at my desk to formulate a plan for the forthcoming visit
which I intended to pay to an important headquarters of the British
army in the field.

I suppose I must have been working away for two hours when I heard a
commotion in the outer office, the door was flung violently open and a
tall, broad officer dashed in, slamming the door behind him. He was
breathless and could not speak. He was perhaps no more breathless than
I, for he wore the cross-batons and stars of a superior general, and
across his broad chest were three rows of medals, ribbons and
decorations.

He tore off his gold-laced hat and wiped his brow.

“Pardon me, general,” I began.

“Shut up, Heine,” he gasped. “Forget that general stuff, and help me
out of this.”

It was my turn to gasp.

“Jim,” I said, “what is the meaning of it?”

He sank down into a chair.

“I have got away with £20,000 from a bank,” he said rapidly. “Gee, it
was easy money, Heine. A bit of note-paper that I borrowed from a kid
on leave from one of these army headquarters, a suit of clothes, and
it was like taking money from a child. But they’re after me; one of
those damned English officers spotted me and asked me in the street
who I was. I just had time to jump into a cab and bolt.”

The dreadful truth was slowly dawning upon me.

“Twenty thousand pounds,” I said, “you have got £20,000 from a
bank--from the Jermyn Credit Bank, Jim?”

“Sure thing,” he said, “do you know them?”

I passed my trembling hand across my brow.

“Leave the money here in my desk, Jim,” I said. “I will take care of
it, then, when the coast is clear, you can come back for it.”

“Give nothing,” he said brutally.

He walked across the room and took a cautious glance from the window.

“I am going,” he said, “they didn’t pick me up.”

“Don’t go with that money,” I cried in alarm, “it will be bad if they
catch you with the goods. Be a good boy and leave it here,” but before
I could finish he had thrown open the door.

“Hell!” said Jim, as Major Haynes walked in.

“Friend of yours, Heine?” said Major Haynes; “dear me, what excellent
company you are keeping. I hardly know who to expect next. I shan’t be
surprised to find the Minister of War here one of these fine days. How
do you do, general?”

“Quit kidding!” growled Jim.

“What horrible language for the commander of the 9th Army,” said Major
Haynes, and then--“I suppose you know it is an offence to wear a
uniform to which you are not entitled?”

It was now my turn to speak.

“This man,” I broke in, “is a thief. He has robbed a certain bank of a
large sum of money.”

“As to that I know nothing,” said Major Haynes, “all that I am
concerned with is the fact that your friend is wearing a uniform to
which he is not entitled.”

“He is a robber,” I cried excitedly, “he has obtained by trickery and
fraud a great amount of money.”

“From the Jermyn Credit Bank?” asked Major Haynes in a tone of
interest, “the officers’ friend, the help-one-another association? How
perfectly shocking!”

He beckoned with his finger and Jim and he left the room. I saw them
drive away in a cab together, and sat in an agony of apprehension, not
only that day but for the rest of the week.

Then, one afternoon, Major Haynes strolled into my office.

“Your friend, the general, has sailed,” he said, “and you will be
pleased to learn that I took from him everything to which he was not
entitled.”

“The money?” I said eagerly.

“The uniform,” said Major Haynes; “I think he was entitled to the
money, don’t you? As a matter of fact,” he went on, “I will ease your
mind about the money. That also was taken from him, and is now with
the rest of the bank’s credits--in the hands of a British official.”

I turned sick and faint.

“You are thinking of your friend von Ritten,” smiled Haynes. “He also
is in the hands of a British official!”




 CHAPTER IX.
 MR. COLLINGREY, M.P.--PACIFIST!

I have often said that there is something grossly immoral about the
profession of journalism. These men who live on the woes of others,
who batten on the miseries of the world, must of necessity be dead to
all kindly impulse and to the gentler emotions. They must be sceptical
of all that is good, and have immeasurable faith in the wickedness of
human nature. They must have neither reverence for the great ones of
the earth nor charity for the sins of the weak.

My experience of journalists and of English journalists particularly,
had been with a Mister Haynes, who behaved with the greatest treachery
toward me, insinuated himself into my office under false colours, for
was he not an officer of the English Intelligence Department, and has
he not, as I have reason to believe, the blood of two high-spirited
German youths upon his gory hands?

In the autumn of 1916, I learnt that Berlin was sending to me a
Swedish gentleman named Heigl, and I was ordered to follow his
instructions and to give him all the assistance which lay in my power.
I have a constitutional objection to the intrusion of outsiders and
more especially to amateur intelligence officers who, in my
experience, have never failed to bungle any task to which they set
their hands, so I cannot say that I viewed with any enthusiasm the
coming of Mr. Heigl, fraught as it would be, and as I knew, with
additional risks for myself and possibly the disorganization of the
perfect system which I had with such labour established.

Mr. Heigl proved to be a very pleasant gentleman, a merchant of
Stockholm, a short man with an untidy grey beard, well dressed and
having the appearance of prosperity. In fact, as I learnt, he was a
gentleman of considerable wealth, and though not well born, even in a
Swedish sense, he was a _persona grata_ with the leaders of the
Conservative Party in Sweden and was frequently consulted by his
Government on all matters affecting trade.

Amongst other things he was the proprietor of a weekly newspaper
published in Stockholm. All this he told me within the first hour of
our meeting; in fact, on the way up from an East Coast port to whither
I had gone to meet him.

“You must understand, sir,” he said with great affability, which I
need hardly tell you I returned, since he was the trusted agent of my
beloved country and was, moreover, a man who might be able to put a
few things in my way. One never knows when one requires the help of a
man of this description or, as we say in Germany, “Don’t refuse the
carter the tyre, one day the wheel may be yours.”

To resume the record of our conversation.

“You understand, sir,” he said, “that I am a citizen of a neutral
state and, therefore, I can take no active part in any propaganda
designed to assist Germany.”

“That is understood, excellent sir,” I replied, “and, believe me, I
will not embarrass you to the smallest extent by requesting your
assistance.”

He inclined his head graciously.

“There are certain people in Berlin whom I have recently had the
pleasure of meeting. They are anxious that in this great world war the
German view shall not be entirely lost sight of.”

It was my turn to nod.

“The English press is not exactly friendly or inclined even to print
the German point of view, save to ridicule it.”

“The English, or British press, my dear sir,” I said warmly, “is a
Government press. Every evening, as is well known, the Government send
every newspaper the outlines of the leading article which they will
write. So cunningly contrived are those leaders, that in some of them
they criticize the Government, and nobody outside the office would
realize that all those articles are written by a special band of
writers who work day and night in Downing Street.”

He seemed interested at this news which was well known to me and to
many of my friends.

“But I interrupted you,” I said, “pray forgive me.”

“In Berlin,” Mr. Heigl went on, “it is thought that an excellent
opportunity exists either for founding or for purchasing a newspaper.
It is understood that the _Post-Herald_ is for sale.”

“That is so,” I said nodding. I did not know it before, but I took his
word for it. We Germans can never be caught napping.

“The price that is asked,” Mr. Heigl went on, consulting a little
note-book which he drew from his waistcoat pocket, “is £100,000, that
is to say, two million marks. It is a paper which has had a great deal
of influence in the past but seems to have fallen away gradually until
it has got into very low water indeed. We believe that if we found the
right man and spent a little money the paper could be revived to its
former prestige.”

“Of that I am convinced,” I said, “and it is a view which I have often
thought of advancing to Berlin. Believe me, Mr. Heigl, I have not
neglected the press. There is scarcely a newspaper man in Fleet Street
whom I do not know. I can tell you their circulations, the family
history of their editors, the names and records of their principal
correspondents.”

He interrupted me with a little gesture.

“I am delighted to hear this,” he said, “I had no idea that you had
taken the matter up. In fact, they thought that you were unacquainted
with the personnel of the newspapers.”

I smiled a little bitterly.

“Wilhelmstrasse is sometimes a little unjust,” I said, quietly and
sadly.

“Now, what would you say the circulation of the _Post-Herald_ was?”
asked Mr. Heigl.

It was an unfortunate and tactless question to ask at the moment, but
I replied with readiness.

“I cannot tell you until I have consulted my books. There are so many
newspapers in London and one cannot possibly keep their circulations
in one’s head.”

I could see he was a little impressed, and later he asked:

“Can you suggest a man to act as go-between? Neither you nor I can buy
the paper, but if we could only get hold of a good substantial fellow,
a bit of a crank preferably, we could easily hide ourselves behind a
bank and a lawyer and complete the sale.”

I knitted my brows and compressed my lips. “For the moment I cannot,”
I said. “This is much too important a matter to be settled off-hand.”

To tell the truth, gentle reader, since my making the acquaintance of
Mister Haynes, I had steered clear of journalists, and the only one I
knew well enough to speak to was an old gentleman in a top hat who
used to stand at the corner of Salisbury Square, and borrow
half-crowns from me. Even his name I did not know, but I felt with my
usual good fortune and perseverance, I should not be long in finding
the right kind of man.

It would not be true to say that I did not understand the British
press, or that I had not given it a great deal of thought. In my
humble way I have been a contributor to English journalism, and my
letters, signed “True Patriot,” “Mother of Six,” and other _noms de
guerre_, have appeared in newspapers of almost every colour.

The British newspaper is remarkable for its stupidity and ignorance. I
do not think that even the best friends of English journalism will
dispute this fact.

_It is a fact which I cannot too clearly emphasize, that there is not
a single London newspaper edited by a professor. Only two of the
London editors have an educational degree, and none has been in the
army or the navy._

I then proceeded like a good general, to examine the ground. The
_Post-Herald_ is an old-fashioned Whig newspaper which had fallen on
evil times, due to the fact that it was owned by a family all of whom
took something out of its coffers, and none of whom put any brains
into its management. With true German thoroughness, I discovered that
it was deeply in debt to paper manufacturers, and to a syndicate of
printing-machine makers.

This poverty-stricken rag, without two penny pieces to rub against one
another, had the temerity, the audacity, to attack “unscrupulous
Germany.” I confess when I opened the sheet and read the scathing and
vulgar abuse of our truly great kulturland, I was filled with
righteous anger. But business is business. The Fatherland has need of
thee, _Post-Herald_. Thy columns shall yet scintillate with sarcasm,
not directed toward the genius of Germany, but toward the vile and
frivolous men who have dared the wrath of Michael! Thy readers from
these dull pages shall imbibe the principles which have made Prussia
feared, aye, and hated the world over. Deutschland shall be vindicated
in triumphant and very clever articles written by professors of
learning and translated by English hack writers.

My spirits rose and my heart glowed within me at the thought that I,
Heine, should pull the strings and direct in the heart of this great
and sinister city a policy which should still further enhance my
beloved land.

_Deutschland über alles._ Also, I thought there might be some
commission on the purchase, for these things can be arranged. The
first thing to do was to find a go-between, a man who could be
implicitly trusted, and I began to ransack my mind for a likely
person. To put one of the known English pacifists in control would be
to give the show away, and to upset the apple-cart, to employ two
English idioms.

Collingrey was the man! It came to me in a flash of inspiration. He
was a member of Parliament and hard up, having an extravagant wife and
other obligations which my good German modesty prevents my describing.
He had been a failure as a barrister, and a failure as a member of
Parliament. He might have held a position in the Government but for
certain disclosures which came to light in the matrimonial suit in
which he became involved.

During the war most of his questions and speeches in Parliament had
been directed against Italy--our perfidious ally! There never was a
man who so hated the Italian Government as he, and with good reason,
for Mr. Collingrey, a year before the war started, had invested all
his fortune in the purchase of two pictures by that master, Leonardo
di Vinci. The Italian Government had prohibited the export of the
pictures and when on top of this a lawsuit was started, which involved
the ownership of these works of art, Collingrey got neither the
pictures he had bought nor the money he had spent.

He had stood to make a fortune, having resold these gems to the
American millionaire, Tilzer. The lawsuit dragged on, and Collingrey
had declared that the Italian Government was putting every obstacle in
the way of a settlement, and as the English Government refused to give
him any assistance, he was doubly incensed.

He was, therefore, a bitter man, and never lost an opportunity of
embarrassing the Government. His articles appeared regularly in those
journals which we had subsidized--very few, alas!--in this country. He
had a reputation for honesty, was a brilliant writer and a clever
debater.

The thing was to secure his co-operation, and to convey to him, with
as much delicacy as possible, the policy which he would be called upon
to support.

I have before me the draft of instructions which I received from
Berlin at a subsequent date, and I cannot do better than print these:


 1. The editor will adopt a conciliatory attitude toward Germany and
 German War Aims. It is not necessary that the German point of view
 should be urged, since this would defeat the object aimed at. The
 Germans may even be attacked, though no uncomplimentary reference to
 the Great General Staff, to the Kaiser, or to any member of the German
 royal family must be permitted.

 2. It is permissible to condemn air-raids or U-boat sinkings in a
 decorous and serious manner, but at the same time a note should be
 appended to the effect that whilst these things are unfortunate, the
 English have largely themselves to blame for failing at the beginning
 of the war to observe the distinction between open and defended towns,
 and also for not observing the Treaty of London.

 3. At all times the editor must urge the necessity for arriving at an
 understanding with Germany. The cost of the war, the loss of life,
 must be deplored, and the possibility of avoiding further losses by
 meeting the Germans at a peace council must be insisted upon.

 4. References to the taxation which will follow the war, and how
 hardly it will fall upon the working classes as well as upon the
 moneyed classes must be made frequently.

 5. Whenever possible it should be hinted that the British have no
 reason for continuing the war, and that they are being bled white to
 support the insensate ambitions of France. French military actions
 should, in consequence, be criticized as far as possible.

 6. Stories dealing with the humanity of the German soldier, which will
 be supplied from time to time, should be given prominence, and
 references to German strikes may be made the most of, especially at
 moments of industrial unrest in England.


These were only a few of the instructions. I cannot help thinking that
Wilhelmstrasse made a great mistake in its moderation. If it had been
left to me I would have instructed the editor to lose no opportunity
of attacking every other newspaper which spoke slightingly of our
great country--but then I am a patriot!

I had no difficulty in getting an introduction to Collingrey, and he
invited me to dine at the British House of Commons. In a few words
over a post-prandial cigar I explained the object of my visit. The
good friend whose letter of introduction had procured the interview
had smoothed my path by representing me to be an agent of a South
American rancher (name unknown) who desired to break into London
society, and in tones of gentle but amused tolerance I hinted at my
client’s vanity.

It was a difficult interview, because Mr. Collingrey paid very little
attention to what I said, but launched forth into a diatribe against
the Italian Government. He was a monomaniac on the subject. He thumped
the table so that all the other members in the dining-room looked
round. He pounded his hand with his fist. He waved his finger in my
face. He sat back, he sat forward, and all the time he spoke of the
Italian Government and its iniquities. So much the better, my friend,
thought I. I give you my word you shall have your fling at false
Italia.

It gave me an opening to the exposition of the policy which the
newspaper would support, particulars of which reached me
providentially on the morning of my meeting the gentleman. Very gently
and delicately I laid down the lines on which the paper would be
conducted, and he agreed. Of course I did not give him all the
details, for I did not desire to scare him.

“If you asked me to run a pro-Government paper I should have refused
it,” he said violently, “this is a Government of nincompoops, a
Government of charlatans, a Government of Enemies of the People. I
regard the war as a crowning iniquity and its continuance inexcusable
but for the fact that our Ministers have sold themselves body and soul
to Italy. Take my own case, for instance.…”

And so I had it all over again, the story of his purchase of the di
Vinci pictures from the Montimi collection, the story of the embargo,
the story of the lawsuit. What bores these English members of
Parliament are, how childish; what a contrast to the staid members of
our own Reichstag with their serious politics and their love of the
Fatherland!

Mr. Collingrey readily undertook to act as go-between. He entered into
the spirit of the matter with great enthusiasm, and when I met him two
or three days later he produced two manuscripts dealing with the
Italian Government, which he read to me in the lobby of the House of
Commons.

When the purchase was completed and the _Post-Herald_ had passed into
the possession of a certain syndicate, which it is not advisable to
name, he had a manuscript on Italy in every pocket. Having done my
part of the work and taken the small commission which was my right,
and having seen Mr. Heigl safely on his journey back to Stockholm, I
had little time to bother about the newspaper, the more so since
Berlin in its folly had decided that I was not to interfere in its
management.

I bowed respectfully to the high authorities and to the well-born
gentlemen who directed Germania’s policy, but I submit in all humility
that had Heine been at the helm much that subsequently happened might
have been avoided.

Mr. Collingrey carried out his instructions faithfully, and when they
were explained with more elaborate detail he accepted his orders (to
my surprise) without demur or question. His vivid leading articles on
the Italian Government attracted a great deal of attention and led to
a strict application of the censorship, but this only gave him a new
interest in life, namely, in so couching his words that he could do
the maximum amount of damage to his enemies without incurring censure.
He was gentle with Germany, restrained in his reference to the
U-boats, never spoke of the Kaiser except as the Emperor William, and
his references to labour were invariably quoted in the extreme organs
of the masses. He was indeed a most satisfactory person, and I have in
my possession a letter addressed to me by the noble-born Count von
Mazberg, the head of our propaganda department, congratulating me upon
my most excellent choice. This I can show to any interested person who
doubts my word, and especially to those evil-minded un-German
journalists who have so often attacked me and my work.

I was out of London a great deal, being concerned in consultation with
certain labouring men who desired to bring the war to an end by an
understanding with Germany. These English patriots were organizing a
strike, and, naturally, I rendered them all the assistance that lay in
my power. This meant that I had to travel with a great deal of money
and could not afford to allow my attention to be distracted from the
business at hand.

I arrived in London one evening and on reaching my flat discovered an
urgent telegram from Mr. Collingrey asking me to dine with him at the
Carltonia Hotel, as he had news of the greatest importance. I
immediately changed into my evening dress and drove down to the hotel
where the editor was waiting impatiently. He was happier than I have
ever seen him. His thin, cadaverous face was wreathed in smiles, as he
heartily shook my hand, brushing aside the compliments on his conduct
of the paper which I had prepared.

“Come and have dinner, my boy,” he said. “I have got great news.”

“I am delighted to learn this,” I replied. “Have you got one in the
eye for Italy, if you will pardon the expression?”

“Oh, much better.”

Grasping my arm he led me into the dining-room.

“After all,” he said as we sat down at the table, “perhaps I have been
rather unkind about Italy--my articles have borne fruit.”

“What do you mean?” I asked in surprise.

He chuckled as he unfolded his serviette.

“They have released my pictures, my dear fellow,” he said, “you have
no idea of the weight there is off my mind. It means a tremendous lot
to me--my fortune and my wife’s was invested in those infernal daubs.
Look here,” he took a piece of paper from his pocket and passed it
across to me.

It was a cablegram which had been handed in at New York that morning:


 “Agree to your price, hundred and fifty thousand dollars for di Vinci
 pictures. Ship them by first mail-boat in charge of reliable
 man.--Tilzer.”


“We will have a bottle of champagne on this.”

“But what induced the Government to take this step?”

“The lawsuit is ended,” said Mr. Collingrey, “and ended in my favour.
I tell you it has taken ten years off my age.”

He babbled on like a boy, but presently he grew calmer and we
discussed the policy of the paper, and I was glad to see that he still
retained those honest convictions about Germania which had ever
distinguished his writings.

It was just about this time that America was trembling on the verge of
war, when the unscrupulous Wilson was making his preparations to
commit the great crime against civilization of plunging his country
into the horrors of strife. For me it was a time of the greatest
stress and anxiety. Cablegrams from certain neutral countries reached
me every hour. Secret and confidential wireless messages from the
supreme political chiefs reached me through the usual channels.

The excuse the Americans made was the initiation by our Admiralty of
an unrestricted U-boat campaign against the munition ships of the
Allies and it was still hoped by the superlatively clever men who
guide the helm of the German state that war might be avoided.

On a night I shall never forget I received a message from Amsterdam
which I decoded. It ran:


 “VERY URGENT.--To Chief S.S. Agents, London, Madrid, Paris, New York,
 Stockholm, Amsterdam.

 “Editors and directors of friendly and subsidized papers must be
 instructed to deal sympathetically with U-boat campaign. Point out
 iniquity blockade which is starving German women and children, and
 suggest a compromise between Germany and her enemies. Endeavour
 counteract enemy propaganda which will be unusually virulent. Prepare
 articles and comments in this vein. Acknowledge to chief of staff.”


I wrote a brief note embodying these instructions to Mr. Collingrey,
telling him that the South American, the mythical proprietor of the
_Post-Herald_ was a big shipowner, and desired to save the shipping of
the Allies. This I despatched by special messenger and immediately
dismissed the matter from my thoughts for, as I say, I had not only
the organization of a great strike but also I had to condense the very
heavy reports which were coming through from our agents in the various
shipping centres.

I worked till three o’clock in the morning and then snatched a few
hours’ sleep. At seven I was at my task again with all the newspapers
ready for perusal. Naturally I turned to the _Post-Herald_ first. Here
I knew I had material for a good report and with my code book open in
front of me, I was preparing to translate the leading article into
language which would pass the censor for transmission to Holland.

I opened the paper. There was the leading article, but to my amazement
it was headed:


                   German Murderers at their Foul Work.


I gasped. From the very first word to the very last the article was
the bitterest, the most vehement, the most unscrupulous attack upon
Germany that had ever appeared. I grew red and white as I read it. It
called the Germans assassins of the sea, barbarians, Huns, Boches,
pirates, blackguards, thieves--I shudder as I recall the language
which was used by Mr. Collingrey.

I was in a maze, bewildered. I read on like a man in a bad dream,
conscious of the awful avalanche of fury which would sweep down upon
me when Berlin read this dreadful and disloyal article.

It was not till nearly the end of the leader that I began to
understand Mr. Collingrey’s attitude. The final paragraph ran:


 “If any doubt existed that this nation of Hun marauders is lacking in
 the elements of kultur, that doubt is removed by the wanton sinking of
 the Italian steamship _San Salvadoro_. It was an open secret that that
 ill-fated vessel was carrying to England two great masterpieces of
 Italian art, two priceless examples of Leonardo’s genius. Did that
 fact stay the barbarian’s hand? Nay! Rather it lent zest to the
 lustful and bestial representative of a savage and unkultured people.

 “Those two masterpieces, unfortunately uninsured by their owner, lie
 at the bottom of the Bay of Biscay.

 “Let the British Government make instant reprisals. Intern the aliens
 in our midst! Imprison and shoot secret agents whose evil activity is
 seducing the allegiance of our people, whose hands are discernible
 even in the press itself.”


I laid down the paper and wiped the perspiration from my brow. I took
up a pen to indite the traitor’s dismissal, but on second thoughts I
put it down again.

After all, it was not my idea. Let Berlin do its own dirty work.




 CHAPTER X.
 THE GREY ENVELOPE

It has often been remarked by impartially-minded thinkers that the
German race produces more psychologists and more introspective
logicians than any other race in the world. It may be thought that I
make extravagant claims for Germans because I am of that chosen race.
It may be sneered that we only see one side of any question and that
is our own side, but as against that we Germans contend that there can
be only one side to any question and that is the side we are on.

For, as a race, and as individuals, we have that innate sense of
justice, that discrimination, that almost godlike balance of judgment
which enables us to see every fault that our blind and conceited
neighbours possess. When we Germans talk of “kultural extension,” we
mean that it is our object to extend our practice of reasoning for the
benefit of humanity. The English newspapers are notoriously stupid,
ignorant, and unreasonable. Very often they print in the short extract
from some exalted personage’s address to his troops a great and a
vital fact without realizing that the sentiment they so ignobly deride
is the basic truth on which civilization was founded, and from which
all nations but Germans are cast aside.

Forgive me, dear friend, if I depart from the plain narrative of the
curious happening which is chronicled below to wander at large in the
realms of metaphysics, but since this chapter deals largely with
psychology, it is meet that I should preface the story with a short
introduction worthy, I trust, of Mother Heidelberg which sent me to
the world, so well equipped with a knowledge of the sciences.

There is in Berlin, as you know, attached to the Intelligence
Department of the _Kriegsministerium_, the Psychological Branch, which
deals entirely with movements of national thought, especially enemy
thought, in its relation to Germany. I claim, and I would like to know
who would dare refute my claim, that I have rendered invaluable
service to the Herr Professor von Zollernborn, the head of that
department.

It was I who started the story of the Massacre of the 194th
Highlanders. It was I, who, through my trusty friends, put into
circulation that hint that France was conducting secret peace
negotiations which created so immense a sensation in knowledgeable
London circles. It was I, who, having received news that the British
had sustained a severe defeat at Ctesiphon, spread news within six
hours of my information coming to hand that the British had marched
into Baghdad, thereby preparing for a more profound feeling of
depression than had the news come without my preliminary planning.

We Germans neglect no opportunities. In a war between nations you must
strike at the civilian as well as at the soldier, and since we are
more qualified by reason of our mental equipment to exploit the
sciences of which we are so perfect masters, we enjoy advantages which
are denied to non-kultural races.

It was in 1917, in the early part of the year, that, as a result of
communications which had passed between myself and our agent in
Amsterdam, we decided upon opening the most elaborate, and though I
myself say it, one of the best planned campaigns against the morale of
the British that had ever been undertaken. The occasion was the
arrival amongst the enemies of the Fatherland of the United States of
America. The U.S.A., as everybody knows, came into the war owing to
the fact that the munition makers of America, who had spent millions
of pounds in plant, had found themselves faced with ruin. For this
they had to thank the perfidious behaviour of the British, who
cancelled their orders, well knowing that to keep all the American
munition factories running the American government would be compelled
to declare war.

I had this information from a dear friend of mine who is in the
secrets of Washington and was on terms of personal friendship with
many Senators and Congressmen, one at least of whom had openly exposed
the perfidious Wilson--such balderdash as his speeches has never been
uttered by serious statesmen!--and his nefarious plan.

I had not lived in America for nothing. I knew how deep-rooted was the
detestation felt in America against the English. I remember before
leaving New York I dined with two true-born patriotic Americans, the
Mr. Shauns O’Gorman and Mr. Adolph Dinklewurtt, who assured me
solemnly, that any movement of the President toward assisting the
English would result in revolution from one end of the country to the
other.

I felt therefore, that although the die had been cast, and Wilson had
committed the unforgivable and diabolical crime of plunging America
into war for chauvinistic aims--a responsibility from which the
unfrivolous mind reels in gasping horror--there was still an
opportunity for a man who could think quickly and act instantly,
providing always he had that genius for organization which so few of
my rivals possess.

It made it easier for me that America was intensely unpopular with the
English people. How they sneered at that expression of his “Too
haughty for war!” How they gibed at his notes and derided his
chauvinistic speeches! They refused to accept this impertinent man,
this ex-colonel of cowboy rough-riders, at his own valuation, or to
take his “big stick” speech in any but a frivolous spirit.

Knowing this uncompromising hatred of the American, it did not take me
very long to set my agents working. Within a week the country was
ringing with stories of the behaviour of American soldiers in
Lancashire. You, yourself, must have heard of the quarrel between the
English and American, which resulted in the American being thrown into
a river and drowned? It also probably reached your ears, that certain
American soldiers, refused liquor at a saloon, set fire to the house
and decamped, carrying with them the hotel keeper’s young daughter.

You may also have heard how all American soldiers speak despisingly of
England and boast that they have come in to finish the war. Some of
these stories were more widely spread than others, but all of them
fulfilled one excellent purpose--they brought annoyance to that
ridiculous person, Major Haynes--the so-called Intelligence Officer,
under whose nose the despised Heine worked so brazenly!

I do not pretend to know intimately the mentality of such men as Major
Haynes. I confess it is difficult for a plain-thinking German, blunt
and honest, to understand deceit for deceit sake (I justly absolve
myself of all acts of deception performed on behalf of the
Fatherland), or to lower his moral vision to the gutter wherein much
slimy kultur flows.

To me, it is abhorrent that men should be so frivolous that they
should engage themselves in despicable undertakings for wholly
despicable reasons.

That such a stigma applies to Major, or Mister, Haynes, I can prove by
his own words.

Some time after my last encounter with him, we met in a café in Fleet
Street. I had gone in to drink a cup of coffee and smoke a cigar when
the swing doors opened and I saw the somewhat drab and insignificant
figure of Haynes enter. He walked in furtively, almost apologetically.
How different, thought I, would have been the bearing of one of our
German officers! _He_ would have flung the door open with a crash and
have stood erect with flashing eyes and haughty mien surveying the
room ere he strode forward, his sword clanking with every movement of
his big earth-trembling German feet.

Major Haynes came in timorously and seeing me came toward me. My
throat went dry with hate, my hands shook with righteous anger and I
felt myself go pale at the thought of his perfidy.

But there was nothing to be afraid of as his first words assured me.

“Good evening, Heine,” he said, “may I sit down with you?”

Here again, what a contrast to a major of the Highest German Staff! He
would have ordered me to rise and go to the devil, and probably
honoured me with a good German cuff of the ear!

“Certainly, Major Haynes,” I said, “this is indeed a pleasure I did
not anticipate. May I order you some coffee?”

He nodded and I summoned the waiter.

“It is such a long time since we met,” I went on, “that I have almost
despaired of seeing you again. I began to fear that you had been sent
to the front.”

“I am afraid that must have given you some sleepless nights,” he said
foolishly.

Why should this conceited hound imagine that his departure for the
front would disturb my rest? Such arrogance!

“You may think I exaggerate,” I said earnestly, “but believe me, I
have been much impressed by your personality----”

“It is curious you should have said that,” said Major Haynes, “for I
was just on the point of remarking how much I had been impressed by
your personality. You see, Heine,” he went on, noting, I trust, my
modest surprise, “I have been watching you pretty closely (my blood
ran cold) and I realize how utterly trustworthy you are and how
different from other of the South American neutrals one meets. I
always had an admiration for the Latin races and it is such a joy to
meet a thorough-going South American with a German name, and
especially one so whole-heartedly in favour of the Allies as
yourself.”

“Major Haynes,” I said solemnly, “I have no interests but the
interests of the Allies. If I could shoulder a musket to-morrow----”

“You would look very silly,” said Major Haynes crudely, ignorant of
the fact that I was speaking in a figurative sense, because muskets
are no longer carried even by the German-trained native troops of West
Africa.

“Yes, I am sure you would fight, Heine, and I am certain it is only
the fact that you have a wife and family, that you are the sole
support of your ancient mother, and that you suffer from a weak heart,
which prevent your flinging yourself joyously into the battle.”

I inclined my head with a certain quiet dignity.

“You are pleased to jest, Major Haynes, for being an Englishman you
will have your joke, but I assure you in all seriousness that if ever
I could render a service to the Allies you have but to command me.”

Major Haynes looked at me for a long time. It would be true to say
that he stared very rudely before he spoke, but when he did speak his
words shocked me.

“That is exactly what I want you to do,” he said slowly.

I was all attention, curious, and at the same time apprehensive. If he
dared ask me to commit any action which would have injured my beloved
land I should have first smacked his face and then shot myself, if I
still lived.

“Command me,” I said coldly.

Major Haynes looked round, then he lowered his voice.

“The matter I am going to discuss,” he said, “is a delicate one. I
want you to upset one of the cleverest gangs of spies we have had in
this country, headed by a man who is without doubt the biggest genius
in the German Intelligence Department.”

If I blush with gratification, even though those words of praise were
from an enemy, can you blame me? If my pleasure overcame my fears, can
you wonder?

“There is a man in England,” Major Haynes went on, “who is directing
the real work of espionage. I am not referring to the hacks that
Germany employs to send her weather news and reports on the effect of
air-raids and movements of troops, but to the big gang, the men who
work in the dark, who go after the big coups.”

I nodded again, not I trust with any evidence of self-complacence, but
certainly in a spirit of pride, for I seemed to realize more of my
importance to the state when I heard my work recounted in the cold and
passionless language of a man whom I regarded at that moment as one of
the most intelligent Englishmen I had ever met.

“They are the people we are anxious to get,” said Major Haynes, “and,
I might add,” he said, “to shoot.”

I shivered, but hid my shiver in a laugh.

“Go on, dear Major Haynes,” I said, “you interest me.”

“I know the man I am after,” said Haynes. (I clutched at the
table-cloth.) “But I have not been able to catch him. He has a dozen
aliases, but his real name is Professor Zollernborn.”

“Zollernborn?” I said in astonishment.

I think it was at that moment that my quick German brain grasped the
situation. Professor Zollernborn was in Berlin. The clever Major
Haynes did not know that only that morning I had received instructions
from the Herr Professor. I saw the trap plainly, but from my impassive
face Major Haynes would never have known the rapid, lightning-like
thoughts which were flashing and crackling in my brain.

It was a trap for Heine! Beware and walk warily, thou faithful servant
of government! Match thy wits against this dull Englishman and put him
in the soup!

“Indeed,” I said.

“I have reason to believe,” this so-called Intelligence Officer went
on, “that a document of a very important character, which in some
mysterious way recently disappeared for twenty-four hours from the
papers of the Director-General of Recruiting, will be transmitted to
Berlin--or rather a copy of that document which is in such a code that
it cannot be forwarded by wireless.”

“In what way can I help you?” I asked, playing my part in the farce
with admirable _sang-froid_.

Major Haynes leant back and thrust his hands in an ungentlemanly
manner in his trousers’ pockets.

“I am going to put all my cards on the table, Heine, all except the
ace,” he said. “It cannot have escaped your notice that you have been
associated with people who have been very naturally the objects of
suspicion. Two or three gentlemen with whom you have had dealings--in
a perfectly innocent manner, I am sure--have paid the penalty for
espionage. I know what you are going to say,” he said, checking my
indignant protest with a shake of his head, “that you know nothing
about their nefarious work? Quite right, I can believe it. But for
some reason or other, Heine, they think, these enemies of the
government, that you are favourably disposed to help them.”

“Then they make a very great mistake,” I said firmly, “and if they ask
me to assist them I shall be extremely annoyed.”

He nodded.

“So I think. And yet they will ask you to assist them. The document in
question will pass from hand to hand. Sooner or later it will fall
into your possession and on the envelope will be the address of
another agent to whom you will deliver it. It will probably be thrust
into your pocket while you are walking along the street and somebody
will whisper in your ear ‘Frieburg,’ which means, ‘you have something
which must be passed on without delay.’”

As he proceeded the perspiration was pouring from me--indeed that
night when I came to change my undervest (it being Friday) I found it
quite damp. “Frieburg” was the password which we used in the sense
that Major Haynes had stated. What traitor betrayed his Fatherland and
placed this stupid officer in possession of our code will perhaps one
day be known and his name will be execrated from one end of Germany to
the other.

“But,” I said, calming myself, “how should I know what ‘Frieburg’
meant if you had not told me?”

“You would probably be notified by letter,” said the Major suavely,
“at any rate, you will know.”

“What am I to do?” I asked.

The scheme was now to me as plain as daylight. I was suspect, and this
was a trap for me. How was the trap to be sprung?

“The moment you find yourself in possession of that letter you will
bring it to me,” said Major Haynes. “Of course, I could have you
watched all the time but I could not be searching you every five
minutes, and I could never know, unless you assisted me, when you were
in possession of this interesting document. I could even have you
arrested now,” he shrugged his shoulders cold-bloodedly, “but that
would not help, because another agent would be found.”

“You want me to bring you the letter as soon as I receive it?” I said.

“That is all I ask,” said Major Haynes.

I offered him my hand and smiled.

“On the word of a sportsman and a gentleman,” I said, “I will bring it
to you.”

I walked down Fleet Street whistling a tune. Even in that moment of
danger Heine’s well-balanced mind was not seriously perturbed.

“I shall know no danger until I am blind,” said Schiller, and so might
I say, for with my eyes open to the plot which was being laid against
me half the danger vanished.

The cleverness of it, the cunning underhandedness of it! I was
suspect. They had no evidence against me and they wanted to secure
proof that I was a dirty-devil of a German. A police agent would hand
me the envelope. I should probably find the name of a comrade
inscribed. I would be watched all the time and if I attempted to
escape with the spurious document I should be arrested.

I have a much better plan, dear Mister, or Major, Haynes! Into thy
blood-guilty hands will I deliver this fake, or dud, document, and
shall stand with quiet, smiling contempt, watching thy confusion, when
thou discoverest that Heine, with bland innocence, has carried out thy
wishes!

Two days later I was called up on the telephone and a strange voice
speaking with a German accent said:

“Be prepared for ‘Frieburg’ to-day,” and immediately rang off.

I chuckled my amusement. So this was the day for the plot to
materialize. I went about my work in the usual manner. I lunched at a
fashionable restaurant in the Strand, returned to my office, finished
up my work at 5.30, and strolled, as was my wont, westward.

It was whilst making the purchase of a paper at the bookstall at
Piccadilly Tube Station, that the thing happened. Somebody pressed
close to me. I heard the word “Frieburg” whispered in my ear, and when
I had disengaged myself from the crowd and carelessly put my hand in
my pocket, I found a somewhat bulky envelope, which as I felt with my
fingers was heavily sealed.

I walked down Piccadilly and turned into the park, and presently found
my way to a quiet spot. Making sure that I was free from observation,
I pulled the envelope from my pocket, pretending to take out a
handkerchief which I had previously pocketed, and examined the letter.

It was enclosed in a big grey envelope and was addressed in English:


 “Deliver without delay to our agent at Southampton.”


I put the envelope and handkerchief back. The solution of Major
Haynes’s plot became ridiculously simplified. It was not only a test
for me, but it was an attempt to discover who was the agent of the
government at Southampton. Could you not imagine me driving off to
Waterloo followed by Secret Service men, and shadowed until I met and
betrayed the brave fellow who overlooked the interests of Deutschland
in Southampton?

Five minutes later I was out of the park, hailing a taxicab.

“Drive me to the War Office,” I said in a loud voice, for the benefit
of a skulking loafer who was near by, and who was probably a detective
in disguise.

Immediately on my arrival, I sent up my card and was ushered in to
Major Haynes’s office. He jumped up as I entered.

“Have you got it?” he said eagerly.

For answer I handed him the grey envelope, and he seized it.

“Sit down, Heine. Excuse my agitation,” he said, “but I had a feeling
that they would try you.”

I looked at him in wonder for, for the first time in his life, the
major was agitated. He pressed a bell and a soldier came in.

“Will you ask General Brackenhurst if he can come,” he said.

If Major Haynes’s excitement was astonishing, what shall I say of a
staid and veteran staff-general, who tore the wrappings from the
envelope, eagerly scanned the unfolded pages and gave a loud and
vulgar cry of joy.

“It is the original, Haynes!” he said. “Thank God we’ve got it!”

“They haven’t taken a copy, you think?”

“It was the copy they sent back,” said the general, wiping his
forehead, “it is impossible to make a copy of this. That is how we
detected the theft. This is the original. In this code a pin-point’s
difference in the position of the letters would have made all the
difference. That is why they are trying to send it to Germany, because
they couldn’t translate it here.”

He turned and looked at me.

“Is this the gentleman who assisted us?” he asked, and shook me warmly
by the hand. “We owe you a great debt of gratitude, sir,” he said. “As
Major Haynes has told you, this document, if it fell into the hands of
the enemy, would have been of inestimable value to the Germans.”

If it was acting it was good acting. My German instinct told me that
it was not acting at all. I knew by the trembling of my knees that I
had misjudged the position, and I left the War Office like a man in a
dream.

Only one thing remained to be done. I left that evening for
Southampton, and was fortunate enough to see our agent in the
vestibule of a theatre.

I whispered “Frieburg” in his ear, and put my hand in his pocket, but
I did not leave any letter.

Let him explain it if he can!




 CHAPTER XI.
 THE MURDERERS

In the latter days of March, 1915, I had received a communication
from Headquarters which was contained in a box of Dutch cigars
forwarded to me from Rotterdam. It was written to me on the usual grey
paper and was neatly sandwiched between the two thin pieces of wood
which formed the bottom of the box. You would never think of splitting
the bottom of a cigar-box into two shavings in order to discover a
message from the Political Intelligence Department, would you? Such
was German ingenuity.

The communication may be given in full:


                                             Kriegsministerium,
                                             Berlin.
                                             _March_ 12, 1915.

 By order of Section 10, Politik, Great General Staff.

 There go to England, on March 16, two men

    (1) Carl Jan Kattz

    (2) Rudolph Kister

 convicts from the Imperial Prison at Dresden under sentence for (1)
 Murder and robbery, (2) Dangerous wounding and burglary. These two men
 speak English and are acquainted with English life and conditions.
 They are released on condition that they place themselves at the
 disposal of the Chief of the Intelligence Bureau in London. These men
 may be depended upon to perform the most desperate acts. They will be
 placed on the pay-list of the C. of I., London, at 20 marks each per
 diem and 10 marks each per diem for normal expenses. The C. of I.,
 London, will not hesitate to shoot either man in the event of his
 failure to carry out orders.


Here is an instance of the common spirit of sacrifice which runs
through our dear Deutschland! All for the Fatherland! Noble born, well
born, _burglich_, peasant--even the convict in his sad and gloomy cell
pleaded to serve the Empress of Nations, the new Byzantium of Kultur!
Yea, from the very dungeon rose the cry of the patriot; into the deeps
of misery had the clarion call reached, and roused from the slimes of
decadence the pure flame-soul of Germanism!

I confess that my first care was to keep this precious pair of rascals
as far away from me as possible. I could not have such hang-dog
cut-throats haunting my office, and I sent Wilhelm Peters to meet them
and instal them in lodgings in Coventry--which was one of the towns I
was not likely to visit.

Wilhelm informed me that they preferred to go to Wednesbury, as they
were both acquainted with glass-working and there were two or three
glass factories in that town at which they could work. I made
arrangements for them to receive their weekly stipends, registered
their addresses, and sent them the card code (which was ingeniously
got up in the form of a time-table) and dismissed them from my
thoughts with the earnest hope that it would never be necessary to
utilize their services.

For we Germans abhor deeds of darkness and violence. Who has looked
through the spectacles of a serious German boy and has seen his clear
and honest blue eyes shining thoughtfully, could ever question either
the gentleness of his disposition or the transparency of his motives.
We hate deceit and cruelty, we shrink from the infliction of needless
pain and exalt the fulfilment of the law to a worship.

So I shuddered and passed from my mind all thought of Carl Jan Kattz
and Rudolph Kister. And yet, despite this innate tenderness of ours,
we Germans are all granite and iron. When we set ourselves to the
accomplishment of a task we are not to be arrested by
parsnip-buttering words or even the allurement of the most indecorous
siren, as you shall see. I have referred to the assistance I offered
to our gallant Zeppelins by the triangle of lights.

One of these light stations was arranged in the stable-yard of a good
Polish friend named Jabowski. The yard was a small one shut in on
three sides by very high walls, and on the fourth by the stable
(Jabowski was a tailor in a large way of business and employed two
carts for the collection and distribution of goods.) He hated the
English, who had treated him very scurvily and had prosecuted him for
some small breaches of the Factory Act, and he was, in consequence of
his tyranny-hatred, and for a very handsome sum I paid him, willing to
show the light--a motor head-lamp coloured green.

One night after a raid was expected Jabowski came to see me. I had
just got back from an over-night trip to Bristol and I was eager for
news. He seemed puzzled and troubled.

“Was there a raid?” I asked.

“Well, Herr Heine,” he said, “there was--but it was the most curious
raid we have had. I came to tell you about it.”

“Proceed, Jabowski,” said I graciously, although he was a man of the
lowest social order.

“At eleven o’clock last night my son and I were standing in the yard,
watching the lamp and listening for the footfall of a policeman
outside, when we heard distinctly the noise of an airship. It grew
nearer and nearer until the sound was terrific and I could hear the
people in the street scurrying away to their houses. I looked up, as
did my son, but I could see nothing. Whatever it was passed overhead
and when immediately over something fell with a thud--right in the
centre of the yard!”

“A bomb?”

“No, gracious Herr--it was a big paper bag which was evidently filled
with a sort of yellow vere. Thinking it was a new kind of poison or
some diabolical----”

“Ingenious is the word, Jabowski,” I interrupted.

“Exactly, gracious sir, some ingenious form of explosive, I did not
attempt to remove it until this morning. I gathered most of it up but
it was impossible to remove the stain from the stones.”

“There were no bombs?”

“None,” replied Jabowski with emphasis, “the raider was heard by many
people and, according to a policeman who came to see me this morning,
these yellow bags have been dropped all over the neighbourhood.”

I was thoughtful.

What did these bags portend? Obviously there was a message of some
kind, thought I, intended for me. That green light showed the raider
that there was a friend in the neighbourhood and yet----

Whilst I was talking, there was a knock at the hall-door of my flat,
and my servant (an excellent Swiss youth who had the good fortune to
be born in Breslau, of German parents) announced that the two Mr.
Geisslers wished to see me. I was amazed at the coincidence, for these
two brothers were in charge of the other two lamps which completed the
triangle.

“Show them into my bedroom, and I will come and see them, Adolph,”
said I.

The Messrs. Geissler were bakers, and good friends of their
Fatherland. One had a shop near Albany Park, and the other a bakehouse
south of the Thames.

“Victor came over to see me this morning, Herr Heine,” explained Kurt
Geissler, the elder of the two, “and as he has had the same curious
experience that I had in last night’s raid, I thought we had better
come along and see you.”

Briefly his narrative was on all four-legs with the story which
Jabowski had told. They had heard the whirr of airship engines, and a
bag of yellow dust had fallen, in Victor’s case upon the roof of the
bakehouse, and in Kurt’s case on a chicken house in his back garden.

“The police say that these bags have fallen all over the South of
London,” said Kurt.

“They’ve been dropped on north-west London too,” said Victor, and
produced an envelope full of the stuff.

I looked at it without touching the powder. It was as fine as flour.

“You must leave me to think this matter out,” I said at last, and sent
them on their way.

I was engaged in intensive cogitation half an hour later, when Major
Haynes, of the British Intelligence Department, called. While I at
first had resented his calling, I had now overcome my repugnance to
meeting one who was engaged in such underhanded and sneaking work as
the Military Intelligence Department condescend to do. We Germans have
a delicate gorge, I tell you, and there were times when, remembering
that his sly cunning had probably sent many, and had certainly sent
two brave Germans to their death, I could scarcely bring myself to
flatter him.

“Good morning, Mr. Major,” said I with a ready-adopted smile, “you are
looking inside the pink this morning.”

“Good morning, Heine,” he said. He had called me “Heine” many times
lately, and somehow I had never had the nerve to correct him. “Were
you in the raid last night?”

“The raid?” I said in innocence--amazed. “I saw nothing about it in
the papers--was there a raid?”

He laughed.

“So some people think,” he said, and then turning suddenly from the
subject he asked, “What size gloves do you take?”

It was an extraordinary question. All my wits were working at top
pressure. I was at my alertest, my mind reviewing all the
circumstances which had attended my doings of the past week.

Had I left a finger-print in my visit to the Chetwell Munition Works,
or dropped a glove on my recent conference with the executive of the
Workers for World Peace?

“I take an eight or nine size,” I said deliberately.

“That would be much too large--show me your hands.”

I extended my hands.

Why did a cold and sickly feeling come to a certain digestive organ?
Why did the beads of perspiration stand out on my brow? Why, in spite
of a mental effort of the strongest, did my face blanch and my hand
tremble?

Did I expect to hear the click of steel, and feel chill bands about my
wrists, and hear the jangle of the link that holds the handcuffs
together? Yet none of these things happened.

Mr., or Major, Haynes just took my hands in his and turned them over
with the same delicacy of touch that I have observed in the German
_haus-frau_ when she is buying fish, and turns over the soles on the
stall to find the biggest.

“Yes--a seven,” said the major, and I thought there was a note of
disappointment in his tone.

We chatted about the war for awhile and then he said good-bye and left
me with two puzzles to solve instead of one.

Fortunately the rest of the day was so fully occupied with sheer
routine work that I had not time to speculate upon the mystery of the
Yellow Raid, as I called it.

I had started two new societies. The Brotherhood of Humanity and the
Thinkers of Britain League, and these entailed an enormous amount of
correspondence. The former society had as its motive the elimination
of all wars; the latter was intended to bring together under one ægis
that considerable body of students and tractarians who regarded
frontier lines as artificial limitations set up to divide the many for
the benefit of the few. They were promising plants, and though I hoped
that Germany would never need to seek a peace but would so triumph in
the field that she would be able to dictate her terms to greedy
England, bare-legged Scotland, libertine France, and barbarian Russia,
yet we Germans are habitually cautious.

That night I learnt from the usual quarter that the weather was
propitious for a Zeppelin raid, and warned the “leaders” (the car
drivers whose powerful head-lamps guided the Zeppelins to their
destinations) and my signal friends before I left town by the 8.30
train for Bath. I got on the ’phone to London that night and
discovered that no raid had occurred, and returned by the early
morning train which reaches Paddington at 8.30. My new assistant, Mr.
Wilhelm Peters, was waiting for me at the flat.

“Bad news, Herr Heine,” he said.

“Tell me,” I replied.

“Jabowski and the two Geisslers were arrested last night in the act of
signalling.”

That was bad news indeed. I learnt that they had been raided
practically at the same hour by three parties of police, and had been
taken to Scotland Yard.

“I have been all night at work making inquiries,” said Peters, “and I
have discovered how they were detected.”

“Betrayed, of course,” said I, but to my surprise Wilhelm shook his
head.

“They betrayed themselves,” he said, “the raid of the previous night
was not a raid at all. The noise they heard was that of an English
dirigible balloon flying at a very low altitude. It was up looking for
signal lights, and detected Jabowski’s light first. It flew over the
yard and dropped a bag of yellow ochre as near the light as possible,
and the following morning the police went round the neighbourhood with
a story of a mysterious airship which had been throwing such things.
When they said that the airship had dropped many they lied. There were
only three bags dropped--on Jabowski and the two Geisslers. Once the
stain of the ochre was discovered, the police had only to wait a
favourable opportunity. The rumour of a coming raid was circulated all
over London for the purpose of deceiving us.”

I saw the thing clearly now. So that was why Mr., or Major Haynes had
come to my office. He thought that some of the yellow stuff would be
brought to me for my inspection, and that I would handle it! So you
are interested in the size of my gloves, my officer! So you would
inspect my hands, thou artful man of low cunning!

But Heine had been too clever--too wide-awakened! I could not deny
myself so much exhilaration of feeling, yet the position was a serious
one. The Geisslers I could trust. But Jabowski! Here was a man without
a country--a cringer, a born traitor, one who under pressure to save
his own miserable skin, would not hesitate to betray me and the sacred
cause for which I worked. Whatever doubts I had about the loyalty of
Jabowski were removed when his son came to see me that afternoon.

This young Jabowski was about twenty-five years of age, very dark,
with a curly head of hair and a long yellow face. He was dressed
fashionably (and a little above his class) in a check suit and a
yellow tie, and wore the diamond ring and scarf-pin that one would
rather have expected on a German gentleman than on a Polish tailor! I
was annoyed to see him.

“Why do you come here?” I asked, when he was shown into my room. “How
dare you come to my apartments?”

“It’s all right, Heine, I wasn’t watched,” he said. “I came by Tube
and what’s more, I waited till it was dark. I suppose you know that
the old man’s pinched?”

“The old man pinched?” I said in astonishment-simulation. “What old
man--and what pinch?”

“Oh, come off it,” he said coarsely, “you know what I’m talking
about--my father, Mr. Jabowski.”

“For Mr. Jabowski I have the highest respect,” I said, “and I have had
many dealings with him, strictly in the way of business. Do I
understand he has been arrested? Dear, dear--I trust he has not been
doing anything very naughty?”

The young man scowled at me.

“Look here!” he said with violence, “you know why he was pinched--for
giving Zepp signals at your instructions.”

I sprang up.

“Shameless, lying Jew!” I cried in a great voice, “traducer of
innocent truly-neutrals! How dare you--how dare you make so infamous
an accusation? By heavens! I’ve a mind to grip you by the neck and
your coat-tails, and hurl you from the window!”

I saw a look of fear creep into his eyes, but he did not budge from
his contention.

“Have sense, Heine,” he pleaded, “can I allow my old man to be shot?
It’s a terrible position for me, and I was getting married to a
widow-lady with money too. The disgrace will kill me!”

“Your father can prove nothing against me,” I said, and the miserable
fellow smiled.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, “the old man was too wide for
you. ‘Jacob,’ says he to me, ‘this Prussian is so careful that he
won’t put anything in writing. If I get into trouble, he’ll pretend he
doesn’t know me, so when he comes this afternoon to talk things over
in the stable yard, get your camera and take a snap of us together,’
and,” said the despicable young man in unmistakable tones of pleasure,
“I’ve got that photograph to show the police unless you do something
to get my father out of trouble.”

“Have you the photograph with you, my dear young man?” I asked with
mildness.

“Am I nutty?” replied Jabowski, junior.

I promised to give him an answer that night. What could I do? To whom
could I turn to secure the release of this misguided and fearfully
threatening Pole? That he would betray me, I did not doubt, and the
horror of the thought stunned me. But I had escaped graver perils. I
had incurred the suspicions of the highest authorities and had yet won
through. It was because I had tricked them with the bluff of the
experienced player that I had escaped detection. Even Major Haynes
believed that I was no more than a dupish fool--but would he believe
as much on such an accusation supported by visible evidence of
hob-nobbing with the dubious alien of Polish origin?

So they would trap me--me, Heine, who would not tread on a turning
worm, unless it turned against the Fatherland. My gentle nature is
notorious amongst my friends. The song of the skylark rising to the
dawn, the mist of bluebells in the shadowy aisles of woods have made
me cry like a child, and this dirty dog of a Jabowski would send such
a man as Heine to the execution chair.

I sent a telegram to friends Kister and Kattz, at Wednesbury, telling
them to report to me in my apartments, by the first train. If there
were any burnt offerings required, it were better for the Fatherland
that the sacrifices should be Polish.

Let me describe Kattz and Kister as I saw them when they came walking
into my sitting-room.

Kattz was a thin man of about thirty-five. He was slightly bald, and
he wore a pair of steel-rimmed pince-nez. His face was thin and
studious, with deep furrows and wrinkles. He reminded me of a bust I
once saw of Dante.

He was quietly and respectably dressed, and his attitude and manner
were subdued and respectful. His companion, Kister, was of stouter
build, and he bore a facial resemblance to the English King Henry
VIII. He was broad-featured, had a small moustache and trim beard, and
a rosy complexion. Like his companion, he was quiet in speech and
deportment.

“Sit down, gentlemen,” said I, greatly relieved by the uncriminal
appearance of my agents. “I will open a bottle of good wine--in the
meantime, help yourselves to the cigars.”

They seated themselves, and when they had been made comfortable, I
briefly outlined the nature of my difficulty.

“So you see, gentlemen, my position,” I concluded, “these two men have
the fate of our service in their hands.”

“They must be put out of the way,” said the jovial-faced Kister, “you
agree, my dear Kattz?”

Mr. Kattz nodded.

“We can settle the younger man very easily,” he said, “you have his
address, of course?” I inclined my head.

“You will probably find that he has the photograph in his pocket, in
spite of his protest,” he went on. “I can get on to him to-night.”

He felt in his pocket and drew out a short length of cord, to the ends
of which were fastened two small wooden handles. He unrolled the cord
which was wound about the sticks and re-rolling it, returned the
instrument to his pocket.

The jovial Mr. Kister frowned and shook his head.

“You know, my dear Kattz, I would not hurt your feelings, but I feel
compelled to demur at that method of yours. I believe in this.”

With a dexterity which hardly seemed possible, he slipped a
long-bladed knife from the inside of his waistcoat. I pushed my chair
back a little.

“The knife or nothing, I say,” said he, “it is noiseless, it is
instantly effective, it can be used in a crowd, and the victim will
not utter a sound. Why?” he said, looking at me, “I once killed a
friend of mine in the Wintergarten, in Berlin, surrounded by
policemen, and they thought he had fainted!”

“A friend?” I said.

“When I say a friend,” said Mr. Kister apologetically, “I mean one who
had been a friend. We fell out over a lady--you remember, Kattz.”

“A tight-rope walker,” said Kattz.

“Exactly. She was not worthy of the quarrel. I have often regretted my
haste in the matter, for poor Joseph was a good fellow, and played
_skat_ like a master.”

“I don’t think you should speak against the cord, Rudolph,” said
Kattz, “you have probably only seen it used by a bungler. There are
three men--there are two now, for Frederich Mullenheim laid down his
life for the Fatherland at the Battle of Roye--who can use it. It is
as silent as the knife, and I remember----”

My blood went cold as I listened to the exchanges of experience which
went on between the two, and when Kister was using my waistcoat to
illustrate what he called “the complete-silence stroke,” and Kattz was
showing on my neck the exact spot where the carotid artery nearest
approaches the cervical vertebræ, I thought matters had gone far
enough.

“Make your own arrangements about young Jabowski,” I said hastily,
“but how are you going to deal with the old man--he is safely in
prison?”

“That I think is simple,” said Kattz, “we have been studying the
prison system of England--naturally that interests us more than
anything else, and we know the procedure. A prisoner on remand is
allowed to have his meals sent in. I think there will be no difficulty
in sending our friend something more than he will digest.”

“I will leave the matter entirely in your hands,” I said.

I gave them £10 and bade them report to me by telephone when their
dread task was accomplished. I confess I spent a wretched night. How
frail a thing is life! The snap of a thread and the veil is rent--a
puff of wind and the serene flame goes out--a crack of a rifle and the
accumulated genius and experience of forty years, a million memories
and a million hopes, are dissipated to nothingness. How dreadful is
that Visitation, I shuddered. I did not want to die. As for these two
traitors, death would rid the world of much corporate infamy. The day
came slowly, and I was up long before my servant.

There was nothing in the morning newspaper to tell of any happening
such as I expected, but I could hardly expect to have news so soon.

I resolved to stay in my apartment till the afternoon, and it was ten
o’clock that I heard a ring at the bell, and went hot and cold. I
heard my servant go along the passage and open the door and presently
came a knock.

“Come in,” I said, and to my surprise in walked young Jabowski.

His face was pale, his eyes were wild, and as for myself, I could
frame no question.

“Oh, Mr. Heine, Mr. Heine,” he said imploringly, and I thought he was
going to kneel at my feet, “give me another chance, give me another
chance! Here is the photograph.”

His trembling hands searched for a pocket-book, which presently he
produced. The book shook in his palsied fingers, but presently he
mastered himself sufficiently to extract a small photograph which he
handed to me. It was the photograph of myself and the ill-fated
Jabowski.

“There, there is the evidence,” he gasped, “now do be a good friend
and save me!”

“I hardly know what you mean,” I said coldly, “all that I know is that
you came here yesterday and accused me of a crime from which my very
soul revolts, disloyalty to the British Government, for the members of
which I have the highest respect.”

“The old man will take his punishment without bleating,” he said,
eagerly ignoring my reference to his wild conduct. “The lawyers say he
will only get about twelve months’ imprisonment, and if he opens his
mouth about you, he will probably get more. But if they convicted
me--why, I’d get five years.”

I was silent. This talk still held a mystery for me, and I waited for
him to reveal that which, even in my curiosity, I did not dare to ask.

“I ought to have known, Mr. Heine,” he said, mopping his forehead with
an ungentlemanly handkerchief of many colours, “I ought to have known
that with all the spies you’ve got, you would be wise about me.”

“I am indeed wise about you,” I said very severely.

“Don’t think,” he said eagerly, “that I am a regular burglar, because
I’m not. The old man never allowed me more than eighteen shillings a
week, and a man can’t live in a gentlemanly way on that, can he? I got
in bad with a crooked lot of people, and one job led to another, and
that is how it happened.”

“I know exactly how it happened,” I said coldly.

“When I got home last night,” the young man went on, “it struck me
that you might know that I was in the Regent Street burglary, and it
gave me the shivers, but I wasn’t sure until I found myself being
shadowed by the two detectives you put on to follow me.”

I could have laughed out loud. Kattz and Kister--detectives!

“How did you know I had put them on to you?”

“I gave them the slip,” said young Jabowski, “and presently I spotted
them getting into a cab. It was about one o’clock in the morning, and
I got another cab and followed them and they came back here.”

“Came back here?”

This was indeed news for me.

“Well, they didn’t come up,” said Jabowski, “they stood outside the
flat talking, and one of them pointed up to your window, and then I
knew that you had put them on to me.”

I readily supplied an explanation. My friends Kister and Kattz had
come back to tell me of some difficulty they had met with, and I am
rather glad they took this step. What Jabowski told me greatly
relieved me. If the old man would remain silent and take his
punishment, with the photograph in my possession, and burnt, and
Jabowski in terror of my betraying him, a load was removed from my
mind. There was no need for any drastic measures, and I could only
hope that my two friends, with characteristic thoroughness, had not
already despatched a deadly draught to the man in the cells.

I was anxious to get rid of Jabowski before they turned up or
telephoned, as I had asked them to, and after lecturing him on his
evil life and on the necessity for dealing honestly by his fellow
creatures and abandoning his course of wickedness, I allowed him to
depart with the promise that I should take no further action against
him.

“Honesty and straight dealing with your fellow creatures is the surest
road to happiness and success,” I said. “How beautiful is the life of
the virtuous man who can look the whole world in the face, as the poet
says, and owe not any man!”

He thanked me very humbly and went his way. Neither Kister nor Kattz
put in an appearance, and I began to worry whether they had got into
some trouble, or whether, in some spirit of friendly rivalry, they had
gone outside my instructions and in good-hearted competition had been
practising their science upon some unfortunate pig-headed Englishman
or Englishmen.

When they had not turned up by the afternoon I am afraid I became very
angry. Was I to be kept waiting in my flat all day by two despicable
jail-birds? However, a diversion arrived in the shape of my assistant,
Mr. Wilhelm Peters, that amiable young man arriving after lunch with
my letters.

“I am sorry I am so late, Herr Heine,” he said, “but I had no idea
that you were not at the office.”

“Of course, of course,” I said genially, “you have been out of London.
Now tell me your news.”

He chatted away about various matters. He gave me a memorandum of the
amount of T.N.T. which was being made at ----, the big new English
factory, and told me of the trouble that had arisen because Woolwich
had rejected so many flawed shell-cases which were made in a certain
factory in the North of England. He also placed in my hand the
memorandum, compiled by our agent in Liverpool, of the cotton
shipments, and furnished me with particulars of certain petroleum
boats which were due to arrive in the Mersey.

“I saw Herr von Friedlander at Birmingham,” he said. “He has not been
able to find an agent in the small-arm factory, but he hopes----”

“He hopes!” I said irritably, “that infernal man may live on hopes,
but I can’t! I shall pack him straight back to America. Does he
imagine because he is well born that I must endure these harrowing
disappointments? I cannot find excuses for him any longer. You have
done very well, my dear Wilhelm Peters, and I shall report in terms of
favour.”

“I thank you for your gracious words, Herr Heine,” he said, going red
under my approbation. “I also took the liberty of calling at
Wednesbury to see how our convicts were progressing.”

I smiled.

“And how were they?” I asked innocently.

“They are behaving themselves,” said Wilhelm Peters, “and seem to like
the life. The red-headed one, Kattz, is quite amusing.”

“Red-headed one?” I said.

“Yes, the little one who has red hair. Don’t you remember I described
them after I had met them on the steamer, Herr Heine?”

“And what is the other man like--Kister?” I asked.

“He is a man with a long black beard and rather consumptive looking,”
said Wilhelm.

“Are you sure?” my hair almost stood on end.

“Quite sure. The only thing that worried them was a visit which was
paid them by two secret service officers last week--at least I
gathered they were officers of the English secret service by the
questions they asked.”

“Do you know what they looked like, the secret service officers?” I
said, endeavouring to control my voice.

Wilhelm Peters smiled like a fool.

“Don’t grin, stupid owl,” I said angrily.

“Pardon, Herr Heine,” said Wilhelm Peters, “but I was smiling because
I asked them that very question. One was a thin-faced man with lines
in his cheeks and the other was rather a stoutish man with a rosy face
and a little beard.”

“Secret service officers!” I breathed.

“Do you know them?” asked Wilhelm Peters.

“I have met them,” I said, and somehow at that moment I knew my stay
in England was nearly up.




 CHAPTER XII.
 THE PASSING OF HEINE

The British people, in their boastful, arrogant, and frivolous way,
have a saying that the British do not know when they are beaten. This
betrays their folly, their short-sightedness, and their inability to
grasp the obvious. We Germans, on the contrary, recognize facts. We
have no illusions, knowing that by reason of our superior kultur, our
educational system, our national discipline, our readiness for
sacrifice, we are necessarily the highest expression of man’s
development. We also are prepared to recognize our own shortcomings,
such as they are. From the largeness of our eyrie-view, comprehending
as it does the vast surface of known facts, we can distinguish the
failings of those less favoured nations which enjoy, because of their
lower attainments, a more circumscribed view. Because of this
circumscription we have the folly embodied in the British maxim which
I have quoted.

I had enjoyed a great innings. I had done useful work. I had served
the Fatherland with a loyalty and unselfishness which I trust will be
held as a shining example to the unborn generations of secret service
officers who will follow in my steps.

To continue in England would be folly. There were many reasons why I
should determine my residence. It was growing more and more difficult
to get into communication with the Fatherland. Trading steamers,
ostensibly engaged in peaceable commerce, but in reality maintained to
keep the communications open between England and Germany, were
constantly disappearing in the most ominous fashion. The wireless
stations which we had established with so much thought were being
eliminated and, worst of all, since the conviction was forced upon me
against my will, I had to confess to myself that there really existed
in Britain a secret service of a peculiarly deceitful kind.

I had been constantly coming into contact with its members, constantly
foiled by its machinations. Its officers were to be found in all ranks
and departments of public life; they included Members of Parliament,
and little shopkeepers, newspaper reporters and doctors, railway
officials of all grades, ships’ stewards and parsons. It was
unbelievable, and it took me nearly two years to be convinced.

And now I had the feeling that a well-prepared net had been stretched
and was gradually encircling me. I had a sense that I was being played
with as a mouse is pawed by a cat. I notified Headquarters that I was
retiring, gracefully, and one night I sat down and worked out the
details of my escape.

I had four passports, and my first move was to obtain the endorsement
of all these. That in itself was a difficult business, but the
original owners of the passports were well chosen. It was an American,
a Swede, a Chilian, and a Canadian, and had you seen the four
photographs attached to those four documents, you would have observed
that there was not a great dissimilarity in appearance between any of
the four.

I was due to leave England on May 15th, 1916. I actually left on May
14th. On the morning of that day, I took one of those bold steps which
the most daring spirits invariably find profitable.

I called at the War Office and asked to see Major Haynes, of the
Intelligence Department. I sent in my name, that is to say, my Chilian
name, and in a very short time I was ushered into a very large, bare
office, where the gallant major sat at a table which was covered with
documents of all kinds.

He rose and greeted me heartily.

“How are you, Heine,” he said, pulling a chair up for me to sit upon,
“and how are our friends Kattz and Kister?”

“Kattz and Kister?” I repeated, my face a blank.

“The scientific murderers,” said the major with a cheerful laugh, “the
bow-string expert and the stiletto specialist.”

In such a manner did this frivolous man speak. I know you will not
believe it is possible, and many to whom I have retailed this
conversation have doubted my word. I do not blame them. Flippancy and
sports-language would never pass the lips of a German officer in these
iron times.

“I do not understand you, dear major,” I said.

“I didn’t think you would,” said he, and pulling out a drawer removed
a box.

“Have a poisoned cigar,” he said, “one of our Kattz-Kister Perfectos.”

He simply roared with laughter. Such vulgarity!

“I certainly remember the two names now you mention them. They called
upon me with a hoity-toity plan which I was much too busy to discuss
with them. As a matter of fact, they had not been there long,” said I
with a cunning smile, “before I realized that they were members of the
great (I emphasized the word “great” with a little sneer) English
secret service, and I had an amusing evening pulling their several
legs.”

Major Haynes winked (he was not well born).

“What I like about you, Heine,” he said (again that objectionable
word, which I passed in silence), “is that you have a sense of humour.
So few of your fellow countrymen possess that sense.”

I laughed politely because I felt that it was what he expected me to
do.

“Why have you come now?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Mister Haynes,” I began.

“Major,” said he, “but go on.”

“Major Haynes,” I said, “it seems to me that my most innocent actions
are misconstrued, and as I am going to-morrow to Brighton to spend a
week-end, I thought it advisable to notify you, so that you may know
where you can find me.”

“So you are going to Brighton, are you?” he said after a pause. “What
an eccentric fellow you are!”

“Eccentric, Major Haynes!” I repeated.

“To go to Brighton, an hour’s journey from London to an ordinary man,
by such a roundabout route.”

“Which way do you think I am going!” I smiled.

“I am not sure,” he said, “but, judging from the fact that most of
your boxes went up yesterday to Liverpool under the name of ‘Heigl,’ I
gathered that you were making a round trip of it. Still,” he said,
rising and offering his hand, “I will wish you _bon voyage_. You have
entertained me vastly. Keep clear of the mine-fields and ’ware
submarines. They are dangerous little devils.”

Oh! Had he seen my mind? Had he known the embittered thoughts that
flocked through my brain like a flight of wild geese? Could he have
detected the harsh and cynical expressions which trembled on my
tongue, I do not think this fatheaded Englishman would have seen me to
the door with such awkward grace.

I saw his idea. For his own purpose he desired to keep me in England
until the moment came to strike, but my friend, thought I, as I walked
along Whitehall, in Heine there are four people and Liverpool is not
the only gate to the “dark sea flood.”

Another man might have taken a long time to consider his plans. Mine
were already made. He expected me to go back to my office, or to my
flat perhaps, under the supervision of his detectives. I walked to
Westminster Bridge Underground station, took a train to Charing Cross,
descended the moving escalator to the Tube, and rode as far as Oxford
Circus, where I changed for a city train which carried me to the Bank.
Here I changed again and rode to Waterloo, came up to the surface in
an elevator and caught a train on the elevated electric to Clapham
Junction.

From Clapham Junction I journeyed to Willesden, from Willesden by a
slow train to Rugby. Here I changed, leaving the North-Western station
and joining the Central line, found myself at half-past ten at night
at Sheffield.

I walked across to the station hotel, taking a packed trunk which was
waiting for me at the cloak-room, registered myself, filling up the
necessary form, and was conducted to Room 43.

I was no sooner in the room and was unbuckling the straps of my trunk,
when there was a knock at the door. Thinking it was the chambermaid, I
said “Come in,” and the door opened--and admitted Major Haynes in
civilian dress.

“What time would you like your breakfast in the morning, Heine?” he
asked with such _savoir-faire_, that you might have thought he had
accompanied me and had only parted from me a few minutes before he
came into the room.

Not to be outdone in coolness, I replied:

“At nine o’clock.”

“You look tired,” he said, “I think the rest at Brighton is going to
do you a lot of good. When they told me you had got out at Clapham
Junction I really thought and hoped that you had decided upon taking
the short route. I expect it is the underground journeys that make you
look so weary. Have you a headache?”

“The only thing that gives me a headache, Major Haynes, is boorish and
unkultured conversation.”

I felt it was the moment to assert myself, even though it cost me my
life.

“Then avoid soliloquies,” he said, and with a nod he shut the door.

There was nothing to do the next morning but to go back to London,
which I did, taking my suitcase with me.

Major Haynes was on the same train, nearer the engine than I. I saw
him step into a motor-car that was waiting and drive off, and I went
into the buffet and had some breakfast.

My difficulty was going to be to arrive at the port of embarkation
rather than the actual getting on board the steamer, and I knew that I
should have to abandon both the Liverpool and the Fishguard routes and
go by way of Glasgow and Greenock.

The thing was to shake off the men who by this time were watching me,
and Fortune favoured me to an extraordinary extent. That night there
descended on London one of those thick white mists which sometimes
occur in the late spring. I packed a grip with a special kind of
disguise, put the necessary documents in my pocket, and sent for a
cab.

I came to the door of the front entrance of the flats, walked out
bareheaded to the driver and told him that I should want him to take
me to St. Pancras station to catch the 10.30 Scottish mail. I asked
him how long it would take me to get to the depôt, then I walked back
into the vestibule, picked up my hat, coat, and portmanteau, that were
waiting in a dark corner, slipped through the back door, across the
yard by which the tradesmen enter to deliver their goods, through a
mews, and in a few minutes I was swallowed up in the darkness. I stood
at the end of the mews and listened. There was no sound of footfall.
Rapidly threading the narrow streets which lay at the back of the
apartment house in which I lived, I gained a second road, hailed a
taxi and instructed the man to drive me to Langley, which is a wayside
station fifteen miles out of London, and lies between Slough and West
Drayton. He promptly refused the fare, but I slipped a couple of notes
into his hand and his views on the shortage of his petrol underwent a
remarkable change. So much for the veracity and honesty of English
cabmen!

On the way down I changed my mind. My appearance at so insignificant a
station might excite comment, and as we cleared the patch of mist, the
cabman offered no objection to taking me on to Reading. At this
station a slow train from London to Plymouth leaves shortly after
midnight. I reached Bristol at 3.30 in the morning, and by 5 o’clock I
was on my way northward, journeying by workman’s train part of the
way, until I changed on to a main line train at Worcester.

Had you stood that same afternoon on Carlisle station, you would have
seen a clean-shaven clergyman with a white collar and a black soft
felt hat, immaculate black garments, and the various other insignia of
his holy office. You would have observed that he was drinking tea, and
that under his arm was a large and serious book, and that his
gold-mounted spectacles would occasionally be turned benevolently left
and right, looking for Major Haynes.

In this guise I reached Glasgow, a comfortable English parson. I
passed the inspection of the alien officer, my passport was stamped
officially and I crossed the gangway of the ship with a feeling of
malicious joy.

“Here,” thought I, “is an object-lesson which Major Haynes himself
might take to heart as an example of German objectivity.”

We Germans never falter in our purpose. We set our minds upon a goal
and to that goal we attain. I stepped down the crowded gangway to the
purser’s office to present my ticket.

The purser looked at it and nodded.

“Take this gentleman to State Room 64,” he said to a steward, and the
man gathered up my trunk and my coat, led the way to the state room I
had booked, opened the door and I walked in--and there was Major
Haynes sitting on the settee smoking a cigar and looking bored.

“Close the door, Heine,” he said, and shook his head, reprovingly.

“I have not had the opportunity of telling you before,” he said
gravely, “but I think it is only right that you should know that a
clergyman of the Church of England does not wear gaiters, unless he is
a bishop, and I feel sure, Heine, that whatever you are, you are not a
bishop.”

I felt I could not bandy words with him. I sat heavily down upon the
settee.

“You have been getting your ideas of the clergyman,” he said, “from
_Simplicissimus_. For example, that apron you are wearing, and which I
have no doubt was supplied to you by a theatrical costumier who
thought you were cast for the good clergyman in ‘The Silver King,’ is
the apron that rural deans dream about, and country vicars regard as
being half-way to a halo. I wonder you didn’t bring a shepherd’s
crook,” he said bitterly.

“Do I understand that I am forbidden to travel on this boat?” I asked.

“Certainly. It would be no less than a scandal to allow you to
misrepresent the Church of England to our good friends in America,”
said Major Haynes. “Now get into some sensible clothes like a good
fellow.”

“Very well,” I said.

I took up my trunk, watery at heart, walked up the companion-way and
crossed the gangway on the wharf.

Oh, that journey back to London, how long, how dreary, how full of
conflicting emotions! With what soul weariness did I recall every
incident of the northward journey! With what respect had I been
greeted in my Episcopalian character by the common people!

Major Haynes was not on the train, I am happy to say. I was too
depressed to make any other attempt to escape, too weary even to
formulate some alternative plan. I did not even have the energy to
speculate upon the reason I was being detained, for I had not been
charged, as I might have been charged, with using false passports, nor
was I charged, with any of the other offences which might have been
alleged against me. I was just simply let loose and given another
chance of escape.

I made no pretence of going back to my flat, but drove to an hotel
where I knew I should be constantly under observation. I was eating my
dinner in an unhappy fashion, when I heard my name breathed, and,
looking up, I recognized in the waiter a man who had given us a great
deal of information, and was a worker for The Day. While he was
bending over me with the menu in his hand, and apparently taking my
orders, he was speaking rapidly.

“You are watched, Herr Heine,” he said under his breath.

“I know,” I replied in the same tone. “I am trying to get away from
London.”

He said no more, but when he came back with the soup he whispered:

“I think I can help you.”

When the fish arrived, he added a little more information.

“When you get back to your room to-night,” he said, “ring for the
_sommelier_. I will come up.”

I told him briefly that I had made two attempts and failed, and he
nodded.

I waited till fairly late before I rang the bell, and my friend--his
name deserves mention in these records, it was Gustav Stheil, a worthy
fellow who, I understand, has since fallen into the hands of our
hateful enemy--responded very quickly.

“In half an hour,” he said, “come out of your room and go down the
service stairs. You will find them on the left. At three o’clock
to-morrow morning the chimney-sweeps are coming to clean the kitchen
flues. I will get an old suit of clothes for you and with a bag of
soot and your face blacked you can get out of the hotel without
anybody being the wiser.”

“And after that,” I said.

“I think I can get you a horse and cart. Drive to this address. It is
my brother-in-law’s--he is in the country--and lay low there for a day
or two and I will come and see you.”

He gave me a key and the address. It was in a place called Palmer’s
Green.

The plan worked admirably. I descended without interruption or
observation, made a change of clothes, and so covered my face with
soot that no person would have recognized me. Gustav let me out
through the service entrance and I found a light cart and a horse
waiting, with a boy sitting in the seat.

“He is my son. You can trust him. Good luck, Herr Heine.”

I took a £5 note, it was somewhat dirty, I am afraid, for I had to
rub it to make sure there were not two, a mistake which I had once
made--and slipping it into the honest fellow’s hands, I drove off.

Picton Street, Palmer’s Green, is a street of small houses, and that
house to which I went was poorly furnished but was good enough for my
purpose. I washed the disguising soot from my face and lay down on the
bed to finish my sleep.

It was not a comfortable day by any means, because there was no food
in the house, and I was ravenously hungry that night when Gustav came
bringing me provisions and busying himself at the kitchen fire
preparing me coffee.

“There is a cattle-ship leaving Avonmouth in two days’ time,” he said.
“A friend of mine will smuggle you on board and look after you on the
voyage over.”

“How am I to get to Avonmouth?” I demanded.

“By train,” said he, but I shook my head.

“All the trains will be watched. Can you get me a motor-bicycle?”

He promised to do his best and, late as the hour was, he went out to
inquire. He came back with a push-bicycle and told me I should have to
do the best I could with that for one stage of the journey, and that
he would arrange to have me met on the Reading-Newbury road by a good
patriot with a motor-car, but that it would be necessary for me to lie
in the bottom of the car and allow myself to be covered by rugs.

I will not describe the frights and apprehensions of that journey. I
cycled through the night and just before daybreak I reached the
Reading-Newbury road and came within sight of the tail lights of a
motor-car drawn up at the roadside.

The journey was not an uncomfortable one. I descended from the car on
the outskirts of Bristol and made my way to the place where friend
Gustav told me I should meet the sailor. It was a little bar and from
the description which Gustav had given me I was able to recognize my
friend, a stalwart patriot of Finland, who despised the British even
as he hated the barbarous and tyrannical Russian.

To recall even that night’s adventures and to place on record all the
events which occurred between my leaving my friend’s lodgings and my
arrival in the hold of the soon-leaving ship would occupy a volume.
How I climbed two walls, how I concealed myself in a railway truck
which was slowly shunted to the side of the ship with most
uncomfortable bumpings, how I stole up the slippery side of a coal
shute and lay for two hours amongst the pots and pans of the cook’s
galley, how I eventually swarmed down an interminable ladder into the
depths of the ship, an adequate account of these happenings might be
written by a Zola, but my poor pen can neither describe the agonies of
mind and body which marked my reaching the ship, nor the miseries of
soul which followed when the vessel drew clear from the wharf and
began to sway and heave, to jump and sink in the open seas.

I was hungry until I went on board ship, but the moment the vessel
started on its voyage I felt I would never eat again. I almost wished
I had not left England. For a day and a night, it seemed like two
months, or even two years, I endured the agonies of sea-sickness
beyond description. At the end of the second night my friend made his
way to the hold and brought me up to the galley, for I should explain
that he was the ship’s cook. Here I was able to wash myself in a pail
and to take the little nourishment which he gave me. Just before
daybreak and when I was preparing to return to my submarine dungeon,
the thud of the screw ceased.

“Are we stopping?” I asked my friend, the cook.

He went out on to the deck and presently returned.

“Yes,” he said, “you had better stay here. There is an English patrol
coming alongside.”

I could hear nothing but the whine of the wind and the ceaseless roar
of the sea, and the first thing I heard was the sound of voices on the
deck just outside the galley.

It was an English naval officer speaking.

“You have a stowaway on board, a German agent,” said the voice; “oh,
yes, I know you are not aware of the fact, but he is here. You can
either search the ship and bring him up or we will save you the
trouble.”

I looked at the cook, and the cook looked at me.

“Herr Heine,” he said sadly, “there is only one thing to do. They will
find you--they are certain to find you. This is a small ship.”

I drew myself up and straightened my shoulders. Pushing open the door
I stepped out to the deck in the light of the dawn.

“I am the man you seek,” I said proudly.

I had to climb down the rope ladder on to a bobbing little
motor-launch, to the well of which I was conducted. We were very near
land and I supposed (and here I was right) that the land was Ireland,
that down-trodden nation, the sport and mock of the misgoverning
English.

The motor-launch ran into a little harbour and came up by the side of
the jetty. A man in a long military overcoat was pacing up and down,
but stopped when the boat reached the landing stage. I sprang on to
the steps and mounted to the quay.

“Had a good time?” said the voice I hated more than all voices.

“Major Haynes,” I said with dignity, “I have not had a good time.”

“I am sorry to hear it. Anyway you have got the soot off your face, I
am happy to see. You are looking quite white, Heine. Come and have
breakfast.”

I accompanied him mutely to a little one-storeyed hotel which faced
the landing stage.

“You had better go up and tidy yourself,” he said, “I have engaged a
room for you.”

I bowed and followed the hall-porter, who was the only servant up at
this hour of the morning. He opened the door and showed me into a
room, and to my amazement I found all my trunks on the bed. One had
been opened and my razors and shaving apparatus were neatly laid out.
Over the rail of a chair hung my best suit, and my patent boots,
nicely polished, stood neatly against the wall.

I shaved, washed, and changed, and in half an hour I presented myself
in the dining-room where, to my surprise, a good breakfast was
waiting, Major Haynes being already at the table engaged in reading
what appeared to be a volume of poetry.

“Well, Heine,” he said, “your travels are nearly over, and I think
that some explanation is due to you.”

I bowed again, though it was a difficult performance, since I was at
that moment balancing a piece of fried egg upon my knife.

“Try the fork,” said Major Haynes.

Really this man’s inquisitive eyes saw everything.

“The fact is, Heine, we knew all about you before you arrived in
England. We knew you were at the head of the organization, we knew
your ways, your habits, your abnormal conceit--you don’t mind my
speaking frankly, do you?”

“Not at all,” I said stiffly. “I am in your power.”

“And we knew that wherever the corpse was there would the vultures be
gathered, or, to put it better, wherever was the magnet there would be
the iron filings. If we kept you going and left you alone, we always
knew where to look for your workers, who were ever so much more
dangerous than you. We thought once or twice of taking you,” he said
reflectively, “but I persuaded the power that it would pay in the long
run to leave you alone. And it has paid,” he said, “all the satellites
that revolve about you have been taken and destroyed. New suns will
arise and attract new planets, and in course of time will be dealt
with, but the period of danger has passed.”

“And now, I suppose,” said I miserably, “having no further use for me
you are going to finish me off?”

“Exactly,” said Major Haynes, with great cheerfulness, “you shall go
back to America, Heine, as an awful example to all spies. In that
capacity you will still be useful to us. You will at least be able to
tell them something of the difficulties that await a man who tried to
get out of England even with a forged passport. Believe me, it is just
as difficult to get in, unless we want you in.”

“You are going to let me go free?”

He nodded.

“The outward-bound _Cremanic_ calls here by arrangement in two hours’
time. You will be taken out in a motor-launch and put on board. Your
cabin is 143 and you will find it quite comfortable.”

He put his hand in his pocket and took out a flat case which he
opened.

“Here is your passport,” he said.

I took the passport in my hand and read the description of myself,
even my photograph was pasted on. I was described as “Heine.”
“Occupation: German Spy.” “Reason for travel: By Special Deportation
Order 64731. The British Government having no further need of his
services.”

To my mind the cruellest thing was the photograph which showed me in
that infernal clergyman’s garb. Underneath was written, “Religion:
Church of England.”

I looked at Major Haynes.

“You have spared me no humiliation,” I said, and there were tears in
my eyes, for remember what position I had held in the service.

“Oh, yes, I have,” said Major Haynes, “I might have taken a flashlight
photograph of you as a sweep. You’ve no idea how funny you looked.”

Two hours later I stood upon the first-class passenger deck of the
_Cremanic_ watching with folded arms the land sinking slowly astern.

Farewell! False Albion! Thy doom is assured! The ever-victorious
German U-boat----

I stopped suddenly and thought, then turning to a sailor I asked: “Is
there any danger of being torpedoed?”

“They gets a ship sometimes, sir,” he said with callous indifference.
“But when we sees ’em we shoots at ’em and that generally frightens
’em off. If every passenger keeps his eye skinned there ain’t much
danger.”

I spent the rest of the voyage with my eyes skinned.




 CHAPTER XIII.
 THE U-BOAT ADVENTURE

I have often remarked to good friends of mine that there is evidence
of the fact that Providence has a special interest in my welfare. We
Germans are naturally a devout and religious people, and I need only
remind you that Luther, the Father of the Reformation, was a German,
to bring home to you the fact that in the ground of the Fatherland,
piety and solemn-view-taking flourish like the green bay tree.
Charity, forbearance, lawfulness and lovingkindness are as the breath
of good German nostrils, and he who disputes this statement is a liar
and a rascal.

As for the editors of the English and Scottish press, by heavens! I
would that I had my way on them. I would flog them till they all but
died and brand them with hot irons “liar,” turning them loose to beg
their way from door to door. Woe to ye, Scribes and Pharisees, if
Heine ever sits in London as Administrator of the Hostile Press!

Such a thing is not unlikely.

When you received my last, did you not hourly expect to find me
knocking at your door? I told you of Major Haynes, the so-called
Intelligence Officer, and of how he put me on a ship sailing for
America. But he little knew his Heine! He little realized that the
modest and unassuming man who bade him a courteous farewell and walked
with careless dignity to the waiting boat was turning over certain
schemes in his head.

As I stood on the broad deck of the English steamer and shook my fist
at Perfidious Ireland, I realized in a flash what my beloved
Fatherland was losing by my departure from a land in which I had
rendered Germany so many signal services. Oh, thou Bride of the Rhine!
Thou Iron Child of Valour, I, Heine, the least of Thy Servants shed a
tear of sorrow that thou hast endured the loss of one loyal heart,
faithful and restless in his efforts against a World of Enemies!
Prosper, beloved of the Gods! Let Victory be added unto Victory!

“Keep your eye skinned for submarines,” said a kindly meaning mariner,
and these words brought me to the alert. My situation was serious. It
could not be known in Berlin that I had sailed, and the stupid fools
of U-boat commanders would be ignorant of my presence on the British
ship.

At the thought a cold shiver of horror percolated through my spinal
column.

What tragedy if such be the end of a splendid career. I skinned my
eyes throughout the day and twice by my loud cries saved disaster,
once from a floating mine shaped like a wooden barrel (such is the
supreme cunning of our race) and once from a U-boat which constantly
came up and dived.

The stupid English said that the first was only a barrel and that the
up-and-down-diving U-boat was a porpoise, but Heine’s eyes are sharp.

I did not attempt to make friends for the voyage, and rejected with
scorn the suggestion of a frivolous American that I should play poker.
Imagine playing poker in the midst of a great war! I asked him if he
could play skat, but he knew nothing of that splendid and truly German
game.

I can give a great deal of information about the methods that are
employed to convoy ships through what is called the Danger Zone, and
in due course I may write a report on the subject, or rather I should
have written a report but for circumstances which I will reveal at a
much later stage. Of how we zig-zagged about, first east and then
west, then north and then south, of the balloons and aeroplanes and
torpedo boats that watched us there seemed no end.

My German heart swelled with pride as I thought that all these
precautions were forced by our incomparable U-boats.

I was sitting on the deck waiting for the sound of the dinner-bell,
thinking out how superior the German race is to all its kind and how
it must inevitably, sooner or later, conquer the world, when one of
the ship’s officers passed by. I took off my hat to him and bowed and
he gave me a little jerk of his head and passed on. Suddenly, however,
he stopped.

“You want to keep your eyes skinned,” he said with that brutal
gruffness which is so characteristic of the English.

“Sir,” I said with a little smile, “my eyes are so thoroughly skinned
that I can hardly shut them at night.”

Instead of laughing at this little jest, he made a grunting, pig-like
noise.

“There’s a U-boat somewhere about here,” he said, “the patrols have
lost sight of it. I see you are prepared.”

I was wearing an unsinkable waistcoat, which I had purchased from the
steward, the life-belt, which we are compelled to wear, but which I
should have worn under any circumstances, a pair of thick waterproof
boots, and my pockets were filled with brandy flask and sandwiches, in
case of accident. We Germans are prepared for anything, as I have
remarked before.

“Do you mean to say,” I said in alarm, “that there is a chance of--of
unpleasant happenings?”

“A big chance,” he said, “fortunately we have got very few passengers,
so I am not disguising the fact to many of them that we are in some
danger.”

“But,” I protested indignantly, “what about the boasted patrol boats?
Where are your many vaunted aeroplanes? Why are we not preceded by
warships to take the shock, which, according to the lying statements
in the daily papers, is the custom?”

“Probably they didn’t know you were coming on board,” he said with
true British insolence, and passed on.

The dinner-bell rang, but I remained on deck. I would take no risks.
Here I was, and here I would remain until the Danger Zone was passed,
even if I had to sit up night after night. All the lights on the deck
were extinguished. There was no sound but the steady thud of the screw
and the roar of the water running past the hull of the steamer. The
night was pitch black, such a night as filled my soul with strangely
religious thoughts, and whilst my mind was thus occupied, I heard a
shout from the bridge, an excited voice cried something, and I rushed
to the side of the vessel and looked left and right, my skinned eyes
searching the darkness.

Then something happened! I have never understood what it was. I was
conscious of a brilliant flash of light, and a roar in my ear, such as
a man feels who may occasionally take a bath and inadvertently put his
head under the water. I felt myself leaping through space. I had only
time to remember that I had all my money in my pockets, but that I had
left several important documents in my cabin, before I received
another shock. I was in the water. The life-belt supported me. There
was no sign of the ship. I screamed for help with true German
thoroughness. I was bobbing up and down like a cork, and I felt dazed
and ill.

What had happened? Had the ship sunk? Was I alone on the ocean? I
thought of my life. I thought of the Fatherland. I hoped the cursed
submarine would sink and all its crew be drowned.

I do not know how long I was in the water. They told me it was not
more than twenty minutes, but that twenty minutes was an eternity to
me. The water was bitterly cold, my hands were numb, but I found my
brandy flask and emptied its contents down my throat. I felt a little
better after that, but, oh, joy, when suddenly I heard a voice in the
darkness shout, almost in my ear it seemed:

“There’s somebody,” and the words were spoken in German.

Almost immediately something big and hard rubbed against me. I can
describe it in no other way. A hand gripped my collar and dragged me
on to what felt like the top of an egg, if you can imagine the egg
laid over on its side.

“Help,” I said faintly. “I am a true German.”

“A German?” said a surprised voice, “Gott in Himmel! What are you
doing here?”

I staggered to my feet, assisted by a strong German arm and addressed
the presence which was dimly outlined against the starry skies. How
godlike is a German officer! How loud and commanding is his voice!
What splendid domination there is in his whole bearing.

“Get him below,” he said, “there go the searchlights. Is that you,
Fritz?”

“Yes, Herr Lieutenant.”

“Well, what is she doing?”

“She has just sent an S.O.S. and wirelessed her position,” said the
other, whom I could not see.

“Be ready to submerge. Come on, my friend.”

He gripped me by the arm. I was pushed down a steel ladder and found
myself in the confined space of a German submarine. Instantly there
was a loud clang as though the lid had closed on a box, a rush of warm
air and----

“Hold tight!” said the voice of the commander.

His back was to me, but I could tell by his voice that he was a man of
noble birth. The deck tilted under me and I had a sinking sensation in
the pit of my stomach, and then the horror of the situation dawned
upon me. We were going down to the depths of the sea. We would
probably be chased by those infernal destroyers and trawlers, and
aeroplanes.

It never struck me before what a brutal race the British were. Here
were we, boxed up in a frail little vessel, the prey of a hundred
bloodthirsty hawks. I felt faint at the thought, and casting aside all
restraint, I walked up to the commander still standing by his
directing instruments.

“Pardon, Excellency,” I said, and would have taken off my hat, only I
remembered I had left the ship without one.

“Well?” he said, without moving round.

“Would it not be wise,” I suggested, “if you made for the nearest port
and let me land? I feel I am only an encumbrance on your Excellency,
and will be eating the food which I feel sure you need.”

“Go to the devil,” said this arrogant young man, whose name I learnt
was von Gwinner.

Presently he had finished his work and walked back to me.

“Do you imagine that I would walk into the nets and risk certain
destruction in order to save you a little discomfort? What is your
name, swine?”

“Excellency,” I said, “I am known as Heine.”

I spoke, I think, with dignity, and I hope that the man was impressed.

“I am an officer of the Imperial Intelligence Staff.”

“How did you come to be on this ship?” he asked.

I explained to him that I was making my escape from England, carrying
valuable documents, which were of the highest importance to the German
Government. I felt if I said this he would regret his precipitate
action in sinking the ship, and it flashed upon me as I was speaking
that possibly I could find a way out of my exceedingly uncomfortable
position.

“Did the ship sink?” I asked.

“No,” he said with a curse, “we probably damaged her bow, but she’s
still afloat.”

“Then,” said I eagerly, “why not run me up quite close to her. There
are a number of ladders with which I have familiarized myself and I
can very easily step from your deck to----”

“Don’t talk like a fool,” he said, “she is probably surrounded by
destroyers and trawlers now. If I got near her I should probably have
a depth charge on me and never know what struck me.” He looked at me
thoughtfully. “A spy, eh?” he said. “Do you speak English?”

“Perfectly, sir,” I said.

“Thunder and lightning,” he said, “you are the very man I want.”

I cannot say that I was very pleased.

“You want me?” I faltered.

“You are the man I want. By heavens! It’s providential. Sit down on
that locker.”

“May I smoke?” I asked.

“If you want me to kick you in the stomach,” he replied viciously;
“smoking on a submarine, are you mad? Do you imagine you are on the
Kiel Ferry?”

He was so angry that I changed the conversation. He then told me that
this was one of the super-submarines which had been sent out from Kiel
soon after the U-boat warfare had started, and that he had hitherto
carried an intelligence officer whose task was to go ashore at
unfrequented places, make his way to the nearest seaport and learn
something about sailings.

“I have felt the loss of him,” he said.

“Have you lost him?” I asked with a quaking heart.

“Yes,” he said carelessly, “he was shot dead by a coastguard near
Portland. He was an amiable man, and I quite missed him.”

“Indeed,” I said faintly, “is there any danger of that?”

“Oh, yes, you would have to take that risk! You tell me you haven’t
incurred the suspicion of the authorities.”

Like a fool I had told him that in describing my departure from
England.

“Very well. You couldn’t be better. I remember your name now.”

He unlocked a little steel box attached to the wall of the small cabin
in which we were speaking, and took out a book which is familiar to
me--a list of agents. He looked them down carefully. Presently he
stopped.

“What is your code name?” he asked.

I told him, and he nodded.

“That’s right. If you had deceived me, I should have gone up to the
surface, put you on deck and submerged again--leaving you without your
lifebelt. As it is, I appoint you Intelligence Officer with pay at the
rate of six marks a day.”

“Thank you,” I said, not without sarcasm, though this I did not make
evident.

How can I describe my thoughts and feelings during that terrible
night? Wild with anxiety as to my fate, the maddening knowledge that I
was perhaps thousands of feet under the surface of the sea, and liable
at any minute to strike a submerged rock or a sea-mine, facing the
prospect of stealing ashore and perhaps being shot by coastguards
either coming or going! All these things crowded one upon the other,
and robbed me of sleep.

The interior of the submarine was thick and close. The sailors glanced
at me disdainfully, and answered any questions which I put to them
with bluff rudeness.

You cannot conceive, my dear friend, how restricted life is on board a
German submarine. It is all whirling engines and projecting brackets
that bump your head. These are noises most terrible to hear. The only
man who talked to me was a good fellow, whose name I forget, who told
me that only one German submarine in three ever gets back to port, and
the stories he told me about nets and submarine mines, and how you can
be seen from the surface by aeroplanes, and how sometimes the engines
go wrong and it is impossible to rise, turned me almost grey.

It is very likely that I slept. My own impression is that I did not,
but I am told that it was necessary to kick me because I was snoring.
As I never snore this is palpably absurd. But apparently we did come
to the surface in the night, but nobody told me this, or I would have
gone on to the deck to get some fresh air. The sailor with whom I
spoke informed me that if I had, the commander would probably have
kicked me into the sea, and that members of the crew were not allowed
to come up without special permission.

The agony of the following day beggars description. We were coming up
to the surface and our periscope was showing, when suddenly the U-boat
gave a violent jerk and I was almost flung off my feet. I thought we
had struck a mine, and fell into the arms of the commander,
half-fainting. I fell out again with true German alacrity, when I
realized that it was not agreeable to him. He afterwards explained to
me with a great deal of unnecessary insolence that he had come up
close to a destroyer and had had to submerge in a hurry.

We were not fortunate that day, and the next time our periscope showed
above water it was nearly carried away by shell-fire from a trawler
less than a thousand yards away, and I sat and quaked as I heard the
dull throb of the depth charges exploding in our vicinity.

That evening the commander beckoned me to the tiny box which he called
a cabin.

“Do you know Devonshire?” he asked.

“Yes, Excellency,” I replied.

Of course, I did not know Devonshire, but it is very simple to buy a
map and discover anything I want to know.

“Do you know Siddicombe Bay?”

“Not very well,” I replied.

“It is within easy walking distance of Torcombe Bay,” he said. “The
coast is not well guarded there. I will land you under cover of the
darkness and you will make your way to Quaytown. My information is
that there is a convoy of ships there which are sailing either
to-morrow or the next day. I want you to make inquiries. Here is the
name of the public-house where sailors are to be found. As soon as you
have secured information make your way back to the point where I shall
land you, flash an electric torch once, and I will come and pick you
up.”

He opened a case that he took from his desk and extracted two or three
documents.

“Your name will be William Smith,” he said, “here is an English
registration card. You live in Manchester, and you are looking for a
ship. Here is your discharge book which you need not show unless you
are questioned.”

He told me that these documents had been taken from a sailing ship
which he had sunk, and that the owner of them had been killed by
shell-fire.

At eight o’clock that night, we came slowly into the deep waters of
Siddicombe Bay. It is, I believe, one of the beauty spots of
Devonshire, a half-moon of green water surrounded by high red cliffs
and sloping fields, chequered red and green. I did not see this by
night, of course, and I am indebted to a local guide book for the
description. A tiny collapsible boat was got out and opened, and into
this I stepped.

“Remember,” said Commander von Gwinner, at parting, “you are to return
at ten o’clock. If you are late you will be sorry, my friend.”

“Your Excellency,” I said quietly, “I am less influenced by your
threats, though I recognize that being well-born you mean no harm,
than by the knowledge that I am serving our beloved Fatherland, for
whose success and victory I ever pray, and on whose behalf I am
prepared to make the most monumental sacrifices.”

“You talk too much,” he said; “get into the boat.”

We landed at the beach without mishap. It was deserted, and I made my
way along in the direction indicated by the local map, which I had
studied with the commander, and presently found the zig-zag path that
led to the top of the cliffs and to the little village of Siddicombe.
Half an hour’s brisk walk brought me to Quaytown, a large, straggling
town, which was in times of peace a pleasure resort, but which had
been converted in war time to a port of call.

The main roads flank the little harbour which, as I could see,
contained about six ships, and after inquiring from the policeman, I
found my way to the public-house to which I had been directed.

It was nine o’clock when I arrived, so I had only half an hour to
pursue my inquiries. The common bar was filled with a noisy crowd,
mostly sailors and men of the R.N.V.R. I managed to get a drink, and
cast my eyes round for a likely informant, and found one in a common
sailor of the Naval Reserve, who gladly accepted my invitation to
drink, but asked me to bring it to him, because the bar lady had
refused to serve him with any more.

“It’s a hell of a life,” he said, “what with the law and the price of
beer. It’s a dog’s life.”

It was providential that I found him. He was a man with a grievance,
and a man with a grievance is very voluble.

“Come,” I said cheerily, “things are not so bad as you think. We shall
soon have these damned Germans beaten.”

“Don’t you make any mistake about it, my boy,” said the common sailor,
whose name was Jones, “if we are beating the Germans, why are we
keeping our ships in harbour? Look here, mate,” he said, speaking with
the stupidity of a drunken person, “we’ve got six ships in this
harbour. They’ve been lying here for a week. Why? Because there are
two German submarines outside--or rather one,” he corrected himself.
“We’ve looked for them German submarines everywhere. The balloon’s
been out, the aeroplane’s been out, the trawlers and destroyers have
been out, but they haven’t got ’em--at least they haven’t found one,”
he corrected himself again. “What’s going to happen? To-morrow
afternoon at three o’clock when the convoy goes out----”

“To-morrow at three,” I said carelessly, “that’s a curious time to
leave.”

“Never mind if it is curious, or if it isn’t,” said the man rudely
quarrelsome, “they know their own business better than you do, my
lad.”

“Naturally,” I said hastily.

“Well,” he went on, “to-morrow afternoon they go out at three o’clock.
What happens? Them submarines will get ’em--at least one of ’em will,”
he said.

So I had my information. Trust Heine to make a discovery of this kind.

At three o’clock on the following afternoon! The excellent von Gwinner
would be delighted. He would understand perhaps that he had a
different type of man to deal with than what he expected. Possibly he
would send my name into Headquarters for an Iron Cross--that
possibility awakened a thrill of pleasurable anticipation.

“But come, my friend,” I said, “you take too pessimistic a view. Now I
don’t believe that these six ships will be sunk.”

“Not all of ’em,” said the inebriated sailor gloomily, “but one of ’em
will. Them submarines are too artful, or rather,” he said, “one of ’em
is.”

His insistence upon the differentiation piqued my curiosity.

“Tell me, my friend, if it is not betraying any military secret, and
speaking as sailor to sailor----”

“You ain’t no sailor,” said the drunken man commonly.

“Speaking as man to man,” I said in haste to get him off the subject,
“why do you say first that there are two submarines and then you only
refer to one of them.”

He was pulling at a short clay pipe, very dark and very
stomach-revolting, and he pulled for a long time before he spoke.

“Because,” he said at last, “one of ’em’s done hisself in.”

“Sunk?” I said with the same carelessness.

What information to carry to Commander von Gwinner! What a back-slap
he would give me, at the same time saying, “Good old boy, you have
done very well indeed.” I declare to you at that moment that the
thought of serving the Fatherland brought tears of joy to my eyes. I
would collect all the information I could, for already the hands of
the clock were ominously near half-past.

“In what manner has he done himself in? Sunk?” I asked again.

“Well, he ain’t sunk,” admitted the man, “but he soon will be. He was
spotted about an hour ago going into Siddicombe Bay, and all the
bloomin’ fleet is on its way there with nets and trawlers, and depth
charges, and Gawd knows what!”

I held on to the wall for support.

“They’ll have him netted in by half-past ten,” said my friend.

I looked at the clock again. There was time for me to get back to
Siddicombe, but the next words of my acquaintance arrested my
attention.

“He’s bound to spot ’em comin’ and make a run for it, and they’re
bound to ketch ’im,” he said with cruel relish.

I could get back in half an hour. The boat would be there waiting at
ten o’clock. I could warn von Gwinner, and he would “make a run for
it.”

What stupidity! What recklessness! Who are these people, these
air-giving aristocrats, who risk the lives of the true democracy! What
right have they, I thought, to fling men of my intelligence and genius
into terrible and spine-shaking danger and perhaps to death?

The clock pointed to 9.30.

“Well, so long,” said my acquaintance, “is there anything I can do for
you, matey?”

I swallowed my drink and looked at the clock again.

“Yes,” I said firmly, for with my usual quickness of thought I had
made my decision. “Can you recommend me an hotel where I can get a
good bed?”




 CHAPTER XIV.
 BRETHREN OF THE ORDER

Consider, dear friends, the embarrassing circumstances under which I
found myself! Deported from England by a man whom I admit, is a person
of considerable sagacity, though infinitely inferior to the
Intelligence officers one finds attached to the German army, both in
birth and natural inquisitiveness--a man who had it in his power to
drag me straight away to the execution shed as a spy!

Contrary to all his orders and instructions I had come back! I, one
humble German in a World of Enemies, had denied the law and majesty of
England and had come back! It is true that I did not want to come
back, but that does not alter the fact. We Germans are modest people,
as I have remarked before. We do not ask for praise, we do not invite
approval; we are satisfied, in the words of an English proverb, with
the approval of a good conscience.

I do not want to boast of my own courage. That would be an un-German
thing to do. I merely say that ninety-nine out of every hundred men
who found themselves in my position, alone, with a false registration
card, with no passport, with my disguise as a Chilian penetrated, with
the doors of twenty prisons yawning to receive me, would have sunk
down into their boots and suffered grievously from cold feet. But you,
who know Heine, are well aware that he is not a man to be lightly
scared.

I woke up that morning in Quaytown without fear, a penniless Ishmael,
hunted by the law, the hand of every man against me. Yet I was
cheerful. When I say I was penniless, I speak of course in a
figurative sense. I had a few pounds in my belt. I had a few thousands
in a certain New York bank and in various places in England there
would be men who would help me.

I paid my bill at the little hotel where I had spent the night and
caught the nine o’clock train for London. I got off the train at Bath
and made my way to a certain large stationer’s which accepts
advertisements for the leading London dailies. On payment of a little
extra money those advertisements are telegraphed to London and appear
on the following morning.

The advertisement I inserted was a very simple one. It ran:


 “Clerk, over military age, expert book-keeper, with intimate knowledge
 of the Argentine, Cuba, Batavia and Holland, requires situation.
 Salary £200.”


An innocent advertisement, you may say. Yet, my friend, that was the
S.O.S. of a political agent in distress. On the following morning when
I saw that appear, with a certain box number, in the _Daily
Megaphone_, I should know that I had to wait for two or three days for
one of our industrious agents to answer that advertisement.

The words, “Argentine, Cuba, Batavia, Holland,” in that order meant,
“I am in urgent need of money.” The “£200,” which followed was the
amount I required. Had I advertised that my experience was in France,
Egypt, China, every German agent in England would have known that
special intelligence had been received from Germany and that they must
gather at an agreed rendezvous to receive their orders.

Had I merely written that my experience was in London, Bombay and
Buenos Aires, half the agents in England would have made preparations
to depart from this country without delay.

I arrived in London by night. That was the object of my getting off at
Bath, or rather partly the object, because I had a certain person, a
minor agent, to interview. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he was not
to be found, and it was not until the train came in and I was
preparing to step into my carriage that he made his appearance, rather
out of breath, for he had run all the way from the apartment-house he
kept.

“I found your note,” he said. “Are you alone in this carriage?”

I looked round. There were no other passengers.

“Then,” said he, “I will take the liberty, Herr Heine, of coming to
London with you. I have much to tell you. We thought you had left
England.”

Briefly I explained to him, as the train moved on, the reason I had
returned. I told him how I was carrying important despatches for
America, and how the ship was sunk by a submarine, and of how I had
reached the submarine and had ordered the captain to take me to the
nearest port.

“He landed me at night,” I said, “but I fear the unfortunate man
suffered sadly as a result of his politeness.”

He nodded.

“There was one of our heroic U-boats destroyed this morning in
Siddicombe Bay,” he said. “I got news through one of our men at
Quaytown. That wasn’t your U-boat, Herr Heine?”

“No, no,” I said hastily, “certainly not. I have never been to
Siddicombe in my life. I cannot tell you everything, my friend, there
are some secrets which cannot be revealed.”

He bowed respectfully.

He then went on to tell his news.

“I don’t know whether you have been in touch with Headquarters
lately,” he said, “but we have received information that a new society
has been formed in England called ‘The Sons of Irish Freedom.’ They
are planning a new rebellion, and we have been ordered to give them
every assistance.”

I nodded.

“This information is not new to me,” I said.

It is not the German way to allow underlings to believe that they are
better informed than their superiors.

“But pray go on,” I resumed, “tell me all you know.”

As a matter of fact, he had very little to tell except that the Sons
of Irish Freedom were a numerous body, that they held meetings behind
closed doors, that they had special passwords, grips and penalties,
and that all agents had been instructed to get into touch with their
local branch, not only to offer whatever assistance they could to the
movement, but also to call upon the brethren of the order for whatever
help they required. I made a note of this. It might be of great use to
me.

“What is the password?” I asked.

The foolish fellow smiled feebly.

“Alas, Herr Heine, I did not bring it with me, and I cannot recall the
word!”

“Stupid owl!” I thundered, “is it thus you neglect your work? Is the
Fatherland and its welfare of such small importance that you commit
such an act of carelessness?”

He was very apologetic and agitated, and I forgave him. You
understand, of course, that he was not a man of great intelligence. He
was a German who had married an Englishwoman and the English had not
interned him for some mad reason--you know what the English are!

I reached Paddington just before midnight, and took a cab to an
apartment in Bayswater, where a friend of mine had once stayed, but
where I was unknown to the landlord. I had previously telegraphed to
him from Bath to say that I was coming, and I found him sitting up for
me, a tall, gaunt-looking man, with long black hair and a straggling
black beard. He showed me up to my room and left me for the night.

My apartments were on the first floor, and consisted of a sitting and
bedroom, and I was up betimes in the morning, busy with the writing
material I had bought at Bath, reorganizing the service from which I
had been so rudely torn.

I dare not, naturally, go to my old offices, and it was not safe to
trust the post to communicate with my agents in London. But Heine is
no ordinary man, and there are many more ways of choking a cat than by
feeding it with butter-milk, as the old saying goes.

It was whilst I was at work that there occurred the incident which was
to so considerably affect my plans, and I would say to those
supercilious critics who are so ready to condemn from the critical
arm-chair the active workings of the executive officer (so easy it is,
my dear critics, to sneer and carp at hard-working and conscientious
men performing the holiest services for the Fatherland!) that in
pursuit of a design even as infallible a man as Heine may fall into an
error or be guilty of a false side-step.

It is the intention, the dominant underlying spirit of patriotism
which counts. I was turning over my papers when I came upon an
advertisement booklet which had been packed in a small parcel of
biscuits and chocolate, which I had purchased at a grocer’s in Bath. I
suppose when I was eating my frugal meal in the train I had
mechanically put the booklet into my pocket and had piled it on the
table with the rest of my papers--it is my methodical custom to clear
my pockets every morning and examine the contents, in which ways I
have very often saved most important memoranda from destruction.

It was one of those gaudy advertisements of crude colours, such as the
English printers produce, advertising somebody’s whisky. But what
attracted my justifiable wrath was the design. It was a map of the
world, decorated as is the arrogant British custom, with patches of
red to represent her downtrodden colonies, whilst in the centre of the
map was a picture of a bottle. Over the design were the words, “The
whisky that has made the British Empire famous.”

Such frivolity! Such lowness! I looked with proud disdain upon this
shameless picture.

“British Empire!” I cried, and to make the well-deserved castigation
more apposite, I spoke in English. “The world’s curse! Be sure we
shall destroy thee, limb by limb, thou devastating and conscienceless
robber of the world!” and saying this I slashed the picture with my
pen.

As I did so a voice said behind me:

“Well done, you never spoke a truer word.”

I turned with a start, cursing my folly that I had spoken my thoughts
aloud. The tall, gaunt man was standing behind me. He had entered
noiselessly and had closed the door.

“Give me your hand, brother,” he said, and at that moment there came
to me all that my friend from Bath had told me the night previous. I
gripped his hand, and as I did so, I felt his thumb touch one of my
knuckles in a peculiar way. It was the grip, and instantly with true
German agility of mind, I responded.

“You are one of us?” he said eagerly.

I hesitated a second. If I admitted that I was a member I should
betray myself.

“No, I am not yet,” I said boldly, “but I hope to be one of you.”

“You shall, you shall,” he said, “the lodge meets to-morrow night.”

He picked up the advertisement with a sneering smile, and tore it in
two.

“You think I am a fanatic,” he said, “but I have seen so much of the
ruin and desolation----”

“Say no more,” I said, “I understand.”

I would have spoken about Ireland then and there, but I was not quite
sure of my ground. New Irish societies rise every week, and each has a
different and generally more violent programme than the last. It would
not do for me to show any lukewarmness.

“Believe me,” I said earnestly, “nothing will give me greater pleasure
than to be enrolled in your noble society which is to free the world
from the oppressor of centuries.”

He shook my hand, and I could see the emotion which my words had
evoked glistening in his eyes.

“You realize,” he said, “that you must pledge yourself----”

“Believe me,” I responded instantly, “I will take the oath without a
tremor. Your great enemy shall be my great enemy.”

We shook hands again and parted. When he had gone, I congratulated
myself. What good fortune had brought me here? Yet stay, was it not
rather my own acumen? Had I not specially chosen this boarding-house a
year ago for one of my agents? I forget what consideration had induced
me, but there the fact remained, it had been my choice.

I spent the rest of the morning writing. My first act, of course, was
to send a letter to Major Haynes. I must be on the safe side, and if I
were ever detected, in court it would count in my favour that I had
technically surrendered myself to him the moment I had reappeared in
England. My letter, a copy of which I have, may be given since it is,
I think I may say in all modesty, a fine example of what I might term
an alibi letter.

It began thus:


 “Sir Haynes (though I knew he was not noble, I thought it might
 tickle the fellow’s vanity to address him in terms of lordliness).
 Here am I like a naughty penny, turning up again under your nose! But
 quite unwillingly! You have doubtless learnt that the gallant
 ocean-liner upon which you placed me is no more! She was sunk by a
 German U-boat! Though I swam about looking for survivors, desiring to
 rescue as many poor Englishmen as possible from the wicked and
 mistaken policy of dirty old von Turnips” (may heaven forgive me for
 this jest at the expense of that great patriot), I was not successful.
 I swam about in the water for ten hours and was picked up by a passing
 steamer! We arrived in London this morning and I am now in a terrible
 dilemma. I dare not give you my address, for I am in fear of arrest!
 Guarantee to me by your power-compelling word that I shall not be
 punished. If you will insert an advertisement in the _Daily
 Megaphone_, like this:

    ‘From H. to H. All well.

    ‘See me at my office’

 I will immediately report myself. In the meantime, dear Sir Haynes,
 thanking you for your past favours, and hoping by a constant attention
 to your wishes to merit the continuance of your patronage.

                                                    “I am,
                                                    “Yours faithfully,
                                                    “Heine.”


I calculated that it would take two days for this to reach him,
another day before the advertisement appeared, and I then had a fourth
day before I replied in person--and in four days much service could be
rendered to the Fatherland.

I was determined to get as much out of this secret society as I
possibly could. All that afternoon I formulated my plans. Through a
call office I got into touch with Kriessler, who was one of our
subsidiary agents in London, and had rendered me and the Fatherland
great services.

We met by appointment that night at the Marble Arch, and almost the
first question he asked me was whether I had got into touch with the
Sons of Irish Freedom? When I told him I had, he was astonished.

“You don’t lose much time, Herr Heine,” he said admiringly.

“That is very true, Kriessler,” I said gravely, “and I appreciate your
compliment.”

Kriessler was in a position to pass through any information collected
in England. I, of course, had been the supreme medium, but I dare not
exercise any of the old machinery of transmission. It was very
dangerous. It might be, and probably was, very dangerous for
Kriessler, but for the sacred cause of Germany we must take risks, so
I let Kriessler take them.

I arranged for him to send to my house on the following morning for a
brief report which I told him must be sent to Headquarters with the
least delay.

“You see, my dear Kriessler,” I said, at parting, “I know all there is
to be known about this secret society. But I am anxious to check my
knowledge. You will please tell me all you have heard, and if I do not
interrupt you to point out your mistakes, you will understand that it
is not desirable that the subordinate officials should know as much as
their superiors.”

“I quite understand that, Herr Heine,” said Kriessler, “but I do not
pretend to know a great deal about the Sons of Irish Freedom. One
knows that they have meetings and passwords. I also know that the
police are actively searching for their lodges, but so far without
success. I am told they are very desperate and dangerous men, and I
believe that there is only one lot in London. They hate England----”

“That I know,” I smiled.

I went home and wrote a very full report on the constitution and
working of the Sons of Irish Freedom. Blame me not, dear friend, for
my innocent deceit, for I had never heard of the Sons of Irish Freedom
till I arrived at Bath, nor think harshly of me that I wrote with
elaborate detail to Potsdam upon their ritual and objectives.

That same night I sent off my letter to Major Haynes, and finished my
report on the secret society, which was given to the messenger whom
Kriessler sent soon after breakfast. I took my meals alone in my
sitting-room and my strange, gaunt friend, whose name was Clarkson,
only saw me once and did no more than to smile mysteriously and say:

“At eight o’clock to-night.”

I nodded gravely. I did not expect to hear any more about the matter,
being well aware that my host would not care to discuss so weighty a
secret, and I was surprised in the afternoon to receive a visit from
Mr. Clarkson, who was accompanied by a short, stout man, who was also
very pale and wore powerful spectacles.

“This, sir,” said he, “is my friend, Mr. Moore, who will act as your
sponsor to-night.” He turned to Mr. Moore. “This gentleman,” said he,
“will become one of us.”

Mr. Moore bowed.

“You realize, of course,” he said, a little pompously, I thought,
“that you must absolutely surrender your allegiance to the World’s
Terror, and that from this night forward you may count upon the moral
support of a band of brothers, and that you will give yourself heart
and soul to our sublime task.”

“Have no fear,” I said, seizing his hand too, and wringing it, “until
the tyrant is crushed I will be a loyal comrade.”

“Good,” said Mr. Moore, and after a few commonplaces about the
weather, they departed.

At seven o’clock that night I dressed myself with care, soberly and
unostentatiously. What cared I for the oaths or for these fanatical
conspirators, with their absurd secrecy, their passwords, their grips
and the like!

Mr. Clarkson knocked at my door at a quarter to eight and we sallied
forth together. I suggested taking a taxi-cab, but he would not hear
of it, and we went by bus to Camden Town.

It was just as we were turning into Baynam Street that we noticed a
little crowd gathered about something which lay on the sidewalk. We
would have passed on, but Mr. Clarkson, overhearing something that was
said by a member of the group, pushed his way through the little knot
of people and I followed.

A man lay prone on the sidewalk.

“What is it?” I asked curiously.

Mr. Clarkson made no reply till we were clear of the crowd.

“One of our people,” he said bitterly, “fallen to the enemy.”

“Fallen?” I said.

Mr. Clarkson nodded.

“It happens now and again,” he said, “we are fighting a cunning and
ruthless foe, my friend.”

“But are you leaving him there?”

“For the moment,” said Mr. Clarkson. “I will ask one of the brethren
to make inquiries as to how it happened, and if it is possible to give
any assistance to our unfortunate comrade, it will be given.”

This was news indeed. So this mighty British government was not above
striking an assassin blow to rid itself of its enemies.

From Baynam Street leads a smaller thoroughfare, near the Camden Road
end of which is a small hall. The night was dark, the painted
street-lamps cast tiny pools of dim light upon the pavement as we
stole furtively through the door of the hall, and passed through a
small anteroom to a smaller room beyond.

In this room there was another door, and toward this Mr. Clarkson
walked.

“You will wait here,” he said in a whisper.

He knocked in a peculiar manner on the door, and a sliding panel
opened. He whispered something, the door was unlocked, and after he
had slipped into the room, closed again.

I waited about three minutes before the door opened, and Mr. Clarkson
came out accompanied by Mr. Moore, both of whom wore on their breasts
sashes of red.

Mr. Moore, scarcely raising his voice above a whisper, asked me a
number of questions. They were couched in a curious semi-legal,
semi-philosophical vein, and I confess I did not understand very much,
nor did I trouble to pay a great deal of attention to what was being
said. I knew by their intonation when I had to say “Yes,” and when I
had to say “No.” When I had finished Mr. Clarkson looked anxiously at
his friend.

“I think that is satisfactory, Brother Moore?”

“Eminently satisfactory, Brother Clarkson,” said the other.

He rapped soberly at the door and again the panel slid back and a
voice challenged him.

“Who knocks?”

“Two brethren with a candidate for initiation,” said Mr. Moore.

The panel closed and presently it opened again.

“Who vouches for this candidate?” said the voice.

“I,” said Mr. Clarkson.

“I,” said Mr. Moore.

The door was opened and we passed through, not without a fluttering of
heart on my part.

Between my two sponsors I advanced into the hall. At one end of the
room on a raised dais sat three men bearing the strange regalia of
their order. To left and right at single tables were two other
officers, also wearing decorations. I passed from one to the other.
Each addressed me in solemn language on the duty of man to man, and
presently I came to the raised dais and had to endure yet a further
long rigmarole, at the end of which the president confided the
password, which was “Fight the Fight,” the grip, and the signal knock.

I was led to a seat in the body of the hall, congratulated heartily by
Mr. Moore and Mr. Clarkson, and settled myself down to listen to the
deliberations of this strange body. They were men of all ages, of all
conditions of life, stern, determined-looking men I thought, capable
of committing any desperate deed, the kind of men who might be most
useful. There were young and old amongst them, but all bore the same
sour disappointed expression, which I had noticed both in Mr. Moore
and Mr. Clarkson.

A brother rose and had begun to address the chair when the door was
flung open excitedly and a tall, pale-faced man rushed in. As he did
so, I heard the shrill sound of police whistles.

“A raid, a raid!” he cried.

Instantly the hall was in commotion. I felt myself grow pale and
grasped Mr. Moore, who was next to me, by the arm.

“Is there any way out of this?” I asked.

“You had better stay here,” he said.

“Stay here and be caught!”

That was not Heine’s way. I dashed through the door into the street.
There was no sign of policemen, but I heard shrill whistles blowing. I
ran up into Baynam Street straight into the arms of a policeman!

“Hello,” he said, “you had better take cover. There’s an air raid on.”

“An air raid!” I gasped. “An air raid!”

“Well, perhaps it isn’t one. A mate of mine just told me it’s a false
alarm, and very likely he’s right. There’s rather too much wind for a
raid to-night.”

I could have leant against him. I was so confounded and confused I
could collect my thoughts only in fragments, and the first memory of
that evening which strangely enough came to me was the memory of that
stricken form on the pavement.

“Tell me, sir,” I said, “did you see a man lying on the ground round
the corner?”

It was, I admit, a foolish question to ask, but the memory of that
rigid victim had obsessed me.

“Oh, him,” said the constable, “yes! He was drunk.”

“Drunk?” I said in amazement.

“Yes,” said the policeman, “a man named Geary. He used to be a member
of that lodge down the road there.” He pointed to the building from
whence I had come.

“What lodge is that?” I asked.

“The Sons of Temperance,” he said, “I thought I saw you come out of
there. Ain’t you a member? Rum blokes, they are,” he went on with a
little chuckle, “always talking about drink as the Enemy and the
Terror and the Oppressor of the World. I wish somebody would oppress
me with a pint.”

I pressed a shilling into his hard, corrupt fist, and walked back to
Bayswater.




 CHAPTER XV.
 THE WORLD DICTATOR

It has frequently been observed by impartial and neutral observers,
as, for example, the learned Professor Heinrich von Stosselkopf, of
Zurich, the Italian Professor Emil Zonnernheimer, of Verona, and
Captain Albert von Zohm, the brilliant writer of Sweden (you will
observe that I have an excellent memory for names, as indeed all true
Germans have) that Germany holds all the qualities of world-sufficient
kultur save one, namely the inability to tolerate frivolity.

This does not mean that we Germans have no sense of humour. How we
laugh at the English and their stupid jokes! How puerile is the
American so-called fun spirit! Give a German a true joke, however, and
he will “ha, ha!” with the best of them. The story of the little boy
who climbed up the church steeple and fell upon some iron railings and
was prosecuted by the unimaginative policeman for damaging church
property, is one which roused a tempest of laughter from one end of
the Fatherland to the other.

Who in the world has not roared with delight at that true German story
of the lady who went to a doctor of music and showed him the corn of
her knee?

The German spirit is the true spirit of humour. Therefore, I reject
with scorn the suggestion which has been made by some who have seen
these notes, that I am trying to be funny or comical. The errors into
which a man may fall are many, but as I have said before, it is the
spirit in which one makes the attempt to serve one’s country which
counts, and it is not the performance, whether it be successful or
otherwise, which should count to a man’s credit.

I have never asked of my beloved Fatherland for any honour. I have
been content to serve humbly and obscurely. I know that the records of
my work have been wilfully suppressed by jealous superiors, otherwise
to-day there would be blazing on my bosom the Order of the Red Eagle.
Yes, I repeat, the Order of the Red Eagle has been stolen by the lies
and the misrepresentations of those who have belittled the monumental
nature of my labours in England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of
Wight.

There are moments when I grow cold with rage at the thought of this
base treason--but enough of this!

I pass to the strangest adventure of my experience, and I tell this
story because not only does it reveal the amazing unscrupulousness of
the British government, but I think it will also show the marvellous
adaptability of a German agent. I do not suggest that all agents would
have acted as I did, but then I do not think there are a great number
of German agents who are possessed of my extraordinary capacities.

It will be remembered that after my deportation from England, by a
certain Major Haynes, of whom more anon, I was submarined and landed
again on these inhospitable shores, and by reason of the sentence of
deportation, which had been illegally passed upon me without a trial,
I was compelled to lie, as they say in England, doggo.

With most of my friends I dare not communicate, and though I had
written to Major Haynes announcing that I was in England, and asking
him to give me an opportunity of calling upon him, giving, of course,
no address, I did not hear from him immediately. I had, however,
inserted an advertisement in the _Daily Megaphone_, stating that I was
a clerk with experience in the Argentine, Cuba, Batavia and Holland,
saying that I was willing to work for £200 a year, the combination of
those words meaning that I was an agent in distress and that I was
requiring £200. I had no doubt in my mind that the call would be
responded to. I was officially penniless. I had some money of my own,
but why should I spend that when there was so much money to be had for
the asking?

I called at the office of the newspaper and received a big batch of
letters in response to my advertisement. I took them back to my new
lodgings, for I had left the old apartments, owing to the fact that
the proprietor was a fanatical teetotaler, and in the privacy of my
own room I took the letters from my pocket and turned them over
rapidly, looking for one which would have an inky finger-mark on the
back flap.

I found and opened the envelope, and discovered, as I had expected,
four bank-notes for £50 without any reference to the sender. I would
have thrown the remaining letters upon the fire, had there been one,
but fortunately time was hanging on my hands, I had arranged to meet
Kriessler, the only man in London with whom I could safely
communicate, and I had two or three hours to fill in before that
appointment. So what was more natural than that I should open these
offers of a situation and read them through? Thoroughness is the
characteristic of our race. We despise no material, however
unpromising. Germany was built up upon by-products, and her wealth
extracted from the dust-bins of Europe.

They were letters of a conventional type asking me for recommendations
or inviting me to make calls upon the writers. It was the fourth
letter which interested me most of all. I read it through carefully,
put it aside, skimmed through the remainder of the letters and then
returned to this extraordinary missive.

The paper was heavy and rich. There was on the top left-hand corner a
coat of arms embossed in gold and blue. The address was 182, Berkeley
Square, which is one of the most fashionable residential squares in
London. This address, however, had been scratched out and there had
been substituted “Stoney Cottage, Hebleigh-on-Avon.” The letter was
marked “Private and very Confidential,” and ran:


 “If the advertiser is a person of discretion, and is willing to act as
 confidential secretary to a high government personage, and has a
 knowledge of world politics, a permanent position with a salary of
 £500 per annum can be offered to him for the duration of the war.”


I pondered this letter for some considerable time and before I went
out to my appointment with Kriessler, my mind was made up and I had
written offering my services, informing the writer that I had acted in
a similar capacity to a certain Legation which I was not at liberty to
name in Holland; that I was the soul of discretion, that I had no
friends in England, and that I was not liable for military service. I
added that I should be glad if the advertiser could arrange a meeting
in town and that in the circumstances I should like it to be as secret
as possible, because I was already doing confidential work for a
government department and they might not like to lose me.

The next morning came a telegram in reply.


 “Meet me to-night at ten o’clock at the corner of Berkeley Street. I
 shall be wearing a tall hat and light gloves.”


Ten o’clock that night found me at the rendezvous and punctually to
the minute a taxi-cab drew up and a gentleman alighted answering to
the description contained in the telegram. I walked up to him taking
off my hat.

“You are the advertiser?” he said sharply.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

He looked at me thoughtfully. The light was very dim but I met his
gaze without faltering.

“Do you speak French?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“Walk along with me,” he said, taking my arm.

The cabman evidently knew his client and did not expostulate at his
departure. Had I been the fare he would have covered me with vile
abuse and would have told me that he had no petrol. Such is the
unscrupulousness of London cabmen!

We walked down Berkeley Street and turned into the deserted Berkeley
Square. He stopped in front of a gloomy house.

“I live here,” he said, “but I am at present staying in the country.”

His voice was sharp. He spoke brusquely and without politeness, and I
realized in a flash that he was noble-born. He asked me several
questions, more or less irrelevant, and then suddenly he turned about
and walked back in the direction of the cab.

“I think you will do,” he said, “you will leave to-morrow evening for
Hebleigh. I will meet you at the station and drive you to my cottage.
I keep no servants in the house when I am at Hebleigh.”

This seemed strange, but I was afterwards to discover that the cottage
had been specially built for my new employer, with vacuum cleaners,
gas and electric stoves, a perfect system of central heating, water on
every floor and a bathroom attached to every bedroom.

What a comfortable place, thought I, what luxury and how providential
for me! Here I could lie quiet for weeks and never be discovered, with
nothing to break the monotony of life but an occasional bath.

I had brought down a small hand-bag containing my worldly belongings,
and I was ushered into a small bedroom simply but expensively
furnished by my host. It was in that room, the first room in which the
lights were all switched on, that I had my first good view of him. He
was a man of about fifty-five, rather thin, very grey, with a pale,
æsthetic face and long, nervous hands. It may seem curious to you
that I had not asked him his name, but if you imagine I neglected that
precaution you do not know your Heine. I had asked him but he had not
responded.

“A woman comes every day to make the beds and to prepare our principal
meal,” he said. “You will not see her because she does her work whilst
I am in my study, and the meals are served on a lift which comes
straight from the kitchen.”

To his study he led the way. It was a large room, one wall of which
was covered by a bookshelf filled with large and imposing volumes. A
handsome table filled the middle of the room. There were two
comfortable arm-chairs and a writing-table. Under the window, across
which a heavy curtain was drawn, was a smaller table, and to this my
unknown employer pointed.

“That will be yours,” he said. “Your duty will be to translate
despatches which I shall write, into such languages as I shall tell
you. Do you speak German?”

I kept a straight face.

“Perfectly,” I replied.

He nodded approvingly.

“You wonder probably,” he said, as he seated himself at the table and
looked at me strangely over the tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses fixed on
his nose, “why I require discretion, why I chose you without knowing
anything about you or without any kind of reference? I chose you in
the first place,” he went on, without waiting for me to explain that I
could produce references, “because in the first place, I think you are
a foreigner. Am I right?”

“In a sense----” I began.

“Very well,” he went on. “Oh, by the way,” he looked at me sharply,
“have you ever heard of Bilbury’s Tablets?”

I had indeed heard of Bilbury’s Tablets, the advertisements of which
covered the hoardings of England and formed the most attractive
reading matter in the stupid British newspapers. I therefore answered
in the affirmative.

“Do you know the man Bilbury?” he asked, still looking at me keenly.

I was at first tempted to say that I did, but on second consideration
I thought it best to tell the truth.

“No, sir. I have never met him.”

“Good,” he said, nodding again.

He leant back in his chair.

“Bilbury,” he said--“and this, you will understand, is
confidential--is one of the biggest and most dangerous forces working
in this country against England. I have reason to believe that, under
one name or other, he is supplying most of the German agents with
their money. I am satisfied also that his advertisements are code
messages to the enemy government--you see, I trust you.”

I nodded, a little bewildered, for I had never known of Bilbury,
though I had heard that there were in England certain persons of whose
identity I was ignorant, who were working with the Fatherland.

“I tell you of Bilbury,” he went on, “because in part he explains a
great deal of the secrecy both of my habitation and my movements. He
also explains why I have chosen, as you might think haphazard, a
confidential secretary. You are under no circumstances to communicate
with any of Bilbury’s agents, and you are at all times to be prepared
to counter the machinations of this extraordinary man.”

There were two or three letters on the table, and one of these he
picked up, slit it open and took out what appeared to me to be a
perfectly blank sheet of paper. He held it up to the light and
frowned, replacing it upon his desk.

“Your presence here is already known evidently,” he said, “but I don’t
think we need bother very much about that. Now,” he went on more
briskly, “you are entitled to know who I am. Do you know Lord
Catherton?”

“I have seen Lord Catherton,” I replied.

He nodded.

“Do you know the Earl of Seabury?”

I shook my head.

“I have never met Lord Seabury.”

“Have you ever seen a photograph of him?” he asked.

“No, sir,” I replied, “I have not.”

Lord Seabury was until recently an English colonial governor, who was
now one of the members of the War Cabinet. He is not a man who has
figured largely in public life, and not at all in English public life,
and as I had never troubled about the colonies he was unfamiliar to
me.

He nodded again.

“I see you don’t know Lord Seabury,” he said with a little smile, “for
I am he.”

My heart gave a great bound. Heine indeed had fallen upon his feet,
thought I! To find myself in the confidence of one who was admittedly
a most powerful member of the War Council--what fortune, what amazing
luck!

“Now you understand why I shall require that you treat everything I
say, and everything you witness here, in the strictest confidence.”

That practically finished the conversation. His lordship led me to a
little dining-room where dinner was already laid, and we ate our meal
almost in silence. He told me I could go to bed, that he was an early
riser and would require my attendance at six o’clock in the morning.

I scarcely slept that night, turning over and over in my mind how I
might use to the best advantage the information which I was certain to
gain.

I had taken the precaution of buying at Paddington Station a little
guide-book of the district, and I carefully studied the roads, the
railway stations, and a time-table, with which I had provided myself
with my usual forethought, and planned out the course I would take if
it became necessary to leave hurriedly. With Kriessler in London, able
to forward my despatches to the Highest Quarters, I had no doubt that
within a week the name of Heine would be ringing along the corridors
of the German Foreign Office.

Punctually at six, I presented myself in the library, and found that
his lordship had prepared coffee with his own hands. From six to eight
we worked strenuously, his lordship writing, sometimes asking me to
translate into Spanish, sometimes into French, occasionally into
German, his brief but vital correspondence. I memorized as best I
could all these letters. Some were to the Minister of Foreign Affairs
in France, one was to a neutral Legation at Berne, this being marked
“Very Confidential and Secret,” and sealed heavily with his lordship’s
own hand. One was to a Spanish Cabinet Minister, and all dealt
intimately and frankly with the conduct of the war. I remembered in a
vague way that I had heard that Lord Seabury was the virtual dictator
of England, but I never realized it until I read those dictatorial,
intolerant messages which he sent forth, one being directed to the
commander-in-chief of a certain British army, telling him that he was
on no account to attack before the fourteenth of the following month.

Breakfast was served in the room where we had taken dinner and once
that was dispatched we returned to our labours. For the whole of that
day I was kept busy. A draft treaty with the Portuguese Government,
dealing with the future of the island of San Thomé, was one of the
documents which occupied the greater part of the afternoon in
translating.

At dinner his lordship was unusually frank, and under my genial
flattery he unbent.

“It is true, Mr. Smith,” he said (Smith had been the name I had given
him), “that I am dictating the policy of the Cabinet, which reminds me
that I must draft a letter to-night to the commander-in-chief of the
battle fleet. I am not at all satisfied with--” he stopped short--“by
the way,” he asked, “have you had any communication from any
mysterious source?”

“No,” I replied.

He shook his head a little despondently.

“It seems absurd that one should be dogged by a pill-maker,” he mused,
half to himself, “but that fellow has got to be dealt with sooner or
later.”

He left the room to go to his study, leaving me to finish a glass of
port, and I was rising from the table when he returned.

“Come this way,” he said in a whisper, “I will show you something.”

He led me down the corridor into the study in which the lights had
been extinguished. We walked across the room and he pulled back the
curtain. A bright moon was shining and at the far end of the garden
near the road was the figure of a thick-set man who was pacing slowly
and restlessly up and down the road. He dropped the fold of the
curtain and we returned to the dining-room which faces the back of the
house.

“That gentleman is M. Tarakanova,” he said, “and Tarakanova is the
chief of Bilbury’s agents.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully, “I shall
have to send that infernal dossier to town.”

“The dossier, my lord?” I repeated, innocently.

“The dossier,” he said.

He made no further explanation until later that night when we were
working in the study, a stealthy reconnaissance having revealed to me
that M. Tarakanova had disappeared. In the wall of the study was a
safe, and just before, or rather immediately after, he had bade me a
curt good night, he stopped my departure with a word, walked over to
the safe, opened it with a bunch of keys which he took from his
pocket, and pulled out a long yellow envelope which was heavily
sealed.

He brought it carefully back to the table, switched on the table light
which he had extinguished, and placed the envelope under its rays.

“Look at this,” he said.

I looked. In a firm hand was written on the top of the envelope, with
a neat red line ruled beneath:


 “(1) Statement signed by William II. Emperor of Germany, on July 5th,
 1914, expressing his intention of making war.

 “(2) Letter from Emperor William II. of Germany to Emperor Francis
 Joseph to the same effect.

 “(Original documents).”


I did not speak. I was incapable of speech. Within this envelope lay
documents in the very writing of the All-Highest Supreme War Lord!
Documents of greatest national interest! Historical documents which in
the enemy’s hands might damage the beloved Fatherland and our Noble
and Glorious Kaiser!

I was clear-headed and cool. Those documents should be restored to
their Imperial owner. What reward would await the gallant and
enterprising gent. who delivered these papers into the hands of our
Supreme and Noble Master! I grew dizzy with the thought of the
emoluments and the honours which might be showered upon me. No office
was too high for the man who could render that magnificent service to
the State!

My hand trembled as I touched the secret dossier.

“I must get rid of this at once,” said Lord Seabury. “It is too risky
to keep it here--put it back in the safe, Smith.”

Dare I do it? Half-a-dozen steps separated me from the desk to the
steel door in the wall. I half-glanced at his lordship. He was looking
at a document which he had half-finished before dinner. Quick as
lightning I slipped the envelope under my coat and under my arm,
slammed to the door of the safe, locked it and handed the keys back.
He thanked me and put them in his pocket.

“You may go now, Smith,” he said.

The perspiration was trickling down my forehead and I walked
unsteadily down the passage to my room. I closed and locked the door
behind me, took the envelope from my pocket and sat down on the bed.
There was a small writing-table in my room which had been placed there
at my request, and a supply of stationery. To enclose this large
envelope in one larger was the work of a second. I wrote a brief note
to Kriessler telling him that it was a matter of life and death that
the enclosed should be sent forward by the safest channels and should
be placed in the hands of the All Highest himself.

I then began the most important letter I have ever written in my life:


 “All Highest Majesty.

 “Your humble and obedient servant has the honour to transmit to Your
 All Highest Majesty a document which I have extracted from the safe of
 the English Cabinet Minister, Lord Seabury, at great risk and with
 much labour, though I count no labour too great if I am to serve Your
 All Highest Majesty. My name, as Your All Highest Majesty’s Minister
 of Intelligence will tell Your All Highest Majesty, is Heine.”


I added a number of other interesting details about myself, where I
could be found, what was my salary, and this paragraph, which I regard
as one of my finest efforts:


 “Though no decoration blazes upon my humble coat, and no patent of
 nobility has been granted me, though I am a poor man with no more than
 my official pay to sustain me, I am nevertheless proud and happy to be
 of such service to Your All Highest Majesty as will merit Your All
 Highest Majesty’s approval. I seek no rewards, no decorations, no
 monetary grants--I do this for the Fatherland, and for Your All
 Highest Majesty, who is the epitome of Germany’s greatness.”


I placed this and the dossier inside a large envelope, and in the
middle of the night I tip-toed back to the study in my stockinged feet
and found a larger covering in which to enclose the letter which I had
addressed to the Emperor. On the outer envelope I wrote Kriessler’s
English name and address, and soon after daylight I let myself out of
the house and walked in the direction of the village of Hebleigh which
was distant about a mile from Stoney Cottage.

I dropped the big envelope into the village post-box, retraced my
steps and reached my room without my absence being detected. I had to
risk his lordship discovering the disappearance of the letter, but
fortunately throughout the next day he showed no intention of going to
the safe, and beyond a reference to Bilbury, he scarcely spoke a word.

All day long we were inditing letters to every part of the world,
which his lordship sealed with his own hands, and which he packed away
in a leather satchel. How he posted them or whether he sent them to
London, I did not know, but I presumed that a Foreign Office messenger
attended discreetly and performed this duty.

Half-past eight that night, immediately after dinner, his lordship
went to his study and suggested, when I attempted to follow him, that
I should have a little fresh air.

“You need it, my friend,” he said, “you have been playing a part
to-day in the government of England, in the direction of affairs of
the world. Surely that merits a little recreation.” He smiled almost
paternally.

I walked through the little panelled hall, opened the front door, and
stepped out. A man was standing by the gate. It was Bilbury’s man,
Tarakanova. To whom he was talking I did not know, but somebody stood
in the shadow and I heard his quiet laughter.

I shrugged my shoulders. I had nothing to fear from Bilbury, indeed I
was curious to learn what the agent of this mysterious person had to
say to me. So I walked boldly up the garden-path, humming a little
tune, and Tarakanova turned to meet me. He was, as I say, a thickset
man, clean-shaven, so far as I could see in the dusk, and not the sort
of man you might imagine would engage in espionage work.

“Good evening,” he said, as I came up.

“Good evening, sir,” I replied politely, “it is fine weather for this
time of the year.”

“You’re a trite devil,” said a voice in the half-darkness.

I turned to face the man who had spoken, and with whom Tarakanova had
been in conversation. I did not faint. I pride myself that I retain my
self-possession with remarkable sang-froid.

“Good evening, Major Haynes,” I said, not to be outdone in
cool-collectedness.

“Having a nice time, Heine?” he asked.

“Yes, indeed, Major Haynes,” I replied; “you got my letter?”

“I am sorry I did not reply, but I have been rather busy, and learning
you were down here, I thought I would look you up. How is his
lordship?”

“Very well indeed,” I replied with great politeness.

Tarakanova laughed.

“I presume you know,” I said, as the thought struck me, “that this
gentleman is an employee of Bilbury.”

“I know that very well,” said Major Haynes, “though he is not exactly
employed by Bilbury, but by the gentlemen who are administering Mr.
Bilbury’s estate. You see, Heine,” Major Haynes went on in his
fearfully monotonous voice--how that man irritates me!--“the
plutocratic Mr. Bilbury, who is a very rich gentleman, went off his
head about four years ago.”

“Went mad?” I said.

“Went mad,” said Major Haynes, nodding, “not dangerously so, but just
enough to be a nuisance. His pet illusion is that he is Lord Seabury.”

“Oh, yes,” I said faintly.

“He spends all his time,” Major Haynes went on, “writing despatches
for important personages, and generally in running the war. Mr.
Jacobson here, is, if I may put it crudely, his keeper. I suppose he
has told you all his secrets?”

“Oh, yes,” I said carelessly.

“I wonder if he showed you that dossier of his about the Kaiser. I
hope you haven’t by any chance pinched it and sent it to His Imperial
Majesty,” said Major Haynes with coarse brutality, “because it happens
that there is nothing more interesting in it than a pamphlet on the
remarkable quality of Bilbury’s Pills.”

“Major Haynes,” I said in a husky voice, “I surrender.”

“Not at all,” said Major Haynes, “look me up any time you are in
London, and I will see what I can do for you. Now,” said this long,
cool devil, with true British wit, “you had better run back to his
lordship. He will be wanting you for a new offensive, or maybe to send
an ultimatum to Sweden.”

I made no reply. With dignity I returned to the house, walked up to my
room, and packed my bag.




 CHAPTER XVI.
 THE SYREN

I have mentioned in an earlier chapter an organization known as the
Sons of Irish Freedom. I do not pretend that this is the name of the
society which at one time threatened to create the most serious
difficulties for the British Government, but which was dissolved owing
to the base and ungentlemanly treachery of Major Haynes, an
Intelligence Officer, who got himself elected a member of the
principal lodge, and by cunning artfulness induced the members to give
a grand dinner to celebrate the first anniversary of its foundation.

The members allowed this spurious and treacherous brother to order a
dinner which was given at one of the best hotels in London. Everything
was of the best, winter strawberries, most rare and wonderful wines,
beautiful flowers, and a magnificent entertainment to follow. The
dinner, of course, was not announced as one by the Sons of Irish
Freedom, but had a much more innocent excuse. When the bill was
presented for payment, the cunning Major Haynes, having identified
certain prominent Irish personages who were present with the
responsibility for the festival, it was found that it absorbed all the
funds of the lodge and about £200 in addition.[7]

The unfortunate and down-trodden Irish are cursed with that deluded
sense of humour which no German can ever understand. Else how could
you imagine that so frivolous a reason can bring about the disillusion
of a great political organization. We Germans would have repudiated
the bill and, if necessary, have sent secret letters to the hotel
proprietor telling him that his premises would be blown up if he did
not mend his manners.

I do not profess to understand either the mentality of the Irish or
that of such men as Major Haynes. I have tried many times in the
silent watches of the night to reduce this officer (and I wish I could
add gentleman) to an understandable formula. I have never believed
that there was a secret service in England. I never shall believe that
anything like the magnificent and forethoughtful department which
German genius has organized could come into being in a dull-thinking
country like Britain. The man himself was the negation of all good
German qualities. He had not the seriousness which distinguishes men
of my own department. He lacked that haughty obedience-compelling
manner which we look for and expect in the true Prussian officer. His
voice was a gentle drawl. He was always laughing with his eyes, full
of jokes which a gentleman, that is to say a Prussian gentleman, would
consider it beneath his dignity to utter.

I have seen him speak to quite common people as though they were his
equals, and for this reason I long suspected that he was a Socialist,
and that is a view which I still hold, and, believe me, Heine makes
very few mistakes.

But it would be unknightly in me if I did not pay this tribute to the
man; whether he secured his information by luck or by judgment, he
knew a disgusting sight too much.

I had returned to England, as you know, after being deported by Major
Haynes, but I had had the good sense and vision to write to him
announcing I was in England. By the sheerest accident he discovered me
and requested that I should call at his office or, as he put it, “look
me up.”

Be assured, Major Haynes, I shall not only look you up, but look you
down! You may not see the carefully-veiled insolence in Heine’s eye or
the sneer behind his teeth. You will not know the bitter and insulting
thoughts which crowd one on top of the other in Heine’s teeming brain.
I will look you up indeed and some day you will look up to me. How
dearly I should love to repeat this _bon mot_ to his face.

Two days after my meeting I decided to call upon him at the War
Office. It had not been my first visit, and so I knew the ropes, and
having written my name on a slip of paper I was shown up to his
office, a very small, unimportant apartment, showing that, whatever
Major Haynes might be in his own estimation, he was jolly little
thought of by the Army Council, for there was nothing in his room in
the way of pictures except a plain map which, incidentally, I glanced
at and comprehended as I entered. It was a map of Europe.

“Sit down, Heine,” said the Major, who was writing at his desk, “help
yourself to the cigarettes--those on the left. The others are
poisoned. I keep them for generals.”

Such frivolity! Would any major officer in the German army dare speak
of the members of the Great General Staff with such disrespect? Would
they not stand stiffly to attention and refer to them as “Illustrious
General So-and-so,” or “The Noble and Illustrious Well-Born General
So-and-so”?

He finished writing, laid down his pen, and resting his elbows on the
arms of his chair, dropped his chin upon his clasped hands, all the
time surveying me with an inscrutable smile, as though--and I believe
this to be the truth--recognizing that in me he had a devilish stiff
proposition, as the English say.

“Well, Heine,” he said, at last, “how is the Kaiser?”

My blood boiled up to my head.

“Don’t blush,” he said. (Such a cad!)

“How is old von Hindenburg and the shining German sword?”

“Major Haynes,” I said coldly, “if you think I am not a German then
you are insulting me. If you believe I am a German, then your remarks
are both insulting and hurtful to my dignity and my loyalty and my
sense of decency.”

“Quite right,” said Major Haynes; and then after a pause, “I don’t
know what to do about you, Heine. If I send you to America you will be
torpedoed. If you get to America you will probably be executed. If I
send you back to Germany you will starve to death.”

I made no reply.

“If I leave you here----” Major Haynes went on, helping himself to a
cigarette. I noticed it was one of those which he said he used to
poison generals, so I presume it was the best kind. The inhospitality
of the man and his boorishness appalled me. “If I leave you here,” he
said, “you will probably be bombed to death. If I put you in an
internment camp you will be an expense to the Government. If I have
you shot----” He paused.

I turned white with anger.

“I trust you are not going to do anything so stupid owlish as that,
Major Haynes,” I said, “I have done my best to prove to you that I am
a perfectly innocent Swiss.”

“Chilian,” he corrected, “but it doesn’t matter. There are lots of
Swiss-Chilians in London just now, and quite a few Swedish-Turks. No,
I don’t think I will have you shot, you may be very useful.”

“Any service I can render to you, Major Haynes,” I said, with my
native politeness, “I shall be happy to give. Unfortunately, I am----”
I shrugged my shoulders, introducing rather cleverly a suggestion of
my helplessness.

“Cheer up, Heine,” he said with a cynical smile--there’s something
about that man’s smile I don’t like--“I think you can give me the
greatest assistance. Let’s put all our cards on the table,” he leant
across the desk. “I know that you were for some time the head of the
German Intelligence Department in London. Take that sad, pained smile
off your face, and behave. As I told you before, you weren’t
dangerous, because your methods were somewhat transparent and I don’t
think (you will excuse my directness) that you are a very clever man.”

“That is a matter of opinion,” I said stiffly.

“I think, as a matter of fact,” Major Haynes went on, not noticing the
interruption, “you have too good a heart to be a spy. Beneath that
outrageous waistcoat of yours, and the three or four undershirts which
I am sure you are wearing, beats a kindly heart.” I am recalling his
indelicate words from memory that you may learn what type of
“gentleman” an English officer can be. In honest truth, he was wide of
the mark, for I had only two undershirts on, the weather being warm.
“Now with much of your work,” Major Haynes went on, “I am well
acquainted. I have your code,” he opened the drawer of his desk and
took out a very familiar book, and if I changed colour, who shall
blame me? “When I say your code, I mean the code of your kind. I have
a list of your sub-agents, such of them as are still alive,” he said,
smiling pleasantly. “I know all about your Kriesslers and your Kahns.
I know your newspaper advertisement code; in short, I know almost
everything about your business”--he paused--“except one thing.”

“And what is that, Major Haynes?” I asked innocently.

“It is the one thing I have never been able to discover,” said the
Major, putting the tips of his fingers together and looking down at
them.

I pricked up my ears. What was it this clever fellow did not know?

“Many things, I should imagine,” I said with a sneer, speaking of
course to myself and sneering inwardly.

“It has come to my knowledge,” he said, speaking slowly, and raising
his eyes to mine in a steady, hypnotizing way, “that the agents of
your--what shall I call it?--department have a code whistle which is
instantly obeyed. At the sound of that whistle you are ordered, under
whatever conditions you are working, whatever you may be doing,
however you may endanger yourselves by so acting, to repair instantly
to the spot from whence that whistle is blown, and report yourself for
duty to the man who has given the signal.”

I felt my flesh grow rough like a goose’s, and my hair almost stood on
end. So precious a secret is the danger whistle that I have never
referred to it before. It is the last piece of information given to
the closely-examined candidate for the service after he has passed to
the Executive. Only two men in England had the authority to use that
signal, or the means wherewith such a call could be made. Every agent
is pledged that, whatever he divulges, that secret at least shall go
down to the grave with him.

It was that danger whistle that brought about the rescue of Rosenberg
when he was captured on 42nd Street, New York, when he was carrying
despatches from von Papen to the Ambassador. That danger whistle,
sounded in the courtyard of Brixton Prison by one of my agents who had
himself arrested for debt in order to reach the interior, made Kruhn,
waiting trial for espionage, hang himself by his bootlaces.

Major Haynes was watching me keenly.

“Well?” he asked.

“I am surprised you should tell me of this, Major Haynes,” I said with
splendid self-possession. “I have never heard of this signal or
whistle, or call it what you will.”

He rose from the table and came over to me.

“Stand up,” he said.

I obeyed him.

“Stand against that wall.”

I did not think of expostulating. There was something in his voice
which dispersed all inclination to argue.

“Put out your arms,” he said. “I am going to search you.”

He went through all my pockets with extraordinary rapidity--I think he
must have been a pickpocket before he joined the Intelligence
Department--and of course he found nothing.

“Open your waistcoat,” he said.

I obeyed. He ran his hand lightly over my shirt.

“Tell me if I tickle you,” said he; but I was in no mood for jesting,
for under my arm he found the little pocket and the flat gold tube
that I dreaded he would find. He laid it on the table curiously.

“So that’s the whistle, eh? A peculiar note, I suppose. Now tell me,
what is the code. Four short blasts and a long one?”

I smiled.

“That is merely a little trinket which was given me by a lady friend?”
I said.

“Why do you wear it sewn into your shirt?”

“To have it near my heart,” I said. “I am surprised at you, Major
Haynes.”

“I am surprised at you, Heine,” he said, “if you keep your heart under
your right arm-pit. You are a physical monstrosity--but I suppose you
are one of those curious birds that carry their hearts in their
sleeves. Come now, Heine, what is the code?”

“Major Haynes,” I replied earnestly, “if you were to give me a hundred
thousand pounds at this moment----”

“Which I am very unlikely to do,” said Major Haynes.

“If you were to give me a million pounds,” I said desperately, “I
could not tell you, because I don’t know.”

He walked back to the other side of the table and sat down. For some
time he did not speak. He lit another cigarette and looked out of the
window, clasping his chin.

“You are a German, Heine, aren’t you,” he said at last, “and I am an
Anglo-Scot, with a touch of American. Generally speaking, I am
British. Now here is the situation,” he said, tapping on the blot-pad,
“you are a good German patriot (to my eternal credit, I didn’t deny
it!), I am a British patriot. Now, which of us is the more devoted to
his Motherland?”

It was one of those kind of stupid questions to which there is no
answer. I had quite recovered my notorious sang-froid, and I laughed.

“Now, how can I answer that, my dear Major Haynes?” I said humorously.
“Supposing I were a German, which of course I am not, and suppose you
are a Briton, which of course you are, how can we determine the extent
of our various country-loving? Goethe says----”

“Blow Goethe!” said Major Haynes rudely. “Can you answer my question?”

“Major Haynes,” I replied, “I cannot.”

“Very good,” said Major Haynes. He looked at his watch. “You will not
tell me the code.”

“I know of no code,” I replied firmly.

He picked up the little gold whistle and put it in his pocket.

“Very good,” he said again, “you will report to me here at 1.30 this
afternoon. You will be immediately admitted to my presence.”

“And then?” I said in trepidation.

“Then I will give you the finest lunch you have had for some time and
a bottle of the best _liebfraumilch_ procurable in London.”

I went down the marble stairs of the War Office smiling. If this
fellow imagined that he could buy my so precious secret for a lunch,
or that he could make me so beastly intoxicated on the wine of my
country, he was a bigger fool than I had imagined.

No sooner was I ushered into his office at 1.30 than he took his hat
and his stick from a peg on the wall and taking me affectionately by
the arm he led me out into Whitehall, hailed a taxi, and we were
driven to a restaurant in the Strand, where an excellent repast was
waiting.

“I have no doubt you think we are lunching luxuriously,” he said, as
we sat at the table, “but as this is the last meal that either you or
I may ever have in this world I think we may risk being considered
extravagant.”

“These are strange words, Major Haynes,” I said.

“Very strange,” he replied with his foolish smile. “Wine, Heine? Drink
hearty or, as they say, ‘Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we
die.’ Cheerioh!”

Throughout that amazing meal, I was puzzling my brains. I think I may
say without undue conceit that I can grasp a situation as quickly as
any man. I am, so to speak, up to the tricks of the game--and then
some. That is not low swank. We Germans say no more than we mean,
promise no more than we can perform, claim no more than we can
substantiate. That is why we are the most respected nation in the
world, and why the German sword, once drawn from its sacred scabbard
and brandished aloft, strikes terror to the heart of its soon-to-be
victims.

But despite my mind-ability I could only puzzle over his alarming
words and in the end find no solution to the mystery he had
propounded. The British are strange people with no sense of decency.
They frequently joke upon the most sacred subjects, and I have already
described Major Haynes’s terrible lack of true gentlemanliness in
speaking of our August Sovereign Lord. Possibly, I thought, this joke
is British or Scottish idea of humour. What pawkity!

He did not make any further reference to the discussion we had that
afternoon. We finished our meal with coffee and liqueurs and cigars,
and he paid his bill and we strolled out into the Strand.

I offered him my hand when we got outside, and thanked him for his
hospitality.

“You are not going, Heine,” said the Major, “oh, dear no! You don’t
suppose I have spent quite a lot of money in entertaining you for the
pleasure of your society, though I admit you are infinitely amusing.”

“But I don’t understand you, Major Haynes,” said I in surprise; “if
there is anything you want me to do I shall be most happy to do it, as
I have told you before.”

“It is now three o’clock,” he said, “and we have just twenty minutes
to get to the station.”

“To the station?” I repeated flabberfounded, so to speak.

He made a beckoning gesture, and a car which was at the other side of
the Strand drew across.

“Hop in, Heine,” he said; and I hopped.

He took his place by my side and we were whirled away to Paddington
Station. He did not take a ticket. We simply strolled through the
first-class booking-hall on to the platform, and a train was waiting,
also another officer who, saluting Major Haynes, led us to a carriage
which had been reserved.

“Get in, Heine,” said the Major, and again I obeyed, still dazed and
bewildered by the mysterious proceedings.

The second officer got in with us.

“I have telephoned to the factory, sir,” he said, “and I have brought
the things you wanted.”

He put his hands into his overcoat and took out three pairs of
handcuffs.

“Thank you,” said Major Haynes.

“The other thing, sir, I couldn’t get, but I think a gas-mask would do
as well, one of the old type. They are not so cumbersome.”

From another pocket he drew forth a mask, with mica eyepieces. It had
evidently been adapted for a special purpose, for it had been cut off
at the bottom.

“Try that on, Heine,” said the Major.

I took it from his hands and fixed the loops over my ears.

“Look at yourself in the glass,” said Major Haynes.

One of the panels above the seats was a long slip of mirror.

“Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you,” he said.

A hideous sight I presented. The mask did not cover my face. It left
my mouth free. I could not imagine a more horrible spectacle than I
presented.

“Fine,” said the Major, “put it in your pocket. I think that is all,
isn’t it, Mr. Samson?”

“That’s all, sir,” said the officer, saluting.

He looked at me with a smile, shook hands with the Major, and left us
together. Soon after this the train began to move and, leaning
forward, I spoke:

“I am sure you will not consider me unnecessarily inquisitive,” I said
with gentle sarcasm, “but may I ask why we are taking this journey,
why you are carrying manacles, and why you have presented me with this
curious mask?”

“You may ask,” said the Major, “but I shall not tell you for some
time. Here is a copy of _Punch_. Improve your mind and morals.”

The train was an express. It did not stop until we reached a junction
called Wellsbury, and here we alighted. It was now half-past five. A
closed car was waiting for us and into this we got and proceeded at a
rapid pace through the open country.

We had been travelling for half an hour, and had reached the top of a
hill and were passing over the crest, when the Major tapped the window
behind the chauffeur.

“Get out here for a moment, Heine,” he said, and obediently I
followed.

We were on the top of a hill looking down on to a little village, the
principal feature of which was a large factory. On the tops of the
hills were a number of hutments, and it was clear to me that this was
a factory erected for war work.

“This is the Chamborn Shell-Filling Factory,” said Major Haynes. “That
large building is the mixing house. That smaller building behind,
which you can just see in spite of its being camouflaged is the T.N.T.
store. That long building is the magazine, and that to its right is
the live-shell store. There is at this moment in that factory about
two hundred tons of T.N.T., and when I tell you that at the Rivertown
explosion, which shook up half of England, only fifty tons were tonked
off, you will understand the nature of the disaster which would follow
the blowing up of that establishment.”

“But, Major Haynes,” I said in desperation, “why do you tell me all
this and why do you bring me such a long journey to give me this
information?”

“Get into the car,” said Major Haynes, “and I will tell you.”

We got into the car, but he did not speak, and when I suggested he
should keep his promise he merely said:

“Wait awhile.”

We passed through the stone-pillaried gates of the factory, along a
broad roadway, and came to a set of offices where the car stopped and
we alighted. Again the Major looked at his watch.

“Six o’clock,” he said, “we have an hour. I want to introduce you to
the manager of the works.”

He led me into an office which was comfortably furnished, and here I
met Mr. Perkins, a well-fed typical Englishman who hoped I had had a
pleasant journey down. A servant brought tea on a silver tray and we
chatted generally about various topics, though for my part I had very
little to say.

After about half an hour the Major again looked at his watch.

“Well, I wish you good-bye, Mr. Perkins,” he said, “I hope everything
is all right.”

A shrill hooter sounded outside.

“I am stopping the women working,” said Mr. Perkins, and Major Haynes
nodded.

“I think you are wise. You are getting them out of the factory on some
excuse, I suppose?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Perkins, “I told them we were having a test in the
mixing-room and they quite understand.”

I stood with Major Haynes at the entrance of the offices watching the
ceaseless stream of women passing through the gates. My blood boiled
as I thought these women were preparing explosives to destroy my
countrymen. How unfeminine, I thought! How degraded! Woman, lovely
woman, who should create life, who should be all tenderness and
kindness to man, was now engaged in the low occupation of making
shells to blow off the heads of the world’s chosen people. It sickened
me.

“Aha! My fine girls,” I said between my teeth, “you are not the only
flies in the ointment, for every son of the Fatherland you kill, loyal
and death-defying German women are preparing explosives to blow off
the heads of your husbands and sweethearts! Beware! Nemesis is on your
track!”

I hated this place with its smoke and busy air. Such places should be
blown from the face of the earth. I hoped it would not be blown while
I was near by, but I looked forward one day to reading in the paper
that Chamborn had gone up to the sky in smoke and fury.

“Now, Heine,” said Major Haynes.

We walked across the road, down another road, then between two long
stone buildings, past a big power-house with two smoking chimneys, and
at last we came to a great brick shed painted in fantastic colours.

“This is the T.N.T. store,” explained Major Haynes. “Now where are
those chairs that Perkins said? Oh, here they are.”

Two arm-chairs had been placed against the wall. There was a small
iron-topped table with a bottle of whisky, a big syphon of soda and
two glasses.

“Sit down and make your miserable life happy, Heine,” said the Major,
sinking down into one of the chairs and reaching out for the whisky
bottle. “Say when.”

When he had filled the glass with sizzling soda, he said:

“Heine, it is an awful thing to realize that within thirty minutes you
and I may be blotted out of life--be dissolved in thin air, leaving no
trace of ourselves and never knowing what struck us.”

My glass trembled against my teeth and I put down the whisky untasted.

“Explain yourself, Major Haynes,” I said hoarsely.

“I will explain to you, Heine,” he replied gravely, “I feel it is due
to you. You are probably aware that Chamborn is the most important
shell-filling factory in England. If you are not so aware I will tell
you that it is. If this place went up in smoke the British Army would
be seriously inconvenienced, though not crippled. Your friends in
Berlin imagine that its destruction would have decisive consequences,
and in this, of course, they are wrong, for there are other factories,
quite a large number of them. They have sent two or three agents from
Germany,” he went on slowly, “and they are clever men.”

I did not answer. I looked at the clock above the offices and noted
that the gold hands upon the black face stood at twenty minutes to
seven. The major followed my eyes and smiled.

“We have twenty minutes,” he said.

“What do you mean by all this?” I asked in an agitated voice, my
agitation being of course due to the presence in England of three
gentlemen who were probably well-born and my superiors. “What do you
mean by three agents?”

“Two or three,” corrected Major Haynes, “my information is that there
are two; my further information is that they are employed in these
works; that they speak English so perfectly that it is impossible to
detect them, that they are armed with all sorts of credentials;
and----” he paused, “that they intend blowing up this factory at seven
o’clock.”

I half rose from my seat, but he laid his hand upon my arm and pushed
me back.

“We have taken the most elaborate precautions--when I say we,” he
apologized, “I mean the Government. We have weeded out suspicious
workmen, but we are still certain that these men have in some way
connected up a means of detonation which they will touch off at seven
o’clock to-night.”

The place swam round. I could feel my knees trembling against the
supports of the iron table. My throat and mouth went dry and I could
only look round helplessly. Major Haynes was quite cool.

“The only way to save this place from destruction,” he said, “is to
bring the men who are engaged in this work to our presence before the
mischief is done, and you, Heine, are the syren who will call them.”

He put his hands in his breast-pocket and took out my little gold
whistle and laid it on the table.

“You may not know the code of the danger whistle, but you may guess
it,” he said. “If you are telling the truth and you don’t know the
code, then it is very unfortunate for you and most unfortunate for me,
because in a little over a quarter of an hour, you and I, my dear
Heine, will be continuing our debate in heaven.”

“But--but----” I gasped.

“It is no use butting, my dear lad,” said the Major, “you will be
butting your head into that wall in less than sixteen minutes unless
you can bring your loyal but startled fellow-countrymen to this spot.”

I picked up the whistle in my shaking fingers.

“But it would be death to me,” I said, “and besides, Major Haynes, I
am a loyal man. I cannot betray my friends to their death.”

“Spoken like a patriot,” said the Major. “It seems to me that you are
almost as good a patriot as I am. In which case we shall both die
without remorse.”

I thought and I thought. Twice I picked up the whistle and twice I put
it down. The hands of the clock moved round inexorably. It wanted four
minutes to the hour when I turned my perspirationed face towards him.

“They’ll know I betrayed them,” I said; “they will see me.”

“You have a mask in your pocket, which I have thoughtfully provided,”
said the Major. “Put it on, my dear Heine, there are three minutes
between you and glory.”

With trembling hands I fixed the hideous mask. Better, I thought, that
these unfortunate men should be detected and that a great and hideous
crime should be prevented than that one whose life was of such service
to the Fatherland should be so cruelly extinguished.

I put the whistle to my lips and blew shrilly; short, long and
trilling blasts. I repeated it, and scarcely had the echoes died away
when two men came blundering round the corner of the building, one in
his shirt-sleeves, one in the black coat of a clerk. They stopped dead
as they saw Major Haynes, and put up their hands, for his revolver was
covering them.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” he said as he snapped the handcuffs upon them,
“fortunes of war.”

They glared from him to me, and one said to the other quickly in
German:

“We’re caught. This is Voss’s work. We ought to have prevented his
leaving us.”

“Excellent news,” said Major Haynes briefly, “so Voss was the third
man. You may comfort yourselves with the knowledge that he was
arrested in London to-day, though your detection was not due to him
but to my friend here.”

I was trembling before the glare of those haughty German eyes.

“If you’d given us another day,” one of them growled in English, “we’d
have settled your cursed factory.”

“So I gather,” said Major Haynes.

“As for this swine,” he made a movement toward me and I stepped back
till I realized I was stepping toward the T.N.T. store, when I stepped
sideways. But the place was alive with detectives now. They seemed to
spring out of the ground and I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw
these unfortunate men being led away.

“You can take off your mask now, Heine, they will never see you,” said
Major Haynes. “Poor devils! We will go up to town by a late train and
I’ll see what I can do for you in the morning.”

“Major Haynes,” I said brokenly, “I don’t want to see you to-morrow. I
am very ill. The danger I have been through, the strain upon my
nerves, how I envy you your coolness----”

“The strain upon your nerves, Heine?” said Major Haynes, with brutal
innocence.

“I have not your lack of imagination,” I said crossly. “I cannot sit
here waiting for a factory to blow up, watching the minutes pass----”
I wiped my brow with a silk handkerchief, looked up at the clock as it
struck seven, and shuddered.

“There was no danger, my dear man,” said the major calmly.

“But you told me that they were going to blow up the factory at seven
o’clock.”

“Exactly,” said Major Haynes, “you heard what the gentleman told you,
seven o’clock.”

“Well, this is seven o’clock,” I said.

“Yes, but I meant seven o’clock to-morrow night,” said the major.

Such a bluffer!




 CHAPTER XVII.
 THE COMING OF THE BOLSHEVIKS

If there is one quality which we Germans possess in a superlative
quantity it is a sense of justice. We Germans may be proud, we may be
too soft-hearted, we may be romantic, but we are just. The idea of
injustice is abhorrent to the truly-German. How many quarrels have I
seen at the dining tables in the various German pensions in which I
have lived, because one good German thought another was getting too
large a helping! You see it in every phase of life, and I must confess
that in my own case, nothing so irritates me, so rouses my deep German
wrath, which is a terrible thing in itself, as the knowledge that I am
not getting my share.

Understand, that I say nothing which may be taken as disparaging to
the heads of those departments under whose guidance I have worked and
for whose interest I have taken risks--risks which have not been
compensated by the meagre salary and the grudging letters of thanks
which I have received. We Germans are people of iron will and
determination. We are perhaps the best disciplined people in the
world. Give a German an order to go into battle or to walk to the
cannon’s mouth, whether it is loaded or not, and he will obey,
marching with parade step and a calm, stern face to what may very
easily be considerable personal disfigurement.

I myself have taken orders from my superiors with a sharp “Ja, Herr!”
and a stern salute, well knowing that if I carried those orders out I
would be going to certain destruction. Many of those orders I have
obeyed, having carefully reconnoitred the way and discovered the
dangers which might be avoided, for none but a fool would rush
bat-eyed into terrible perils if he could avoid them.

I have explained the circumstances under which I came to be under a
cloud, not only with the British Government, but, alas!--and my soul
weeps at the thought!--with the Government of my beloved Fatherland. I
make no complaint. We Germans never whine. We have in the
Wilhelmstrasse men without imagination, men without gratitude, men
with the brains of she-asses!

After my deportation from England and the torpedoing of the ship which
carried me, and my return to these shores on a submarine, I ceased to
be what I was, the recognized head and centre of the Intelligence
Service of the Fatherland in England. Though I had worked
independently, I had worked without success.

Major Haynes, of the British Intelligence Corps, knew I was in
England, probably had me watched night and day, and was, as the
English saying goes, “fair to my face but bitter to my stomach.”

I do not know whether I must hate this man, or whether, in my
professional zeal, admire one who must be clever--why should I deny
it?--since he had got the better of me. He was a suave, calm man with
a foolish sense of humour which no German would ever understand, a
cynical man who had probably been crossed in love in his earlier
life--possibly by some beautiful German girl, who lured the poor fool
on and then threw him over with a sneer. I often used to lie in bed
picturing the circumstances which brought about his snarling views of
Germany, and often I have enacted the scene, in which I was the
beautiful young girl.

What bitter things I have said to him! How I have tossed my rosy locks
at this proud Englishman or Scotsman, standing pale and dejected
before me begging for one rose from my hair!

I had plenty of time to dream. I was out of touch with the
organization I had created with so much labour, forethought, and
genius. I was unattached and officially unrecognized. I suspected that
some one else had taken on my work, but I found it difficult to
discover who was in my place owing to the embargo which Major Haynes
had laid upon me against communicating with certain people, the names
of whom in some mysterious way this cunning man knew, who might inform
me upon the situation.

I was sitting one day, morose and brooding, in my new lodgings in
Bayswater, meditating upon my fallen state and wondering if I had very
much farther to fall. I confess there were tears in my eyes when I
remembered all the power I had wielded, all the wonderful letters of
encouragement which had come to me from the well-born and illustrious
Captain Baron von Hazfeld, the chief of the Military Intelligence
Department; and of how I was now without recognition, a fugitive
hunted on the face of the earth, doubtless mocked at by men to whom I
had extended a helping hand.

It was near coffee-time, that is to say, nearly four o’clock in the
afternoon, when a knock came on my bedroom door and my landlady
entered with a telegram in her hand.

“For you, Mr. Smith,” she said.

I had given the name of Smith because I thought it was not likely to
attract unusual attention. It is a name very commonly used in England
by people who wish to remain anonymous.

“For me, my dear madam?” I said, taking the telegram in my hand. “Oh,
yes, I remember. A friend of mine is coming to London and he promised
to wire the hour of his arrival.”

With this pleasant little fiction I waved her out of the room.

You may wonder why I gave any excuse at all, but we Germans are by
nature furtive, and it is part of my business to puzzle and deceive
those with whom I am brought into contact.

I opened the telegram. My address was only known to two or three
people and none of these were compatriots of mine. Judge then of my
surprise when I saw that it was a cable addressed to me from
Stockholm, and read:


 “Twenty-five kegs of butter consigned to you per The Scandia Export
 Company.”


The telegram was signed “Fredericks.”

I needed no code-book to understand that message. It was an order from
a very powerful and an extremely illustrious member of my profession,
a gentleman with whom I had had some correspondence and, indeed, one
whom I had met on the occasion to which I have referred in these
stories of my purchasing a newspaper.

“Twenty-five kegs” meant “call upon.”

The next morning I sallied forth. A glance at a telephone book in one
of the telephone boxes told me the address of the Scandia Export
Company, which was in Upper Thames Street.

You would think, of course, that I made my way direct to my objective.
That was not the case. I had seen in the telephone book that the
Scandia Company, with whom, by the way, I had never had any previous
dealings, was a wholesale provision merchant.

I hired a cab and drove off to Bisbury’s, one of the greatest
wholesale provision merchants in London, asked to see the manager and
demanded from him whether he could supply me with twenty-five firkins
of Danish butter at the current price. Butter at this time was getting
very scarce and the polite manager informed me that it was impossible
for him to supply me.

I drove to another provision merchant’s, this time in Long Acre, and
repeated my request. Here an offer was made to sell me the amount I
required, and I noted the price and said I would call again. From
thence my cab took me into the south of London to another butter
merchant, who was unable to supply me. And so one after the other I
called upon six firms, all of which did business in butter, before I
touched the Scandia Export Company.

I am no fool. We Germans are wide-awake. I knew, or guessed, that Mr.,
or Major, Haynes (a more un-military person I have never seen) would
have me watched and that probably my shadow was following me now.

How puzzled he would be! What! Was Heine thinking of opening a butter
shop that he went to all these great merchants? No, sir. Heine would
be no butter-patter, but Heine knew that he had an excuse for calling
at the Scandia Company, and that it was no more suspicious to call
upon this particular firm than it was to call upon the half a dozen
whom he had already visited, or the three or four more that he would
visit in the course of the day.

And so I came to the Scandia Company and found its offices on the
first floor of a very dark and untidy building. I was met by a clerk
in a large and gloomy room which was furnished with a desk, a stool
and a copying press, and politely stated my business.

“You wish to see Mr. Brantl, I think,” said the clerk. “If you will
wait a moment I will find out if he is engaged.”

He went out of the room through a glass-panelled door and was away for
a few minutes. Presently he returned leaving the door open.

“Will you step this way?” he said, and I passed into the room, closing
the door behind me.

Mr. Brantl was a short, thick-set man with a close-cropped beard who
looked at me sharply through his gold-rimmed spectacles.

“Sit down,” he said imperiously, and then without a word of
preliminary he plunged into what I can only describe as an impertinent
and ill-toned harangue.

“Now, look here, Heine,” he said, and by his simple, direct rudeness I
perceived that he was no more of a Swede than a turnip (a play on
words which is called a “pun” in English), but a true Prussian and
probably very highly connected. “You have made a mess of things.”

I stared at the man.

“I don’t understand you,” I said coldly.

“You’ve made a mess of things, and don’t interrupt me,” he barked.
“Headquarters are crazy with you. You upset all their arrangements and
you have left your work in England in a disgraceful condition. Don’t
interrupt me! You know me?”

I looked at him closely.

“I only know,” I said after a pause, and speaking with a hauteur which
was quite unmistakable to any sensitive German, “that you are
impertinently discussing a matter of which I am perfectly ignorant. I
can only say----”

“Now shut up,” said Mr. Brantl. “Swine! Pig! Miserable thief! Have you
never heard of the Captain Baron von Hazfeld?”

I stared at him closely and gasped.

Instantly I was on my feet, clicking my heels, my hand raised to my
forehead, for this gentleman was none other than that illustrious
Chief of the Intelligence Bureau, whom I had had the honour and
privilege to see on one occasion through the window.

“Sit down,” he growled. “I have had to come to England to clear up the
damned mess you’ve made and I can tell you I am not feeling cheerful
about it. Now tell me what happened.”

Briefly I explained to him how Major Haynes had detected me and had
sent me out of the country. I also described my voyage back in the
submarine and he listened attentively.

“Part of what you tell me is lies,” he said, “part of it is true.
British Intelligence Department--bah! If you hadn’t been a sucking
dove, or should I say, a sucking pig----?”

“Whichever pleases you, Herr Baron,” I said, with a little smile.

“Don’t grin, you baboon. If you had exercised the slightest amount of
caution you would never have been caught. You have simply given
yourself into the hands of the Englishman.”

“Scotsman,” I murmured.

“Don’t interrupt,” he roared, “you needn’t be afraid of Hayes or
Haynes, or whatever the man’s name is. You have now a chance to
rehabilitate yourself in the esteem of the Department. I never agreed
to your coming to England. It was against my wishes, thank God! I told
von Papen that I wanted a man of intelligence who at any rate looked
like an English gentleman.”

“I flatter myself----” I began.

“You do,” said the Herr Baron, “that’s the trouble with you, your
infernal conceit. Now listen and don’t interrupt. In three days’ time
there will arrive in this country a very large number of forged bank
and treasury notes. Every agent in England and Scotland will put those
notes into circulation. They are so well done that you can’t tell the
difference between them and the real thing. They are, in fact,” he
said, “made----”

“----in Germany,” I smiled.

He cursed me for interrupting him.

“You will be in Merson Street, Soho, on Thursday night, standing
outside the Petite Dejeuner restaurant. A man will come and give you a
large travelling case. It will contain the forged money, and you will
spend the rest of your time wandering about England getting rid of it.
It will not be an unpleasant experience,” he said. “The forgeries will
never be detected until the money comes into the Bank of England.
Therefore, your job is to get as far away from London as you possibly
can.”

“But I shall never be able to spend it.”

“Give it away then,” said the Herr Baron. “You understand your
orders?”

“Perfectly,” I replied.

“You won’t want any real money. You will buy everything except war
bonds.”

“I would not think of doing anything so unpatriotic,” I cried
indignantly.

“It isn’t a question of patriotism, you fool. War bond money comes
back to the Bank.”

He was silent so long that at last I plucked up my courage to say:

“Is that all, Herr Baron?”

“No, that is not all,” he said slowly, “only I don’t know whether I
can trust you with the other matter.”

I drew myself up.

“I have been trusted with many delicate duties,” I said, not without a
certain quiet dignity.

“And you made a mess of ’em. I know all about it,” said the Baron,
“still I can tell you this because it may not come your way. Have you
heard of Loski?”

To another man I should have said “Yes,” but to this discerning,
thought-reading, truth-compelling German, who was, moreover, of the
highest nobility, I replied simply and modestly: “No.”

“Loski is the chief of the Lithuanian Soviet. He is a member of the
Supreme Council at Petrograd, and is a Bolshevik--hang all Bolsheviks!
but they are very useful to us. The mad English Government has given
him permission to visit this country on behalf of some industrial
corporation at Moscow. I have had a telegram from Stockholm to say
that he will be here this week. Now, don’t forget, this man is working
for us, and if he swims into your orbit you are to do everything you
can for him. Render him any assistance that lies in your power. Find
out where he is lodging and make his acquaintance. That is all.”

I bowed and withdrew. I must confess that on my journey back to my
lodgings I was troubled. I did not share this bullying, brow-beating,
stupid man’s views of Major Haynes. We Germans never despise an enemy
who is worthy of our steel, and I felt that Major Haynes was not only
worthy of my steel, but my carving knife as well. It is hard to jest
with a sad heart! So I was not surprised the following morning when my
landlady came to me to tell me that a soldier had called to see me
with a message.

He was quite a common soldier, evidently an orderly, and when he was
shown into my room I immediately put him into his place by telling him
to take his cap off. The fact that he took not the slightest notice of
what I said, shows that the English Army is the worst disciplined and
the least respectful of all armies in the world.

I read the note. It was from Major Haynes, telling me to come to his
office with the least possible delay.

“Tell your master I will be there,” I said haughtily.

“Tell who?” said the common soldier.

“Your master, my man.”

“Pull yourself together,” said the common soldier, “do you mean Major
Haynes?” Of course the low fellow called him ’Aynes.

I resolved to report him for his insolence, but somehow the idea
slipped from my mind on the journey, because I was in some
apprehension (why should I conceal the fact?) as to why this officer
wanted me.

He was busily writing as I entered and jerked his head to a chair and,
since I am a perfect gentleman, I did not interrupt him until he had
finished. He blotted his letter and folded it up into an envelope
before he turned his attention to me.

“I’ve got a little honest work for you.”

I shivered at the words. I remembered the last time I had assisted
him, and he evidently read my thoughts.

“Oh, this is all right,” he said with a smile, “no danger, Heine. You
are a good German, I believe?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“What is the use of arguing with you, Major Haynes,” I said with a
smile, “if I were a German I should certainly be a good German.”

“And every good German is afraid of the Russian.”

“We Germans fear nobody,” I said hotly, and then, realizing that I had
betrayed myself, I went on with scarcely a break, “as a German would
say.”

“Neatly put,” said the Major, “at any rate, a well conducted German
does not love the Bolshevik, and especially a Bolshevik who is not
even--there, I nearly said too much,” he smiled, “and that is not like
me, is it?”

I could have told him that anything he said to me was too much, but I
refrained.

“Foreign as I know it to be to your honest nature,” the Major went on,
“I am, nevertheless, asking you to do a little professional espionage
work for me--oh, yes, I am serious,” he said, “you owe me a great
deal, Heine. You owe me your life amongst other things, and I am going
to give you a chance of paying me back, or rather paying the
Government back, without necessarily betraying any of your own fellow
countrymen. From such a prospect as that,” he said with pious
hypocrisy, “my very soul revolts.”

And this man who had the brazen effrontery to make a so-canting
statement had deliberately forced me to assist him in capturing two of
my lamentable fellow-countrymen only a few weeks before? Such is the
boasted honour of the British race!

“In reality,” said the Major, “the work I want you to do is very
simple, very harmless and yet very necessary, and I believe that you,
of all the people I know, can best perform the service I require.”

I nodded.

“There is a man arriving in this country in the course of this week,
named Loski,” said the Major. “He may be a Russian patriot. He may be
an anarchist. He may be only a simple-minded burglar. On the other
hand, he may be engaged by your clever Intelligence Department to
carry on propaganda work. There is a man in London named Missovitch
who I know is in correspondence with the Loski crowd and is their
agent in London. Missovitch lives at 364, Dean Street, Soho. I will
write the address for you,” he said, suiting the action to the words.

“And what do you expect me to do, Major Haynes?” I asked.

“I want you to see Missovitch. He is one of those peculiar Russians
who speak German, the type with which you are well acquainted.”

“Probably from the Baltic Provinces?” I said boldly.

“Very likely,” said Major Haynes, with a smile. “Pump him. He will
confide in you. Nobody would mistake you for an English gentleman.
Find out what the game is. No harm can come to our friend Loski. The
worst that can happen is that he will be handed his passports and
returned to the place from whence he came.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and was inwardly chuckling. Somehow I felt
in the swing again, an entire master of my confidence.

I found Missovitch without any trouble. He kept a little tobacconist’s
shop at the address Major Haynes had given me, a pale, unhealthy young
man with a slight moustache and a fringe of beard. He was not very
communicative. I might say that from the very moment I entered the
shop till I left he regarded me with suspicion which he did not
attempt to disguise.

I was in a quandary because I could not betray my knowledge of Loski,
nor could I tell this unauthorized person that I was an agent of the
great German Government that wished him no harm. He grew more and more
uneasy at my careless questions, and to my amazement he also grew
paler, and beads of perspiration grew upon his brow as I asked one
question after another.

“I don’t know who you are, sir,” he said at last, “but I assure you I
have not any knowledge of the Bolsheviks, and I am not interested in
anything which is occurring in Russia.”

“Come, come,” I said jokingly, “that is fine talk from a man with your
name. Tell me, who is this Loski I hear so much about?”

He looked at me through his half-closed lids.

“Sir,” he said, “if you are the police I can give you no information.
You may arrest me,” he said excitedly, though I tried to calm him,
“you may put me in jail, but I can tell you nothing, and Ivanoff’s
trouble will be in vain. I am a poor shopkeeper trying to earn my
living. I don’t know anything about the Bolsheviks, anything about M.
Loski. I know nothing, nothing.”

This was a bad beginning, I thought, as I left the shop, wondering who
was Ivanoff, and certainly not a satisfactory one for Major Haynes.
And yet in many ways it could not have been better.

I had but to tell the truth to Major Haynes and be relieved of a
rather embarrassing mission. Strangely enough, when I reported to the
Intelligence Officer, he accepted my word without any query, though he
was, as I could see, rather troubled.

“The man suspected you, that’s bad,” he said, frowning. “Still, I’m
sure, Heine, you did your best. By the way, he didn’t mention any
other Russian person?”

I suddenly remembered.

“Yes,” I said, “he mentioned a man named----”

“Ivanoff?” said the Major quickly.

“That’s the name,” I said, stupefied by his intelligence.

“H’m,” said Major Haynes, “thank you, Heine. I will let you know if I
want you again.”

I did not hear from the Major, but on the Thursday morning a note was
delivered to my lodgings, this time in the well-known writing of
Captain Baron von Hazfeld. It ran simply:


 “Cancel my previous instructions. Meet messenger to-night at 8.30,
 under the clock at King’s Cross Station.”


At eight o’clock I was at King’s Cross. I gathered that I was to meet
the boat train which was coming in from the north. The train itself
was about five minutes late, and I composed myself to read the evening
newspaper to pass the time. I stood in a little recess and away from
observation, and I was immersed in my newspaper when suddenly I heard
a smothered cry, and, looking up, I found myself face to face with
Missovitch.

He was staring at me with horror. His face was no longer white but
green, and as I took a step toward him he put up his hands with a
strangled cry, and turning, ran like the wind, dodging between
passengers and porters and disappearing through the archway which
leads into the station. I was amazed. What was there in my appearance
which frightened him. Was he following me with the intention of doing
me bodily harm? The thought sent a cold shiver down my spine.

But I had little time to speculate upon this mystery, for a few
minutes afterwards the boat train drew into the station, and I took up
my position under the clock and waited. The passengers streamed
through the narrow barriers, some hailing taxi-cabs, some stopping to
pick up other friends who were on the train, some greeting those who
were waiting for them.

I had no means of recognizing the man who was to bring me the forged
money, but I supposed that he had been well instructed. Do not let it
be thought that I was quite free from care, that in a few moments I
should be in possession of a vast number of forgeries gave me no
pleasure. Suppose anything went wrong! Suppose I was captured! A fine
end for a great agent. I don’t think, as they say in England.

Presently a man emerged from the crush about the barrier and walked
straight across to me, looking at me thoughtfully. He was a tall man
with a thin black moustache, and he stopped near me.

“May I take your bag?” I asked softly in German.

He smiled, passed the bag to me, and we walked out of the station
together.

“Which way do you go?” I asked still in the same language.

“We shall meet at your place to-night,” he said in a low voice.

He turned to the left and I turned to the right. My taxi-cab was
waiting, and I put the bag in. I turned back and saw two men leap from
the shadow upon my late companion. There was a struggle, I heard a
shot, and my blood turned to water.

Summoning all my reserves, I said to the taxi-cab driver, in as calm a
voice as I could manage:

“Bayswater Square,” and in a few seconds I was being whirled away, as
I believed, from the greatest possible danger, my mind filled with the
most distressing and painful thoughts.




 CHAPTER XVIII.
 THE GOING OF HEINE

Picture my feelings as I drove away from King’s Cross in a cab, with
a fat suit-case at my feet. M. Missovitch had most mysteriously been
struck by terror at the sight of me and had bolted. The messenger with
the bag had arrived, and in answer to my inquiry, in German, whether I
should carry his bag, had handed it to me and we had separated.

Scarcely had we parted than two mysterious men had leapt upon him.
There had been a struggle in the street, a shot had been fired, and
here was I driving off in a high condition of perspiration, wondering
how much the Government knew, whether they were aware that I, Heine,
was burdened with a big bag full of forged notes.

I summoned up courage to look back out of the window. I could only see
a crowd gathering in the half-darkness, and withdrew my head. Should I
throw the bag out of the window? If I did somebody might see me and
that would be fatal. Besides, I owed duty to the Fatherland. My chest
swelled at the thought.

I did not drive to my lodgings--believe me, I do not live in Bayswater
Square--but dismissed the man and pretended I was going into one of
the houses. I waited till he had driven away and descended the steps
and walked rapidly to my own humble dwelling which was about two
streets away. Here I admitted myself with a key and entered and went
straight to my room, locking the door behind me.

I realized that for the safety of the Fatherland and for the honour of
the great service, of which I was no unworthy member, that my first
step must be to prove an alibi. With that forethought which is so
characteristically German, I had made myself acquainted with Major
Haynes’s habits. I knew he spent his evenings at Brown’s, a well-known
club in the West End, and I immediately called him up. To my surprise
and delight I found he was there.

“I wish to see you, Major Haynes,” I said. “When will it be
convenient?”

“Come round to the club if it is important,” replied his voice, and
having packed away the suit-case under my bed, I drove to Brown’s, and
was met by the Major in the vestibule.

“Let us pretend you are not an alien enemy,” he said, as he signed my
name in the book, “if it ever leaked out that I had entertained a
German spy I should be hauled before the committee and asked to
resign.”

“You will have your joke, Major Haynes,” I smiled.

“Won’t I?” he asked. “Now tell me what is the trouble?”

I had made up my excuse in the cab.

“When I reported to you that I had interviewed Missovitch,” I said,
“you asked me if he had named anybody and I had replied that he had
mentioned a person named Ivanoff.”

“Quite right,” said the Major, “Alexis Ivanoff.”

“It has occurred to me,” I went on boldly, for I can be a bluffer too
and had played many games at poker, “that I know this Ivanoff. Is he
not an officer of the Preobojensky Regiment?”

“To be exact,” said the Major, “he is not.”

“Oh!” said I, with a well-simulated disappointment, “then my journey
has been in vain.”

“As a matter of fact, you have never heard of Alexis Ivanoff. You
don’t believe he is a member of that regiment, and you have merely
come round to pump me or,” he looked at me with cold-devil
scrutinizing eyes, “or as an excuse to show yourself at”--he looked up
at the clock--“ten-thirty.”

“Not at all,” I said eagerly, though my marrow shook within me.

He did not take his eyes off me.

“There is some reason,” he said slowly, “now own up, Heine?”

We Germans are quick thinkers and the idea came to me as an
inspiration.

“I will be frank with you,” I said, “I have been summoning up my
courage to ask you a favour, but my heart descended to my shoes when I
saw your official face.”

“Go ahead.”

“I need permission to leave London,” said I. “You were kind enough to
tell me that you would facilitate my journey to America, and I have
many real genuine bonâ-fide businesses to do in England before I
depart.”

He thought a moment.

“I have no objection,” he said. “When do you expect to leave?”

“To-morrow,” I replied.

“Now look here, Heine,” he said. “I don’t dislike you. You are quite a
decent fellow, but you have to promise me that you will engage
yourself in no espionage work, that you will not go into any of the
prohibited areas, and that you will report yourself to me on your
return to London.”

“I promise,” I said.

We shook hands and parted. Somehow I knew that this time, at any rate,
he was taking me at my word and I was not being followed.
Nevertheless, I altered my appearance as best I could, but not until
within two hours of my departure did I unlock that suit-case which lay
beneath my bed.

You will understand that I had a natural feeling of delicacy about
playing the common part of a forgery-distributor. You must remember
that I was a student of Heidelberg, that my parents were people of
honour, my father being a State district councillor with a
fourth-class order of the Red Eagle. Was it honourable, thought I, to
distribute forged money? More than that, was it safe?

An examination of the contents of the case satisfied me and filled me
with a certain pride in the skill and genius of our German workmen.
There the money lay in great thick packets of £5, £10, £50 and
£100 notes with innumerable thicker packages of £1 treasury bills.
And the cleverness of the forgeries! Not only were they
indistinguishable from real money, both in the texture of the paper
and in the colour of the printing, but every bank-note bore a
different number and the greater proportion of them had the appearance
of having been used very frequently.

You would never have suspected that these soiled notes, with the fold
marks upon them, were not what they pretended to be. I must confess it
gave me greater courage, and filled me with a certain boyish
satisfaction to know how many people would be deceived.

I left that night for the North. My destination was Scotland, and I
reached Glasgow the following morning. I did not of course put any
money into circulation on the train. Heine is not exactly a fool. He
had to come back by that railway and a fine flibberty-gibbet he would
look if the so-handsomely-tipped guard or the in-excess-paid
sleeping-car attendant were to recognize the man who had given him
forged notes.

I will not attempt to describe the adventures of that week. I will not
tell you how I passed my first £5 note and how I stood in fear and
trembling with my heart thumping so that even the shopkeeper thought
that an aeroplane was passing overhead; of how I lived in terror for
twenty-four hours lest my act be brought home to me.

I was soon to discover that I was chewing more than I could bite. My
friends, it requires an expert to put forged money into circulation.
It must be done note by note, and whenever I offered large sums, like
£50, people looked at me askance.

In Scotland I found it was almost impossible, because the Scottish
people have bank-notes of their own, queer pieces of paper that look
as if they have fallen into the soup and have been dried in a
dust-bin. I came south of the line to Newcastle, staying at an hotel
not far from the station. My progress was painfully slow. In one week
I had only managed to get rid of £100 and most of that was in £1
treasury notes, which were accepted without question.

It was in Newcastle that I got my big fright. I had purchased an £80
motor-bicycle and paid for it in notes, and after ordering the machine
to be sent to the hotel, I was leaving the shop when the manager
called me back.

“I don’t think this £50 note of yours is in order, sir,” he said.

I felt my knees tremble.

“Not in order?” I blustered. “My good man, are you mad?”

“I’ve got the number of a note here which is circulated by the police
as having been stolen. Will you accompany me to the bank? They have
the right numbers there and I may have made a mistake.”

To refuse would have been to invite suspicion. I put a bold look upon
my pale face and swaggered off in company with the manager with true
German insouciance. At the bank my trials and tribulations (internal)
can only be imagined by those who have enjoyed a similar experience.

It was not the fear that this note would prove to be one which had
been stolen that filled my heart with wild fluttering (as a young
girl’s when she is first told by a handsome Prussian lover that he
adores her), it was the tremblement of apprehension that the bank
manager would detect this so perfectly imitated note as a forgery.

We were ushered into the bank manager’s room, an evil,
sinister-looking man with a close-cut moustache. The shopkeeper
explained. For my part I stood a little behind him, having with my
usual thoroughness marked the way of retreat and made my plans for a
grand bolt.

The bank manager took the note in his hand and I set my teeth. He
looked at it, turned it over, rustled it, laid it on the desk,
examined the number, then, pulling out a drawer, he took a thin black
book and opened it. He ran his finger down page after page and at last
he stopped.

“This must be the one, Mr. Speddings,” he said. “I am afraid, sir,” he
said, addressing me, “this gentleman has made a mistake. Curiously
enough, the number of this note is missing but it is not in this
series. Bank-notes, as you know,” he explained, “have a number and a
series letter, and the stolen note fortunately is not yours.”

I bowed my head. Had I spoken my shaking voice would have betrayed me.
I shook hands with this benevolent-looking Englishman, left the note
in the shopkeeper’s hands and, hailing a cab, I drove back to my
hotel.

The shock quite upset me, and I lay on the bed all that afternoon
thinking of some way whereby not only I could get a quicker departure
of the money but a method which enabled me to do so in safety. They
brought me up the afternoon newspapers and I turned the pages idly. I
have explained before, though the fact needs no explanation, that we
Germans leap to an idea as air to a vacuum. It was something in the
little smudged space reserved for the latest news which attracted my
attention. I rang the bell and the porter came to me.

I pretty shrewdly guessed that this man was interested in the subject
which I broached. All these porters and common people of England are
sport-hunters and race-horse punting men, as they call them. I assumed
the air of a bookmaker as he came in, and said with a good imitation
of a bettor:

“What’s the odds for the three o’clock race!”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“What’s the odds for the three o’clock race, my boy?” I said jovially.
“Six to four the field or ten to one bar one?” You see I had got the
jargon of the race-course by heart, though I loathed and detested the
races.

A light dawned in his eyes.

“Oh, you want to know the prices of the three o’clock winner. It’s
four to one, sir.”

“Good,” I replied jovially, and putting my hand in my pocket I gave
him a £5 note to his great astonishment.

“Where is the horse-racing to-morrow?” I asked.

“Same place, sir,” said the man when he had recovered from his
dumbfoundedness.

“Where?” I asked.

“Why, at Newmarket, sir.”

“And is there racing on the following day?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” he replied, “it is a three-day meeting. This is the first
day.”

“Find me the best train for Newmarket, my good fellow,” I said; “for I
am going down to back the field.”

He was mystified by my knowledge of sporting terms. That was easy to
see. He went away and came back in about an hour, and told me that the
best thing I could do was to go to London on the night train, and take
another train from there to Newmarket, and though I did not wish to
appear in London, those were the steps I took, arriving at London at
seven o’clock in the morning and leaving Liverpool Street Station at
half-past eight.

I found on my arrival at that historic centre of gambling and vice,
that I was three hours too soon. My pockets were filled with money,
and I carried the remainder in my portmanteau. I had some difficulty
in finding a room at the hotel, but eventually I was given a small
apartment on the second floor of a gloomy inn.

I left my bag under the bed and strode out into the town,
congratulating myself upon the genius which had inspired me to
discover the most rapid way of putting money into circulation.

It was a bright spring morning and the streets were crowded with men
who were strolling up and down, and who had evidently spent the night
in the town.

I took a brisk walk to what is known as the “Severalls,” and then,
coming back, turned into the most respectable bar I could find and
ordered myself a whisky and soda. I made a great display of my
money--(Do you see Heine’s plan?)--and several sharp-looking men, who
were watching me closely, exchanged glances which I did not fail to
see, though I proceeded innocently to swallow my drink as though I
were oblivious of their presence. By-and-by one of them came over to
me and asked me if I had seen the morning paper.

“I think I have met you before,” he said, “at Ascot.”

“It is very likely,” I replied politely. “I usually go to Ascot three
or four times a year.”

“Not for the racing?” he said, taken aback.

“Yes,” I smiled.

“But,” he said, “there’s only one meeting at Ascot. A four-day meeting
in the summer.”

“Exactly,” I said, never at a loss for a reply. “I go every day.”

“Oh, I see what you mean,” he said. Then, after a pause, “Do you think
Barleycorn will do it to-day?”

“Do what?” I asked, a little puzzled.

“Do you think Barleycorn will win?”

“Oh, of course,” I said hastily. “Is it running?”

He looked at me queerly.

“Running? Is Barleycorn running for the Babraham handicap? Why, of
course it’s running. It will start a hot favourite, too.”

“In that case,” said I with a simulation of racing intelligence, “in
that case it will win. I must have a thousand or so on,” I said with
careless indifference.

He swallowed hard.

“I know a very good thing for the first race,” he said. “It’s a
pinch.”

“What a curious name for a horse,” I said, with a gay laugh.

“You’re a comical chap,” said the man. “What I mean is, this horse is
a certainty.”

“Oh, I see what you mean,” said I. “Forgive me if I am not used to the
patois, but you see I am a Chilian planter and I do not speak very
well.”

He nodded, and the puzzled look on his face disappeared, and instead
there settled that beautiful look of peace and contentment which a man
assumes when he has found an unsuspected gold mine.

“I used to live in Chile myself,” he said, “at least my brother did.
He is always talking about the Chilians--that’s where the chillies
come from, isn’t it?”

I nodded. I do not know where they come from, and I have only been in
Chili once in my life.

“Well, anything I can do for a stranger I am always willing to do,” he
said.

He was a stoutish man with a large gold watch-chain. His face was
clean-shaven and very red, and he wore a grey Derby hat on the back of
his head and three diamond rings on his right hand. He asked me if I
admired the rings and I told him I did. He said they were diamonds and
I did not tell him he was a liar, for I know plate-glass when I see
it.

The end of it was that we all went out to the course together. On the
way up he told me he knew a bookmaker who gave much better odds than
anybody else, and that if I cared to let him do my commissions for me
he would be happy to put me in the way of making money.

It transpired that the pinch was a horse called Implex, and I handed
over £150 with a coolness which took his breath away. Implex did not
win, and if he had won I should not have got the money, because my new
friend, whose name was Mike, did not, so far as I could see, go near a
bookmaker. He came back full of apologies, expecting to find me
wrathful, but I was smiling and urbane. He told me he had another
pinch and that he could get ten to one to a lot of money.

I handed him ten notes of £50, the most difficult notes of all to put
into circulation, and he went into the ring and came back and said
that I stood to win £5,000. The horse was called Molum. I saw that
horse going down. I don’t know much about race-horses, but I know a
horse when I see one. I watched the race from the stand, but I did not
see Molum till after the race was over.

For some time Mike did not come near me, but just before the third
race he put in an appearance, full of sorrow and unhappiness and
expressed the wish that he would be deprived of his sight if he was
not the most disappointed man on the course.

“But you can get all your money back on Barleycorn,” he said. “It’s a
pinch.”

I gave the poor fellow £500 and then strolled into the ring. I
thought I might as well get rid of the money myself. It was a very
simple process. I had merely to go to a bookmaker and say
“Barleycorn,” and he shouted a lot of figures in my face, whereupon I
would hand him money, his assistant writing something in a book and
giving me a ticket.

In this way I distributed over £2,000 and Barleycorn was fourth, or
he may have been tenth. When you realize that the value of the money I
had to distribute was nearly £50,000--I did not count it, but made a
rough calculation--you can appreciate the fact that it went all too
slowly. I could not give the bookmakers too much money for fear I
excited comment. There was only about a quarter of an hour during
which they would accept money. Some of them refused to take it.

On the fifth race Mike told me that a horse named Hippo was a stone
certainty, and when I went to a bookmaker and said “Hippo” and handed
him a lot of money he shook his head and said:

“My book’s full.”

“Get another book,” I said pleasantly.

“I can’t take your money. I don’t want to lay Hippo.”

“What will you lay?” I said.

“I’ll lay you six to one Jiggling Boy,” he said.

“Then make it Jiggling Boy by all means.”

I handed him my money and took his ticket. I know that in story-books
it would happen that I could not get rid of my money and that the
money I put on the horses would be returned to me as winnings, but I
found no difficulty in discovering horses that could not win.

To my annoyance, however, I found that I had achieved the result which
I was most anxious to avoid. I had attracted attention, and when the
last race was over I found myself the cynosure of all eyes. Men nudged
one another as I passed through the wicket-gate to the long road which
leads to the town and I heard them say:

“That’s ’im. That’s the mug!” and use other admiring phrases.

I, Heine, who hated and despised the so-called sport, was already
famous as a gambling plunger in this home of rascality. Now, my plan
was a two-fold one and all was going well. Why should I travel the
country distributing forged money when I could find somebody who would
do it for me? I did not know the rascals of England who received and
distributed stolen notes, but I knew that they existed, as they do in
all countries.

I knew that once a bank is robbed, that, with almost lightning speed,
the bank-notes stolen are circulated and all traces of the thief are
hidden. Here, then, was the machinery for a rapid distribution before
the notes began to drivel back from the Bank of England stamped
“forgery” upon their faces.

I was joined on the way back to the town by Mike and one of his
friends.

“You had bad luck, Mister,” said Mike. “But, never mind, I can make
your fortune to-morrow.”

I smiled, inwardly.

I could make his fortune that night.

“I don’t intend staying for to-morrow’s horse-racing,” I answered him.
“I ought to go back to town. I don’t think it is safe for me to carry
so much money about with me.”

He looked at me.

“It’s very dangerous to carry a lot of money about,” he said. “But,
bless you, this is a very law-abiding country, ain’t it, Alf?”
addressing his companion.

“Too law-abiding,” said the other, a tall, dismal man, with a drooping
moustache.

“I can speak to you as a friend,” I said to Mike, “of course I
wouldn’t tell anybody else.”

“You can trust me,” said Mike, “with your life.”

“Well, I want to ask your advice,” I said. “There is a notice in my
bedroom saying that the landlord of the inn will not be responsible
for any money stolen unless it is deposited with him. Now, do you
think that I am safe in trusting the proprietor of the Beacon Inn with
£30,000?”

There was a long silence. Mike tried to speak once or twice, and when
he did, his voice was husky.

“Thirty thousand pounds,” he said in a far-away voice; “no, I don’t
think I would trust the landlord with that. It isn’t fair to him. So
far as you’ve got it in a safe place, under your bed or somewhere----”

“Exactly,” I said, “it is under my bed, speaking as a friend.”

“Well, so long as it’s there, leave it there,” said Mike. “It’s the
last place anybody would think of looking.”

He accompanied me to the door of my lodgings, and I was turning in
when Mike said to his friend:

“Look here, Alf, why don’t you take this gentleman and show him round
the town. It’s worth seeing. There are some regular old antiquities
here.”

“With pleasure,” I said, “if your friend does not object. And you will
accompany us?”

“I’ve got to see a man in here,” he said, pointing to my inn; “but
I’ll see you later.”

For the next hour, under the guidance of the unhappy Alf, I walked
about Newmarket, listening to my guide. Several times I pretended that
I wanted to go back to the hotel, but each time he prevented me on
some excuse or other. And all the time I was chuckling. I knew the
friend that Mike wanted to see, a certain battered portmanteau under
my bed filled with wonderful treasure.

By this time he would have caught the train and would be on his way to
London where his companion would join him later.

When at last I reached the inn, I paused out of curiosity to ask the
landlord if anybody had been for me. As I expected, a gentleman had
called and had gone upstairs, saying that he had come by invitation.

I walked up to my room, smiling broadly. I pulled the bag from under
the bed, that bag which had been a source of such bother and worry,
and back-quivering. I pulled it out. As I expected, it was empty, save
for one thick packet of notes which, as they were wrapped in paper,
had evidently been left behind by the thief under the impression that
it was some of my personal belongings.

I cursed him for his carelessness, slipped the packet into my pocket,
and taking my few belongings, I went downstairs gaily, paid the bill,
this time with genuine money from my own pocket-book, and drove to the
station.

I could have sworn I saw Alf in one of the carriages as I passed, but
he turned his face away quickly. Be not afraid, my poor fellow! Didst
thou but know, thou and thy sneak-thief companion are unconscious
instruments of vengeance working the will of the Fatherland upon this
perfidious and mercenary England.

Fortunately I had the carriage to myself and was able to get rid of
the bag through the window, choosing the moment when we were crossing
a small river for hiding the evidence.

I reached Liverpool Street Station at 9.20, feeling very hungry. There
were no taxi-cabs procurable, and I went to the station buffet to get
a sandwich and a glass of beer. I saw no sign of Alf, or of his
thievish companion, and as a matter of fact, I did not have the
curiosity to look for them. It was sufficient that I, Heine, had, by
my tactics, distributed £60,000 worth of counterfeit coin for the
glory of the Fatherland.

What was the object, you may ask? Why all this trouble? Cannot you see
that whether it were true or merely a rumour, that there was a great
amount of forged notes in circulation, that the credit of England at
home and abroad would suffer, that people would be loath to accept
paper money, and that confidence, which is the basis of exchange,
would be destroyed?

Truly we Germans are great psychologists and understand the devious
arts of making war ruthlessly. I resolved to call upon the illustrious
Captain Baron von Hazfeld on the following morning, and explain to him
that my mission had been accomplished. After that I might turn my
attention to the Bolsheviks, and try to discover what their little
game was. I had had no time to think about them or to puzzle my brains
about the mysterious Ivanoff, but now that my mission was
accomplished, I could devote more time and attention to that matter.

I stood outside the station waiting for an omnibus, or perchance, I
thought, I might have the luck to find a taxi, when a poorly dressed
man who seemed to know what I was thinking about, came to me and said:

“Are you looking for a taxi, sir?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“You will find one round the corner,” he said. “I’ll show you the
way.”

He led me along the ill-lighted street into a deserted thoroughfare,
which led, I believe, into Finsbury Square. There were no lights and
there was no sign of a taxi-cab.

“It’s round the corner, sir,” said the man again.

I had opened my mouth to speak when suddenly a sack was thrown over my
head. I struggled, but I knew I was in the grip of two or three men.
Then I had been detected. Oh! the wild thoughts that coursed through
my brain! I heard a voice say something, and to my amazement it was in
German.

I was lifted bodily from my feet and pushed into what I knew was the
interior of a motor-car. I heard the door slammed, and presently the
car moved. We had been travelling for twenty minutes when it stopped,
the door was again opened and I was bundled out through a doorway,
down some stone stairs, led and pushed along a passage and through
another doorway. I heard the doors closed and locked, and then the
sack was removed from my head.

I was in a room about twenty feet square, and there were about ten
people present. They were foreign-looking men and I knew instinctively
that the majority of them were Russians. As the sack was whisked from
my head a man, whom I recognized as Missovitch, said:

“That is the man.”

“What is the meaning of this outrage?” I demanded.

“Sit down, Heine,” said an imperious voice.

Such an evening of surprises, for the man who spoke was none other
than the illustrious Captain Baron von Hazfeld!

“Herr Baron,” I stammered.

“Are you sure this is the man?” asked the Baron, turning to
Missovitch.

“Absolutely certain. I saw him take the bag.”

“Then,” said the Baron, “there will be no difficulty in recovering the
money. There was probably some mistake. Now, Heine,” he said, more
kindly than usual, “this gentleman,” pointing to a tall man with a red
beard, who was scowling at me, “is Herr Loski.”

I bowed.

“I am delighted to meet you,” I said.

“You were instructed by me last Thursday week to wait at a station,”
said the Baron, “you were told to meet a messenger who was bringing a
bag of forged notes--I can speak freely before you, gentlemen. That
man arrived,” he went on, turning to me, “but you were not there to
meet him.”

“Pardon me, Herr Baron,” I said with a smile, “I not only met him
but----”

“Wait,” said the Baron, “the man you met was one of M. Loski’s
companions, who brought £65,000 to this country which had been stolen
from the Bank of Petrograd. When I say stolen I should say,” he said,
with a bow to Herr Loski, “expropriated. Knowing that the English
agent of the bank, M. Alexis Ivanoff, had procured a police warrant to
arrest M. Loski, should the money be found in his possession, Herr
Loski employed another gentleman to take the bag direct to M.
Missovitch. Unfortunately he mistook you for M. Missovitch, and the
bag containing £65,000 (English) passed into your possession. Where
is the money?”

The room was swimming around me. It seemed like a horrible dream. For
two weeks I had been engaged in getting rid of that money. I had
bought impossible things which I had never handled. I had gambled
thousands on horses which could never win, and finally I had
deliberately tempted a thief to steal it.

“Where is that money?” said the Baron again.

I drew myself erect.

“It is spent,” I said.

When silence fell again, when everybody had stopped talking and crying
and waving their hands, the Baron spoke.

“You know Major Haynes?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“You went to his club the night before you left London?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“You are accused of having betrayed the secrets of our Department.”

“Whoever accuses me of that,” I cried indignantly, “is a liar.”

“I accuse you,” thundered the Baron.

“Then you are a liar,” I said.

God knows how I mustered up the courage to speak so to one so
illustrious, but I did this in my virtuous innocence. The Baron turned
to the man called Loski.

“My Government will see that you are repaid,” he said; “as to this
traitor, I think, gentlemen, for your own protection there is only one
thing to be done. This man was an agent of ours, but is no longer in
our service. He is in communication with the English Intelligence
Department, and what that means to us all you know.”

The man called Missovitch bent forward eagerly and spoke in a low tone
and the Baron von Hazfeld nodded. Missovitch said something in Russian
and I was instantly seized and thrown into a chair, my hands pulled
behind and handcuffed. Missovitch took off his coat and took from his
pocket a red cord which I watched with a fascinated stare.

I remember it looked like one of those bell-pulls you see in old
English houses without the tassel. He stepped behind me and I knew,
rather than saw, that he was making a slip-knot.

In those few ghastly moments I could not think clearly. I could not
pray, I could not scream. I could only sit open-mouthed staring at the
sneering face of one who called himself a German and yet could watch a
fellow-countryman die at the hands of the barbarian.

“If you have anything to say, Heine, now is your time,” said the
Baron.

I drew a long breath.

“I hope that Germany is beaten,” I said, “and that swine like you will
black the boots of the Englishmen.”

I had hardly finished speaking before the cord was pulled round my
neck. I felt the foot of Missovitch on the back of the chair behind me
as he prepared to take his grip. From where I sat I could see the
door, the key within it, and I could have sworn that I saw the key
turning as though some invisible hand on the outside was gripping its
end.

The cord tightened with a jerk, strangling the cry in my throat. I
felt a tremendous pressure of blood, a horrible, unbearable sense of
suffocation, and then:

“Hands up, everybody!”

The cord relaxed. I stared at the doorway and there stood Major
Haynes, revolver in hand, and behind him I saw the red caps of the
military police.

For a fortnight I lay prostrate in bed and saw nobody but Major
Haynes, who visited me occasionally.

He told me he had secured me a passport and a berth to America, and
also informed me that the ship was one of a convoy. When I was up and
well, and two days before I left, he came to see me.

“You’re going back to America, Heine, and the American police have
been informed of your little weakness. But you are going to have a
square deal and, unless you misbehave yourself, you will not be
interfered with.”

“I have had enough, Major Haynes,” I said, “I’m through.”

He nodded.

“I don’t think you know the thing you have been risking, Heine.” For
the first time he spoke very seriously, without any of that
facetiousness which was his peculiar _métier_. “You think it is an
exciting game and a clever game, but I am going to guarantee that you
will never engage in espionage work again. I am going to send you back
to the United States cured. I want you to stay the night at an hotel.
I am going to get you up very early to-morrow morning. Don’t be
afraid, I am not going to ask you to do anything for me,” he smiled.
“You are ready for the voyage?”

“Yes, Major Haynes,” I said.

“The boat train leaves at ten o’clock to-morrow morning,” he said,
“but I shall want to see you before that; in fact, I shall call at
your hotel at five o’clock.”

I did not know what he was driving at, but I made no objection. As how
could I? With my passport and steamboat ticket in my pocket, and my
trunk packed, I arrived at the little city hotel which he had chosen,
and at five o’clock on the following morning I was awakened and found
him standing beside my bed.

I got up and dressed, had a cup of coffee and some biscuits, and
leaving my bag behind, I went out with him into the deserted streets.
His car was waiting, and we drove through the city to a large
building, which I recognized, passed under a vaulted archway, and the
car stopped in a courtyard.

There was a solemn hush on the world. We heard nothing but the sound
of birds singing. The old trees were dressed in the vivid green of
spring and in my heart was a greater solemnity than I had ever felt.

Major Haynes looked at his watch and led me to a large bare room.

There were eight soldiers there, standing in a line, their rifles at
the rest. At the other end of the room was a chair. We took our place
behind the soldiers, and a little to the side, and presently we heard
steps, and two soldiers entered and between them, dressed in his shirt
and trousers, was Captain Baron von Hazfeld, his face grey, his eyes
downcast.

They sat him on the chair and strapped his hands, and the eight rifles
came up together as if by machinery. I shut my eyes and closed my
ears.

Five seconds later I was in the open air again. I had seen the figure
in the chair limp and bloody and I wanted to see no more.

The Major drove me back to the hotel and, standing on the pavement, he
shook hands with me.

“War,” said he sadly, “is a pitiful business, Heine. Do you think you
will catch your train?”

“Major Haynes,” I said, “if you will be kind enough to drive me to the
station now I shall be glad to wait on the platform until it comes
in.”

 THE END




 ENDNOTES

[1] The Prussian Ministry of War.

[2] As a matter of fact, it was invented by the American Secret
Service.--Ed.

[3] This is not an extravagant story of German credulity, but is based
upon the fact. The more improbable a story was at the beginning of
war, particularly in regard to the British Navy, the more eagerly did
the German Admiralty swallow it.--E.W.

[4] Heine apparently describes as Highlands any hill country in
Scotland.--E.W.

[5] The inconsistency between Heine’s views of his own countrymen and
the opinions he expressed to Mr. Craigmair may be noted as being a
typical example of German mentality.--E.W.

[6] The London Stock Exchange was closed between August and December,
1914, so probably Heine’s explanation is not as convincing as it might
be.--E.W.

[7] This tragedy actually happened to a local branch of a certain
seditious organization in Ireland.--E.W.




 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

The 1919 edition by the same publisher was consulted for the changes
listed below.

Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. air-raid/air raid, Chili/Chile,
taxicab/taxi-cab, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Convert footnotes to endnotes.

Abandon the use of drop-caps.

Punctuation: fix some quotation mark pairings/nestings, missing
periods, etc.

[Chapter II]

Change “I looked at our good _Von_ Kahn, with his big red face” to
_von_.

“informing the _Kreigsministerium_ that he was evidently well” to
_Kriegsministerium_.

“I should not set on foot independent _inquries_ as to their” to
_inquiries_.

“been seen leaving the Central Station at _Glagow_” to _Glasgow_.

[Chapter III]

“Almost as he spoke we _hard_ a quick rustle and swish” to _heard_.

[Chapter IV]

“the place of your birth and the state of your banking _acccount_” to
_account_.

[Chapter V]

(“Your Excellency will discover that I have spoken _noting_ but the
truth,”) to _nothing_.

[Chapter VI]

“I myself am working night and day to _obatin_ results” to _obtain_.

[Chapter VII]

“Miss O’Mara and I met in the _halycon_ days at a ball.” to _halcyon_.

“outside the principal _entrace_ to an exhibition ground?” to
_entrance_.

“on the ground floor and had the _advanage_ of having no porter” to
_advantage_.

“attention to men _with_ have fought and bled for one’s country” to
_who_.

“by any who have the _entreé_ to the archives in Wilhelmstrasse” to
_entrée_.

[Chapter VIII]

(There is a saying in my country; “Trust an Englishman,) change the
semicolon to a colon.

(“That is an _enoromous_ amount. Who asks for it?”) to _enormous_.

“sheet of note-paper, which bore at the top the inscription.” change
the period to a colon.

“The letter was brief and peremptory?” change the question mark to a
colon.

[Chapter IX]

“in tones of gentle but amused _tolerence_ I hinted at my client’s
vanity.” to _tolerance_.

“two or three days later he produced two _maunscripts_ dealing with”
to _manuscripts_.

[Chapter X]

“meet that I should _perface_ the story with a short introduction” to
_preface_.

“that moment that my quick German brain _grapsed_ the situation.” to
_grasped_.

“Two or three _gentleman_ with whom you have had dealings” to
_gentlemen_.

[Chapter XI]

“If there were any _burntofferings_ required, it were better for” to
_burnt offerings_.

(“Do you know them,” asked Wilhelm Peters.) change the comma to a
question mark.

(“I have met them?” I said, and somehow at that) change the question
mark to a comma.

[Chapter XII]

“been opened and my razors and shaving apparatus _was_ neatly laid
out.” to _were_.

[Chapter XIV]

“If you will insert an _adertisement_ in the Daily Megaphone” to
_advertisement_.

[Chapter XV]

“I pondered this letter for some considerable time _ann_ before I
went out” to _and_.

[Chapter XVII]

“We Germans are _wideawake_.” to _wide-awake_.

[Chapter XVIII]

“_dresssed_ in his shirt and trousers” to _dressed_.

 [End of text]








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