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.
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!
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.