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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Man with the Clubfoot, by Valentine Williams
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Man with the Clubfoot
+
+Author: Valentine Williams
+
+Release Date: March 9, 2005 [eBook #15302]
+[Most recently updated: August 18, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Michael Ciesielski, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT ***
+
+
+
+
+                       THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT
+
+                         BY VALENTINE WILLIAMS
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE SECRET HAND," "THE YELLOW STREAK," "THE RETURN OF
+CLUBFOOT," "THE ORANGE DIVAN," "CLUBFOOT THE AVENGER"
+
+                                 1918
+
+
+
+
+WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT
+
+
+"The Man with the Clubfoot" is one of the most ingenious and sinister
+secret agents in Europe. It is to him that the task is assigned of
+regaining possession of an indiscreet letter written by the Kaiser.
+
+Desmond Okewood, a young British officer with a genius for secret
+service work, sets out to thwart this man and, incidentally, discover
+the whereabouts of his brother.
+
+He penetrates into Germany disguised, and meets with many thrilling
+adventures before he finally achieves his mission.
+
+In "The Man with the Clubfoot," Valentine Williams has written a
+thrilling romance of mystery, love and intrigue, that in every sense of
+the word may be described as "breathless."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+       I. I seek a Bed in Rotterdam
+
+      II. The Cipher with the Invoice
+
+     III. A Visitor in the Night
+
+      IV. Destiny knocks at the Door
+
+       V. The Lady of the Vos in't Tuintje
+
+      VI. I board the Berlin Train and leave a Lame Gentleman on the
+          Platform
+
+     VII. In which a Silver Star acts as a Charm
+
+    VIII. I hear of Clubfoot and meet his Employer
+
+      IX. I encounter an old Acquaintance who leads me to a delightful
+          Surprise
+
+       X. A Glass of Wine with Clubfoot
+
+      XI. Miss Mary Prendergast risks her Reputation
+
+     XII. His Excellency the General is worried
+
+    XIII. I find Achilles in his Tent
+
+     XIV. Clubfoot comes to Haase's
+
+      XV. The Waiter at the Café Regina
+
+     XVI. A Hand-clasp by the Rhine
+
+    XVII. Francis takes up the Narrative
+
+   XVIII. I go on with the Story
+
+     XIX. We have a Reckoning with Clubfoot
+
+      XX. Charlemagne's Ride
+
+     XXI. Red Tabs explains
+
+
+
+
+The Man with the Clubfoot
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I SEEK A BED IN ROTTERDAM
+
+
+The reception clerk looked up from the hotel register and shook his head
+firmly. "Very sorry, saire," he said, "not a bed in ze house." And he
+closed the book with a snap.
+
+Outside the rain came down heavens hard. Every one who came into the
+brightly lit hotel vestibule entered with a gush of water. I felt I
+would rather die than face the wind-swept streets of Rotterdam again.
+
+I turned once more to the clerk who was now busy at the key-rack.
+
+"Haven't you really a corner? I wouldn't mind where it was, as it is
+only for the night. Come now..."
+
+"Very sorry, saire. We have two gentlemen sleeping in ze bathrooms
+already. If you had reserved..." And he shrugged his shoulders and bent
+towards a visitor who was demanding his key.
+
+I turned away with rage in my heart. What a cursed fool I had been not
+to wire from Groningen! I had fully intended to, but the extraordinary
+conversation I had had with Dicky Allerton had put everything else out
+of my head. At every hotel I had tried it had been the same
+story--Cooman's, the Maas, the Grand, all were full even to the
+bathrooms. If I had only wired....
+
+As I passed out into the porch I bethought myself of the porter. A hotel
+porter had helped me out of a similar plight in Breslau once years ago.
+This porter, with his red, drink-sodden face and tarnished gold braid,
+did not promise well, so far as a recommendation for a lodging for the
+night was concerned. Still...
+
+I suppose it was my mind dwelling on my experience at Breslau that made
+me address the man in German. When one has been familiar with a foreign
+tongue from one's boyhood, it requires but a very slight mental impulse
+to drop into it. From such slight beginnings do great enterprises
+spring. If I had known the immense ramification of adventure that was to
+spread its roots from that simple question, I verily believe my heart
+would have failed me and I would have run forth into the night and the
+rain and roamed the streets till morning.
+
+Well, I found myself asking the man in German if he knew where I could
+get a room for the night.
+
+He shot a quick glance at me from under his reddened eyelids.
+
+"The gentleman would doubtless like a German house?" he queried.
+
+You may hardly credit it, but my interview with Dicky Allerton that
+afternoon had simply driven the war out of my mind. When one has lived
+much among foreign peoples, one's mentality slips automatically into
+their skin. I was now thinking in German--at least so it seems to me
+when I look back upon that night--and I answered without reflecting.
+
+"I don't care where it is as long as I can get somewhere to sleep out of
+this infernal rain!"
+
+"The gentleman can have a good, clean bed at the Hotel Sixt in the
+little street they call the Vos in't Tuintje, on the canal behind the
+Bourse. The proprietress is a good German, jawohl ... Frau Anna Schratt
+her name is. The gentleman need only say he comes from Franz at the
+Bopparder Hof."
+
+I gave the man a gulden and bade him get me a cab.
+
+It was still pouring. As we rattled away over the glistening
+cobble-stones, my mind travelled back over the startling events of the
+day. My talk with old Dicky had given me such a mental jar that I found
+it at first wellnigh impossible to concentrate my thoughts. That's the
+worst of shell-shock. You think you are cured, you feel fit and well,
+and then suddenly the machinery of your mind checks and halts and
+creaks. Ever since I had left hospital convalescent after being wounded
+on the Somme ("gunshot wound in head and cerebral concussion" the
+doctors called it), I had trained myself, whenever my brain was _en
+panne_, to go back to the beginning of things and work slowly up to the
+present by methodical stages.
+
+Let's see then--I was "boarded" at Millbank and got three months' leave;
+then I did a month in the Little Johns' bungalow in Cornwall. There I
+got the letter from Dicky Allerton, who, before the war, had been in
+partnership with my brother Francis in the motor business at Coventry.
+Dicky had been with the Naval Division at Antwerp and was interned with
+the rest of the crowd when they crossed the Dutch frontier in those
+disastrous days of October, 1914.
+
+Dicky wrote from Groningen, just a line. Now that I was on leave, if I
+were fit to travel, would I come to Groningen and see him? "I have had a
+curious communication which seems to have to do with poor Francis," he
+added. That was all.
+
+My brain was still halting, so I turned to Francis. Here again I had to
+go back. Francis, rejected on all sides for active service, owing to
+what he scornfully used to call "the shirkers' ailment, varicose veins,"
+had flatly declined to carry on with his motor business after Dicky had
+joined up, although their firm was doing government work. Finally, he
+had vanished into the maw of the War Office and all I knew was that he
+was "something on the Intelligence." More than this not even _he_ would
+tell me, and when he finally disappeared from London, just about the
+time that I was popping the parapet with my battalion at Neuve Chapelle,
+he left me his London chambers as his only address for letters.
+
+Ah! now it was all coming back--Francis' infrequent letters to me about
+nothing at all, then his will, forwarded to me for safe keeping when I
+was home on leave last Christmas, and after that, silence. Not another
+letter, not a word about him, not a shred of information. He had utterly
+vanished.
+
+I remembered my frantic inquiries, my vain visits to the War Office, my
+perplexity at the imperturbable silence of the various officials I
+importuned for news of my poor brother. Then there was that lunch at the
+Bath Club with Sonny Martin of the Heavies and a friend of his, some
+kind of staff captain in red tabs. I don't think I heard his name, but I
+know he was at the War Office, and presently over our cigars and coffee
+I laid before him the mysterious facts about my brother's case.
+
+"Perhaps you knew Francis?" I said in conclusion. "Yes," he replied, "I
+know him well." "_Know_ him," I repeated, "_know_ him then ... then you
+think ... you have reason to believe he is still alive...?"
+
+Red Tabs cocked his eye at the gilded cornice of the ceiling and blew a
+ring from his cigar. But he said nothing.
+
+I persisted with my questions but it was of no avail. Red Tabs only
+laughed and said: "I know nothing at all except that your brother is a
+most delightful fellow with all your own love of getting his own way."
+
+Then Sonny Martin, who is the perfection of tact and diplomacy--probably
+on that account he failed for the Diplomatic--chipped in with an
+anecdote about a man who was rating the waiter at an adjoining table,
+and I held my peace. But as Red Tabs rose to go, a little later, he held
+my hand for a minute in his and with that curious look of his, said
+slowly and with meaning:
+
+"When a nation is at war, officers on _active service_ must occasionally
+disappear, sometimes in their country's interest, sometimes in their
+own."
+
+He emphasised the words "on active service."
+
+In a flash my eyes were opened. How blind I had been! Francis was in
+Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE CIPHER WITH THE INVOICE
+
+
+Red Tabs' sphinx-like declaration was no riddle to me. I knew at once
+that Francis must be on secret service in the enemy's country and that
+country Germany. My brother's extraordinary knowledge of the Germans,
+their customs, life and dialects, rendered him ideally suitable for any
+such perilous mission. Francis always had an extraordinary talent for
+languages: he seemed to acquire them all without any mental effort, but
+in German he was supreme. During the year that he and I spent at
+Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's house at Bonn, he rapidly outdistanced
+me, and though, at the end of our time, I could speak German like a
+German, Francis was able, in addition, to speak Bonn and Cologne
+_patois_ like a native of those ancient cities--ay and he could drill a
+squad of recruits in their own language like the smartest _Leutnant_
+ever fledged from Gross-Lichterfelde.
+
+He never had any difficulty in passing himself off as a German. Well I
+remember his delight when he was claimed as a fellow Rheinländer by a
+German officer we met, one summer before the war, combining golf with a
+little useful espionage at Cromer.
+
+I don't think Francis had any ulterior motive in his study of German.
+He simply found he had this imitative faculty; philology had always
+interested him, so even after he had gone into the motor trade, he used
+to amuse himself on business trips to Germany by acquiring new dialects.
+
+His German imitations were extraordinarily funny. One of his "star
+turns", was a noisy sitting of the Reichstag with speeches by Prince
+Bülow and August Bebel and "interruptions"; another, a patriotic oration
+by an old Prussian General at a Kaiser's birthday dinner. Francis had a
+marvellous faculty not only of _seeming_ German, but even of almost
+looking like a German, so absolutely was he able to slip into the skin
+of the part.
+
+Yet never in my wildest moments had I dreamt that he would try and get
+into Germany in war-time, into that land where every citizen is
+catalogued and pigeonholed from the cradle. But Red Tabs' oracular
+utterance had made everything clear to me. Why a mission to Germany
+would be the very thing that Francis would give his eyes to be allowed
+to attempt! Francis with his utter disregard of danger, his love of
+taking risks, his impish delight in taking a rise out of the stodgy
+Hun--why, if there were Englishmen brave enough to take chances of
+that kind, Francis would be the first to volunteer.
+
+Yes, if Francis were on a mission anywhere it would be to Germany. But
+what prospect had he of ever returning--with the frontiers closed and
+ingress and egress practically barred even to pro-German neutrals? Many
+a night in the trenches I had a mental vision of Francis, so debonair
+and so fearless, facing a firing squad of Prussian privates.
+
+From the day of the luncheon at the Bath Club to this very afternoon I
+had had no further inkling of my brother's whereabouts or fate. The
+authorities at home professed ignorance, as I knew, in duty bound, they
+would, and I had nothing to hang any theory on to until Dicky Allerton's
+letter came. Ashcroft at the F.O. fixed up my passports for me and I
+lost no time in exchanging the white gulls and red cliffs of Cornwall
+for the windmills and trim canals of Holland.
+
+And now in my breast pocket lay, written on a small piece of cheap
+foreign notepaper, the tidings I had come to Groningen to seek. Yet so
+trivial, so nonsensical, so baffling was the message that I already felt
+my trip to Holland to have been a fruitless errand.
+
+I found Dicky fat and bursting with health in his quarters at the
+internment camp. He only knew that Francis had disappeared. When I told
+him of my meeting with Red Tabs at the Bath Club, of the latter's words
+to me at parting and of my own conviction in the matter he whistled,
+then looked grave.
+
+He went straight to the point in his bluff direct way.
+
+"I am going to tell you a story first, Desmond," he said to me, "then
+I'll show you a piece of paper. Whether the two together fit in with
+your theory as to poor Francis' disappearance will be for you to judge.
+Until now I must confess--I had felt inclined to dismiss the only
+reference this document appears to make to your brother as a mere
+coincidence in names, but what you have told me makes things
+interesting--by Jove, it does, though. Well, here's the yarn first of
+all.
+
+"Your brother and I have had dealings in the past with a Dutchman in the
+motor business at Nymwegen, name of Van Urutius. He has often been over
+to see us at Coventry in the old days and Francis has stayed with him at
+Nymwegen once or twice on his way back from Germany--Nymwegen, you know,
+is close to the German frontier. Old Urutius has been very decent to me
+since I have been in gaol here and has been over several times,
+generally with a box or two of those nice Dutch cigars."
+
+"Dicky," I broke in on him, "get on with the story. What the devil's all
+this got to do with Francis? The document--"
+
+"Steady, my boy!" was the imperturbable reply, "let me spin my yarn my
+own way. I'm coming to the piece of paper....
+
+"Well, then, old Urutius came to see me ten days ago. All I knew about
+Francis I had told him, namely, that Francis had entered the army and
+was missing. It was no business of the old Mynheer if Francis was in the
+Intelligence, so I didn't tell him that. Van U. is a staunch friend of
+the English, but you know the saying that if a man doesn't know he can't
+split.
+
+"My old Dutch pal, then, turned up here ten days ago. He was bubbling
+over with excitement. 'Mr. Allerton' he says, 'I haf a writing, a most
+mysterious writing--a I think, from Francis Okewood.'
+
+"I sat tight. If there were any revelations coming they were going to be
+Dutch, not British. On that I was resolved.
+
+"'I haf received;' the old Dutchman went on, from Gairemany a parcel of
+metal shields, plates--what you call 'em--of tin, _hein?_ What I haf to
+advertise my business. They arrife las' week--I open the parcel myself
+and on the top is the envelope with the invoice.'
+
+"Mynheer paused; he has a good sense of the dramatic.
+
+"'Well', I said, 'did it bite you or say "Gott strafe England?" Or
+what?'
+
+"Van Urutius ignored my flippancy and resumed. 'I open the envelope and
+there in the invoice I find this writing--here!'
+
+"And here," said Dicky, diving into his pocket, "is the writing!"
+
+And he thrust into my eagerly outstretched hand a very thin half-sheet
+of foreign notepaper, of that kind of cheap glazed notepaper you get in
+cafes on the Continent when you ask for writing materials.
+
+Three lines of German, written in fluent German characters in purple ink
+beneath the name and address of Mynheer van Urutius ... that was all.
+
+My heart sank with disappointment and wretchedness as I read the
+inscription.
+
+Here is the document:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Herr Willem van Urutius,
+Automobilgeschäft,
+Nymwegen.
+_Alexandtr-Straat_ 81 bis.
+
+Berlin, Iten Juli, 16.
+
+O Eichenholz! O Eichenholz!
+Wie leer sind deine Blätter.
+
+Wie Achiles in dem Zelte.
+
+Wo zweie sich zanken
+Erfreut sich der Dritte.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+(Translation.)
+
+Mr. Willem van Urutius,
+Automobile Agent,
+Nymwegen.
+81 bis _Alexander-Straat._
+
+Berlin, 1st July, 16.
+
+O Oak-tree! O Oak-tree,
+How empty are thy leaves.
+
+Like Achiles in the tent.
+
+When two people fall out
+The third party rejoices.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I stared at this nonsensical document in silence. My thoughts were
+almost too bitter for words.
+
+At last I spoke.
+
+"What's all this rigmarole got to do with Francis, Dicky?" I asked,
+vainly trying to suppress the bitterness in my voice. "This looks like a
+list of copybook maxims for your Dutch friend's advertisement cards...."
+
+But I returned to the study of the piece of paper.
+
+"Not so fast, old bird," Dicky replied coolly, "let me finish my story.
+Old Stick-in-the-mud is a lot shrewder than we think.
+
+"'When I read the writing,' he told me, 'I think he is all robbish, but
+then I ask myself, Who shall put robbish in my invoices? And then I
+read the writing again and once again, and then I see he is a message.'"
+
+"Stop, Dicky!" I cried, "of course, what an ass I am! Why
+_Eichenholz_...."
+
+"Exactly," retorted Dicky, "as the old Mynheer was the first to see,
+_Eichenholz_ translated into English is 'Oak-tree' or 'Oak-wood'--in
+other words, Francis."
+
+"Then, Dicky...." I interrupted.
+
+"Just a minute," said Dicky, putting up his hand. "I confess I thought,
+on first seeing this message or whatever it is, that there must be
+simply a coincidence of name and that somebody's idle scribbling had
+found its way into old van U.'s invoice. But now that you have told me
+that Francis may have actually got into Germany, then, I must say, it
+looks as if this might be an attempt of his to communicate with home."
+
+"Where did the Dutchman's packet of stuff come from?" I asked.
+
+"From the Berlin Metal Works in Steglitz, a suburb of Berlin: he has
+dealt with them for years."
+
+"But then what does all the rest of it mean ... all this about Achilles
+and the rest?"
+
+"Ah, Desmond!" was Dicky's reply, "that's where you've got not only me,
+but also Mynheer van Urutius."
+
+"'O oak-wood! O oak-wood, how empty are thy leaves!'.... That sounds
+like a taunt, don't you think, Dicky?" said I.
+
+"_Or_ a confession of failure from Francis ... to let us know that he
+has done nothing, adding that he is accordingly sulking 'like Achilles
+in his tent.'"
+
+"But, see here, Richard Allerton," I said, "Francis would never spell
+'Achilles' with one 'l' ... now, would he?"
+
+"By Jove!" said Dicky, looking at the paper again, "nobody would but a
+very uneducated person. I know nothing about German, but tell me, is
+that the hand of an educated German? Is it Francis' handwriting?"
+
+"Certainly, it is an educated hand," I replied, "but I'm dashed if I can
+say whether it is Francis' German handwriting: it can scarcely be
+because, as I have already remarked, he spells 'Achilles' with one 'l.'"
+
+Then the fog came down over us again. We sat helplessly and gazed at the
+fateful paper.
+
+"There's only one thing for it, Dicky," I said finally, "I'll take the
+blooming thing back to London with me and hand it over to the
+Intelligence. After all, Francis may have a code with them. Possibly
+they will see light where we grope in darkness."
+
+"Desmond," said Dicky, giving me his hand, "that's the most sensible
+suggestion you've made yet. Go home and good luck to you. But promise me
+you'll come back here and tell me if that piece of paper brings the
+news that dear old Francis is alive."
+
+So I left Dicky but I did not go home. I was not destined to see my home
+for many a weary week.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A VISITOR IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+A volley of invective from the box of the cab--bad language in Dutch is
+fearfully effective--aroused me from my musings. The cab, a small,
+uncomfortable box with a musty smell, stopped with a jerk that flung me
+forward. From the outer darkness furious altercation resounded above the
+plashing of the rain. I peered through the streaming glass of the
+windows but could distinguish nothing save the yellow blur of a lamp.
+Then a vehicle of some kind seemed to move away in front of us, for I
+heard the grating of wheels against the kerb, and my cab drew up to the
+pavement.
+
+On alighting, I found myself in a narrow, dark street with high houses
+on either side. A grimy lamp with the word "Hôtel" in half-obliterated
+characters painted on it hung above my head, announcing that I had
+arrived at my destination. As I paid off the cabman another cab passed.
+It was apparently the one with which my Jehu had had words, for he
+turned round and shouted abuse into the night.
+
+My cabman departed, leaving me with my bag on the pavement at my feet,
+gazing at a narrow dirty door, the upper half of which was filled in
+with frosted glass. I was at last awake to the fact that I, an
+Englishman, was going to spend the night in a German hotel to which I
+had been specially recommended by a German porter on the understanding
+that I was a German. I knew that, according to the Dutch neutrality
+regulations, my passport would have to be handed in for inspection by
+the police and that therefore I could not pass myself off as a German.
+
+"Bah!" I said to give myself courage, "this is a free country, a neutral
+country. They may be offensive, they may overcharge you, in a Hun hotel,
+but they can't eat you. Besides, any bed in a night like this!" and I
+pushed open the door.
+
+Within, the hotel proved to be rather better than its uninviting
+exterior promised. There was a small vestibule with a little glass cage
+of an office on one side and beyond it an old-fashioned flight of
+stairs, with a glass knob on the post at the foot, winding to the upper
+stories.
+
+At the sound of my footsteps on the mosaic flooring, a waiter emerged
+from a little cubby-hole under the stairs. He had a blue apron girt
+about his waist, but otherwise he wore the short coat and the dicky and
+white tie of the Continental hotel waiter. His hands were grimy with
+black marks and so was his apron. He had apparently been cleaning
+boots.
+
+He was a big, fat, blonde man with narrow, cruel little eyes. His hair
+was cut so short that his head appeared to be shaven. He advanced
+quickly towards me and asked me in German in a truculent voice what I
+wanted.
+
+I replied in the same language, I wanted a room.
+
+He shot a glance at me through his little slits of eyes on hearing my
+good Bonn accent, but his manner did not change.
+
+"The hotel is full. The gentleman cannot have a bed here. The
+proprietress is out at present. I regret...." He spat this all out in
+the offhand insolent manner of the Prussian official.
+
+"It was Franz, of the Bopparder Hof, who recommended me to come here," I
+said. I was not going out again into the rain for a whole army of
+Prussian waiters.
+
+"He told me that Frau Schratt would make me very comfortable," I added.
+
+The waiter's manner changed at once.
+
+"So, so," he said--quite genially this time--"it was Franz who sent the
+gentleman to us. He is a good friend of the house, is Franz. Ja, Frau
+Schratt is unfortunately out just now, but as soon as the lady returns I
+will inform her you are here. In the meantime, I will give the gentleman
+a room."
+
+He handed me a candlestick and a key.
+
+"So," he grunted, "No. 31, the third floor."
+
+A clock rang out the hour somewhere in the distance.
+
+"Ten o'clock already," he said. "The gentleman's papers can wait till
+to-morrow, it is so late. Or perhaps the gentleman will give them to the
+proprietress. She must come any moment."
+
+As I mounted the winding staircase I heard him murmur again:
+
+"So, so, Franz sent him here! Ach, der Franz!"
+
+As soon as I had passed out of sight of the lighted hall I found myself
+in complete darkness. On each landing a jet of gas, turned down low,
+flung a dim and flickering light a few yards around. On the third floor
+I was able to distinguish by the gas rays a small plaque fastened to the
+wall inscribed with an arrow pointing to the right above the figures:
+46-30.
+
+I stopped to strike a match to light my candle. The whole hotel seemed
+wrapped in silence, the only sound the rushing of water in the gutters
+without. Then from the darkness of the narrow corridor that stretched
+out in front of me, I heard the rattle of a key in a lock.
+
+I advanced down the corridor, the pale glimmer of my candle showing me
+as I passed a succession of yellow doors, each bearing a white porcelain
+plate inscribed with a number in black. No. 46 was the first room on
+the right counting from the landing: the even numbers were on the right,
+the odd on the left: therefore I reckoned on finding my room the last on
+the left at the end of the corridor.
+
+The corridor presently took a sharp turn. As I came round the bend I
+heard again the sound of a key and then the rattling of a door knob, but
+the corridor bending again, I could not see the author of the noise
+until I had turned the corner.
+
+I ran right into a man fumbling at a door on the left-hand side of the
+passage, the last door but one. A mirror at the end of the corridor
+caught and threw back the reflection of my candle.
+
+The man looked up as I approached. He was wearing a soft black felt hat
+and a black overcoat and on his arm hung an umbrella streaming with
+rain. His candlestick stood on the floor at his feet. It had apparently
+just been extinguished, for my nostrils sniffed the odour of burning
+tallow.
+
+"You have a light?" the stranger said in German in a curiously
+breathless voice. "I have just come upstairs and the wind blew out my
+candle and I could not get the door open. Perhaps you could ..." He
+broke off gasping and put his hand to his heart.
+
+"Allow me," I said. The lock of the door was inverted and to open the
+door you had to insert the key upside-down. I did so and the door
+opened easily. As it swung back I noticed the number of the room was 33,
+next door to mine.
+
+"Can I be of any assistance to you? Are you unwell?" I said, at the same
+time lifting my candle and scanning the stranger's features.
+
+He was a young man with close-cropped black hair, fine dark eyes and an
+aquiline nose with a deep furrow between the eyebrows. The crispness of
+his hair and the high cheekbones gave a suggestion of Jewish blood. His
+face was very pale and his lips were blueish. I saw the perspiration
+glistening on his forehead.
+
+"Thank you, it is nothing," the man replied in the same breathless
+voice. "I am only a little out of breath with carrying my bag upstairs.
+That's all."
+
+"You must have arrived just before I did," I said, remembering the cab
+that had driven away from the hotel as I drove up.
+
+"That is so," he answered, pushing open his door as he spoke. He
+disappeared into the darkness of the room and suddenly the door shut
+with a slam that re-echoed through the house.
+
+As I had calculated, my room was next door to his, the end room of the
+corridor. It smelt horribly close and musty and the first thing I did
+was to stride across to the windows and fling them back wide.
+
+I found myself looking across a dark and narrow canal, on whose
+stagnant water loomed large the black shapes of great barges, into the
+windows of gaunt and weather-stained houses over the way. Not a light
+shone in any window. Away in the distance the same clock as I had heard
+before struck the quarter--a single, clear chime.
+
+It was the regular bedroom of the _maison meublée_--worn carpet,
+discoloured and dingy wallpaper, faded rep curtains and mahogany
+bedstead with a vast _édredon_, like a giant pincushion. My candle,
+guttering wildly in the unaccustomed breeze blowing dankly through the
+chamber, was the sole illuminant. There was neither gas nor electric
+light laid on.
+
+The house had relapsed into quiet. The bedroom had an evil look and
+this, combined with the dank air from the canal, gave my thoughts a
+sombre tinge.
+
+"Well," I said to myself, "you're a nice kind of ass! Here you are, a
+British officer, posing as a brother Hun in a cut-throat Hun hotel, with
+a waiter who looks like the official Prussian executioner. What's going
+to happen to you, young feller my lad, when Madame comes along and finds
+you have a British passport? A very pretty kettle of fish, I must say!
+
+"And suppose Madame takes it into her head to toddle along up here
+to-night and calls your bluff and summons the gentle Hans or Fritz or
+whatever that ruffianly waiter's name is to come upstairs and settle
+your hash! What sort of a fight are you going to put up in that narrow
+corridor out there with a Hun next door and probably on every side of
+you, and no exit this end? You don't know a living soul in Rotterdam and
+no one will be a penny the wiser if you vanish off the face of the
+earth ... at any rate no one on this side of the water."
+
+Starting to undress, I noticed a little door on the left-hand side of
+the bed. I found it opened into a small _cabinet de toilette_, a narrow
+slip of a room with a wash-hand stand and a very dirty window covered
+with yellow paper. I pulled open this window with great difficulty--it
+cannot have been opened for years--and found it gave on to a very small
+and deep interior court, just an air shaft round which the house was
+built. At the bottom was a tiny paved court not more than five foot
+square, entirely isolated save on one side where there was a basement
+window with a flight of steps leading down from the court through an
+iron grating. From this window a faint yellow streak of light was
+visible. The air was damp and chill and horrid odours of a dirty kitchen
+were wafted up the shaft. So I closed the window and set about turning
+in.
+
+I took off my coat and waistcoat, then bethought me of the mysterious
+document I had received from Dicky. Once more I looked at those
+enigmatical words:
+
+_O Oak-wood! O Oak-wood_ (for that much was
+clear),
+_How empty are thy leaves.
+_Like Achiles_ (with one "l") _in the tent.
+When two people fall out
+The third party rejoices._
+
+What did it all mean? Had Francis fallen out with some confederate who,
+having had his revenge by denouncing my brother, now took this
+extraordinary step to announce his victim's fate to the latter's
+friends? "Like Achilles in the tent!" Why not "in _his_ tent"?
+Surely ...
+
+A curious choking noise, the sound of a strangled cough, suddenly broke
+the profound silence of the house. My heart seemed to stop for a moment.
+I hardly dared raise my eyes from the paper which I was conning, leaning
+over the table in my shirt and trousers.
+
+The noise continued, a hideous, deep-throated gurgling. Then I heard a
+faint foot-fall in the corridor without.
+
+I raised my eyes to the door.
+
+Someone or something was scratching the panels, furiously, frantically.
+
+The door-knob was rattled loudly. The noise broke in raucously upon that
+horrid gurgling sound without. It snapped the spell that bound me.
+
+I moved resolutely towards the door. Even as I stepped forward the
+gurgling resolved itself into a strangled cry.
+
+"Ach! ich sterbe" were the words I heard.
+
+Then the door burst open with a crash, there was a swooping rush of wind
+and rain through the room, the curtains flapped madly from the windows.
+
+The candle flared up wildly.
+
+Then it went out.
+
+Something fell heavily into the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DESTINY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR
+
+
+There are two things at least that modern warfare teaches you, one is to
+keep cool in an emergency, the other is not to be afraid of a corpse.
+Therefore I was scarcely surprised to find myself standing there in the
+dark calmly reviewing the extraordinary situation in which I now found
+myself. That's the curious thing about shell-shock: after it a motor
+back-firing or a tyre bursting will reduce a man to tears, but in face
+of danger he will probably find himself in full possession of his wits
+as long as there is no sudden and violent noise connected with it.
+
+Brief as the sounds without had been, I was able on reflection to
+identify that gasping gurgle, that rapid patter of the hands. Anyone who
+has seen a man die quickly knows them. Accordingly I surmised that
+somebody had come to my door at the point of death, probably to seek
+assistance.
+
+Then I thought of the man next door, his painful breathlessness, his
+blueish lips, when I found him wrestling with his key, and I guessed
+who was my nocturnal visitor lying prone in the dark at my feet.
+
+Shielding the candle with my hand I rekindled it. Then I grappled with
+the flapping curtains and got the windows shut. Then only did I raise my
+candle until its beams shone down upon the silent figure lying across
+the threshold of the room.
+
+It was the man from No. 33. He was quite dead. His face was livid and
+distorted, his eyes glassy between the half-closed lids, while his
+fingers, still stiffly clutching, showed paint and varnish and dust
+beneath the nails where he had pawed door and carpet in his death agony.
+
+One did not need to be a doctor to see that a heart attack had swiftly
+and suddenly struck him down.
+
+Now that I knew the worst I acted with decision. I dragged the body by
+the shoulders into the room until it lay in the centre of the carpet.
+Then I locked the door.
+
+The foreboding of evil that had cast its black shadow over my thoughts
+from the moment I crossed the threshold of this sinister hotel came over
+me strongly again. Indeed, my position was, to say the least, scarcely
+enviable. Here was I, a British officer with British papers of identity,
+about to be discovered in a German hotel, into which I had introduced
+myself under false pretences, at dead of night alone with the corpse of
+a German or Austrian (for such the dead man apparently was)!
+
+It was undoubtedly a most awkward fix.
+
+I listened.
+
+Everything in the hotel was silent as the grave.
+
+I turned from my gloomy forebodings to look again at the stranger. In
+his crisp black hair and slightly protuberant cheekbones I traced again
+the hint of Jewish ancestry I had remarked before. Now that the man's
+eyes--his big, thoughtful eyes that had stared at me out of the darkness
+of the corridor--were closed, he looked far less foreign than before: in
+fact he might almost have passed as an Englishman.
+
+He was a young man--about my own age, I judged--(I shall be twenty-eight
+next birthday) and about my own height, which is five feet ten. There
+was something about his appearance and build that struck a chord very
+faintly in my memory.
+
+Had I seen the fellow before?
+
+I remembered now that I had noticed something oddly familiar about him
+when I first saw him for that brief moment in the corridor.
+
+I looked down at him again as he lay on his back on the faded carpet. I
+brought the candle down closer and scanned his features.
+
+He certainly looked less foreign than he did before. He might not be a
+German after all: more likely a Hungarian or a Pole, perhaps even a
+Dutchman. His German had been too flawless for a Frenchman--for a
+Hungarian, either, for that matter.
+
+I leant back on my knees to ease my cramped position. As I did so I
+caught a glimpse of the stranger's three-quarters face.
+
+Why! He reminded me of Francis a little!
+
+There certainly was a suggestion of my brother in the man's appearance.
+Was it the thick black hair, the small dark moustache? Was it the
+well-chiselled mouth? It was rather a hint of Francis than a resemblance
+to him.
+
+The stranger was fully dressed. The jacket of his blue serge suit had
+fallen open and I saw a portfolio in the inner breast pocket. Here, I
+thought, might be a clue to the dead man's identity. I fished out the
+portfolio, then rapidly ran my fingers over the stranger's other
+pockets.
+
+I left the portfolio to the last.
+
+The jacket pockets contained nothing else except a white silk
+handkerchief unmarked. In the right-hand top pocket of the waistcoat was
+a neat silver cigarette case, perfectly plain, containing half a dozen
+cigarettes. I took one out and looked at it. It was a Melania, a
+cigarette I happen to know for they stock them at one of my clubs, the
+Dionysus, and it chances to be the only place in London where you can
+get the brand.
+
+It looked as if my unknown friend had come from London.
+
+There was also a plain silver watch of Swiss make.
+
+In the trousers pocket was some change, a little English silver and
+coppers, some Dutch silver and paper money. In the right-hand trouser
+pocket was a bunch of keys.
+
+That was all.
+
+I put the different articles on the floor beside me. Then I got up, put
+the candle on the table, drew the chair up to it and opened the
+portfolio.
+
+In a little pocket of the inner flap were visiting cards. Some were
+simply engraved with the name in small letters:
+
+Dr. Semlin
+
+Others were more detailed:
+
+Dr. Semlin, Brooklyn, N.Y.
+The Halewright Mfg. Co., Ltd.
+
+There were also half a dozen private cards:
+
+Dr. Semlin, 333 E. 73rd St., New York.
+Rivington Park House.
+
+In the packet of cards was a solitary one, larger than the rest, an
+expensive affair on thick, highly glazed millboard, bearing in gothic
+characters the name:
+
+Otto von Steinhardt.
+
+On this card was written in pencil, above the name:
+
+"Hotel Sixt, Vos in't Tuintje," and in brackets, thus: "(Mme. Anna
+Schratt.)"
+
+In another pocket of the portfolio was an American passport surmounted
+by a flaming eagle and sealed with a vast red seal, sending greetings to
+all and sundry on behalf of Henry Semlin, a United States citizen,
+travelling to Europe. Details in the body of the document set forth that
+Henry Semlin was born at Brooklyn on 31st March, 1886, that his hair was
+Black, nose Aquiline, chin Firm, and that of special marks he had None.
+The description was good enough to show me that it was undoubtedly the
+body of Henry Semlin that lay at my feet.
+
+The passport had been issued at Washington three months earlier. The
+only _visa_ it bore was that of the American Embassy in London, dated
+two days previously. With it was a British permit, issued to Henry
+Semlin, Manufacturer, granting him authority to leave the United Kingdom
+for the purpose of travelling to Rotterdam, further a bill for luncheon
+served on board the Dutch Royal mail steamer _Koningin Regentes_ on
+yesterday's date.
+
+In the long and anguishing weeks that followed on that anxious night in
+the Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often wondered to what
+malicious promptings, to what insane impulse, I owed the idea that
+suddenly germinated in my brain as I sat fingering the dead man's
+letter-case in that squalid room. The impulse sprang into my brain like
+a flash and like a flash I acted on it, though I can hardly believe I
+meant to pursue it to its logical conclusion until I stood once more
+outside the door of my room.
+
+The examination of the dead man's papers had shown me that he was an
+American business man, who had just come from London, having but
+recently proceeded to England from the United States.
+
+What puzzled me was why an American manufacturer, seemingly of some
+substance and decently dressed, should go to a German hotel on the
+recommendation of a German, from his name, and the style of his visiting
+card, a man of good family.
+
+Semlin might, of course, have been, like myself, a traveller benighted
+in Rotterdam, owing his recommendation to the hotel to a German
+acquaintance in the city. Still, Americans are cautious folk and I found
+it rather improbable that this American business man should adventure
+himself into this evil-looking house with a large sum of money on his
+person--he had several hundred pounds of money in Dutch currency notes
+in a thick wad in his portfolio.
+
+I knew that the British authorities discouraged, as far as they could,
+neutrals travelling to and fro between England and Germany in war-time.
+Possibly Semlin wanted to do business in Germany on his European trip as
+well as in England. Knowing the attitude of the British authorities, he
+may well have made his arrangements in Holland for getting into Germany
+lest the British police should get wind of his purpose and stop him
+crossing to Rotterdam.
+
+But his German was so flawless, with no trace of Americanism in voice or
+accent. And I knew what good use the German Intelligence had made of
+neutral passports in the past. Therefore I determined to go next door
+and have a look at Dr. Semlin's luggage. In the back of my mind was ever
+that harebrain resolve, half-formed as yet but none the less firmly
+rooted in my head.
+
+Taking up my candle again, I stole out of the room. As I stood in the
+corridor and turned to lock the bedroom door behind me, the mirror at
+the end of the passage caught the reflection of my candle.
+
+I looked and saw myself in the glass, a white, staring face.
+
+I looked again. Then I fathomed the riddle that had puzzled me in the
+dead face of the stranger in my room.
+
+It was not the face of Francis that his features suggested.
+
+It was mine!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next moment I found myself in No. 33. I could see no sign of the key
+of the room; Semlin must have dropped it in his fall, so it behoved me
+to make haste for fear of any untoward interruption. I had not yet heard
+eleven strike on the clock.
+
+The stranger's hat and overcoat lay on a chair. The hat was from
+Scott's: there was nothing except a pair of leather gloves in the
+overcoat pockets.
+
+A bag, in size something between a small kit-bag and a large handbag,
+stood open on the table. It contained a few toilet necessaries, a pair
+of pyjamas, a clean shirt, a pair of slippers, ... nothing of importance
+and not a scrap of paper of any kind.
+
+I went through everything again, looked in the sponge bag, opened the
+safety razor case, shook out the shirt, and finally took everything out
+of the bag and stacked the things on the table.
+
+At the bottom of the bag I made a strange discovery. The interior of
+the bag was fitted with that thin yellow canvas-like material with which
+nearly all cheap bags, like this one was, are lined. At the bottom of
+the bag an oblong piece of the lining had apparently been torn clean
+out. The leather of the bag showed through the slit. Yet the lining
+round the edges of the gap showed no fraying, no trace of rough usage.
+On the contrary, the edges were pasted neatly down on the leather.
+
+I lifted the bag and examined it. As I did so I saw lying on the table
+beside it an oblong of yellow canvas. I picked it up and found the under
+side stained with paste and the brown of the leather.
+
+It was the missing piece of lining and it was stiff with something that
+crackled inside it.
+
+I slit the piece of canvas up one side with my penknife. It contained
+three long fragments of paper, a thick, expensive, highly glazed paper.
+Top, bottom and left-hand side of each was trim and glossy: the fourth
+side showed a broken edge as though it had been roughly cut with a
+knife. The three slips of paper were the halves of three quarto sheets
+of writing, torn in two, lengthways, from top to bottom.
+
+At the top of each slip was part of some kind of crest in gold, what, it
+was not possible to determine, for the crest had been in the centre of
+the sheet and the cut had gone right through it.
+
+The letter was written in English but the name of the recipient as also
+the date was on the missing half.
+
+Somewhere in the silence of the night I heard a door bang. I thrust the
+slips of paper in their canvas covering into my trousers pocket. I must
+not be found in that room. With trembling hands I started to put the
+things back in the bag. Those slips of paper, I reflected as I worked,
+at least rent the veil of mystery enveloping the corpse that lay
+stiffening in the next room. This, at any rate, was certain: German or
+American or hyphenate, Henry Semlin, manufacturer and spy, had voyaged
+from America to England not for the purposes of trade but to get hold of
+that mutilated document now reposing in my pocket. Why he had only got
+half the letter and what had happened to the other half was more than I
+could say ... it sufficed for me to know that its importance to somebody
+was sufficient to warrant a journey on its behalf from one side to the
+other of the Atlantic.
+
+As I opened the bag my fingers encountered a hard substance, as of
+metal, embedded in the slack of the lining in the joints of the mouth.
+At first I thought it was a coin, then I felt some kind of clasp or
+fastening behind it and it seemed to be a brooch. Out came my pocket
+knife again and there lay a small silver star, about as big as a
+regimental cap badge, embedded in the thin canvas. It bore an
+inscription. In stencilled letters I read:
+
+O2 G
+Abt. VII.
+
+Here was Dr. Semlin's real visiting-card.
+
+I held in my hand a badge of the German secret police.
+
+You cannot penetrate far behind the scenes in Germany without coming
+across the traces of Section Seven of the Berlin Police Presidency, the
+section that is known euphemistically as that of the Political Police.
+Ostensibly it attends to the safety of the monarch, and of distinguished
+personages generally, and the numerous suite that used to accompany the
+Kaiser on his visits to England invariably included two or three
+top-hatted representatives of the section.
+
+The ramifications of _Abteilung Sieben_ are, in reality, much wider. It
+does such work in connection with the newspapers as is even too dirty
+for the German Foreign Office to touch, comprising everything from the
+launching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets against
+inconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthful
+foreign correspondents to the frontier. It is the obedient handmaiden of
+the Intelligence Department of both War Office and Admiralty in Germany,
+and renders faithful service to the espionage which is constantly
+maintained on officials, politicians, the clergy and the general public
+in that land of careful organisation.
+
+Section Seven is a vast subterranean department. Always working in the
+dark, its political complexion is a handy cloak for blacker and more
+sinister activities. It is frequently entrusted with commissions of
+which it would be inexpedient for official Germany to have cognizance
+and of which, accordingly, official Germany can always safely repudiate
+when occasion demands.
+
+I thrust the pin of the badge into my braces and fastened it there,
+crammed the rest of the dead man's effects into his bag, stuck his hat
+upon my head and threw his overcoat on my arm, picked up his bag and
+crept away. In another minute I was back in my room, my brain aflame
+with the fire of a great enterprise.
+
+Here, to my hand, lay the key of that locked land which held the secret
+of my lost brother. The question I had been asking myself, ever since I
+had first discovered the dead man's American papers of identity, was
+this. Had I the nerve to avail myself of Semlin's American passport to
+get into Germany? The answer to that question lay in the little silver
+badge. I knew that no German official, whatever his standing, whatever
+his orders, would refuse passage to the silver star of Section Seven. It
+need only be used, too, as a last resource, for I had my papers as a
+neutral. Could I but once set foot in Germany, I was quite ready to
+depend on my wits to see me through. One advantage, I knew, I must
+forgo. That was the half-letter in its canvas case.
+
+If that document was of importance to Section Seven of the German
+Police, then it was of equal, nay, of greater importance to my country.
+If I went, that should remain behind in safe keeping. On that I was
+determined.
+
+"Never before, since the war began," I told myself, "can any Englishman
+have had such an opportunity vouchsafed to him for getting easily and
+safely into that jealously guarded land as you have now! You have plenty
+of money, what with your own and this ..." and I fingered Semlin's wad
+of notes, "and provided you can keep your head sufficiently to remember
+always that you are a German, once over the frontier you should be able
+to give the Huns the slip and try and follow up the trail of poor
+Francis.
+
+"And maybe," I argued further (so easily is one's better judgment
+defeated when one is young and set on a thing), "maybe in German
+surroundings, you may get some sense into that mysterious jingle you got
+from Dicky Allerton as the sole existing clue to the disappearance of
+Francis."
+
+Nevertheless, I wavered. The risks were awful. I had to get out of that
+evil hotel in the guise of Dr. Semlin, with, as the sole safeguard
+against exposure, should I fall in with the dead man's employers or
+friends, that slight and possibly imaginative resemblance between him
+and me: I had to take such measures as would prevent the fraud from
+being detected when the body was discovered in the hotel: above all, I
+had to ascertain, before I could definitely resolve to push on into
+Germany, whether Semlin was already known to the people at the hotel or
+whether--as I surmised to be the case--this was also his first visit to
+the house in the Vos in't Tuintje.
+
+In any case, I was quite determined in my own mind that the only way to
+get out of the place with Semlin's document without considerable
+unpleasantness, if not grave danger, would be to transfer his identity
+and effects to myself and vice versa. When I saw the way a little
+clearer I could decide whether to take the supreme risk and adventure
+myself into the enemy's country.
+
+Whatever I was going to do, there were not many hours of the night left
+in which to act, and I was determined to be out of that house of ill
+omen before day dawned. If I could get clear of the hotel and at the
+same time ascertain that Semlin was as much a stranger there as myself,
+I could decide on my further course of action in the greater freedom of
+the streets of Rotterdam. One thing was certain: the waiter had let the
+question of Semlin's papers stand over until the morning, as he had done
+in my case, for Semlin still had his passport in his possession.
+
+After all, if Semlin was unknown at the hotel, the waiter had only seen
+him for the same brief moment as he had seen me.
+
+Thus I reasoned and argued with myself, but in the meantime I acted. I
+had nothing compromising in my suit-case, so that caused no difficulty.
+My British passport and permit and anything bearing any relation to my
+personality, such as my watch and cigarette case, both of which were
+engraved with my initials, I transferred to the dead man's pockets. As I
+bent over the stiff, cold figure with its livid face and clutching
+fingers, I felt a difficulty which I had hitherto resolutely shirked
+forcing itself squarely into the forefront of my mind.
+
+What was I going to do about the body?
+
+At that moment came a low knocking.
+
+With a sudden sinking at the heart I remembered I had forgotten to lock
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE LADY OF THE VOS IN'T TUINTJE
+
+
+Here was Destiny knocking at the door. In that instant my mind was made
+up. For the moment, at any rate, I had every card in my hands. I would
+bluff these stodgy Huns: I would brazen it out: I would be Semlin and go
+through with it to the bitter end, aye, and if it took me to the very
+gates of Hell.
+
+The knocking was repeated.
+
+"May one come in?" said a woman's voice in German.
+
+I stepped across the corpse and opened the door a foot or so.
+
+There stood a woman with a lamp. She was a middle-aged woman with an
+egg-shaped face, fat and white and puffy, and pale, crafty eyes. She was
+in her outdoor clothes, with an enormous vulgar-looking hat and an
+old-fashioned sealskin cape with a high collar. The cape which was
+glistening with rain was half open, and displayed a vast bosom tightly
+compressed into a white silk blouse. In one hand she carried an oil
+lamp.
+
+"Frau Schratt," she said by way of introduction, and raised the lamp to
+look more closely at me.
+
+Then I saw her face change. She was looking past me into the room, and I
+knew that the lamplight was falling full upon the ghastly thing that lay
+upon the floor.
+
+I realized the woman was about to scream, so I seized her by the wrist.
+She had disgusting hands, fat and podgy and covered with rings.
+
+"Quiet!" I whispered fiercely in her ear, never relaxing my grip on her
+wrist. "You will be quiet and come in here, do you understand?"
+
+She sought to shrink from me, but I held her fast and drew her into the
+room.
+
+She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse. She
+seemed to have regained her self-possession. The woman was no longer
+frightened. I felt instinctively that her fears had been all for
+herself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor. When she
+spoke her manner was almost business-like.
+
+"I was told nothing of this," she said. "Who is it? What do you want me
+to do?"
+
+Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant
+odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of
+death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking
+in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that
+makes my blood run cold whenever I think of her.
+
+Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed. She became
+polite. She was obsequious. Of the two, the first manner became her
+vastly better. She looked at me with a curious air, almost with
+reverence, as it seemed to me. She said, in a purring voice:
+
+"Ach, so! I did not understand. The gentleman must excuse me."
+
+And she purred again:
+
+"So!"
+
+It was then I noticed that her eyes were fastened upon my chest. I
+followed their direction.
+
+They rested on the silver badge I had stuck in my braces.
+
+I understood and held my peace. Silence was my only trump until I knew
+how the land lay. If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all I
+wanted to know.
+
+In fact, she began to speak again.
+
+"I expected _you_," she said, "but not... _this_. Who is it this time? A
+Frenchman, eh?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"An Englishman," I said curtly.
+
+Her eyes opened in wonder.
+
+"Ach, nein!" she cried--and you would have said her voice vibrated with
+pleasure--"An Englishman! Ei, ei!"
+
+If ever a human being licked its chops, that woman did.
+
+She wagged her head and repeated to herself:
+
+"Ei, ei!" adding, as if to explain her surprise, "he is the first we
+have had.
+
+"You brought him here, eh! But why up here? Or did der Stelze send him?"
+
+She fired this string of questions at me without pausing for a reply.
+She continued:
+
+"I was out, but Karl told me. There was another came, too: Franz sent
+him."
+
+"This is he," I said. "I caught him prying in my room and he died."
+
+"Ach!" she ejaculated ... and in her voice was all the world of
+admiration that a German woman feels for brute man.... "The Herr
+Englander came into your room and he died. So, so! But one must speak to
+Franz. The man drinks too much. He is always drunk. He makes mistakes.
+It will not do. I will...."
+
+"I wish you to do nothing against Franz," I said. "This Englishman spoke
+German well: Karl will tell you."
+
+"As the gentleman wishes," was the woman's reply in a voice so silky and
+so servile that I felt my gorge rise.
+
+"She looks like a slug!" I said to myself, as she stood there, fat and
+sleek and horrible.
+
+"Here are his passport and other papers," I said, bending down and
+taking them from the dead man's pocket. "He was an English officer, you
+see?" And I unfolded the little black book stamped with the Royal Arms.
+
+She leant forward and I was all but stifled with the stale odour of the
+patchouli with which her faded body was drenched.
+
+Then, making a sheaf of passport and permit, I held them in the flame of
+the candle.
+
+"But we always keep them!" expostulated the hotel-keeper.
+
+"This passport must die with the man," I replied firmly. "He must not be
+traced. I want no awkward enquiries made, you understand. Therefore ..."
+and I flung the burning mass of papers into the grate.
+
+"Good, good!" said the German and put her lamp down on the table. "There
+was a telephone message for you," she added, "to say that der Stelze
+will come at eight in the morning to receive what you have brought."
+
+The deuce! This was getting awkward. Who the devil was Stelze?
+
+"Coming at eight is he?" I said, simply for the sake of saying
+something.
+
+"Jawohl!" replied Frau Schratt. "He was here already this morning. He
+was nervous, oh! very, and expected you to be here. Already two days he
+is waiting here to go on."
+
+"So," I said, "he is going to take ... _it_ on with him, is he?" (I
+knew where he was "going on" to, well enough: he was going to see that
+document safe into Germany.)
+
+There was a malicious ring in the woman's voice when she spoke of
+Stelze. I thought I might profit by this. So I drew her out.
+
+"So Stelze called to-day and gave you his orders, did he?" I said,
+"and ... and took charge of things generally, eh?"
+
+Her little eyes snapped viciously.
+
+"Ach!" she said, "der Stelze is der Stelze. He has power; he has
+authority; he can make and unmake men. But I ... I in my time have
+broken a dozen better men than he and yet he dares to tell Anna Schratt
+that ... that ..."
+
+She raised her voice hysterically, but broke off before she could finish
+the sentence. I saw she thought she had said too much.
+
+"He won't play that game with me," I said. Strength is the quality that
+every German, man, woman and child, respects, and strength alone. My
+safety depended on my showing this ignoble creature that I received
+orders from no one. "You know what he is. One runs the risk, one takes
+trouble, one is successful. Then he steps in and gathers the laurels.
+No, I am not going to wait for him."
+
+The hotel-keeper sprang to her feet, her faded face all ravaged by the
+shadow of a great fear.
+
+"You wouldn't dare!" she said.
+
+"I would," I retorted. "I've done my work and I'll report to
+head-quarters and to no one else!"
+
+My eyes fell upon the body.
+
+"Now, what are we going to do with this?" I said. "You must help me,
+Frau Schratt. This is serious. This must not be found here."
+
+She looked up at me in surprise.
+
+"That?" she said, and she kicked the body with her foot. "Oh, that will
+be all right with die Schratt! 'It must not be found here'" (she
+mimicked my grave tone). "It will not be found here, young man!"
+
+And she chuckled with all the full-bodied good humour of a fat person.
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I mean what I mean, young man, and what you mean," she replied. "When
+they are in a difficulty, when there are complications, when there is
+any unpleasantness.. like _this_ ... they remember die Schratt, 'die
+fesche Anna,' as they called me once, and it is 'gnadige Frau' here and
+'gnadige Frau' there and a diamond bracelet or a pearl ring, if only I
+will do the little conjuring trick that will smooth everything over. But
+when all goes well, then I am 'old Schratt,' 'old hag,' 'old woman,' and
+I must take my orders and beg nicely and ... bah!"
+
+Her words ended in a gulp, which in any other woman would have been a
+sob.
+
+Then she added in her hard harlot's voice:
+
+"You needn't worry your head about _him,_ there! Leave him to me! It's
+my trade!"
+
+At those words, which covered God only knows what horrors of midnight
+disappearances, of ghoulish rites with packing-case and sack, in the
+dark cellars of that evil house, I felt that, could I but draw back from
+the enterprise to which I had so rashly committed myself, I would do so
+gladly. Only then did I begin to realize something of the utter
+ruthlessness, the cold, calculating ferocity, of the most bitter and
+most powerful enemy which the British Empire has ever had.
+
+But it was too late to withdraw now. The die was cast. Destiny, knocking
+at my door, had found me ready to follow, and I was committed to
+whatever might befall me in my new personality.
+
+The German woman turned to go.
+
+"Der Stelze will be here at eight, then," she said. "I suppose the
+gentleman will take his early morning coffee before."
+
+"I shan't be here," I said. "You can tell your friend I've gone."
+
+She turned on me like a flash.
+
+She was hard as flint again.
+
+"Nein!" she cried. "You stay here!"
+
+"No," I answered with equal force, "not I ..."
+
+"... Orders are orders and you and I must obey!"
+
+"But who is Stelze that he should give orders to me?" I cried.
+
+"Who is...?" She spoke aghast.
+
+"... And you yourself," I continued, "were saying ..."
+
+"When an order has been given, what you or I think or say is of no
+account," the woman said. "It is an order: you and I know _whose_ order.
+Let that suffice. You stay here! Good night!"
+
+With that she was gone. She closed the door behind her; the key rattled
+in the lock and I realized that I was a prisoner. I heard the woman's
+footfalls die away down the corridor.
+
+That distant clock cleaved the silence of the night with twelve
+ponderous strokes. Then the chimes played a pretty jingling little tune
+that rang out clearly in the still, rain-washed air.
+
+I stood petrified and reflected on my next move.
+
+Twelve o'clock! I had eight hours' grace before Stelze, the man of
+mystery and might, arrived to unmask me and hand me over to the tender
+mercies of Madame and of Karl. Before eight o'clock arrived I must--so I
+summed up my position--be clear of the hotel and in the train for the
+German frontier--if I could get a train--else I must be out of
+Rotterdam, by that hour.
+
+But I must _act_ and act without delay. There was no knowing when that
+dead man lying on the floor might procure me another visit from Madame
+and her myrmidons. The sooner I was out of that house of death the
+better.
+
+The door was solid; the lock was strong. That I discovered without any
+trouble. In any case, I reflected, the front-door of the hotel would be
+barred and bolted at this hour of the night, and I could scarcely dare
+hope to escape by the front without detection, even if Karl were not
+actually in the entrance hall. There must be a back entrance to the
+hotel, I thought, for I had seen that the windows of my room opened on
+to the narrow street lining the canal which ran at the back of the
+house.
+
+Escape by the windows was impossible. The front of the house dropped
+sheer down and there was nothing to give one a foothold. But I
+remembered the window in the _cabinet de toilette_ giving on to the
+little air-shaft. That seemed to offer a slender chance of escape.
+
+For the second time that night I opened the casement and inhaled the
+fetid odours arising from the narrow court. All the windows looking,
+like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a light
+still burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair to
+the little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry,
+but I thought I could recognize the outline of a door.
+
+From the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ to the yard the sides of
+the house, cased in stained and dirty stucco, fell sheer away. Measured
+with the eye the drop from window to the pavement was about fifty feet.
+With a rope and something to break one's fall, it might, I fancied, be
+managed....
+
+From that on, things moved swiftly. First with my penknife I ripped the
+tailor's tab with my name from the inside pocket of my coat and burnt it
+in the candle; nothing else I had on was marked, for I had had to buy a
+lot of new garments when I came out of hospital. I took Semlin's
+overcoat, hat and bag into the _cabinet de toilette_ and stood them in
+readiness by the window. As a precaution against surprise I pushed the
+massive mahogany bedstead right across the doorway and thus barricaded
+the entrance to the room.
+
+From either side of the fireplace hung two bell-ropes, twisted silk
+cords of faded crimson with dusty tassels. Mounting on the mantelpiece I
+cut the bell-ropes off short where they joined the wire. Testing them I
+found them apparently solid--at any rate they must serve. I knotted them
+together.
+
+Back to the _cabinet de toilette_ I went to find a suitable object to
+which to fasten my rope. There was nothing in the little room save the
+washstand, and that was fragile and quite unsuited for the purpose. I
+noticed that the window was fitted with shutters on the outside
+fastened back against the wall. They had not been touched for years, I
+should say, for the iron peg holding them back was heavy with rust and
+the shutters were covered with dust. I closed the left-hand shutter and
+found that it fastened solidly to the window-frame by means of massive
+iron bolts, top and bottom.
+
+Here was the required support for my rope. The poker thrust though the
+wooden slips of the shutter held the rope quite solidly. I attached my
+rope to the poker with an expert knot that I had picked up at a course
+in tying knots during a preposterously dull week I had spent at the base
+in France. Then I dragged from the bed the gigantic eiderdown pincushion
+and the two massive pillows, stripping off the pillow-slips lest their
+whiteness might attract attention whilst they were fulfilling the
+unusual mission for which I destined them.
+
+At the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ I listened a moment. All was
+silent as the grave. Resolutely I pitched out the eiderdown into the
+dark and dirty air shaft. It sailed gracefully earthwards and settled
+with a gentle plop on the stones of the tiny yard. The pillows followed.
+The heavier thud they would have made was deadened by the billowy mass
+of the _édredon_. Semlin's bag went next, and made no sound to speak of;
+then his overcoat and hat followed suit.
+
+I noticed, with a grateful heart, that the eiderdown and pillows
+covered practically the whole of the flags of the yard.
+
+I went back once more to the room and blew out the candle. Then, taking
+a short hold on my silken rope, I clambered out over the window ledge
+and started to let myself down, hand over hand, into the depths.
+
+My two bell-ropes, knotted together, were about twenty feet long, so I
+had to reckon on a clear drop of something over thirty feet. The poker
+and shutter held splendidly firm, and I found little difficulty in
+lowering myself, though I barked my knuckles most unpleasantly on the
+rough stucco of the wall. As I reached the extremity of my rope I
+glanced downward. The red splash of the eiderdown, just visible in the
+light from the adjoining window, seemed to be a horrible distance below
+me. My spirit failed me. My determination began to ebb. I could never
+risk it.
+
+The rope settled the question for me. It snapped without warning--how it
+had supported my weight up to then I don't know--and I fell in a heap
+(and, as it seemed to me at the time, with a most reverberating crash)
+on to the soft divan I had prepared for my reception.
+
+I came down hard, very hard, but old Madame's plump eiderdown and
+pillows certainly helped to break my fall. I dropped square on top of
+the eiderdown with one knee on a pillow and, though shaken and jarred, I
+found I had broken no bones.
+
+Nor did my sense leave me. In a minute I was up on my feet again. I
+listened. All was still silent. I cast a glance upwards. The window from
+which I had descended was still dark. I could see the broken bell-ropes
+dangling from the shutter, and I noted, with a glow of professional
+pride, that my expert join between the two ropes had not given. The
+lower rope had parted in the middle ....
+
+I crammed Semlin's hat on my head, retrieved his bag and overcoat from
+the corner of the court where they had fallen and the next moment was
+tiptoeing down the ladder.
+
+The iron stair ran down beside the window in which I had seen the light
+burning. The lower part of the window was screened off by a dirty muslin
+curtain. Through the upper part I caught a glimpse of a sort of scullery
+with a paraffin lamp standing on a wooden table. The room was empty.
+From top to bottom the window was protected by heavy iron bars.
+
+At the foot of the iron stair stood, as I had anticipated, a door. It
+was my last chance of escape. It stood a dozen yards from the bottom of
+the ladder across a dank, little paved area where tins of refuse were
+standing--a small door with a brass handle.
+
+I ducked low as I clambered down the iron ladder so as not to be seen
+from the window should anyone enter the scullery as I passed. Treading
+very softly I crept across the little area and, as quietly as I could,
+turned the handle of the door.
+
+It turned round easily in my hand, but nothing happened.
+
+The door was locked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+I BOARD THE BERLIN TRAIN AND LEAVE A LAME GENTLEMAN ON THE PLATFORM
+
+
+I was caught like a rat in a trap. I could not return by the way I had
+come and the only egress was closed to me. The area door and window were
+the only means of escape from the little court. The one was locked, the
+other barred. I was fairly trapped. All I had to do now was to wait
+until my absence was discovered and the broken rope found to show them
+where I was. Then they would come down to the area, I should be
+confronted with the man, Stelze, and my goose would be fairly cooked.
+
+As quietly as I could I made a complete, thorough, rapid examination of
+the area. It was a dank, dark place, only lit where the yellow light
+streamed forth from the scullery. It had a couple of low bays hollowed
+out of the masonry under the little courtyard, the one filled with wood
+blocks, the other with broken packingcases, old bottles and like
+rubbish. I explored these until my hands came in contact with the damp
+bricks at the back, but in vain. Door and window remained the only
+means of escape.
+
+Four tall tin refuse tins stood in line in front of these two bays, a
+fifth was stowed away under the iron stair. They were all nearly full of
+refuse, so were useless as hiding places. In any case it accorded
+neither with the part I was playing nor with my sense of the ludicrous
+to be discovered by the hotel domestics hiding in a refuse bin.
+
+I was at my wits' end to know what to do. I had dared so much, all had
+gone so surprisingly well, that it was heartbreaking to be foiled with
+liberty almost within my grasp. A great wave of disappointment swept
+over me until I felt my very heart sicken. Then I heard footsteps and
+hope revived within me.
+
+I shrunk back into the darkness of the area behind the refuse bins
+standing in front of the bay nearest the door.
+
+Within the house footsteps were approaching the scullery. I heard a door
+open, then a man's voice singing. He was warbling in a fine mellow
+baritone that popular German ballad:
+
+"Das haben die Mädchen so gerne
+Die im Stübchen und die im _Salong."_
+
+The voice hung lovingly and wavered and trilled on that word _"Salong"_:
+the effect was so much to the singer's liking that he sang the stave
+over again. A bumping and a rattle as of loose objects in an empty box
+formed the accompaniment to his song.
+
+"A cheery fellow!" I said to myself. If only I could see who it was! But
+I dare not move into that patch of yellow light from which the only view
+into the scullery was afforded.
+
+The singing stopped. Again I heard a door open. Was he going away?
+
+Then I saw a thin shaft of light under the area door.
+
+The next moment it was flung back and the waiter, Karl, appeared, still
+in his blue apron, a bucket in either hand.
+
+He was coming to the refuse bins.
+
+Pudd'n Head Wilson's advice came into my mind; "When angry count up to
+four; when very angry, swear." I was not angry but scared, terribly
+scared, scared so that I could hear my heart pulsating in great thuds in
+my ears. Nevertheless, I followed the advice of the sage of Dawson's
+Landing and counted to myself: one, two, three, four, one, two, three,
+four; while my heart hammered out: Keep cool, keep cool, keep cool! And
+all the time I remained crouching behind the first two refuse bins
+nearest the door.
+
+The waiter hummed to himself the melody of his little ditty in a deep
+bourdon as he paused a moment at the door. Then he advanced slowly
+across the area.
+
+Would he stop at the refuse bins behind which I cowered?
+
+No, he passed them.
+
+The third? The fourth?
+
+No!
+
+He walked straight across the area and went to the bin beneath the
+stairs.
+
+I muttered a blessing inwardly on the careful habits of the German who
+organizes even his refuse into separate tubs.
+
+The man had his back to the door.
+
+Now or never was my chance.
+
+I crawled round my friendly garbage tins, reached the area door on
+tip-toe and stepped softly into the house. As I did so I heard the clank
+of tin as Karl replaced the lid of the tub.
+
+A dark passage stretched out in front of me. Immediately to my right was
+the scullery door wide open. I must avoid the scullery at all costs. The
+man might remain there and I could not risk him driving me before him
+back to the entrance hall of the hotel.
+
+I crept down the dark passage with hands outstretched. Presently they
+fell upon the latch of a door. I pressed it, the door opened inwards
+into the darkness and I passed through. As I softly closed the door
+behind me I heard Karl's heavy step and the grinding of the key as he
+locked the area door.
+
+I stood in a kind of cupboard in pitch darkness, hardly daring to
+breathe.
+
+Once more I heard the man singing his idiotic song. I did not dare look
+out from my hiding-place, for his voice sounded so near that I feared he
+might be still in the passage.
+
+So I stood and waited.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I must have stayed there for an hour in the dark. I heard the waiter
+coming and going in the scullery, listened to his heavy tramp, to his
+everlasting snatch of song, to the rattle of utensils, as he went about
+his work. Every minute of the time I was tortured by the apprehension
+that he would come to the cupboard in the passage.
+
+It was cold in that damp subterranean place. The cupboard was roomy
+enough, so I thought I would put on the overcoat I was carrying. As I
+stretched out my arm, my hand struck hard against some kind of
+projecting hook in the wall behind me.
+
+"Damn!" I swore savagely under my breath, but I put out my hand again to
+find out what had hurt me. My fingers encountered the cold iron of a
+latch. I pressed it and it gave.
+
+A door swung open and I found myself in another little area with a
+flight of stone steps leading to the street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was in a narrow lane driven between the tall sides of the houses. It
+was a cul-de-sac. At the open end I could see the glimmer of street
+lamps. It had stopped raining and the air was fresh and pleasant.
+Carrying my bag I walked briskly down the lane and presently emerged in
+a quiet thoroughfare traversed by a canal--probably the street, I
+thought, that I had seen from the windows of my bedroom. The Hotel Sixt
+lay to the right of the lane: I struck out to the left and in a few
+minutes found myself in an open square behind the Bourse.
+
+There I found a cab-rank with three or four cabs drawn up in line, the
+horses somnolent, the drivers snoring inside their vehicles. I stirred
+up the first and bade the driver take me to the Café Tarnowski.
+
+Everyone who has been to Holland knows the Café Tarnowski at Rotterdam.
+It is an immense place with hundreds of marble-topped tables tucked away
+among palms under a vast glazed roof. Day or night it never closes: the
+waiters succeed each other in shifts: day and night the great hall
+resounds to the cry of orders, the patter of the waiters' feet, the
+click of dominoes on the marble tables.
+
+Delicious Dutch café au lait, a beefsteak and fried potatoes, most
+succulent of all Dutch dishes, crisp white bread, hot from the midnight
+baking, and appetizing Dutch butter, largely compensated for the thrills
+of the night. Then I sent for some more coffee, black this time, and a
+railway guide, and lighting a cigarette began to frame my plan of
+campaign.
+
+The train for Berlin left Rotterdam at seven in the morning. It was now
+ten minutes past two, so I had plenty of time. From that night onward, I
+told myself, I was a German, and from that moment I set myself
+assiduously to _feel_ myself a German as well as enact the part.
+
+"It's no use dressing a part," Francis used to say to me; "you must
+_feel_ it as well. If I were going to disguise myself as a Berliner, I
+should not be content to shave my head and wear a bowler hat with a
+morning coat and get my nails manicured pink. I should begin by
+persuading myself that I was the Lord of creation, that bad manners is a
+sign of manly strength and that dishonesty is the highest form of
+diplomacy. Then only should I set about getting the costume!"
+
+Poor old Francis! How shrewd he was and how well he knew his Berliners!
+
+There is nothing like newspapers for giving one an idea of national
+sentiment. I had not spoken to a German, save to a few terrified German
+rats, prisoners of war in France, since the beginning of the war and I
+knew that my knowledge of German thought must be rusty. So I sent the
+willing waiter for all the German papers and periodicals he could lay
+his hands on. He returned with stacks of them, _Berliner Tageblatt,
+Kélnische Zeitung, Vorwérts;_ the alleged comic papers, _Kladderadatsch,
+Lustige Blétter_ and _Simplicissimus;_ the illustrated press, _Leipziger
+Illustrirte Zeitung, Der Weltkrieg im Bild,_ and the rest: that
+remarkable café even took in such less popular publications as Harden's
+_Zukunft_ and semi-blackmailing rags like _Der Roland von Berlin._
+
+For two hours I saturated myself with German contemporary thought as
+expressed in the German press. I deliberately laid my mind open to
+conviction; I repeated to myself over and over again: "We Germans are
+fighting a defensive war: the scoundrelly Grey made the world-war: Gott
+strafe England!" Absurd as this proceeding seems to me when I look back
+upon it, I would not laugh at myself at the time. I must be German, I
+must feel German, I must think German: on that would my safety in the
+immediate future depend.
+
+I laid aside my reading in the end with a feeling of utter amazement. In
+every one of these publications, in peace-time so widely dissimilar in
+conviction and trend, I found the same mentality, the same outlook, the
+same parrot-like cries. What the _Cologne Gazette_ shrieked from its
+editorial columns, the comic (God save the mark) press echoed in foul
+and hideous caricature. Here was organization with a vengeance, the
+mobilization of national thought, a series of gramophone records fed
+into a thousand different machines so that each might play the selfsame
+tune.
+
+"You needn't worry about your German mentality," I told myself, "you've
+got it all here! You've only got to be a parrot like the rest and you'll
+be as good a Hun as Hindenburg!"
+
+A Continental waiter, they say, can get one anything one chooses to ask
+for at any hour of the day or night. I was about to put this theory to
+the test.
+
+"Waiter," I said (of course, in German), "I want a bag, a handbag. Do
+you think you could get me one?"
+
+"Does the gentleman want it now?" the man replied.
+
+"This very minute," I answered.
+
+"About that size?"--indicating Semlin's. "Yes, or smaller if you like: I
+am not particular."
+
+"I will see what can be done."
+
+In ten minutes the man was back with a brown leather bag about a size
+smaller than Semlin's. It was not new and he charged me thirty gulden
+(which is about fifty shillings) for it. I paid with a willing heart and
+tipped him generously to boot, for I wanted a bag and could not wait
+till the shops opened without missing the train for Germany.
+
+I paid my bill and drove off to the Central Station through the dark
+streets with my two bags. The clocks were striking six as I entered
+under the great glass dome of the station hall.
+
+I went straight to the booking-office, and bought a first-class ticket,
+single, to Berlin. One never knows what may happen and I had several
+things to do before the train went.
+
+The bookstall was just opening. I purchased a sovereign's worth of books
+and magazines, English, French and German, and crammed them into the bag
+I had procured at the café. Thus laden I adjourned to the station
+buffet.
+
+There I set about executing a scheme I had evolved for leaving the
+document which Semlin had brought from England in a place of safety,
+whence it could be recovered without difficulty, should anything happen
+to me. I knew no one in Holland save Dicky, and I could not send him the
+document, for I did not trust the post. For the same reason I would not
+post the document home to my bank in England: besides, I knew one could
+not register letters until eight o'clock, by which hour I hoped to be
+well on my way into Germany.
+
+No, my bag, conveniently weighted with books and deposited at the
+station cloak-room, should be my safe. The comparative security of
+station cloak-rooms as safe deposits has long been recognized by jewel
+thieves and the like and this means of leaving my document behind in
+safety seemed to me to be better than any other I could think of.
+
+So I dived into my bag and from the piles of literature it contained
+picked up a book at random. It was a German brochure: _Gott strafe
+England!_ by Prof. Dr. Hugo Bischoff, of the University of Göttingen.
+The irony of the thing appealed to my sense of humour. "So be it!" I
+said. "The worthy Professor's fulminations against my country shall have
+the honour of harbouring the document which is, apparently, of such
+value to _his_ country!" And I tucked the little canvas case away inside
+the pages of the pamphlet, stuck the pamphlet deep down among the books
+and shut the bag.
+
+Seeing its harmless appearance the cloak-room receipt--I
+calculated--would, unlike Semlin's document, attract no attention if, by
+any mischance, it fell into wrong hands _en route._ I therefore did not
+scruple to commit it to the post. Before taking my bag of books to the
+cloak-room I wrote two letters. Both were to Ashcroft--Ashcroft of the
+Foreign Office, who got me my passport and permit to come to Rotterdam.
+Herbert Ashcroft and I were old friends. I addressed the envelopes to
+his private house in London. The Postal Censor, I knew, keen though he
+always is after letters from neutral countries, would leave old
+Herbert's correspondence alone.
+
+The first letter was brief. "Dear Herbert," I wrote, "would you mind
+looking after the enclosed until you hear from me again? Filthy weather
+here. Yours, D.O." This letter was destined to contain the cloak-room
+receipt. To conceal the importance of an enclosure, it is always a good
+dodge to send the covering letter under separate cover.
+
+"Dear Herbert," I said in my second letter, "If you don't hear from me
+within two months of this date regarding the enclosure you will have
+already received, please send someone, or, preferably, go yourself and
+collect my luggage at the cloak-room of the Rotterdam Central Station. I
+know how busy you always are. Therefore you will understand my reasons
+for making this inordinate claim upon your time. Yours, D.O." And, by
+way of a clue, I added, inconsequently enough: _"Gott strafe England!"_
+
+I chuckled inwardly at the thought of Herbert's face on receiving this
+preposterous demand that he should abandon his dusty desk in Downing
+Street and betake himself across the North Sea to fetch my luggage. But
+he'd go all right. I knew my Herbert, dull and dry and conventional, but
+a most faithful friend.
+
+I called a porter at the entrance of the buffet and handing him Semlin's
+bag and overcoat, bade him find me a first-class carriage in the Berlin
+train when it arrived. I would meet him on the platform. Then, at the
+cloak-room opposite, I gave in my bag of books, put the receipt in the
+first letter and posted it in the letter-box within the station. I went
+out into the streets with the second letter and posted it in a
+letter-box let into the wall of a tobacconist's shop in a quiet street a
+few turnings away. By this arrangement I reckoned Herbert would get the
+letter with the receipt before the covering letter arrived.
+
+Returning to the railway station I noticed a kind of slop shop which
+despite the early hour was already open. A fat Jew in his shirt-sleeves,
+his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, stood at the entrance framed in
+hanging overcoats and bats and boots. I had no umbrella and it struck me
+that a waterproof of some kind might not be a bad addition to my
+extremely scanty wardrobe. Moreover, I reflected that with the rubber
+shortage rain-coats must be at a premium in Germany.
+
+So I followed the bowing son of Shem into his dark and dirty shop and
+emerged presently wearing an appallingly ugly green mackintosh reeking
+hideously of rubber. It was a shocking garment but I reflected that I
+was a German and must choose my garb accordingly.
+
+Outside the shop I nearly ran into a little man who was loafing in the
+doorway. He was a wizened, scrubby old fellow wearing a dirty peaked cap
+with a band of tarnished gold. I knew him at once for one of those
+guides, half tout, half bully, that infest the railway termini of all
+great Continental cities.
+
+"Want a guide, sir?" the man said in German.
+
+I shook my head and hurried on. The man trotted beside me. "Want a good,
+cheap hotel, sir? Good, respectable house.... Want a ..."
+
+"Ach! gehen sie zum Teufel!" I cried angrily. But the man persisted,
+running along beside me and reeling off his tout's patter in a wheezing,
+asthmatic voice. I struck off blindly down the first turning we came to,
+hoping to be rid of the fellow, but in vain. Finally, I stopped and held
+out a gulden.
+
+"Take this and go away!" I said.
+
+The old fellow waved the coin aside.
+
+"Danke, danke," he said nonchalantly, looking at the same time to right
+and left.
+
+Then he said in a calm English voice, utterly different from his whining
+accents of a moment before:
+
+"You must be a dam' cool hand!"
+
+But he didn't bluff me, staggered though I was. I said quickly in
+German:
+
+"What do you want with me? I don't understand you. If you annoy me any
+more I shall call the police!"
+
+Again he spoke in English and it was the voice of a well-bred Englishman
+that spoke:
+
+"You're either a past master at the game or raving mad. Why! the whole
+station is humming after you! Yet you walked out of the buffet and
+through the whole lot of them without turning a hair. No wonder they
+never spotted you!"
+
+Again I answered in German:
+
+"Ich verstehe nicht!"
+
+But he went on in English, without seeming to notice my observation:
+
+"Hang it all, man, you can't go into Germany wearing a regimental tie!"
+
+My hand flew to my collar and the blood to my head. What a cursed
+amateur I was, after all! I had entirely forgotten that I was wearing my
+regimental colours. I was crimson with vexation but also with a sense of
+relief. I felt I might trust this man. It would be a sharp German agent
+who would notice a small detail like that.
+
+Still I resolved to stick to German: I would trust nobody.
+
+But the guide had started his patter again. I saw two workmen
+approaching. When they had passed, he said, this time in English:
+
+"You're quite right to be cautious with a stranger like me, but I want
+to warn you. Why, I've been following you round all the morning. Lucky
+for you it was me and not one of the others...."
+
+Still I was silent. The little man went on:
+
+"For the past half-hour they have been combing that station for you. How
+you managed to escape them I don't know except that none of them seems
+to have a very clear idea of your appearance. You don't look very
+British, I grant you; but I spotted your tie and then I recognized the
+British officer all right.
+
+"No, don't worry to tell me anything about yourself--it is none of my
+business to know, any more than you will find out anything about me. I
+know where you are going, for I heard you take your ticket; but you may
+as well understand that you have as much chance of getting into your
+train if you walk into the railway hall and up the stairs in the
+ordinary way as you have of flying across the frontier."
+
+"But they can't stop me!" I said. "This isn't Germany...."
+
+"Bah!" said the guide. "You will be jostled, there will be an
+altercation, a false charge, and you will miss your train! _They_ will
+attend to the rest!
+
+"Damn it, man," he went on, "I know what I'm talking about. Here, come
+with me and I'll show you. You have twenty minutes before the train
+goes. Now start the German again!"
+
+We went down the street together for all the world like a "mug" in tow
+of one of those black-guard guides. As we approached the station the
+guide said in his whining German:
+
+"Pay attention to me now. I shall leave you here. Go to the suburban
+booking-office--the entrance is in the street to the left of the
+station hall. Go into the first-class waiting-room and look out of
+the window that gives on to the station hall. There you will see some
+of the forces mobilized against you. There is a regular cordon of
+guides--like me--drawn across the entrances to the main-line
+platforms--unostentatiously, of course. If you look you will see plenty
+of plain-clothes Huns, too...."
+
+"Guides?" I said.
+
+He nodded cheerfully.
+
+"Looks bad for me, doesn't it? But one gets better results by being one
+of them. Oh! it's all right. In any case you've got to trust me now.
+
+"See here! When you have satisfied yourself that I'm correct in what I
+say, take a platform ticket and walk upstairs to platform No. 5. On that
+platform you will find a train. Go to the end where the metals run out
+of the station, where the engine would be coupled on, and get into the
+last first-class carriage. On no account move from there until you see
+me. Now then, I'll have that gulden!"
+
+I gave him the coin. The old fellow looked at it and wagged his head, so
+I gave him another, whereupon he took off his cap, bowed low and hurried
+off.
+
+In the suburban side waiting-room I peered out of the window on to the
+station hall. True enough, I saw one, two, four, six guides loafing
+about the barriers leading to the main-line platforms. There seemed to
+be a lot of people in the hall and certainly a number of the men
+possessed that singular taste in dress, those rotundities of contour,
+by which one may distinguish the German in a crowd.
+
+I now had no hesitation in following the guide's instructions to the
+letter. Platform No. 5 was completely deserted as I emerged breathless
+from the long staircase and I had no difficulty in getting into the last
+first-class carriage unobserved. I sat down by the window on the far
+side of the carriage.
+
+Alongside it ran the brown panels and gold lettering of a German
+restaurant car.
+
+I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to seven. There was no sign of
+my mysterious friend. I wondered vaguely, too, what had become of my
+porter. True, there was nothing of importance in Semlin's bag, but a
+traveller with luggage always commands more confidence than one without.
+
+Five minutes to seven! Still no word from the guide. The minutes ticked
+away. By Jove! I was going to miss the train. But I sat resolutely in my
+corner. I had put my trust in this man. I would trust him to the last.
+
+Suddenly his face appeared in the window at my elbow. The door was flung
+open.
+
+"Quick!" he whispered in my ear, "follow me."
+
+"My things ..." I gasped with one foot on the foot-board of the other
+train. At the same moment the train began to move.
+
+The guide pointed to the carriage into which I had clambered.
+
+"The porter ..." I cried from the open door, thinking he had not
+understood me.
+
+The guide pointed towards the carriage again, then tapped himself on the
+chest with a significant smile.
+
+The next moment he had disappeared and I had not even thanked him.
+
+The Berlin train bumped ponderously out of the station. Peering
+cautiously out of the carriage, I caught a glimpse of the waiter, Karl,
+hurrying down the platform. With him was a swarthy, massively built man
+who leaned heavily on a stick and limped painfully as he ran. One of his
+feet, I could see, was misshapen and the sweat was pouring down his
+face.
+
+I would have liked to wave my hand to the pair, but I prudently drew
+back out of sight of the platform.
+
+Caution, caution, caution, must henceforward be my watchword.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IN WHICH A SILVER STAR ACTS AS A CHARM
+
+
+I have often remarked in life that there are days when some benevolent
+deity seems to be guiding one's every action. On such days, do what you
+will, you cannot go wrong. As the Berlin train bumped thunderously over
+the culverts spanning the canals between the tall, grey houses of
+Rotterdam and rushed out imperiously into the plain of windmills and
+pollards beyond, I reflected that this must be my good day, so kindly
+had some fairy godmother shepherded my footsteps since I had left the
+café.
+
+So engrossed had I been, indeed, in the great enterprise on which I was
+embarked, that my actions throughout the morning had been mainly
+automatic. Yet how uniformly had they tended to protect me! I had bought
+my ticket in advance; I had given my overcoat and bag to a porter that I
+now knew to have been my saviour in disguise; I had sallied forth from
+the station and thus given him an opportunity for safe converse with me.
+The omens were good: I could trust my luck to-day, I felt, and, greatly
+comforted, I began to look about me.
+
+I found myself, the only occupant, in a first-class carriage. On the
+window was plastered a notice, in Dutch and German, to the effect that
+the carriage was reserved. Suddenly I thought of my bag and overcoat.
+They were nowhere to be seen. After a little search I found them beneath
+the seat. In the overcoat pocket was a black tie.
+
+I lost no time in taking the hint. If any of you who read this tale
+should one day notice a ganger on the railway between Rotterdam and
+Dordrecht wearing the famous colours of a famous regiment round his neck
+you will understand how they got there. Then, wearied out with the
+fatigues of my sleepless night, I fell into a deep slumber, my verdant
+waterproof swathed round me, Semlin's overcoat about my knees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was dreaming fitfully of a mad escape from hordes of wildly clutching
+guides, led by Karl the waiter, when the screaming of brakes brought me
+to my senses. The train was sensibly slackening speed. Outside the
+autumn sun was shining over pleasant brown stretches of moorland bright
+with heather. The next moment and before I was fully awake we had glided
+to a standstill at a very spick and span station and the familiar cry
+of "Alles aussteigen!" rang in my ears.
+
+We were in Germany.
+
+The realization fell upon me like a thunderclap. I was in the enemy's
+country, sailing under false colours, with only the most meagre
+information about the man whose place I had taken and no plausible tale,
+such as I had fully intended to have ready, to carry me through the
+rigorous scrutiny of the frontier police.
+
+What was my firm? The Halewright Manufacturing Company. What did we
+manufacture? I had not the faintest idea. Why was I coming to Germany at
+all? Again I was at a loss.
+
+The clink of iron-shod heels in the corridor and an officer, followed
+closely by two privates, the white cross of the Landwehr in their
+helmets, stood at the door.
+
+"Your papers, please," he said curtly but politely.
+
+I handed over my American passport.
+
+"This has not been viséd," said the officer.
+
+With a pang I realized that again I was at fault. Of course, the
+passport should have been stamped at the German Consulate at Rotterdam.
+
+"I had no time," I said boldly. "I am travelling on most important
+business to Berlin. I only reached Rotterdam last night, after the
+Consulate was closed."
+
+The lieutenant turned to one of his guards.
+
+"Take the gentleman to the Customs Hall," he said and went on to the
+next carriage.
+
+The soldier appropriated my overcoat and bag and beckoned me to follow
+him. Outside the platform was railed off. Everyone, I noticed, was
+shepherded into a long narrow pen made with iron hurdles leading to a
+locked door over which was written: Zoll-Revision. I was going to take
+my place in the queue when the soldier prodded me with his elbow. He led
+me to a side door which opened in the gaunt, bare Customs Hall with its
+long row of trestles for the examination of the passengers' luggage. In
+a corner behind a desk was a large group of officers and subordinate
+officials, all in the grey-green uniform I knew so well from the life in
+the trenches. The principal seemed to be an immense man, inordinately
+gross and fat, with a bloated face and great gold spectacles. He was
+roaring in a loud, angry voice:
+
+"He's not come! There you are! Again we shall have all the trouble for
+nothing!"
+
+I thought he looked an extraordinarily bad-tempered individual and I
+fervently prayed that I should not be brought before him.
+
+The doors were flung open. With a rush the hall was invaded with a
+heterogeneous mob of people huddled pellmell together and driven along
+before a line of soldiers. For an hour or more babel reigned. Officials
+bawled at the public: the place rang with the sounds of angry
+altercation. After a furious dispute one man, wildly gesticulating, was
+dragged away by two soldiers.
+
+I never saw such a thorough examination in my life. People's bags were
+literally turned upside down and every single object pried into and
+besnuffled. After the customs' examination passengers were passed on to
+the searching-rooms, the men to one side, the women to the other. I
+caught sight of a female searcher lolling at a door ... a monstrous and
+grim female who reminded me of those dreadful bathing women at the
+seaside in our early youth.
+
+The fat official had vanished into an office leading off the Customs
+Hall. He was, I surmised, the last instance, for several passengers,
+including a very respectably dressed old lady, were driven into the side
+office and were seen no more.
+
+During all this scene of confusion no one had taken any notice of me. My
+guard looked straight in front of him and said never a word. When the
+hall was all but cleared, a man came to the office door and made a sign
+to my sentinel.
+
+At a table in the office which, despite the sunshine outside, was heated
+like a greenhouse, I found the fat official. Something had evidently
+upset him, for his brows were clouded with anger and his mastiff-like
+cheeks were trembling with irritation. He thrust a hand out as I
+entered.
+
+"Your papers!" he grunted.
+
+I handed over my passport.
+
+Directly he had examined it, a red flush spread over his cheeks and
+forehead and he brought his hand down on the table with a crash. The
+sentry beside me winced perceptibly.
+
+"It's not viséd," the fat official screamed in a voice shrill with
+anger. "It's worthless... what good do you think is this to me?"
+
+"Excuse me ..." I said in German.
+
+"I won't excuse you," he roared. "Who are you? What do you want in
+Germany? You've been to London, I see by this passport."
+
+"I had no time to get my passport stamped at the Consulate at
+Rotterdam," I said. "I arrived there too late in the evening. I could
+not wait. I am going to Berlin on most important business."
+
+"That's nothing to do with it," the man shouted. He was working himself
+up into a fine frenzy. "Your passport is not in order. You're not a
+German. You're an American. We Germans know what to think of our
+American friends, especially those who come from London."
+
+A voice outside shouted: "Nach Berlin alles einsteigen." I said as
+politely as I could, despite my growing annoyance:
+
+"I don't wish to miss my train. My journey to Berlin is of the utmost
+importance. I trust the train can be held back until I have satisfied
+you of my good faith. I have here a card from Herr von Steinhardt."
+
+I paused to let the name sink in. I was convinced he must be a big bug
+of some kind in the German service.
+
+"I don't care a rap for Herr von Steinhardt or Herr von anybody else,"
+the German cried. Then he said curtly to a cringing secretary beside
+him:
+
+"Has he been searched?"
+
+The secretary cast a frightened look at the sentry.
+
+"No, Herr Major," said the secretary.
+
+"Well, take him away and strip him and bring me anything you find!"
+
+The sentry spun on his heel like an automaton.
+
+The moment had come to play my last card, I felt: I could not risk being
+delayed on the frontier lest Stelze and his friends should catch up with
+me. I was surprised to find that apparently they had not telegraphed to
+have me stopped.
+
+"One moment, Herr Major," I said.
+
+"Take him away!" The fat man waved me aside.
+
+"I warn you," I continued, "that I am on important business. I can
+convince you of that, too. Only ..." and I looked round the office. "All
+these must go."
+
+To my amazement the fat man's anger vanished utterly. He stared hard at
+me, then took off his spectacles and polished them with his
+handkerchief. After this he said nonchalantly: "Everybody get outside
+except this gentleman!" The sentry, who had spun round on his heel
+again, seemed about to speak: his voice expired before it came out of
+his mouth: he saluted, spun round again and followed the rest out of the
+room.
+
+When the place was cleared I pulled my left brace out of the armhole of
+my waistcoat and displayed the silver star.
+
+The fat man sprang up.
+
+"The Herr Doktor must excuse me: I am overwhelmed: I had no idea that
+the Herr Doktor was not one of these tiresome American spies that are
+overrunning our country. The Herr Doktor will understand.... If the Herr
+Doktor had but said ..."
+
+"Herr Major," I said, endeavouring to put as much insolence as I could
+into my voice (that is what a German understands), "I am not in the
+habit of bleating my business to every fool I meet. Now I must go back
+to the train."
+
+"The Berlin train has gone, Herr Doktor, but..."
+
+"The Berlin train gone?" I said. "But my business brooks no delay. I
+tell you I must be in Berlin to-night!"
+
+"There is no question of your taking the ordinary train, Herr Doktor,"
+the fat man replied smoothly, "but unfortunately the special which I had
+ready for you has been countermanded. I thought you were not coming
+again."
+
+A special? By Jove! I was evidently a personage of note. But a special
+would never do! Where the deuce was it going to take me?
+
+"The Berlin train was to have been held back until your special was
+clear," the Major went on, "but we must stop her at Wesel until you have
+passed. I will attend to that at once!"
+
+He gave some order down the telephone and after a brisk conversation
+turned to me with a beaming face:
+
+"They will stop her at Wesel and the special will be ready in
+twenty-five minutes. But there is no hurry. You have an hour or more to
+spare. Might I offer the Herr Doktor a glass of beer and a sandwich at
+our officers' casino here?"
+
+Well, I was in for it this time. A special bearing me Heaven knows
+whither on unknown business...! Perhaps I might be able to extract a
+little information out of my fat friend if I went with him, so I
+accepted his invitation with suitable condescension.
+
+The Major excused himself for an instant and returned with my overcoat
+and bag.
+
+"So!" he cried, "we can leave these here until we come back!" Behind him
+through the open door I saw a group of officials peering curiously into
+the room. As we walked through their midst, they fell back with
+precipitation. There was a positive reverence about their manner which I
+found extremely puzzling.
+
+A waggonette, driven by an orderly, stood in the station yard, one of
+the Customs officials, hat in hand, at the door. We drove rapidly
+through very spick-and-span streets to a little square where the sentry
+at an iron gate denoted the Officers' Club. In the anteroom four or five
+officers in field-grey uniform were lounging. As we entered they sprang
+to their feet and remained stiffly standing while the Major presented
+them, Hauptmann Pfahl, Oberleutnant Meyer ... a string of names. One of
+the officers had lost an arm, another was very lame, the remainder were
+obvious dug-outs.
+
+"An American gentleman, a good friend of ours," was the form in which
+the Major introduced me to the company. Again I found myself mystified
+by the extraordinary demonstrations of respect with which I was
+received. Germans don't like Americans, especially since they took to
+selling shells to the Allies, and I began to think that all these
+officers must know more about me and my mission than I did myself. A
+stolid orderly, wearing white gloves, brought beer and some
+extraordinary nasty-looking sardine sandwiches which, on sampling, I
+realized to be made of "war bread."
+
+While the beer was being poured out I glanced round the room, bare and
+very simply furnished. Terrible chromo-lithographs of the Kaiser and the
+Crown Prince hung on the walls above a glass filled with war trophies.
+With a horrible sickness at heart I recognized amongst other emblems a
+glengarry with a silver badge and a British steel helmet with a gaping
+hole through the crown. Then I remembered I was in the region of the
+VIIth Corps, which supplies some of our toughest opponents on the
+Western front.
+
+Conversation was polite and perfunctory.
+
+"It is on occasions such as these," said the lame officer, "that one
+recognizes how our brothers overseas are helping the German cause."
+
+"Your work must be extraordinarily interesting," observed one of the
+dug-outs.
+
+"All your difficulties are now over," said the Major, much in the manner
+of the chorus of a Greek play. "You will be in Berlin to-night, where
+your labours will be doubtless rewarded. American friends of Germany are
+not popular in London, I should imagine!"
+
+I murmured: "Hardly."
+
+"You must possess infinite tact to have aroused no suspicion," said the
+Major.
+
+"That depends," I said.
+
+"Pardon me," replied the Major, in whom I began to recognize all the
+signs of an unmitigated gossip, "I know something of the importance of
+your mission. I speak amongst ourselves, is it not so, gentlemen? There
+were special orders about you from the Corps Command at Münster. Your
+special has been waiting for you here for four days. The gentleman who
+came to meet you has been in a fever of expectation. He had already left
+the station this morning when ... when I met you, I sent word for him to
+pick you up here."
+
+The plot was thickening. I most certainly was a personage of note.
+
+"What part of America do you come from, Mr. Semlin?" said a voice in
+perfect English from the corner. The one-armed officer was speaking.
+
+"From Brooklyn," I said stoutly, though my heart seemed turned to ice
+with the shock of hearing my own tongue.
+
+"You have no accent," the other replied suavely.
+
+"Some Americans," I retorted sententiously, "would regard that as a
+compliment. Not all Americans talk through their noses any more than we
+all chew or spit in public."
+
+"I know," said the young man. "I was brought up there!"
+
+We were surrounded by smiling faces. This officer who could speak
+English was evidently regarded as a bit of a wag by his comrades. I
+seized the opportunity to give them in German a humorous description of
+my simplicity in explaining to a man brought up in the United States
+that all Americans were not the caricatures depicted in the European
+comic press.
+
+There was a roar of laughter from the room.
+
+"Ach, dieser Schmalz!" guffawed the Major, beating his thigh in ecstasy.
+"Kolossal!" echoed one of the dug-outs. The lame man smiled wanly and
+said it was "incredible how humorous Schmalz could be."
+
+I had hoped that the conversation might now be carried on again in
+German. Nothing of the kind. The room leant back in its chairs, as if
+expecting the fun to go on.
+
+It did.
+
+"You get your clothes in London," the young officer said.
+
+He was a trimly built young man, very pale from recent illness, with
+flaxen hair and a bright, bold blue eye--the eye of a fighter. His left
+sleeve was empty and was fastened across his tunic, in a button-hole of
+which was twisted the black and white ribbon of the Iron Cross.
+
+"Generally," I answered shortly, "when I go to England. Clothes are
+cheaper in London."
+
+"You must have a good ear for languages," Schmalz continued; "you speak
+German like a German and English ..." he paused appreciably, "... like
+an Englishman."
+
+I felt horribly nervous. This young man never took his eyes off me: he
+had been staring at me ever since I had entered the room. His manner
+was perfectly calm and suave.
+
+Still I kept my end up very creditably, I think.
+
+"And not a bad accomplishment, either," I said, smiling brightly, "if
+one has to visit London in war-time."
+
+Schmalz smiled back with perfect courtesy. But he continued to stare
+relentlessly at me. I felt scared.
+
+"What is Schmalz jabbering about now?" said one of the dug-outs. I
+translated for the benefit of the company. My résumé gave the dug-out
+who had spoken the opportunity for launching out on an interminable
+anecdote about an ulster he had bought on a holiday at Brighton. The
+story lasted until the white-gloved orderly came and announced that "a
+gentleman" was there, asking for the Herr Major.
+
+"That'll be your man," exclaimed the Major, starting up--I noticed he
+made no attempt to bring the stranger in. "Come, let us go to him!"
+
+I stood up and took my leave. Schmalz came to the door of the anteroom
+with us.
+
+"You are going to Berlin?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," I replied.
+
+"Where shall you be staying?" he asked again.
+
+"Oh, probably at the Adlon!"
+
+"I myself shall be in Berlin next week for my medical examination, and
+perhaps we may meet again. I should much like to talk more with you
+about America ... and London. We must have mutual acquaintances."
+
+I murmured something about being only too glad, at the same time making
+a mental note to get out of Berlin as soon as I conveniently could.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+I HEAR OF CLUBFOOT AND MEET HIS EMPLOYER
+
+
+As we went down the staircase, the Major whispered to me:
+
+"I don't think your man wished me to know his name, for he did not
+introduce himself when he arrived and he does not come to our Casino.
+But I know him for all that: it is the young Count von Boden, of the
+Uhlans of the Guard: his father, the General, is one of the Emperor's
+aides-de-camp: he was, for a time, tutor to the Crown Prince."
+
+A motor-car stood at the door, in it a young man in a grey-blue military
+great-coat and a flat cap with a pink band round it. He sprang out as we
+appeared. His manner was most _empressé_. He completely ignored my
+companion.
+
+"I am extremely glad to see you, Herr Doktor," he said. "You are
+most anxiously expected. I must present my apologies for not being
+at the station to welcome you, but, apparently, there was some
+misunderstanding. The arrangements at the station for your reception
+seem to have broken down completely ..." and he stared through his
+monocle at the old Major, who flushed with vexation.
+
+"If you will step into my car," the young man added, "I will drive you
+to the station. We need not detain this gentleman any longer."
+
+I felt sorry for the old Major, who had remained silent under the
+withering insolence of this young lieutenant, so I shook hands with him
+cordially and thanked him for his hospitality. He was a jovial old
+fellow after all.
+
+The young Count drove himself and chatted amiably as we whirled through
+the streets. "I must introduce myself," he said: "Lieutenant Count von
+Boden of the 2nd Uhlans of the Guard. I did not wish to say anything
+before that old chatterbox. I trust you have had a pleasant journey. Von
+Steinhardt, of our Legation at the Hague, was instructed to make all
+arrangements for your comfort on this side. But I was forgetting, you
+and he must be old acquaintances, Herr Doktor!"
+
+I said something appropriate about von Steinhardt's invariable kindness.
+Inwardly, I noted the explanation of the visiting card in the portfolio
+in my pocket.
+
+At the station we found two orderlies, one with my things, the other
+with von Boden's luggage and fur _pélisse_. The platforms were now
+deserted save for sentries: all life at this dreary frontier station
+seemed to die with the passing of the mail train.
+
+I could not help noticing, after we had left the car and were strolling
+up and down the platform waiting for the special, that my companion kept
+casting furtive glances at my feet. I looked down at my boots: they
+wanted brushing, certainly, but otherwise I could see nothing wrong with
+them. They were brown, it is true, and I reflected that the German man
+about town has a way of regulating his tastes in footgear by the
+calendar, and that brown boots are seldom worn in Germany after
+September 1st.
+
+Our special came in, an engine and tender, a brakesman's van, a single
+carriage and a guard's van. The stationmaster bid us a most ceremonious
+adieu, and the guard, cap in hand, helped me into the train.
+
+It was a Pullman car in which I found myself, with comfortable
+arm-chairs and small tables. One of the orderlies was laying the table
+for luncheon, and here, presently, the young Count and I ate a meal,
+which, save for the inevitable "_Kriegsbrod_," showed few signs of the
+stringency of the British blockade. But by this time I had fully
+realized that, for some unknown reason, no pains were spared to do me
+honour, so probably the fare was something out of the common.
+
+My companion was a bright, amusing fellow and delightfully typical of
+his class. He had seen a year's service with the cavalry on the Eastern
+front, had been seriously wounded and was now attached to the General
+Staff in Berlin in what I judged to be a decorative rather than a useful
+capacity, for, apart from what he had learnt in his own campaigning he
+seemed singularly ignorant of the development of the military situation.
+Particularly, his ignorance of conditions on the Western front was
+supreme. He was full to the brim with the most extraordinary fables
+about the British. He solemnly assured me, for example--on the faith of
+a friend of his who had seen them--that Japanese were fighting with the
+English in France, dressed as Highlanders--his friend had heard these
+Asiatic Scotsmen talking Japanese, he declared. I thought of the
+Gaelic-speaking battalions of the Camerons and could hardly suppress a
+smile.
+
+Young von Boden was superbly contemptuous of the officers of the obscure
+and much reduced infantry battalion doing garrison duty at Goch, the
+frontier station we had just left, where--as he was careful to explain
+to me--he had spent four days of unrelieved boredom, waiting for me.
+
+"Of course, in war time we are a united army and all that," he observed
+unsophistically, "but none of these fellows at Goch was a fit companion
+for a dashing cavalry officer. They were a dull lot. I wouldn't go near
+the Casino. I met some of them at the hotel one evening. That was
+enough for me. Why, only one of them knew anything at all about Berlin,
+and that was the lame fellow. Now, there is one thing we learn in the
+cavalry...."
+
+But I had ceased to listen. In his irresponsible chatter the boy used a
+word that struck a harsh note which went jarring through my brain. He
+had mentioned "the lame fellow," using a German word "der Stelze." In a
+flash I saw before me again that scene in the squalid bedroom in the Vos
+in't Tuintje--the candle guttering in the draught, the livid corpse on
+the floor and that sinister woman crying out: "Der Stelze has power, he
+has authority, he can make and unmake men!"
+
+The mind has unaccountable lapses. The phrase had slipped out of my
+German vocabulary. I had not even recognized it until the boy had rapped
+it out in a context with which I was familiar and then it had come back.
+With it, it brought that tableau in the dimly lit room, but also
+another--a picture of a vast and massive man, swarthy and sinister, with
+a clubfoot, limping heavily after Karl, the waiter, on the platform at
+Rotterdam.
+
+That, then, was why the young lieutenant had glanced down at my feet at
+the station at Goch, The messenger he had come to meet, the bearer of
+the document, the man of power and authority, was clubfooted, and I was
+he!
+
+But seeing I was free of any physical deformity, to say nothing of the
+fact that I in no way resembled the clubfooted man I had seen on the
+platform at Rotterdam, why had the young lieutenant accepted me so
+readily? I hazarded the reason to be that he had orders to meet a person
+who had not been further designated to him except that he would arrive
+by a certain train. The Major at the station would be responsible for
+establishing my _bona fides_. Once that officer had turned me over to
+the emissary, the latter's sole responsibility consisted in conducting
+me to the unknown goal to which the special train was rapidly bearing
+us. Such are the marvels of discipline!
+
+My companion was, indeed, the model of discretion in everything touching
+myself and my business. Curiosity about your neighhour's affairs is a
+cardinal German failing, yet the Count manifested not the slightest
+desire to learn anything about me or my mission to Berlin. You may be
+sure that I, for my part, did nothing to enlighten him. It was not,
+indeed, in my power to do so. Yet the young man's reserve was so marked
+that I was convinced he had his orders to avoid the topic.
+
+As the train rushed through Westphalia, through busy stations with
+glimpses of sidings full of trucks loaded to the brim, past towns whose
+very outlines were blurred by the mirk of smoke from a hundred factory
+chimneys, my thoughts were busy with that swarthy cripple. I had broken
+away from him with one portion of a highly prized document, yet he had
+made no attempt to have me arrested at the frontier. Clearly, then, he
+must still look upon me as an ally and must therefore be yet in
+ignorance of the identity of the dead man lying in my chamber at the
+Hotel Sixt. The friendly guide had told me that the party "combing out"
+the station at Rotterdam for me did not appear to know what I looked
+like.
+
+_Was it possible, then, that Clubfoot did not know Semlin by sight?_
+
+The fact that Semlin had only recently crossed the Atlantic seemed to
+confirm this supposition.
+
+Then the document. Semlin had half. Who had the other half? Surely
+Clubfoot.... Clubfoot who was to have called at the hotel that morning
+to receive what I had brought from England. Perhaps, after all, my
+random declaration to the hotel-keeper had not been so far wrong;
+Clubfoot wanted to take the whole document to Berlin and reap all the
+laurels at the cost of half the danger and labour. That would explain
+his present silence. He suspected Semlin of treachery, not to the common
+cause, but to him!
+
+It looked as if I might have a free run until Clubfoot could reach
+Berlin. That, unless he also took a special, could not be until the
+next evening at earliest. But, more redoubtable than a meeting with
+the man of power and authority, hung over me, an ever-present nightmare,
+the interview which I felt awaited me at the end of my present
+journey ... the interview at which I must render an account of my
+mission.
+
+Evening was falling as we ran through the inhospitable region of sand
+and water and pine that engirdles Berlin. We glided at diminished speed
+through the trim suburbs, skirted the city, on whose tall buildings the
+electric sky-signs were already beginning to twinkle, crashed heavily
+over a vast network of metals at some great terminus, then tore off
+again into the gathering darkness. In a little, we slowed down again. We
+were running through wooded country. From the darkness ahead a lantern
+waved at us and the train stopped with a jerk at a little wayside
+station, a tiny box of an affair. A tall, solid figure, wearing a spiked
+helmet and grey military great-coat, stood in solitary grandeur in the
+centre of the little platform, the wavering rays of a flickering gas
+lamp reflected in his brilliantly polished top-boots.
+
+"Here we are at last!" said my companion.
+
+I stepped out to meet my fate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young lieutenant was rigid at the salute before the figure on the
+platform.
+
+I heard the end of a sentence as I alighted "... the gentleman I was to
+meet, Excellency!"
+
+The other looked at me. He was a big man with a crimson face. He made no
+attempt at greeting, but said in a hoarse voice: "Have the goodness to
+come with me. The orderlies will attend to your things." And, with
+clinking spurs, he strode out through some big kind of anteroom, swathed
+in wrappings, into a yard beyond, where a big limousine was throbbing
+gently.
+
+He stood aside to let me get in, then mounted himself, followed, rather
+to my surprise, by the young Count, whose responsibility for myself had
+ended, I imagined, on "delivering the goods." My surprise was of short
+duration, for once in the car the young Uhlan dropped all the formality
+he had displayed on the platform and addressed the elder officer as
+"papa." This, then, was old General von Boden, of whom the Major had
+spoken, Aide-de-Camp to the Kaiser and formerly tutor to the Crown
+Prince.
+
+Father and son chatted in a desultory fashion across the car, and I took
+the opportunity of studying the old gentleman. His face was of the most
+prodigious purple hue, and so highly polished that it continually caught
+the reflection of the small electric lamp in the roof. Huge gold
+spectacles with glasses so thick that they distorted his eyes,
+straddled a great beak-like nose. He had doffed his helmet and was
+mopping his brow, and I saw a high perfectly bald dome-like head,
+brilliantly polished and almost as red as his face. He was clean shaven
+and by no means young, for the flesh hung in bags about his face. Long
+years of the habit of command had left their mark in an imperiousness of
+manner which might easily yield to ruthlessness I judged.
+
+"I thought I should have had orders before I left the Villa," the
+General said to his son, "then you could have gone straight there. I
+suppose he means to see him here: that is why he wanted him brought to
+the Villa. But he's always the same: he never can make up his mind." And
+he grunted.
+
+"Perhaps there will be something waiting at home," he added in his
+hoarse barrack-yard voice.
+
+We drove through a white gate into a little drive which brought us up in
+front of a long, low villa. Neither father nor son had opened their lips
+to me during the drive from the station and I had not ventured to put a
+question to either of them, but I knew we were in Potsdam. The little
+station in the woods was Wild-Park, I suspected, the private station
+used by the Emperor on his frequent journeys and situated in the grounds
+of the New Palace. All the officials of the Prussian Court have villas
+at Potsdam, though why I had been brought there in connection with an
+affair that must surely rather interest the Wilhelm-Strasse or the
+Police Presidency was more than I could fathom.
+
+There was a frightful scene in the hall. Without any warning the General
+turned on the orderly who had opened the door and screamed abuse at him.
+"Camel! Ox! Sheep's-head!" he roared, his face and shining pate
+deepening their vermilion hue. "Do I give orders that they shall be
+forgotten? What do you mean? You ass...." He put his white-gloved hands
+on the man's shoulders and shook him until the fellow's teeth must have
+rattled in his head. The orderly, white to the lips, hung limp in the
+old man's grasp, muttering apologies: "Ach! Exzellenz! Exzellenz will
+excuse me...."
+
+It was a revolting spectacle, but it did not make the least impression
+on the son, who, putting down his cap and great-coat and unhooking his
+sword, led me into a kind of study. "These orderlies are such
+thickheads!" he said.
+
+"Rudi! Rudi!" a hoarse, strident voice screamed from the hall. The
+lieutenant ran out.
+
+"You've got to take the fellow to Berlin to-night. The message was here
+all the time--that numskull Heinrich forgot it. And we've got to keep
+the fellow here till then! An outrage, having the house used as a
+barrack for a rascally detective!" Thus much I heard, as the door had
+been left open. Then it closed and I heard no more.
+
+As I had heard this much, there was a certain irony in the invitation to
+dinner subsequently conveyed to me by the young Uhlan. There was nothing
+for it but to accept. I knew I was caught deep in the meshes of Prussian
+discipline, every one had his orders and blindly carried them out, from
+the garrulous Major on the frontier to this preposterous _Exzellenz_,
+this Imperial aide-de-camp of Potsdam. I was already a tiny cog in a
+great machine. I should have to revolve or be crushed.
+
+His Excellency left me in no doubt on this point. When I was ushered
+into his study, after a much-needed wash and a shave, he received me
+standing and said point-blank: "Your orders are to stay here until ten
+o'clock to-night, when you will be taken to Berlin by Lieutenant Count
+von Boden. I don't know you, I don't know your business, but I have
+received certain orders concerning you which I intend to carry out. For
+that reason you will dine with us here. After you have seen the person
+to whom you are to be taken to-night, Lieutenant Count von Boden will
+accompany you to the railway station at Spandau, where a special train
+will be in readiness in which he will conduct you back to the frontier.
+I wish you clearly to understand that the Lieutenant is responsible for
+seeing these orders carried out and will use all means to that end. Have
+I made myself clear?"
+
+The old man's manner was indescribably threatening. "This is the machine
+we are out to smash," I had said to myself when I saw him savaging his
+servant in the hall and I repeated the phrase to myself now. But to the
+General I said: "Perfectly, Your Excellency!"
+
+"Then let us go to dinner," said the General.
+
+It was a nightmare meal. A faded and shrunken female, to whom I was not
+introduced--some kind of relative who kept house for the General, I
+supposed--was the only other person present. She never opened her lips
+save, with eyes glazed with terror, to give some whispered instruction
+to the orderly anent the General's food or wine. We dined in a
+depressing room with dark brown wallpaper decorated with dusty stags'
+antlers, an enormous green-tiled stove dominating everything. The
+General and his son ate solidly through the courses while the lady
+pecked furtively at her plate. As for myself I could not eat for sheer
+fright. Every nerve in my body was vibrating at the thought of the
+evening before me. If I could not avoid the interview, I was resolutely
+determined to give Master von Boden the slip rather than return to the
+frontier empty-handed. I had not braved all these perils to be packed
+off home without, at least, making an attempt to find Francis. Besides,
+I meant if I could to get the other half of that document.
+
+There was some quite excellent Rhine wine, and I drank plenty of it. So
+did the General, with the result that, when the veins starting purple
+from his temples proclaimed that he had eaten to repletion, his temper
+seemed to have improved. He unbent sufficiently to present me with quite
+the worst cigar I have ever smoked.
+
+I smoked it in silence whilst father and son talked shop. The female had
+faded away. Both men, I found to my surprise, were furious and bitter
+opponents of Hindenburg, as I have since learnt most of the old school
+of the Prussian Army are. They spoke little of England: their thoughts
+seemed to be centred on Russia as the arch-enemy. They pinned their
+faith on Falkenhayn and Mackensen. They had no words strong enough in
+their denunciation of Hindenburg, whom they always referred to as "the
+Drunkard" ... "der Säufer." Nor were they sparing of criticism of what
+they called the Kaiser's "weakness" in letting him rise to power.
+
+The humming of a car outside broke up our gathering. Remembering that I
+was but a humble servant before this great military luminary, I thanked
+the General with due servility for his hospitality. Then the Count and I
+went out to the car and presently drove forth into the night.
+
+We entered Berlin from the west, as it seemed to me, but then struck off
+in a southerly direction and were soon in the commercial quarter of the
+city, all but deserted at that hour, save for the trams. Then I caught a
+glimpse of lamps reflected in water, and the next moment the car had
+stopped on a bridge over a canal or river. My companion sprang out and
+hurried me to a small gate in an iron railing enclosing a vast edifice
+looming black in the night, while the car moved off into the darkness.
+
+The gate was open. Half a dozen yards from it was a small, slender tower
+with a pointed roof jutting out from the corner of the building. In the
+tower was a door which yielded easily to my companion's vigorous push as
+a clock somewhere within the building beat a double stroke--half-past
+ten.
+
+The door led into a little vestibule brilliantly lit with electric
+light. There a man was waiting, a fine, upstanding bearded fellow in a
+kind of green hunting costume.
+
+"So, Payer!" said the young Uhlan. "Here is the gentleman. I shall be at
+the west entrance afterwards. You will bring him down yourself to the
+car."
+
+"Jawohl, Herr Graf!" answered the man in green, and the lieutenant
+vanished through the door into the night.
+
+A terrifying, an incredible suspicion that had overwhelmed me directly I
+stepped out of the car now came surging through my brain. That vast,
+black edifice, that slender tower at the corner--did I not know them?
+
+Mechanically, I followed the man in green. My suspicions deepened
+with every step. In a little, they became certainty. Up a shallow and
+winding stair, along a long and broad corridor, hung with rich
+tapestries, the polished parquet glistening faintly in the dim light,
+through splendid suites of gilded apartments with old pictures and
+splendid furniture... here a lackey with powdered hair yawning on a
+landing, there a sentry in field-grey immobile before a door...I was in
+the Berlin Schloss.
+
+The Castle seemed to sleep. A hushed silence lay over all. Everywhere
+lights were dim, staircases wound down into emptiness, corridors
+stretched away into dusky solitude. Now and then an attendant in evening
+dress tiptoed past us or an officer vanished round a corner, noiselessly
+save for a faint clink of spurs.
+
+Thus we traversed, as it seemed to me, miles of silence and of twilight,
+and all the time my blood hammered at my temples and my throat grew dry
+as I thought of the ordeal that stood before me. To whom was I thus
+bidden, secretly, in the night?
+
+We were in a broad and pleasant passage now, panelled in cheerful light
+brown oak with red hangings. After the desolation of the State
+apartments, this comfortable corridor had at least the appearance of
+leading to the habitation of man. A giant trooper in field-grey with a
+curious silver gorget suspended round his neck by a chain paced up and
+down the passage, his jackboots making no sound upon the soft, thick
+carpet with which the floor was covered.
+
+The man in green stopped at the door. Holding up a warning hand to me,
+he bent his head and listened. There was a moment of absolute silence.
+Not a sound was to be heard throughout the whole Castle. Then the man in
+green knocked softly and was admitted, leaving me outside.
+
+A moment later, the door swung open again. A tall, elegant man with grey
+hair and that indefinite air of good breeding that you find in every man
+who has spent a life at court, came out hurriedly. He looked pale and
+harassed.
+
+On seeing me, he stopped short.
+
+"Dr. Grundt? Where is Dr. Grundt?" he asked and his eyes dropped to my
+feet. He started and raised them to my face.
+
+The trooper had drifted out of earshot. I could see him, immobile as a
+statue, standing at the end of the corridor. Except for him and us, the
+passage was deserted.
+
+Again the elderly man spoke and his voice betrayed his anxiety.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked almost in a whisper. "What have you done with
+Grundt? Why has he not come?"
+
+Boldly I took the plunge.
+
+"I am Semlin," I said.
+
+"Semlin," echoed the other, "--ah yes! the Embassy in Washington wrote
+about you--but Grundt was to have come...."
+
+"Listen," I said, "Grundt could not come. We had to separate and he sent
+me on ahead...."
+
+"But ... but ..."--the man was stammering now in his anxiety--"... you
+succeeded?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+He heaved a sigh of relief.
+
+"It will be awkward, very awkward, this change in the arrangements," he
+said. "You will have to explain everything to him, everything. Wait
+there an instant."
+
+He darted back into the room.
+
+Once more I stood and waited in that silent place, so restful and so
+still that one felt oneself in a world far removed from the angry strife
+of nations. And I wondered if my interview--the meeting I had so much
+dreaded--was at an end.
+
+"Pst, Pst!" The elderly man stood at the open door.
+
+He led me through a room, a cosy place, smelling pleasantly of leather
+furniture, to a door. He opened it, revealing across a narrow threshold
+another door. On this he knocked.
+
+"Herein!" cried a voice--a harsh, metallic voice.
+
+My companion turned the handle and, opening the door, thrust me into the
+room. The door closed behind me.
+
+I found myself facing the Emperor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+I ENCOUNTER AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE WHO LEADS ME TO A DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE
+
+
+He stood in the centre of the room, facing the door, his legs, straddled
+apart, planted firmly on the ground, one hand behind his back, the
+other, withered and useless like the rest of the arm, thrust into the
+side pocket of his tunic. He wore a perfectly plain undress uniform of
+field-grey, and the unusual simplicity of his dress, coupled with the
+fact that he was bare-headed, rendered him so unlike his conventional
+portraits in the full panoply of war that I doubt if I should have
+recognized him--paradoxical as it may seem--but for the havoc depicted
+in every lineament of those once so familiar features.
+
+Only one man in the world to-day could look like that. Only one man in
+the world to-day could show, by the ravage in his face, the appalling
+weight of responsibility slowly crushing one of the most vigorous and
+resilient personalities in Europe. His figure, erstwhile erect and
+well-knit, seemed to have shrunk, and his withered arm, unnaturally
+looped away into his pocket, assumed a prominence that lent something
+sinister to that forbidding grey and harassed face.
+
+His head was sunk forward on his breast. His face, always intensely
+sallow, almost Italian in its olive tint, was livid. All its alertness
+was gone; the features seemed to have collapsed, and the flesh hung
+flabbily, bulging in deep pouches under the eyes and in loose folds at
+the corners of the mouth. His head was grizzled an iron-grey but the
+hair at the temples was white as driven snow. Only his eyes were
+unchanged. They were the same grey, steely eyes, restless, shifting,
+unreliable, mirrors of the man's impulsive, wayward and fickle mind.
+
+He lowered at me. His brow was furrowed and his eyes flashed malice. In
+the brief instant in which I gazed at him I thought of a phrase a friend
+had used after seeing the Kaiser in one of his angry moods--"His icy,
+black look."
+
+I was so taken aback at finding myself in the Emperor's presence that I
+forgot my part and remained staring in stupefaction at the apparition.
+The other was seemingly too busy with his thoughts to notice my
+forgetfulness, for he spoke at once, imperiously, in the harsh staccato
+of a command.
+
+"What is this I hear?" he said. "Why has not Grundt come? What are you
+doing here?"
+
+By this time I had elaborated the fable I had begun to tell in the
+corridor without. I had it ready now: it was thin, but it must suffice.
+
+"If your Majesty will allow me, I will explain," I said. The Emperor was
+rocking himself to and fro, in nervous irritability, on his feet. His
+eyes were never steady for an instant: now they searched my face, now
+they fell to the floor, now they scanned the ceiling.
+
+"Dr. Grundt and I succeeded in our quest, dangerous though it was. As
+your Majesty is aware, the ... the ... the object had been divided...."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know! Go on!" the other said, pausing for a moment in his
+rocking.
+
+"I was to have left England first with my portion. I could not get away.
+Everyone is searched for letters and papers at Tilbury. I devised a
+scheme and we tested it, but it failed."
+
+"How? It failed?" the other cried.
+
+"With no detriment to the success of our mission, Your Majesty."
+
+"Explain! What was your stratagem?"
+
+"I cut a piece of the lining from a handbag and in this I wrapped a
+perfectly harmless letter addressed to an English shipping agent in
+Rotterdam. I then pasted the fragment of the lining back in its place in
+the bottom of the bag. Grundt gave the bag to one of our number as an
+experiment to see if it would elude the vigilance of the English
+police."
+
+A light of interest was growing in the Emperor's manner, banishing his
+ill-temper. Anything novel always appealed to him.
+
+"Well?" he said.
+
+"The ruse was detected, the letter was found and our man was fined
+twenty pounds at the police court. It was then that Dr. Grundt decided
+to send me...."
+
+"You've got it with you?" the other exclaimed eagerly.
+
+"No, Your Majesty," I said. "I had no means of bringing it away. Dr.
+Grundt, on the other hand ..." And I doubled up my leg and touched my
+foot.
+
+The Emperor stared at me and the furrow reappeared between his eyes.
+Then a smile broke out on his face, a warm, attractive smile, like
+sunshine after rain, and he burst into a regular guffaw. I knew His
+Majesty's weakness for jokes at the expense of the physical deformities
+of others, but I had scarcely dared to hope that my subtle reference to
+Grundt's clubfoot as a hiding-place for compromising papers would have
+had such a success. For the Kaiser fairly revelled in the idea and
+laughed loud and long, his sides fairly shaking.
+
+"Ach, der Stelze! Excellent! Excellent!" he cried. "Plessen, come and
+hear how we've diddled the Englander again!"
+
+We were in a long room, lofty, with a great window at the far end, where
+the room seemed to run to the right and left in the shape of a T. From
+the big writing-desk with its litter of photographs in heavy silver
+frames, the little bronze busts of the Empress, the water-colour
+sea-scapes and other little touches, I judged this to be the Emperor's
+study.
+
+At the monarch's call, a white-haired officer emerged from the further
+end of the room, that part which was hidden from my view.
+
+The Kaiser put his hand on his shoulder.
+
+"A great joke, Plessen!" he said, chuckling. Then, to me:
+
+"Tell it again!"
+
+I had warmed to my work now. I gave as drily humorous an account as I
+could of Dr. Grundt, fat and massive and podgy, hobbling on board the
+steamer at Tilbury, under the noses of the British police, with the
+document stowed away in his boot.
+
+The Kaiser punctuated my story with gusty guffaws, and emphasized the
+fun of the _dénouement_ by poking the General in the ribs.
+
+Plessen laughed very heartily, as indeed he was expected to. Then he
+said suavely:
+
+"But has the stratagem succeeded, Your Majesty?"
+
+The monarch knit his brow and looked at me.
+
+"Well, young man, did it work?"
+
+"... Because," Plessen went on, "if so, Grundt must be in Holland. In
+that case, why is he not here?"
+
+My heart sank within me. Above all things, I knew I must keep my
+countenance. The least sign of embarrassment and I was lost. Yet I felt
+the blood fleeing from my face and I was glad I stood in the shadow.
+
+A knock came to the door. The elderly chamberlain who had met me outside
+appeared.
+
+"Your Majesty will excuse me ... General Baron von Fischer is there to
+report...."
+
+"Presently, presently," was the answer in an irritable tone. "I am
+engaged just now...."
+
+The old courtier paused irresolutely for a moment.
+
+"Well, what is it; what is it?"
+
+"Despatches from General Head-quarters, Your Majesty! The General asked
+me to say the matter was urgent!"
+
+The Kaiser wakened in an instant.
+
+"Bring him in!" Then, to Plessen, he added in a voice from which all
+mirth had vanished, in accents of gloom:
+
+"At this hour, Plessen? If things have again gone wrong on the Somme!"
+
+An officer came in quickly, rigid with a frozen face, helmet on head,
+portfolio under his arm. The Kaiser walked the length of the room to his
+desk and sat down. Plessen and the other followed him. I remained where
+I was. They seemed to have forgotten all about me.
+
+A murmur rose from the desk. The officer was delivering his report. Then
+the Kaiser seemed to question him, for I heard his hard, metallic
+voice:
+
+"Contalmaison ... Trones Wood ... heavy losses ... forced
+back ... terrific artillery fire ..." were words that reached me.
+The Kaiser's voice rose on a high note of irritability. Suddenly he
+dashed the papers on the desk from him and exclaimed:
+
+"It is outrageous! I'll break him! Not another man shall he have if I
+must go myself and teach his men their duty!"
+
+Plessen hurriedly left the desk and came to me. His old face was white
+and his hands were shaking.
+
+"Get out of here!" he said to me in a fierce undertone. "Wait outside
+and I will see you later!" Still, from the desk, resounded that harsh,
+strident voice, running on in an ascending scale, pouring forth a
+foaming torrent of menace.
+
+I had often heard of the sudden paroxysms of fury from which the Kaiser
+was said to suffer of recent years, but never in my wildest daydreams
+did I ever imagine I should assist at one.
+
+Gladly enough did I exchange the highly charged electrical atmosphere of
+the Imperial study for the repose of the quiet corridor. Its perfect
+tranquillity was as balm to my quivering nerves. Of the man in green
+nothing was to be seen. Only the trooper continued his silent vigil.
+
+Again I acted on impulse. I was wearing my grass-green raincoat, my hat
+I carried in my hand. I might therefore easily pass for one just leaving
+the Castle. Without hesitation, I turned to the left, the way I had
+come, and plunged once more into the labyrinth of galleries and
+corridors and landings by which the man in green had led me. I very soon
+lost myself, so I decided to descend the next staircase I should come
+to. I followed this plan and went down a broad flight of stairs, at the
+foot of which I found a night porter, clad in a vast overcoat bedizened
+with eagles and seated on a stool, reading a newspaper.
+
+He stopped me and asked me my business. I told him I was coming from the
+Emperor's private apartments, whereupon he demanded my pass. I showed
+him my badge which entirely satisfied him, though he muttered something
+about "new faces" and not having seen me before. I asked him for the way
+out. He said that at the end of the gallery I should come to the west
+entrance. I felt I had had a narrow squeak of running into my mentor
+outside. I told the man I wanted the other entrance ... I had my car
+there.
+
+"You mean the south entrance?" he asked, and proceeded to give me
+directions which brought me, without further difficulty, out upon the
+open space in front of the great equestrian statue of the Emperor
+William I.
+
+It was a clear, starry night and I heaved a sigh of relief as I saw the
+Schloss-Platz glittering in the cold light of the arc lamps. So pressing
+had been the danger threatening me that the atmosphere of the Castle
+seemed stifling in comparison with the keen night air. A new confidence
+filled my veins as I strode along, though the perils to which I was
+advancing were not a whit less than those I had just escaped. For I had
+burnt my boats. My disappearance from the Castle must surely arouse
+suspicion and it was only a matter of hours for the hue and cry to be
+raised after me. At best it might be delayed until Clubfoot presented
+himself at the Castle.
+
+I could not remain in Berlin, that was clear. My American passport was
+not in order, and if I were to fall back upon my silver badge, I should
+instantly come into contact with the police with all kinds of unwelcome
+consequences. No, I must get out of Berlin at all costs. Well away from
+the capital, I might possibly utilize my silver badge or by its help
+procure identity papers that would give me a status of some kind.
+
+But Francis? Baffled as I was by that obscure jingle of German,
+something seemed to tell me that it was a message from my brother. It
+was dated from Berlin, and I felt that the solution of the riddle, if
+riddle it were, must be found here.
+
+I had reached Unter den Linden. I entered a café and ordered a glass of
+beer. The place was a blaze of light and dense with a blue cloud of
+tobacco smoke. A noisy band was crashing out popular tunes and there was
+a loud buzz of conversation rising from every table. It was all very
+cheerful and the noise and the bustle did me good after the strain of
+the night.
+
+I drew from my pocket the slip of paper I had had from Dicky and fell to
+scanning it again. I had not been twelve hours in Germany, but already I
+was conscious that, for anyone acting a part, let anything go wrong with
+his identity papers and he could never leave the country. If he were
+lucky, he might lie doggo; but there was no other course.
+
+Supposing, then, that this had happened to Francis (as, indeed, Red Tabs
+had hinted to me was the case) what course would he adopt? He would try
+and smuggle out a message announcing his plight. Yes, I think that is
+what I myself would do in similar circumstances.
+
+Well, I would accept this as a message from Francis. Now to study it
+once more.
+
+_O Eichenholz! O Eichenholz!
+Wie leer sind deine Blätter.
+Wie Achiles in dem Zelte.
+Wo zweie sich zanken
+Erfreut sich der Dritte._
+
+The message fell into three parts, each consisting of a phrase. The
+first phrase might certainly be a warning that Francis had failed in
+his mission.
+
+_"O Okewood! how empty are thy leaves!"_
+
+What, then, of the other two phrases?
+
+They were short and simple. Whatever message they conveyed, it could not
+be a lengthy one. Nor was it likely that they contained a report of
+Francis' mission to Germany, whatever it had been. Indeed, it was not
+conceivable that my brother would send any such report to a Dutchman
+like van Urutius, a friendly enough fellow, yet a mere acquaintance and
+an alien at that.
+
+The message carried in those two phrases must be, I felt sure, a
+personal one, relating to my brother's welfare. What would he desire to
+say? That he was arrested, that he was going to be shot? Possibly, but
+more probably his idea in sending out word was to explain his silence
+and also to obtain assistance.
+
+My eye recurred continually to the final phrase: "When _two_ people fall
+out, the _third_ party rejoices."
+
+Might not these numerals refer to the number of a street? Might not in
+these two phrases be hidden an address at which one might find Francis,
+or at the worst, hear news of him?
+
+I sent for the Berlin Directory. I turned up the streets section and
+eagerly ran my eye down the columns of the "A's." I did not find what I
+was looking for, and that was an "Achilles-Strasse," either with two
+"l's" or with one.
+
+Then I tried "Eichenholz." There was an "Eichenbaum-Allee" in the Berlin
+suburb called West-End, but that was all. I tried for a "Blätter" or a
+"Blatt-Strasse" with an equally negative result.
+
+It was discouraging work, but I went back to the paper again. The only
+other word likely to serve as a street remaining in the puzzle was
+"Zelt."
+
+"Wie Achiles in dem Zelte."
+
+Wearily I opened the directory at the "Z's."
+
+There, staring me in the face, I found the street called "In den
+Zelten."
+
+I had struck the trail at last.
+
+In den Zelten, I discovered, on referring to the directory again,
+derived its name "In the Tents," from the fact that in earlier days a
+number of open-air beer-gardens and booths had occupied the site which
+faces the northern side of the Tiergarten. It was not a long street. The
+directory showed but fifty-six houses, several of which, I noticed, were
+still beer-gardens. It appeared to be a fashionable thoroughfare, for
+most of the occupants were titled people. No. 3, I was interested to
+see, was still noted as the Berlin office of _The Times_.
+
+The last phrase in the message decidedly gave the number. _Two_ must
+refer to the number of the house: _third_ to the number of the floor,
+since practically all dwelling-houses in Berlin are divided off into
+flats.
+
+As for the "Achiles," I gave it up.
+
+I looked at my watch. It was twenty past eleven: too late to begin my
+search that night. Then I suddenly realized how utterly exhausted I was.
+I had been two nights out of bed without sleep, for I had sat up on deck
+crossing over to Holland, and the succession of adventures that had
+befallen me since I left London had driven all thought of weariness from
+my mind. But now came the reaction and I felt myself yearning for a hot
+bath and for a nice comfortable bed. To go to an hotel at that hour of
+night, without luggage and with an American passport not in order, would
+be to court disaster. It looked as though I should have to hang about
+the cafés and night restaurants until morning, investigate the clue of
+the street called In den Zelten, and then get away from Berlin as fast
+as ever I could.
+
+But my head was nodding with drowsiness. I must pull myself together. I
+decided I would have some black coffee, and I raised my eyes to find the
+waiter. They fell upon the pale face and elegant figure of the one-armed
+officer I had met at the Casino at Goch ... the young lieutenant they
+had called Schmalz.
+
+He had just entered the café and was standing at the door, looking about
+him. I felt a sudden pang of uneasiness at the sight of him, for I
+remembered his cross-examination of me at Goch. But I could not escape
+without paying my bill; besides, he blocked the way.
+
+He settled my doubts and fears by walking straight over to my table.
+
+"Good evening, Herr Doktor," he said in German, with his pleasant smile.
+"This indeed is an unexpected pleasure! So you are seeing how we poor
+Germans are amusing ourselves in war-time. You must admit that we do not
+take our pleasures sadly. You permit me?"
+
+Without waiting for my reply, he sat down at my table and ordered a
+glass of beer.
+
+"I wish you had appeared sooner," I exclaimed in as friendly a tone as I
+could muster, "for I am just going. I have had a long and tiring journey
+and am anxious to go to an hotel."
+
+Directly I had spoken I realized my blunder.
+
+"You have not got an hotel yet?" said Schmalz. "Why, how curious! Nor
+have I!S As you are a stranger in Berlin, you must allow me to appoint
+myself your guide. Let us go to an hotel together, shall we?"
+
+I wanted to demur, difficult as it was to find any acceptable excuse,
+but his manner was so friendly, his offer seemed so sincere, that I felt
+my resolution wavering. He had a winning personality, this frank,
+handsome boy. And I was so dog-tired!
+
+He perceived my reluctance but also my indecision.
+
+"We'll go to any hotel you like," he said brightly. "But you Americans
+are spoilt in the matter of luxurious hotels, I know. Still, I tell you
+we have not much to learn in that line in Berlin. Suppose we go to the
+Esplanade. It's a fine hotel ... the Hamburg American line run it, you
+know. I am very well known there, quite the _Hauskind_ ... my uncle was
+a captain of one of their liners. They will make us very comfortable:
+they always give me a little suite, bedroom, sitting-room and bath, very
+reasonably: I'll make them do the same for you."
+
+If I had been less weary--I have often thought since--I would have got
+up and fled from the café rather than have countenanced any such mad
+proposal. But I was drunk with sleep heaviness and I snatched at this
+chance of getting a good night's rest, for I felt that, under the aegis
+of this young officer, I could count on any passport difficulties at the
+hotel being postponed until morning. By that time, I meant to be out of
+the hotel and away on my investigations.
+
+So I accepted Schmalz's suggestion.
+
+"By the way," I said, "I have no luggage. My bag got mislaid somehow at
+the station and I don't really feel up to going after it to-night."
+
+"I will fix you up," the other replied promptly, "and with pyjamas in
+the American fashion. By the by," he added, lowering his voice, "I
+thought it better to speak German. English is not heard gladly in
+Berlin just now."
+
+"I quite understand," I said. Then, to change the subject, which I did
+not like particularly, I added:
+
+"Surely, you have been very quick in coming down from the frontier. Did
+you come by train?"
+
+"Oh, no!" he answered. "I found that the car in which you drove to the
+station ... it belonged to the gentleman who came to meet you, you
+know ... was being sent back to Berlin by road, so I got the driver to
+give me a lift."
+
+He said this quite airily, with his usual tone of candour. But for a
+moment I regretted my decision to go to the Esplanade with him. What if
+he knew more than he seemed to know?
+
+I dismissed the suspicion from my mind.
+
+"Bah!" I said to myself, "you are getting jumpy. Besides, it is too late
+to turn back now!"
+
+We had a friendly wrangle as to who should pay for the drinks, and it
+ended in my paying. Then, after a long wait, we managed to get a cab, an
+antique-looking "growler" driven by an octogenarian in a coat of many
+capes, and drove to the Esplanade.
+
+It was a regular palace of a place, with a splendid vestibule with walls
+and pavement of different-hued marbles, with palm trees over-shadowing
+a little fountain tinkling in a jade basin, with servants in gaudy
+liveries. The reception clerk overwhelmed me with the cordiality of his
+welcome to my companion and "the American gentleman," and after a
+certain amount of coquettish protestations about the difficulty of
+providing accommodation, allotted us a double suite on the entresol,
+consisting of two bedrooms with a common sitting-room and bathroom.
+
+In his immaculate evening dress, he was a Beau Brummell among hotel
+clerks, that man. The luggage of the American gentleman should be
+fetched in the morning. The gentleman's papers? There was no hurry: the
+Herr Leutnant would explain to his friend the forms that had to be
+filled in: they could be given to the waiter in the morning. Would the
+gentlemen take anything before retiring? A whisky-soda--ah! whisky was
+getting scarce. No? Nothing? He had the honour to wish the gentlemen
+pleasant repose.
+
+We went to the lift in procession, Beau Brummell in front, then a
+waiter, then ourselves and the gold-braided hall porter bringing up the
+rear. One or two people were sitting in the lounge, attended by a
+platoon of waiters. The whole place gave an impression of wealth and
+luxury altogether out of keeping with British ideas of the stringency of
+life in Germany under the British blockade. I could not help reflecting
+to myself mournfully that Germany did not seem to feel the pinch very
+much.
+
+At the lift the procession bowed itself away and we went up in charge of
+the liftman, a gorgeous individual who looked like one of the Pope's
+Swiss Guards. We reached the centresol in an instant. The Lieutenant led
+the way along the dimly lighted corridor.
+
+"Here is the sitting-room," he said, opening a door. "This is my room,
+this the bathroom, and this," he flung open the fourth door, "is your
+room!"
+
+He stood aside to let me pass. The lights in the room were full on. In
+an arm-chair a big man in an overcoat was sitting.
+
+He had a heavy square face and a clubfoot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A GLASS OF WINE WITH CLUBFOOT
+
+
+I walked boldly into the room. All sense of fear had vanished in a wave
+of anger that swept over me, anger with myself for letting myself be
+trapped, anger with my companion for his treachery.
+
+Schmalz stood at my elbow with a smile full of malice on his face.
+
+"There now!" he cried, "you see, you are among friends! Am I not
+thoughtful to have prepared this little surprise for you? See, I have
+brought you to the one man you have crossed so many hundreds of miles of
+ocean to see! Herr Doktor! this is Dr. Semlin. Dr. Semlin: Dr. Grundt."
+
+The other had by now heaved his unwieldy frame from the chair.
+
+"Dr. Semlin?" he said, in a perfectly emotionless voice, _une voix
+blanche_, as the French say, "this is an unexpected pleasure. I never
+thought we should meet in Berlin. I had believed our rendezvous to have
+been fixed for Rotterdam. Still, better late than never!" And he
+extended to me a white, fat hand.
+
+"Our friend, the Herr Leutnant," I answered carelessly, "omitted to
+inform me that he was acquainted with you, as, indeed, he failed to warn
+me that I should have the pleasure of seeing you here to-night."
+
+"We owe that pleasure," Clubfoot replied with a smile that displayed a
+glitter of gold in his teeth, "to a purely fortuitous encounter at the
+Casino at Goch, as, indeed, it would appear, I am similarly indebted to
+chance for the unlooked-for boon of making your personal acquaintance
+here this evening."
+
+He bowed to Schmalz as he said this.
+
+"But come," he went on, "if I may make bold to offer you the hospitality
+of your own room, sit down and try a glass of this excellent
+Brauneberger. Rhine wine must be scarce where you come from. We have
+much to tell one another, you and I."
+
+Again he bared his golden teeth in a smile.
+
+"By all means," I said. "But I fear we keep our young friend from his
+bed. Doubtless, you have no secrets from him, but you will agree, Herr
+Doktor, that our conversation should best be tête-à-tète."
+
+"Schmalz, dear friend," Clubfoot exclaimed with a sigh of regret, "much
+as I should like ... I am indeed truly sorry that we should be deprived
+of your company, but I cannot contest the profound accuracy of our
+friend's remark. If you could go to the sitting-room for a few
+minutes...."
+
+The young lieutenant flushed angrily.
+
+"If you prefer my room to my company ... by all means," he retorted
+gruffly, "but I think, in the circumstances, that I shall go to bed."
+
+And he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, shutting the door
+with rather more force than was necessary, I thought.
+
+Clubfoot sighed.
+
+"Ach! youth! youth!" he cried, "the same impetuous youth that is at
+this very moment hacking out for Germany a world empire amidst the
+nations in arms. A wonderful race, a race of giants, our German youth,
+Herr Doktor ... the mainspring of our great German machine--as they find
+who resist it. A glass of wine!"
+
+The man's speech and manner boded ill for me, I felt. I would have
+infinitely preferred violent language and open threats to the subtle
+menace that lay concealed beneath all this suavity.
+
+"You smoke?" queried Clubfoot. "No!"--he held up his hand to stop me as
+I was reaching for my cigarette case, "you shall have a cigar--not one
+of our poor German Hamburgers, but a fine Havana cigar given me by a
+member of the English Privy Council. You stare! Aha! I repeat, by a
+member of the English Privy Council, to me, the Boche, the barbarian,
+the Hun! No hole and corner work for the old doctor. _Der Stelze_ may be
+lame, Clubfoot may be past his work, but when he travels _en mission_,
+he travels _en prince_, the man of wealth and substance. There is none
+too high to do him honour, to listen to his views on poor, misguided
+Germany, the land of thinkers sold into bondage to the militarists! Bah!
+the fools!"
+
+He snarled venomously. This man was beginning to interest me. His rapid
+change of moods was fascinating, now the kindly philosopher, now the
+Teuton braggart, now the Hun incorporate. As he limped across the room
+to fetch his cigar case from the mantelpiece, I studied him.
+
+He was a vast man, not so much by reason of his height, which was below
+the medium, but his bulk, which was enormous. The span of his shoulders
+was immense, and, though a heavy paunch and a white flabbiness of face
+spoke of a gross, sedentary life, he was obviously a man of quite
+unusual strength. His arms particularly were out of all proportion to
+his stature, being so long that his hands hung down on either side of
+him when he stood erect, like the paws of some giant ape. Altogether,
+there was something decidedly simian about his appearance his squat nose
+with hairy, open nostrils, and the general hirsuteness of the man, his
+bushy eyebrows, the tufts of black hair on his cheekbones and on the
+backs of his big, spade like hands. And there was that in his eyes, dark
+and courageous beneath the shaggy brows, that hinted at accesses of
+ape-like fury, uncontrollable and ferocious.
+
+He gave me his cigar which, as he had said, was a good one, and, after a
+preliminary sip of his wine, began to speak.
+
+"I am a plain man, Herr Doktor," he said, "and I like plain speaking.
+That is why I am going to speak quite plainly to you. When it became
+apparent to that person whom it is not necessary to name further greatly
+desired a certain letter to be recovered, I naturally expected that I,
+who am a past member in affairs of this order, notably, on behalf of the
+person concerned, would have been entrusted with the mission. It was I
+who discovered the author of the theft in an English internment camp; it
+was I who prevailed upon him to acquiesce in our terms; it was I who
+finally located the hiding place of the document ... all this, mark you,
+without setting foot in England."
+
+My thoughts flew back again to the three slips of paper in their canvas
+cover, the divided crest, the big, sprawling, upright handwriting. I
+should have known that hand. I had seen it often enough on certain
+photographs which were accorded the place of honour in the drawing room
+at Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's at Bonn.
+
+"I therefore had the prior claim," Clubfoot continued, "to be entrusted
+with the important task of fetching the document and of handing it back
+to the writer. But the gentleman was in a hurry; the gentleman always
+is; he could not wait for that old slowcoach of a Clubfoot to mature his
+plans for getting into England, securing the document, and getting out
+again.
+
+"So Bernstorff is called into consultation, the head of an embassy that
+has made the German secret service the laughing-stock of the world, an
+ambassador that has his private papers filched by a common sneak-thief
+in the underground railway and is fool enough to send home the most
+valuable documents by a jackass of a military attaché who lets the whole
+lot be taken from him by a dunderheaded British customs officer at
+Falmouth! _This_ was the man who was to replace _me!_
+
+"Bernstorff is accordingly bidden to despatch one of his trusty servants
+to England, with all suitable precautions, to do _my_ work. You are
+chosen, and I will pay you the compliment of saying that you fulfilled
+your mission in a manner that is singularly out of keeping with the
+usual method of procedure of that gentleman's emissaries.
+
+"But, my dear Doktor ... pray fill your glass. That cigar is good, is it
+not? I thought you would appreciate a good cigar.... As I was saying,
+you were handicapped from the first. When you reach the place indicated
+to you in your instructions, you find only half the document. The wily
+thief has sliced it in two so as to make sure of his money before
+parting with the goods. They didn't know, of course, that Clubfoot, the
+old slowcoach, who is past his work, was aware of this already, and had
+made his plans accordingly. But, in the end, they had to send for me.
+'The good Clubfoot,' 'old chap,' 'sly old fox,' and all the rest of
+it--would run across to England and secure the other half, while Count
+Bernstorff's smart young man from America would wait in Rotterdam until
+Herr Dr. Grundt arrived and handed him the other portion.
+
+"But Count Bernstorff's young man does nothing of the kind. He is
+one too many for the old fox. He does not wait for him. He runs away,
+after displaying unusual determination in dealing with a prying
+Englander--whose fate should be a lesson to all who interfere in other
+people's business--and goes to Germany, leaving poor old Clubfoot in the
+lurch. You must admit, Herr Doktor, that I have been hardly used--by
+yourself as well as by another person?"
+
+My throat was dry with anxiety. What did the man mean by his veiled
+allusions to "all who interfere in other people's business?"
+
+I cleared my throat to speak.
+
+Clubfoot raised a great hand in deprecation.
+
+"No explanation, Herr Doktor, I beg" (his tone was perfectly
+unconcerned and friendly), "let me have my say. When I found out that
+you had left Rotterdam--by the way, you must let me congratulate you on
+the remarkable fertility of resource you displayed in quitting Frau
+Schratt's hospitable house--when I found you were gone, I sat down and
+thought things out.
+
+"I reflected that an astute American like yourself (believe me, you are
+very astute) would probably be accustomed to look at everything from the
+business standpoint. 'I will also consider the matter from the business
+standpoint,' I said to myself, and I decided that, in your place, I too
+would not be content to accept, as sole payment for the danger of my
+mission, the scarcely generous compensation that Count Bernstorff allots
+to his collaborators. No, I should wish to secure a little renown for
+myself, or, were that not possible, then some monetary gain
+proportionate with the risks I had run. You see, I have been at pains to
+put myself wholly in your place. I hope I have not said anything
+tactless. If so, I can at least acquit myself of any desire to offend."
+
+"On the contrary, Herr Doktor," I replied, "you are the model of tact
+and diplomacy."
+
+His eyes narrowed a little at this. I thought he wouldn't like that word
+"diplomacy."
+
+"Another glass of wine? You may safely venture; there is not a headache
+in a bottle of it. Well, Herr Doktor, since you have followed me so
+patiently thus far, I will go further. I told you, when I first saw you
+this evening, that I was delighted at our meeting. That was no mere
+banality, but the sober truth. For, you see, I am the very person with
+whom, in the circumstances, you would wish to get in touch. Deprived of
+the honour, rightly belonging to me, of undertaking this mission
+single-handed and of fulfilling it alone, I find that you can enable me
+to carry out the mission to a successful conclusion, whilst I, for my
+part, am able and willing to recompense your services as they deserve
+and not according to Bernstorff's starvation scale.
+
+"To make a long story short, Herr Doktor ... how much?"
+
+He brought his remarks to this abrupt anticlimax so suddenly that I was
+taken aback. The man was watching me intently for all his apparent
+nonchalance, and I felt more than ever the necessity for being on my
+guard. If I could only fathom how much he knew. Of two things I felt
+fairly sure: the fellow believed me to be Semlin and was under the
+impression that I still retained my portion of the document. I should
+have to gain time. The bargain he proposed over my half of the letter
+might give me an opportunity of doing that. Moreover, I must find out
+whether he really had the other half of the document, and in that case,
+where he kept it.
+
+He broke the silence.
+
+"Well, Herr Doktor," he said, "do you want me to start the bidding? You
+needn't be afraid. I am generous."
+
+I leant forward earnestly in my chair.
+
+"You have spoken with admirable frankness, Herr Doktor," I said, "and I
+will be equally plain, but I will be brief. In the first place, I wish
+to know that you are the man you profess to be: so far, you must
+remember, I have only the assurance of our excitable young friend."
+
+"Your caution is most praiseworthy," said the other, "but I should
+imagine I carry my name written on my boot." And he lifted his hideous
+and deformed foot.
+
+"That is scarcely sufficient guarantee," I answered, "in a matter of
+this importance. A detail like that could easily be counterfeited, or
+otherwise provided for."
+
+"My badge," and the man produced from his waistcoat pocket a silver star
+identical with the one I carried on my braces, but bearing only the
+letter "G" above the inscription "Abt. VII."
+
+"That, even," I retorted, "is not conclusive."
+
+Clubfoot's mind was extraordinarily alert, however gross and heavy his
+body might be.
+
+He paused for a moment in reflection, his hands crossed upon his great
+paunch.
+
+"Why not?" he said suddenly, reached out for his cigar-case, beside him
+on the table, and produced three slips of paper highly glazed and
+covered with that unforgettable, sprawling hand, a portion of a gilded
+crest at the top--in short, the missing half of the document I had found
+in Semlin's bag. Clubfoot held them out fanwise for me to see, but well
+out of my reach, and he kept a great, spatulate thumb over the top of
+the first sheet where the name of the addressee should have been.
+
+"I trust you are now convinced, Herr Doktor," he said, with a smile that
+bared his teeth, and, putting the pieces together, he folded them
+across, tucked them away in the cigar-case again, and thrust it into his
+pocket.
+
+I must test the ground further.
+
+"Has it occurred to you, Herr Doktor," I asked, "that we have very
+little time at our disposal? The person whom we serve must be anxiously
+waiting...."
+
+Clubfoot laughed and shook his head.
+
+"I want that half-letter badly," he said, "but there's no violent hurry.
+So I fear you must leave that argument out of your presentation of the
+case, for it has no commercial value. The person you speak of is not in
+Berlin."
+
+I had heard something of the Kaiser's sudden appearances and
+disappearances during the war, but I had not thought they could be so
+well managed as to be kept from the knowledge of one of his own trusted
+servants, for such I judged Clubfoot to be. Evidently, he knew nothing
+of my visit to the Castle that evening, and I was for a moment
+unpatriotic enough to wish I had kept my half of the letter that I might
+give it to Clubfoot now to save the coming exposure. "A thousand
+dollars!" Clubfoot said.
+
+I remained silent.
+
+"Two? Three? Four thousand? Man, you are greedy. Well, I will make it
+five thousand--twenty thousand marks...."
+
+"Herr Doktor," I said, "I don't want your money. I want to be fair with
+you. When the ... the person we know of sends for you, we will go
+together. You shall tell the large part you have played in this affair.
+I only want credit for what I have done, nothing more...."
+
+A knock came at the door. The porter entered.
+
+"A telegram for the Herr Doktor," he said, presenting a salver.
+
+Somewhere near by a band was playing dance music ... one of those
+rousing, splendidly accented Viennese waltzes. There seemed to be a ball
+on, for through the open door of the room, I heard, mingled with the
+strains of the music, the sound of feet and the hum of voices.
+
+Then the door closed, shutting out the outer world again.
+
+"You permit me," said Grundt curtly, as he broke the seal of the
+telegram. So as not to seem to observe him, I got up and walked across
+to the window, and leaned against the warm radiator.
+
+"Well?" said a voice from the arm-chair.
+
+"Well?" I echoed.
+
+"I have made you my proposal, Herr Doktor: you have made yours. Yours is
+quite unacceptable. I have told you with great frankness why it is
+necessary that I should have your portion of the document and the sum I
+am prepared to pay for it. I set its value at five thousand dollars. I
+will pay you the money over in cash, here and now, in good German
+bank-notes, in exchange for those slips of paper."
+
+The man's suavity had all but vanished: his voice was harsh and stern.
+His eyes glittered under his shaggy brows as he looked at me. Had I been
+less agitated, I should have noted this, as a portent of the coming
+storm, also his great ape's hands picking nervously at the telegram in
+his lap.
+
+"I have already told you," I said firmly, "that I don't want your money.
+You know my terms!"
+
+He rose up from his seat and his figure seemed to tower.
+
+"Terms?" he cried in a voice that quivered with suppressed passion,
+"terms? Understand that I give orders. I accept terms from no man. We
+waste time here talking. Come, take the money and give me the paper."
+
+I shook my head. My brain was clear, but I felt the crisis was coming. I
+took a good grip with my hands of the marble slab covering the radiator
+behind me to give me confidence. The slab yielded: mechanically I noted
+that it was loose.
+
+The man in front of me was shaking with rage.
+
+"Listen!" he said. "I'll give you one more chance. But mark my words
+well. Do you know what happened to the man that stole that document? The
+English took him out and shot him on account of what was found in his
+house when they raided it. Do you know what happened to the interpreter
+at the internment camp, who was our go-between, who played us false by
+cutting the document in half? The English shot _him_ too, on account of
+what was found in letters that came to him openly through the post? And
+who settled Schulte? And who settled the other man? Who contrived the
+traps that sent them to their doom? It was _I_, Grundt, _I_, the
+cripple, _I_, the Clubfoot, that had these traitors despatched as an
+example to the six thousand of us who serve our Emperor and empire in
+darkness! You dog, I'll smash you!"
+
+He was gibbering like an angry ape: his frame was shaking with fury:
+every hair in the tangle on his face and hands seemed to bristle with
+his Berserker frenzy.
+
+But he kept away from me, and I saw that he was still fighting to
+preserve his self-control.
+
+I maintained a bold front.
+
+"This may do for your own people," I said contemptuously, "but it
+doesn't impress me, I'm an American citizen!"
+
+He was calmer now, but his eyes glittered dangerously.
+
+"An American citizen?" he said in an icy tone. Then he fairly hissed at
+me:
+
+"You fool! Blind, besotted fool! Do you think you can trifle with the
+might of the German Empire? Ah! I've played a pretty game with you, you
+dirty English dog! I've watched you squirming and writhing whilst the
+stupid German told you his pretty little tale and plied you with his
+wine and his cigars. You're in our power now, you miserable English
+hound! Do you understand that? Now call on your fleet to come and save
+you!
+
+"Listen! I'll be frank with you to the last. I've had my suspicions of
+you from the first, when they telephoned me that you had escaped from
+the hotel, but I wanted to make _sure_. Ever since you have been in this
+room it has been in my power to push that bell there and send you to
+Spandau, where they rid us of such dirty dogs as you.
+
+"But the game amused me. I liked to see the Herr Englander playing the
+spy against _me_, the master of them all. Do you know, you fool, that
+old Schratt knows English, that she spent years of her harlot's life in
+London, and that when you allowed her a glimpse of that passport, your
+own passport, the one you so cleverly burned, she remembered the name?
+Ah! you didn't know that, did you?
+
+"Shall I tell you what was in that telegram they just brought me? It was
+from Schratt, our faithful Schratt, who shall have a bangle for this
+night's work, to say that the corpse at the hotel has a chain round its
+neck with an identity disc in the name of Semlin. Ha! you didn't know
+that either, did you?
+
+"And _you_ would bargain and chaffer with me! _You_ would dictate your
+terms, you scum! _You_ with your head in a noose, a spy that has failed
+in his mission, a miserable wretch that I can send to his death with a
+flip of my little finger! You impudent hound! Well, you'll get your
+deserts this time, Captain Desmond Okewood ... but I'll have that paper
+first!"
+
+Roaring "Give it to me!" he rushed at me like some frenzied beast of the
+jungle. The veins stood out at his temples, his hairy nostrils opened
+and closed as his breath came faster, his long arms shot out and his
+great paws clutched at my throat.
+
+But I was waiting for him. As he came at me, I heard his clubfoot stump
+once on the polished floor, then, from the radiator behind me, I raised
+high in my arms the heavy marble slab, and with every ounce of strength
+in my body brought it crashing down on his head.
+
+He fell like a log, the blood oozing sluggishly from his head on to the
+parquet. I stopped an instant, snatched the cigar-case from the pocket
+where he had placed it, extracted the document and fled from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MISS MARY PRENDERGAST RISKS HER REPUTATION
+
+
+The rooms of our suite were intercommunicating so that you could pass
+from one to the other without going into the corridor at all. Schmalz
+had retired this way, going from my room through the bathroom to his own
+room. In the excitement of the moment I forgot all about this, else I
+should not have omitted such an elementary precaution as slipping the
+bolt of the door communicating between my room and the bathroom.
+
+As I stepped out into the corridor, with the crash of that heavy body
+still ringing in my ears, I thought I caught the sound of a light step
+in the bathroom; the next moment I heard a door open and then a loud
+exclamation of horror in the room I had just left.
+
+The corridor was dim and deserted. The place seemed uninhabited. No
+boots stood outside the rooms, and open doors, one after the other, were
+sufficient indication that the apartments they led to were untenanted.
+
+I didn't pause to reason or to plan. On hearing that long drawn out cry
+of horror, I dashed blindly down the corridor at top speed, followed it
+round to the right and then, catching sight of a small staircase, rushed
+up it three steps at a time. As I reached the top I heard a loud cry
+somewhere on the floor below. Then a door banged, there was the sound of
+running feet and ... silence.
+
+I found myself on the next floor in a corridor similar to the one I had
+just left. Like it, it was desolate and dimly lit. Like it, it showed
+room after room silent and empty. Agitated as I was, the contrast with
+the bright and busy vestibule and the throng of uniformed servants below
+was so marked that it struck me with convincing force. Even the hotels,
+it seemed, were part and parcel of the great German publicity bluff
+which I had noted in my reading of the German papers at Rotterdam.
+
+I had no plan in my head, only a wild desire to put as much distance as
+possible between me and that ape-man in the room below. So, after
+pausing a moment to listen and draw breath, I started off again.
+Suddenly a door down the corridor, not ten paces away from me, opened
+and a woman came out. I stopped dead in my headlong course, but it was
+too late and I found myself confronting her.
+
+She was young and very beautiful with masses of thick brown hair
+clustering round a very white forehead. She was in evening dress, all
+in white, with an ermine wrap.
+
+Even as I looked at her I knew her and she knew me.
+
+"Monica," I whispered.
+
+"Why! Desmond!" she said.
+
+A regular hubbub echoed from below. Voices were crying out, doors were
+banging, there was the sound of feet.
+
+The girl was speaking, saying in her low and pleasant voice phrases that
+were vague to me about her surprise, her delight at seeing me. But I did
+not listen to her. I was straining my ears towards that volume of
+chaotic noises which came swelling up from below.
+
+"Monica!" I interrupted swiftly, "have you any place to hide me? This
+place is dangerous for me.... I must get away. If you can't save me,
+don't stay here but get away yourself as fast as you can. They're after
+me and if they catch you with me it will be bad for you!"
+
+Without a word the girl turned round to the room she had just left. She
+beckoned to me, then knocked and went in. I followed her. It was a big,
+pleasant bedroom, elegantly furnished with a soft carpet and silk
+hangings, and I know not what, with shaded lights and flowers in
+profusion. Sitting up in bed was a stout, placid-looking woman in a pink
+silk kimono with her hair coquettishly braided in two short pigtails
+which hung down on either side of her face.
+
+Monica closed the door softly behind her.
+
+"Why, Monica!" she exclaimed in horror--and her speech was that of the
+United States--"what on earth ...?"
+
+"Not a word, Mary, but let me explain...."
+
+"But for land's sake, Monica...."
+
+"Mary, I want you to help...."
+
+"But say, child, a man ... in my bedroom ... at this time o' night...."
+
+"Oh, shucks, Mary! let me talk."
+
+The distress of the woman in bed was so comic that I could scarcely help
+laughing. She had dragged the bed-clothes up till only her eyes could be
+seen. Her pigtails bobbed about in her emotion.
+
+"Now, Mary dear, listen here. You're a friend of mine. This is Desmond
+Okewood, another, a very old and dear friend of mine too. Well, you
+know, Mary, this isn't a healthy country these times for an English
+officer. That's what Desmond here is. I didn't know he was in Germany. I
+don't know a thing about him except what he's told me and that's that
+he's in danger and wants me to help him. I met him outside and brought
+him right in here, as I know you would want me to, wouldn't you, dear?"
+
+The lady poked her nose over the top of the bed-clothes.
+
+"Present the gentleman properly, Monica!" she said severely.
+
+"Captain Okewood ... Miss Mary Prendergast," said Monica.
+
+The lady's head, pigtails and all, now appeared. She appeared to be
+somewhat mollified.
+
+"I can't say I approve of your way of doing things, Monica," she
+observed, but less severely than before, "and I can't think what an
+English officer wants in my bedroom at ten minutes of two in the
+morning, but if those Deutschers want to find him, perhaps I can
+understand!"
+
+Here she smiled affectionately on the beautiful girl at my side.
+
+"Ah! Mary, you're a dear," replied Monica.
+
+"I knew you'd help us. Why, a British officer in Germany ... isn't it
+too thrilling?"
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"But, Des," she said, "what do you want me to do?"
+
+I knew I could trust Monica and I resolved I would trust her friend
+too... she looked a white woman all right. And if she was a friend of
+Monica's, her heart would be in the right place. Francis and I had known
+Monica all our lives almost. Her father had lived for years ... indeed
+to the day of his death ... in London as the principal European
+representative of a big American financial house. They had lived next
+door to us in London and Francis and I had known Monica from the days
+when she was a pretty kid in short skirts until she had made her debut
+and the American ambassadress had presented her at Buckingham Palace. At
+various stages of our lives, both Francis and I had been in love with
+her, I believe, but my life in the army had kept me much abroad, so
+Francis had seen most of her and had been the hardest hit.
+
+Then the father died and Monica went travelling abroad in great state,
+as befits a young heiress, with a prodigiously respectable American
+chaperon and a retinue of retainers. I never knew the rights of the case
+between her and Francis, but at one of the German embassies abroad--I
+think in Vienna--she met the young Count Rachwitz, head of one of the
+great Silesian noble houses, and married him.
+
+It was not on the usual rock--money--that this German-American marriage
+was wrecked, for the Count was very wealthy himself. I had supposed that
+the German man's habitual attitude of mind towards women had not suited
+the girl's independent spirit on hearing that Monica, a few years after
+her marriage, had left her husband and gone to live in America. I had
+not seen her since she left London, and, though we wrote to one another
+at intervals, I had not heard from her since the war started and had no
+idea that she had returned to Germany. Monica Rachwitz was, in fact, the
+last person I should ever have expected to meet in Berlin in war-time.
+
+So, as briefly as I could and listening intently throughout for any
+sounds from the corridor, I gave the two women the story of the
+disappearance of Francis and my journey into Germany to look for him. At
+the mention of my brother's name, I noticed that the girl stiffened and
+her face grew rigid, but when I told her of my fears for his safety her
+blue eyes seemed to me to grow dim. I described to them my adventure in
+the hotel at Rotterdam, my reception in the house of General von Boden,
+and my interview at the Castle, ending with the experiences of that
+night, the trap laid for me at the hotel and my encounter with Clubfoot
+in the room below. Two things only I kept back: the message from Francis
+and the document. I decided within myself that the fewer people in those
+secrets the safer they would be. I am afraid, therefore, that my account
+of my interview with the Emperor was a trifle garbled, for I made out
+that I did not know why I was bidden to the presence and that our
+conversation was interrupted before I could discover the reason.
+
+The two women listened with grave faces. Only once did Monica interrupt
+me. It was when I mentioned General von Boden.
+
+"I know the beast," she said. "But, oh, Des!" she exclaimed, "you seem
+to have fallen right among the top set in this country. They're a bad
+lot to cross. I fear you are in terrible danger."
+
+"I believe you, Monica," I answered, dolefully enough. "And that's just
+where I feel such a beast for throwing myself upon your mercy in this
+way. But I was pretty desperate when I met you just now and I didn't
+know where to turn. Still, I want you to understand that if you can only
+get me out of this place I shall not trouble you further. I came to this
+country on my own responsibility and I'm going through with it alone. I
+have no intention of implicating anybody else along with me. But I
+confess I don't believe it is possible to get away from this hotel.
+They're watching every door by now. Besides..."
+
+I stopped abruptly. A noise outside caught my listening ear. Footsteps
+were approaching along the corridor. I heard doors open and shut. They
+were hunting for me, floor by floor, room by room.
+
+"Open that wardrobe," said a voice from the bed: a firm, business-like
+voice that was good to hear. "Open it and get right in, young man; but
+don't go mussing up my good dresses whatever you do! And you, Monica,
+quick! Switch off those lights all but this one by the bed. Good! Now go
+to the door and ask them what they mean by making this noise at this
+time of night with me ill and all!"
+
+I got into the wardrobe and Monica shut me in. I heard the bedroom door
+open, then voices. I waited patiently for five minutes, then the
+wardrobe door opened again.
+
+"Come out, Des," said Monica, "and thank Mary Prendergast for her
+cleverness."
+
+"What did they say?" I asked.
+
+"That reception clerk was along. He was most apologetic--they know me
+here, you see. He told me how a fellow had made a desperate attack upon
+a gentleman on the floor below and had got away. They thought he must be
+hiding somewhere in the hotel. I told him I'd been sitting here for an
+hour chatting with Miss Prendergast and that we hadn't heard a sound.
+They went away then!"
+
+"You won't catch any Deutschers fooling Mary Prendergast," said the
+jovial lady in the bed; "but, children, what next?"
+
+Monica spoke--quite calmly. She was always perfectly self-possessed.
+
+"My brother is stopping with me in our apartment in the
+Bendler-Strasse," she said. "You remember Gerry, Des--he got all smashed
+up flying, you know, and is practically a cripple. He's been so much
+better here that I've been trying to get an attendant to look after him,
+to dress him and so on, but we couldn't find anybody; men are so scarce
+nowadays! You could come home with me, Des, and take this man's place
+for a day or two ... I'm afraid it couldn't be longer, for one would
+have to register you with the police--every one has to be registered,
+you know--and I suppose you have no papers that are any good--now."
+
+"You are too kind, Monica," I answered, "but you risk too much and I
+can't accept."
+
+"It's no risk for a day or two," she said. "I am a person of consequence
+in official Germany, you know, with my husband A.D.C. to Marshal von
+Mackensen: and I can always say I forgot to send in your papers. If they
+come down upon me afterwards I should say I meant to register you but
+had to discharge you suddenly ... for drink!"
+
+"But how can I get away from here?" I objected.
+
+"I guess we can fix that too," she replied. "My car is coming for me at
+two--it must be that now--I have been at a dance downstairs--one of the
+Radolin girls is getting married to-morrow--it was so deadly dull I ran
+up here and woke up Mary Prendergast to talk. You shall be my chauffeur!
+I know you drive a car! You ought to be able to manage mine ... it's a
+Mercédès."
+
+"I can drive any old car," I said, "but I'm blessed ..."
+
+"Wait there!" cried this remarkable girl, and ran out of the room.
+
+For twenty minutes I stood and made small talk with Miss Prendergast.
+They were the longest twenty minutes I have ever spent. I was dead tired
+in any case, but my desperate position kept my thoughts so busy that,
+for all my endeavours to be polite, I fear my conversation was extremely
+distraught.
+
+"You poor boy!" suddenly said Miss Mary Prendergast, totally ignoring a
+profound remark I was making regarding Mr. Wilson's policy, "don't you
+go on talking to me! Sit down on that chair and go to sleep! You look
+just beat!"
+
+I sat down and nodded in the arm-chair.
+
+Suddenly I was awake. Monica stood before me. She drew from under her
+cape a livery cap and uniform.
+
+"Put these things on," she said, "and listen carefully. When you leave
+here, turn to the right and take the little staircase you will find on
+the right. Go down to the bottom, go through the glass doors, and across
+the room you will find there, to a door in a corner which leads to the
+ballroom entrance of the hotel. I will give you my ermine wrap to carry.
+I shall be waiting there. You will help me on with my cloak and escort
+me to the car. Is that clear?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Now, pay attention once more, for I shall not be able to speak to you
+again. I shall have to give you your directions for finding the way to
+the Bendler-Strasse."
+
+She did so and added:
+
+"Drive carefully, whatever you do. If we had a smash and the police
+intervened, it might be most awkward for you."
+
+"But your chauffeur," I said, "what will he do?"
+
+"Oh, Carter," she answered carelessly, "he's tickled to death ... he's
+American, you see ... he drove me out into the Tiergarten just now and
+took off his livery, then drove me back here, hopped off and went home."
+
+"But can you trust him?" I asked anxiously.
+
+"Like myself," she said. "Besides, Carter's been to Belgium ... he drove
+Count Rachwitz, my husband, while he was on duty there. And Carter
+hasn't forgotten what he saw in Belgium!"
+
+She gave me the key of the garage and further instructions how to put
+the car up. Carter would give me a bed at the garage and would bring me
+round to the house early in the morning as if I were applying for the
+job of male attendant for Gerry.
+
+"I will go down first," Monica said, "so as not to keep you waiting. My,
+but they're rattled downstairs--all the crowd at Olga von Radolin's
+dance have got hold of the story and the place is full of policemen. But
+there'll be no danger if you walk straight up to me in the hall and
+keep your face turned away from the crowd as much as possible."
+
+She kissed Miss Prendergast and slipped away. What a splendid pair of
+women they were: so admirably cool and resourceful: they seemed to have
+thought of everything.
+
+"Good night, Miss Prendergast," I said. "You have done me a good turn. I
+shall never forget it!" And as the only means at my disposal for showing
+my gratitude, I kissed her hand.
+
+She coloured up like a girl.
+
+"It's a long time since any one did that to a silly old woman like me,"
+she said musingly. "Was it you or your brother," she asked abruptly,
+"who nearly broke my poor girl's heart?"
+
+"I shouldn't like to say," I answered; "but I don't think, speaking
+personally, that Monica ever cared enough about me for me to plead
+guilty."
+
+She sniffed contemptuously.
+
+"If that is so," she said, "all I can say is that you seem to have all
+the brains of your family!"
+
+With that I took my leave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I reached the ballroom vestibule without meeting a soul. The place was
+crowded with people, officers in uniform, glittering with decorations,
+women in evening dress, coachmen, footmen, chauffeurs, waiters.
+Everybody was talking sixteen to the dozen, and there were such dense
+knots of people that at first I couldn't see Monica. Two policemen were
+standing at the swing-doors leading into the street, and with them a
+civilian who looked like a detective. I caught sight of Monica, almost
+at the detective's elbow, talking to two very elegant-looking officers.
+I pushed my way across the vestibule, turned my back on the detective
+and stood impassively beside her.
+
+"Ah! there you are, Carter!" she said. "Gute Nacht, Herr Baron! Auf
+wiedersehen, Durchlaucht!"
+
+The two officers kissed her hand whilst I helped her into her wrap. Then
+I marched straight out of the swing-doors in front of her, looking
+neither to right nor to left, past the detective and the two policemen.
+The detective may have looked at me: if so, I didn't perceive it. I had
+made up my mind not to see him.
+
+Outside Monica took the lead and brought me over to a chocolate-coloured
+limousine drawn up at the pavement. I noted with dismay that the engine
+was stopped. That might mean further delay whilst I cranked up. But a
+friendly chauffeur standing by seized the handle and started the engine
+whilst I assisted Monica into the car, and the next moment we were
+gliding smoothly over the asphalt under the twinkling arc-lamps.
+
+The Bendler-Strasse is off the Tiergarten, not far from the Esplanade,
+and I found my way there without much difficulty. I flatter myself that
+both Monica and I played our parts well, and I am sure nothing could
+have been more professional than the way I helped her to alight. It was
+an apartment house and she had the key of the front door, so, after
+seeing her safely within doors, I returned to the car and drove it round
+to the garage by a carriage-way leading to the rear of the premises.
+
+As I unlocked the double doors of the garage, a man came down a ladder
+outside the place leading to the upper room.
+
+"Did it work all right, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Is that Carter?" I said.
+
+"Sure that's me," came the cheery response. "Stand by now and we'll run
+her in. Then I'll show you where you are to sleep!"
+
+We stowed the car away and he took me upstairs to his quarters, a bright
+little room with electric light, a table with a red cloth, a cheerful
+open fire and two beds. The walls were ornamented with pictures cut from
+the American Sunday supplements, mostly feminine and horsy studies.
+
+"It's a bit rough, mister," said Carter, "but it's the best I can do.
+Gee! but you look that dawg-gorn tired I guess you could sleep
+anywheres!"
+
+He was a friendly fellow, pleasant-looking in an ugly way, with a button
+nose and honest eyes.
+
+"Say, but I like to think of the way we fooled them Deutschers," he
+chuckled. He kept on chuckling to himself whilst I took off my boots and
+began to undress.
+
+"That there is your bed," he said, pointing; "the footman used to sleep
+there but they grabbed him for the army. There's a pair of Mr. Gerry's
+pyjamas for you and you'll find a cup of cocoa down warming by the fire.
+It's all a bit rough, but it's the best we can do. I guess you want to
+go to sleep mortal bad, so I'll be going down. The bed's clean... there
+are clean sheets on it...."
+
+"But I won't turn you out of your room," I said. "There are two beds.
+You must take yours."
+
+"Don't you fret yourself about me," he answered. "I'll make myself
+comfortable down in the garage. I don't often see a gentleman in this
+dawg-gorn country, and when I do I know how to treat him."
+
+He wouldn't listen to me, but stumped off down the stairs. As he went I
+heard him murmuring to himself:
+
+"Gee! but we surely fooled those Deutschers some!"
+
+I drank this admirable fellow's cocoa; I warmed myself at his fire.
+Then with a thankful heart I crawled into bed and sank into a deep and
+dreamless sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIS EXCELLENCY THE GENERAL IS WORRIED
+
+
+I sat with Monica in her boudoir, which, unlike the usual run of German
+rooms, had an open fireplace in which a cheerful fire was burning.
+Monica, in a ravishing kimono, was perched on the leather railed seat
+running round the fireplace, one little foot in a satin slipper held out
+to the blaze. In that pretty room she made a charming picture, which for
+a moment almost made me forget the manifold dangers besetting me.
+
+The doughty Carter had acquitted himself nobly of his task. When I
+awoke, feeling like a giant refreshed, he had the fire blazing merrily
+in the fireplace, while on the table a delicious breakfast of tea and
+fried eggs and biscuits was spread.
+
+"There ain't no call to mess yourself up inside with that dam' war bread
+of theirs," he chirped. "Miss Monica, she lets me have biscuits, same
+like she has herself. I always calls her Miss Monica," he explained,
+"like what they did over at her uncle's place in Long Island, where I
+used to work."
+
+After breakfast he produced hot water, a safety razor and other toilet
+requisites, a clean shirt and collar, an overcoat and a Stetson hat--all
+from Gerry's wardrobe, I presumed. My boots, too, were beautifully
+polished, and it was as a new man altogether, fresh in mind and clean in
+body, that I presented myself, about ten o'clock in the morning, at the
+front door and demanded the "Frau Gräfin." By Carter's advice I had
+removed my moustache, and my clean-shaven countenance, together with my
+black felt hat and dark overcoat, gave me, I think, that appearance of
+rather dour respectability which one looks for in a male attendant.
+
+Now Monica and I sat and reviewed the situation together.
+
+"German servants spend their lives in prying into their masters'
+affairs," she said, "but we shan't be interrupted here. That door leads
+into Gerry's room: he was asleep when I went in just now. I'll take you
+into him presently. Now tell me about yourself ... and Francis!"
+
+I told her again, but at greater length, all I knew about Francis, his
+mission into Germany, his long silence.
+
+"I acted on impulse," I said, "but, believe me, I acted for the best.
+Only, everything seems to have conspired against me. I appear to have
+walked straight into a mesh of the most appalling complications which
+reach right up to the Throne."
+
+"Never mind, Des," she said, leaning over and putting a little hand on
+my arm, "it was for Francis; you and I would do anything to help him,
+wouldn't we? ... if he is still alive. Impulse is not such a bad thing,
+after all. If I had acted on impulse once, maybe poor Francis would not
+now be in the fix he is...."
+
+And she sighed.
+
+"Things look black enough, Des," she went on. "Maybe you and I won't get
+the chance of another chat like this again and that's why I'm going to
+tell you something I have never told anybody else. I am only telling you
+so as you will know that, whatever happens, you will always find in me
+an ally in your search ... though, tied as I am, I scarcely think I can
+ever help you much.
+
+"Your brother wanted me to marry him. I liked him better than
+anybody else I had ever met ... or have ever met since, for that
+matter.... Daddy was dead, I was absolutely free to please myself, so no
+difficulties stood in the way. But your brother was proud ... his pride
+was greater than his love for me, I told him when we parted ... and he
+wouldn't hear of marriage until he had made himself independent, though
+I had enough for both of us. He wanted me to wait a year or two until
+he had got his business started properly, but his pride angered me and
+I wouldn't.
+
+"So we quarrelled and I went abroad with Mrs. Rushwood. Francis never
+wrote: all I heard about him was an occasional scrap in your letters.
+Mrs. Rushwood was crazy about titles, and she ran me round from court to
+court, always looking for what she called a suitable _pari_ for me. At
+Vienna we met Rachwitz ... he was very good looking and very well
+mannered and seemed to be really fond of me.
+
+"Well, I gave Francis another chance. I wrote him a friendly letter and
+told him about Rachwitz wanting to marry me and asked his advice. He
+wrote me back a beastly letter, a wicked letter, Des. 'Any girl who is
+fool enough to sell herself for a title,' he said, 'richly deserves a
+German husband.' What do you think of that?"
+
+"Poor old Francis," I said. "He was terribly fond of you, Monica!"
+
+"Well, his letter did it. I married Rachwitz ... and have been miserable
+ever since. I'm not going to bore you with a long story about my
+matrimonial troubles. No! I'm not going to cry either! I'm not crying!
+Karl is not a bad man, as German men go, and he's a gentleman, but his
+love affairs and his drunken parties and his attitude of mind towards
+me ... it was so utterly different to everything I had been used to.
+Then you know, I left him...."
+
+"But, Monica," I exclaimed, "what are you doing here then?"
+
+She sighed wearily.
+
+"I'm a German by marriage, Des," she said, "you can't get away from
+that. My husband's country ... my country ... is at war and the wives
+must play their part, wherever their heart is. Karl never asked me to
+come back, I'll give him the credit for that. I came of my own accord
+because I felt my place was here. So I go round to needlework parties
+and sewing bees and Red Cross matinées and try to be civil to the German
+women and listen to their boasting and bragging about their army, their
+hypocrisy about Belgium, their vilification of the best friends Daddy
+and I ever had, you English! But doing my duty by my husband does not
+forbid me to help my friends when they are in danger. That's why you can
+count on me, Des."
+
+And she gave me her hand.
+
+"I want to be frank with you, too," I said, "so, whatever happens to me,
+you won't feel I have deceived you about things. I can't say much
+because my secret is not healthy for anyone to share, and, should they
+trace any connection between you and me, if they get me, it will be
+better for you not to have known anything compromising. But I want to
+tell you this. There is a consideration at stake which is higher than
+my own safety, higher even than Francis'. I don't believe I am afraid to
+die: if I escape here, I shall probably get killed at the front sooner
+or later: it is because of this consideration I speak of that I want to
+get away with my life back to England."
+
+Monica laughed happily.
+
+"Why do men always take us women to be fools?" she said. "You're a
+dangerous man to have around, Des, I know that, without worrying my head
+about any old secret. But you are my friend and Francis' brother and I'm
+going to help you.
+
+"Now, listen! Old von Boden was at that party last night: he came in
+late. Rudi von Boden, he told me, is going to take despatches to
+Rumania, to Mackensen's head-quarters. Well, I telephoned the old man
+this morning and asked him if Rudi would take a parcel for me to Karl.
+He said he would and the General is coming here to lunch to-day to fetch
+it.
+
+"Von Boden is an old beast and runs after every woman he meets. He is by
+way of being partial to me, if you please, sir. I think I should be able
+to find out from him what are the latest developments in your case.
+There's nothing in the paper this morning about the affair at the
+Esplanade. But then, these things are always hushed up."
+
+"He'll hardly say much in the circumstances," I objected "After all,
+the Kaiser is involved...."
+
+"My dear Des, opinion of feminine intelligence in military circles in
+this country is so low that the women in the army set at Court are very
+often far better informed than the General Staff. Von Boden will tell me
+all I want to know."
+
+What a girl she was!
+
+"About your friend, the clubfooted man," she went on, "I'm rather
+puzzled. He must be a person of considerable importance to be fetched by
+special train straight into the Emperor's private apartments, where very
+few people ever penetrate, I assure you. But I've never heard of him.
+He's certainly not a Court official. Nor is he the head of the Political
+Police ... that's Henninger, a friend of Karl's. Still, there are people
+of great importance working in dark places in this country and I guess
+Clubfoot must be one of them.
+
+"Now, I think I ought to take you into Gerry. I want to speak to you
+about him, Des. I daren't tell him who you are. Gerry's not himself.
+He's been a nervous wreck ever since his accident and I can't trust him.
+He's a very conventional man and his principles would never hear of me
+harbouring a ... a ..."
+
+"Spy?" I suggested.
+
+"No, a friend," she corrected. "So you'll just have to be a male nurse,
+I guess. A German-American would be best, I think, as you'll have to
+read the German papers to Gerry--he doesn't know a word of German. Then,
+you must have a name of some kind...."
+
+"Frederick Meyer," I suggested promptly, "from Pittsburg. It'll have to
+be Pittsburg: Francis went there for a bit, you know: he wrote me a lot
+about the place and I've seen pictures of it, too. It's the only
+American city I know anything about."
+
+"Let it be Meyer from Pittsburg, then," smiled Monica, "but you've got a
+terrible English accent, Des. I guess we'll have to tell Gerry you were
+years nursing in London before the war."
+
+She hesitated a moment, then added:
+
+"Des, I'm afraid you'll find Gerry very trying. He's awfully irritable
+and ... and very spiteful. So you must be careful not to give yourself
+away."
+
+I had only met the brother once and my recollection of him was of a good
+looking, rather spoilt young man. He had been brought up entirely in the
+States by the Long Island uncle whose great fortune he had inherited.
+
+"You'll be quite safe up here for the present," Monica went on. "You'll
+sleep in the little room off Gerry's and I'll have your meals served
+there too. After I have found out from the General how things stand,
+we'll decide what's to be done next."
+
+"I'll be very wary with Master Gerry," I said. "But, Monica, though he
+has only seen me once, he knows Francis pretty well and we are rather
+alike. Do you think he'll recognize me?"
+
+"Why, Desmond, it's years since he saw you. And you're not much like
+Francis with your moustache off. If you're careful, it'll be all right!
+It isn't for long, either. Now we'll go in. Come along."
+
+As we entered, a petulant voice cried:
+
+"Is that you, Monica? Say, am I to be left alone all the morning?"
+
+"Gerry dear," answered Monica very sweetly, "I've been engaging someone
+to look after you a bit. Come here, Meyer! This is Frederick Meyer,
+Gerry!"
+
+I should never have recognized the handsome, rather indolent youth I had
+met in London in the pale man with features drawn with pain who gazed
+frowningly at me from the bed.
+
+"Who is he? Where did you get him from? Does he know German?"
+
+He shot a string of questions at Monica, who answered them in her sweet,
+patient way.
+
+He was apparently satisfied, for, when Monica presently got up to leave
+us, he threw me an armful of German papers and bade me read to him.
+
+I had not sat with him for ten minutes before I realized what an
+impossible creature the man was. Nothing I could do was right. Now he
+didn't want to hear the war news, then it was the report of the
+Reichstag debate that bored him, now I didn't read loud enough, then my
+voice jarred on him. Finally, he snatched the paper out of my hand.
+
+"I can't understand half you say," he cried in accents shrill with
+irritability; "you mouth and mumble like an Englishman. You say you are
+an American?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I answered meekly, "but I resided for many years in
+England."
+
+"Well, it's a good thing you're not there now. Those English are just
+plumb crazy. They'll never whip Germany, not if they try for a century.
+Why, look what this country has done in this war? Nothing can stand
+against her! It's organization, that's what it is! The Germans lead the
+world. Take their doctors! I have been to every specialist in America
+about my back and paid them thousands of dollars. And what good did they
+do me? Not a thing. I come to Germany, they charge me a quarter of the
+fees, and I feel a different man already. Before tackling the Germans,
+the English ..."
+
+Thus he ran on. I knew the type well, the American who is hypnotized by
+German efficiency and thoroughness so completely that he does not see
+the reverse side of the medal.
+
+He exhausted himself on the topic at last and bade me read to him again.
+
+"Read about the affair at the Hotel Esplanade last night," he commanded.
+
+I had kept an eye open for this very item but, as Monica had said, the
+papers contained no hint of it. I wondered how Gerry knew about it.
+Monica would not have told him.
+
+"What affair do you mean?" I said. "There is nothing about it in the
+papers."
+
+"Of course there is, you fool. What is the use of my hiring you to read
+the papers to me if you can't find news that's spread all over the
+place? It's no use giving me the paper ... you know I can't read it!
+Here, Josef will know!"
+
+A man-servant had come noiselessly into the room with some clothes.
+
+Gerry turned to him.
+
+"Josef, where did you see that story you were telling me about an
+English spy assaulting a man at the Esplanade last night?"
+
+"Dot ain't in de paper, sir. I haf heard dis from de chauffeur of de
+Biedermanns next door. He wass at de hotel himself wid hiss shentleman
+lars' night at de dance. Dey won't put dat in no paper, sir."
+
+And the man chuckled.
+
+I felt none too comfortable during all this and was glad to be told to
+read on and be damned.
+
+I read to the young American all the morning. He went on exactly like a
+very badly brought up child. He was fretful and quarrelsome and
+sometimes abusive, and I had some difficulty in keeping my temper. He
+continually recurred to my English accent and jeered so offensively and
+so pointedly at what he called "your English friends" that I began to
+believe there was some purpose behind his attitude. But it was only part
+of his invalid's fractiousness, for when the valet, Josef, appeared with
+the luncheon tray, the American seemed anxious to make amends for his
+behaviour.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm a bit trying at times, Meyer," he said with a pleasant
+smile. "But you're a good fellow. Go and have your lunch. You needn't
+come back till four: I always sleep after luncheon. Here, have a cigar!"
+
+I took the cigar with all humility as beseemed my rôle and followed the
+valet into an adjoining room, where the table was laid for me. I am
+keenly sensitive to outside influences, and I felt instinctively
+distrustful of the man Josef. I expect he resented my intrusion into a
+sphere where his influence had probably been supreme and where he had
+doubtless managed to secure a good harvest of pickings.
+
+He left me to my luncheon and went away. After an excellent lunch,
+washed down by some first-rate claret, I was enjoying my cigar over a
+book when Josef reappeared again.
+
+"The Frau Gräfin will see you downstairs!" he said.
+
+Monica received me in a morning-room (the apartment was on two floors).
+She was very much agitated and had lost all her habitual calm.
+
+"Des," she said, "von Boden has been here!"
+
+"Well!" I replied eagerly.
+
+"I wasn't very successful," she went on "I'm in deep water, Des, and
+that's the truth. I have never seen the old General as he was to-day.
+He's a frightful bully and tyrant, but even his worst enemy never
+accused him of cowardice. But, Des, to-day the man was cowed. He seemed
+to be in terror of his life and I had the greatest difficulty in making
+him say anything at all about your affair.
+
+"I made a joking allusion to the escapade at the hotel last night and he
+said:
+
+"'Yesterday may prove the ruin of not only my career but that of my
+son's also. Yesterday gained for me as an enemy, Madam, a man whom it
+spells ruin, perhaps death, to offend.'
+
+"'You mean the Emperor?' I asked.
+
+"'The Emperor!' he said. 'Oh! of course, he's furious. No, I was not
+speaking of the Emperor!'
+
+"Then he changed the subject and it took me all my tact to get back to
+it. I asked him if they had caught the author of the attack at the
+Esplanade. He said, no, but it was only a question of time: the fellow
+couldn't escape. I said I supposed they would offer a reward and publish
+a description of the assailant all over the country. He told me they
+would do nothing of the sort.
+
+"'The public will hear nothing about the affair,' he said, 'and if you
+will take my advice, Countess, you will forget all about it. In any
+case, the Princess Radolin is writing to all her guests at the ball last
+night to urge them strongly to say nothing about the incident. The
+employees of the hotel will keep their mouths shut. The interests at
+stake forbid that there should be any attempt whatsoever made in public
+to throw light on the affair.'
+
+"That is all I could get out of him. But I have something further to
+tell you. The General went away immediately after lunch. Almost as soon
+as he had gone I was called to the telephone. Dr. Henninger was there:
+he is the head of the Political Police, you know. He gave me the same
+advice as the General, namely, to forget all about what occurred at the
+Esplanade last night. And then the Princess Radolin rang me up to say
+the same thing. She seemed very frightened: she was quite tearful.
+Someone evidently had scared her badly."
+
+"Monica," I said, "it's quite clear I can't stay here. My dear girl, if
+I am discovered in your house, there is no knowing what trouble may not
+come upon you."
+
+"If there is any risk," she answered, "it's a risk I am ready to take.
+You have nowhere to go to in Berlin, and if you are caught outside they
+might find out where you had been hiding and then we should be as badly
+off as before. No, you stay right on here, and maybe in a day or two I
+can get you away. I've been thinking something out.
+
+"Karl has a place near the Dutch frontier, Schloss Bellevue, it is
+called, close to Cleves. It's an old place and has been in the family
+for generations. Karl, however, only uses it as a shooting-box: we had
+big shoots up there every autumn before the war.
+
+"There has been no shooting there for two years now and the place is
+overstocked with game. The Government has been appealing to people with
+shooting preserves to kill their game and put it on the market, so I had
+arranged to go up to Bellevue this month and see the agent about this. I
+thought if I could prevail on Gerry to come with me, you could accompany
+him and you might get across the Dutch frontier from there. It's only
+about fifteen miles away from the Castle. If I can get a move on Gerry,
+there is no reason why we shouldn't go away in a day or two. In the
+meantime you'll be quite safe here."
+
+I told her I must think it over: she seemed to be risking too much. But
+I think my mind was already made up. I could not bring destruction on
+this faithful friend.
+
+Then I went upstairs again to Gerry, who was in as vile a temper as
+before. His lunch had disagreed with him: he hadn't slept: the room was
+not hot enough ... these were a few of the complaints he showered at me
+as soon as I appeared. He was in his most impish and malicious mood. He
+sent me running hither and thither: he gave me an order and withdrew it
+in the same breath: my complacency seemed to irritate him, to encourage
+him to provoke me.
+
+At last he came back to his old sore subject, my English accent.
+
+"I guess our good American is too homely for a fine English gentleman
+like you," he said, "but I believe you'll as lief speak as you were
+taught before you're through with this city. An English accent is not
+healthy in Berlin at present, Mister Meyer, sir, and you'd best learn to
+talk like the rest of us if you want to keep on staying in this house.
+
+"I'm in no state to be worried just now and I've no notion of having
+the police in here because some of their dam' plain-clothes men have
+heard my attendant saying 'charnce' and 'darnce' like any
+Britisher--especially with this English spy running round loose. By the
+way, you'll have to be registered? Has my sister seen about it yet?"
+
+I said she was attending to it.
+
+"I want to know if she's done it. I'm a helpless cripple and I can't get
+a thing done for me. Have you given her your papers? Yes, or no?"
+
+This was a bad fix. With all the persistence of the invalid, the man was
+harping on his latest whim.
+
+So I lied. The Countess had my papers, I said.
+
+Instantly he rang the bell and demanded Monica and had fretted himself
+into a fine state by the time she appeared.
+
+"What's this I hear, Monica?" he cried in his high-pitched, querulous
+voice. "Hasn't Meyer been registered with the police yet?"
+
+"I'm going to see to it myself in the morning, Gerry," she said.
+
+"In the morning. In the morning!" he cried, throwing up his hands. "Good
+God, how can you be so shiftless? A law is a law. The man's papers must
+be sent in to-day ... this instant."
+
+Monica looked appealingly at me.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm to blame, sir," I said. "The fact is, my passport is
+not quite in order and I shall have to take it to the embassy before I
+send it to the police."
+
+Then I saw Josef standing by the bed, a salver in his hand.
+
+"Zom letters, sir," he said to Gerry. I wondered how long he had been in
+the room.
+
+Gerry waved the letters aside and burst into a regular screaming fit.
+He wouldn't have things done that way in the house; he wouldn't
+have unknown foreigners brought in, with the city thick with
+spies--especially people with an English accent--his nerves wouldn't
+stand it: Monica ought to know better, and so on and so forth. The long
+and the short of it was that I was ordered to produce my passport
+immediately. Monica was to ring up the embassy to ask them to stretch a
+point and see to it out of office hours, then Josef should take me round
+to the police.
+
+I don't know how we got out of that room. It was Monica, with her sweet
+womanly tact, who managed it. I believe the madman even demanded to see
+my passport, but Monica scraped me through that trap as well.
+
+I had left my hat and coat in the entrance hall downstairs. I put on my
+coat, then went to Monica in the morning-room.
+
+There was much she wanted to say--I could see it in her eyes--but I
+think she gathered from my face what I was going to do, so she said
+nothing.
+
+At the door I said aloud, for the benefit of Josef, who was on the
+stairs:
+
+"Very good, my lady. I will come straight back from the embassy and then
+go with Josef to the police."
+
+The next moment I was adrift in Berlin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+I FIND ACHILLES IN HIS TENT
+
+
+Outside darkness had fallen. I had a vague suspicion that the
+house might be watched, but I found the Bendler-Strasse quite
+undisturbed. It ran its quiet, aristocratic length to the tangle of
+bare branches marking the Tiergarten-Strasse with not so much as
+a dog to strike terror into the heart of the amateur spy. Even in the
+Tiergarten-Strasse, where the Jewish millionaires live, there was little
+traffic and few people about, and I felt singularly unromantic as I
+walked briskly along the clean pavements towards Unter den Linden.
+
+Once more the original object of my journey into Germany stood clearly
+before me. An extraordinary series of adventures had deflected me from
+my course, but never from my purpose. I realized that I should never
+feel happy in my mind again if I left Germany without being assured as
+to my brother's fate. And now I was on the threshold either of a great
+discovery or of an overwhelming disappointment.
+
+For the street called In den Zelten was my next objective. I knew I
+might be on the wrong track altogether in my interpretation of what I
+was pleased to term in my mind the message from Francis. If I had read
+it falsely--if, perhaps, it were not from him at all--then all the hopes
+I had built on this mad dash into the enemy's country would collapse
+like a house of cards. Then, indeed, I should be in a sorry pass.
+
+But my luck was in, I felt. Hitherto, I had triumphed over all
+difficulties. I would trust in my destiny to the last.
+
+I had taken the precaution of turning up my overcoat collar and of
+pulling my hat well down over my eyes, but no one troubled me. I
+reflected that only Clubfoot and Schmalz were in a position to recognize
+me and that, if I steered clear of places like hotels and restaurants
+and railway stations, where criminals always seem to be caught, I might
+continue to enjoy comparative immunity. But the trouble was the passport
+question. That reminded me.
+
+I must get rid of Semlin's passport. As I walked along I tore it into
+tiny pieces, dropping each fragment at a good interval from the other.
+It cost me something to do it, for a passport is always useful to flash
+in the eyes of the ignorant. But this passport was dangerous. It might
+denounce me to a man who would not otherwise recognize me.
+
+I had some difficulty in finding In den Zelten. I had to ask the way,
+once of a postman and once of a wounded soldier who was limping along
+with crutches. Finally, I found it, a narrowish street running off a
+corner of the great square in front of the Reichstag. No. 2 was the
+second house on the right.
+
+I had no plan. Nevertheless, I walked boldly upstairs. There was but one
+flat on each floor. At the third story I halted, rather out of breath,
+in front of a door with a small brass plate inscribed with the name
+"Eugen Kore." I rang the bell boldly.
+
+An elderly man-servant opened the door.
+
+"Is Herr Eugen Kore at home?" I asked.
+
+The man looked at me suspiciously.
+
+"Has the gentleman an appointment?" he said.
+
+"No," I replied.
+
+"Then the Herr will not receive the gentleman," came the answer, and the
+man made as though to close the door.
+
+I had an inspiration.
+
+"A moment!" I cried, and I added the word "Achilles" in a low voice.
+
+The servant opened the door wide to me.
+
+"Why didn't you say that at once?" he said. "Please step in. I will see
+if the Herr can receive you."
+
+He led the way through a hall into a sitting-room and left me there. The
+place was a perfect museum of art treasures, old Dutch and Italian
+masters on the walls, some splendid Florentine chests, a fine old
+dresser loaded with ancient pewter. On a mantelshelf was an
+extraordinary collection of old keys, each with its label. "Key of the
+fortress of Spandau, 1715." "Key of the Postern Gate of the Pasha's
+Palace at Belgrade, 1810," "House Key from Nuremberg, 1567," were some
+of the descriptions I read.
+
+Then a voice behind me said:
+
+"Ah! you admire my little treasures!"
+
+Turning, I saw a short, stout man, of a marked Jewish appearance, with a
+bald head, a fat nose, little beady eyes and a large waist.
+
+"Eugen Kore!" he introduced himself with a bow.
+
+"Meyer!" I replied, in the German fashion.
+
+"And what can we do for Herr ... Meyer?" he asked in oily tones, pausing
+just long enough before he pronounced the name I gave to let me see that
+he believed it to be a pseudonym.
+
+"I believe you know a friend of mine, whose address I am anxious to
+find," I said.
+
+"Ah!" sighed the little Jew, "a man of affairs like myself meets so many
+people that he may be pardoned.... What did you say his name was, this
+friend of yours?"
+
+I thought I would try the effect of the name "Eichenholz" upon this
+enigmatic creature.
+
+"Eichenholz? Eichenholz?" Kore repeated.
+
+"I seem to know the name ... it seems familiar ... now let me see
+again.... Eichenholz, Eichenholz. ..."
+
+While he was speaking he unlocked one of the oak cabinets and a safe
+came to view. Opening this, he brought out a ledger and ran his finger
+down the names. Then he shut the book, replaced it, locked the safe and
+the cabinet, and turned to me again.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I know the name."
+
+His reticence was disconcerting.
+
+"Can you tell me where I can find him?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," was the reply.
+
+I was getting a trifle nettled.
+
+"Well, where?" I queried.
+
+"This is all very well, young Sir," said the Jew. "You come in here from
+nowhere, you introduce yourself as Meyer; you ask me 'Who?' and 'What?'
+and 'Where?'--questions that, mark you, in my business, may have
+valuable answers. We private enquiry agents must live, my dear sir, we
+must eat and drink like other men, and these are hard times, very hard
+times. I will ask you a question if I may. Meyer? Who is Meyer?
+Everybody in this country is called Meyer!"
+
+I smiled at this bizarre speech.
+
+"This Eichenholz, now," I said, "... supposing he were my brother."
+
+"He might congratulate himself," Kore said, blinking his little lizard
+eyes.
+
+"And he sent me word to call and see you to find out his whereabouts.
+You seem to like riddles, Herr Kore.... I will read you one!"
+
+And I read him the message from Francis ... all but the first two lines.
+
+The little Jew beamed with delight.
+
+"Ach! that is bright!" he cried, "oi, oi, oi, but he is smart, this Herr
+Eichenholz! Who'd have thought of that? Brilliant, brilliant!"
+
+"As you say, Herr Kore, enquiry agents must live, and I am quite
+prepared to pay for the information I require...."
+
+I pulled out my portfolio as I spoke.
+
+"The matter is quite simple," Kore replied. "It is already arranged. The
+charge is five hundred marks. My client said to me the last time I saw
+him, 'Kore,' he said, 'if one should come asking news of me you will
+give him the word and he will pay you five hundred marks.'"
+
+"The word?" I said.
+
+"The word," he repeated.
+
+"You must take Dutch money," I said. "Here you are ... work it out in
+gulden ... and I'll pay!"
+
+He manipulated a stump of pencil on a writing block and I paid him his
+money.
+
+Then he said:
+
+"Boonekamp!"
+
+"Boonekamp?" I echoed stupidly.
+
+"That's the word," the little Jew chuckled, laughing at my dumbfounded
+expression, "and, if you want to know, I understand it as little as you
+do."
+
+"But ... Boonekamp," I repeated. "Is it a man's name, a place? It sounds
+Dutch. Have you no idea? ... come, I'm ready to pay."
+
+"Perhaps ..." the Jew began.
+
+"What? Perhaps what?" I exclaimed impatiently.
+
+"Possibly...."
+
+"Out with it, man!" I cried, "and say what you mean."
+
+"Perhaps, if I could render to the gentleman the service I rendered to
+his brother, I might be able to throw light...."
+
+"What service did you render to my brother?" I demanded hastily. "I'm in
+the dark."
+
+"Has the gentleman no little difficulty perhaps? ... about his military
+service, about his papers? The gentleman is young and strong ... has he
+been to the front? Was life irksome there? Did he ever long for the
+sweets of home life? Did he never envy those who have been medically
+rejected? The rich men's sons, perhaps, with clever fathers who know how
+to get what they want?"
+
+His little eyes bored into mine like gimlets.
+
+I began to understand.
+
+"And if I had?"
+
+"Then all old Kore can say is that the gentleman has come to the right
+shop, as his gracious brother did. How can we serve the gentleman now?
+What are his requirements? It is a difficult, a dangerous business. It
+costs money, much money, but it can be arranged ... it can be arranged."
+
+"But if you do for me what you did for my brother," I said, "I don't see
+how that helps to explain this word, this clue to his address!"
+
+"My dear sir, I am as much in the dark as you are yourself about the
+significance of this word. But I can tell you this, your brother, thanks
+to my intervention, found himself placed in a situation in which he
+might well have come across this word...."
+
+"Well?" I said impatiently.
+
+"Well, if we obliged the gentleman as we obliged his brother, the
+gentleman might be taken where his brother was taken, the gentleman is
+young and smart, he might perhaps find a clue ..."
+
+"Stop talking riddles, for Heaven's sake!" I cried in exasperation, "and
+answer my questions plainly. First, what did you do for my brother?"
+
+"Your brother had deserted from the front--that is the most difficult
+class of business we have to deal with--we procured him a _permis de
+séjour_ for fifteen days and a post in a safe place where no enquiries
+would be made after him."
+
+"And then?" I cried, trembling with curiosity.
+
+The Jew shrugged his shoulders, waving his hands to and fro in the air.
+
+"Then he disappeared. I saw him a few days before he went, and he gave
+me the instructions I have repeated to you for anybody who should come
+asking for him."
+
+"But didn't he tell you where he was going?"
+
+"He didn't even tell me he was going, Herr. He just vanished."
+
+"When was this?"
+
+"Somewhere about the first week in July ... it was the week of the bad
+news from France."
+
+The message was dated July 1st, I remembered.
+
+"I have a good set of Swedish papers," the Jew continued, "very
+respectable timber merchant ... with those one could live in the best
+hotels and no one say a word. Or Hungarian papers, a party rejected
+medically ... very safe those, but perhaps the gentleman doesn't speak
+Hungarian. That would be essential."
+
+"I am in the same case as my brother," I said, "I must disappear."
+
+"Not a deserter, Herr?" The Jew cringed at the word.
+
+"Yes," I said. "After all, why not?"
+
+"I daren't do this kind of business any more, my dear sir, I really
+daren't! They are making it too dangerous."
+
+"Come, come!" I said, "you were boasting just now that you could smooth
+out any difficulties. You can produce me a very satisfactory passport
+from somewhere, I am sure!"
+
+"Passport! Out of the question, my dear sir! Let once one of my
+passports go wrong and I am ruined. Oh, no! no passports where deserters
+are concerned! I don't like the business ... it's not safe! At the
+beginning of the war ... ah! that was different! Oi, oi, but they ran
+from the Yser and from Ypres! Oi, oi, and from Verdun! But now the
+police are more watchful. No! It is not worth it! It would cost you too
+much money, besides."
+
+I thought the miserable cur was trying to raise the price on me, but I
+was mistaken. He was frightened: the business was genuinely distasteful
+to him.
+
+I tried, as a final attempt to persuade him, an old trick: I showed him
+my money. He wavered at once, and, after many objections, protesting to
+the last, he left the room. He returned with a handful of filthy papers.
+
+"I oughtn't to do it; I know I shall rue it; but you have overpersuaded
+me and I liked Herr Eichenholz, a noble gentleman and free with his
+money--see here, the papers of a waiter, Julius Zimmermann, called up
+with the Landwehr but discharged medically unfit, military pay-book and
+_permis de séjour_ for fifteen days. These papers are only a guarantee
+in case you come across the police: no questions will be asked where I
+shall send you."
+
+"But a fifteen days' permit!" I said. "What am I to do at the end of
+that time?"
+
+"Leave it to me," Kore said craftily. "I will get it renewed for you. It
+will be all right!"
+
+"But in the meantime...." I objected.
+
+"I place you as waiter with a friend of mine who is kind to poor fellows
+like yourself. Your brother was with him."
+
+"But I want to be free to move around."
+
+"Impossible," the Jew answered firmly. "You must get into your part and
+live quietly in seclusion until the enquiries after you have abated.
+Then we may see as to what is next to be done. There you are, a fine set
+of papers and a safe, comfortable life far away from the trenches--all
+snug and secure--cheap (in spite of the danger to me), because you are a
+lad of spirit and I liked your brother ... ten thousand marks!"
+
+I breathed again. Once we had reached the haggling stage, I knew the
+papers would be mine all right. With Semlin's money and my own I found I
+had about £550, but I had no intention of paying out £500 straight away.
+So I beat the fellow down unmercifully and finally secured the lot for
+3600 marks--£180.
+
+But, even after I had paid the fellow his money, I was not done with
+him. He had his eye on his perquisites.
+
+"Your clothes will never do," he said; "such richness of apparel, such
+fine stuff--we must give you others." He rang the bell.
+
+The old man-servant appeared.
+
+"A waiter's suit--for the Linien-Strasse!" he said.
+
+Then he led me into a bedroom where a worn suit of German shoddy was
+spread out on a sofa. He made me change into it, and then handed me a
+threadbare green overcoat and a greasy green felt hat.
+
+"So!" he said. "Now, if you don't shave for a day or two, you will look
+the part to the life!"--a remark which, while encouraging, was hardly
+complimentary.
+
+He gave me a muffler to tie round my neck and lower part of my face and,
+with that greasy hat pulled down over my eyes and in those worn and
+shrunken clothes, I must say I looked a pretty villainous person, the
+very antithesis of the sleek, well-dressed young fellow that had entered
+the flat half an hour before.
+
+"Now, Julius," said Kore humorously, "come, my lad, and we will seek out
+together the good situation I have found for you."
+
+A horse-cab was at the door and we entered it together. The Jew chatted
+pleasantly as we rattled through the darkness. He complimented me on my
+ready wit in deciphering Francis' message.
+
+"How do you like my idea?" he said, "'Achilles in his Tent'... that is
+the device of the hidden part of my business--you observe the parallel,
+do you not?' Achilles holding himself aloof from the army and young men
+like yourself who prefer the gentle pursuits of peace to the sterner
+profession of war! Clients of mine who have enjoyed a classical
+education have thought very highly of the humour of my device."
+
+The cab dropped us at the corner of the Friedrich-Strasse, which was
+ablaze with light from end to end, and the Linien-Strasse, a narrow,
+squalid thoroughfare of dirty houses and mean shops. The street was all
+but deserted at that hour save for an occasional policeman, but from
+cellars with steps leading down from the streets came the jingle of
+automatic pianos and bursts of merriment to show that the Linien-Strasse
+was by no means asleep.
+
+Before one of these cellar entrances the Jew stopped. At the foot of the
+steep staircase leading down from the street was a glazed door, its
+panels all glistening with moisture from the heated atmosphere within.
+Kore led the way down, I following.
+
+A nauseous wave of hot air, mingled with rank tobacco smoke, smote us
+full as we opened the door. At first I could see nothing except a very
+fat man, against a dense curtain of smoke, sitting at a table before an
+enormous glass goblet of beer. Then, as the haze drifted before the
+draught, I distinguished the outline of a long, low-ceilinged room,
+with small tables set along either side and a little bar, presided over
+by a tawdry female with chemically tinted hair, at the end. Most of the
+tables were occupied, and there was almost as much noise as smoke in the
+place.
+
+A woman's voice screamed: "Shut the door, can't you, I'm freezing!" I
+obeyed and, following Kore to a table, sat down. A man in his
+shirt-sleeves, who was pulling beer at the bar, left his beer-engine
+and, coming across the room to Kore, greeted him cordially, and asked
+him what we would take.
+
+Kore nudged me with his elbow.
+
+"We'll take a Boonekamp each, Haase," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CLUBFOOT COMES TO HAASE'S
+
+
+Kore presently retired to an inner room with the man in shirt-sleeves,
+whom I judged to be the landlord, and in a little the flaxen-haired lady
+at the bar beckoned me over and bade me join them.
+
+"This is Julius Zimmermann, the young man I have spoken of," said the
+Jew; then turning to me:
+
+"Herr Haase is willing to take you on as waiter here on my
+recommendation, Julius, See that you do not make me repent of my
+kindness!"
+
+Here the man in shirt-sleeves, a great, fat fellow with a bullet head
+and a huge double chin, chuckled loudly.
+
+"Kolossal!" he cried. "Herr Kore loves his joke! Ausgezeichnet!" And he
+wagged his head roguishly at me.
+
+On that Kore took his leave, promising to look in and see how I was
+faring in a few days' time. The landlord opened a low door in the corner
+and revealed a kind of large cupboard, windowless and horribly stale and
+stuffy, where there were two unsavoury-looking beds.
+
+"You will sleep here with Otto," said the landlord. Pointing to a dirty
+white apron lying on one of the beds, he bade me take off my overcoat
+and jacket and put it on.
+
+"It was Johann's," he said, "but Johann won't want it any more. A good
+lad, Johann, but rash. I always said he would come to a bad end." And he
+laughed noisily.
+
+"You can go and help with the waiting now," he went on. "Otto will show
+you what to do!"
+
+And so I found myself, within twenty-four hours, spy, male nurse and
+waiter in turn.
+
+I am loth to dwell on the degradation of the days that followed. That
+cellar tavern was a foul sink of iniquity, and in serving the dregs of
+humanity that gathered nightly there I felt I had indeed sunk to the
+lowest depths. The place was a regular thieves' kitchen ... what is
+called in the hideous Yiddish jargon that is the criminal slang of
+modern Germany a "Kaschemme." Never in my life have I seen such brutish
+faces as those that leered at me nightly through the smoke haze as I
+shuffled from table to table in my mean German clothes. Gallows' birds,
+sneak thieves, receivers, bullies, prostitutes and harpies of every
+description came together every evening in Herr Haase's beer-cellar.
+Many of the men wore the soiled and faded field-grey of the soldier back
+from the front, and in looking at their sordid, vulpine faces, inflamed
+with drink, I felt I could fathom the very soul of Belgium's misery.
+
+The conversation was all of crime and deeds of violence. The men back
+from the front told gloatingly of rapine and feastings in lonely Belgian
+villages or dwelt ghoulishly on the horrors of the battlefield, the
+mounds of decaying corpses, the ghastly mutilations they had seen in the
+dead. There were tales, too, of "vengeance" wreaked on "the treacherous
+English." One story, in particular, of the fate of a Scottish
+Sergeant ... "der Hochländer" they called him in this oft-told
+tale ... still makes me quiver with impotent rage when I think of it.
+
+One evening the name of the Hotel Esplanade caught my ear. I approached
+the table and found two flashily dressed bullies and a bedraggled drab
+from the streets talking in admiration of my exploit.
+
+"Clubfoot met his match that time," the woman cried. "The dirty dog! But
+why didn't this English spy make a job of it and kill the scum? Pah!"
+
+And she spat elegantly into the sawdust on the floor.
+
+"I wouldn't be in that fellow's shoes for something," muttered one of
+the men. "No one ever had the better of Clubfoot yet. Do you remember
+Meinhardt, Franz? He tried to cheat Clubfoot, and we know what happened
+to him!"
+
+"They're raking the whole city for this Englishman," answered the other
+man. "Vogel, who works for Section Seven, you know the man I mean, was
+telling me. They've done every hotel in Berlin and the suburbs, but they
+haven't found him. They raided Bauer's in the Favoriten-Strasse last
+night. The Englishman wasn't there, but they got three or four others
+they were looking for--Fritz and another deserter included. I was nearly
+there myself!"
+
+I was always hearing references of this kind to my exploit. I was never
+spoken of except in terms of admiration, but the name of Clubfoot--der
+Stelze--excited only execration and terror.
+
+I lived in daily fear of a raid at Haase's. Why the place had escaped so
+long, with all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I couldn't
+imagine. It was one of those defects in German organization which puzzle
+the best of us at times. In the meantime, I was powerless to escape. The
+first thing Haase had done was to take away my papers--to send them to
+the police, as he explained--but he never gave them back, and when I
+asked for them he put me off with an excuse.
+
+I was a virtual prisoner in the place. On my feet from morning till
+night, I had indeed few opportunities for going out; but once, during
+a slack time in the afternoon, when I broached the subject to the
+landlord, he refused harshly to let me out of his sight.
+
+"The street is not healthy for you just now. You would be a danger to
+yourself and to all of us!" he said.
+
+My life in that foul den was a burden to me. The living conditions were
+unspeakable. Otto, a pale and ill-tempered consumptive, compelled, like
+me, to rise in the darkness of the dawn, never washed, and his
+companionship in the stuffy hole where we slept was offensive beyond
+belief. He openly jeered at my early morning journeys out to a narrow,
+stinking court, where I exulted in the ice-cold water from the pump. And
+the food! It was only when I saw the mean victuals--the coarse and often
+tainted horseflesh, the unappetizing war-bread, the coffee substitute,
+and the rest--that I realized how Germany was suffering, though only
+through her poor as yet, from the British blockade. That thought used to
+help to overcome the nausea with which I sat down to eat.
+
+Domestic life at Haase's was a hell upon earth. Haase himself was a
+drunken bully, who made advances to every woman he met, and whose
+complicated intrigues with the feminine portion of his clientèle led to
+frequent scenes with the fair-haired Hebe who presided at the bar and
+over his household. It was she and Otto who fared daily forth to take
+their places in the long queues that waited for hours with food cards
+outside the provision shops.
+
+These trips seemed to tell upon her temper, which would flash out
+wrathfully at meal-times, when Haase began his inevitable grumbling
+about the food. As Otto took a malicious delight in these family scenes,
+I was frequently called upon to assume the role of peace-maker. More
+than once I intervened to save Madame from the violence she had called
+down upon herself by the sharpness of her tongue. She was a poor, faded
+creature, and the tragedy of it all was that she was in love with this
+degraded bully. She was grateful to me for my good offices, I think,
+for, though she hardly ever addressed me, her manner was always
+friendly.
+
+These days of dreary squalor would have been unbearable if it had not
+been for my elucidation of the word Boonekamp, which was said to hold
+the clue to my brother's address. On the wall in the cubby-hole where I
+slept was a tattered advertisement card of this _apéritif_--for such is
+the preparation--proclaiming it to be "Germany's Best Cordial." As I
+undressed at night, I often used to stare at this placard, wondering
+what connection Boonekamp could possibly have with my brother. I
+determined to take the first opportunity of examining the card itself.
+One morning, while Otto was out in the queue at the butcher's, I slipped
+away from the cellar to our sleeping-place and, lighting my candle, took
+down the card and examined it closely. It was perfectly plain, red
+letters on a green background in front, white at the back.
+
+As I was replacing the card on the nail I saw some writing in pencil on
+the wall where the card had hung. My heart seemed to stand still with
+the joy of my discovery. For the writing was in my brother's neat,
+artistic hand, the words were English, and, best of all, my brother's
+initials were attached. This is what I read:
+
+(Facsimile.) 5.7.16.
+
+"You will find me at the Café Regina, Düsseldorf--F.O."
+
+After that I felt I could bear with everything. The message awakened
+hope that was fast dying in my heart. At least on July 5th, Francis was
+alive. To that fact I clung as to a sheet-anchor. It gave me courage for
+the hardest part of all my experiences in Germany, those long days of
+waiting in that den of thieves. For I knew I must be patient. Presently,
+I hoped, I might extract my papers from Haase or persuade Kore, when he
+came back, to see me, to give me a permit that would enable me to get to
+Düsseldorf. But the term of my permit was fast running out and the Jew
+never came.
+
+There were often moments when I longed to ask Haase or one of the others
+about the time my brother had served in that place. But I feared to draw
+attention to myself. No one asked any questions of me (questions as to
+personal antecedents were discouraged at Haase's), and, as long as I
+remained the unpaid, useful drudge I felt that my desire for obscurity
+would be respected. Desultory questions about my predecessors elicited
+no information about Francis. The Haase establishment seemed to have had
+a succession of vague and shadowy retainers.
+
+Only about Johann, whose apron I wore, did Otto become communicative.
+
+"A stupid fellow!" he declared. "He was well off here. Haase liked him,
+the customers liked him, especially the ladies. But he must fall in love
+with Frau Hedwig (the lady at the bar), then he quarrelled with Haase
+and threatened him--you know, about customers who haven't got their
+papers in order. The next time Johann went out, they arrested him. And
+he was shot at Spandau!"
+
+"Shot?" I exclaimed. "Why?"
+
+"As a deserter."
+
+"But was he a deserter?"
+
+"Ach! was! But he had a deserter's papers in his pockets ... his own had
+vanished. Ach! it's a bad thing to quarrel with Haase!"
+
+I made a point of keeping on the right side of the landlord after that.
+By my unfailing diligence I even managed to secure his grudging
+approval, though he was always ready to fly into a passion at the least
+opportunity.
+
+One evening about six o'clock a young man, whom I had never seen among
+our regular customers, came down the stairs from the street and asked
+for Haase, who was asleep on the sofa in the inner room. At the sight of
+the youth, Frau Hedwig jumped off her perch behind the bar and vanished.
+She came back directly and, ignoring me, conducted the young man into
+the inner room, where he remained for about half an hour. Then he
+reappeared again, accompanied by Frau Hedwig, and went off.
+
+I was shocked by the change in the appearance of the woman. Her face was
+pale, her eyes red with weeping, and her eyes kept wandering towards the
+door. It was a slack time of the day within and the cellar was free of
+customers.
+
+"You look poorly, Frau Hedwig," I said. "Trouble with Haase again?"
+
+She looked up at me and shook her head, her eyes brimming over. A tear
+ran down the rouge on her cheek.
+
+"I must speak," she said. "I can't bear this suspense alone. You are a
+kind young man. You are discreet. Julius, there is trouble brewing for
+us!"
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked. A foreboding of evil rose within me.
+
+"Kore!" she whispered.
+
+"Kore?" I echoed. "What of him?"
+
+She looked fearfully about her.
+
+"He was taken yesterday morning," she said.
+
+"Do you mean arrested?" I exclaimed, unwilling to believe the staggering
+news.
+
+"They entered his apartment early in the morning and seized him in bed.
+Ach! it is dreadful!" And she buried her face in her hands.
+
+"But surely," I added soothingly, though with an icy fear at my heart,
+"there is no need to despair. What is an arrest to-day with all these
+regulations...."
+
+The woman raised her face, pallid beneath its paint, to mine.
+
+"Kore was shot at Moabit Prison this morning," she said in a low voice.
+"That young man brought the news just now." Then she added breathlessly,
+her words pouring out in a torrent:
+
+"You don't know what this means to us. Haase had dealings with this Jew.
+If they have shot him, it is because they have found out from him all
+they want to know. That means our ruin, that means that Haase will go
+the same way as the Jew.
+
+"But Haase is stubborn, foolhardy. The messenger warned him that a raid
+might be expected here at any moment. I have pleaded with him in vain.
+He believes that Kore has split; he believes the police may come, but he
+says they daren't touch him: he has been too useful to them: he knows
+too much. Ach, I am afraid! I am afraid!"
+
+Haase's voice sounded from the inner room.
+
+"Hedwig!" he called.
+
+The woman hastily dried her eyes and disappeared through the door.
+
+The coast was clear, if I wanted to escape, but where could I go,
+without a paper or passport, a hunted man?
+
+The news of Kore's arrest and execution haunted me. Of course, the man
+was in a most perilous trade, and had probably been playing the game for
+years. But suppose they had tracked me to the house in the street called
+In den Zelten.
+
+I crossed the room and opened the door to the street. I had never set
+foot outside since I had come, and, hopeless as it would be for me to
+attempt to escape, I thought I might reconnoitre the surroundings of the
+beer-cellar for the event of flight.
+
+I lightly ran up the stairs to the street and nearly cannoned into a man
+who was lounging in the entrance. We both apologized, but he stared at
+me hard before he strolled on. Then I saw another man sauntering along
+on the opposite side of the street. Further away, at the corner, two men
+were loitering.
+
+Every one of them had his eyes fixed on the cellar entrance at which I
+was standing.
+
+I knew they could not see my face, for the street was but dimly lit, and
+behind me was the dark background of the cellar stairway. I took a grip
+on my nerves and very deliberately lit a cigarette and smoked it, as if
+I had come up from below to get a breath of fresh air. I waited a
+little while and then went down.
+
+I was scarcely back in the cellar when Haase appeared from the inner
+room, followed by the woman. He carried himself erect, and his eyes were
+shining. I didn't like the man, but I must say he looked game. In his
+hand he carried my papers.
+
+"Here you are, my lad," he said in quite a friendly tone, "put 'em in
+your pocket--you may want 'em to-night."
+
+I glanced at the papers before I followed his advice.
+
+He noted my action and laughed.
+
+"They have told you about Johann," he said. "Never fear, Julius, you and
+I are good friends."
+
+The papers were those of Julius Zimmermann all right.
+
+We were having supper at one of the tables in the front room--there were
+only a couple of customers, as it was so early--when a man, a regular
+visitor of ours, came down the stairs hurriedly. He went straight over
+to Haase and spoke into his ear.
+
+"Mind yourself, Haase," I heard him say. "Do you know who had Kore
+arrested and shot? It was Clubfoot. There is more in this than we know.
+Mind yourself and get out! In an hour or so it may be too late."
+
+Then he scurried away, leaving me dazed.
+
+"By God!" said the landlord, bringing a great fist down on the table so
+that the glasses rang, "they won't touch me. Not the devil himself will
+make me leave this house before they come, if coming they are!"
+
+The woman burst into tears, while Otto blinked his watery eyes in
+terror. I sat and looked at my plate, my heart too full for words. It
+was bitter to have dared so much to get this far and then find the path
+blocked, as it seemed, by an insuperable barrier. They were after me all
+right: the mention of Clubfoot's name, the swift, stern retribution that
+had befallen Kore, made that certain--and I could do nothing. That
+cellar was a cul-de-sac, a regular trap, and I knew that if I stirred a
+foot from the house I should fall into the hands of those men keeping
+their silent vigil in the street.
+
+Therefore, I must wait, as calmly as I might, and see what the evening
+would bring forth. Gradually the cellar filled up as people drifted in,
+but many familiar faces, I noticed, were missing. Evidently the ill
+tidings had spread. Once a man looked in for a glass of beer and drifted
+out again, leaving the door open. As I was closing it, I heard a muffled
+exclamation and the sound of a scuffle at the head of the stairs. It was
+so quietly done that nobody below, save myself, knew what had happened.
+The incident showed me that the watch was well kept.
+
+The evening wore on--interminably, as it seemed to me. I darted to and
+fro from the bar, laden with mugs of beer and glasses of schnaps,
+incessantly, up and down. But I never failed, whenever there came a
+pause in the orders, to see that my journey finished somewhere in the
+neighbourhood of the door. A faint hope was glimmering in my brain.
+
+Until the end of my life, that interminable evening in the beer-cellar
+will remain stamped in my memory. I can still see the scene in its every
+detail, and I know I shall carry the picture with me to the grave; the
+long, low room with its blackened ceiling, the garish yellow gaslight,
+the smoke haze, the crowded tables, Otto, shuffling hither and hither
+with his mean and sulky air, Frau Hedwig, preoccupied at her desk,
+red-eyed, a graven image of woe, and Haase, presiding over the
+beer-engine, silent, defiant, calm, but watchful every time the door
+opened.
+
+When at last the blow fell, it came suddenly. A trampling of feet on the
+stairs, a great blowing of whistles ... then the door was burst open
+just as everybody in the cellar sprang to their feet amid exclamations
+and oaths from the men and shrill screams from the women. Outlined in
+the doorway stood Clubfoot, majestic, authoritative, wearing some kind
+of little skull-cap, such as duelling students wear, over a black silk
+handkerchief bound about his head. At the sight of the man the hubbub
+ceased on the instant. All were still save Haase, whose bull-like voice
+roaring for silence broke on the quiet of the room with the force of an
+explosion.
+
+I was in my corner by the door, pressed back against the coats and hats
+hanging on the wall. In front of me a frieze of frightened faces
+screened me from observation. Quickly, I slipped off my apron.
+
+Clubfoot, after casting a cursory glance round the room, strode its
+length towards the bar where Haase stood, a crowd of plain-clothes men
+and policemen at his heels. Then quite suddenly the light went out,
+plunging the place into darkness. Instantly the room was in confusion;
+women screamed; a voice, which I recognized as Clubfoot's, bawled
+stentorianly for lights ... the moment had come to act.
+
+I grabbed a hat and coat from the hall, got into them somehow, and
+darted to the door. In the dim light shining down the stairs from a
+street lamp outside, I saw a man at the door. Apparently he was guarding
+it.
+
+"Back!" he cried, as I stepped up to him.
+
+I flashed in his eyes the silver star I held in my hand.
+
+"The Chief wants lanterns!" I said low in his ear.
+
+He grabbed my hand holding the badge and lowered it to the light.
+
+"All right, comrade," he replied. "Drechsler has a lantern, I think!
+You'll find him outside!"
+
+I rushed up the stairs right into a group of three policemen.
+
+"The Chief wants Drechsler at once with the lantern," I shouted, and
+showed my star. The three dispersed in different directions calling for
+Drechsler.
+
+I walked quickly away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE WAITER AT THE CAFE REGINA
+
+
+I calculated that I had at least two hours, at most three, in which to
+get clear of Berlin. However swiftly Clubfoot might act, it would take
+him certainly an hour and a half, I reckoned, from the discovery of my
+flight from Haase's to warn the police at the railway stations to detain
+me. If I could lay a false trail I might at the worst prolong this
+period of grace; at the best I might mislead him altogether as to my
+ultimate destination, which was, of course, Düsseldorf. The unknown
+quantity in my reckonings was the time it would take Clubfoot to send
+out a warning all over Germany to detain Julius Zimmermann, waiter and
+deserter, wherever and whenever apprehended.
+
+At the first turning I came to after leaving Haase's, tram-lines ran
+across the street. A tram was waiting, bound in a southerly direction,
+where the centre of the city lay. I jumped on to the front platform
+beside the woman driver. It is fairly dark in front and the conductor
+cannot see your face as you pay your fare through a trap in the door
+leading to the interior of the tram. I left the tram at Unter den Linden
+and walked down some side streets until I came across a quiet-looking
+café. There I got a railway guide and set about reviewing my plans.
+
+It was ten minutes to twelve. A man in my position would in all
+probability make for the frontier. So, I judged, Clubfoot must
+calculate, though, I fancied, he must have wondered why I had not long
+since attempted to escape back to England. Düsseldorf was on the main
+road to Holland, and it would certainly be the more prudent course, say,
+to make for the Rhine and travel on to my destination by a Rhine
+steamer. But time was the paramount factor in my case. By leaving
+immediately--that very night--for Düsseldorf I might possibly reach
+there before the local authorities had had time to receive the warning
+to be on the look-out for a man answering to my description. If I could
+leave behind in Berlin a really good false clue, it was just possible
+that Clubfoot might follow it up _before_ taking general dispositions to
+secure my arrest if that clue failed. I decided I must gamble on this
+hypothesis.
+
+The railway guide showed that a train left for Düsseldorf from the
+Potsdamer Bahnhof--the great railway terminus in the very centre of
+Berlin--at 12.45 a.m. That left me roughly three-quarters of an hour to
+lay my false trail and catch my train. My false trail should lead
+Clubfoot in a totally unexpected direction, I determined, for it is the
+unexpected that first engages the notice of the alert, detective type of
+mind. I would also have to select another terminus.
+
+Why not Munich? A large city on the high road to a foreign
+frontier--Switzerland--with authorities whose easy-going ways are
+proverbial in Germany. You leave Berlin for Munich from the Anhalter
+Bahnhof, a terminus which was well suited for my purpose, as it is only
+a few minutes' drive from the Potsdamer station.
+
+The railway guide showed there was a train leaving for Munich at 12.30
+a.m.--an express. That would do admirably. Munich it should be then.
+
+Fortunately I had plenty of money. I had taken the precaution of
+getting Kore to change my money into German notes before we left In den
+Zelten ... at a preposterous rate of exchange, be it said. How lost I
+should have been without Semlin's wad of notes!
+
+I paid for my coffee and set forth again. It was 12.15 as I walked into
+the hall of the Anhalt station.
+
+Remembering the ruse which the friendly guide at Rotterdam had taught
+me, I began by purchasing a platform ticket. Then I looked about for an
+official upon whom I could suitably impress my identity. Presently I
+espied a pompous-looking fellow in a bright blue uniform and scarlet
+cap, some kind of junior stationmaster, I thought.
+
+I approached him and, raising my hat, politely asked him if he could
+tell me when there was a train leaving for Munich.
+
+"The express goes at 12.30," he said, "but only first and second class,
+and you'll have to pay the supplementary charge. The slow train is not
+till 5.49."
+
+I assumed an expression of vexation.
+
+"I suppose I must go by the express," I said. "Can you tell me where the
+booking-office is?"
+
+The official pointed to a pigeon-hole and I took care to speak loud
+enough for him to hear me ask for a second-class ticket, single, to
+Munich.
+
+I walked upstairs and presented my Munich ticket to the collector at the
+barrier. Then I hurried past the main-line platforms over the suburban
+side, where I gave up my platform ticket and descended again to the
+street.
+
+It was just on the half-hour as I came out of the station. Not a cab to
+be seen! I hastened as fast as my legs would carry me until, breathless
+and panting, I reached the Potsdam terminus. The clock over the station
+pointed to 12.39.
+
+A long queue, composed mostly of soldiers returning to Belgium and the
+front, stood in front of the booking-office. The military were getting
+their warrants changed for tickets. I chafed at the delay, but it was
+actually this circumstance which afforded me the chance of getting my
+ticket for Düsseldorf without leaving any clue behind.
+
+A big, bearded Landsturm man with a kind face was at the pigeon-hole.
+
+"I am very late for my train, my friend," I said, "would you get me a
+third-class single for Düsseldorf?" I handed him a twenty-mark note.
+
+"Right you are," he answered readily.
+
+"There," he said, handing me my ticket and a handful of change, "and
+lucky you are to be going to the Rhine. I'm from the Rhine myself and
+now I'm going back to guarding the bridges in Belgium!"
+
+I thanked him and wished him luck. Here at least was a witness who was
+not likely to trouble me. And with a thankful heart I bolted on to the
+platform and caught the train.
+
+Third-class travel in Germany is not a hobby to be cultivated if your
+means allow the luxury of better accommodation. The travelling German
+has a habit of taking off his boots when he journeys in the train by
+night--and a carriageful of lower middle-class Huns, thus unshod, in
+the temperature at which railway compartments are habitually kept in
+Germany, is an environment which makes neither for comfort nor for
+sleep.
+
+The atmosphere, indeed, was so unbearable that I spent most of the night
+in the corridor. Here I was able to destroy the papers of Julius
+Zimmermann, waiter ... I felt I was in greater danger whilst I had them
+on me ... and to assure myself that my precious document was in its
+usual place--in my portfolio. It was then I made the discovery,
+annihilating at the first shock, that my silver badge had disappeared. I
+could not remember what I had done with it in the excitement of my
+escape from Haase's. I remembered having it in my hand and showing it to
+the police at the top of the stairs, but after that my mind was a blank.
+I could only imagine I must have carried it unconsciously in my hand and
+then dropped it unwittingly. I looked at the place where it had been
+clasped on my braces: it was not there and I searched all my pockets for
+it in vain.
+
+I had relied upon it as a stand-by in case there were trouble at the
+station in Düsseldorf. Now I found myself defenceless if I were
+challenged. It was a hard knock, but I consoled myself by the reflection
+that, by now, Clubfoot knew I had this badge ... it would doubtless
+figure in any description circulated about me.
+
+It was a most unpleasant journey. There was some kind of choral society
+on the train, occupying seven or eight compartments of the third-class
+coach in which I was travelling. For the first few hours they made night
+hideous with part-songs, catches and glees chanted with a volume of
+sound that in that confined place was simply deafening. Then the noise
+abated as one by one the singers dropped off to sleep. Presently silence
+fell, while the train rushed forward in the darkness bearing me towards
+fresh perils, fresh adventures.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A gust of fresh air in my face, the trample of feet, loud greetings in
+guttural German, awoke me with a start. It was broad daylight and
+through my compartment, to which I had crept in the night, weary with
+standing, filed the jovial members of the choral society, with bags in
+their hands and huge cockades in their buttonholes. There was a band on
+the platform and a huge choir of men who bawled a stentorian-voiced hymn
+of greeting. "Düsseldorf" was the name printed on the station lamps.
+
+All the passengers, save the members of the choral society, had left the
+train, apparently, for every carriage door stood open. I sprang to my
+feet and let myself go with the stream of men. Thus I swept out of the
+train and right into the midst of the jostling crowd of bandsmen,
+singers and spectators on the platform. I stood with the new arrivals
+until the hymn was ended and thus solidly _encadrés_ by the
+Düsseldorfers, we drifted out through the barrier into the station
+courtyard. There brakes were waiting into which the jolly choristers,
+guests and hosts, clambered noisily. But I walked straight on into the
+streets, scarcely able to realize that no one had questioned me, that at
+last, unhindered, I stood before my goal.
+
+Düsseldorf is a bright, clean town with a touch of good taste in its
+public buildings to remind one that this busy, industrial city has found
+time even while making money to have called into being a school of art
+of its own. It was a delightful morning with dazzling sunshine and an
+eager nip in the air that spoke of the swift, deep river that bathes the
+city walls. I revelled in the clear, cold atmosphere after the foulness
+of the drinking-den and the stifling heat of the journey. I exulted in
+the sense of liberty I experienced at having once more eluded the grim
+clutches of Clubfoot. Above all, my heart sang within me at the thought
+of an early meeting with Francis. In the mood I was in, I would admit no
+possibility of disappointment now. Francis and I would come together at
+last.
+
+I came upon a public square presently and there facing me was a great,
+big café, white and new and dazzling, with large plate-glass windows
+and rows of tables on a covered verandah outside. It was undoubtedly a
+"_kolossal_" establishment after the best Berlin style. So that there
+might be no mistake about the name it was placarded all over the front
+of the place in gilt letters three feet high on glass panels--Café
+Regina.
+
+It was about nine o'clock in the morning and at that early hour I had
+the place to myself. I felt very small, sitting at a tiny table, with
+tables on every side of me, stretching away as it were into the
+_Ewigkeit_, in a vast white room with mural paintings of the crassest
+school of impressionism.
+
+I ordered a good, substantial breakfast and whiled away the time while
+it was coming by glancing at the morning paper which the waiter brought
+me.
+
+My eyes ran down the columns without my heeding what I read, for my
+thoughts were busy with Francis. When did he come to the café? How was
+he living at Düsseldorf?
+
+Suddenly, I found myself looking at a name I knew ... it was in the
+personal paragraphs.
+
+"Lieut.-General Count von Boden," the paragraph ran, "Aide-de-Camp to
+H.M. the Emperor, has been placed on the retired list owing to
+ill-health. General von Boden has left for Abbazia, where he will take
+up his permanent residence." There followed the usual biographical
+notes.
+
+Of a truth, Clubfoot was a power in the land.
+
+I ate my breakfast at a table by the open door, and surveyed the busy
+life of the square where the pigeons circled in the sunshine. A waiter
+stood on the verandah idly watching the birds as they pecked at the
+stones. I was struck with the profound melancholy depicted in his face.
+His cheeks were sunken and he had a pinched look which I had observed in
+the features of most of the customers at Haase's. I set it down to the
+insufficient feeding which is general among the lower classes in Germany
+to-day.
+
+But in addition to this man's wasted appearance, his eyes were hollow,
+there were deep lines about his mouth and he wore a haggard look that
+had something strangely pathetic about it. His air of brooding sadness
+seemed to attract me, and I found my eyes continually wandering back to
+his face.
+
+And then, without warning, through some mysterious whispering of the
+blood, the truth came to me that this was my brother. I don't know
+whether it was a passing mood reflected in his face or the shifting
+lights and shadows in his eyes that lifted the veil. I only know that
+through those features ravaged by care and suffering and in spite of
+them I caught a glimpse of the brother I had come to seek.
+
+I rattled a spoon on the table and called softly out to the verandah.
+
+"_Kellner!_"
+
+The man turned.
+
+I beckoned to him. He came over to my table. He never recognized me, so
+dull was he with disappointment ... me with my unshaven, unkempt
+appearance and in my mean German shoddy ... but stood silently, awaiting
+my bidding.
+
+"Francis," I said softly ... and I spoke in German ... "Francis, don't
+you know me?"
+
+He was magnificent, strong and resourceful in his joy at our meeting as
+he had been in his months of weary waiting.
+
+Only his mouth quivered a little as instantly his hands busied
+themselves with clearing away my breakfast.
+
+"Jawohl!" he answered in a perfectly emotionless voice.
+
+And then he smiled and in a flash the old Francis stood before me.
+
+"Not a word now," he said in German as he cleared away the breakfast.
+"I am off this afternoon. Meet me on the river promenade by the Schiller
+statue at a quarter past two and we'll go for a walk. Don't stay here
+now but come back and lunch in the restaurant ... it's always crowded
+and pretty safe!"
+
+Then he called out into the void:
+
+"Twenty-six wants to pay!"
+
+Such was my meeting with my brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A HAND-CLASP BY THE RHINE
+
+
+That afternoon Francis and I walked out along the banks of the swiftly
+flowing Rhine until we were far beyond the city. Anxious though I was
+that he should reveal to me that part of his life which lay hidden
+beneath those lines of suffering in his face, he made me tell my story
+first. So I unfolded to him the extraordinary series of adventures that
+had befallen me since the night I had blundered upon the trail of a
+great secret in that evil hotel at Rotterdam.
+
+Francis did not once interrupt the flow of my narrative. He listened
+with the most tense interest but with a growing concern which betrayed
+itself clearly on his face. At the end of my story, I silently handed to
+him the half of the stolen letter I had seized from Clubfoot at the
+Hotel Esplanade.
+
+"Keep it, Francis," I said. "It's safer with a respectable waiter like
+you than with a hunted outcast like myself!"
+
+My brother smiled wanly, but his face assumed the look of grave anxiety
+with which he had heard my tale. He scrutinized the slips of paper very
+closely, then tucked them away in a letter-case, which he buttoned up in
+his hip pocket.
+
+"Fortune is a strange goddess, Des," he said, his weary eyes roving out
+over the turgid, yellow stream, "and she has been kind to you, though,
+God knows, you have played a man's part in all this. She has placed in
+your possession something for which at least five men have died in vain,
+something that has filled my thoughts, sleeping and waking, for more
+than half a year. What you have told me throws a good deal of light upon
+the mystery which I came to this cursed country to elucidate, but it
+also deepens the darkness which still envelops many points in the
+affair.
+
+"You know there are issues in this game of ours, old man, that stand
+even higher than the confidence that there has always been between us
+two. That is why I wrote to you so seldom out in France--I could tell
+you nothing about my work: that is one of the rules of our game. But now
+you have broken into the scramble yourself, I feel that we are partners,
+so I will tell you all I know.
+
+"Listen, then. Some time about the beginning of the year a letter
+written by a German interned at one of the camps in England was stopped
+by the Camp Censor. This German went by the name of Schulte: he was
+arrested at a house in Dalston the day after we declared war on
+Germany. There was a good reason for this, for our friend Schulte--we
+don't know his real name--was known to my Chief as one of the most
+daring and successful spies that ever operated in the British Isles.
+
+"Therefore, a sharp eye was kept on his correspondence, and one day this
+letter was seized. It was, I believe, perfectly harmless to the eye, but
+the expert to whom it was eventually submitted soon detected a
+conventional code in the chatty phrases about the daily life of the
+camp. It proved to be a communication from Schulte to a third party
+relating to a certain letter which, apparently, the writer imagined the
+third party had a considerable interest in acquiring. For he offered to
+sell this letter to the third party, mentioning a sum so preposterously
+high that it attracted the earnest attention of our Intelligence people.
+On half the sum mentioned being paid into the writer's account at a
+certain bank in London, the letter went on to say, the writer would
+forward the address at which the object in question would be found."
+
+"It was a simple matter to send Schulte a letter in return, agreeing to
+his terms, and to have the payment made, as desired, into the bank he
+mentioned. His communication in reply to this was duly stopped. The
+address he gave was that of a house situated on the outskirts of
+Cleves.
+
+"We had no idea what this letter was, but its apparent value in the eyes
+of the shrewd Mr. Schulte made it highly desirable that we should obtain
+possession of it without delay. Four of us were selected for this
+dangerous mission of getting into Germany and fetching it, by hook or by
+crook, from the house at Cleves where it was deposited. We four were to
+enter Germany by different routes and different means and to converge on
+Cleves (which is quite close to the Dutch frontier).
+
+"It would take too long to tell you of the very exact organization which
+we worked out to exclude all risk of failure and the various schemes we
+evolved for keeping in touch with one another though working separately
+and in rotation. Nor does it matter very much how I got into Germany.
+The fact is that, at my very first attempt to get across the frontier, I
+realized that some immensely powerful force was working against me.
+
+"I managed it, with half a dozen hairbreadth escapes, and I set down my
+success solely to my knowledge of German and to that old trick of mine
+of German imitations. But I felt everywhere the influence of this unseen
+hand, enforcing a meticulous vigilance which it was almost impossible to
+escape. I was not surprised, therefore, to learn that two of my
+companions came to grief at the very outset."
+
+My brother lowered his voice and looked about him.
+
+"Do you know what happened to those two gallant fellows?" he said. "Jack
+Tracy was found dead on the railway: Herbert Arbuthnot was discovered
+hanging in a wood. 'Suicide of an Unknown Individual' was what the
+German papers called it in each case. But I heard the truth ... never
+mind how. They were ambushed and slaughtered in cold blood."
+
+"And the third man you spoke of?" I asked.
+
+"Philip Brewster? Vanished, Des ... vanished utterly. I fear he, too,
+has gone west, poor chap!
+
+"Of the whole four of us I was the only one to reach our objective.
+There I drew blank. The letter was not in the hiding-place indicated.
+I think it never had been or the Huns would have got it. I felt all the
+time that they didn't know exactly where the letter was but that
+they anticipated our attempt to get it, hence the unceasing vigilance all
+along the frontier and inside it, too.
+
+"They damned nearly got me at Cleves: I escaped as by a miracle, and the
+providential thing for me was that I had never posed as anything but a
+German, only I varied the type I represented almost from day to day.
+Thus I left no traces behind or they would have had me long since."
+
+The sadness in my brother's voice increased and the shadows deepened in
+his face.
+
+"Then I tried to get out," he continued. "But it was hopeless from the
+first. They knew they had one of us left in the net and they closed
+every outlet. I made two separate attempts to cross the line back into
+Holland, but both failed. The second time I literally had to flee for my
+life. I went straight to Berlin, feeling that a big city, as remote from
+the frontier as possible, was the only safe hiding-place for me as long
+as the hue and cry lasted.
+
+"I was in a desperate bad way, too, for I had had to abandon the last
+set of identity papers left to me when I bolted. I landed in Berlin with
+the knowledge that no roof could safely shelter me until I got a fresh
+lot of papers.
+
+"I knew of Kore--I had heard of him and his shirkers' and deserters'
+agency in my travels--and I went straight to him. He sent me to
+Haase's ... this was towards the end of June. It was when I was at
+Haase's that I sent out that message to van Urutius that fell into your
+hands. That happened like this.
+
+"I was rather friendly with a chap that frequented Haase's, a man
+employed in the packing department at the Metal Works at Steglitz. He
+was telling us one night how short-handed they were and what good money
+packers were earning. I was sick of being cooped up in that stinking
+cellar, so, more by way of a joke than anything else, I offered to come
+and lend a hand in the packing department. I thought I might get a
+chance of escape, as I saw none at Haase's. To my surprise, Haase, who
+was sitting at the table, rather fancied the idea and said I could go if
+I paid him half my wages: I was getting nothing at the beer-cellar.
+
+"So I was taken on at Steglitz, sleeping at Haase's and helping in the
+beer-cellar in the evenings. One day a package for old van Urutius came
+to me to be made up and suddenly it occurred to me that here was a
+chance of sending out a message to the outside world. I hoped that old
+van U., if he tumbled to the 'Eichenholz,' would send it to you and that
+you would pass it on to my Chief in London."
+
+"Then you expected me to come after you?" I said.
+
+"No," replied Francis promptly, "I did not. But the arrangement was
+that, if none of us four men had turned up at Head-quarters by May 15th,
+a fifth man should come in and be at a given rendezvous near the
+frontier on June 15th. I went to the place on June 15th, but he never
+showed up and, though I waited about for a couple of days, I saw no
+sign of him. I made my final attempt to get out and it failed, so, when
+I fled to Berlin, I knew that I had cut off all means of communication
+with home. As a last hope, I dashed off that cipher on the spur of the
+moment and tucked it into old van U's invoice."
+
+"But why 'Achilles' with one 'l'?" I asked.
+
+"They knew all about Kore's agency at Head-quarters, but I didn't dare
+mention Kore's name for fear the parcel might be opened. So I purposely
+spelt 'Achilles' with one 'l' to draw attention to the code word, so
+that they should know where news of me was to be found. It was devilish
+smart of you to decipher that, Des!"
+
+Francis smiled at me.
+
+"I meant to stay quietly in Berlin, going daily between Haase's and the
+factory and wait, for a month or two, in case that message got home. But
+Kore began to give trouble. At the beginning of July he came to see me
+and hinted that the renewal of my _permis de séjour_ would cost money. I
+paid him, but I realized then that I was absolutely in his power and I
+had no intention of being blackmailed. So I made use of his cupidity to
+leave a message for the man who, I hoped, would be coming after me,
+wrote that line on the wall under the Boonekamp poster in that filthy
+hovel where we slept and came up here after a job I had heard of at the
+Café Regina.
+
+"And now, Des, old man," said my brother, "you know all that I know!"
+
+"And Clubfoot?"
+
+"Ah!" said Francis, shaking his head, "there I think I recognize the
+hand that has been against us from the start, though who the man is, and
+what his power, I, like you, only know from what he told you himself.
+The Germans are clever enough, as we know from their communiqués, to
+tell the truth when it suits their book. I believe that Clubfoot was
+telling you the truth in what he said about his mission that night at
+the Esplanade.
+
+"You and I know now that the Kaiser wrote that letter ... we also know
+that it was addressed to an influential English friend of William II.
+You have seen the date ... Berlin, July 31st, 1914 ... the eve of the
+outbreak of the world war. Even from this half in my pocket ... and you
+who have seen both halves of the letter will confirm what I say ... I
+can imagine what an effect on the international situation this letter
+would have had if it had reached the man for whom it was destined. But
+it did not ... why, we don't know. We do know, however, that the Emperor
+is keenly anxious to regain possession of his letter ... you yourself
+were a witness of his anxiety and you know that he put the matter into
+the hands of the man Clubfoot."
+
+"Well," I observed thoughtfully, "Clubfoot, whoever he is, seems to have
+made every effort to keep my escapades dark...."
+
+"Precisely," said Francis, "and lucky for you too. Otherwise Clubfoot
+would have had you stopped at the frontier. But obviously secrecy is an
+essential part of his instructions, and he has shown himself willing to
+risk almost anything rather than call in the aid of the regular police."
+
+"But they can always hush these things up!" I objected.
+
+"From the public, yes, but not from the Court. This letter looks
+uncommonly like one of William's sudden impulses ... and I fancy
+anything of the kind would get very little tolerance in Germany in
+war-time."
+
+"But who is Clubfoot?" I questioned.
+
+My brother furrowed his brows anxiously.
+
+"Des," he said, "I don't know. He is certainly not a regular official of
+the German Intelligence like Steinhauer and the others. But I _have_
+heard of a clubfooted German on two occasions ... both were dark and
+mysterious affairs, in both he played a leading role and both ended in
+the violent death of one of our men."
+
+"Then Tracy and the others...?" I asked.
+
+"Victims of this man, Des, without any doubt," my brother answered. He
+paused a moment reflectively.
+
+"There is a code of honour in our game, old man," he said, "and there
+are lots of men in the German secret service who live up to it. We give
+and take plenty of hard knocks in the rough-and-tumble of the chase, but
+ambush and assassination are barred."
+
+He took a deep breath and added:
+
+"But the man Clubfoot doesn't play the game!"
+
+"Francis," I said, "I wish I'd known something of this that night I had
+him at my mercy at the Esplanade. He would not have got off with a
+cracked skull ... with one blow. There would have been another blow for
+Tracy, one for Arbuthnot, one for the other man ... until the account
+was settled and I'd beaten his brains out on the carpet. But if we meet
+him again, Francis, ... as, please God, we shall! ... there will be no
+code of honour for _him_ ... we'll finish him in cold blood as we'd kill
+a rat!"
+
+My brother thrust out his hand at me and we clasped hands on it.
+
+Evening was falling and lights were beginning to twinkle from the
+further bank of the river.
+
+We stood for a moment in silence with the river rushing at our feet.
+Then we turned and started to tramp back towards the city. Francis
+linked his arm in mine.
+
+"And now, Des," he said in his old affectionate way, "tell me some more
+about Monica!"
+
+Out of that talk germinated in my head the only plan that seemed to
+offer us a chance of escape. I was quite prepared to believe Francis
+when he declared that the frontier was at present impassable: if the
+vigilance had been increased before it would be redoubled now that I had
+again eluded Clubfoot. We should, therefore, have to find some cover
+where we could lie doggo until the excitement passed.
+
+You remember that Monica told me, the last time I had seen her, that she
+was shortly going to Schloss Bellevue, a shooting-box belonging to her
+husband, to arrange some shoots in connection with the Governmental
+scheme for putting game on the market. Monica, you will recollect, had
+offered to take me with her, and I had fully meant to accompany her but
+for Gerry's unfortunate persistence in the matter of my passport.
+
+I now proposed to Francis that we should avail ourselves of Monica's
+offer and make for Castle Bellevue. The place was well suited for our
+purpose as it lies near Cleves, and in its immediate neighbourhood is
+the Reichswald, that great forest which stretches from Germany clear
+across into Holland. All through my wanderings, I had kept this forest
+in the back of my head as a region which must offer facilities for
+slipping unobserved across the frontier. Now I learnt from Francis that
+he had spent months in the vicinity of Cleves, and I was not surprised
+to find, when I outlined this plan to him, that he knew the Reichswald
+pretty well.
+
+"It'll be none too easy to get across through the forest," he said
+doubtfully, "it's very closely patrolled, but I do know of one place
+where we could lie pretty snug for a day or two waiting for a chance to
+make a dash. But we have no earthly chance of getting through at
+present: our clubfooted pal will see to that all right. And I don't much
+like the idea of going to Bellevue either: it will be horribly dangerous
+for Monica!"
+
+"I don't think so," I said. "The whole place will be overrun with
+people, guests, servants, beaters and the like, for these shoots. Both
+you and I know German and we look rough enough: we ought to be able to
+get an emergency job about the place without embarrassing Monica in the
+least. I don't believe they will ever dream of looking for us so close
+to this frontier. The only possible trail they can pick up after me in
+Berlin leads to Munich. Clubfoot is bound to think I am making for the
+Swiss frontier."
+
+Well, the long and the short of it was that my suggestion was carried,
+and we resolved to set out for Bellevue that very night. My brother
+declared he would not return to the café: with the present shortage of
+men, such desertions were by no means uncommon, and if he were to give
+notice formally it might only lead to embarrassing explanations.
+
+So we strolled back to the city in the gathering darkness, bought a map
+of the Rhine and a couple of rucksacks and laid in a small stock of
+provisions at a great department store, biscuits, chocolates, some hard
+sausage and two small flasks of rum. Then Francis took me to a little
+restaurant where he was known and introduced me to the friendly
+proprietor, a very jolly old Rheinlander, as his brother just out of
+hospital. I did my country good service, I think, by giving a most
+harrowing account of the terrible efficiency of the British army on the
+Somme!
+
+Then we dined and over our meal consulted the map.
+
+"By the map," I said, "Bellevue should be about fifty miles from here.
+My idea is that we should walk only at night and lie up during the day,
+as a room is out of the question for me without any papers. I think we
+should keep away from the Rhine, don't you? As otherwise we shall pass
+through Wesel, which is a fortress, and, consequently, devilish
+unhealthy for both of us."
+
+Francis nodded with his mouth full.
+
+"At present we can count on about twelve hours of darkness," I
+continued, "so, leaving a margin for the slight détour we shall make,
+for rests and for losing the way, I think we ought to be able to reach
+Castle Bellevue on the third night from this. If the weather holds up,
+it won't be too bad, but if it rains, it will be hellish! Now, have you
+any suggestions?"
+
+My brother acquiesced, as, indeed, he had in everything I had proposed
+since we met. Poor fellow, he had had a roughish time: he seemed glad to
+have the direction of affairs taken out of his hands for a bit.
+
+At half-past seven that evening, our packs on our backs, we stood on the
+outskirts of the town where the road branches off to Crefeld. In the
+pocket of the overcoat I had filched from Haase's I found an automatic
+pistol, fully loaded (most of our customers at the beer-cellar went
+armed).
+
+"You've got the document, Francis," I said. "You'd better have this,
+too!" and I passed him the gun.
+
+Francis waved it aside.
+
+"You keep it," he said grimly, "it may serve you instead of a passport."
+
+So I slipped the weapon back into my pocket.
+
+A cold drop of rain fell upon my face.
+
+"Oh, hell!" I cried, "it's beginning to rain!"
+
+And thus we set out upon our journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a nightmare tramp. The rain never ceased. By day we lay in icy
+misery, chilled to the bone in our sopping clothes, in some dank ditch
+or wet undergrowth, with aching bones and blistered feet, fearing
+detection, but fearing, even more, the coming of night and the
+resumption of our march. Yet we stuck to our programme like Spartans,
+and about eight o'clock on the third evening, hobbling painfully along
+the road that runs from Cleves to Calcar, we were rewarded by the sight
+of a long massive building, with turrets at the corners, standing back
+from the highway behind a tall brick wall.
+
+"Bellevue!" I said to Francis, with pointing finger.
+
+We left the road and climbing a wooden palisade, struck out across the
+fields with the idea of getting into the park from the back. We passed
+some black and silent farm buildings, went through a gate and into a
+paddock, on the further side of which ran the wall surrounding the
+place. Somewhere beyond the wall a fire was blazing. We could see the
+leaping light of the flames and drifting smoke. At the same moment we
+heard voices, loud voices disputing in German.
+
+We crept across the paddock to the wall, I gave Francis a back and he
+hoisted himself to the top and looked over. In a moment he sprang
+lightly down, a finger to his lips.
+
+"Soldiers round a fire," he whispered. "There must be troops billeted
+here. Come on ... we'll go further round!"
+
+We ran softly along the wall to where it turned to the right and
+followed it round. Presently we came to a small iron gate in the wall.
+It stood open.
+
+We listened. The sound of voices was fainter here. We still saw the
+reflection of the flames in the sky. Otherwise, there was no sign or
+sound of human life.
+
+The gate led into an ornamental garden with the Castle at the further
+end. All the windows were in darkness. We threaded a garden path leading
+to the house. It brought us in front of a glass door. I turned the
+handle and it yielded to my grasp.
+
+I whispered to Francis:
+
+"Stay where you are! And if you hear me shout, fly for your life!"
+
+For, I reflected, the place might be full of troops. If there were any
+risk it would be better for me to take it since Francis, with his
+identity papers, had a better chance than I of bringing the document
+into safety.
+
+I opened the glass door and found myself in a lobby with a door on the
+right.
+
+I listened again. All was still. I cautiously opened the door and
+looked in. As I did so the place was suddenly flooded with light and a
+voice--a voice I had often heard in my dreams--called out imperiously:
+
+"Stay where you are and put your hands above your head!"
+
+Clubfoot stood there, a pistol in his great hand pointed at me.
+
+"Grundt!" I shouted but I did not move.
+
+And Clubfoot laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+FRANCIS TAKES UP THE NARRATIVE
+
+
+I saw the lights flash up in the room. I heard Desmond cry out:
+"Grundt;" Instantly I flung myself flat on my face in the flower bed,
+lest Desmond's shout might have alarmed the soldiers about the fire. But
+no one came; the gardens remained dark and damp and silent, and I heard
+no sound from the room in which I knew my brother to be in the clutches
+of that man.
+
+Desmond's cry pulled me together. It seemed to arouse me from the
+lethargy into which I had sunk during all those months of danger and
+disappointment. It shook me into life. If I was to save him, not a
+moment was to be lost. Clubfoot would act swiftly, I knew. So must I.
+But first I must find out what the situation was, the meaning of
+Clubfoot's presence in Monica's house, of those soldiers in the park.
+And, above all, was Monica herself at the Castle?
+
+I had noticed a little estaminet place on the road, about a hundred
+yards before we reached the Schloss. I might, at least, be able to pick
+up something there. Accordingly, I stole across the garden, scaled the
+wall again and reached the road in safety.
+
+The estaminet was full of people, brutish-looking peasants swilling neat
+spirits, cattle drovers and the like. I stood up at the bar and ordered
+a double noggin of _Korn_--a raw spirit made in these parts from
+potatoes, very potent but at least pure. A man in corduroys and leggings
+was drinking at the bar, a bluff sort of chap, who readily entered into
+conversation. A casual question of mine about the game conditions
+elicited from him the information that he was an under-keeper at the
+Castle. It was a busy time for them, he told me, as four big shoots had
+been arranged. The first was to take place the next day. There were
+plenty of birds, and he thought the Frau Gräfin's guests ought to be
+satisfied.
+
+I asked him if there was a big party staying at the Castle. No, he told
+me, only one gentleman besides the officer billeted there, but a lot of
+people were coming over for the shoot the next day, the officers from
+Cleves and Goch, the Chief Magistrate from Cleves, and a number of
+farmers from round about.
+
+"I expect you will find the soldiers billeted at the Castle useful as
+beaters," I enquired with a purpose.
+
+The man assented grudgingly. Gamekeepers are first-class grumblers. But
+the soldiers were not many. For his part he could do without them
+altogether. They were such terrible poachers to have about the place, he
+declared. But what they would do for beaters without them, he didn't
+know ... they were very short of beaters ... that was a fact.
+
+"I am staying at Cleves," I said, "and I'm out of a job. I am not long
+from hospital, and they've discharged me from the army. I wouldn't mind
+earning a few marks as a beater, and I'd like to see the sport. I used
+to do a bit of shooting myself down on the Rhine where I come from."
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "That's none of my
+business, getting the beaters together," he replied. "Besides, I shall
+have the head gamekeeper after me if I go bringing strangers in...."
+
+I ordered another drink for both of us, and won the man round without
+much difficulty. He pouched my five mark note and announced that he
+would manage it ... the Frau Gräfin was to see some men who had offered
+their services as beaters after dinner at the Castle that evening. He
+would take me along.
+
+Half an hour later I stood, as one of a group of shaggy and bedraggled
+rustics, in a big stone courtyard outside the main entrance to the
+Castle. The head gamekeeper mustered us with his eye and, bidding us
+follow him, led the way under a vaulted gateway through a massive door
+into a small lobby which had apparently been built into the great hall
+of the Castle, for it opened right into it.
+
+We found ourselves in a splendid old feudal hall, oak-lined and
+oak-raftered, with lines of dusty banners just visible in the twilight
+reigning in the upper part of the vast place. The modern generation had
+forborne to desecrate the fine old room with electric light, and massive
+silver candlesticks shed a soft light on the table set at the far end of
+the hall, where dinner, apparently, was just at an end.
+
+Three people were sitting at the table, a woman at the head, who, even
+before I had taken in the details I have just set down, I knew to be
+Monica, though her back was towards me. On one side of the table was a
+big, heavy man whom I recognized as Clubfoot, on the other side a pale
+slip of a lad in officer's uniform with only one arm ... Schmalz, no
+doubt.
+
+A servant said something to Monica, who, asking permission of her
+companions by a gesture, left the table and came across the hall. To my
+surprise, she was dressed in deepest black with linen cuffs. Her face was
+pale and set, and there was a look of fear and suffering in her eyes
+that wrung my very heart.
+
+I had shuffled into the last place of the row in which the head keeper
+had ranged us. Monica spoke a word or two to each of the men, who
+shambled off in turn with low obeisances. Directly she stopped in front
+of me I knew she had recognized me--I felt it rather, for she made no
+sign--though the time I had had in Germany had altered my appearance, I
+dare say, and I must have looked pretty rough with my three days' beard
+and muddy clothes.
+
+"Ah!" she said with all her languor _de grande dame_, "you are the man
+of whom Heinrich spoke. You have just come out of hospital, I think?"
+
+"Beg the Frau Gräfin's pardon," I mumbled out in the thick patois of the
+Rhine which I had learnt at Bonn, "I served with the Herr Graf in
+Galicia, and I thought maybe the Frau Gräfin ..."
+
+She stopped me with a gesture.
+
+"Herr Doktor!" she called to the dinner-table.
+
+By Jove! this girl had grit: her pluck was splendid.
+
+Clubfoot came stumping over, all smiles after his food and smoking a
+long cigar that smelt delicious.
+
+"Frau Gräfin?" he queried, glancing at me.
+
+"This is a man who served under my husband in Galicia. He is ill and out
+of work, and wishes me to help him. I should wish, therefore, to see him
+in my sitting-room, if you will allow me...."
+
+"But, Frau Gräfin, most certainly. There surely was no need ..."
+
+"Johann!" Monica called the servant I had seen before, "take this man
+into the sitting-room!"
+
+The servant led the way across the hall into a snugly furnished library
+with a dainty writing-desk and pretty chintz curtains. Monica followed
+and sat down at the desk.
+
+"Now tell me what you wish to say ..." she began in German as the servant
+left the room, but almost as soon as he had gone she was on her feet,
+clasping my hands.
+
+"Francis!" she whispered in English in a great sob, "oh, Francis! what
+have they done to you to make you look like that?"
+
+I gripped her wrist tightly.
+
+"Frau Gräfin," I said in German, still in that hideous patois, "you must
+be calm." And I whispered in English in her ear:
+
+"Monica, be brave! And talk German whatever you do."
+
+She regained her self-possession at once.
+
+"I understand," she answered, sitting down at her desk again; "it is
+more prudent."
+
+And for the rest of the time we spoke in German.
+
+"Desmond?" I asked.
+
+"Locked up in Grundt's bedroom," she replied. "I met them pushing him
+along the corridor--it was horrible! Grundt won't let him out of his
+sight. Oh, it was madness to have come. If only I could have warned
+you!"
+
+"What is Grundt doing here?" I asked. "And those soldiers and that
+officer?"
+
+"My dear," she answered, and her eyes flashed mischief in a sudden
+change of mood, "I'm in preventive arrest!"
+
+"But, Monica...."
+
+"Listen! Gerry and that spying man-servant of his made trouble. When Des
+went off that evening and didn't come back, Gerry insisted that we
+should notify the police. He made an awful scene, then the valet chipped
+in, and from what he said I knew he meant mischief. I didn't dare trust
+Gerry with the truth, so I let him send a note to the police. They came
+round and asked a lot of questions and went away again, so I thought
+we'd heard the last of it and came up here. Gerry wouldn't come. He's
+gone off to Baden-Baden on some new cure.
+
+"About a week ago the Chief Magistrate at Cleves, who is an old friend
+of ours, motored over, and after a lot of talk, blurted out that I was
+to consider myself under arrest, and that an officer and a detachment of
+men from Goch were coming over to guard the house. The magistrate man
+would have told me anything I wanted to know, but he knew nothing: he
+simply carried out his orders. Then the lieutenant and his men arrived,
+and since that time I have been a prisoner in the house and grounds. I
+was terribly scared about Des until Grundt arrived suddenly, two nights
+ago, and I saw at once by his face that Des was still at large. But,
+Francis, that Clubfoot man came here to catch Des ... and he has simply
+walked into the trap."
+
+"And Desmond?" I asked. "What is Clubfoot going to do about him?"
+
+"He was with Des for about an hour in his room, and I heard him tell
+Schmalz he would 'try again' after dinner. Oh, Francis, I am frightened
+of that man ... not a word has he said to me about my knowing
+Desmond--not a word about my harbouring Des in Berlin ... but he knows
+everything, and he watches me the whole time."
+
+I glanced through the open door into the hall. The candles still burnt
+on the dinner-table, where Clubfoot and the officer sat conversing in
+low tones.
+
+"I have been here long enough," I said. "But before I go, I want you to
+answer one or two questions, Monica. Will you?"
+
+"Yes, Francis," she said, raising her eyes to mine.
+
+"What time is the shoot to-morrow?"
+
+"At ten o'clock."
+
+"Are Grundt and Schmalz going?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Could you get away back to the house by 12.30?"
+
+"Not alone. One of them is always with me out of doors."
+
+"Could you meet me alone anywhere outside at that time?"
+
+"There is a quarry outside a village called Quellenburg ... it is on the
+edge of our preserves ... just off the road. We ought to be as far as
+that by twelve. If it is necessary, I will try and give them the slip
+and hide in one of the caves there. Then, when you came, if you whistled
+I could come out."
+
+"Good. That will do excellently. We will arrange it so. Now, another
+question ... how many soldiers have you here?"
+
+"Sixteen."
+
+"Are they all going beating?"
+
+"Oh, no! Only ten of them. The other six and the sergeant remain
+behind."
+
+"Have you a car here?"
+
+"No, but Grundt has one."
+
+"How many servants will there be in the house to-morrow?"
+
+"Only Johann, the butler, and the maids ... a woman cook and two girls."
+
+"Can you contrive to have Johann out of the house between 10 and 12:30
+to-morrow morning?"
+
+"Yes, I can send him to Cleves with a note."
+
+"The maids too?"
+
+"Yes, the maids too."
+
+"Good. Now will you do one thing more--the hardest of all? I want you
+to send a message to Desmond. Can you arrange it?"
+
+"Tell me what your message is, and I may be able to answer you."
+
+"I want you to tell him that he must at all costs contrive to keep
+Grundt from going to that shoot to-morrow ... at any rate between ten
+and twelve. He must manage to let Grundt believe that he is going to
+tell him where Grundt may find what he is after ... but he must keep him
+in suspense during those hours."
+
+"And after?"
+
+"There will be no after," I said.
+
+"I will see that Des gets your message," Monica replied, "for I will
+take it myself."
+
+"No, Monica," I said, "I don't want..."
+
+"Francis," ...she spoke almost in a whisper ... "my life in this country
+is over," ... and she touched her widow's weeds.... "Karl was killed at
+Predeal three weeks ago.... You know as well as I do that I am involved
+in this affair as much as you and Des ... and I will share the risk if
+only you will take me away with you ... that is if you ..." She
+faltered.
+
+I heard the chairs scrape in the corner of the hall where the
+dinner-party was breaking up.
+
+"The Frau Gräfin has only to command," I said. "The Frau Gräfin knows I
+have been waiting for years...."
+
+Clubfoot was crossing towards the open door.
+
+"... I never expected to find the Frau Gräfin so gracious.... I had
+never hoped that the Frau Gräfin would be willing to do so much for
+me ... the Frau Gräfin has made me very happy."
+
+Clubfoot stood on the threshold and listened to my halting speech.
+
+"You can bring your things in when you come to-morrow ..." Monica said.
+"The keeper will tell you what time you must be here."
+
+Then she dismissed me, but as I went I heard her say:
+
+"Herr Doktor! Can I have a word with you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+I GO ON WITH THE STORY
+
+
+I was in the billiard-room of the Castle, a dusty place, obviously
+little used, for it smelt of damp. A fire was burning in the grate,
+however, and on a table in the corner, which was littered with papers,
+stood a dispatch box.
+
+Clubfoot wore a dinner-coat and, as he laughed, his white expanse of
+shirt-front heaved to the shaking of his deep chest. For a moment,
+however, I had little thought of him or the ugly-looking Browning he
+held in his fist. My ears were strained for any sound that might betray
+Francis' presence in the garden. But all remained silent as the grave.
+
+Clubfoot, still chuckling audibly, walked over to me. I thought he was
+going to shoot me, he came so straight and so fast, but it was only to
+get behind me and shut the door, driving me, as he did so, farther into
+the room.
+
+The door by which he had entered stood open. Without taking his eyes off
+me or deflecting his weapon from its aim, he called out:
+
+"Schmalz!"
+
+A light step resounded, and the one-armed lieutenant tripped into the
+room. When he saw me, he stopped dead. Then he softly began to circle
+round me with a mincing step, murmuring to himself: "So! So!"
+
+"Good evening, Dr. Semlin!" he said in English. "Say, I'm mighty glad to
+see you! Well, Okewood, dear old boy, here we are again. What? Herr
+Julius Zimmermann ..." and he broke into German, "_es freut mich!_"
+
+I could have killed him where he stood, maimed though he was, for his
+fluency in the American and English idiom alone.
+
+"Search him, Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot curtly.
+
+Schmalz ran the fingers of his one arm over my pockets, flinging my
+portfolio on the billiard-table towards Clubfoot, and the other articles
+as they came to light ... my pistol, watch, cigarette-case and so
+forth ... on to a leather lounge against the wall. In his search he
+brushed me with his severed stump ... ugh, it was horrible!
+
+Clubfoot had snatched up the portfolio and hastily examined it. He shook
+the contents out on the billiard-table and examined them carefully.
+
+"Not there!" he said. "Run him upstairs, and we'll strip him," he
+ordered; "and let not our clever young friend forget that I'm behind him
+with my little toy!"
+
+Schmalz gripped me by the collar, spitefully digging his knuckles into
+my neck, and propelled me out of the room ... almost into the arms of
+Monica.
+
+She screamed and, turning, fled away down the passage. Clubfoot laughed
+noisily, but I reflected mournfully that in my present sorry plight,
+unwashed and unshaven, in filthy clothes, haled along like a common
+pickpocket, even my own mother would not have recognized me.
+
+There was a degrading scene in the bedroom to which they dragged me,
+where the two men stripped me to the skin and pawed over every single
+article of clothing I possessed. Physically and mentally, I cowered in
+my nudity before the unwholesome gaze of these two sinister cripples. Of
+all my experiences in Germany, I still look back upon that as almost my
+worst ordeal.
+
+Of course, they found nothing, search as they might, and presently they
+flung my clothes back at me and bade me get dressed again, "for you and
+I, young man," said Clubfoot, with his glinting smile, "have got to have
+a little talk together!"
+
+When I was once more clothed--
+
+"You can leave us, Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot, "and send up the
+sergeant when I ring: he shall look after this tricky Englishman whilst
+we are at dinner with our charming hostess."
+
+Schmalz went out and left us alone. Clubfoot lighted a cigar. He smoked
+in silence for a few minutes. I said nothing, for really there was
+nothing for me to say. They hadn't got their precious document, and it
+was not likely they would ever recover it now. I feared greatly that
+Francis in his loyalty might make an attempt to rescue me, but I hoped,
+whatever he did, he would think first of putting the document in a place
+of safety. I was more or less resigned to my fate. I was in their hands
+properly now, and whether they got the document or not, my doom was
+sealed.
+
+"I will pay you the compliment of saying, my dear Captain Okewood,"
+Clubfoot remarked in that urbane voice of his which always made my
+blood run cold, "that never before in my career have I devoted so much
+thought to any single individual, in the different cases I have handled,
+as I have to you. As an individual, you are a paltry thing: it is rather
+your remarkable good fortune that interests me as a philosopher of
+sorts.... I assure you it will cause me serious concern to be the
+instrument of severing your really extraordinary strain of good luck. I
+don't mind telling you, as man to man, that I have not yet entirely
+decided in my mind what to do with you now that I've got you!"
+
+I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"You've got me, certainly," I replied, "but you would vastly prefer to
+have what I have not got."
+
+"Let us not forget to be always content with small mercies,"
+answered the other, smiling with a gleam of his golden teeth,... "that
+is a favourite maxim of mine. As you truly remark, I would certainly
+prefer the ... the jewel to the infinitely less precious
+and ... interesting ... casket. But what I have, I hold. And I
+have you ... and your accomplice as well."
+
+"I have no accomplice," I denied stoutly.
+
+"Surely you forget our gracious hostess, our most charming Countess? Was
+it not thanks to the interest she deigned to take in your safety that I
+came here? Had it not been for that circumstance, I should scarcely have
+ventured to intrude upon her widowhood...."
+
+"Her widowhood?" I exclaimed.
+
+Clubfoot smiled again.
+
+"You cannot have followed the newspapers in your ... retreat, my dear
+Captain Okewood," he replied, "or surely you would have read the
+afflicting intelligence that Count Rachwitz, A.D.C. to Field-Marshal von
+Mackensen, was killed by a shell that fell into the Brigade Head-quarters
+where he was lunching at Predeal. Ah, yes," he sighed, "our beautiful
+Countess is now a widow, alone ..." he paused, then added, "... and
+unprotected!"
+
+I understood his allusion and went cold with fear. Why, Monica was
+involved in this affair as much as I. Surely they wouldn't dare to touch
+her....
+
+Clubfoot leaned forward and tapped me on the knee.
+
+"You will be sensible, Okewood," he said confidentially. "You've lost.
+You can't save yourself. Your life was forfeit from the moment you
+crossed the threshold of his Majesty's private apartments ... but you
+can save _her_."
+
+I shook his huge hand off my leg.
+
+"You won't bluff me," I answered roughly. "You daren't touch the
+Countess Rachwitz, an American lady, niece of an American ambassador,
+married into one of your leading families ... no, Herr Doktor, you must
+try something else."
+
+"Do you know why Schmalz is here?" he asked patiently, "and those
+soldiers?... You must have passed through the cordon to come here. Your
+little friend is in preventive arrest. She would be in gaol (she doesn't
+know it), but that His Majesty was unwilling to put this affront on the
+Rachwitz family in their great affliction."
+
+"The Countess Rachwitz has nothing whatever to do with me," ... rather a
+foolish lie, I thought to myself too late, as I was in her house.
+
+But Clubfoot remained quite unperturbed.
+
+"I shall take you into my confidence, my dear sir," he said, "to show
+that I know you to be stating an untruth. The Countess, on the contrary,
+is, to use a vulgar phrase, in it up to the neck. Thanks to the amazing
+imbecility of the Berlin police, I was not informed of your brief stay
+at the Bendler-Strasse, even after they were called in by the invalid
+American gentleman in the matter of your hasty flight when asked to have
+your passport put in order. But we are systematic, we Germans; we are
+painstaking; and I set about going through every possible place that
+might afford you shelter.
+
+"In the course of my investigations I came across our mutual friend,
+Herr Kore. A perusal of his very business-like ledgers showed me that on
+the day following your disappearance from the Esplanade he had received
+3,600 marks from a certain E. 2 ... all names in his books were in
+cipher. Under the influence of my winning personality, Herr Kore told me
+all he knew; I pursued my investigations and then discovered what the
+asinine police had omitted to tell me, namely, that on the date in
+question an alleged American had made a hurried flight from the Countess
+Rachwitz's apartment in the Bendler-Strasse. An admirable fellow ... Max
+or Otto, or some name like that ... anyhow, he was valet to Madame's
+invalid brother, was able to fill in all the lacunae, and I was thus
+enabled to draw up a very strong case against your well-meaning but
+singularly ill-advised hostess. By this time the lady had left Berlin
+for this charming old-world seat, and I promptly took measures to have
+her placed in preventive arrest whilst I tracked _you_ down.
+
+"You got away again. Even Jupiter nods, you know, my dear Captain
+Okewood, and I frankly admit I overlooked the silver badge which you had
+in your possession. I must compliment you also on your adroitness in
+leaving us that false trail to Munich. It took me in to the extent that
+I dispatched an emissary to hunt you down in that delightful capital,
+but, for myself, I have a certain _flair_ in these matters, and I
+thought you would sooner or later come to Bellevue. You will admit that
+I showed some perspicacity?"
+
+"You're wasting time with all this talk," I said sullenly.
+
+Clubfoot raised a hand deprecatingly.
+
+"I take a pride in my work," he observed half-apologetically. Then he
+added:
+
+"You must not forget that your pretty Countess is not an American. She
+is a German. She is also a widow. You may not know the relations that
+existed between her and her late husband, but they were not, I assure
+you, of such warmth that the Rachwitz family would unduly mourn her
+loss. Do you suppose we care a fig for all the American ambassadors that
+ever left the States? My dear sir, I observe that you are still
+lamentably ignorant of the revolution that war brings into international
+relations. In war, where the national interest is concerned, the
+individual is nothing. If he or she must be removed, puff! you snuff the
+offender out. Afterwards you can always pay or apologize, or do what is
+required."
+
+I listened in silence; I had no defence to offer in face of this deadly
+logic, the logic of the stronger man.
+
+Clubfoot produced a paper from his pocket.
+
+"Read that!" he said, tossing it over to me. "It is the summons for the
+Countess Rachwitz to appear before a court-martial. Date blank, you see.
+You needn't tear it up ... I've got several spare blank forms ... one
+for you, too!"
+
+I felt my courage ebbing and my heart turning to water. I handed him
+back his paper in silence. The booming of a dinner gong suddenly swelled
+into the stillness of the room. Clubfoot rose and rang the bell.
+
+"Here's my offer, Okewood!" he said. "You shall restore that letter to
+me in its integrity, and the Countess Rachwitz shall go free provided
+she leaves this country and does not return. That's my last word! Take
+the night to sleep on it! I shall come for my answer in the morning."
+
+A sergeant in field-grey with a rifle and fixed bayonet stood in the
+doorway.
+
+"I make you responsible for this man, Sergeant," said Clubfoot, "until I
+return in an hour or so. Food will be sent up for him and you will
+personally assure yourself that no message is conveyed to him by that or
+any other means."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I had washed, I had brushed my clothes, I had dined, and I sat in
+silence by the table, in the most utter dejection of spirit, I think,
+into which it is possible for a man to fall. I was so totally crushed by
+the disappointment of the evening that I don't think I pondered much
+about my own fate at all. But my thoughts were busy with Monica. My life
+was my own, and I knew I had a lien on my brother's if thereby our
+mission might be carried through to the end. But had I the right to
+sacrifice Monica?
+
+And then the unexpected happened. The door opened, and she came in,
+Schmalz behind her. He dismissed the sergeant with a word of caution to
+see that the sentries round the house were vigilant, and followed the
+man out, leaving Monica and me alone.
+
+The girl stopped the torrent of self-reproach that rose to my lips with
+a pretty gesture. She was pale, but she held her head as high as ever.
+
+"Schmalz has given me five minutes alone with you, Des," she said, "to
+plead with you for my life, that you may betray your trust. No, don't
+speak ... there is no time to waste in words. I have a message for you
+from Francis.... Yes, I have seen him here, this very night.... He says
+you must contrive at all costs to keep Grundt from going to the shoot at
+ten o'clock to-morrow, and to detain him with you from ten to twelve.
+That is all I know about it.... But Francis has planned something, and
+you and I have got to trust him. Now, listen ... I shall tell Clubfoot I
+have pleaded with you and that you show signs of weakening. Say nothing
+to-night, temporize with him when he comes for his answer in the
+morning, and then send for him at a quarter to ten, when he will be
+leaving the house with the others. The rest I leave to you. Good night,
+Des, and cheer up!"...
+
+"But, Monica," I cried, "what about you?"
+
+She reddened deliciously under her pallor.
+
+"Des," she replied happily, "we are allies now, we three. If all goes
+well, I'm coming with you and Francis!"
+
+With that she was gone. A few minutes after, a couple of soldiers
+arrived with Schmalz and took me downstairs to a dark cellar in the
+basement, where I was locked in for the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was dreaming of the front ... again I sniffed the old familiar smells,
+the scent of fresh earth, the fetid odour of death; again I heard
+outside the trench the faint rattle of tools, the low whispers of our
+wiring party; again I saw the very lights soaring skyward and revealing
+the desolation of the battlefield in their glare. Someone was shaking me
+by the shoulder. It was my servant come to wake me.... I must have
+fallen asleep. Was it stand-to so soon? I sat up and rubbed my eyes and
+awoke to the anguish of another day.
+
+The sergeant stood at the cellar door, framed in the bright morning
+light.
+
+"You are to come upstairs!" he said.
+
+He took me to the billiard-room, where Clubfoot, sleek and washed and
+shaved, sat at the writing-table in the sunshine, opening letters and
+sipping coffee. A clock on a bracket above his head pointed to eight.
+
+"You wish to speak to me, I believe," he said carelessly, running his
+eye over a letter in his hand.
+
+"You must give me a little more time, Herr Doktor," I said. "I was worn
+out last night and I could not look at things in their proper light. If
+you could spare me a few hours more...."
+
+I put a touch of pleading into my voice, which struck him at once.
+
+"I am not unreasonable, my dear Captain Okewood," he replied, "but you
+will understand that I am not to be trifled with, so I give you fair
+warning. I will give you until...."
+
+"It is eight o'clock now," I interrupted. "I tell you what, give me
+until ten. Will that do?"
+
+Clubfoot nodded assent.
+
+"Take this man upstairs to my bedroom," he ordered the sergeant. "Stay
+with him while he has his breakfast, and bring him back here at ten
+o'clock. And tell Schmidt to leave my car at the door: he needn't wait,
+as he is to beat: I will drive myself to the shoot."
+
+I don't really remember what happened after that. I swallowed some
+breakfast, but I had no idea what I was eating, and the sergeant, who
+was a model of Prussian discipline, declined with a surly frown to enter
+into conversation with me. My morale was very low: when I look back upon
+that morning I think I must have been pretty near the breaking-point.
+
+As I sat and waited I heard the house in a turmoil of preparation for
+the shoot. There was the sound of voices, of heavy boots in the hall, of
+wheels and horses in the yard without. Then the noises died away and all
+was still. Shortly afterwards, the clock pointing to ten, the sergeant
+escorted me downstairs again to the billiard-room.
+
+Grundt was still sitting there. A hot wave of anger drove the blood into
+my cheeks as I looked at him, fat and soft and so triumphant at his
+victory. The sight of him, however, gave me the tonic I needed. My nerve
+was shaken badly, but I was determined it must answer to this last
+strain, to play this uncouth fish for two hours. After that ... if
+nothing happened ...
+
+Clubfoot sent the sergeant away.
+
+"I can look after him myself now," he said, in a blithe tone that
+betrayed his conviction of success. So the sergeant saluted and left the
+room, his footsteps echoing down the passages like the leaden feet of
+Destiny, relentless, inexorable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+WE HAVE A RECKONING WITH CLUBFOOT
+
+
+I looked at Clubfoot.
+
+I must play him with caution, with method, too.
+
+Only by acting on a most exact system could I hope to hold him in that
+room for two hours. I had four points to argue with him and I would
+devote half an hour to each of them by the clock on the bracket above
+his head. If only I could keep him confident in his victory, I might
+hope to prevent him finding out that I was playing with him ... but two
+hours is a long time ... it would be a near thing.
+
+One point in my favour ... my manner gave him the assurance of success
+from the start. There was nothing counterfeit about my tone of humility,
+for in truth I was very near despair. I was making this last effort at
+the bidding of my brother, but I felt it to be a forlorn hope: in my
+heart of hearts I knew I was down and out.
+
+So I went straight to the point and told Clubfoot that I was beaten,
+that he should have his paper. But there were difficulties about the
+execution of both sides of the bargain. We had deceived one another.
+What mutual guarantees could we exchange that would give each of us the
+assurance of fair play?
+
+Clubfoot settled this point in characteristic fashion. He protested his
+good faith elaborately, but the gist of his remarks was that he held the
+cards and that, consequently, it was he who must be trusted, whilst I
+furnished the guarantee.
+
+Whilst we were discussing this point the clock chimed the half-hour.
+
+I switched the conversation to Monica. I was not at all concerned about
+myself, I said, but I must feel sure in my mind that no ill should
+befall her. To this Clubfoot replied that I might set my mind at ease:
+the moment the document was in his hands he would give orders for her
+release: I should be there and might see it done myself.
+
+What guarantee was there, I asked, that she would not be detained before
+she reached the frontier?
+
+Clubfoot was getting a little restless. With his eye on the clock but in
+a placid voice he again protested that his word was the sole guarantee
+he could offer.
+
+We discussed this too. My manner was earnest and nervous, I know, and I
+think he enjoyed playing with me. I told him frankly that his reputation
+belied his protestations of good faith. At this he laughed and
+cynically admitted that this was quite possibly the case.
+
+"Nevertheless, it is I who give the guarantee," he said in a tone that
+brooked no contradiction.
+
+The clock struck eleven.
+
+One hour to go!
+
+"Come, Okewood," he added good-naturedly, "we waste time. Up to this
+you've had all the sport, you know. You wouldn't have me miss the first
+day's shooting I've had this year. Where have you got this letter of
+ours?"
+
+He was an extraordinary man. To hear him address me, you would never
+have supposed that he was sending me to my death. He appeared to have
+forgotten this detail. It meant so little to him that he probably had.
+
+I turned to my third point. He made things very hard for me, I said, but
+I was the vanquished and must give way. The trouble was that the
+document was still in two portions and neither half was here.
+
+"You indicate where the halves are hidden," said Clubfoot promptly. "I
+will accompany you to the hiding-places and you will hand them to me."
+
+"But they are nowhere near here," I replied.
+
+"Then where are they?" answered Clubfoot impatiently. "Come, I am
+waiting and it's getting late!"
+
+"It will take several days to recover both portions," I muttered
+unwillingly.
+
+"That does not matter," retorted the other; "there is no particular
+hurry ... now!"
+
+And he smiled grimly.
+
+I dared not raise my eyes to the clock, for I felt the German's gaze on
+me. An intuitive instinct told me that his suspicions had been awakened
+by my reluctance. I was very nearly at the end of my resources.
+
+Would the clock never strike?
+
+"I tell you frankly, Herr Doktor," I said in a voice that trembled with
+anxiety, "I cannot leave the Countess unprotected whilst we travel
+together to the hiding-places of the document. I only feel sure of her
+safety whilst she is near me...."
+
+Clubfoot bent his brows at me.
+
+"What do you suggest then?" he said very sternly.
+
+"You go and recover the two halves at the places I indicate," I
+stammered out, "and ... and ..."
+
+A faint whirr and the silver chime rang out twice.
+
+Half an hour more!
+
+How still the house was! I could hear the clock ticking--no, that
+thudding must be my heart. My wits failed me, my mind had become a
+blank, my throat was dry with fear.
+
+"I've wasted an hour and a half over you, young man," said Clubfoot
+suddenly, "and it's time that this conversation was brought to a close.
+I warn you again that I am not to be trifled with. The situation is
+perfectly clear: it rests with you whether the Countess Rachwitz goes
+free or is court-martialled this afternoon at Cleves and shot this
+evening. Your suggestion is absurd. I'll be reasonable with you. We will
+both stay here. I will wire for the two portions of the letter to be
+fetched at the places you indicate, and as soon as I hold the entire
+letter in my hands the Countess will be driven to the frontier. I will
+allow her butler here to accompany her and he can return and assure you
+that she is in safety."
+
+He stretched out his hand and pulled a block of telegraph forms towards
+him.
+
+"Where shall we find the two halves?" he said.
+
+"One is in Holland," I murmured.
+
+He looked up quickly.
+
+"If you dare to play me false...."
+
+He broke off when he saw my face.
+
+The room was going round with me. My hands felt cold as ice. I was
+struggling for the mastery over myself, but I felt my body swaying.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Clubfoot musingly, "that would be Semlin's half.... I
+might have known.... Well, never mind, Schmalz can take my car and fetch
+it. He can be back by to-morrow. Where is he to go?"
+
+"The other half is in Berlin," I said desperately. My voice sounded to
+me like a third person speaking.
+
+"That's simpler," replied Clubfoot. "Ten minutes to twelve now ... if I
+wire at once, that half should be here by midnight.... I'll get the
+message off immediately...."
+
+He looked up at me, pencil in hand.
+
+It was the end. I had kept faith with Francis to the limit of my powers,
+but now my resistance was broken. He had failed me ... not me, but
+Monica, rather.... I could not save her now. Like some nightmare film,
+the crowded hours of the past few weeks flashed past my eyes, a jostling
+procession of figures--Semlin with his blue lips and livid face, Schratt
+with her bejewelled hands, the Jew Kore, Haase with his bullet head,
+Francis, sadly musing on the café verandah ... and Monica, all in white,
+as I saw her that night at the Esplanade ... my thoughts always came
+back to her, a white and pitiful figure in some dusty courtyard at
+lamplight facing a row of levelled rifles....
+
+"I am waiting!"
+
+Clubfoot's voice broke stridently upon the silence.
+
+Should I tell him the truth now?
+
+It was three minutes to the hour.
+
+"Come! The two addresses!"
+
+I would keep faith to the last.
+
+"Herr Doktor!" I faltered.
+
+He dashed the pencil down on the table and sprang to his feet. He
+caught me by the lapels of my coat and shook me in an iron grip.
+
+"The addresses, you dog!" he said.
+
+The clock whirred faintly. There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in!" roared Clubfoot and resumed his seat.
+
+The clock was chiming twelve.
+
+An officer stepped in briskly and saluted.
+
+It was Francis!... Francis, freshly shaved, his moustache neatly
+trimmed, a monocle in his eye, in a beautifully waisted grey military
+overcoat, one white-gloved hand raised in salute to his helmet.
+
+"Hauptmann von Salzmann!" ... he introduced himself, clicking his heels
+and bowing to Clubfoot, who glared at him, frowning at the interruption.
+He spoke with the clipped, mincing utterance of the typical Prussian
+officer. "I am looking for Herr Leutnant Schmalz," he said.
+
+"He is not in," answered Clubfoot in a surly voice. "He is out and I am
+busy ... I do not wish to be disturbed."
+
+"As Schmalz is out," the officer returned suavely, advancing to the
+desk, "I must trouble you for an instant, I fear. I have been sent over
+from Goch to inspect the guard here. But I find no guard ... there is
+not a man in the place."
+
+Clubfoot angrily heaved his unwieldy bulk from his chair.
+
+"Gott im Himmel!" he cried savagely. "It is incredible that I can never
+be left in peace. What the devil has the guard got to do with me? Will
+you understand that I have nothing to do with the guard! There is a
+sergeant somewhere ... curse him for a lazy scoundrel ... I'll ring ..."
+
+He never finished the sentence. As he turned his back on my brother to
+reach the bell in the wall, Francis sprang on him from behind, seizing
+his bull neck in an iron grip and driving his knee at the same moment
+into that vast expanse of back.
+
+The huge German, taken by surprise, crashed over backwards, my brother
+on top of him.
+
+It was so quickly done that, for the instant, I was dumbfounded.
+
+"Quick, Des, the door!" my brother gasped. "Lock the door!"
+
+The big German was roaring like a bull and plunging wildly under my
+brother's fingers, his clubfoot beating a thunderous tattoo on the
+parquet floor. In his fall Clubfoot's left arm had been bent under him
+and was now pinioned to the ground by his great weight. With his free
+right arm he strove fiercely to force off my brother's fingers as
+Francis fought to get a grip on the man's throat and choke him into
+silence.
+
+I darted to the door. The key was on the inside and I turned it in a
+trice. As I turned to go to my brother's help my eye caught sight of the
+butt of my pistol lying where Schmalz had thrown it the evening before
+under my overcoat on the leather lounge.
+
+I snatched up the weapon and dropped by my brother's side, crushing
+Clubfoot's right arm to the ground. I thrust the pistol in his face.
+
+"Stop that noise!" I commanded.
+
+The German obeyed.
+
+"Better search him, Francis," I said to my brother. "He probably has a
+Browning on him somewhere."
+
+Francis went through the man's pockets, reaching up and putting each
+article as it came to light on the desk above him. From an inner breast
+pocket he extracted the Browning. He glanced at it: the magazine was
+full with a cartridge in the breech.
+
+"Hadn't we better truss him up?" Francis said to me.
+
+"No," I said. I was still kneeling on the German's arm. He seemed
+exhausted. His head had fallen back upon the ground.
+
+"Let me up, curse you!" he choked.
+
+"No!" I said again and Francis turned and looked at me.
+
+Each of us knew what was in the other's mind, my brother and I. We were
+thinking of a hand-clasp we had exchanged on the banks of the Rhine.
+
+I was about to speak but Francis checked me. He was trembling all over.
+I could feel his elbow quiver where it touched mine.
+
+"No, Des, please ..." he pleaded, "let me ... this is my show...."
+
+Then, in a voice that vibrated with suppressed passion, he spoke swiftly
+to Clubfoot.
+
+"Take a good look at me, Grundt," he said sternly. "You don't know me,
+do you? I am Francis Okewood, brother of the man who has brought you to
+your fall. You don't know me, but you knew some of my friends, I think.
+Jack Tracy? Do you remember him? And Herbert Arbuthnot? Ah, you knew
+him, too. And Philip Brewster? You remember him as well, do you? No need
+to ask you what happened to poor Philip!"
+
+The man on the floor answered nothing, but I saw the colour very slowly
+fade from his cheeks.
+
+My brother spoke again.
+
+"There were four of us after that letter, as you knew, Grundt, and three
+of us are dead. But you never got me. I was the fourth man, the unknown
+quantity in all your elaborate calculations ... and it seems to me I
+spoiled your reckoning ... I and this brother of mine ... an amateur at
+the game, Grundt!"
+
+Still Clubfoot was silent, but I noticed a bead of perspiration tremble
+on his forehead, then trickle down his ashen cheeks and drop splashing
+to the floor.
+
+Francis continued in the same deep, relentless voice.
+
+"I never thought I should have to soil my hands by ridding the world of
+a man like you, Grundt, but it has come to it and you have to die. I'd
+have killed you in hot blood when I first came in but for Jack and
+Herbert and the others ... for their sake you had to know who is your
+executioner."
+
+My brother raised the pistol. As he did so the man on the floor, by a
+tremendous effort of strength, rose erect to his knees, flinging me
+headlong. Then there was a hot burst of flame close to my cheek as I lay
+on the floor, a deafening report, a thud and a sickening gurgle.
+
+Something twitched a little on the ground and then lay still.
+
+We rose to our feet together.
+
+"Des," said my brother unsteadily, "it seems rather like murder."
+
+"No, Francis," I whispered back, "it was justice!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHARLEMAGNE'S RIDE
+
+
+The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past twelve. Funny, how my
+eyes kept coming back to that clock! There was a smell of warm gunpowder
+in the room, and the autumn sunshine, struggling feebly through the
+window, caught the blue edges of a little haze of smoke that hung lazily
+in the air by the desk in the corner. How close the room was! And how
+that clock face seemed to stare at me! I felt very sick....
+
+Lord! What a draught! A gust of icy air was raging in my face. The room
+was still swaying to and fro....
+
+I was in the front seat of a car beside Francis, who was driving. We
+were fairly flying along a broad and empty road, the tall poplars with
+which it was lined scudding away into the vanishing landscape as we
+whizzed by. The surface was terrible, and the car pitched this way and
+that as we tore along. But Francis had her well in hand. He sat at the
+wheel, very cool and deliberate and very grave, still in his officer's
+uniform, and his eyes had a cold glint that told me he was keyed up to
+top pitch.
+
+We slackened speed a fraction to negotiate a turn off to the right down
+a side road. We seemed to take that corner on two wheels. A thin church
+spire protruded from the trees in the centre of the group of houses
+which we were approaching so furiously. The village was all but
+deserted: everybody seemed to be indoors at their midday meal, but
+Francis slowed down and ran along the dirty street at a demure pace. The
+village passed, he jammed down the accelerator and once more the car
+sprang forward.
+
+The country was flat as a pancake, but presently the fields fell away a
+bit from the road with boulders and patches of gorse here and there. The
+next moment we were slackening speed. We drew up by a rough track which
+led off the road and vanished into a tangle of stunted trees and scrub
+growing across the yellow face of a sand-pit.
+
+Francis motioned me to get out, and then sprang to the ground himself,
+leaving the engine throbbing. His face was grey and set.
+
+"Stay here!" he whispered to me. "You've got your pistol? Good. If
+anybody attempts to interfere with you, shoot!" He dashed into the
+tangle and was swallowed up. I heard a whistle, and a whistle in answer,
+and a minute later he appeared again helping Monica through the thick
+undergrowth.
+
+Monica looked as pretty as a picture in her dark green shooting suit
+and her muffler. She was as excited as a child at its first play.
+
+"A car!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Francis, I'll sit beside you!"
+
+My brother glanced at his watch.
+
+"Twenty to one!" he murmured. He had a hunted look on his face. Monica
+saw it and it sobered her.
+
+They got up in front, and I sat in the body of the car.
+
+"Hang on to that!" said Francis, handing me over a leather case. I
+recognized it at a glance. It was Clubfoot's dispatch-box. Francis was
+thorough in everything.
+
+Once more we dashed out along the desolate country roads. We saw hardly
+a soul. Houses were few and far between and, save for an occasional
+greybeard hoeing in the wet fields or an old woman hobbling along the
+road, the countryside seemed dead. In the cold air the engine ran
+splendidly, and Francis got every ounce of horse-power out of it.
+
+On we rushed, the wind in our ears, the cold air in our faces, until we
+found ourselves racing along an avenue of old trees that led straight as
+an arrow right into the heart of the forest. It was as silent as the
+grave: the air was dank and chill and the trees dripped sorrowfully into
+the brimming ruts of the road.
+
+We whizzed past many tracks leading into the depths of the forest, but
+it was not until the car had eaten up some five kilometres of the main
+road that Francis slowed to a halt. He consulted a map he pulled from
+his pocket, then glanced at his watch with puckered brow.
+
+"I had hoped to take the car into the forest," he said, "but the roads
+are so soft we shan't get a yard. Still we can but try."
+
+We went forward again, very slowly, to where a track ran off to the
+left. It was badly ploughed up, and the ruts were fully a foot deep.
+Monica and I got out to lighten the car, and Francis ran her in. But he
+hadn't gone five yards before the car was bogged up to the axles.
+
+"We'll have to leave it," he said, jumping out. "It's ten minutes to
+two ... we haven't a second to lose."
+
+He pulled a cloth cap from the pocket of his military overcoat, then
+stripped off the coat, showing his ordinary clothes underneath, and very
+shiny black field-boots up to his knees. He put his helmet in the
+overcoat and made a roll of it, tucking it under his arm, and then
+donned his cap.
+
+"Now," he said, "We'll have to run for it, Monica, I'm afraid: we must
+reach our cover while the light lasts or I shan't be able to find it and
+it will be dark in these woods in about two hours from now. Are you
+ready?"
+
+We struck off the track into the forest. There was not much undergrowth,
+and the trees were not planted very close, so our way was not impeded.
+We jogged on over a carpet of wet leaves, stumbling over the roots of
+the trees, tearing our clothes on the brambles, bringing down showers of
+raindrops from the branches of pine or fir we brushed on our headlong
+course. Now a squirrel bolted up his tree, now a rabbit frisked back
+into his hole, now a soft-eyed deer crashed away into the bushes on our
+approach. The place was so still that it gave me confidence. There was
+not a trace of man now that we were away from the marks of his carts on
+the tracks, and I began to feel, in the presence of the stately, silent
+trees, that at last I was safe from the menace that had hung over me for
+so long.
+
+We rested frequently, breathless and panting, a hand to the side. Monica
+was a marvel of endurance. Her boots were sopping, her skirt wet to the
+waist, her face was scratched, and her hair was coming down, but she
+never complained. Francis was seemingly tireless and was always the one
+to lead the way when we started afresh.
+
+It was heavy going, for at every step our feet sank deep in the leaves.
+The forest was undulating with deep hollows and steep banks, which tried
+us a good deal. It soon became evident that we could not keep up the
+pace. Monica was tiring visibly, and I had had about enough; Francis,
+too, seemed done up. We slackened to a walk. We were toiling painfully
+up on of these steep banks when Francis, who was leading, held up his
+hand.
+
+"Charlemagne's Ride!" he whispered as we came up. We looked down from
+the top of the bank and saw below us a broad forest glade, canopied by
+the thick branches of the ancient trees that met overhead, and leading
+up a slope, narrowing as it went, to a path that lost itself among the
+shadows that were falling fast upon the forest.
+
+Francis clambered down the bank and we followed. Twilight reigned below
+in the glade under the lofty roof of branches and our feet rustled
+softly as we trod the leaves underfoot. It was a ghostly place, and
+Monica clutched my arm as we went quickly after Francis, who, striding
+rapidly ahead, threatened to be swallowed up in the shadows of the
+autumn evening. He led us up the slope and along the narrow path. A path
+struck off it, and he took it. It led us into a thicker part of the
+forest than we had yet struck, where there were great boulders
+protruding from the dripping bushes, and brambles grew so thick that in
+places they obscured the track.
+
+The forest sloped up again, and in front of us was a steep bank, its
+sides dotted with great rocks and a tangle of brambles and undergrowth.
+Francis stooped between two boulders at the foot of the slope, then
+turning and beckoning us to follow, disappeared. Monica went in after
+him, and I came last. We were in a kind of narrow entrance, scooped out
+of the earth between the rocks, and it led down to a broad chamber,
+which had apparently been dug beneath some of the boulders, for,
+stretching out my hand, I found the roof was rock and damp to the touch.
+
+Francis and Monica were standing in this chamber as I came down.
+Directly I entered I knew why they stood so still. A glimmer of light
+came from the farther end of the cave and a strange sound, a sort of
+strangled sobbing, reached our ears.
+
+I crept forward in the dark in the direction of the light. My
+outstretched hands came upon a low opening. I stooped and, crawling
+round a rock, saw another chamber illuminated by a guttering candle
+stuck by its wax to the earthen wall. On the floor a man was lying,
+sobbing as though his heart would break. He was wearing some kind of
+military great-coat with a yellow stripe running down the back.
+
+"Pst!" I called to him, drawing my pistol from my pocket. As I did so,
+Francis behind me touched my arm to let me know he was there.
+
+"Pst!" I called again louder.
+
+The man swung round on to his knees with a sudden, frightened spring.
+When he saw my pistol, he jerked his hands above his head. Dirty and
+unshaven, with the tears all wet on his face, he looked a woe-begone and
+tragic figure.
+
+"Kamerad! Kamerad!" he muttered stupidly at me. "Napoo! Kaput!
+Englander!"
+
+I gazed at the stranger, hardly able to believe my ears. That trench
+jargon in this place!
+
+"Are you English?" I asked him.
+
+At the sound of my voice he stared about him wildly.
+
+"Ay, I be English, zur," he replied with a strong West Country burr,
+"God help me!" And, heedless of me and my pistol, he covered his face
+with his hands and burst into a wild fit of sobbing again, rocking
+himself to and fro in his grief.
+
+"Go back to Monica!" I whispered to Francis. "I'll see to this fellow!"
+
+I managed to pacify him presently. Habit is a tenacious ruler and,
+grotesque figures though we were, the "zur" he had addressed to me
+brought out the officer in me. I talked to him as I would have done to
+one of my own men, and he quietened down at last and looked up at me.
+
+He was only a lad--I could tell that by the clearness of his skin and
+the brightness of his eyes--but his face was wan and wasted, and at the
+first glance he looked like a man of forty. Under his great-coat, which
+was German, he was clad in filthy rags which once had been a khaki
+uniform, as the cut--and nothing else--revealed.
+
+He told me his simple story in his soft Somersetshire accent, just the
+plain tale of the fate that has overtaken thousands of our
+fellow-countrymen since the war began. His name was Maggs, Sapper
+Ebenezer Maggs, of the Royal Engineers, and he was captured near Mons in
+August, 1914, when out laying a line with a party. With a long train of
+British prisoners--"zum of 'em was terrible bad, zur, dying, as you
+might say"--he had been marched off to a town and paraded to the railway
+station through streets thronged with jeering German soldiery. In cattle
+trucks, the fit, the wounded, the dying and the dead herded together,
+without food or water, they had made their journey into Germany with
+hostile mobs at every station, once the frontier was past, brutal men
+and shrieking women, to whom not even the dying were sacred.
+
+It was a terrible tale, that lost nothing of its horror from the simple,
+unadorned style of this West Country farmer's son. He had been one of
+the ragged, emaciated band of British prisoners of war who had shivered
+through that first long winter in the starvation camp of Friedrichsfeld,
+near Wesel. For two years he had endured the filthy food, the neglect,
+the harsh treatment, then a resourceful Belgian friend, whom he called
+John, in happier days a contraband runner on this very frontier, had
+shown him a means to escape. Five days before they had left the camp and
+separated, agreeing to meet at Charlemagne's Ride in the forest and try
+to force the frontier together. "John" had never come. For twenty-four
+hours Maggs had waited in vain, then his courage had forsaken him, and
+he had crept to that hole in his grief.
+
+I went and fetched Francis and Monica. Maggs shrunk back as they came
+in.
+
+"I bean't fit cumpany for no lady, zur," he whispered to me, "I be that
+durty, fair crawling I be ... We couldn't keep clean nohow in that camp!"
+
+All the good soldier's horror of dirt was in his voice.
+
+"That's all right, Maggs," I answered soothingly, "she'll understand!"
+
+We sat down on the floor in the light of Sapper Maggs' candle, and
+Francis and I reviewed our situation. The cave we were in ... an old
+Smuggler's _cache_ ... was where Francis had spent several days during
+his different attempts to get across the frontier. The border line was
+only about a quarter of a mile distant and ran right through the forest.
+There was no live-wire fencing in the forest, such as the Germans have
+erected along the frontier between Holland and Belgium. The frontier was
+guarded by patrols. These patrols were posted four men to every two
+hundred yards along the line through the forest, so that two men,
+patrolling in pairs, covered a hundred yards apiece.
+
+It was now half-past five in the evening. We both agreed that we should
+certainly make the attempt to cross the frontier that night. Francis
+nudged me, indicating the sapper with his eyes.
+
+"Maggs," I said, "we are all in a bad way, but our case is more
+desperate than yours. I shall not tell you more than this, that, if we
+are caught, any of us three, we shall be shot, and anyone caught with us
+will fare the same. If you will take my advice, you will leave us and
+start off by yourself: the worst that can happen to you is to be sent
+back to your camp. You will be punished for running away, but you won't
+lose your life!"
+
+Sapper Maggs shook his yellow head.
+
+"I'll stay," he answered stolidly; "it's more cumfortable-like for us
+four to 'old together, and it's a better protection for the lady. I
+bean't afear'd of no Gers, I bean't! I'll go along o' yew officers and
+the lady, if yew don't mind, zur!"
+
+So it was settled, and we four agreed to unite forces. Before we set out
+Francis wanted to go and reconnoitre. I thought he had done more than
+his share that day, and said so. But Francis insisted.
+
+"I know my way blindfold about the forest, old man" he said "it'll be
+far safer for me than for you. I'll leave you the map and mark the
+route you are to follow, so that you can find the way if anything
+happens to me. If I'm not back by midnight, you ought certainly not to
+wait any longer, but make the attempt by yourselves."
+
+My brother handed me back the document and went over the route we were
+to follow on the map. Then he deposited his bundle in the cave and
+declared himself ready.
+
+"And don't forget old Clubfoot's box," he said by way of a parting
+injunction.
+
+Monica took him out to the entrance of our refuge. She was dabbing her
+eyes with her handkerchief when she returned. To divert her thoughts, I
+questioned her about the events that had led to my rescue, and she told
+me how, at Francis' request, she had got all the servants out of the
+Castle on different pretexts. It was Francis who had got rid of the
+soldiers remaining as a guard.
+
+"You remember the Captain of Köpenick trick," she said. "Well, Francis
+played it off on the sergeant and those six men. He slept at Cleves, had
+himself trimmed up at the barber's, bought those field-boots he is
+wearing, and stole that helmet and great-coat off the pegs in the
+passage at Schmidt's Café, where the officers always go and drink beer
+after morning parade. Then he drove out to the Castle--he knew that the
+place would be deserted once the shoot had started--and told the
+sergeant he had been sent from Goch to inspect the guard. I think he is
+just splendid! He inspected the men and cursed everybody up and down,
+and sent the sergeant out to the paddock with orders to drill them for
+two hours. Francis was telling me all about it as we came along. He says
+that if you can get hold of a uniform and hector a German enough, he
+will never call your bluff. Can you beat it?"
+
+The hours dragged wearily on. We had no food, and Maggs, who had eaten
+the last of his provisions twenty-four hours before--the British soldier
+is a bad hoarder--soon consumed the last of my cigarettes. It was past
+ten o'clock when I heard a step outside. The next moment Francis came
+in, white and breathless.
+
+"They're beating the forest for us," he panted. "The place is full of
+men. I had to crawl the whole way there and back, and I'm soaked to the
+skin."
+
+I pointed to Monica, who was fast asleep, and he lowered his voice.
+
+"Des," he said, "I've hoped as long as I dared, but now I believe the
+game's up. They're beating the forest in a great circle, soldiers and
+police and customs men. If we set out at once we can reach the frontier
+before they get here, but what's the use of that ... every patrol is on
+the look-out for us ... the forest seems ablaze with torches."
+
+"We must try it, Francis," I said. "We haven't a dog's chance if we
+stay here!"
+
+"I think you're right," he answered. "Well, here's the plan. There's a
+deep ravine that runs clear across the frontier. I spent an hour in it.
+They've built a plank bridge across the top just this side of the line,
+and the patrol comes to the ravine about every three minutes. It is
+practically impossible to get out of sight and sound along that ravine
+in three minutes, but ..."
+
+"Unless we could drar the patrol's attention away!" said Sapper Maggs.
+
+But Francis ignored the interruption.
+
+"... We can at least try it. Come on, we must be starting! Thank God,
+there's no moon; it's as dark as the devil outside!"
+
+We roused up Monica and groped our way out of the cave into the black
+and dripping forest. Somewhere in the distance a faint glare reddened
+the sky. From time to time I thought I heard a shout, but it sounded far
+away.
+
+We crawled stealthily forward, Francis in front, then Monica, Maggs and
+I last. In a few minutes we were wet through, and our hands, blue and
+dead with cold, were scratched and torn. Our progress was interminably
+slow. Every few yards Francis raised his hand and we stopped.
+
+At last we reached the gloomy glade where, as Francis had told us,
+according to popular belief, the wraith of Charlemagne was still seen on
+the night of St. Hubert's Day galloping along with his ghostly
+followers of the chase. The rustling of leaves caught our ears;
+instantly we all lay prone behind a bank.
+
+A group of men came swinging along the glade. One of them was singing an
+ancient German soldier song:
+
+"Die Vöglein im Walde
+Sie singen so schön
+In der Heimat, in der Heimat,
+Da gibt's ein Wiederseh'n."
+
+"The relief patrol!" I whispered to Francis, as soon as they were past.
+
+"The other lot they relieve will be back this way in a minute. We must
+get across quickly." My brother stood erect, and tiptoed swiftly across
+Charlemagne's Ride, and we followed.
+
+We must have crawled for an hour before we came to the ravine. It was a
+deep, narrow ditch with steep sides, full of undergrowth and brambles.
+Now we could hear distinctly the voices of men all around us, as it
+seemed, and to right and to left and in front we caught at intervals
+glimpses of red flames through the trees. We could only proceed at a
+snail's pace lest the continual rustle of our footsteps should betray
+us. So each advanced a few paces in turn; then we all paused, and then
+the next one went forward. We could no longer crawl; the undergrowth was
+too thick for that; we had to go forward bent double.
+
+We had progressed like this for fully half an hour when Francis, who
+was in front as usual, beckoned us to lie down. We all lay motionless
+among the brambles.
+
+Then a voice somewhere above us said in German:
+
+"And I'll have a man at the plank here, sergeant: he can watch the
+ravine."
+
+Another voice answered:
+
+"Very good, Herr Leutnant, but in that case the patrols to right and
+left need not cross the plank each time; they can turn when they come to
+the ravine guard."
+
+The voices died away in a murmur. I craned my neck aloft. It was so
+dark, I could see nothing save the fretwork of branches against the
+night sky. I whispered to Francis, who was just in front of me:
+
+"Unless we make a dash for it now that man will hear us rustling along!"
+
+Francis held up a finger. I heard a heavy footstep along the bank above
+us.
+
+"Too late!" my brother whispered back. "Do you hear the patrols?"
+
+Footsteps crashing through the undergrowth resounded on the right and
+left.
+
+"Cold work!" said a voice.
+
+"Bitter!" came the answer, just above our heads.
+
+"Seen anything?"
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+The rustling began again on the right, and died away.
+
+"They're closing in on the left!" Another voice this time.
+
+"Heard anything, you?" from the voice above us.
+
+"Not a thing!"
+
+The rustling broke out once more on the left, and gradually became lost
+in the distance.
+
+Silence.
+
+I felt a hot breath in my ear. Sapper Maggs stood by my side.
+
+"There be a feller a-watching for us up there?" he whispered.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"If us could drar his 'tention away, yew could slip by, next time the
+patrols is past, couldn't 'ee?"
+
+Again I nodded.
+
+"It'd be worse for yew than for me, supposin' yew'd be ca-art, that's
+what t'other officer said, warn't it?"
+
+And once more I nodded.
+
+The hot whisper came again.
+
+"I'll drar 'un off for ee, zur, nex' time the patrols pass. When I
+holler, yew and the others, yew run. Thirty-one forty-three Sapper
+Maggs, R.E., from Chewton Mendip ... that's me... maybe yew'll let us
+have a bit o' writing to the camp."
+
+I stretched out my hand in the darkness to stop him. He had gone.
+
+I leant forward and whispered to Francis:
+
+"When you hear a shout, we make a dash for it!"
+
+I felt him look at me in surprise--it was too dark to see his face.
+
+"Right!" he whispered back.
+
+Now to the left we heard voices shouting and saw torches gleaming red
+among the trees. To right and rear answering shouts resounded.
+
+Again the patrols met at the plank above our heads, and again their
+departing footsteps rustled in the leaves.
+
+The murmur of voices grew nearer. We could faintly smell the burning
+resin of the torches.
+
+Then a wild yell rent the forest. The voice above us shouted "Halt!" but
+the echo was lost in the deafening report of a rifle.
+
+Francis caught Monica by the wrist and dragged her forward. We went
+plunging and crashing through the tangle of the ravine. We heard a
+second shot and a third, commands were shouted, the red glare deepened
+in the sky....
+
+Monica collapsed quite suddenly at my feet. She never uttered a sound,
+but fell prone, her face as white as paper. Without a word we picked her
+up between us and went on, stumbling, gasping, coughing, our clothes
+rent and torn, the blood oozing from the deep scratches on our faces and
+hands.
+
+At length our strength gave out. We laid Monica down in the ravine and
+drew the under growth over her, then we crawled in under the brambles
+exhausted, beat.
+
+Dawn was streaking the sky with lemon when a dog jumped sniffing down
+into our hiding-place. Francis and Monica were asleep.
+
+A man stood at the top of the ravine looking down on us. He carried a
+gun over his shoulder.
+
+"Have you had an accident?" he said kindly.
+
+He spoke in Dutch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+RED TABS EXPLAINS
+
+
+From the Argyllshire hills winter has stolen down upon us in the night.
+Behind him he has left his white mantle, and it now lies outspread from
+the topmost mountain peaks to the softly lapping tide at the black edges
+of the loch. Yet as I sit adding the last words to this plain account of
+a curious episode in my life, the wintry scene dissolves before my eyes,
+and I see again that dawn in the forest ... Francis and Monica, sleeping
+side by side, like the babes in the wood, half covered with leaves, the
+eager, panting retriever, and myself, poor, ragged scarecrow, staring
+openmouthed at the Dutchman whose kindly enquiry has just revealed to me
+the wondrous truth ... that we are safe across the frontier.
+
+What a disproportionate view one takes of events in which one is the
+principal actor! The great issues vanish away, the little things loom
+out large. When I look back on that morning I encounter in my memory no
+recollection of extravagant demonstrations of joy at our delivery, no
+hysteria, no heroics. But I find a fragrant remembrance of a glorious
+hot bath and an epic breakfast in the house of that kindly Dutchman,
+followed by a whirlwind burst of hospitality on our arrival at the house
+of van Urutius, which was not more than ten miles from the fringe of the
+forest.
+
+Madame van Urutius took charge of Monica, who was promptly sent to bed,
+whilst Francis and I went straight on to Rotterdam, where we had an
+interview at the British Consulate, with the result that we were able to
+catch the steamer for England the next day.
+
+As the result of various telegrams which Francis dispatched from
+Rotterdam, a car was waiting for us on our arrival at Fenchurch Street
+the next evening. In it we drove off for an interview with my brother's
+Chief. Francis insisted that I should hand over personally the portion
+of the document in our possession.
+
+"You got hold of it, Des," he said, "and it's only fair that you should
+get all the credit. I have Clubfoot's dispatch-box to show as the result
+of my trip. It's only a pity we could not have got the other half out of
+the cloak-room at Rotterdam."
+
+We were shown straight in to the Chief. I was rather taken aback by the
+easy calm of his manner in receiving us.
+
+"How are you, Okewood?" he said, nodding to Francis. "This your brother?
+How d'ye do?"
+
+He gave me his hand and was silent. There was a distinct pause. Feeling
+distinctly embarrassed, I lugged out my portfolio, extracted the three
+slips of paper and laid them on the desk before the Chief.
+
+"I've brought you something," I said lamely.
+
+He picked up the slips of paper and looked at them for a moment. Then he
+lifted a cardboard folder from the desk in front of him, opened it and
+displayed the other half of the Kaiser's letter, the fragment I had
+believed to be reposing in a bag at Rotterdam railway station. He placed
+the two fragments side by side. They fitted exactly. Then he closed the
+folder, carried it across the room to a safe and locked it up. Coming
+back, he held out his two hands to us, giving the right to me, the left
+to Francis.
+
+"You have done very well," he said. "Good boys! Good boys!"
+
+"But that other half ..." I began.
+
+"Your friend Ashcroft is by no means such a fool as he looks," the Chief
+chuckled. "He did a wise thing. He brought your two letters to me. I saw
+to the rest. So, when your brother's telegram arrived from Rotterdam, I
+got the other half of the letter out of the safe; I thought I'd be ready
+for you, you see!"
+
+"But how did you know we had the remaining portion of the letter?" I
+asked.
+
+The Chief chuckled again.
+
+"My young men don't wire for cars to meet 'em at the station when they
+have failed," he replied. "Now, tell me all about it!"
+
+So I told him my whole story from the beginning.
+
+When I had finished, he said:
+
+"You appear to have a very fine natural disposition for our game,
+Okewood. It seems a pity to waste it in regimental work ..."
+
+I broke in hastily.
+
+"I've got a few weeks' sick leave left," I said, "and after that I was
+looking forward to going back to the front for a rest. This sort of
+thing is too exciting for me!"
+
+"Well, well," answered the Chief, "we'll see about that afterwards. In
+the meantime, we shall not forget what you have done ... and I shall see
+that it is not forgotten elsewhere."
+
+On that we left him. It was only outside that I remembered that he had
+told me nothing of what I was burning to know about the origin and
+disappearance of the Kaiser's letter.
+
+It was my old friend, Red Tabs, whom I met on one of our many visits to
+mysterious but obviously important officials, that finally cleared up
+for me the many obscure points in this adventure of mine. When he saw me
+he burst out laughing.
+
+"'Pon my soul," he grinned, "you seem to be able to act on a hint, don't
+you?"
+
+Then he told me the story of the Kaiser's letter.
+
+"There is no need to speak of the contents of this amazing letter," he
+began, "for you are probably more familiar with them than I am. The date
+alone will suffice ... July 31st, 1914 ... it explains a great deal. The
+last day of July was the moment when the peace of Europe was literally
+trembling in the balance. You know the Emperor's wayward, capricious
+nature, his eagerness for fame and military glory, his morbid terror of
+the unknown. In that fateful last week of July he was torn between
+opposing forces. On the one side was ranged the whole of the Prussian
+military party, led by the Crown Prince and the Emperor's own immediate
+entourage; on the other, the record of prosperity which years of peace
+had conferred on his realms. He had to choose between his own
+megalomania craving for military laurels, on the one hand, and, on the
+other, that place in history as the Prince of Peace for which, in his
+gentler moments, he has so often hankered.
+
+"The Kaiser is a man of moods. He sat down and penned this letter in a
+fit of despondency and indecision, when the vision of Peace seemed
+fairer to him than the spectre of War. God knows what violent emotion
+impelled him to write this extraordinary appeal to his English friend,
+an appeal which, if published, would convict him of the deepest
+treachery to his ally, but he wrote the letter and forthwith dispatched
+it to London. He did not make use of the regular courier: he sent the
+letter by a man of his own choosing, who had special instructions to
+hand the letter in person to Prince Lichnowski, the German ambassador.
+Lichnowski was to deliver the missive personally to its destined
+recipient.
+
+"Almost as soon as the letter was away, the Kaiser seems to have
+realised what he had done, to have repented of his action. Attempts to
+stop the messenger before he reached the coast appear to have failed. At
+any rate, we know that all through July 31st and August 1st Lichnowski,
+in London, was bombarded with dispatches ordering him to send the
+messenger with the letter back to Berlin as soon as he reached the
+embassy.
+
+"The courier never got as far as Carlton House Terrace. Someone in the
+War party at the Court of Berlin got wind of the fateful letter and sent
+word to someone in the German embassy in London--the Prussian jingoes
+were well represented there by Kühlmann and others of his ilk--to
+intercept the letter.
+
+"The letter was intercepted. How it was done and by whom we have never
+found out, but Lichnowski never saw that letter. Nor did the courier
+leave London. With the Imperial letter still in possession, apparently,
+he went to a house at Dalston, where he was arrested on the day after we
+declared war on Germany.
+
+"This courier went by the name of Schulte. We did not know him at the
+time to be travelling on the Emperor's business, but we knew him very
+well as one of the most daring and successful spies that Germany had
+ever employed in this country. One of our people picked him up quite by
+chance on his arrival in London, and shadowed him to Dalston, where we
+promptly laid him by the heels when war broke out.
+
+"Schulte was interned. You have heard how one of his letters, stopped by
+the Camp Censor, put us on the track of the intercepted letter, and you
+know the steps we took to obtain possession of the document. But we were
+misled ... not by Schulte, but through the treachery of a man in whom he
+confided, the interpreter at the internment camp.
+
+"To this man Schulte entrusted the famous letter, telling him to send it
+by an underground route to a certain address at Cleves, and promising
+him in return a commission of twenty-five per cent on the price to be
+paid for the letter. The interpreter took the letter, but did not do as
+he was bid. On the contrary, he wrote to the go-between, with whom
+Schulte had been in correspondence (probably Clubfoot), and announced
+that he knew where the letter was and was prepared to sell it, only the
+purchaser would have to come to England and fetch it.
+
+"Well, to make a long story short, the interpreter made a deal with the
+Huns, and this Dr. Semlin was sent to England from Washington, where he
+had been working for Bernstorff, to fetch the letter at the address in
+London indicated by the interpreter. In the meantime, we had got after
+the interpreter, who, like Schulte, had been in the espionage business
+all his life, and he was arrested.
+
+"We know what Semlin found when he reached London. The wily interpreter
+had sliced the letter in two, so as to make sure of his money, meaning,
+no doubt, to hand over the other portion as soon as the price had been
+paid. But by the time Semlin got to London the interpreter was jugged
+and Semlin had to report that he had only got half the letter. The rest
+you know ... how Grundt was sent for, how he came to this country and
+retrieved the other portion. Don't ask me how he set about it: I don't
+know, and we never found out even where the interpreter deposited the
+second half or how Grundt discovered its hiding-place. But he executed
+his mission and got clear away with the goods. The rest of the tale you
+know better than I do!"
+
+"But Clubfoot," I asked, "who is he?"
+
+"There are many who have asked that question," Red Tabs replied gravely,
+"and some have not waited long for their answer. The man was known by
+name and reputation to very few, by sight to even fewer, yet I doubt if
+any man of his time wielded greater power in secret than he.
+Officially, he was nothing, he didn't exist; but in the dark places,
+where his ways were laid, he watched and plotted and spied for his
+master, the tool of the Imperial spite as he was the instrument of the
+Imperial vengeance.
+
+"A man like the Kaiser," my friend continued, "monarch though he is,
+has many enemies naturally, and makes many more. Head of the Army,
+head of the Navy, head of the Church, head of the State--undisputed,
+autocratic head--he is confronted at every turn by personal issues
+woven and intertwined with political questions. It was in this sphere,
+where the personal is grafted on the political, that Clubfoot reigned
+supreme ... here and in another sphere, where German William is not only
+monarch, but also a very ordinary man.
+
+"There are phases in every man's life, Okewood, which hardly bear the
+light of day. In an autocracy, however, such phases are generally
+inextricably entangled with political questions. It was in these dark
+places that Clubfoot flourished ... he and his men ... 'the G gang' we
+called them, from the letter 'G' (signifying _Garde_ or _Guard_) on
+their secret-service badges.
+
+"Clubfoot was answerable to no one save to the Emperor alone. His work
+was of so delicate, so confidential a nature, that he rendered an
+account of his services only to his Imperial master. There was none to
+stay his hand, to check him in his courses, save only this neurotic,
+capricious cripple who is always open to flattery...."
+
+Red Tabs thought for a minute and then went on.
+
+"No one may catalogue," he said, "the crimes that Clubfoot committed,
+the infamies he had to his account. Not even the Kaiser himself, I dare
+say, knows the manner in which his orders to this black-guard were
+executed--orders rapped out often enough, I swear, in a fit of
+petulance, a gust of passion, and forgotten the next moment in the
+excitement of some fresh sensation.
+
+"I know a little of Clubfoot's record, of innocent lives wrecked, of
+careers ruined, of sudden disappearances, of violent deaths. When you
+and your brother put it across der Stelze, Okewood, you settled a long
+outstanding account we had against him, but you also rendered his
+fellow-Huns a signal service."
+
+I thought of the comments I had heard on Clubfoot among the customers at
+Haase's, and I felt that Red Tabs had hit the right nail on the head
+again.
+
+"By the way?" said Red Tabs, as I rose to go, "would you care to see
+Clubfoot's epitaph? I kept it for you." He handed me a German
+newspaper--the _Berliner Tageblatt_, I think it was--with a paragraph
+marked in red pencil. I read:
+
+"We regret to report the sudden death from apoplexy of Dr. Adolf
+Grundt, an inspector of secondary schools. The deceased was closely
+connected for many years with a number of charitable institutions
+enjoying the patronage of the Emperor. His Majesty frequently consulted
+Dr. Grundt regarding the distribution of the sums allocated annually
+from the Privy purse for benevolent objects."
+
+"Pretty fair specimen of Prussian cynicism?" laughed Red Tabs. But I
+held my head ... the game was too deep for me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every week a hamper of good things is dispatched to 3143 Sapper Ebenezer
+Maggs, British Prisoner of War, Gefangenen-Lager, Friedrichsfeld bei
+Wesel. I have been in communication with his people, and since his
+flight from the camp they have not had a line from him. They will let me
+know at once if they hear, but I am restless and anxious about him.
+
+I dare not write lest I compromise him: I dare not make official enquiry
+as to his safety for the same reason. If he survived those shots in the
+dark, he is certainly undergoing punishment, and in that case he would
+be deprived of the privilege of writing or receiving letters....
+
+But the weeks slip by and no message comes to me from Chewton Mendip.
+Almost daily I wonder if the gallant lad survived that night to return
+to the misery of the starvation camp, or whether, out of the darkness of
+the forest, his brave soul soared free, achieving its final release from
+the sufferings of this world.... Poor Sapper Maggs!
+
+Francis and Monica are honeymooning on the Riviera. Gerry, I am sure,
+would have refused to attend the wedding, only he wasn't asked. Francis
+is getting a billet on the Intelligence out in France when his leave is
+up.
+
+I have got my step, antedated back to the day I went into Germany.
+Francis has been told that something is coming to him and me in the New
+Year's Honours.
+
+I don't worry much. I am going back to the front on Christmas Eve.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN OF CLUBFOOT
+
+By Valentine Williams.
+
+Whilst spending a holiday in a small Central American Republic, Desmond
+Okewood, of the Secret Service, learns from a dying beach-comber of a
+hidden treasure.
+
+With the assistance of a millionaire, he sets out for Cock Island, in
+the Pacific. To his astonishment he discovers that the Man with the
+Clubfoot, whom he had regarded as dead, has anticipated him. It is
+obvious to Okewood that his old enemy is also in search of the hidden
+gold, and there ensues a thrilling sequence of adventures, in which the
+millionaire's pretty niece takes a prominent part.
+
+Okewood has the cipher, and the Man with the Clubfoot determines to
+secure it, for without that cipher it is impossible to discover the
+hiding-place of the treasure; but there is something that the Man with
+the Clubfoot does not know, whereas Okewood does.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT  ***
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Man with the Clubfoot, by Valentine Williams</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Man with the Clubfoot</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Valentine Williams</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 9, 2005 [eBook #15302]<br />
+[Most recently updated: August 18, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Michael Ciesielski, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT ***</div>
+
+<h1>THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT</h1>
+
+<h3>BY VALENTINE WILLIAMS</h3>
+
+<p>AUTHOR OF &quot;THE SECRET HAND,&quot; &quot;THE YELLOW STREAK,&quot; &quot;THE RETURN OF
+CLUBFOOT,&quot; &quot;THE ORANGE DIVAN,&quot; &quot;CLUBFOOT THE AVENGER&quot;</p>
+
+<h4>1918</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT</h3>
+
+<p>&quot;The Man with the Clubfoot&quot; is one of the most ingenious and sinister
+secret agents in Europe. It is to him that the task is assigned of
+regaining possession of an indiscreet letter written by the Kaiser.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond Okewood, a young British officer with a genius for secret
+service work, sets out to thwart this man and, incidentally, discover
+the whereabouts of his brother.</p>
+
+<p>He penetrates into Germany disguised, and meets with many thrilling
+adventures before he finally achieves his mission.</p>
+
+<p>In &quot;The Man with the Clubfoot,&quot; Valentine Williams has written a
+thrilling romance of mystery, love and intrigue, that in every sense of
+the word may be described as &quot;breathless.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I seek a Bed in Rotterdam<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Cipher with the Invoice<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Visitor in the Night<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Destiny knocks at the Door<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Lady of the Vos in't Tuintje<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I board the Berlin Train and leave a Lame Gentleman on the Platform<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In which a Silver Star acts as a Charm<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I hear of Clubfoot and meet his Employer<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I encounter an old Acquaintance who leads me to a delightful Surprise<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Glass of Wine with Clubfoot<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Miss Mary Prendergast risks her Reputation<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;His Excellency the General is worried<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I find Achilles in his Tent<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Clubfoot comes to Haase's<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Waiter at the Caf&eacute; Regina<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Hand-clasp by the Rhine<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Francis takes up the Narrative<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I go on with the Story<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We have a Reckoning with Clubfoot<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Charlemagne's Ride<br />
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI</b></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Red Tabs explains<br />
+ </p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>The Man with the Clubfoot</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I" />CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>I SEEK A BED IN ROTTERDAM</h3>
+
+
+<p>The reception clerk looked up from the hotel register and shook his head
+firmly. &quot;Very sorry, saire,&quot; he said, &quot;not a bed in ze house.&quot; And he
+closed the book with a snap.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the rain came down heavens hard. Every one who came into the
+brightly lit hotel vestibule entered with a gush of water. I felt I
+would rather die than face the wind-swept streets of Rotterdam again.</p>
+
+<p>I turned once more to the clerk who was now busy at the key-rack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Haven't you really a corner? I wouldn't mind where it was, as it is
+only for the night. Come now...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very sorry, saire. We have two gentlemen sleeping in ze bathrooms
+already. If you had reserved...&quot; And he shrugged his shoulders and bent
+towards a visitor who was demanding his key.</p>
+
+<p>I turned away with rage in my heart. What a cursed fool I had been not
+to wire from Groningen! I had fully intended to, but the extraordinary
+conversation I had had with Dicky Allerton had put everything else out
+of my head. At every hotel I had tried it had been the same
+story&mdash;Cooman's, the Maas, the Grand, all were full even to the
+bathrooms. If I had only wired....</p>
+
+<p>As I passed out into the porch I bethought myself of the porter. A hotel
+porter had helped me out of a similar plight in Breslau once years ago.
+This porter, with his red, drink-sodden face and tarnished gold braid,
+did not promise well, so far as a recommendation for a lodging for the
+night was concerned. Still...</p>
+
+<p>I suppose it was my mind dwelling on my experience at Breslau that made
+me address the man in German. When one has been familiar with a foreign
+tongue from one's boyhood, it requires but a very slight mental impulse
+to drop into it. From such slight beginnings do great enterprises
+spring. If I had known the immense ramification of adventure that was to
+spread its roots from that simple question, I verily believe my heart
+would have failed me and I would have run forth into the night and the
+rain and roamed the streets till morning.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I found myself asking the man in German if he knew where I could
+get a room for the night.</p>
+
+<p>He shot a quick glance at me from under his reddened eyelids.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The gentleman would doubtless like a German house?&quot; he queried.</p>
+
+<p>You may hardly credit it, but my interview with Dicky Allerton that
+afternoon had simply driven the war out of my mind. When one has lived
+much among foreign peoples, one's mentality slips automatically into
+their skin. I was now thinking in German&mdash;at least so it seems to me
+when I look back upon that night&mdash;and I answered without reflecting.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't care where it is as long as I can get somewhere to sleep out of
+this infernal rain!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The gentleman can have a good, clean bed at the Hotel Sixt in the
+little street they call the Vos in't Tuintje, on the canal behind the
+Bourse. The proprietress is a good German, jawohl ... Frau Anna Schratt
+her name is. The gentleman need only say he comes from Franz at the
+Bopparder Hof.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I gave the man a gulden and bade him get me a cab.</p>
+
+<p>It was still pouring. As we rattled away over the glistening
+cobble-stones, my mind travelled back over the startling events of the
+day. My talk with old Dicky had given me such a mental jar that I found
+it at first wellnigh impossible to concentrate my thoughts. That's the
+worst of shell-shock. You think you are cured, you feel fit and well,
+and then suddenly the machinery of your mind checks and halts and
+creaks. Ever since I had left hospital convalescent after being wounded
+on the Somme (&quot;gunshot wound in head and cerebral concussion&quot; the
+doctors called it), I had trained myself, whenever my brain was <i>en
+panne</i>, to go back to the beginning of things and work slowly up to the
+present by methodical stages.</p>
+
+<p>Let's see then&mdash;I was &quot;boarded&quot; at Millbank and got three months' leave;
+then I did a month in the Little Johns' bungalow in Cornwall. There I
+got the letter from Dicky Allerton, who, before the war, had been in
+partnership with my brother Francis in the motor business at Coventry.
+Dicky had been with the Naval Division at Antwerp and was interned with
+the rest of the crowd when they crossed the Dutch frontier in those
+disastrous days of October, 1914.</p>
+
+<p>Dicky wrote from Groningen, just a line. Now that I was on leave, if I
+were fit to travel, would I come to Groningen and see him? &quot;I have had a
+curious communication which seems to have to do with poor Francis,&quot; he
+added. That was all.</p>
+
+<p>My brain was still halting, so I turned to Francis. Here again I had to
+go back. Francis, rejected on all sides for active service, owing to
+what he scornfully used to call &quot;the shirkers' ailment, varicose veins,&quot;
+had flatly declined to carry on with his motor business after Dicky had
+joined up, although their firm was doing government work. Finally, he
+had vanished into the maw of the War Office and all I knew was that he
+was &quot;something on the Intelligence.&quot; More than this not even <i>he</i> would
+tell me, and when he finally disappeared from London, just about the
+time that I was popping the parapet with my battalion at Neuve Chapelle,
+he left me his London chambers as his only address for letters.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! now it was all coming back&mdash;Francis' infrequent letters to me about
+nothing at all, then his will, forwarded to me for safe keeping when I
+was home on leave last Christmas, and after that, silence. Not another
+letter, not a word about him, not a shred of information. He had utterly
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>I remembered my frantic inquiries, my vain visits to the War Office, my
+perplexity at the imperturbable silence of the various officials I
+importuned for news of my poor brother. Then there was that lunch at the
+Bath Club with Sonny Martin of the Heavies and a friend of his, some
+kind of staff captain in red tabs. I don't think I heard his name, but I
+know he was at the War Office, and presently over our cigars and coffee
+I laid before him the mysterious facts about my brother's case.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps you knew Francis?&quot; I said in conclusion. &quot;Yes,&quot; he replied, &quot;I
+know him well.&quot; &quot;<i>Know</i> him,&quot; I repeated, &quot;<i>know</i> him then ... then you
+think ... you have reason to believe he is still alive...?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Red Tabs cocked his eye at the gilded cornice of the ceiling and blew a
+ring from his cigar. But he said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>I persisted with my questions but it was of no avail. Red Tabs only
+laughed and said: &quot;I know nothing at all except that your brother is a
+most delightful fellow with all your own love of getting his own way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then Sonny Martin, who is the perfection of tact and diplomacy&mdash;probably
+on that account he failed for the Diplomatic&mdash;chipped in with an
+anecdote about a man who was rating the waiter at an adjoining table,
+and I held my peace. But as Red Tabs rose to go, a little later, he held
+my hand for a minute in his and with that curious look of his, said
+slowly and with meaning:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When a nation is at war, officers on <i>active service</i> must occasionally
+disappear, sometimes in their country's interest, sometimes in their
+own.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He emphasised the words &quot;on active service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In a flash my eyes were opened. How blind I had been! Francis was in
+Germany.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II" />CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CIPHER WITH THE INVOICE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Red Tabs' sphinx-like declaration was no riddle to me. I knew at once
+that Francis must be on secret service in the enemy's country and that
+country Germany. My brother's extraordinary knowledge of the Germans,
+their customs, life and dialects, rendered him ideally suitable for any
+such perilous mission. Francis always had an extraordinary talent for
+languages: he seemed to acquire them all without any mental effort, but
+in German he was supreme. During the year that he and I spent at
+Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's house at Bonn, he rapidly outdistanced
+me, and though, at the end of our time, I could speak German like a
+German, Francis was able, in addition, to speak Bonn and Cologne
+<i>patois</i> like a native of those ancient cities&mdash;ay and he could drill a
+squad of recruits in their own language like the smartest <i>Leutnant</i>
+ever fledged from Gross-Lichterfelde.</p>
+
+<p>He never had any difficulty in passing himself off as a German. Well I
+remember his delight when he was claimed as a fellow Rheinl&auml;nder by a
+German officer we met, one summer before the war, combining golf with a
+little useful espionage at Cromer.</p>
+
+<p>I don't think Francis had any ulterior motive in his study of German.
+He simply found he had this imitative faculty; philology had always
+interested him, so even after he had gone into the motor trade, he used
+to amuse himself on business trips to Germany by acquiring new dialects.</p>
+
+<p>His German imitations were extraordinarily funny. One of his &quot;star
+turns&quot;, was a noisy sitting of the Reichstag with speeches by Prince
+B&uuml;low and August Bebel and &quot;interruptions&quot;; another, a patriotic oration
+by an old Prussian General at a Kaiser's birthday dinner. Francis had a
+marvellous faculty not only of <i>seeming</i> German, but even of almost
+looking like a German, so absolutely was he able to slip into the skin
+of the part.</p>
+
+<p>Yet never in my wildest moments had I dreamt that he would try and get
+into Germany in war-time, into that land where every citizen is
+catalogued and pigeonholed from the cradle. But Red Tabs' oracular
+utterance had made everything clear to me. Why a mission to Germany
+would be the very thing that Francis would give his eyes to be allowed
+to attempt! Francis with his utter disregard of danger, his love of
+taking risks, his impish delight in taking a rise out of the stodgy
+Hun&mdash;why, if there were Englishmen brave enough to take chances of
+that kind, Francis would be the first to volunteer.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, if Francis were on a mission anywhere it would be to Germany. But
+what prospect had he of ever returning&mdash;with the frontiers closed and
+ingress and egress practically barred even to pro-German neutrals? Many
+a night in the trenches I had a mental vision of Francis, so debonair
+and so fearless, facing a firing squad of Prussian privates.</p>
+
+<p>From the day of the luncheon at the Bath Club to this very afternoon I
+had had no further inkling of my brother's whereabouts or fate. The
+authorities at home professed ignorance, as I knew, in duty bound, they
+would, and I had nothing to hang any theory on to until Dicky Allerton's
+letter came. Ashcroft at the F.O. fixed up my passports for me and I
+lost no time in exchanging the white gulls and red cliffs of Cornwall
+for the windmills and trim canals of Holland.</p>
+
+<p>And now in my breast pocket lay, written on a small piece of cheap
+foreign notepaper, the tidings I had come to Groningen to seek. Yet so
+trivial, so nonsensical, so baffling was the message that I already felt
+my trip to Holland to have been a fruitless errand.</p>
+
+<p>I found Dicky fat and bursting with health in his quarters at the
+internment camp. He only knew that Francis had disappeared. When I told
+him of my meeting with Red Tabs at the Bath Club, of the latter's words
+to me at parting and of my own conviction in the matter he whistled,
+then looked grave.</p>
+
+<p>He went straight to the point in his bluff direct way.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to tell you a story first, Desmond,&quot; he said to me, &quot;then
+I'll show you a piece of paper. Whether the two together fit in with
+your theory as to poor Francis' disappearance will be for you to judge.
+Until now I must confess&mdash;I had felt inclined to dismiss the only
+reference this document appears to make to your brother as a mere
+coincidence in names, but what you have told me makes things
+interesting&mdash;by Jove, it does, though. Well, here's the yarn first of
+all.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your brother and I have had dealings in the past with a Dutchman in the
+motor business at Nymwegen, name of Van Urutius. He has often been over
+to see us at Coventry in the old days and Francis has stayed with him at
+Nymwegen once or twice on his way back from Germany&mdash;Nymwegen, you know,
+is close to the German frontier. Old Urutius has been very decent to me
+since I have been in gaol here and has been over several times,
+generally with a box or two of those nice Dutch cigars.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dicky,&quot; I broke in on him, &quot;get on with the story. What the devil's all
+this got to do with Francis? The document&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Steady, my boy!&quot; was the imperturbable reply, &quot;let me spin my yarn my
+own way. I'm coming to the piece of paper....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then, old Urutius came to see me ten days ago. All I knew about
+Francis I had told him, namely, that Francis had entered the army and
+was missing. It was no business of the old Mynheer if Francis was in the
+Intelligence, so I didn't tell him that. Van U. is a staunch friend of
+the English, but you know the saying that if a man doesn't know he can't
+split.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My old Dutch pal, then, turned up here ten days ago. He was bubbling
+over with excitement. 'Mr. Allerton' he says, 'I haf a writing, a most
+mysterious writing&mdash;a I think, from Francis Okewood.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I sat tight. If there were any revelations coming they were going to be
+Dutch, not British. On that I was resolved.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I haf received;' the old Dutchman went on, from Gairemany a parcel of
+metal shields, plates&mdash;what you call 'em&mdash;of tin, <i>hein?</i> What I haf to
+advertise my business. They arrife las' week&mdash;I open the parcel myself
+and on the top is the envelope with the invoice.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mynheer paused; he has a good sense of the dramatic.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Well', I said, 'did it bite you or say &quot;Gott strafe England?&quot; Or
+what?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Van Urutius ignored my flippancy and resumed. 'I open the envelope and
+there in the invoice I find this writing&mdash;here!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And here,&quot; said Dicky, diving into his pocket, &quot;is the writing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he thrust into my eagerly outstretched hand a very thin half-sheet
+of foreign notepaper, of that kind of cheap glazed notepaper you get in
+cafes on the Continent when you ask for writing materials.</p>
+
+<p>Three lines of German, written in fluent German characters in purple ink
+beneath the name and address of Mynheer van Urutius ... that was all.</p>
+
+<p>My heart sank with disappointment and wretchedness as I read the
+inscription.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the document:</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Herr Willem van Urutius,<br />
+Automobilgesch&auml;ft,<br />
+Nymwegen.<br />
+<i>Alexandtr-Straat</i> 81 bis.</p>
+
+<p>Berlin, Iten Juli, 16.</p>
+
+<p>O Eichenholz! O Eichenholz!<br />
+Wie leer sind deine Bl&auml;tter.</p>
+
+<p>Wie Achiles in dem Zelte.</p>
+
+<p>Wo zweie sich zanken<br />
+Erfreut sich der Dritte.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>(Translation.)</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Willem van Urutius,<br />
+Automobile Agent,<br />
+Nymwegen.<br />
+81 bis <i>Alexander-Straat.</i></p>
+
+<p>Berlin, 1st July, 16.</p>
+
+<p>O Oak-tree! O Oak-tree,<br />
+How empty are thy leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Like Achiles in the tent.</p>
+
+<p>When two people fall out<br />
+The third party rejoices.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>I stared at this nonsensical document in silence. My thoughts were
+almost too bitter for words.</p>
+
+<p>At last I spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's all this rigmarole got to do with Francis, Dicky?&quot; I asked,
+vainly trying to suppress the bitterness in my voice. &quot;This looks like a
+list of copybook maxims for your Dutch friend's advertisement cards....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But I returned to the study of the piece of paper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not so fast, old bird,&quot; Dicky replied coolly, &quot;let me finish my story.
+Old Stick-in-the-mud is a lot shrewder than we think.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'When I read the writing,' he told me, 'I think he is all robbish, but
+then I ask myself, Who shall put robbish in my invoices? And then I
+read the writing again and once again, and then I see he is a message.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop, Dicky!&quot; I cried, &quot;of course, what an ass I am! Why
+<i>Eichenholz</i>....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly,&quot; retorted Dicky, &quot;as the old Mynheer was the first to see,
+<i>Eichenholz</i> translated into English is 'Oak-tree' or 'Oak-wood'&mdash;in
+other words, Francis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, Dicky....&quot; I interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Just a minute,&quot; said Dicky, putting up his hand. &quot;I confess I thought,
+on first seeing this message or whatever it is, that there must be
+simply a coincidence of name and that somebody's idle scribbling had
+found its way into old van U.'s invoice. But now that you have told me
+that Francis may have actually got into Germany, then, I must say, it
+looks as if this might be an attempt of his to communicate with home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where did the Dutchman's packet of stuff come from?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From the Berlin Metal Works in Steglitz, a suburb of Berlin: he has
+dealt with them for years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But then what does all the rest of it mean ... all this about Achilles
+and the rest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, Desmond!&quot; was Dicky's reply, &quot;that's where you've got not only me,
+but also Mynheer van Urutius.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'O oak-wood! O oak-wood, how empty are thy leaves!'.... That sounds
+like a taunt, don't you think, Dicky?&quot; said I.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Or</i> a confession of failure from Francis ... to let us know that he
+has done nothing, adding that he is accordingly sulking 'like Achilles
+in his tent.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, see here, Richard Allerton,&quot; I said, &quot;Francis would never spell
+'Achilles' with one 'l' ... now, would he?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Jove!&quot; said Dicky, looking at the paper again, &quot;nobody would but a
+very uneducated person. I know nothing about German, but tell me, is
+that the hand of an educated German? Is it Francis' handwriting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly, it is an educated hand,&quot; I replied, &quot;but I'm dashed if I can
+say whether it is Francis' German handwriting: it can scarcely be
+because, as I have already remarked, he spells 'Achilles' with one 'l.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then the fog came down over us again. We sat helplessly and gazed at the
+fateful paper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's only one thing for it, Dicky,&quot; I said finally, &quot;I'll take the
+blooming thing back to London with me and hand it over to the
+Intelligence. After all, Francis may have a code with them. Possibly
+they will see light where we grope in darkness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Desmond,&quot; said Dicky, giving me his hand, &quot;that's the most sensible
+suggestion you've made yet. Go home and good luck to you. But promise me
+you'll come back here and tell me if that piece of paper brings the
+news that dear old Francis is alive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I left Dicky but I did not go home. I was not destined to see my home
+for many a weary week.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III" />CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>A VISITOR IN THE NIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>A volley of invective from the box of the cab&mdash;bad language in Dutch is
+fearfully effective&mdash;aroused me from my musings. The cab, a small,
+uncomfortable box with a musty smell, stopped with a jerk that flung me
+forward. From the outer darkness furious altercation resounded above the
+plashing of the rain. I peered through the streaming glass of the
+windows but could distinguish nothing save the yellow blur of a lamp.
+Then a vehicle of some kind seemed to move away in front of us, for I
+heard the grating of wheels against the kerb, and my cab drew up to the
+pavement.</p>
+
+<p>On alighting, I found myself in a narrow, dark street with high houses
+on either side. A grimy lamp with the word &quot;H&ocirc;tel&quot; in half-obliterated
+characters painted on it hung above my head, announcing that I had
+arrived at my destination. As I paid off the cabman another cab passed.
+It was apparently the one with which my Jehu had had words, for he
+turned round and shouted abuse into the night.</p>
+
+<p>My cabman departed, leaving me with my bag on the pavement at my feet,
+gazing at a narrow dirty door, the upper half of which was filled in
+with frosted glass. I was at last awake to the fact that I, an
+Englishman, was going to spend the night in a German hotel to which I
+had been specially recommended by a German porter on the understanding
+that I was a German. I knew that, according to the Dutch neutrality
+regulations, my passport would have to be handed in for inspection by
+the police and that therefore I could not pass myself off as a German.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bah!&quot; I said to give myself courage, &quot;this is a free country, a neutral
+country. They may be offensive, they may overcharge you, in a Hun hotel,
+but they can't eat you. Besides, any bed in a night like this!&quot; and I
+pushed open the door.</p>
+
+<p>Within, the hotel proved to be rather better than its uninviting
+exterior promised. There was a small vestibule with a little glass cage
+of an office on one side and beyond it an old-fashioned flight of
+stairs, with a glass knob on the post at the foot, winding to the upper
+stories.</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of my footsteps on the mosaic flooring, a waiter emerged
+from a little cubby-hole under the stairs. He had a blue apron girt
+about his waist, but otherwise he wore the short coat and the dicky and
+white tie of the Continental hotel waiter. His hands were grimy with
+black marks and so was his apron. He had apparently been cleaning
+boots.</p>
+
+<p>He was a big, fat, blonde man with narrow, cruel little eyes. His hair
+was cut so short that his head appeared to be shaven. He advanced
+quickly towards me and asked me in German in a truculent voice what I
+wanted.</p>
+
+<p>I replied in the same language, I wanted a room.</p>
+
+<p>He shot a glance at me through his little slits of eyes on hearing my
+good Bonn accent, but his manner did not change.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The hotel is full. The gentleman cannot have a bed here. The
+proprietress is out at present. I regret....&quot; He spat this all out in
+the offhand insolent manner of the Prussian official.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was Franz, of the Bopparder Hof, who recommended me to come here,&quot; I
+said. I was not going out again into the rain for a whole army of
+Prussian waiters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He told me that Frau Schratt would make me very comfortable,&quot; I added.</p>
+
+<p>The waiter's manner changed at once.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So, so,&quot; he said&mdash;quite genially this time&mdash;&quot;it was Franz who sent the
+gentleman to us. He is a good friend of the house, is Franz. Ja, Frau
+Schratt is unfortunately out just now, but as soon as the lady returns I
+will inform her you are here. In the meantime, I will give the gentleman
+a room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He handed me a candlestick and a key.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; he grunted, &quot;No. 31, the third floor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A clock rang out the hour somewhere in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ten o'clock already,&quot; he said. &quot;The gentleman's papers can wait till
+to-morrow, it is so late. Or perhaps the gentleman will give them to the
+proprietress. She must come any moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As I mounted the winding staircase I heard him murmur again:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So, so, Franz sent him here! Ach, der Franz!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I had passed out of sight of the lighted hall I found myself
+in complete darkness. On each landing a jet of gas, turned down low,
+flung a dim and flickering light a few yards around. On the third floor
+I was able to distinguish by the gas rays a small plaque fastened to the
+wall inscribed with an arrow pointing to the right above the figures:
+46-30.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped to strike a match to light my candle. The whole hotel seemed
+wrapped in silence, the only sound the rushing of water in the gutters
+without. Then from the darkness of the narrow corridor that stretched
+out in front of me, I heard the rattle of a key in a lock.</p>
+
+<p>I advanced down the corridor, the pale glimmer of my candle showing me
+as I passed a succession of yellow doors, each bearing a white porcelain
+plate inscribed with a number in black. No. 46 was the first room on
+the right counting from the landing: the even numbers were on the right,
+the odd on the left: therefore I reckoned on finding my room the last on
+the left at the end of the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>The corridor presently took a sharp turn. As I came round the bend I
+heard again the sound of a key and then the rattling of a door knob, but
+the corridor bending again, I could not see the author of the noise
+until I had turned the corner.</p>
+
+<p>I ran right into a man fumbling at a door on the left-hand side of the
+passage, the last door but one. A mirror at the end of the corridor
+caught and threw back the reflection of my candle.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked up as I approached. He was wearing a soft black felt hat
+and a black overcoat and on his arm hung an umbrella streaming with
+rain. His candlestick stood on the floor at his feet. It had apparently
+just been extinguished, for my nostrils sniffed the odour of burning
+tallow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have a light?&quot; the stranger said in German in a curiously
+breathless voice. &quot;I have just come upstairs and the wind blew out my
+candle and I could not get the door open. Perhaps you could ...&quot; He
+broke off gasping and put his hand to his heart.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Allow me,&quot; I said. The lock of the door was inverted and to open the
+door you had to insert the key upside-down. I did so and the door
+opened easily. As it swung back I noticed the number of the room was 33,
+next door to mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can I be of any assistance to you? Are you unwell?&quot; I said, at the same
+time lifting my candle and scanning the stranger's features.</p>
+
+<p>He was a young man with close-cropped black hair, fine dark eyes and an
+aquiline nose with a deep furrow between the eyebrows. The crispness of
+his hair and the high cheekbones gave a suggestion of Jewish blood. His
+face was very pale and his lips were blueish. I saw the perspiration
+glistening on his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you, it is nothing,&quot; the man replied in the same breathless
+voice. &quot;I am only a little out of breath with carrying my bag upstairs.
+That's all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must have arrived just before I did,&quot; I said, remembering the cab
+that had driven away from the hotel as I drove up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is so,&quot; he answered, pushing open his door as he spoke. He
+disappeared into the darkness of the room and suddenly the door shut
+with a slam that re-echoed through the house.</p>
+
+<p>As I had calculated, my room was next door to his, the end room of the
+corridor. It smelt horribly close and musty and the first thing I did
+was to stride across to the windows and fling them back wide.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself looking across a dark and narrow canal, on whose
+stagnant water loomed large the black shapes of great barges, into the
+windows of gaunt and weather-stained houses over the way. Not a light
+shone in any window. Away in the distance the same clock as I had heard
+before struck the quarter&mdash;a single, clear chime.</p>
+
+<p>It was the regular bedroom of the <i>maison meubl&eacute;e</i>&mdash;worn carpet,
+discoloured and dingy wallpaper, faded rep curtains and mahogany
+bedstead with a vast <i>&eacute;dredon</i>, like a giant pincushion. My candle,
+guttering wildly in the unaccustomed breeze blowing dankly through the
+chamber, was the sole illuminant. There was neither gas nor electric
+light laid on.</p>
+
+<p>The house had relapsed into quiet. The bedroom had an evil look and
+this, combined with the dank air from the canal, gave my thoughts a
+sombre tinge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;you're a nice kind of ass! Here you are, a
+British officer, posing as a brother Hun in a cut-throat Hun hotel, with
+a waiter who looks like the official Prussian executioner. What's going
+to happen to you, young feller my lad, when Madame comes along and finds
+you have a British passport? A very pretty kettle of fish, I must say!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And suppose Madame takes it into her head to toddle along up here
+to-night and calls your bluff and summons the gentle Hans or Fritz or
+whatever that ruffianly waiter's name is to come upstairs and settle
+your hash! What sort of a fight are you going to put up in that narrow
+corridor out there with a Hun next door and probably on every side of
+you, and no exit this end? You don't know a living soul in Rotterdam and
+no one will be a penny the wiser if you vanish off the face of the
+earth ... at any rate no one on this side of the water.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Starting to undress, I noticed a little door on the left-hand side of
+the bed. I found it opened into a small <i>cabinet de toilette</i>, a narrow
+slip of a room with a wash-hand stand and a very dirty window covered
+with yellow paper. I pulled open this window with great difficulty&mdash;it
+cannot have been opened for years&mdash;and found it gave on to a very small
+and deep interior court, just an air shaft round which the house was
+built. At the bottom was a tiny paved court not more than five foot
+square, entirely isolated save on one side where there was a basement
+window with a flight of steps leading down from the court through an
+iron grating. From this window a faint yellow streak of light was
+visible. The air was damp and chill and horrid odours of a dirty kitchen
+were wafted up the shaft. So I closed the window and set about turning
+in.</p>
+
+<p>I took off my coat and waistcoat, then bethought me of the mysterious
+document I had received from Dicky. Once more I looked at those
+enigmatical words:</p>
+
+<p><i>O Oak-wood! O Oak-wood</i> (for that much was
+clear),<br />
+<i>How empty are thy leaves.<br />
+Like Achiles</i> (with one &quot;l&quot;) <i>in the tent.<br />
+When two people fall out<br />
+The third party rejoices.</i></p>
+
+<p>What did it all mean? Had Francis fallen out with some confederate who,
+having had his revenge by denouncing my brother, now took this
+extraordinary step to announce his victim's fate to the latter's
+friends? &quot;Like Achilles in the tent!&quot; Why not &quot;in <i>his</i> tent&quot;?
+Surely ...</p>
+
+<p>A curious choking noise, the sound of a strangled cough, suddenly broke
+the profound silence of the house. My heart seemed to stop for a moment.
+I hardly dared raise my eyes from the paper which I was conning, leaning
+over the table in my shirt and trousers.</p>
+
+<p>The noise continued, a hideous, deep-throated gurgling. Then I heard a
+faint foot-fall in the corridor without.</p>
+
+<p>I raised my eyes to the door.</p>
+
+<p>Someone or something was scratching the panels, furiously, frantically.</p>
+
+<p>The door-knob was rattled loudly. The noise broke in raucously upon that
+horrid gurgling sound without. It snapped the spell that bound me.</p>
+
+<p>I moved resolutely towards the door. Even as I stepped forward the
+gurgling resolved itself into a strangled cry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach! ich sterbe&quot; were the words I heard.</p>
+
+<p>Then the door burst open with a crash, there was a swooping rush of wind
+and rain through the room, the curtains flapped madly from the windows.</p>
+
+<p>The candle flared up wildly.</p>
+
+<p>Then it went out.</p>
+
+<p>Something fell heavily into the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV" />CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>DESTINY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>There are two things at least that modern warfare teaches you, one is to
+keep cool in an emergency, the other is not to be afraid of a corpse.
+Therefore I was scarcely surprised to find myself standing there in the
+dark calmly reviewing the extraordinary situation in which I now found
+myself. That's the curious thing about shell-shock: after it a motor
+back-firing or a tyre bursting will reduce a man to tears, but in face
+of danger he will probably find himself in full possession of his wits
+as long as there is no sudden and violent noise connected with it.</p>
+
+<p>Brief as the sounds without had been, I was able on reflection to
+identify that gasping gurgle, that rapid patter of the hands. Anyone who
+has seen a man die quickly knows them. Accordingly I surmised that
+somebody had come to my door at the point of death, probably to seek
+assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Then I thought of the man next door, his painful breathlessness, his
+blueish lips, when I found him wrestling with his key, and I guessed
+who was my nocturnal visitor lying prone in the dark at my feet.</p>
+
+<p>Shielding the candle with my hand I rekindled it. Then I grappled with
+the flapping curtains and got the windows shut. Then only did I raise my
+candle until its beams shone down upon the silent figure lying across
+the threshold of the room.</p>
+
+<p>It was the man from No. 33. He was quite dead. His face was livid and
+distorted, his eyes glassy between the half-closed lids, while his
+fingers, still stiffly clutching, showed paint and varnish and dust
+beneath the nails where he had pawed door and carpet in his death agony.</p>
+
+<p>One did not need to be a doctor to see that a heart attack had swiftly
+and suddenly struck him down.</p>
+
+<p>Now that I knew the worst I acted with decision. I dragged the body by
+the shoulders into the room until it lay in the centre of the carpet.
+Then I locked the door.</p>
+
+<p>The foreboding of evil that had cast its black shadow over my thoughts
+from the moment I crossed the threshold of this sinister hotel came over
+me strongly again. Indeed, my position was, to say the least, scarcely
+enviable. Here was I, a British officer with British papers of identity,
+about to be discovered in a German hotel, into which I had introduced
+myself under false pretences, at dead of night alone with the corpse of
+a German or Austrian (for such the dead man apparently was)!</p>
+
+<p>It was undoubtedly a most awkward fix.</p>
+
+<p>I listened.</p>
+
+<p>Everything in the hotel was silent as the grave.</p>
+
+<p>I turned from my gloomy forebodings to look again at the stranger. In
+his crisp black hair and slightly protuberant cheekbones I traced again
+the hint of Jewish ancestry I had remarked before. Now that the man's
+eyes&mdash;his big, thoughtful eyes that had stared at me out of the darkness
+of the corridor&mdash;were closed, he looked far less foreign than before: in
+fact he might almost have passed as an Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>He was a young man&mdash;about my own age, I judged&mdash;(I shall be twenty-eight
+next birthday) and about my own height, which is five feet ten. There
+was something about his appearance and build that struck a chord very
+faintly in my memory.</p>
+
+<p>Had I seen the fellow before?</p>
+
+<p>I remembered now that I had noticed something oddly familiar about him
+when I first saw him for that brief moment in the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>I looked down at him again as he lay on his back on the faded carpet. I
+brought the candle down closer and scanned his features.</p>
+
+<p>He certainly looked less foreign than he did before. He might not be a
+German after all: more likely a Hungarian or a Pole, perhaps even a
+Dutchman. His German had been too flawless for a Frenchman&mdash;for a
+Hungarian, either, for that matter.</p>
+
+<p>I leant back on my knees to ease my cramped position. As I did so I
+caught a glimpse of the stranger's three-quarters face.</p>
+
+<p>Why! He reminded me of Francis a little!</p>
+
+<p>There certainly was a suggestion of my brother in the man's appearance.
+Was it the thick black hair, the small dark moustache? Was it the
+well-chiselled mouth? It was rather a hint of Francis than a resemblance
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger was fully dressed. The jacket of his blue serge suit had
+fallen open and I saw a portfolio in the inner breast pocket. Here, I
+thought, might be a clue to the dead man's identity. I fished out the
+portfolio, then rapidly ran my fingers over the stranger's other
+pockets.</p>
+
+<p>I left the portfolio to the last.</p>
+
+<p>The jacket pockets contained nothing else except a white silk
+handkerchief unmarked. In the right-hand top pocket of the waistcoat was
+a neat silver cigarette case, perfectly plain, containing half a dozen
+cigarettes. I took one out and looked at it. It was a Melania, a
+cigarette I happen to know for they stock them at one of my clubs, the
+Dionysus, and it chances to be the only place in London where you can
+get the brand.</p>
+
+<p>It looked as if my unknown friend had come from London.</p>
+
+<p>There was also a plain silver watch of Swiss make.</p>
+
+<p>In the trousers pocket was some change, a little English silver and
+coppers, some Dutch silver and paper money. In the right-hand trouser
+pocket was a bunch of keys.</p>
+
+<p>That was all.</p>
+
+<p>I put the different articles on the floor beside me. Then I got up, put
+the candle on the table, drew the chair up to it and opened the
+portfolio.</p>
+
+<p>In a little pocket of the inner flap were visiting cards. Some were
+simply engraved with the name in small letters:</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Semlin</p>
+
+<p>Others were more detailed:</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Semlin, Brooklyn, N.Y.<br />
+The Halewright Mfg. Co., Ltd.</p>
+
+<p>There were also half a dozen private cards:</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Semlin, 333 E. 73rd St., New York.<br />
+Rivington Park House.</p>
+
+<p>In the packet of cards was a solitary one, larger than the rest, an
+expensive affair on thick, highly glazed millboard, bearing in gothic
+characters the name:</p>
+
+<p>Otto von Steinhardt.</p>
+
+<p>On this card was written in pencil, above the name:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hotel Sixt, Vos in't Tuintje,&quot; and in brackets, thus: &quot;(Mme. Anna
+Schratt.)&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In another pocket of the portfolio was an American passport surmounted
+by a flaming eagle and sealed with a vast red seal, sending greetings to
+all and sundry on behalf of Henry Semlin, a United States citizen,
+travelling to Europe. Details in the body of the document set forth that
+Henry Semlin was born at Brooklyn on 31st March, 1886, that his hair was
+Black, nose Aquiline, chin Firm, and that of special marks he had None.
+The description was good enough to show me that it was undoubtedly the
+body of Henry Semlin that lay at my feet.</p>
+
+<p>The passport had been issued at Washington three months earlier. The
+only <i>visa</i> it bore was that of the American Embassy in London, dated
+two days previously. With it was a British permit, issued to Henry
+Semlin, Manufacturer, granting him authority to leave the United Kingdom
+for the purpose of travelling to Rotterdam, further a bill for luncheon
+served on board the Dutch Royal mail steamer <i>Koningin Regentes</i> on
+yesterday's date.</p>
+
+<p>In the long and anguishing weeks that followed on that anxious night in
+the Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often wondered to what
+malicious promptings, to what insane impulse, I owed the idea that
+suddenly germinated in my brain as I sat fingering the dead man's
+letter-case in that squalid room. The impulse sprang into my brain like
+a flash and like a flash I acted on it, though I can hardly believe I
+meant to pursue it to its logical conclusion until I stood once more
+outside the door of my room.</p>
+
+<p>The examination of the dead man's papers had shown me that he was an
+American business man, who had just come from London, having but
+recently proceeded to England from the United States.</p>
+
+<p>What puzzled me was why an American manufacturer, seemingly of some
+substance and decently dressed, should go to a German hotel on the
+recommendation of a German, from his name, and the style of his visiting
+card, a man of good family.</p>
+
+<p>Semlin might, of course, have been, like myself, a traveller benighted
+in Rotterdam, owing his recommendation to the hotel to a German
+acquaintance in the city. Still, Americans are cautious folk and I found
+it rather improbable that this American business man should adventure
+himself into this evil-looking house with a large sum of money on his
+person&mdash;he had several hundred pounds of money in Dutch currency notes
+in a thick wad in his portfolio.</p>
+
+<p>I knew that the British authorities discouraged, as far as they could,
+neutrals travelling to and fro between England and Germany in war-time.
+Possibly Semlin wanted to do business in Germany on his European trip as
+well as in England. Knowing the attitude of the British authorities, he
+may well have made his arrangements in Holland for getting into Germany
+lest the British police should get wind of his purpose and stop him
+crossing to Rotterdam.</p>
+
+<p>But his German was so flawless, with no trace of Americanism in voice or
+accent. And I knew what good use the German Intelligence had made of
+neutral passports in the past. Therefore I determined to go next door
+and have a look at Dr. Semlin's luggage. In the back of my mind was ever
+that harebrain resolve, half-formed as yet but none the less firmly
+rooted in my head.</p>
+
+<p>Taking up my candle again, I stole out of the room. As I stood in the
+corridor and turned to lock the bedroom door behind me, the mirror at
+the end of the passage caught the reflection of my candle.</p>
+
+<p>I looked and saw myself in the glass, a white, staring face.</p>
+
+<p>I looked again. Then I fathomed the riddle that had puzzled me in the
+dead face of the stranger in my room.</p>
+
+<p>It was not the face of Francis that his features suggested.</p>
+
+<p>It was mine!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The next moment I found myself in No. 33. I could see no sign of the key
+of the room; Semlin must have dropped it in his fall, so it behoved me
+to make haste for fear of any untoward interruption. I had not yet heard
+eleven strike on the clock.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger's hat and overcoat lay on a chair. The hat was from
+Scott's: there was nothing except a pair of leather gloves in the
+overcoat pockets.</p>
+
+<p>A bag, in size something between a small kit-bag and a large handbag,
+stood open on the table. It contained a few toilet necessaries, a pair
+of pyjamas, a clean shirt, a pair of slippers, ... nothing of importance
+and not a scrap of paper of any kind.</p>
+
+<p>I went through everything again, looked in the sponge bag, opened the
+safety razor case, shook out the shirt, and finally took everything out
+of the bag and stacked the things on the table.</p>
+
+<p>At the bottom of the bag I made a strange discovery. The interior of
+the bag was fitted with that thin yellow canvas-like material with which
+nearly all cheap bags, like this one was, are lined. At the bottom of
+the bag an oblong piece of the lining had apparently been torn clean
+out. The leather of the bag showed through the slit. Yet the lining
+round the edges of the gap showed no fraying, no trace of rough usage.
+On the contrary, the edges were pasted neatly down on the leather.</p>
+
+<p>I lifted the bag and examined it. As I did so I saw lying on the table
+beside it an oblong of yellow canvas. I picked it up and found the under
+side stained with paste and the brown of the leather.</p>
+
+<p>It was the missing piece of lining and it was stiff with something that
+crackled inside it.</p>
+
+<p>I slit the piece of canvas up one side with my penknife. It contained
+three long fragments of paper, a thick, expensive, highly glazed paper.
+Top, bottom and left-hand side of each was trim and glossy: the fourth
+side showed a broken edge as though it had been roughly cut with a
+knife. The three slips of paper were the halves of three quarto sheets
+of writing, torn in two, lengthways, from top to bottom.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of each slip was part of some kind of crest in gold, what, it
+was not possible to determine, for the crest had been in the centre of
+the sheet and the cut had gone right through it.</p>
+
+<p>The letter was written in English but the name of the recipient as also
+the date was on the missing half.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere in the silence of the night I heard a door bang. I thrust the
+slips of paper in their canvas covering into my trousers pocket. I must
+not be found in that room. With trembling hands I started to put the
+things back in the bag. Those slips of paper, I reflected as I worked,
+at least rent the veil of mystery enveloping the corpse that lay
+stiffening in the next room. This, at any rate, was certain: German or
+American or hyphenate, Henry Semlin, manufacturer and spy, had voyaged
+from America to England not for the purposes of trade but to get hold of
+that mutilated document now reposing in my pocket. Why he had only got
+half the letter and what had happened to the other half was more than I
+could say ... it sufficed for me to know that its importance to somebody
+was sufficient to warrant a journey on its behalf from one side to the
+other of the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>As I opened the bag my fingers encountered a hard substance, as of
+metal, embedded in the slack of the lining in the joints of the mouth.
+At first I thought it was a coin, then I felt some kind of clasp or
+fastening behind it and it seemed to be a brooch. Out came my pocket
+knife again and there lay a small silver star, about as big as a
+regimental cap badge, embedded in the thin canvas. It bore an
+inscription. In stencilled letters I read:</p>
+
+<p>O2 G<br />
+Abt. VII.</p>
+
+<p>Here was Dr. Semlin's real visiting-card.</p>
+
+<p>I held in my hand a badge of the German secret police.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot penetrate far behind the scenes in Germany without coming
+across the traces of Section Seven of the Berlin Police Presidency, the
+section that is known euphemistically as that of the Political Police.
+Ostensibly it attends to the safety of the monarch, and of distinguished
+personages generally, and the numerous suite that used to accompany the
+Kaiser on his visits to England invariably included two or three
+top-hatted representatives of the section.</p>
+
+<p>The ramifications of <i>Abteilung Sieben</i> are, in reality, much wider. It
+does such work in connection with the newspapers as is even too dirty
+for the German Foreign Office to touch, comprising everything from the
+launching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets against
+inconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthful
+foreign correspondents to the frontier. It is the obedient handmaiden of
+the Intelligence Department of both War Office and Admiralty in Germany,
+and renders faithful service to the espionage which is constantly
+maintained on officials, politicians, the clergy and the general public
+in that land of careful organisation.</p>
+
+<p>Section Seven is a vast subterranean department. Always working in the
+dark, its political complexion is a handy cloak for blacker and more
+sinister activities. It is frequently entrusted with commissions of
+which it would be inexpedient for official Germany to have cognizance
+and of which, accordingly, official Germany can always safely repudiate
+when occasion demands.</p>
+
+<p>I thrust the pin of the badge into my braces and fastened it there,
+crammed the rest of the dead man's effects into his bag, stuck his hat
+upon my head and threw his overcoat on my arm, picked up his bag and
+crept away. In another minute I was back in my room, my brain aflame
+with the fire of a great enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>Here, to my hand, lay the key of that locked land which held the secret
+of my lost brother. The question I had been asking myself, ever since I
+had first discovered the dead man's American papers of identity, was
+this. Had I the nerve to avail myself of Semlin's American passport to
+get into Germany? The answer to that question lay in the little silver
+badge. I knew that no German official, whatever his standing, whatever
+his orders, would refuse passage to the silver star of Section Seven. It
+need only be used, too, as a last resource, for I had my papers as a
+neutral. Could I but once set foot in Germany, I was quite ready to
+depend on my wits to see me through. One advantage, I knew, I must
+forgo. That was the half-letter in its canvas case.</p>
+
+<p>If that document was of importance to Section Seven of the German
+Police, then it was of equal, nay, of greater importance to my country.
+If I went, that should remain behind in safe keeping. On that I was
+determined.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never before, since the war began,&quot; I told myself, &quot;can any Englishman
+have had such an opportunity vouchsafed to him for getting easily and
+safely into that jealously guarded land as you have now! You have plenty
+of money, what with your own and this ...&quot; and I fingered Semlin's wad
+of notes, &quot;and provided you can keep your head sufficiently to remember
+always that you are a German, once over the frontier you should be able
+to give the Huns the slip and try and follow up the trail of poor
+Francis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And maybe,&quot; I argued further (so easily is one's better judgment
+defeated when one is young and set on a thing), &quot;maybe in German
+surroundings, you may get some sense into that mysterious jingle you got
+from Dicky Allerton as the sole existing clue to the disappearance of
+Francis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, I wavered. The risks were awful. I had to get out of that
+evil hotel in the guise of Dr. Semlin, with, as the sole safeguard
+against exposure, should I fall in with the dead man's employers or
+friends, that slight and possibly imaginative resemblance between him
+and me: I had to take such measures as would prevent the fraud from
+being detected when the body was discovered in the hotel: above all, I
+had to ascertain, before I could definitely resolve to push on into
+Germany, whether Semlin was already known to the people at the hotel or
+whether&mdash;as I surmised to be the case&mdash;this was also his first visit to
+the house in the Vos in't Tuintje.</p>
+
+<p>In any case, I was quite determined in my own mind that the only way to
+get out of the place with Semlin's document without considerable
+unpleasantness, if not grave danger, would be to transfer his identity
+and effects to myself and vice versa. When I saw the way a little
+clearer I could decide whether to take the supreme risk and adventure
+myself into the enemy's country.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever I was going to do, there were not many hours of the night left
+in which to act, and I was determined to be out of that house of ill
+omen before day dawned. If I could get clear of the hotel and at the
+same time ascertain that Semlin was as much a stranger there as myself,
+I could decide on my further course of action in the greater freedom of
+the streets of Rotterdam. One thing was certain: the waiter had let the
+question of Semlin's papers stand over until the morning, as he had done
+in my case, for Semlin still had his passport in his possession.</p>
+
+<p>After all, if Semlin was unknown at the hotel, the waiter had only seen
+him for the same brief moment as he had seen me.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I reasoned and argued with myself, but in the meantime I acted. I
+had nothing compromising in my suit-case, so that caused no difficulty.
+My British passport and permit and anything bearing any relation to my
+personality, such as my watch and cigarette case, both of which were
+engraved with my initials, I transferred to the dead man's pockets. As I
+bent over the stiff, cold figure with its livid face and clutching
+fingers, I felt a difficulty which I had hitherto resolutely shirked
+forcing itself squarely into the forefront of my mind.</p>
+
+<p>What was I going to do about the body?</p>
+
+<p>At that moment came a low knocking.</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden sinking at the heart I remembered I had forgotten to lock
+the door.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V" />CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LADY OF THE VOS IN'T TUINTJE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Here was Destiny knocking at the door. In that instant my mind was made
+up. For the moment, at any rate, I had every card in my hands. I would
+bluff these stodgy Huns: I would brazen it out: I would be Semlin and go
+through with it to the bitter end, aye, and if it took me to the very
+gates of Hell.</p>
+
+<p>The knocking was repeated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May one come in?&quot; said a woman's voice in German.</p>
+
+<p>I stepped across the corpse and opened the door a foot or so.</p>
+
+<p>There stood a woman with a lamp. She was a middle-aged woman with an
+egg-shaped face, fat and white and puffy, and pale, crafty eyes. She was
+in her outdoor clothes, with an enormous vulgar-looking hat and an
+old-fashioned sealskin cape with a high collar. The cape which was
+glistening with rain was half open, and displayed a vast bosom tightly
+compressed into a white silk blouse. In one hand she carried an oil
+lamp.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Frau Schratt,&quot; she said by way of introduction, and raised the lamp to
+look more closely at me.</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw her face change. She was looking past me into the room, and I
+knew that the lamplight was falling full upon the ghastly thing that lay
+upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>I realized the woman was about to scream, so I seized her by the wrist.
+She had disgusting hands, fat and podgy and covered with rings.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quiet!&quot; I whispered fiercely in her ear, never relaxing my grip on her
+wrist. &quot;You will be quiet and come in here, do you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sought to shrink from me, but I held her fast and drew her into the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse. She
+seemed to have regained her self-possession. The woman was no longer
+frightened. I felt instinctively that her fears had been all for
+herself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor. When she
+spoke her manner was almost business-like.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was told nothing of this,&quot; she said. &quot;Who is it? What do you want me
+to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant
+odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of
+death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking
+in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that
+makes my blood run cold whenever I think of her.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed. She became
+polite. She was obsequious. Of the two, the first manner became her
+vastly better. She looked at me with a curious air, almost with
+reverence, as it seemed to me. She said, in a purring voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach, so! I did not understand. The gentleman must excuse me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she purred again:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was then I noticed that her eyes were fastened upon my chest. I
+followed their direction.</p>
+
+<p>They rested on the silver badge I had stuck in my braces.</p>
+
+<p>I understood and held my peace. Silence was my only trump until I knew
+how the land lay. If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all I
+wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, she began to speak again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I expected <i>you</i>,&quot; she said, &quot;but not... <i>this</i>. Who is it this time? A
+Frenchman, eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An Englishman,&quot; I said curtly.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes opened in wonder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach, nein!&quot; she cried&mdash;and you would have said her voice vibrated with
+pleasure&mdash;&quot;An Englishman! Ei, ei!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>If ever a human being licked its chops, that woman did.</p>
+
+<p>She wagged her head and repeated to herself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ei, ei!&quot; adding, as if to explain her surprise, &quot;he is the first we
+have had.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You brought him here, eh! But why up here? Or did der Stelze send him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She fired this string of questions at me without pausing for a reply.
+She continued:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was out, but Karl told me. There was another came, too: Franz sent
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is he,&quot; I said. &quot;I caught him prying in my room and he died.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach!&quot; she ejaculated ... and in her voice was all the world of
+admiration that a German woman feels for brute man.... &quot;The Herr
+Englander came into your room and he died. So, so! But one must speak to
+Franz. The man drinks too much. He is always drunk. He makes mistakes.
+It will not do. I will....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish you to do nothing against Franz,&quot; I said. &quot;This Englishman spoke
+German well: Karl will tell you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As the gentleman wishes,&quot; was the woman's reply in a voice so silky and
+so servile that I felt my gorge rise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She looks like a slug!&quot; I said to myself, as she stood there, fat and
+sleek and horrible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here are his passport and other papers,&quot; I said, bending down and
+taking them from the dead man's pocket. &quot;He was an English officer, you
+see?&quot; And I unfolded the little black book stamped with the Royal Arms.</p>
+
+<p>She leant forward and I was all but stifled with the stale odour of the
+patchouli with which her faded body was drenched.</p>
+
+<p>Then, making a sheaf of passport and permit, I held them in the flame of
+the candle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But we always keep them!&quot; expostulated the hotel-keeper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This passport must die with the man,&quot; I replied firmly. &quot;He must not be
+traced. I want no awkward enquiries made, you understand. Therefore ...&quot;
+and I flung the burning mass of papers into the grate.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good, good!&quot; said the German and put her lamp down on the table. &quot;There
+was a telephone message for you,&quot; she added, &quot;to say that der Stelze
+will come at eight in the morning to receive what you have brought.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The deuce! This was getting awkward. Who the devil was Stelze?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Coming at eight is he?&quot; I said, simply for the sake of saying
+something.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jawohl!&quot; replied Frau Schratt. &quot;He was here already this morning. He
+was nervous, oh! very, and expected you to be here. Already two days he
+is waiting here to go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; I said, &quot;he is going to take ... <i>it</i> on with him, is he?&quot; (I
+knew where he was &quot;going on&quot; to, well enough: he was going to see that
+document safe into Germany.)</p>
+
+<p>There was a malicious ring in the woman's voice when she spoke of
+Stelze. I thought I might profit by this. So I drew her out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So Stelze called to-day and gave you his orders, did he?&quot; I said,
+&quot;and ... and took charge of things generally, eh?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her little eyes snapped viciously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach!&quot; she said, &quot;der Stelze is der Stelze. He has power; he has
+authority; he can make and unmake men. But I ... I in my time have
+broken a dozen better men than he and yet he dares to tell Anna Schratt
+that ... that ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She raised her voice hysterically, but broke off before she could finish
+the sentence. I saw she thought she had said too much.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He won't play that game with me,&quot; I said. Strength is the quality that
+every German, man, woman and child, respects, and strength alone. My
+safety depended on my showing this ignoble creature that I received
+orders from no one. &quot;You know what he is. One runs the risk, one takes
+trouble, one is successful. Then he steps in and gathers the laurels.
+No, I am not going to wait for him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hotel-keeper sprang to her feet, her faded face all ravaged by the
+shadow of a great fear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You wouldn't dare!&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I would,&quot; I retorted. &quot;I've done my work and I'll report to
+head-quarters and to no one else!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My eyes fell upon the body.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, what are we going to do with this?&quot; I said. &quot;You must help me,
+Frau Schratt. This is serious. This must not be found here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at me in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That?&quot; she said, and she kicked the body with her foot. &quot;Oh, that will
+be all right with die Schratt! 'It must not be found here'&quot; (she
+mimicked my grave tone). &quot;It will not be found here, young man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she chuckled with all the full-bodied good humour of a fat person.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I mean what I mean, young man, and what you mean,&quot; she replied. &quot;When
+they are in a difficulty, when there are complications, when there is
+any unpleasantness.. like <i>this</i> ... they remember die Schratt, 'die
+fesche Anna,' as they called me once, and it is 'gnadige Frau' here and
+'gnadige Frau' there and a diamond bracelet or a pearl ring, if only I
+will do the little conjuring trick that will smooth everything over. But
+when all goes well, then I am 'old Schratt,' 'old hag,' 'old woman,' and
+I must take my orders and beg nicely and ... bah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her words ended in a gulp, which in any other woman would have been a
+sob.</p>
+
+<p>Then she added in her hard harlot's voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You needn't worry your head about <i>him,</i> there! Leave him to me! It's
+my trade!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At those words, which covered God only knows what horrors of midnight
+disappearances, of ghoulish rites with packing-case and sack, in the
+dark cellars of that evil house, I felt that, could I but draw back from
+the enterprise to which I had so rashly committed myself, I would do so
+gladly. Only then did I begin to realize something of the utter
+ruthlessness, the cold, calculating ferocity, of the most bitter and
+most powerful enemy which the British Empire has ever had.</p>
+
+<p>But it was too late to withdraw now. The die was cast. Destiny, knocking
+at my door, had found me ready to follow, and I was committed to
+whatever might befall me in my new personality.</p>
+
+<p>The German woman turned to go.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Der Stelze will be here at eight, then,&quot; she said. &quot;I suppose the
+gentleman will take his early morning coffee before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shan't be here,&quot; I said. &quot;You can tell your friend I've gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She turned on me like a flash.</p>
+
+<p>She was hard as flint again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nein!&quot; she cried. &quot;You stay here!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I answered with equal force, &quot;not I ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;... Orders are orders and you and I must obey!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But who is Stelze that he should give orders to me?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is...?&quot; She spoke aghast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;... And you yourself,&quot; I continued, &quot;were saying ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When an order has been given, what you or I think or say is of no
+account,&quot; the woman said. &quot;It is an order: you and I know <i>whose</i> order.
+Let that suffice. You stay here! Good night!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that she was gone. She closed the door behind her; the key rattled
+in the lock and I realized that I was a prisoner. I heard the woman's
+footfalls die away down the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>That distant clock cleaved the silence of the night with twelve
+ponderous strokes. Then the chimes played a pretty jingling little tune
+that rang out clearly in the still, rain-washed air.</p>
+
+<p>I stood petrified and reflected on my next move.</p>
+
+<p>Twelve o'clock! I had eight hours' grace before Stelze, the man of
+mystery and might, arrived to unmask me and hand me over to the tender
+mercies of Madame and of Karl. Before eight o'clock arrived I must&mdash;so I
+summed up my position&mdash;be clear of the hotel and in the train for the
+German frontier&mdash;if I could get a train&mdash;else I must be out of
+Rotterdam, by that hour.</p>
+
+<p>But I must <i>act</i> and act without delay. There was no knowing when that
+dead man lying on the floor might procure me another visit from Madame
+and her myrmidons. The sooner I was out of that house of death the
+better.</p>
+
+<p>The door was solid; the lock was strong. That I discovered without any
+trouble. In any case, I reflected, the front-door of the hotel would be
+barred and bolted at this hour of the night, and I could scarcely dare
+hope to escape by the front without detection, even if Karl were not
+actually in the entrance hall. There must be a back entrance to the
+hotel, I thought, for I had seen that the windows of my room opened on
+to the narrow street lining the canal which ran at the back of the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Escape by the windows was impossible. The front of the house dropped
+sheer down and there was nothing to give one a foothold. But I
+remembered the window in the <i>cabinet de toilette</i> giving on to the
+little air-shaft. That seemed to offer a slender chance of escape.</p>
+
+<p>For the second time that night I opened the casement and inhaled the
+fetid odours arising from the narrow court. All the windows looking,
+like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a light
+still burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair to
+the little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry,
+but I thought I could recognize the outline of a door.</p>
+
+<p>From the window of the <i>cabinet de toilette</i> to the yard the sides of
+the house, cased in stained and dirty stucco, fell sheer away. Measured
+with the eye the drop from window to the pavement was about fifty feet.
+With a rope and something to break one's fall, it might, I fancied, be
+managed....</p>
+
+<p>From that on, things moved swiftly. First with my penknife I ripped the
+tailor's tab with my name from the inside pocket of my coat and burnt it
+in the candle; nothing else I had on was marked, for I had had to buy a
+lot of new garments when I came out of hospital. I took Semlin's
+overcoat, hat and bag into the <i>cabinet de toilette</i> and stood them in
+readiness by the window. As a precaution against surprise I pushed the
+massive mahogany bedstead right across the doorway and thus barricaded
+the entrance to the room.</p>
+
+<p>From either side of the fireplace hung two bell-ropes, twisted silk
+cords of faded crimson with dusty tassels. Mounting on the mantelpiece I
+cut the bell-ropes off short where they joined the wire. Testing them I
+found them apparently solid&mdash;at any rate they must serve. I knotted them
+together.</p>
+
+<p>Back to the <i>cabinet de toilette</i> I went to find a suitable object to
+which to fasten my rope. There was nothing in the little room save the
+washstand, and that was fragile and quite unsuited for the purpose. I
+noticed that the window was fitted with shutters on the outside
+fastened back against the wall. They had not been touched for years, I
+should say, for the iron peg holding them back was heavy with rust and
+the shutters were covered with dust. I closed the left-hand shutter and
+found that it fastened solidly to the window-frame by means of massive
+iron bolts, top and bottom.</p>
+
+<p>Here was the required support for my rope. The poker thrust though the
+wooden slips of the shutter held the rope quite solidly. I attached my
+rope to the poker with an expert knot that I had picked up at a course
+in tying knots during a preposterously dull week I had spent at the base
+in France. Then I dragged from the bed the gigantic eiderdown pincushion
+and the two massive pillows, stripping off the pillow-slips lest their
+whiteness might attract attention whilst they were fulfilling the
+unusual mission for which I destined them.</p>
+
+<p>At the window of the <i>cabinet de toilette</i> I listened a moment. All was
+silent as the grave. Resolutely I pitched out the eiderdown into the
+dark and dirty air shaft. It sailed gracefully earthwards and settled
+with a gentle plop on the stones of the tiny yard. The pillows followed.
+The heavier thud they would have made was deadened by the billowy mass
+of the <i>&eacute;dredon</i>. Semlin's bag went next, and made no sound to speak of;
+then his overcoat and hat followed suit.</p>
+
+<p>I noticed, with a grateful heart, that the eiderdown and pillows
+covered practically the whole of the flags of the yard.</p>
+
+<p>I went back once more to the room and blew out the candle. Then, taking
+a short hold on my silken rope, I clambered out over the window ledge
+and started to let myself down, hand over hand, into the depths.</p>
+
+<p>My two bell-ropes, knotted together, were about twenty feet long, so I
+had to reckon on a clear drop of something over thirty feet. The poker
+and shutter held splendidly firm, and I found little difficulty in
+lowering myself, though I barked my knuckles most unpleasantly on the
+rough stucco of the wall. As I reached the extremity of my rope I
+glanced downward. The red splash of the eiderdown, just visible in the
+light from the adjoining window, seemed to be a horrible distance below
+me. My spirit failed me. My determination began to ebb. I could never
+risk it.</p>
+
+<p>The rope settled the question for me. It snapped without warning&mdash;how it
+had supported my weight up to then I don't know&mdash;and I fell in a heap
+(and, as it seemed to me at the time, with a most reverberating crash)
+on to the soft divan I had prepared for my reception.</p>
+
+<p>I came down hard, very hard, but old Madame's plump eiderdown and
+pillows certainly helped to break my fall. I dropped square on top of
+the eiderdown with one knee on a pillow and, though shaken and jarred, I
+found I had broken no bones.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did my sense leave me. In a minute I was up on my feet again. I
+listened. All was still silent. I cast a glance upwards. The window from
+which I had descended was still dark. I could see the broken bell-ropes
+dangling from the shutter, and I noted, with a glow of professional
+pride, that my expert join between the two ropes had not given. The
+lower rope had parted in the middle ....</p>
+
+<p>I crammed Semlin's hat on my head, retrieved his bag and overcoat from
+the corner of the court where they had fallen and the next moment was
+tiptoeing down the ladder.</p>
+
+<p>The iron stair ran down beside the window in which I had seen the light
+burning. The lower part of the window was screened off by a dirty muslin
+curtain. Through the upper part I caught a glimpse of a sort of scullery
+with a paraffin lamp standing on a wooden table. The room was empty.
+From top to bottom the window was protected by heavy iron bars.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the iron stair stood, as I had anticipated, a door. It
+was my last chance of escape. It stood a dozen yards from the bottom of
+the ladder across a dank, little paved area where tins of refuse were
+standing&mdash;a small door with a brass handle.</p>
+
+<p>I ducked low as I clambered down the iron ladder so as not to be seen
+from the window should anyone enter the scullery as I passed. Treading
+very softly I crept across the little area and, as quietly as I could,
+turned the handle of the door.</p>
+
+<p>It turned round easily in my hand, but nothing happened.</p>
+
+<p>The door was locked.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI" />CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>I BOARD THE BERLIN TRAIN AND LEAVE A LAME GENTLEMAN ON THE PLATFORM</h3>
+
+
+<p>I was caught like a rat in a trap. I could not return by the way I had
+come and the only egress was closed to me. The area door and window were
+the only means of escape from the little court. The one was locked, the
+other barred. I was fairly trapped. All I had to do now was to wait
+until my absence was discovered and the broken rope found to show them
+where I was. Then they would come down to the area, I should be
+confronted with the man, Stelze, and my goose would be fairly cooked.</p>
+
+<p>As quietly as I could I made a complete, thorough, rapid examination of
+the area. It was a dank, dark place, only lit where the yellow light
+streamed forth from the scullery. It had a couple of low bays hollowed
+out of the masonry under the little courtyard, the one filled with wood
+blocks, the other with broken packingcases, old bottles and like
+rubbish. I explored these until my hands came in contact with the damp
+bricks at the back, but in vain. Door and window remained the only
+means of escape.</p>
+
+<p>Four tall tin refuse tins stood in line in front of these two bays, a
+fifth was stowed away under the iron stair. They were all nearly full of
+refuse, so were useless as hiding places. In any case it accorded
+neither with the part I was playing nor with my sense of the ludicrous
+to be discovered by the hotel domestics hiding in a refuse bin.</p>
+
+<p>I was at my wits' end to know what to do. I had dared so much, all had
+gone so surprisingly well, that it was heartbreaking to be foiled with
+liberty almost within my grasp. A great wave of disappointment swept
+over me until I felt my very heart sicken. Then I heard footsteps and
+hope revived within me.</p>
+
+<p>I shrunk back into the darkness of the area behind the refuse bins
+standing in front of the bay nearest the door.</p>
+
+<p>Within the house footsteps were approaching the scullery. I heard a door
+open, then a man's voice singing. He was warbling in a fine mellow
+baritone that popular German ballad:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Das haben die M&auml;dchen so gerne
+Die im St&uuml;bchen und die im <i>Salong.&quot;</i></p>
+
+<p>The voice hung lovingly and wavered and trilled on that word <i>&quot;Salong&quot;</i>:
+the effect was so much to the singer's liking that he sang the stave
+over again. A bumping and a rattle as of loose objects in an empty box
+formed the accompaniment to his song.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A cheery fellow!&quot; I said to myself. If only I could see who it was! But
+I dare not move into that patch of yellow light from which the only view
+into the scullery was afforded.</p>
+
+<p>The singing stopped. Again I heard a door open. Was he going away?</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw a thin shaft of light under the area door.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment it was flung back and the waiter, Karl, appeared, still
+in his blue apron, a bucket in either hand.</p>
+
+<p>He was coming to the refuse bins.</p>
+
+<p>Pudd'n Head Wilson's advice came into my mind; &quot;When angry count up to
+four; when very angry, swear.&quot; I was not angry but scared, terribly
+scared, scared so that I could hear my heart pulsating in great thuds in
+my ears. Nevertheless, I followed the advice of the sage of Dawson's
+Landing and counted to myself: one, two, three, four, one, two, three,
+four; while my heart hammered out: Keep cool, keep cool, keep cool! And
+all the time I remained crouching behind the first two refuse bins
+nearest the door.</p>
+
+<p>The waiter hummed to himself the melody of his little ditty in a deep
+bourdon as he paused a moment at the door. Then he advanced slowly
+across the area.</p>
+
+<p>Would he stop at the refuse bins behind which I cowered?</p>
+
+<p>No, he passed them.</p>
+
+<p>The third? The fourth?</p>
+
+<p>No!</p>
+
+<p>He walked straight across the area and went to the bin beneath the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p>I muttered a blessing inwardly on the careful habits of the German who
+organizes even his refuse into separate tubs.</p>
+
+<p>The man had his back to the door.</p>
+
+<p>Now or never was my chance.</p>
+
+<p>I crawled round my friendly garbage tins, reached the area door on
+tip-toe and stepped softly into the house. As I did so I heard the clank
+of tin as Karl replaced the lid of the tub.</p>
+
+<p>A dark passage stretched out in front of me. Immediately to my right was
+the scullery door wide open. I must avoid the scullery at all costs. The
+man might remain there and I could not risk him driving me before him
+back to the entrance hall of the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>I crept down the dark passage with hands outstretched. Presently they
+fell upon the latch of a door. I pressed it, the door opened inwards
+into the darkness and I passed through. As I softly closed the door
+behind me I heard Karl's heavy step and the grinding of the key as he
+locked the area door.</p>
+
+<p>I stood in a kind of cupboard in pitch darkness, hardly daring to
+breathe.</p>
+
+<p>Once more I heard the man singing his idiotic song. I did not dare look
+out from my hiding-place, for his voice sounded so near that I feared he
+might be still in the passage.</p>
+
+<p>So I stood and waited.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I must have stayed there for an hour in the dark. I heard the waiter
+coming and going in the scullery, listened to his heavy tramp, to his
+everlasting snatch of song, to the rattle of utensils, as he went about
+his work. Every minute of the time I was tortured by the apprehension
+that he would come to the cupboard in the passage.</p>
+
+<p>It was cold in that damp subterranean place. The cupboard was roomy
+enough, so I thought I would put on the overcoat I was carrying. As I
+stretched out my arm, my hand struck hard against some kind of
+projecting hook in the wall behind me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Damn!&quot; I swore savagely under my breath, but I put out my hand again to
+find out what had hurt me. My fingers encountered the cold iron of a
+latch. I pressed it and it gave.</p>
+
+<p>A door swung open and I found myself in another little area with a
+flight of stone steps leading to the street.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I was in a narrow lane driven between the tall sides of the houses. It
+was a cul-de-sac. At the open end I could see the glimmer of street
+lamps. It had stopped raining and the air was fresh and pleasant.
+Carrying my bag I walked briskly down the lane and presently emerged in
+a quiet thoroughfare traversed by a canal&mdash;probably the street, I
+thought, that I had seen from the windows of my bedroom. The Hotel Sixt
+lay to the right of the lane: I struck out to the left and in a few
+minutes found myself in an open square behind the Bourse.</p>
+
+<p>There I found a cab-rank with three or four cabs drawn up in line, the
+horses somnolent, the drivers snoring inside their vehicles. I stirred
+up the first and bade the driver take me to the Caf&eacute; Tarnowski.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone who has been to Holland knows the Caf&eacute; Tarnowski at Rotterdam.
+It is an immense place with hundreds of marble-topped tables tucked away
+among palms under a vast glazed roof. Day or night it never closes: the
+waiters succeed each other in shifts: day and night the great hall
+resounds to the cry of orders, the patter of the waiters' feet, the
+click of dominoes on the marble tables.</p>
+
+<p>Delicious Dutch caf&eacute; au lait, a beefsteak and fried potatoes, most
+succulent of all Dutch dishes, crisp white bread, hot from the midnight
+baking, and appetizing Dutch butter, largely compensated for the thrills
+of the night. Then I sent for some more coffee, black this time, and a
+railway guide, and lighting a cigarette began to frame my plan of
+campaign.</p>
+
+<p>The train for Berlin left Rotterdam at seven in the morning. It was now
+ten minutes past two, so I had plenty of time. From that night onward, I
+told myself, I was a German, and from that moment I set myself
+assiduously to <i>feel</i> myself a German as well as enact the part.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's no use dressing a part,&quot; Francis used to say to me; &quot;you must
+<i>feel</i> it as well. If I were going to disguise myself as a Berliner, I
+should not be content to shave my head and wear a bowler hat with a
+morning coat and get my nails manicured pink. I should begin by
+persuading myself that I was the Lord of creation, that bad manners is a
+sign of manly strength and that dishonesty is the highest form of
+diplomacy. Then only should I set about getting the costume!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Poor old Francis! How shrewd he was and how well he knew his Berliners!</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing like newspapers for giving one an idea of national
+sentiment. I had not spoken to a German, save to a few terrified German
+rats, prisoners of war in France, since the beginning of the war and I
+knew that my knowledge of German thought must be rusty. So I sent the
+willing waiter for all the German papers and periodicals he could lay
+his hands on. He returned with stacks of them, <i>Berliner Tageblatt,
+K&eacute;lnische Zeitung, Vorw&eacute;rts;</i> the alleged comic papers, <i>Kladderadatsch,
+Lustige Bl&eacute;tter</i> and <i>Simplicissimus;</i> the illustrated press, <i>Leipziger
+Illustrirte Zeitung, Der Weltkrieg im Bild,</i> and the rest: that
+remarkable caf&eacute; even took in such less popular publications as Harden's
+<i>Zukunft</i> and semi-blackmailing rags like <i>Der Roland von Berlin.</i></p>
+
+<p>For two hours I saturated myself with German contemporary thought as
+expressed in the German press. I deliberately laid my mind open to
+conviction; I repeated to myself over and over again: &quot;We Germans are
+fighting a defensive war: the scoundrelly Grey made the world-war: Gott
+strafe England!&quot; Absurd as this proceeding seems to me when I look back
+upon it, I would not laugh at myself at the time. I must be German, I
+must feel German, I must think German: on that would my safety in the
+immediate future depend.</p>
+
+<p>I laid aside my reading in the end with a feeling of utter amazement. In
+every one of these publications, in peace-time so widely dissimilar in
+conviction and trend, I found the same mentality, the same outlook, the
+same parrot-like cries. What the <i>Cologne Gazette</i> shrieked from its
+editorial columns, the comic (God save the mark) press echoed in foul
+and hideous caricature. Here was organization with a vengeance, the
+mobilization of national thought, a series of gramophone records fed
+into a thousand different machines so that each might play the selfsame
+tune.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You needn't worry about your German mentality,&quot; I told myself, &quot;you've
+got it all here! You've only got to be a parrot like the rest and you'll
+be as good a Hun as Hindenburg!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A Continental waiter, they say, can get one anything one chooses to ask
+for at any hour of the day or night. I was about to put this theory to
+the test.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Waiter,&quot; I said (of course, in German), &quot;I want a bag, a handbag. Do
+you think you could get me one?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Does the gentleman want it now?&quot; the man replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This very minute,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About that size?&quot;&mdash;indicating Semlin's. &quot;Yes, or smaller if you like: I
+am not particular.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will see what can be done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In ten minutes the man was back with a brown leather bag about a size
+smaller than Semlin's. It was not new and he charged me thirty gulden
+(which is about fifty shillings) for it. I paid with a willing heart and
+tipped him generously to boot, for I wanted a bag and could not wait
+till the shops opened without missing the train for Germany.</p>
+
+<p>I paid my bill and drove off to the Central Station through the dark
+streets with my two bags. The clocks were striking six as I entered
+under the great glass dome of the station hall.</p>
+
+<p>I went straight to the booking-office, and bought a first-class ticket,
+single, to Berlin. One never knows what may happen and I had several
+things to do before the train went.</p>
+
+<p>The bookstall was just opening. I purchased a sovereign's worth of books
+and magazines, English, French and German, and crammed them into the bag
+I had procured at the caf&eacute;. Thus laden I adjourned to the station
+buffet.</p>
+
+<p>There I set about executing a scheme I had evolved for leaving the
+document which Semlin had brought from England in a place of safety,
+whence it could be recovered without difficulty, should anything happen
+to me. I knew no one in Holland save Dicky, and I could not send him the
+document, for I did not trust the post. For the same reason I would not
+post the document home to my bank in England: besides, I knew one could
+not register letters until eight o'clock, by which hour I hoped to be
+well on my way into Germany.</p>
+
+<p>No, my bag, conveniently weighted with books and deposited at the
+station cloak-room, should be my safe. The comparative security of
+station cloak-rooms as safe deposits has long been recognized by jewel
+thieves and the like and this means of leaving my document behind in
+safety seemed to me to be better than any other I could think of.</p>
+
+<p>So I dived into my bag and from the piles of literature it contained
+picked up a book at random. It was a German brochure: <i>Gott strafe
+England!</i> by Prof. Dr. Hugo Bischoff, of the University of G&ouml;ttingen.
+The irony of the thing appealed to my sense of humour. &quot;So be it!&quot; I
+said. &quot;The worthy Professor's fulminations against my country shall have
+the honour of harbouring the document which is, apparently, of such
+value to <i>his</i> country!&quot; And I tucked the little canvas case away inside
+the pages of the pamphlet, stuck the pamphlet deep down among the books
+and shut the bag.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing its harmless appearance the cloak-room receipt&mdash;I
+calculated&mdash;would, unlike Semlin's document, attract no attention if, by
+any mischance, it fell into wrong hands <i>en route.</i> I therefore did not
+scruple to commit it to the post. Before taking my bag of books to the
+cloak-room I wrote two letters. Both were to Ashcroft&mdash;Ashcroft of the
+Foreign Office, who got me my passport and permit to come to Rotterdam.
+Herbert Ashcroft and I were old friends. I addressed the envelopes to
+his private house in London. The Postal Censor, I knew, keen though he
+always is after letters from neutral countries, would leave old
+Herbert's correspondence alone.</p>
+
+<p>The first letter was brief. &quot;Dear Herbert,&quot; I wrote, &quot;would you mind
+looking after the enclosed until you hear from me again? Filthy weather
+here. Yours, D.O.&quot; This letter was destined to contain the cloak-room
+receipt. To conceal the importance of an enclosure, it is always a good
+dodge to send the covering letter under separate cover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear Herbert,&quot; I said in my second letter, &quot;If you don't hear from me
+within two months of this date regarding the enclosure you will have
+already received, please send someone, or, preferably, go yourself and
+collect my luggage at the cloak-room of the Rotterdam Central Station. I
+know how busy you always are. Therefore you will understand my reasons
+for making this inordinate claim upon your time. Yours, D.O.&quot; And, by
+way of a clue, I added, inconsequently enough: <i>&quot;Gott strafe England!&quot;</i></p>
+
+<p>I chuckled inwardly at the thought of Herbert's face on receiving this
+preposterous demand that he should abandon his dusty desk in Downing
+Street and betake himself across the North Sea to fetch my luggage. But
+he'd go all right. I knew my Herbert, dull and dry and conventional, but
+a most faithful friend.</p>
+
+<p>I called a porter at the entrance of the buffet and handing him Semlin's
+bag and overcoat, bade him find me a first-class carriage in the Berlin
+train when it arrived. I would meet him on the platform. Then, at the
+cloak-room opposite, I gave in my bag of books, put the receipt in the
+first letter and posted it in the letter-box within the station. I went
+out into the streets with the second letter and posted it in a
+letter-box let into the wall of a tobacconist's shop in a quiet street a
+few turnings away. By this arrangement I reckoned Herbert would get the
+letter with the receipt before the covering letter arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the railway station I noticed a kind of slop shop which
+despite the early hour was already open. A fat Jew in his shirt-sleeves,
+his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, stood at the entrance framed in
+hanging overcoats and bats and boots. I had no umbrella and it struck me
+that a waterproof of some kind might not be a bad addition to my
+extremely scanty wardrobe. Moreover, I reflected that with the rubber
+shortage rain-coats must be at a premium in Germany.</p>
+
+<p>So I followed the bowing son of Shem into his dark and dirty shop and
+emerged presently wearing an appallingly ugly green mackintosh reeking
+hideously of rubber. It was a shocking garment but I reflected that I
+was a German and must choose my garb accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the shop I nearly ran into a little man who was loafing in the
+doorway. He was a wizened, scrubby old fellow wearing a dirty peaked cap
+with a band of tarnished gold. I knew him at once for one of those
+guides, half tout, half bully, that infest the railway termini of all
+great Continental cities.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Want a guide, sir?&quot; the man said in German.</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head and hurried on. The man trotted beside me. &quot;Want a good,
+cheap hotel, sir? Good, respectable house.... Want a ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach! gehen sie zum Teufel!&quot; I cried angrily. But the man persisted,
+running along beside me and reeling off his tout's patter in a wheezing,
+asthmatic voice. I struck off blindly down the first turning we came to,
+hoping to be rid of the fellow, but in vain. Finally, I stopped and held
+out a gulden.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take this and go away!&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>The old fellow waved the coin aside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Danke, danke,&quot; he said nonchalantly, looking at the same time to right
+and left.</p>
+
+<p>Then he said in a calm English voice, utterly different from his whining
+accents of a moment before:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must be a dam' cool hand!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But he didn't bluff me, staggered though I was. I said quickly in
+German:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you want with me? I don't understand you. If you annoy me any
+more I shall call the police!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Again he spoke in English and it was the voice of a well-bred Englishman
+that spoke:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're either a past master at the game or raving mad. Why! the whole
+station is humming after you! Yet you walked out of the buffet and
+through the whole lot of them without turning a hair. No wonder they
+never spotted you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Again I answered in German:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ich verstehe nicht!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But he went on in English, without seeming to notice my observation:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hang it all, man, you can't go into Germany wearing a regimental tie!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My hand flew to my collar and the blood to my head. What a cursed
+amateur I was, after all! I had entirely forgotten that I was wearing my
+regimental colours. I was crimson with vexation but also with a sense of
+relief. I felt I might trust this man. It would be a sharp German agent
+who would notice a small detail like that.</p>
+
+<p>Still I resolved to stick to German: I would trust nobody.</p>
+
+<p>But the guide had started his patter again. I saw two workmen
+approaching. When they had passed, he said, this time in English:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're quite right to be cautious with a stranger like me, but I want
+to warn you. Why, I've been following you round all the morning. Lucky
+for you it was me and not one of the others....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Still I was silent. The little man went on:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For the past half-hour they have been combing that station for you. How
+you managed to escape them I don't know except that none of them seems
+to have a very clear idea of your appearance. You don't look very
+British, I grant you; but I spotted your tie and then I recognized the
+British officer all right.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, don't worry to tell me anything about yourself&mdash;it is none of my
+business to know, any more than you will find out anything about me. I
+know where you are going, for I heard you take your ticket; but you may
+as well understand that you have as much chance of getting into your
+train if you walk into the railway hall and up the stairs in the
+ordinary way as you have of flying across the frontier.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But they can't stop me!&quot; I said. &quot;This isn't Germany....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bah!&quot; said the guide. &quot;You will be jostled, there will be an
+altercation, a false charge, and you will miss your train! <i>They</i> will
+attend to the rest!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Damn it, man,&quot; he went on, &quot;I know what I'm talking about. Here, come
+with me and I'll show you. You have twenty minutes before the train
+goes. Now start the German again!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We went down the street together for all the world like a &quot;mug&quot; in tow
+of one of those black-guard guides. As we approached the station the
+guide said in his whining German:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pay attention to me now. I shall leave you here. Go to the suburban
+booking-office&mdash;the entrance is in the street to the left of the
+station hall. Go into the first-class waiting-room and look out of
+the window that gives on to the station hall. There you will see some
+of the forces mobilized against you. There is a regular cordon of
+guides&mdash;like me&mdash;drawn across the entrances to the main-line
+platforms&mdash;unostentatiously, of course. If you look you will see plenty
+of plain-clothes Huns, too....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Guides?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Looks bad for me, doesn't it? But one gets better results by being one
+of them. Oh! it's all right. In any case you've got to trust me now.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;See here! When you have satisfied yourself that I'm correct in what I
+say, take a platform ticket and walk upstairs to platform No. 5. On that
+platform you will find a train. Go to the end where the metals run out
+of the station, where the engine would be coupled on, and get into the
+last first-class carriage. On no account move from there until you see
+me. Now then, I'll have that gulden!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I gave him the coin. The old fellow looked at it and wagged his head, so
+I gave him another, whereupon he took off his cap, bowed low and hurried
+off.</p>
+
+<p>In the suburban side waiting-room I peered out of the window on to the
+station hall. True enough, I saw one, two, four, six guides loafing
+about the barriers leading to the main-line platforms. There seemed to
+be a lot of people in the hall and certainly a number of the men
+possessed that singular taste in dress, those rotundities of contour,
+by which one may distinguish the German in a crowd.</p>
+
+<p>I now had no hesitation in following the guide's instructions to the
+letter. Platform No. 5 was completely deserted as I emerged breathless
+from the long staircase and I had no difficulty in getting into the last
+first-class carriage unobserved. I sat down by the window on the far
+side of the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Alongside it ran the brown panels and gold lettering of a German
+restaurant car.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to seven. There was no sign of
+my mysterious friend. I wondered vaguely, too, what had become of my
+porter. True, there was nothing of importance in Semlin's bag, but a
+traveller with luggage always commands more confidence than one without.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes to seven! Still no word from the guide. The minutes ticked
+away. By Jove! I was going to miss the train. But I sat resolutely in my
+corner. I had put my trust in this man. I would trust him to the last.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly his face appeared in the window at my elbow. The door was flung
+open.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quick!&quot; he whispered in my ear, &quot;follow me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My things ...&quot; I gasped with one foot on the foot-board of the other
+train. At the same moment the train began to move.</p>
+
+<p>The guide pointed to the carriage into which I had clambered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The porter ...&quot; I cried from the open door, thinking he had not
+understood me.</p>
+
+<p>The guide pointed towards the carriage again, then tapped himself on the
+chest with a significant smile.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment he had disappeared and I had not even thanked him.</p>
+
+<p>The Berlin train bumped ponderously out of the station. Peering
+cautiously out of the carriage, I caught a glimpse of the waiter, Karl,
+hurrying down the platform. With him was a swarthy, massively built man
+who leaned heavily on a stick and limped painfully as he ran. One of his
+feet, I could see, was misshapen and the sweat was pouring down his
+face.</p>
+
+<p>I would have liked to wave my hand to the pair, but I prudently drew
+back out of sight of the platform.</p>
+
+<p>Caution, caution, caution, must henceforward be my watchword.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII" />CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH A SILVER STAR ACTS AS A CHARM</h3>
+
+
+<p>I have often remarked in life that there are days when some benevolent
+deity seems to be guiding one's every action. On such days, do what you
+will, you cannot go wrong. As the Berlin train bumped thunderously over
+the culverts spanning the canals between the tall, grey houses of
+Rotterdam and rushed out imperiously into the plain of windmills and
+pollards beyond, I reflected that this must be my good day, so kindly
+had some fairy godmother shepherded my footsteps since I had left the
+caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>So engrossed had I been, indeed, in the great enterprise on which I was
+embarked, that my actions throughout the morning had been mainly
+automatic. Yet how uniformly had they tended to protect me! I had bought
+my ticket in advance; I had given my overcoat and bag to a porter that I
+now knew to have been my saviour in disguise; I had sallied forth from
+the station and thus given him an opportunity for safe converse with me.
+The omens were good: I could trust my luck to-day, I felt, and, greatly
+comforted, I began to look about me.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself, the only occupant, in a first-class carriage. On the
+window was plastered a notice, in Dutch and German, to the effect that
+the carriage was reserved. Suddenly I thought of my bag and overcoat.
+They were nowhere to be seen. After a little search I found them beneath
+the seat. In the overcoat pocket was a black tie.</p>
+
+<p>I lost no time in taking the hint. If any of you who read this tale
+should one day notice a ganger on the railway between Rotterdam and
+Dordrecht wearing the famous colours of a famous regiment round his neck
+you will understand how they got there. Then, wearied out with the
+fatigues of my sleepless night, I fell into a deep slumber, my verdant
+waterproof swathed round me, Semlin's overcoat about my knees.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I was dreaming fitfully of a mad escape from hordes of wildly clutching
+guides, led by Karl the waiter, when the screaming of brakes brought me
+to my senses. The train was sensibly slackening speed. Outside the
+autumn sun was shining over pleasant brown stretches of moorland bright
+with heather. The next moment and before I was fully awake we had glided
+to a standstill at a very spick and span station and the familiar cry
+of &quot;Alles aussteigen!&quot; rang in my ears.</p>
+
+<p>We were in Germany.</p>
+
+<p>The realization fell upon me like a thunderclap. I was in the enemy's
+country, sailing under false colours, with only the most meagre
+information about the man whose place I had taken and no plausible tale,
+such as I had fully intended to have ready, to carry me through the
+rigorous scrutiny of the frontier police.</p>
+
+<p>What was my firm? The Halewright Manufacturing Company. What did we
+manufacture? I had not the faintest idea. Why was I coming to Germany at
+all? Again I was at a loss.</p>
+
+<p>The clink of iron-shod heels in the corridor and an officer, followed
+closely by two privates, the white cross of the Landwehr in their
+helmets, stood at the door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your papers, please,&quot; he said curtly but politely.</p>
+
+<p>I handed over my American passport.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This has not been vis&eacute;d,&quot; said the officer.</p>
+
+<p>With a pang I realized that again I was at fault. Of course, the
+passport should have been stamped at the German Consulate at Rotterdam.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had no time,&quot; I said boldly. &quot;I am travelling on most important
+business to Berlin. I only reached Rotterdam last night, after the
+Consulate was closed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant turned to one of his guards.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take the gentleman to the Customs Hall,&quot; he said and went on to the
+next carriage.</p>
+
+<p>The soldier appropriated my overcoat and bag and beckoned me to follow
+him. Outside the platform was railed off. Everyone, I noticed, was
+shepherded into a long narrow pen made with iron hurdles leading to a
+locked door over which was written: Zoll-Revision. I was going to take
+my place in the queue when the soldier prodded me with his elbow. He led
+me to a side door which opened in the gaunt, bare Customs Hall with its
+long row of trestles for the examination of the passengers' luggage. In
+a corner behind a desk was a large group of officers and subordinate
+officials, all in the grey-green uniform I knew so well from the life in
+the trenches. The principal seemed to be an immense man, inordinately
+gross and fat, with a bloated face and great gold spectacles. He was
+roaring in a loud, angry voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He's not come! There you are! Again we shall have all the trouble for
+nothing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I thought he looked an extraordinarily bad-tempered individual and I
+fervently prayed that I should not be brought before him.</p>
+
+<p>The doors were flung open. With a rush the hall was invaded with a
+heterogeneous mob of people huddled pellmell together and driven along
+before a line of soldiers. For an hour or more babel reigned. Officials
+bawled at the public: the place rang with the sounds of angry
+altercation. After a furious dispute one man, wildly gesticulating, was
+dragged away by two soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>I never saw such a thorough examination in my life. People's bags were
+literally turned upside down and every single object pried into and
+besnuffled. After the customs' examination passengers were passed on to
+the searching-rooms, the men to one side, the women to the other. I
+caught sight of a female searcher lolling at a door ... a monstrous and
+grim female who reminded me of those dreadful bathing women at the
+seaside in our early youth.</p>
+
+<p>The fat official had vanished into an office leading off the Customs
+Hall. He was, I surmised, the last instance, for several passengers,
+including a very respectably dressed old lady, were driven into the side
+office and were seen no more.</p>
+
+<p>During all this scene of confusion no one had taken any notice of me. My
+guard looked straight in front of him and said never a word. When the
+hall was all but cleared, a man came to the office door and made a sign
+to my sentinel.</p>
+
+<p>At a table in the office which, despite the sunshine outside, was heated
+like a greenhouse, I found the fat official. Something had evidently
+upset him, for his brows were clouded with anger and his mastiff-like
+cheeks were trembling with irritation. He thrust a hand out as I
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your papers!&quot; he grunted.</p>
+
+<p>I handed over my passport.</p>
+
+<p>Directly he had examined it, a red flush spread over his cheeks and
+forehead and he brought his hand down on the table with a crash. The
+sentry beside me winced perceptibly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's not vis&eacute;d,&quot; the fat official screamed in a voice shrill with
+anger. &quot;It's worthless... what good do you think is this to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Excuse me ...&quot; I said in German.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I won't excuse you,&quot; he roared. &quot;Who are you? What do you want in
+Germany? You've been to London, I see by this passport.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had no time to get my passport stamped at the Consulate at
+Rotterdam,&quot; I said. &quot;I arrived there too late in the evening. I could
+not wait. I am going to Berlin on most important business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's nothing to do with it,&quot; the man shouted. He was working himself
+up into a fine frenzy. &quot;Your passport is not in order. You're not a
+German. You're an American. We Germans know what to think of our
+American friends, especially those who come from London.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A voice outside shouted: &quot;Nach Berlin alles einsteigen.&quot; I said as
+politely as I could, despite my growing annoyance:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't wish to miss my train. My journey to Berlin is of the utmost
+importance. I trust the train can be held back until I have satisfied
+you of my good faith. I have here a card from Herr von Steinhardt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I paused to let the name sink in. I was convinced he must be a big bug
+of some kind in the German service.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't care a rap for Herr von Steinhardt or Herr von anybody else,&quot;
+the German cried. Then he said curtly to a cringing secretary beside
+him:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has he been searched?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The secretary cast a frightened look at the sentry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Herr Major,&quot; said the secretary.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, take him away and strip him and bring me anything you find!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sentry spun on his heel like an automaton.</p>
+
+<p>The moment had come to play my last card, I felt: I could not risk being
+delayed on the frontier lest Stelze and his friends should catch up with
+me. I was surprised to find that apparently they had not telegraphed to
+have me stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One moment, Herr Major,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take him away!&quot; The fat man waved me aside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I warn you,&quot; I continued, &quot;that I am on important business. I can
+convince you of that, too. Only ...&quot; and I looked round the office. &quot;All
+these must go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To my amazement the fat man's anger vanished utterly. He stared hard at
+me, then took off his spectacles and polished them with his
+handkerchief. After this he said nonchalantly: &quot;Everybody get outside
+except this gentleman!&quot; The sentry, who had spun round on his heel
+again, seemed about to speak: his voice expired before it came out of
+his mouth: he saluted, spun round again and followed the rest out of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>When the place was cleared I pulled my left brace out of the armhole of
+my waistcoat and displayed the silver star.</p>
+
+<p>The fat man sprang up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Herr Doktor must excuse me: I am overwhelmed: I had no idea that
+the Herr Doktor was not one of these tiresome American spies that are
+overrunning our country. The Herr Doktor will understand.... If the Herr
+Doktor had but said ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herr Major,&quot; I said, endeavouring to put as much insolence as I could
+into my voice (that is what a German understands), &quot;I am not in the
+habit of bleating my business to every fool I meet. Now I must go back
+to the train.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Berlin train has gone, Herr Doktor, but...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Berlin train gone?&quot; I said. &quot;But my business brooks no delay. I
+tell you I must be in Berlin to-night!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no question of your taking the ordinary train, Herr Doktor,&quot;
+the fat man replied smoothly, &quot;but unfortunately the special which I had
+ready for you has been countermanded. I thought you were not coming
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A special? By Jove! I was evidently a personage of note. But a special
+would never do! Where the deuce was it going to take me?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Berlin train was to have been held back until your special was
+clear,&quot; the Major went on, &quot;but we must stop her at Wesel until you have
+passed. I will attend to that at once!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He gave some order down the telephone and after a brisk conversation
+turned to me with a beaming face:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They will stop her at Wesel and the special will be ready in
+twenty-five minutes. But there is no hurry. You have an hour or more to
+spare. Might I offer the Herr Doktor a glass of beer and a sandwich at
+our officers' casino here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, I was in for it this time. A special bearing me Heaven knows
+whither on unknown business...! Perhaps I might be able to extract a
+little information out of my fat friend if I went with him, so I
+accepted his invitation with suitable condescension.</p>
+
+<p>The Major excused himself for an instant and returned with my overcoat
+and bag.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So!&quot; he cried, &quot;we can leave these here until we come back!&quot; Behind him
+through the open door I saw a group of officials peering curiously into
+the room. As we walked through their midst, they fell back with
+precipitation. There was a positive reverence about their manner which I
+found extremely puzzling.</p>
+
+<p>A waggonette, driven by an orderly, stood in the station yard, one of
+the Customs officials, hat in hand, at the door. We drove rapidly
+through very spick-and-span streets to a little square where the sentry
+at an iron gate denoted the Officers' Club. In the anteroom four or five
+officers in field-grey uniform were lounging. As we entered they sprang
+to their feet and remained stiffly standing while the Major presented
+them, Hauptmann Pfahl, Oberleutnant Meyer ... a string of names. One of
+the officers had lost an arm, another was very lame, the remainder were
+obvious dug-outs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An American gentleman, a good friend of ours,&quot; was the form in which
+the Major introduced me to the company. Again I found myself mystified
+by the extraordinary demonstrations of respect with which I was
+received. Germans don't like Americans, especially since they took to
+selling shells to the Allies, and I began to think that all these
+officers must know more about me and my mission than I did myself. A
+stolid orderly, wearing white gloves, brought beer and some
+extraordinary nasty-looking sardine sandwiches which, on sampling, I
+realized to be made of &quot;war bread.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While the beer was being poured out I glanced round the room, bare and
+very simply furnished. Terrible chromo-lithographs of the Kaiser and the
+Crown Prince hung on the walls above a glass filled with war trophies.
+With a horrible sickness at heart I recognized amongst other emblems a
+glengarry with a silver badge and a British steel helmet with a gaping
+hole through the crown. Then I remembered I was in the region of the
+VIIth Corps, which supplies some of our toughest opponents on the
+Western front.</p>
+
+<p>Conversation was polite and perfunctory.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is on occasions such as these,&quot; said the lame officer, &quot;that one
+recognizes how our brothers overseas are helping the German cause.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your work must be extraordinarily interesting,&quot; observed one of the
+dug-outs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All your difficulties are now over,&quot; said the Major, much in the manner
+of the chorus of a Greek play. &quot;You will be in Berlin to-night, where
+your labours will be doubtless rewarded. American friends of Germany are
+not popular in London, I should imagine!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I murmured: &quot;Hardly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must possess infinite tact to have aroused no suspicion,&quot; said the
+Major.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That depends,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pardon me,&quot; replied the Major, in whom I began to recognize all the
+signs of an unmitigated gossip, &quot;I know something of the importance of
+your mission. I speak amongst ourselves, is it not so, gentlemen? There
+were special orders about you from the Corps Command at M&uuml;nster. Your
+special has been waiting for you here for four days. The gentleman who
+came to meet you has been in a fever of expectation. He had already left
+the station this morning when ... when I met you, I sent word for him to
+pick you up here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The plot was thickening. I most certainly was a personage of note.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What part of America do you come from, Mr. Semlin?&quot; said a voice in
+perfect English from the corner. The one-armed officer was speaking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From Brooklyn,&quot; I said stoutly, though my heart seemed turned to ice
+with the shock of hearing my own tongue.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have no accent,&quot; the other replied suavely.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some Americans,&quot; I retorted sententiously, &quot;would regard that as a
+compliment. Not all Americans talk through their noses any more than we
+all chew or spit in public.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know,&quot; said the young man. &quot;I was brought up there!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We were surrounded by smiling faces. This officer who could speak
+English was evidently regarded as a bit of a wag by his comrades. I
+seized the opportunity to give them in German a humorous description of
+my simplicity in explaining to a man brought up in the United States
+that all Americans were not the caricatures depicted in the European
+comic press.</p>
+
+<p>There was a roar of laughter from the room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach, dieser Schmalz!&quot; guffawed the Major, beating his thigh in ecstasy.
+&quot;Kolossal!&quot; echoed one of the dug-outs. The lame man smiled wanly and
+said it was &quot;incredible how humorous Schmalz could be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had hoped that the conversation might now be carried on again in
+German. Nothing of the kind. The room leant back in its chairs, as if
+expecting the fun to go on.</p>
+
+<p>It did.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You get your clothes in London,&quot; the young officer said.</p>
+
+<p>He was a trimly built young man, very pale from recent illness, with
+flaxen hair and a bright, bold blue eye&mdash;the eye of a fighter. His left
+sleeve was empty and was fastened across his tunic, in a button-hole of
+which was twisted the black and white ribbon of the Iron Cross.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Generally,&quot; I answered shortly, &quot;when I go to England. Clothes are
+cheaper in London.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must have a good ear for languages,&quot; Schmalz continued; &quot;you speak
+German like a German and English ...&quot; he paused appreciably, &quot;... like
+an Englishman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt horribly nervous. This young man never took his eyes off me: he
+had been staring at me ever since I had entered the room. His manner
+was perfectly calm and suave.</p>
+
+<p>Still I kept my end up very creditably, I think.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And not a bad accomplishment, either,&quot; I said, smiling brightly, &quot;if
+one has to visit London in war-time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Schmalz smiled back with perfect courtesy. But he continued to stare
+relentlessly at me. I felt scared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is Schmalz jabbering about now?&quot; said one of the dug-outs. I
+translated for the benefit of the company. My r&eacute;sum&eacute; gave the dug-out
+who had spoken the opportunity for launching out on an interminable
+anecdote about an ulster he had bought on a holiday at Brighton. The
+story lasted until the white-gloved orderly came and announced that &quot;a
+gentleman&quot; was there, asking for the Herr Major.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That'll be your man,&quot; exclaimed the Major, starting up&mdash;I noticed he
+made no attempt to bring the stranger in. &quot;Come, let us go to him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stood up and took my leave. Schmalz came to the door of the anteroom
+with us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are going to Berlin?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where shall you be staying?&quot; he asked again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, probably at the Adlon!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I myself shall be in Berlin next week for my medical examination, and
+perhaps we may meet again. I should much like to talk more with you
+about America ... and London. We must have mutual acquaintances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I murmured something about being only too glad, at the same time making
+a mental note to get out of Berlin as soon as I conveniently could.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII" />CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>I HEAR OF CLUBFOOT AND MEET HIS EMPLOYER</h3>
+
+
+<p>As we went down the staircase, the Major whispered to me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't think your man wished me to know his name, for he did not
+introduce himself when he arrived and he does not come to our Casino.
+But I know him for all that: it is the young Count von Boden, of the
+Uhlans of the Guard: his father, the General, is one of the Emperor's
+aides-de-camp: he was, for a time, tutor to the Crown Prince.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A motor-car stood at the door, in it a young man in a grey-blue military
+great-coat and a flat cap with a pink band round it. He sprang out as we
+appeared. His manner was most <i>empress&eacute;</i>. He completely ignored my
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am extremely glad to see you, Herr Doktor,&quot; he said. &quot;You are
+most anxiously expected. I must present my apologies for not being
+at the station to welcome you, but, apparently, there was some
+misunderstanding. The arrangements at the station for your reception
+seem to have broken down completely ...&quot; and he stared through his
+monocle at the old Major, who flushed with vexation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you will step into my car,&quot; the young man added, &quot;I will drive you
+to the station. We need not detain this gentleman any longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt sorry for the old Major, who had remained silent under the
+withering insolence of this young lieutenant, so I shook hands with him
+cordially and thanked him for his hospitality. He was a jovial old
+fellow after all.</p>
+
+<p>The young Count drove himself and chatted amiably as we whirled through
+the streets. &quot;I must introduce myself,&quot; he said: &quot;Lieutenant Count von
+Boden of the 2nd Uhlans of the Guard. I did not wish to say anything
+before that old chatterbox. I trust you have had a pleasant journey. Von
+Steinhardt, of our Legation at the Hague, was instructed to make all
+arrangements for your comfort on this side. But I was forgetting, you
+and he must be old acquaintances, Herr Doktor!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I said something appropriate about von Steinhardt's invariable kindness.
+Inwardly, I noted the explanation of the visiting card in the portfolio
+in my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>At the station we found two orderlies, one with my things, the other
+with von Boden's luggage and fur <i>p&eacute;lisse</i>. The platforms were now
+deserted save for sentries: all life at this dreary frontier station
+seemed to die with the passing of the mail train.</p>
+
+<p>I could not help noticing, after we had left the car and were strolling
+up and down the platform waiting for the special, that my companion kept
+casting furtive glances at my feet. I looked down at my boots: they
+wanted brushing, certainly, but otherwise I could see nothing wrong with
+them. They were brown, it is true, and I reflected that the German man
+about town has a way of regulating his tastes in footgear by the
+calendar, and that brown boots are seldom worn in Germany after
+September 1st.</p>
+
+<p>Our special came in, an engine and tender, a brakesman's van, a single
+carriage and a guard's van. The stationmaster bid us a most ceremonious
+adieu, and the guard, cap in hand, helped me into the train.</p>
+
+<p>It was a Pullman car in which I found myself, with comfortable
+arm-chairs and small tables. One of the orderlies was laying the table
+for luncheon, and here, presently, the young Count and I ate a meal,
+which, save for the inevitable &quot;<i>Kriegsbrod</i>,&quot; showed few signs of the
+stringency of the British blockade. But by this time I had fully
+realized that, for some unknown reason, no pains were spared to do me
+honour, so probably the fare was something out of the common.</p>
+
+<p>My companion was a bright, amusing fellow and delightfully typical of
+his class. He had seen a year's service with the cavalry on the Eastern
+front, had been seriously wounded and was now attached to the General
+Staff in Berlin in what I judged to be a decorative rather than a useful
+capacity, for, apart from what he had learnt in his own campaigning he
+seemed singularly ignorant of the development of the military situation.
+Particularly, his ignorance of conditions on the Western front was
+supreme. He was full to the brim with the most extraordinary fables
+about the British. He solemnly assured me, for example&mdash;on the faith of
+a friend of his who had seen them&mdash;that Japanese were fighting with the
+English in France, dressed as Highlanders&mdash;his friend had heard these
+Asiatic Scotsmen talking Japanese, he declared. I thought of the
+Gaelic-speaking battalions of the Camerons and could hardly suppress a
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>Young von Boden was superbly contemptuous of the officers of the obscure
+and much reduced infantry battalion doing garrison duty at Goch, the
+frontier station we had just left, where&mdash;as he was careful to explain
+to me&mdash;he had spent four days of unrelieved boredom, waiting for me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course, in war time we are a united army and all that,&quot; he observed
+unsophistically, &quot;but none of these fellows at Goch was a fit companion
+for a dashing cavalry officer. They were a dull lot. I wouldn't go near
+the Casino. I met some of them at the hotel one evening. That was
+enough for me. Why, only one of them knew anything at all about Berlin,
+and that was the lame fellow. Now, there is one thing we learn in the
+cavalry....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But I had ceased to listen. In his irresponsible chatter the boy used a
+word that struck a harsh note which went jarring through my brain. He
+had mentioned &quot;the lame fellow,&quot; using a German word &quot;der Stelze.&quot; In a
+flash I saw before me again that scene in the squalid bedroom in the Vos
+in't Tuintje&mdash;the candle guttering in the draught, the livid corpse on
+the floor and that sinister woman crying out: &quot;Der Stelze has power, he
+has authority, he can make and unmake men!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The mind has unaccountable lapses. The phrase had slipped out of my
+German vocabulary. I had not even recognized it until the boy had rapped
+it out in a context with which I was familiar and then it had come back.
+With it, it brought that tableau in the dimly lit room, but also
+another&mdash;a picture of a vast and massive man, swarthy and sinister, with
+a clubfoot, limping heavily after Karl, the waiter, on the platform at
+Rotterdam.</p>
+
+<p>That, then, was why the young lieutenant had glanced down at my feet at
+the station at Goch, The messenger he had come to meet, the bearer of
+the document, the man of power and authority, was clubfooted, and I was
+he!</p>
+
+<p>But seeing I was free of any physical deformity, to say nothing of the
+fact that I in no way resembled the clubfooted man I had seen on the
+platform at Rotterdam, why had the young lieutenant accepted me so
+readily? I hazarded the reason to be that he had orders to meet a person
+who had not been further designated to him except that he would arrive
+by a certain train. The Major at the station would be responsible for
+establishing my <i>bona fides</i>. Once that officer had turned me over to
+the emissary, the latter's sole responsibility consisted in conducting
+me to the unknown goal to which the special train was rapidly bearing
+us. Such are the marvels of discipline!</p>
+
+<p>My companion was, indeed, the model of discretion in everything touching
+myself and my business. Curiosity about your neighhour's affairs is a
+cardinal German failing, yet the Count manifested not the slightest
+desire to learn anything about me or my mission to Berlin. You may be
+sure that I, for my part, did nothing to enlighten him. It was not,
+indeed, in my power to do so. Yet the young man's reserve was so marked
+that I was convinced he had his orders to avoid the topic.</p>
+
+<p>As the train rushed through Westphalia, through busy stations with
+glimpses of sidings full of trucks loaded to the brim, past towns whose
+very outlines were blurred by the mirk of smoke from a hundred factory
+chimneys, my thoughts were busy with that swarthy cripple. I had broken
+away from him with one portion of a highly prized document, yet he had
+made no attempt to have me arrested at the frontier. Clearly, then, he
+must still look upon me as an ally and must therefore be yet in
+ignorance of the identity of the dead man lying in my chamber at the
+Hotel Sixt. The friendly guide had told me that the party &quot;combing out&quot;
+the station at Rotterdam for me did not appear to know what I looked
+like.</p>
+
+<p><i>Was it possible, then, that Clubfoot did not know Semlin by sight?</i></p>
+
+<p>The fact that Semlin had only recently crossed the Atlantic seemed to
+confirm this supposition.</p>
+
+<p>Then the document. Semlin had half. Who had the other half? Surely
+Clubfoot.... Clubfoot who was to have called at the hotel that morning
+to receive what I had brought from England. Perhaps, after all, my
+random declaration to the hotel-keeper had not been so far wrong;
+Clubfoot wanted to take the whole document to Berlin and reap all the
+laurels at the cost of half the danger and labour. That would explain
+his present silence. He suspected Semlin of treachery, not to the common
+cause, but to him!</p>
+
+<p>It looked as if I might have a free run until Clubfoot could reach
+Berlin. That, unless he also took a special, could not be until the
+next evening at earliest. But, more redoubtable than a meeting with
+the man of power and authority, hung over me, an ever-present nightmare,
+the interview which I felt awaited me at the end of my present
+journey ... the interview at which I must render an account of my
+mission.</p>
+
+<p>Evening was falling as we ran through the inhospitable region of sand
+and water and pine that engirdles Berlin. We glided at diminished speed
+through the trim suburbs, skirted the city, on whose tall buildings the
+electric sky-signs were already beginning to twinkle, crashed heavily
+over a vast network of metals at some great terminus, then tore off
+again into the gathering darkness. In a little, we slowed down again. We
+were running through wooded country. From the darkness ahead a lantern
+waved at us and the train stopped with a jerk at a little wayside
+station, a tiny box of an affair. A tall, solid figure, wearing a spiked
+helmet and grey military great-coat, stood in solitary grandeur in the
+centre of the little platform, the wavering rays of a flickering gas
+lamp reflected in his brilliantly polished top-boots.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here we are at last!&quot; said my companion.</p>
+
+<p>I stepped out to meet my fate.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The young lieutenant was rigid at the salute before the figure on the
+platform.</p>
+
+<p>I heard the end of a sentence as I alighted &quot;... the gentleman I was to
+meet, Excellency!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The other looked at me. He was a big man with a crimson face. He made no
+attempt at greeting, but said in a hoarse voice: &quot;Have the goodness to
+come with me. The orderlies will attend to your things.&quot; And, with
+clinking spurs, he strode out through some big kind of anteroom, swathed
+in wrappings, into a yard beyond, where a big limousine was throbbing
+gently.</p>
+
+<p>He stood aside to let me get in, then mounted himself, followed, rather
+to my surprise, by the young Count, whose responsibility for myself had
+ended, I imagined, on &quot;delivering the goods.&quot; My surprise was of short
+duration, for once in the car the young Uhlan dropped all the formality
+he had displayed on the platform and addressed the elder officer as
+&quot;papa.&quot; This, then, was old General von Boden, of whom the Major had
+spoken, Aide-de-Camp to the Kaiser and formerly tutor to the Crown
+Prince.</p>
+
+<p>Father and son chatted in a desultory fashion across the car, and I took
+the opportunity of studying the old gentleman. His face was of the most
+prodigious purple hue, and so highly polished that it continually caught
+the reflection of the small electric lamp in the roof. Huge gold
+spectacles with glasses so thick that they distorted his eyes,
+straddled a great beak-like nose. He had doffed his helmet and was
+mopping his brow, and I saw a high perfectly bald dome-like head,
+brilliantly polished and almost as red as his face. He was clean shaven
+and by no means young, for the flesh hung in bags about his face. Long
+years of the habit of command had left their mark in an imperiousness of
+manner which might easily yield to ruthlessness I judged.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought I should have had orders before I left the Villa,&quot; the
+General said to his son, &quot;then you could have gone straight there. I
+suppose he means to see him here: that is why he wanted him brought to
+the Villa. But he's always the same: he never can make up his mind.&quot; And
+he grunted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps there will be something waiting at home,&quot; he added in his
+hoarse barrack-yard voice.</p>
+
+<p>We drove through a white gate into a little drive which brought us up in
+front of a long, low villa. Neither father nor son had opened their lips
+to me during the drive from the station and I had not ventured to put a
+question to either of them, but I knew we were in Potsdam. The little
+station in the woods was Wild-Park, I suspected, the private station
+used by the Emperor on his frequent journeys and situated in the grounds
+of the New Palace. All the officials of the Prussian Court have villas
+at Potsdam, though why I had been brought there in connection with an
+affair that must surely rather interest the Wilhelm-Strasse or the
+Police Presidency was more than I could fathom.</p>
+
+<p>There was a frightful scene in the hall. Without any warning the General
+turned on the orderly who had opened the door and screamed abuse at him.
+&quot;Camel! Ox! Sheep's-head!&quot; he roared, his face and shining pate
+deepening their vermilion hue. &quot;Do I give orders that they shall be
+forgotten? What do you mean? You ass....&quot; He put his white-gloved hands
+on the man's shoulders and shook him until the fellow's teeth must have
+rattled in his head. The orderly, white to the lips, hung limp in the
+old man's grasp, muttering apologies: &quot;Ach! Exzellenz! Exzellenz will
+excuse me....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was a revolting spectacle, but it did not make the least impression
+on the son, who, putting down his cap and great-coat and unhooking his
+sword, led me into a kind of study. &quot;These orderlies are such
+thickheads!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rudi! Rudi!&quot; a hoarse, strident voice screamed from the hall. The
+lieutenant ran out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've got to take the fellow to Berlin to-night. The message was here
+all the time&mdash;that numskull Heinrich forgot it. And we've got to keep
+the fellow here till then! An outrage, having the house used as a
+barrack for a rascally detective!&quot; Thus much I heard, as the door had
+been left open. Then it closed and I heard no more.</p>
+
+<p>As I had heard this much, there was a certain irony in the invitation to
+dinner subsequently conveyed to me by the young Uhlan. There was nothing
+for it but to accept. I knew I was caught deep in the meshes of Prussian
+discipline, every one had his orders and blindly carried them out, from
+the garrulous Major on the frontier to this preposterous <i>Exzellenz</i>,
+this Imperial aide-de-camp of Potsdam. I was already a tiny cog in a
+great machine. I should have to revolve or be crushed.</p>
+
+<p>His Excellency left me in no doubt on this point. When I was ushered
+into his study, after a much-needed wash and a shave, he received me
+standing and said point-blank: &quot;Your orders are to stay here until ten
+o'clock to-night, when you will be taken to Berlin by Lieutenant Count
+von Boden. I don't know you, I don't know your business, but I have
+received certain orders concerning you which I intend to carry out. For
+that reason you will dine with us here. After you have seen the person
+to whom you are to be taken to-night, Lieutenant Count von Boden will
+accompany you to the railway station at Spandau, where a special train
+will be in readiness in which he will conduct you back to the frontier.
+I wish you clearly to understand that the Lieutenant is responsible for
+seeing these orders carried out and will use all means to that end. Have
+I made myself clear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man's manner was indescribably threatening. &quot;This is the machine
+we are out to smash,&quot; I had said to myself when I saw him savaging his
+servant in the hall and I repeated the phrase to myself now. But to the
+General I said: &quot;Perfectly, Your Excellency!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then let us go to dinner,&quot; said the General.</p>
+
+<p>It was a nightmare meal. A faded and shrunken female, to whom I was not
+introduced&mdash;some kind of relative who kept house for the General, I
+supposed&mdash;was the only other person present. She never opened her lips
+save, with eyes glazed with terror, to give some whispered instruction
+to the orderly anent the General's food or wine. We dined in a
+depressing room with dark brown wallpaper decorated with dusty stags'
+antlers, an enormous green-tiled stove dominating everything. The
+General and his son ate solidly through the courses while the lady
+pecked furtively at her plate. As for myself I could not eat for sheer
+fright. Every nerve in my body was vibrating at the thought of the
+evening before me. If I could not avoid the interview, I was resolutely
+determined to give Master von Boden the slip rather than return to the
+frontier empty-handed. I had not braved all these perils to be packed
+off home without, at least, making an attempt to find Francis. Besides,
+I meant if I could to get the other half of that document.</p>
+
+<p>There was some quite excellent Rhine wine, and I drank plenty of it. So
+did the General, with the result that, when the veins starting purple
+from his temples proclaimed that he had eaten to repletion, his temper
+seemed to have improved. He unbent sufficiently to present me with quite
+the worst cigar I have ever smoked.</p>
+
+<p>I smoked it in silence whilst father and son talked shop. The female had
+faded away. Both men, I found to my surprise, were furious and bitter
+opponents of Hindenburg, as I have since learnt most of the old school
+of the Prussian Army are. They spoke little of England: their thoughts
+seemed to be centred on Russia as the arch-enemy. They pinned their
+faith on Falkenhayn and Mackensen. They had no words strong enough in
+their denunciation of Hindenburg, whom they always referred to as &quot;the
+Drunkard&quot; ... &quot;der S&auml;ufer.&quot; Nor were they sparing of criticism of what
+they called the Kaiser's &quot;weakness&quot; in letting him rise to power.</p>
+
+<p>The humming of a car outside broke up our gathering. Remembering that I
+was but a humble servant before this great military luminary, I thanked
+the General with due servility for his hospitality. Then the Count and I
+went out to the car and presently drove forth into the night.</p>
+
+<p>We entered Berlin from the west, as it seemed to me, but then struck off
+in a southerly direction and were soon in the commercial quarter of the
+city, all but deserted at that hour, save for the trams. Then I caught a
+glimpse of lamps reflected in water, and the next moment the car had
+stopped on a bridge over a canal or river. My companion sprang out and
+hurried me to a small gate in an iron railing enclosing a vast edifice
+looming black in the night, while the car moved off into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>The gate was open. Half a dozen yards from it was a small, slender tower
+with a pointed roof jutting out from the corner of the building. In the
+tower was a door which yielded easily to my companion's vigorous push as
+a clock somewhere within the building beat a double stroke&mdash;half-past
+ten.</p>
+
+<p>The door led into a little vestibule brilliantly lit with electric
+light. There a man was waiting, a fine, upstanding bearded fellow in a
+kind of green hunting costume.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So, Payer!&quot; said the young Uhlan. &quot;Here is the gentleman. I shall be at
+the west entrance afterwards. You will bring him down yourself to the
+car.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jawohl, Herr Graf!&quot; answered the man in green, and the lieutenant
+vanished through the door into the night.</p>
+
+<p>A terrifying, an incredible suspicion that had overwhelmed me directly I
+stepped out of the car now came surging through my brain. That vast,
+black edifice, that slender tower at the corner&mdash;did I not know them?</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically, I followed the man in green. My suspicions deepened
+with every step. In a little, they became certainty. Up a shallow and
+winding stair, along a long and broad corridor, hung with rich
+tapestries, the polished parquet glistening faintly in the dim light,
+through splendid suites of gilded apartments with old pictures and
+splendid furniture... here a lackey with powdered hair yawning on a
+landing, there a sentry in field-grey immobile before a door...I was in
+the Berlin Schloss.</p>
+
+<p>The Castle seemed to sleep. A hushed silence lay over all. Everywhere
+lights were dim, staircases wound down into emptiness, corridors
+stretched away into dusky solitude. Now and then an attendant in evening
+dress tiptoed past us or an officer vanished round a corner, noiselessly
+save for a faint clink of spurs.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we traversed, as it seemed to me, miles of silence and of twilight,
+and all the time my blood hammered at my temples and my throat grew dry
+as I thought of the ordeal that stood before me. To whom was I thus
+bidden, secretly, in the night?</p>
+
+<p>We were in a broad and pleasant passage now, panelled in cheerful light
+brown oak with red hangings. After the desolation of the State
+apartments, this comfortable corridor had at least the appearance of
+leading to the habitation of man. A giant trooper in field-grey with a
+curious silver gorget suspended round his neck by a chain paced up and
+down the passage, his jackboots making no sound upon the soft, thick
+carpet with which the floor was covered.</p>
+
+<p>The man in green stopped at the door. Holding up a warning hand to me,
+he bent his head and listened. There was a moment of absolute silence.
+Not a sound was to be heard throughout the whole Castle. Then the man in
+green knocked softly and was admitted, leaving me outside.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, the door swung open again. A tall, elegant man with grey
+hair and that indefinite air of good breeding that you find in every man
+who has spent a life at court, came out hurriedly. He looked pale and
+harassed.</p>
+
+<p>On seeing me, he stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dr. Grundt? Where is Dr. Grundt?&quot; he asked and his eyes dropped to my
+feet. He started and raised them to my face.</p>
+
+<p>The trooper had drifted out of earshot. I could see him, immobile as a
+statue, standing at the end of the corridor. Except for him and us, the
+passage was deserted.</p>
+
+<p>Again the elderly man spoke and his voice betrayed his anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who are you?&quot; he asked almost in a whisper. &quot;What have you done with
+Grundt? Why has he not come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Boldly I took the plunge.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am Semlin,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Semlin,&quot; echoed the other, &quot;&mdash;ah yes! the Embassy in Washington wrote
+about you&mdash;but Grundt was to have come....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen,&quot; I said, &quot;Grundt could not come. We had to separate and he sent
+me on ahead....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But ... but ...&quot;&mdash;the man was stammering now in his anxiety&mdash;&quot;... you
+succeeded?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>He heaved a sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be awkward, very awkward, this change in the arrangements,&quot; he
+said. &quot;You will have to explain everything to him, everything. Wait
+there an instant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He darted back into the room.</p>
+
+<p>Once more I stood and waited in that silent place, so restful and so
+still that one felt oneself in a world far removed from the angry strife
+of nations. And I wondered if my interview&mdash;the meeting I had so much
+dreaded&mdash;was at an end.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pst, Pst!&quot; The elderly man stood at the open door.</p>
+
+<p>He led me through a room, a cosy place, smelling pleasantly of leather
+furniture, to a door. He opened it, revealing across a narrow threshold
+another door. On this he knocked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herein!&quot; cried a voice&mdash;a harsh, metallic voice.</p>
+
+<p>My companion turned the handle and, opening the door, thrust me into the
+room. The door closed behind me.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself facing the Emperor.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX" />CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>I ENCOUNTER AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE WHO LEADS ME TO A DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE</h3>
+
+
+<p>He stood in the centre of the room, facing the door, his legs, straddled
+apart, planted firmly on the ground, one hand behind his back, the
+other, withered and useless like the rest of the arm, thrust into the
+side pocket of his tunic. He wore a perfectly plain undress uniform of
+field-grey, and the unusual simplicity of his dress, coupled with the
+fact that he was bare-headed, rendered him so unlike his conventional
+portraits in the full panoply of war that I doubt if I should have
+recognized him&mdash;paradoxical as it may seem&mdash;but for the havoc depicted
+in every lineament of those once so familiar features.</p>
+
+<p>Only one man in the world to-day could look like that. Only one man in
+the world to-day could show, by the ravage in his face, the appalling
+weight of responsibility slowly crushing one of the most vigorous and
+resilient personalities in Europe. His figure, erstwhile erect and
+well-knit, seemed to have shrunk, and his withered arm, unnaturally
+looped away into his pocket, assumed a prominence that lent something
+sinister to that forbidding grey and harassed face.</p>
+
+<p>His head was sunk forward on his breast. His face, always intensely
+sallow, almost Italian in its olive tint, was livid. All its alertness
+was gone; the features seemed to have collapsed, and the flesh hung
+flabbily, bulging in deep pouches under the eyes and in loose folds at
+the corners of the mouth. His head was grizzled an iron-grey but the
+hair at the temples was white as driven snow. Only his eyes were
+unchanged. They were the same grey, steely eyes, restless, shifting,
+unreliable, mirrors of the man's impulsive, wayward and fickle mind.</p>
+
+<p>He lowered at me. His brow was furrowed and his eyes flashed malice. In
+the brief instant in which I gazed at him I thought of a phrase a friend
+had used after seeing the Kaiser in one of his angry moods&mdash;&quot;His icy,
+black look.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was so taken aback at finding myself in the Emperor's presence that I
+forgot my part and remained staring in stupefaction at the apparition.
+The other was seemingly too busy with his thoughts to notice my
+forgetfulness, for he spoke at once, imperiously, in the harsh staccato
+of a command.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is this I hear?&quot; he said. &quot;Why has not Grundt come? What are you
+doing here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By this time I had elaborated the fable I had begun to tell in the
+corridor without. I had it ready now: it was thin, but it must suffice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If your Majesty will allow me, I will explain,&quot; I said. The Emperor was
+rocking himself to and fro, in nervous irritability, on his feet. His
+eyes were never steady for an instant: now they searched my face, now
+they fell to the floor, now they scanned the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dr. Grundt and I succeeded in our quest, dangerous though it was. As
+your Majesty is aware, the ... the ... the object had been divided....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, yes, I know! Go on!&quot; the other said, pausing for a moment in his
+rocking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was to have left England first with my portion. I could not get away.
+Everyone is searched for letters and papers at Tilbury. I devised a
+scheme and we tested it, but it failed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How? It failed?&quot; the other cried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With no detriment to the success of our mission, Your Majesty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Explain! What was your stratagem?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cut a piece of the lining from a handbag and in this I wrapped a
+perfectly harmless letter addressed to an English shipping agent in
+Rotterdam. I then pasted the fragment of the lining back in its place in
+the bottom of the bag. Grundt gave the bag to one of our number as an
+experiment to see if it would elude the vigilance of the English
+police.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A light of interest was growing in the Emperor's manner, banishing his
+ill-temper. Anything novel always appealed to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The ruse was detected, the letter was found and our man was fined
+twenty pounds at the police court. It was then that Dr. Grundt decided
+to send me....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've got it with you?&quot; the other exclaimed eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Your Majesty,&quot; I said. &quot;I had no means of bringing it away. Dr.
+Grundt, on the other hand ...&quot; And I doubled up my leg and touched my
+foot.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor stared at me and the furrow reappeared between his eyes.
+Then a smile broke out on his face, a warm, attractive smile, like
+sunshine after rain, and he burst into a regular guffaw. I knew His
+Majesty's weakness for jokes at the expense of the physical deformities
+of others, but I had scarcely dared to hope that my subtle reference to
+Grundt's clubfoot as a hiding-place for compromising papers would have
+had such a success. For the Kaiser fairly revelled in the idea and
+laughed loud and long, his sides fairly shaking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach, der Stelze! Excellent! Excellent!&quot; he cried. &quot;Plessen, come and
+hear how we've diddled the Englander again!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We were in a long room, lofty, with a great window at the far end, where
+the room seemed to run to the right and left in the shape of a T. From
+the big writing-desk with its litter of photographs in heavy silver
+frames, the little bronze busts of the Empress, the water-colour
+sea-scapes and other little touches, I judged this to be the Emperor's
+study.</p>
+
+<p>At the monarch's call, a white-haired officer emerged from the further
+end of the room, that part which was hidden from my view.</p>
+
+<p>The Kaiser put his hand on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A great joke, Plessen!&quot; he said, chuckling. Then, to me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell it again!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had warmed to my work now. I gave as drily humorous an account as I
+could of Dr. Grundt, fat and massive and podgy, hobbling on board the
+steamer at Tilbury, under the noses of the British police, with the
+document stowed away in his boot.</p>
+
+<p>The Kaiser punctuated my story with gusty guffaws, and emphasized the
+fun of the <i>d&eacute;nouement</i> by poking the General in the ribs.</p>
+
+<p>Plessen laughed very heartily, as indeed he was expected to. Then he
+said suavely:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But has the stratagem succeeded, Your Majesty?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The monarch knit his brow and looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, young man, did it work?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;... Because,&quot; Plessen went on, &quot;if so, Grundt must be in Holland. In
+that case, why is he not here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My heart sank within me. Above all things, I knew I must keep my
+countenance. The least sign of embarrassment and I was lost. Yet I felt
+the blood fleeing from my face and I was glad I stood in the shadow.</p>
+
+<p>A knock came to the door. The elderly chamberlain who had met me outside
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your Majesty will excuse me ... General Baron von Fischer is there to
+report....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Presently, presently,&quot; was the answer in an irritable tone. &quot;I am
+engaged just now....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old courtier paused irresolutely for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what is it; what is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Despatches from General Head-quarters, Your Majesty! The General asked
+me to say the matter was urgent!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Kaiser wakened in an instant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bring him in!&quot; Then, to Plessen, he added in a voice from which all
+mirth had vanished, in accents of gloom:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At this hour, Plessen? If things have again gone wrong on the Somme!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>An officer came in quickly, rigid with a frozen face, helmet on head,
+portfolio under his arm. The Kaiser walked the length of the room to his
+desk and sat down. Plessen and the other followed him. I remained where
+I was. They seemed to have forgotten all about me.</p>
+
+<p>A murmur rose from the desk. The officer was delivering his report. Then
+the Kaiser seemed to question him, for I heard his hard, metallic
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Contalmaison ... Trones Wood ... heavy losses ... forced
+back ... terrific artillery fire ...&quot; were words that reached me.
+The Kaiser's voice rose on a high note of irritability. Suddenly he
+dashed the papers on the desk from him and exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is outrageous! I'll break him! Not another man shall he have if I
+must go myself and teach his men their duty!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Plessen hurriedly left the desk and came to me. His old face was white
+and his hands were shaking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get out of here!&quot; he said to me in a fierce undertone. &quot;Wait outside
+and I will see you later!&quot; Still, from the desk, resounded that harsh,
+strident voice, running on in an ascending scale, pouring forth a
+foaming torrent of menace.</p>
+
+<p>I had often heard of the sudden paroxysms of fury from which the Kaiser
+was said to suffer of recent years, but never in my wildest daydreams
+did I ever imagine I should assist at one.</p>
+
+<p>Gladly enough did I exchange the highly charged electrical atmosphere of
+the Imperial study for the repose of the quiet corridor. Its perfect
+tranquillity was as balm to my quivering nerves. Of the man in green
+nothing was to be seen. Only the trooper continued his silent vigil.</p>
+
+<p>Again I acted on impulse. I was wearing my grass-green raincoat, my hat
+I carried in my hand. I might therefore easily pass for one just leaving
+the Castle. Without hesitation, I turned to the left, the way I had
+come, and plunged once more into the labyrinth of galleries and
+corridors and landings by which the man in green had led me. I very soon
+lost myself, so I decided to descend the next staircase I should come
+to. I followed this plan and went down a broad flight of stairs, at the
+foot of which I found a night porter, clad in a vast overcoat bedizened
+with eagles and seated on a stool, reading a newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped me and asked me my business. I told him I was coming from the
+Emperor's private apartments, whereupon he demanded my pass. I showed
+him my badge which entirely satisfied him, though he muttered something
+about &quot;new faces&quot; and not having seen me before. I asked him for the way
+out. He said that at the end of the gallery I should come to the west
+entrance. I felt I had had a narrow squeak of running into my mentor
+outside. I told the man I wanted the other entrance ... I had my car
+there.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You mean the south entrance?&quot; he asked, and proceeded to give me
+directions which brought me, without further difficulty, out upon the
+open space in front of the great equestrian statue of the Emperor
+William I.</p>
+
+<p>It was a clear, starry night and I heaved a sigh of relief as I saw the
+Schloss-Platz glittering in the cold light of the arc lamps. So pressing
+had been the danger threatening me that the atmosphere of the Castle
+seemed stifling in comparison with the keen night air. A new confidence
+filled my veins as I strode along, though the perils to which I was
+advancing were not a whit less than those I had just escaped. For I had
+burnt my boats. My disappearance from the Castle must surely arouse
+suspicion and it was only a matter of hours for the hue and cry to be
+raised after me. At best it might be delayed until Clubfoot presented
+himself at the Castle.</p>
+
+<p>I could not remain in Berlin, that was clear. My American passport was
+not in order, and if I were to fall back upon my silver badge, I should
+instantly come into contact with the police with all kinds of unwelcome
+consequences. No, I must get out of Berlin at all costs. Well away from
+the capital, I might possibly utilize my silver badge or by its help
+procure identity papers that would give me a status of some kind.</p>
+
+<p>But Francis? Baffled as I was by that obscure jingle of German,
+something seemed to tell me that it was a message from my brother. It
+was dated from Berlin, and I felt that the solution of the riddle, if
+riddle it were, must be found here.</p>
+
+<p>I had reached Unter den Linden. I entered a caf&eacute; and ordered a glass of
+beer. The place was a blaze of light and dense with a blue cloud of
+tobacco smoke. A noisy band was crashing out popular tunes and there was
+a loud buzz of conversation rising from every table. It was all very
+cheerful and the noise and the bustle did me good after the strain of
+the night.</p>
+
+<p>I drew from my pocket the slip of paper I had had from Dicky and fell to
+scanning it again. I had not been twelve hours in Germany, but already I
+was conscious that, for anyone acting a part, let anything go wrong with
+his identity papers and he could never leave the country. If he were
+lucky, he might lie doggo; but there was no other course.</p>
+
+<p>Supposing, then, that this had happened to Francis (as, indeed, Red Tabs
+had hinted to me was the case) what course would he adopt? He would try
+and smuggle out a message announcing his plight. Yes, I think that is
+what I myself would do in similar circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I would accept this as a message from Francis. Now to study it
+once more.</p>
+
+<p><i>O Eichenholz! O Eichenholz!<br />
+Wie leer sind deine Bl&auml;tter.<br />
+Wie Achiles in dem Zelte.<br />
+Wo zweie sich zanken<br />
+Erfreut sich der Dritte.</i></p>
+
+<p>The message fell into three parts, each consisting of a phrase. The
+first phrase might certainly be a warning that Francis had failed in
+his mission.</p>
+
+<p><i>&quot;O Okewood! how empty are thy leaves!&quot;</i></p>
+
+<p>What, then, of the other two phrases?</p>
+
+<p>They were short and simple. Whatever message they conveyed, it could not
+be a lengthy one. Nor was it likely that they contained a report of
+Francis' mission to Germany, whatever it had been. Indeed, it was not
+conceivable that my brother would send any such report to a Dutchman
+like van Urutius, a friendly enough fellow, yet a mere acquaintance and
+an alien at that.</p>
+
+<p>The message carried in those two phrases must be, I felt sure, a
+personal one, relating to my brother's welfare. What would he desire to
+say? That he was arrested, that he was going to be shot? Possibly, but
+more probably his idea in sending out word was to explain his silence
+and also to obtain assistance.</p>
+
+<p>My eye recurred continually to the final phrase: &quot;When <i>two</i> people fall
+out, the <i>third</i> party rejoices.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Might not these numerals refer to the number of a street? Might not in
+these two phrases be hidden an address at which one might find Francis,
+or at the worst, hear news of him?</p>
+
+<p>I sent for the Berlin Directory. I turned up the streets section and
+eagerly ran my eye down the columns of the &quot;A's.&quot; I did not find what I
+was looking for, and that was an &quot;Achilles-Strasse,&quot; either with two
+&quot;l's&quot; or with one.</p>
+
+<p>Then I tried &quot;Eichenholz.&quot; There was an &quot;Eichenbaum-Allee&quot; in the Berlin
+suburb called West-End, but that was all. I tried for a &quot;Bl&auml;tter&quot; or a
+&quot;Blatt-Strasse&quot; with an equally negative result.</p>
+
+<p>It was discouraging work, but I went back to the paper again. The only
+other word likely to serve as a street remaining in the puzzle was
+&quot;Zelt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wie Achiles in dem Zelte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Wearily I opened the directory at the &quot;Z's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There, staring me in the face, I found the street called &quot;In den
+Zelten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had struck the trail at last.</p>
+
+<p>In den Zelten, I discovered, on referring to the directory again,
+derived its name &quot;In the Tents,&quot; from the fact that in earlier days a
+number of open-air beer-gardens and booths had occupied the site which
+faces the northern side of the Tiergarten. It was not a long street. The
+directory showed but fifty-six houses, several of which, I noticed, were
+still beer-gardens. It appeared to be a fashionable thoroughfare, for
+most of the occupants were titled people. No. 3, I was interested to
+see, was still noted as the Berlin office of <i>The Times</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The last phrase in the message decidedly gave the number. <i>Two</i> must
+refer to the number of the house: <i>third</i> to the number of the floor,
+since practically all dwelling-houses in Berlin are divided off into
+flats.</p>
+
+<p>As for the &quot;Achiles,&quot; I gave it up.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my watch. It was twenty past eleven: too late to begin my
+search that night. Then I suddenly realized how utterly exhausted I was.
+I had been two nights out of bed without sleep, for I had sat up on deck
+crossing over to Holland, and the succession of adventures that had
+befallen me since I left London had driven all thought of weariness from
+my mind. But now came the reaction and I felt myself yearning for a hot
+bath and for a nice comfortable bed. To go to an hotel at that hour of
+night, without luggage and with an American passport not in order, would
+be to court disaster. It looked as though I should have to hang about
+the caf&eacute;s and night restaurants until morning, investigate the clue of
+the street called In den Zelten, and then get away from Berlin as fast
+as ever I could.</p>
+
+<p>But my head was nodding with drowsiness. I must pull myself together. I
+decided I would have some black coffee, and I raised my eyes to find the
+waiter. They fell upon the pale face and elegant figure of the one-armed
+officer I had met at the Casino at Goch ... the young lieutenant they
+had called Schmalz.</p>
+
+<p>He had just entered the caf&eacute; and was standing at the door, looking about
+him. I felt a sudden pang of uneasiness at the sight of him, for I
+remembered his cross-examination of me at Goch. But I could not escape
+without paying my bill; besides, he blocked the way.</p>
+
+<p>He settled my doubts and fears by walking straight over to my table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good evening, Herr Doktor,&quot; he said in German, with his pleasant smile.
+&quot;This indeed is an unexpected pleasure! So you are seeing how we poor
+Germans are amusing ourselves in war-time. You must admit that we do not
+take our pleasures sadly. You permit me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting for my reply, he sat down at my table and ordered a
+glass of beer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish you had appeared sooner,&quot; I exclaimed in as friendly a tone as I
+could muster, &quot;for I am just going. I have had a long and tiring journey
+and am anxious to go to an hotel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Directly I had spoken I realized my blunder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have not got an hotel yet?&quot; said Schmalz. &quot;Why, how curious! Nor
+have I! As you are a stranger in Berlin, you must allow me to appoint
+myself your guide. Let us go to an hotel together, shall we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to demur, difficult as it was to find any acceptable excuse,
+but his manner was so friendly, his offer seemed so sincere, that I felt
+my resolution wavering. He had a winning personality, this frank,
+handsome boy. And I was so dog-tired!</p>
+
+<p>He perceived my reluctance but also my indecision.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll go to any hotel you like,&quot; he said brightly. &quot;But you Americans
+are spoilt in the matter of luxurious hotels, I know. Still, I tell you
+we have not much to learn in that line in Berlin. Suppose we go to the
+Esplanade. It's a fine hotel ... the Hamburg American line run it, you
+know. I am very well known there, quite the <i>Hauskind</i> ... my uncle was
+a captain of one of their liners. They will make us very comfortable:
+they always give me a little suite, bedroom, sitting-room and bath, very
+reasonably: I'll make them do the same for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>If I had been less weary&mdash;I have often thought since&mdash;I would have got
+up and fled from the caf&eacute; rather than have countenanced any such mad
+proposal. But I was drunk with sleep heaviness and I snatched at this
+chance of getting a good night's rest, for I felt that, under the aegis
+of this young officer, I could count on any passport difficulties at the
+hotel being postponed until morning. By that time, I meant to be out of
+the hotel and away on my investigations.</p>
+
+<p>So I accepted Schmalz's suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way,&quot; I said, &quot;I have no luggage. My bag got mislaid somehow at
+the station and I don't really feel up to going after it to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will fix you up,&quot; the other replied promptly, &quot;and with pyjamas in
+the American fashion. By the by,&quot; he added, lowering his voice, &quot;I
+thought it better to speak German. English is not heard gladly in
+Berlin just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I quite understand,&quot; I said. Then, to change the subject, which I did
+not like particularly, I added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Surely, you have been very quick in coming down from the frontier. Did
+you come by train?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, no!&quot; he answered. &quot;I found that the car in which you drove to the
+station ... it belonged to the gentleman who came to meet you, you
+know ... was being sent back to Berlin by road, so I got the driver to
+give me a lift.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He said this quite airily, with his usual tone of candour. But for a
+moment I regretted my decision to go to the Esplanade with him. What if
+he knew more than he seemed to know?</p>
+
+<p>I dismissed the suspicion from my mind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bah!&quot; I said to myself, &quot;you are getting jumpy. Besides, it is too late
+to turn back now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We had a friendly wrangle as to who should pay for the drinks, and it
+ended in my paying. Then, after a long wait, we managed to get a cab, an
+antique-looking &quot;growler&quot; driven by an octogenarian in a coat of many
+capes, and drove to the Esplanade.</p>
+
+<p>It was a regular palace of a place, with a splendid vestibule with walls
+and pavement of different-hued marbles, with palm trees over-shadowing
+a little fountain tinkling in a jade basin, with servants in gaudy
+liveries. The reception clerk overwhelmed me with the cordiality of his
+welcome to my companion and &quot;the American gentleman,&quot; and after a
+certain amount of coquettish protestations about the difficulty of
+providing accommodation, allotted us a double suite on the entresol,
+consisting of two bedrooms with a common sitting-room and bathroom.</p>
+
+<p>In his immaculate evening dress, he was a Beau Brummell among hotel
+clerks, that man. The luggage of the American gentleman should be
+fetched in the morning. The gentleman's papers? There was no hurry: the
+Herr Leutnant would explain to his friend the forms that had to be
+filled in: they could be given to the waiter in the morning. Would the
+gentlemen take anything before retiring? A whisky-soda&mdash;ah! whisky was
+getting scarce. No? Nothing? He had the honour to wish the gentlemen
+pleasant repose.</p>
+
+<p>We went to the lift in procession, Beau Brummell in front, then a
+waiter, then ourselves and the gold-braided hall porter bringing up the
+rear. One or two people were sitting in the lounge, attended by a
+platoon of waiters. The whole place gave an impression of wealth and
+luxury altogether out of keeping with British ideas of the stringency of
+life in Germany under the British blockade. I could not help reflecting
+to myself mournfully that Germany did not seem to feel the pinch very
+much.</p>
+
+<p>At the lift the procession bowed itself away and we went up in charge of
+the liftman, a gorgeous individual who looked like one of the Pope's
+Swiss Guards. We reached the centresol in an instant. The Lieutenant led
+the way along the dimly lighted corridor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here is the sitting-room,&quot; he said, opening a door. &quot;This is my room,
+this the bathroom, and this,&quot; he flung open the fourth door, &quot;is your
+room!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stood aside to let me pass. The lights in the room were full on. In
+an arm-chair a big man in an overcoat was sitting.</p>
+
+<p>He had a heavy square face and a clubfoot.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X" />CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>A GLASS OF WINE WITH CLUBFOOT</h3>
+
+
+<p>I walked boldly into the room. All sense of fear had vanished in a wave
+of anger that swept over me, anger with myself for letting myself be
+trapped, anger with my companion for his treachery.</p>
+
+<p>Schmalz stood at my elbow with a smile full of malice on his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There now!&quot; he cried, &quot;you see, you are among friends! Am I not
+thoughtful to have prepared this little surprise for you? See, I have
+brought you to the one man you have crossed so many hundreds of miles of
+ocean to see! Herr Doktor! this is Dr. Semlin. Dr. Semlin: Dr. Grundt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The other had by now heaved his unwieldy frame from the chair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dr. Semlin?&quot; he said, in a perfectly emotionless voice, <i>une voix
+blanche</i>, as the French say, &quot;this is an unexpected pleasure. I never
+thought we should meet in Berlin. I had believed our rendezvous to have
+been fixed for Rotterdam. Still, better late than never!&quot; And he
+extended to me a white, fat hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Our friend, the Herr Leutnant,&quot; I answered carelessly, &quot;omitted to
+inform me that he was acquainted with you, as, indeed, he failed to warn
+me that I should have the pleasure of seeing you here to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We owe that pleasure,&quot; Clubfoot replied with a smile that displayed a
+glitter of gold in his teeth, &quot;to a purely fortuitous encounter at the
+Casino at Goch, as, indeed, it would appear, I am similarly indebted to
+chance for the unlooked-for boon of making your personal acquaintance
+here this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He bowed to Schmalz as he said this.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But come,&quot; he went on, &quot;if I may make bold to offer you the hospitality
+of your own room, sit down and try a glass of this excellent
+Brauneberger. Rhine wine must be scarce where you come from. We have
+much to tell one another, you and I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Again he bared his golden teeth in a smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By all means,&quot; I said. &quot;But I fear we keep our young friend from his
+bed. Doubtless, you have no secrets from him, but you will agree, Herr
+Doktor, that our conversation should best be t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&egrave;te.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Schmalz, dear friend,&quot; Clubfoot exclaimed with a sigh of regret, &quot;much
+as I should like ... I am indeed truly sorry that we should be deprived
+of your company, but I cannot contest the profound accuracy of our
+friend's remark. If you could go to the sitting-room for a few
+minutes....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The young lieutenant flushed angrily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you prefer my room to my company ... by all means,&quot; he retorted
+gruffly, &quot;but I think, in the circumstances, that I shall go to bed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, shutting the door
+with rather more force than was necessary, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot sighed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach! youth! youth!&quot; he cried, &quot;the same impetuous youth that is at
+this very moment hacking out for Germany a world empire amidst the
+nations in arms. A wonderful race, a race of giants, our German youth,
+Herr Doktor ... the mainspring of our great German machine&mdash;as they find
+who resist it. A glass of wine!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man's speech and manner boded ill for me, I felt. I would have
+infinitely preferred violent language and open threats to the subtle
+menace that lay concealed beneath all this suavity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You smoke?&quot; queried Clubfoot. &quot;No!&quot;&mdash;he held up his hand to stop me as
+I was reaching for my cigarette case, &quot;you shall have a cigar&mdash;not one
+of our poor German Hamburgers, but a fine Havana cigar given me by a
+member of the English Privy Council. You stare! Aha! I repeat, by a
+member of the English Privy Council, to me, the Boche, the barbarian,
+the Hun! No hole and corner work for the old doctor. <i>Der Stelze</i> may be
+lame, Clubfoot may be past his work, but when he travels <i>en mission</i>,
+he travels <i>en prince</i>, the man of wealth and substance. There is none
+too high to do him honour, to listen to his views on poor, misguided
+Germany, the land of thinkers sold into bondage to the militarists! Bah!
+the fools!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He snarled venomously. This man was beginning to interest me. His rapid
+change of moods was fascinating, now the kindly philosopher, now the
+Teuton braggart, now the Hun incorporate. As he limped across the room
+to fetch his cigar case from the mantelpiece, I studied him.</p>
+
+<p>He was a vast man, not so much by reason of his height, which was below
+the medium, but his bulk, which was enormous. The span of his shoulders
+was immense, and, though a heavy paunch and a white flabbiness of face
+spoke of a gross, sedentary life, he was obviously a man of quite
+unusual strength. His arms particularly were out of all proportion to
+his stature, being so long that his hands hung down on either side of
+him when he stood erect, like the paws of some giant ape. Altogether,
+there was something decidedly simian about his appearance his squat nose
+with hairy, open nostrils, and the general hirsuteness of the man, his
+bushy eyebrows, the tufts of black hair on his cheekbones and on the
+backs of his big, spade like hands. And there was that in his eyes, dark
+and courageous beneath the shaggy brows, that hinted at accesses of
+ape-like fury, uncontrollable and ferocious.</p>
+
+<p>He gave me his cigar which, as he had said, was a good one, and, after a
+preliminary sip of his wine, began to speak.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am a plain man, Herr Doktor,&quot; he said, &quot;and I like plain speaking.
+That is why I am going to speak quite plainly to you. When it became
+apparent to that person whom it is not necessary to name further greatly
+desired a certain letter to be recovered, I naturally expected that I,
+who am a past member in affairs of this order, notably, on behalf of the
+person concerned, would have been entrusted with the mission. It was I
+who discovered the author of the theft in an English internment camp; it
+was I who prevailed upon him to acquiesce in our terms; it was I who
+finally located the hiding place of the document ... all this, mark you,
+without setting foot in England.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My thoughts flew back again to the three slips of paper in their canvas
+cover, the divided crest, the big, sprawling, upright handwriting. I
+should have known that hand. I had seen it often enough on certain
+photographs which were accorded the place of honour in the drawing room
+at Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's at Bonn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I therefore had the prior claim,&quot; Clubfoot continued, &quot;to be entrusted
+with the important task of fetching the document and of handing it back
+to the writer. But the gentleman was in a hurry; the gentleman always
+is; he could not wait for that old slowcoach of a Clubfoot to mature his
+plans for getting into England, securing the document, and getting out
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So Bernstorff is called into consultation, the head of an embassy that
+has made the German secret service the laughing-stock of the world, an
+ambassador that has his private papers filched by a common sneak-thief
+in the underground railway and is fool enough to send home the most
+valuable documents by a jackass of a military attach&eacute; who lets the whole
+lot be taken from him by a dunderheaded British customs officer at
+Falmouth! <i>This</i> was the man who was to replace <i>me!</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bernstorff is accordingly bidden to despatch one of his trusty servants
+to England, with all suitable precautions, to do <i>my</i> work. You are
+chosen, and I will pay you the compliment of saying that you fulfilled
+your mission in a manner that is singularly out of keeping with the
+usual method of procedure of that gentleman's emissaries.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, my dear Doktor ... pray fill your glass. That cigar is good, is it
+not? I thought you would appreciate a good cigar.... As I was saying,
+you were handicapped from the first. When you reach the place indicated
+to you in your instructions, you find only half the document. The wily
+thief has sliced it in two so as to make sure of his money before
+parting with the goods. They didn't know, of course, that Clubfoot, the
+old slowcoach, who is past his work, was aware of this already, and had
+made his plans accordingly. But, in the end, they had to send for me.
+'The good Clubfoot,' 'old chap,' 'sly old fox,' and all the rest of
+it&mdash;would run across to England and secure the other half, while Count
+Bernstorff's smart young man from America would wait in Rotterdam until
+Herr Dr. Grundt arrived and handed him the other portion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But Count Bernstorff's young man does nothing of the kind. He is
+one too many for the old fox. He does not wait for him. He runs away,
+after displaying unusual determination in dealing with a prying
+Englander&mdash;whose fate should be a lesson to all who interfere in other
+people's business&mdash;and goes to Germany, leaving poor old Clubfoot in the
+lurch. You must admit, Herr Doktor, that I have been hardly used&mdash;by
+yourself as well as by another person?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My throat was dry with anxiety. What did the man mean by his veiled
+allusions to &quot;all who interfere in other people's business?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I cleared my throat to speak.</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot raised a great hand in deprecation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No explanation, Herr Doktor, I beg&quot; (his tone was perfectly
+unconcerned and friendly), &quot;let me have my say. When I found out that
+you had left Rotterdam&mdash;by the way, you must let me congratulate you on
+the remarkable fertility of resource you displayed in quitting Frau
+Schratt's hospitable house&mdash;when I found you were gone, I sat down and
+thought things out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I reflected that an astute American like yourself (believe me, you are
+very astute) would probably be accustomed to look at everything from the
+business standpoint. 'I will also consider the matter from the business
+standpoint,' I said to myself, and I decided that, in your place, I too
+would not be content to accept, as sole payment for the danger of my
+mission, the scarcely generous compensation that Count Bernstorff allots
+to his collaborators. No, I should wish to secure a little renown for
+myself, or, were that not possible, then some monetary gain
+proportionate with the risks I had run. You see, I have been at pains to
+put myself wholly in your place. I hope I have not said anything
+tactless. If so, I can at least acquit myself of any desire to offend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the contrary, Herr Doktor,&quot; I replied, &quot;you are the model of tact
+and diplomacy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His eyes narrowed a little at this. I thought he wouldn't like that word
+&quot;diplomacy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Another glass of wine? You may safely venture; there is not a headache
+in a bottle of it. Well, Herr Doktor, since you have followed me so
+patiently thus far, I will go further. I told you, when I first saw you
+this evening, that I was delighted at our meeting. That was no mere
+banality, but the sober truth. For, you see, I am the very person with
+whom, in the circumstances, you would wish to get in touch. Deprived of
+the honour, rightly belonging to me, of undertaking this mission
+single-handed and of fulfilling it alone, I find that you can enable me
+to carry out the mission to a successful conclusion, whilst I, for my
+part, am able and willing to recompense your services as they deserve
+and not according to Bernstorff's starvation scale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To make a long story short, Herr Doktor ... how much?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He brought his remarks to this abrupt anticlimax so suddenly that I was
+taken aback. The man was watching me intently for all his apparent
+nonchalance, and I felt more than ever the necessity for being on my
+guard. If I could only fathom how much he knew. Of two things I felt
+fairly sure: the fellow believed me to be Semlin and was under the
+impression that I still retained my portion of the document. I should
+have to gain time. The bargain he proposed over my half of the letter
+might give me an opportunity of doing that. Moreover, I must find out
+whether he really had the other half of the document, and in that case,
+where he kept it.</p>
+
+<p>He broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Herr Doktor,&quot; he said, &quot;do you want me to start the bidding? You
+needn't be afraid. I am generous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I leant forward earnestly in my chair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have spoken with admirable frankness, Herr Doktor,&quot; I said, &quot;and I
+will be equally plain, but I will be brief. In the first place, I wish
+to know that you are the man you profess to be: so far, you must
+remember, I have only the assurance of our excitable young friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your caution is most praiseworthy,&quot; said the other, &quot;but I should
+imagine I carry my name written on my boot.&quot; And he lifted his hideous
+and deformed foot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is scarcely sufficient guarantee,&quot; I answered, &quot;in a matter of
+this importance. A detail like that could easily be counterfeited, or
+otherwise provided for.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My badge,&quot; and the man produced from his waistcoat pocket a silver star
+identical with the one I carried on my braces, but bearing only the
+letter &quot;G&quot; above the inscription &quot;Abt. VII.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That, even,&quot; I retorted, &quot;is not conclusive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot's mind was extraordinarily alert, however gross and heavy his
+body might be.</p>
+
+<p>He paused for a moment in reflection, his hands crossed upon his great
+paunch.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not?&quot; he said suddenly, reached out for his cigar-case, beside him
+on the table, and produced three slips of paper highly glazed and
+covered with that unforgettable, sprawling hand, a portion of a gilded
+crest at the top&mdash;in short, the missing half of the document I had found
+in Semlin's bag. Clubfoot held them out fanwise for me to see, but well
+out of my reach, and he kept a great, spatulate thumb over the top of
+the first sheet where the name of the addressee should have been.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I trust you are now convinced, Herr Doktor,&quot; he said, with a smile that
+bared his teeth, and, putting the pieces together, he folded them
+across, tucked them away in the cigar-case again, and thrust it into his
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>I must test the ground further.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has it occurred to you, Herr Doktor,&quot; I asked, &quot;that we have very
+little time at our disposal? The person whom we serve must be anxiously
+waiting....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot laughed and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want that half-letter badly,&quot; he said, &quot;but there's no violent hurry.
+So I fear you must leave that argument out of your presentation of the
+case, for it has no commercial value. The person you speak of is not in
+Berlin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had heard something of the Kaiser's sudden appearances and
+disappearances during the war, but I had not thought they could be so
+well managed as to be kept from the knowledge of one of his own trusted
+servants, for such I judged Clubfoot to be. Evidently, he knew nothing
+of my visit to the Castle that evening, and I was for a moment
+unpatriotic enough to wish I had kept my half of the letter that I might
+give it to Clubfoot now to save the coming exposure. &quot;A thousand
+dollars!&quot; Clubfoot said.</p>
+
+<p>I remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Two? Three? Four thousand? Man, you are greedy. Well, I will make it
+five thousand&mdash;twenty thousand marks....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herr Doktor,&quot; I said, &quot;I don't want your money. I want to be fair with
+you. When the ... the person we know of sends for you, we will go
+together. You shall tell the large part you have played in this affair.
+I only want credit for what I have done, nothing more....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A knock came at the door. The porter entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A telegram for the Herr Doktor,&quot; he said, presenting a salver.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere near by a band was playing dance music ... one of those
+rousing, splendidly accented Viennese waltzes. There seemed to be a ball
+on, for through the open door of the room, I heard, mingled with the
+strains of the music, the sound of feet and the hum of voices.</p>
+
+<p>Then the door closed, shutting out the outer world again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You permit me,&quot; said Grundt curtly, as he broke the seal of the
+telegram. So as not to seem to observe him, I got up and walked across
+to the window, and leaned against the warm radiator.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; said a voice from the arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; I echoed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have made you my proposal, Herr Doktor: you have made yours. Yours is
+quite unacceptable. I have told you with great frankness why it is
+necessary that I should have your portion of the document and the sum I
+am prepared to pay for it. I set its value at five thousand dollars. I
+will pay you the money over in cash, here and now, in good German
+bank-notes, in exchange for those slips of paper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man's suavity had all but vanished: his voice was harsh and stern.
+His eyes glittered under his shaggy brows as he looked at me. Had I been
+less agitated, I should have noted this, as a portent of the coming
+storm, also his great ape's hands picking nervously at the telegram in
+his lap.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have already told you,&quot; I said firmly, &quot;that I don't want your money.
+You know my terms!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He rose up from his seat and his figure seemed to tower.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Terms?&quot; he cried in a voice that quivered with suppressed passion,
+&quot;terms? Understand that I give orders. I accept terms from no man. We
+waste time here talking. Come, take the money and give me the paper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head. My brain was clear, but I felt the crisis was coming. I
+took a good grip with my hands of the marble slab covering the radiator
+behind me to give me confidence. The slab yielded: mechanically I noted
+that it was loose.</p>
+
+<p>The man in front of me was shaking with rage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen!&quot; he said. &quot;I'll give you one more chance. But mark my words
+well. Do you know what happened to the man that stole that document? The
+English took him out and shot him on account of what was found in his
+house when they raided it. Do you know what happened to the interpreter
+at the internment camp, who was our go-between, who played us false by
+cutting the document in half? The English shot <i>him</i> too, on account of
+what was found in letters that came to him openly through the post? And
+who settled Schulte? And who settled the other man? Who contrived the
+traps that sent them to their doom? It was <i>I</i>, Grundt, <i>I</i>, the
+cripple, <i>I</i>, the Clubfoot, that had these traitors despatched as an
+example to the six thousand of us who serve our Emperor and empire in
+darkness! You dog, I'll smash you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was gibbering like an angry ape: his frame was shaking with fury:
+every hair in the tangle on his face and hands seemed to bristle with
+his Berserker frenzy.</p>
+
+<p>But he kept away from me, and I saw that he was still fighting to
+preserve his self-control.</p>
+
+<p>I maintained a bold front.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This may do for your own people,&quot; I said contemptuously, &quot;but it
+doesn't impress me, I'm an American citizen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was calmer now, but his eyes glittered dangerously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An American citizen?&quot; he said in an icy tone. Then he fairly hissed at
+me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You fool! Blind, besotted fool! Do you think you can trifle with the
+might of the German Empire? Ah! I've played a pretty game with you, you
+dirty English dog! I've watched you squirming and writhing whilst the
+stupid German told you his pretty little tale and plied you with his
+wine and his cigars. You're in our power now, you miserable English
+hound! Do you understand that? Now call on your fleet to come and save
+you!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen! I'll be frank with you to the last. I've had my suspicions of
+you from the first, when they telephoned me that you had escaped from
+the hotel, but I wanted to make <i>sure</i>. Ever since you have been in this
+room it has been in my power to push that bell there and send you to
+Spandau, where they rid us of such dirty dogs as you.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the game amused me. I liked to see the Herr Englander playing the
+spy against <i>me</i>, the master of them all. Do you know, you fool, that
+old Schratt knows English, that she spent years of her harlot's life in
+London, and that when you allowed her a glimpse of that passport, your
+own passport, the one you so cleverly burned, she remembered the name?
+Ah! you didn't know that, did you?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall I tell you what was in that telegram they just brought me? It was
+from Schratt, our faithful Schratt, who shall have a bangle for this
+night's work, to say that the corpse at the hotel has a chain round its
+neck with an identity disc in the name of Semlin. Ha! you didn't know
+that either, did you?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And <i>you</i> would bargain and chaffer with me! <i>You</i> would dictate your
+terms, you scum! <i>You</i> with your head in a noose, a spy that has failed
+in his mission, a miserable wretch that I can send to his death with a
+flip of my little finger! You impudent hound! Well, you'll get your
+deserts this time, Captain Desmond Okewood ... but I'll have that paper
+first!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Roaring &quot;Give it to me!&quot; he rushed at me like some frenzied beast of the
+jungle. The veins stood out at his temples, his hairy nostrils opened
+and closed as his breath came faster, his long arms shot out and his
+great paws clutched at my throat.</p>
+
+<p>But I was waiting for him. As he came at me, I heard his clubfoot stump
+once on the polished floor, then, from the radiator behind me, I raised
+high in my arms the heavy marble slab, and with every ounce of strength
+in my body brought it crashing down on his head.</p>
+
+<p>He fell like a log, the blood oozing sluggishly from his head on to the
+parquet. I stopped an instant, snatched the cigar-case from the pocket
+where he had placed it, extracted the document and fled from the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI" />CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>MISS MARY PRENDERGAST RISKS HER REPUTATION</h3>
+
+
+<p>The rooms of our suite were intercommunicating so that you could pass
+from one to the other without going into the corridor at all. Schmalz
+had retired this way, going from my room through the bathroom to his own
+room. In the excitement of the moment I forgot all about this, else I
+should not have omitted such an elementary precaution as slipping the
+bolt of the door communicating between my room and the bathroom.</p>
+
+<p>As I stepped out into the corridor, with the crash of that heavy body
+still ringing in my ears, I thought I caught the sound of a light step
+in the bathroom; the next moment I heard a door open and then a loud
+exclamation of horror in the room I had just left.</p>
+
+<p>The corridor was dim and deserted. The place seemed uninhabited. No
+boots stood outside the rooms, and open doors, one after the other, were
+sufficient indication that the apartments they led to were untenanted.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't pause to reason or to plan. On hearing that long drawn out cry
+of horror, I dashed blindly down the corridor at top speed, followed it
+round to the right and then, catching sight of a small staircase, rushed
+up it three steps at a time. As I reached the top I heard a loud cry
+somewhere on the floor below. Then a door banged, there was the sound of
+running feet and ... silence.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself on the next floor in a corridor similar to the one I had
+just left. Like it, it was desolate and dimly lit. Like it, it showed
+room after room silent and empty. Agitated as I was, the contrast with
+the bright and busy vestibule and the throng of uniformed servants below
+was so marked that it struck me with convincing force. Even the hotels,
+it seemed, were part and parcel of the great German publicity bluff
+which I had noted in my reading of the German papers at Rotterdam.</p>
+
+<p>I had no plan in my head, only a wild desire to put as much distance as
+possible between me and that ape-man in the room below. So, after
+pausing a moment to listen and draw breath, I started off again.
+Suddenly a door down the corridor, not ten paces away from me, opened
+and a woman came out. I stopped dead in my headlong course, but it was
+too late and I found myself confronting her.</p>
+
+<p>She was young and very beautiful with masses of thick brown hair
+clustering round a very white forehead. She was in evening dress, all
+in white, with an ermine wrap.</p>
+
+<p>Even as I looked at her I knew her and she knew me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monica,&quot; I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why! Desmond!&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>A regular hubbub echoed from below. Voices were crying out, doors were
+banging, there was the sound of feet.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was speaking, saying in her low and pleasant voice phrases that
+were vague to me about her surprise, her delight at seeing me. But I did
+not listen to her. I was straining my ears towards that volume of
+chaotic noises which came swelling up from below.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monica!&quot; I interrupted swiftly, &quot;have you any place to hide me? This
+place is dangerous for me.... I must get away. If you can't save me,
+don't stay here but get away yourself as fast as you can. They're after
+me and if they catch you with me it will be bad for you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Without a word the girl turned round to the room she had just left. She
+beckoned to me, then knocked and went in. I followed her. It was a big,
+pleasant bedroom, elegantly furnished with a soft carpet and silk
+hangings, and I know not what, with shaded lights and flowers in
+profusion. Sitting up in bed was a stout, placid-looking woman in a pink
+silk kimono with her hair coquettishly braided in two short pigtails
+which hung down on either side of her face.</p>
+
+<p>Monica closed the door softly behind her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, Monica!&quot; she exclaimed in horror&mdash;and her speech was that of the
+United States&mdash;&quot;what on earth ...?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a word, Mary, but let me explain....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But for land's sake, Monica....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mary, I want you to help....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But say, child, a man ... in my bedroom ... at this time o' night....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, shucks, Mary! let me talk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The distress of the woman in bed was so comic that I could scarcely help
+laughing. She had dragged the bed-clothes up till only her eyes could be
+seen. Her pigtails bobbed about in her emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Mary dear, listen here. You're a friend of mine. This is Desmond
+Okewood, another, a very old and dear friend of mine too. Well, you
+know, Mary, this isn't a healthy country these times for an English
+officer. That's what Desmond here is. I didn't know he was in Germany. I
+don't know a thing about him except what he's told me and that's that
+he's in danger and wants me to help him. I met him outside and brought
+him right in here, as I know you would want me to, wouldn't you, dear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The lady poked her nose over the top of the bed-clothes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Present the gentleman properly, Monica!&quot; she said severely.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Captain Okewood ... Miss Mary Prendergast,&quot; said Monica.</p>
+
+<p>The lady's head, pigtails and all, now appeared. She appeared to be
+somewhat mollified.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't say I approve of your way of doing things, Monica,&quot; she
+observed, but less severely than before, &quot;and I can't think what an
+English officer wants in my bedroom at ten minutes of two in the
+morning, but if those Deutschers want to find him, perhaps I can
+understand!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here she smiled affectionately on the beautiful girl at my side.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! Mary, you're a dear,&quot; replied Monica.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I knew you'd help us. Why, a British officer in Germany ... isn't it
+too thrilling?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Des,&quot; she said, &quot;what do you want me to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I knew I could trust Monica and I resolved I would trust her friend
+too... she looked a white woman all right. And if she was a friend of
+Monica's, her heart would be in the right place. Francis and I had known
+Monica all our lives almost. Her father had lived for years ... indeed
+to the day of his death ... in London as the principal European
+representative of a big American financial house. They had lived next
+door to us in London and Francis and I had known Monica from the days
+when she was a pretty kid in short skirts until she had made her debut
+and the American ambassadress had presented her at Buckingham Palace. At
+various stages of our lives, both Francis and I had been in love with
+her, I believe, but my life in the army had kept me much abroad, so
+Francis had seen most of her and had been the hardest hit.</p>
+
+<p>Then the father died and Monica went travelling abroad in great state,
+as befits a young heiress, with a prodigiously respectable American
+chaperon and a retinue of retainers. I never knew the rights of the case
+between her and Francis, but at one of the German embassies abroad&mdash;I
+think in Vienna&mdash;she met the young Count Rachwitz, head of one of the
+great Silesian noble houses, and married him.</p>
+
+<p>It was not on the usual rock&mdash;money&mdash;that this German-American marriage
+was wrecked, for the Count was very wealthy himself. I had supposed that
+the German man's habitual attitude of mind towards women had not suited
+the girl's independent spirit on hearing that Monica, a few years after
+her marriage, had left her husband and gone to live in America. I had
+not seen her since she left London, and, though we wrote to one another
+at intervals, I had not heard from her since the war started and had no
+idea that she had returned to Germany. Monica Rachwitz was, in fact, the
+last person I should ever have expected to meet in Berlin in war-time.</p>
+
+<p>So, as briefly as I could and listening intently throughout for any
+sounds from the corridor, I gave the two women the story of the
+disappearance of Francis and my journey into Germany to look for him. At
+the mention of my brother's name, I noticed that the girl stiffened and
+her face grew rigid, but when I told her of my fears for his safety her
+blue eyes seemed to me to grow dim. I described to them my adventure in
+the hotel at Rotterdam, my reception in the house of General von Boden,
+and my interview at the Castle, ending with the experiences of that
+night, the trap laid for me at the hotel and my encounter with Clubfoot
+in the room below. Two things only I kept back: the message from Francis
+and the document. I decided within myself that the fewer people in those
+secrets the safer they would be. I am afraid, therefore, that my account
+of my interview with the Emperor was a trifle garbled, for I made out
+that I did not know why I was bidden to the presence and that our
+conversation was interrupted before I could discover the reason.</p>
+
+<p>The two women listened with grave faces. Only once did Monica interrupt
+me. It was when I mentioned General von Boden.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know the beast,&quot; she said. &quot;But, oh, Des!&quot; she exclaimed, &quot;you seem
+to have fallen right among the top set in this country. They're a bad
+lot to cross. I fear you are in terrible danger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I believe you, Monica,&quot; I answered, dolefully enough. &quot;And that's just
+where I feel such a beast for throwing myself upon your mercy in this
+way. But I was pretty desperate when I met you just now and I didn't
+know where to turn. Still, I want you to understand that if you can only
+get me out of this place I shall not trouble you further. I came to this
+country on my own responsibility and I'm going through with it alone. I
+have no intention of implicating anybody else along with me. But I
+confess I don't believe it is possible to get away from this hotel.
+They're watching every door by now. Besides...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stopped abruptly. A noise outside caught my listening ear. Footsteps
+were approaching along the corridor. I heard doors open and shut. They
+were hunting for me, floor by floor, room by room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Open that wardrobe,&quot; said a voice from the bed: a firm, business-like
+voice that was good to hear. &quot;Open it and get right in, young man; but
+don't go mussing up my good dresses whatever you do! And you, Monica,
+quick! Switch off those lights all but this one by the bed. Good! Now go
+to the door and ask them what they mean by making this noise at this
+time of night with me ill and all!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I got into the wardrobe and Monica shut me in. I heard the bedroom door
+open, then voices. I waited patiently for five minutes, then the
+wardrobe door opened again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come out, Des,&quot; said Monica, &quot;and thank Mary Prendergast for her
+cleverness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did they say?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That reception clerk was along. He was most apologetic&mdash;they know me
+here, you see. He told me how a fellow had made a desperate attack upon
+a gentleman on the floor below and had got away. They thought he must be
+hiding somewhere in the hotel. I told him I'd been sitting here for an
+hour chatting with Miss Prendergast and that we hadn't heard a sound.
+They went away then!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You won't catch any Deutschers fooling Mary Prendergast,&quot; said the
+jovial lady in the bed; &quot;but, children, what next?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Monica spoke&mdash;quite calmly. She was always perfectly self-possessed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My brother is stopping with me in our apartment in the
+Bendler-Strasse,&quot; she said. &quot;You remember Gerry, Des&mdash;he got all smashed
+up flying, you know, and is practically a cripple. He's been so much
+better here that I've been trying to get an attendant to look after him,
+to dress him and so on, but we couldn't find anybody; men are so scarce
+nowadays! You could come home with me, Des, and take this man's place
+for a day or two ... I'm afraid it couldn't be longer, for one would
+have to register you with the police&mdash;every one has to be registered,
+you know&mdash;and I suppose you have no papers that are any good&mdash;now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are too kind, Monica,&quot; I answered, &quot;but you risk too much and I
+can't accept.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's no risk for a day or two,&quot; she said. &quot;I am a person of consequence
+in official Germany, you know, with my husband A.D.C. to Marshal von
+Mackensen: and I can always say I forgot to send in your papers. If they
+come down upon me afterwards I should say I meant to register you but
+had to discharge you suddenly ... for drink!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how can I get away from here?&quot; I objected.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I guess we can fix that too,&quot; she replied. &quot;My car is coming for me at
+two&mdash;it must be that now&mdash;I have been at a dance downstairs&mdash;one of the
+Radolin girls is getting married to-morrow&mdash;it was so deadly dull I ran
+up here and woke up Mary Prendergast to talk. You shall be my chauffeur!
+I know you drive a car! You ought to be able to manage mine ... it's a
+Merc&eacute;d&egrave;s.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can drive any old car,&quot; I said, &quot;but I'm blessed ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wait there!&quot; cried this remarkable girl, and ran out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>For twenty minutes I stood and made small talk with Miss Prendergast.
+They were the longest twenty minutes I have ever spent. I was dead tired
+in any case, but my desperate position kept my thoughts so busy that,
+for all my endeavours to be polite, I fear my conversation was extremely
+distraught.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You poor boy!&quot; suddenly said Miss Mary Prendergast, totally ignoring a
+profound remark I was making regarding Mr. Wilson's policy, &quot;don't you
+go on talking to me! Sit down on that chair and go to sleep! You look
+just beat!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I sat down and nodded in the arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I was awake. Monica stood before me. She drew from under her
+cape a livery cap and uniform.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Put these things on,&quot; she said, &quot;and listen carefully. When you leave
+here, turn to the right and take the little staircase you will find on
+the right. Go down to the bottom, go through the glass doors, and across
+the room you will find there, to a door in a corner which leads to the
+ballroom entrance of the hotel. I will give you my ermine wrap to carry.
+I shall be waiting there. You will help me on with my cloak and escort
+me to the car. Is that clear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perfectly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, pay attention once more, for I shall not be able to speak to you
+again. I shall have to give you your directions for finding the way to
+the Bendler-Strasse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She did so and added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Drive carefully, whatever you do. If we had a smash and the police
+intervened, it might be most awkward for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But your chauffeur,&quot; I said, &quot;what will he do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Carter,&quot; she answered carelessly, &quot;he's tickled to death ... he's
+American, you see ... he drove me out into the Tiergarten just now and
+took off his livery, then drove me back here, hopped off and went home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But can you trust him?&quot; I asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like myself,&quot; she said. &quot;Besides, Carter's been to Belgium ... he drove
+Count Rachwitz, my husband, while he was on duty there. And Carter
+hasn't forgotten what he saw in Belgium!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She gave me the key of the garage and further instructions how to put
+the car up. Carter would give me a bed at the garage and would bring me
+round to the house early in the morning as if I were applying for the
+job of male attendant for Gerry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will go down first,&quot; Monica said, &quot;so as not to keep you waiting. My,
+but they're rattled downstairs&mdash;all the crowd at Olga von Radolin's
+dance have got hold of the story and the place is full of policemen. But
+there'll be no danger if you walk straight up to me in the hall and
+keep your face turned away from the crowd as much as possible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She kissed Miss Prendergast and slipped away. What a splendid pair of
+women they were: so admirably cool and resourceful: they seemed to have
+thought of everything.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good night, Miss Prendergast,&quot; I said. &quot;You have done me a good turn. I
+shall never forget it!&quot; And as the only means at my disposal for showing
+my gratitude, I kissed her hand.</p>
+
+<p>She coloured up like a girl.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a long time since any one did that to a silly old woman like me,&quot;
+she said musingly. &quot;Was it you or your brother,&quot; she asked abruptly,
+&quot;who nearly broke my poor girl's heart?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shouldn't like to say,&quot; I answered; &quot;but I don't think, speaking
+personally, that Monica ever cared enough about me for me to plead
+guilty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sniffed contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If that is so,&quot; she said, &quot;all I can say is that you seem to have all
+the brains of your family!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that I took my leave.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I reached the ballroom vestibule without meeting a soul. The place was
+crowded with people, officers in uniform, glittering with decorations,
+women in evening dress, coachmen, footmen, chauffeurs, waiters.
+Everybody was talking sixteen to the dozen, and there were such dense
+knots of people that at first I couldn't see Monica. Two policemen were
+standing at the swing-doors leading into the street, and with them a
+civilian who looked like a detective. I caught sight of Monica, almost
+at the detective's elbow, talking to two very elegant-looking officers.
+I pushed my way across the vestibule, turned my back on the detective
+and stood impassively beside her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! there you are, Carter!&quot; she said. &quot;Gute Nacht, Herr Baron! Auf
+wiedersehen, Durchlaucht!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The two officers kissed her hand whilst I helped her into her wrap. Then
+I marched straight out of the swing-doors in front of her, looking
+neither to right nor to left, past the detective and the two policemen.
+The detective may have looked at me: if so, I didn't perceive it. I had
+made up my mind not to see him.</p>
+
+<p>Outside Monica took the lead and brought me over to a chocolate-coloured
+limousine drawn up at the pavement. I noted with dismay that the engine
+was stopped. That might mean further delay whilst I cranked up. But a
+friendly chauffeur standing by seized the handle and started the engine
+whilst I assisted Monica into the car, and the next moment we were
+gliding smoothly over the asphalt under the twinkling arc-lamps.</p>
+
+<p>The Bendler-Strasse is off the Tiergarten, not far from the Esplanade,
+and I found my way there without much difficulty. I flatter myself that
+both Monica and I played our parts well, and I am sure nothing could
+have been more professional than the way I helped her to alight. It was
+an apartment house and she had the key of the front door, so, after
+seeing her safely within doors, I returned to the car and drove it round
+to the garage by a carriage-way leading to the rear of the premises.</p>
+
+<p>As I unlocked the double doors of the garage, a man came down a ladder
+outside the place leading to the upper room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did it work all right, sir?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that Carter?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sure that's me,&quot; came the cheery response. &quot;Stand by now and we'll run
+her in. Then I'll show you where you are to sleep!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We stowed the car away and he took me upstairs to his quarters, a bright
+little room with electric light, a table with a red cloth, a cheerful
+open fire and two beds. The walls were ornamented with pictures cut from
+the American Sunday supplements, mostly feminine and horsy studies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's a bit rough, mister,&quot; said Carter, &quot;but it's the best I can do.
+Gee! but you look that dawg-gorn tired I guess you could sleep
+anywheres!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was a friendly fellow, pleasant-looking in an ugly way, with a button
+nose and honest eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Say, but I like to think of the way we fooled them Deutschers,&quot; he
+chuckled. He kept on chuckling to himself whilst I took off my boots and
+began to undress.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That there is your bed,&quot; he said, pointing; &quot;the footman used to sleep
+there but they grabbed him for the army. There's a pair of Mr. Gerry's
+pyjamas for you and you'll find a cup of cocoa down warming by the fire.
+It's all a bit rough, but it's the best we can do. I guess you want to
+go to sleep mortal bad, so I'll be going down. The bed's clean... there
+are clean sheets on it....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I won't turn you out of your room,&quot; I said. &quot;There are two beds.
+You must take yours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you fret yourself about me,&quot; he answered. &quot;I'll make myself
+comfortable down in the garage. I don't often see a gentleman in this
+dawg-gorn country, and when I do I know how to treat him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He wouldn't listen to me, but stumped off down the stairs. As he went I
+heard him murmuring to himself:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gee! but we surely fooled those Deutschers some!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I drank this admirable fellow's cocoa; I warmed myself at his fire.
+Then with a thankful heart I crawled into bed and sank into a deep and
+dreamless sleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII" />CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>HIS EXCELLENCY THE GENERAL IS WORRIED</h3>
+
+
+<p>I sat with Monica in her boudoir, which, unlike the usual run of German
+rooms, had an open fireplace in which a cheerful fire was burning.
+Monica, in a ravishing kimono, was perched on the leather railed seat
+running round the fireplace, one little foot in a satin slipper held out
+to the blaze. In that pretty room she made a charming picture, which for
+a moment almost made me forget the manifold dangers besetting me.</p>
+
+<p>The doughty Carter had acquitted himself nobly of his task. When I
+awoke, feeling like a giant refreshed, he had the fire blazing merrily
+in the fireplace, while on the table a delicious breakfast of tea and
+fried eggs and biscuits was spread.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There ain't no call to mess yourself up inside with that dam' war bread
+of theirs,&quot; he chirped. &quot;Miss Monica, she lets me have biscuits, same
+like she has herself. I always calls her Miss Monica,&quot; he explained,
+&quot;like what they did over at her uncle's place in Long Island, where I
+used to work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast he produced hot water, a safety razor and other toilet
+requisites, a clean shirt and collar, an overcoat and a Stetson hat&mdash;all
+from Gerry's wardrobe, I presumed. My boots, too, were beautifully
+polished, and it was as a new man altogether, fresh in mind and clean in
+body, that I presented myself, about ten o'clock in the morning, at the
+front door and demanded the &quot;Frau Gr&auml;fin.&quot; By Carter's advice I had
+removed my moustache, and my clean-shaven countenance, together with my
+black felt hat and dark overcoat, gave me, I think, that appearance of
+rather dour respectability which one looks for in a male attendant.</p>
+
+<p>Now Monica and I sat and reviewed the situation together.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;German servants spend their lives in prying into their masters'
+affairs,&quot; she said, &quot;but we shan't be interrupted here. That door leads
+into Gerry's room: he was asleep when I went in just now. I'll take you
+into him presently. Now tell me about yourself ... and Francis!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I told her again, but at greater length, all I knew about Francis, his
+mission into Germany, his long silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I acted on impulse,&quot; I said, &quot;but, believe me, I acted for the best.
+Only, everything seems to have conspired against me. I appear to have
+walked straight into a mesh of the most appalling complications which
+reach right up to the Throne.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind, Des,&quot; she said, leaning over and putting a little hand on
+my arm, &quot;it was for Francis; you and I would do anything to help him,
+wouldn't we? ... if he is still alive. Impulse is not such a bad thing,
+after all. If I had acted on impulse once, maybe poor Francis would not
+now be in the fix he is....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she sighed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Things look black enough, Des,&quot; she went on. &quot;Maybe you and I won't get
+the chance of another chat like this again and that's why I'm going to
+tell you something I have never told anybody else. I am only telling you
+so as you will know that, whatever happens, you will always find in me
+an ally in your search ... though, tied as I am, I scarcely think I can
+ever help you much.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your brother wanted me to marry him. I liked him better than
+anybody else I had ever met ... or have ever met since, for that
+matter.... Daddy was dead, I was absolutely free to please myself, so no
+difficulties stood in the way. But your brother was proud ... his pride
+was greater than his love for me, I told him when we parted ... and he
+wouldn't hear of marriage until he had made himself independent, though
+I had enough for both of us. He wanted me to wait a year or two until
+he had got his business started properly, but his pride angered me and
+I wouldn't.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So we quarrelled and I went abroad with Mrs. Rushwood. Francis never
+wrote: all I heard about him was an occasional scrap in your letters.
+Mrs. Rushwood was crazy about titles, and she ran me round from court to
+court, always looking for what she called a suitable <i>pari</i> for me. At
+Vienna we met Rachwitz ... he was very good looking and very well
+mannered and seemed to be really fond of me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I gave Francis another chance. I wrote him a friendly letter and
+told him about Rachwitz wanting to marry me and asked his advice. He
+wrote me back a beastly letter, a wicked letter, Des. 'Any girl who is
+fool enough to sell herself for a title,' he said, 'richly deserves a
+German husband.' What do you think of that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Poor old Francis,&quot; I said. &quot;He was terribly fond of you, Monica!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, his letter did it. I married Rachwitz ... and have been miserable
+ever since. I'm not going to bore you with a long story about my
+matrimonial troubles. No! I'm not going to cry either! I'm not crying!
+Karl is not a bad man, as German men go, and he's a gentleman, but his
+love affairs and his drunken parties and his attitude of mind towards
+me ... it was so utterly different to everything I had been used to.
+Then you know, I left him....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Monica,&quot; I exclaimed, &quot;what are you doing here then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sighed wearily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm a German by marriage, Des,&quot; she said, &quot;you can't get away from
+that. My husband's country ... my country ... is at war and the wives
+must play their part, wherever their heart is. Karl never asked me to
+come back, I'll give him the credit for that. I came of my own accord
+because I felt my place was here. So I go round to needlework parties
+and sewing bees and Red Cross matin&eacute;es and try to be civil to the German
+women and listen to their boasting and bragging about their army, their
+hypocrisy about Belgium, their vilification of the best friends Daddy
+and I ever had, you English! But doing my duty by my husband does not
+forbid me to help my friends when they are in danger. That's why you can
+count on me, Des.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she gave me her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want to be frank with you, too,&quot; I said, &quot;so, whatever happens to me,
+you won't feel I have deceived you about things. I can't say much
+because my secret is not healthy for anyone to share, and, should they
+trace any connection between you and me, if they get me, it will be
+better for you not to have known anything compromising. But I want to
+tell you this. There is a consideration at stake which is higher than
+my own safety, higher even than Francis'. I don't believe I am afraid to
+die: if I escape here, I shall probably get killed at the front sooner
+or later: it is because of this consideration I speak of that I want to
+get away with my life back to England.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Monica laughed happily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do men always take us women to be fools?&quot; she said. &quot;You're a
+dangerous man to have around, Des, I know that, without worrying my head
+about any old secret. But you are my friend and Francis' brother and I'm
+going to help you.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, listen! Old von Boden was at that party last night: he came in
+late. Rudi von Boden, he told me, is going to take despatches to
+Rumania, to Mackensen's head-quarters. Well, I telephoned the old man
+this morning and asked him if Rudi would take a parcel for me to Karl.
+He said he would and the General is coming here to lunch to-day to fetch
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Von Boden is an old beast and runs after every woman he meets. He is by
+way of being partial to me, if you please, sir. I think I should be able
+to find out from him what are the latest developments in your case.
+There's nothing in the paper this morning about the affair at the
+Esplanade. But then, these things are always hushed up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He'll hardly say much in the circumstances,&quot; I objected &quot;After all,
+the Kaiser is involved....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear Des, opinion of feminine intelligence in military circles in
+this country is so low that the women in the army set at Court are very
+often far better informed than the General Staff. Von Boden will tell me
+all I want to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>What a girl she was!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About your friend, the clubfooted man,&quot; she went on, &quot;I'm rather
+puzzled. He must be a person of considerable importance to be fetched by
+special train straight into the Emperor's private apartments, where very
+few people ever penetrate, I assure you. But I've never heard of him.
+He's certainly not a Court official. Nor is he the head of the Political
+Police ... that's Henninger, a friend of Karl's. Still, there are people
+of great importance working in dark places in this country and I guess
+Clubfoot must be one of them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, I think I ought to take you into Gerry. I want to speak to you
+about him, Des. I daren't tell him who you are. Gerry's not himself.
+He's been a nervous wreck ever since his accident and I can't trust him.
+He's a very conventional man and his principles would never hear of me
+harbouring a ... a ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Spy?&quot; I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, a friend,&quot; she corrected. &quot;So you'll just have to be a male nurse,
+I guess. A German-American would be best, I think, as you'll have to
+read the German papers to Gerry&mdash;he doesn't know a word of German. Then,
+you must have a name of some kind....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Frederick Meyer,&quot; I suggested promptly, &quot;from Pittsburg. It'll have to
+be Pittsburg: Francis went there for a bit, you know: he wrote me a lot
+about the place and I've seen pictures of it, too. It's the only
+American city I know anything about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let it be Meyer from Pittsburg, then,&quot; smiled Monica, &quot;but you've got a
+terrible English accent, Des. I guess we'll have to tell Gerry you were
+years nursing in London before the war.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated a moment, then added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Des, I'm afraid you'll find Gerry very trying. He's awfully irritable
+and ... and very spiteful. So you must be careful not to give yourself
+away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I had only met the brother once and my recollection of him was of a good
+looking, rather spoilt young man. He had been brought up entirely in the
+States by the Long Island uncle whose great fortune he had inherited.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll be quite safe up here for the present,&quot; Monica went on. &quot;You'll
+sleep in the little room off Gerry's and I'll have your meals served
+there too. After I have found out from the General how things stand,
+we'll decide what's to be done next.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll be very wary with Master Gerry,&quot; I said. &quot;But, Monica, though he
+has only seen me once, he knows Francis pretty well and we are rather
+alike. Do you think he'll recognize me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, Desmond, it's years since he saw you. And you're not much like
+Francis with your moustache off. If you're careful, it'll be all right!
+It isn't for long, either. Now we'll go in. Come along.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As we entered, a petulant voice cried:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that you, Monica? Say, am I to be left alone all the morning?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gerry dear,&quot; answered Monica very sweetly, &quot;I've been engaging someone
+to look after you a bit. Come here, Meyer! This is Frederick Meyer,
+Gerry!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I should never have recognized the handsome, rather indolent youth I had
+met in London in the pale man with features drawn with pain who gazed
+frowningly at me from the bed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is he? Where did you get him from? Does he know German?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He shot a string of questions at Monica, who answered them in her sweet,
+patient way.</p>
+
+<p>He was apparently satisfied, for, when Monica presently got up to leave
+us, he threw me an armful of German papers and bade me read to him.</p>
+
+<p>I had not sat with him for ten minutes before I realized what an
+impossible creature the man was. Nothing I could do was right. Now he
+didn't want to hear the war news, then it was the report of the
+Reichstag debate that bored him, now I didn't read loud enough, then my
+voice jarred on him. Finally, he snatched the paper out of my hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't understand half you say,&quot; he cried in accents shrill with
+irritability; &quot;you mouth and mumble like an Englishman. You say you are
+an American?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir,&quot; I answered meekly, &quot;but I resided for many years in
+England.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it's a good thing you're not there now. Those English are just
+plumb crazy. They'll never whip Germany, not if they try for a century.
+Why, look what this country has done in this war? Nothing can stand
+against her! It's organization, that's what it is! The Germans lead the
+world. Take their doctors! I have been to every specialist in America
+about my back and paid them thousands of dollars. And what good did they
+do me? Not a thing. I come to Germany, they charge me a quarter of the
+fees, and I feel a different man already. Before tackling the Germans,
+the English ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thus he ran on. I knew the type well, the American who is hypnotized by
+German efficiency and thoroughness so completely that he does not see
+the reverse side of the medal.</p>
+
+<p>He exhausted himself on the topic at last and bade me read to him again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Read about the affair at the Hotel Esplanade last night,&quot; he commanded.</p>
+
+<p>I had kept an eye open for this very item but, as Monica had said, the
+papers contained no hint of it. I wondered how Gerry knew about it.
+Monica would not have told him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What affair do you mean?&quot; I said. &quot;There is nothing about it in the
+papers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course there is, you fool. What is the use of my hiring you to read
+the papers to me if you can't find news that's spread all over the
+place? It's no use giving me the paper ... you know I can't read it!
+Here, Josef will know!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A man-servant had come noiselessly into the room with some clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Gerry turned to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Josef, where did you see that story you were telling me about an
+English spy assaulting a man at the Esplanade last night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dot ain't in de paper, sir. I haf heard dis from de chauffeur of de
+Biedermanns next door. He wass at de hotel himself wid hiss shentleman
+lars' night at de dance. Dey won't put dat in no paper, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the man chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>I felt none too comfortable during all this and was glad to be told to
+read on and be damned.</p>
+
+<p>I read to the young American all the morning. He went on exactly like a
+very badly brought up child. He was fretful and quarrelsome and
+sometimes abusive, and I had some difficulty in keeping my temper. He
+continually recurred to my English accent and jeered so offensively and
+so pointedly at what he called &quot;your English friends&quot; that I began to
+believe there was some purpose behind his attitude. But it was only part
+of his invalid's fractiousness, for when the valet, Josef, appeared with
+the luncheon tray, the American seemed anxious to make amends for his
+behaviour.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid I'm a bit trying at times, Meyer,&quot; he said with a pleasant
+smile. &quot;But you're a good fellow. Go and have your lunch. You needn't
+come back till four: I always sleep after luncheon. Here, have a cigar!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I took the cigar with all humility as beseemed my r&ocirc;le and followed the
+valet into an adjoining room, where the table was laid for me. I am
+keenly sensitive to outside influences, and I felt instinctively
+distrustful of the man Josef. I expect he resented my intrusion into a
+sphere where his influence had probably been supreme and where he had
+doubtless managed to secure a good harvest of pickings.</p>
+
+<p>He left me to my luncheon and went away. After an excellent lunch,
+washed down by some first-rate claret, I was enjoying my cigar over a
+book when Josef reappeared again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Frau Gr&auml;fin will see you downstairs!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>Monica received me in a morning-room (the apartment was on two floors).
+She was very much agitated and had lost all her habitual calm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Des,&quot; she said, &quot;von Boden has been here!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well!&quot; I replied eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wasn't very successful,&quot; she went on &quot;I'm in deep water, Des, and
+that's the truth. I have never seen the old General as he was to-day.
+He's a frightful bully and tyrant, but even his worst enemy never
+accused him of cowardice. But, Des, to-day the man was cowed. He seemed
+to be in terror of his life and I had the greatest difficulty in making
+him say anything at all about your affair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I made a joking allusion to the escapade at the hotel last night and he
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Yesterday may prove the ruin of not only my career but that of my
+son's also. Yesterday gained for me as an enemy, Madam, a man whom it
+spells ruin, perhaps death, to offend.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'You mean the Emperor?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The Emperor!' he said. 'Oh! of course, he's furious. No, I was not
+speaking of the Emperor!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then he changed the subject and it took me all my tact to get back to
+it. I asked him if they had caught the author of the attack at the
+Esplanade. He said, no, but it was only a question of time: the fellow
+couldn't escape. I said I supposed they would offer a reward and publish
+a description of the assailant all over the country. He told me they
+would do nothing of the sort.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'The public will hear nothing about the affair,' he said, 'and if you
+will take my advice, Countess, you will forget all about it. In any
+case, the Princess Radolin is writing to all her guests at the ball last
+night to urge them strongly to say nothing about the incident. The
+employees of the hotel will keep their mouths shut. The interests at
+stake forbid that there should be any attempt whatsoever made in public
+to throw light on the affair.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is all I could get out of him. But I have something further to
+tell you. The General went away immediately after lunch. Almost as soon
+as he had gone I was called to the telephone. Dr. Henninger was there:
+he is the head of the Political Police, you know. He gave me the same
+advice as the General, namely, to forget all about what occurred at the
+Esplanade last night. And then the Princess Radolin rang me up to say
+the same thing. She seemed very frightened: she was quite tearful.
+Someone evidently had scared her badly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monica,&quot; I said, &quot;it's quite clear I can't stay here. My dear girl, if
+I am discovered in your house, there is no knowing what trouble may not
+come upon you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If there is any risk,&quot; she answered, &quot;it's a risk I am ready to take.
+You have nowhere to go to in Berlin, and if you are caught outside they
+might find out where you had been hiding and then we should be as badly
+off as before. No, you stay right on here, and maybe in a day or two I
+can get you away. I've been thinking something out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Karl has a place near the Dutch frontier, Schloss Bellevue, it is
+called, close to Cleves. It's an old place and has been in the family
+for generations. Karl, however, only uses it as a shooting-box: we had
+big shoots up there every autumn before the war.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There has been no shooting there for two years now and the place is
+overstocked with game. The Government has been appealing to people with
+shooting preserves to kill their game and put it on the market, so I had
+arranged to go up to Bellevue this month and see the agent about this. I
+thought if I could prevail on Gerry to come with me, you could accompany
+him and you might get across the Dutch frontier from there. It's only
+about fifteen miles away from the Castle. If I can get a move on Gerry,
+there is no reason why we shouldn't go away in a day or two. In the
+meantime you'll be quite safe here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I told her I must think it over: she seemed to be risking too much. But
+I think my mind was already made up. I could not bring destruction on
+this faithful friend.</p>
+
+<p>Then I went upstairs again to Gerry, who was in as vile a temper as
+before. His lunch had disagreed with him: he hadn't slept: the room was
+not hot enough ... these were a few of the complaints he showered at me
+as soon as I appeared. He was in his most impish and malicious mood. He
+sent me running hither and thither: he gave me an order and withdrew it
+in the same breath: my complacency seemed to irritate him, to encourage
+him to provoke me.</p>
+
+<p>At last he came back to his old sore subject, my English accent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I guess our good American is too homely for a fine English gentleman
+like you,&quot; he said, &quot;but I believe you'll as lief speak as you were
+taught before you're through with this city. An English accent is not
+healthy in Berlin at present, Mister Meyer, sir, and you'd best learn to
+talk like the rest of us if you want to keep on staying in this house.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm in no state to be worried just now and I've no notion of having
+the police in here because some of their dam' plain-clothes men have
+heard my attendant saying 'charnce' and 'darnce' like any
+Britisher&mdash;especially with this English spy running round loose. By the
+way, you'll have to be registered? Has my sister seen about it yet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I said she was attending to it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want to know if she's done it. I'm a helpless cripple and I can't get
+a thing done for me. Have you given her your papers? Yes, or no?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This was a bad fix. With all the persistence of the invalid, the man was
+harping on his latest whim.</p>
+
+<p>So I lied. The Countess had my papers, I said.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly he rang the bell and demanded Monica and had fretted himself
+into a fine state by the time she appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What's this I hear, Monica?&quot; he cried in his high-pitched, querulous
+voice. &quot;Hasn't Meyer been registered with the police yet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm going to see to it myself in the morning, Gerry,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the morning. In the morning!&quot; he cried, throwing up his hands. &quot;Good
+God, how can you be so shiftless? A law is a law. The man's papers must
+be sent in to-day ... this instant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Monica looked appealingly at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid I'm to blame, sir,&quot; I said. &quot;The fact is, my passport is
+not quite in order and I shall have to take it to the embassy before I
+send it to the police.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw Josef standing by the bed, a salver in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Zom letters, sir,&quot; he said to Gerry. I wondered how long he had been in
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>Gerry waved the letters aside and burst into a regular screaming fit.
+He wouldn't have things done that way in the house; he wouldn't
+have unknown foreigners brought in, with the city thick with
+spies&mdash;especially people with an English accent&mdash;his nerves wouldn't
+stand it: Monica ought to know better, and so on and so forth. The long
+and the short of it was that I was ordered to produce my passport
+immediately. Monica was to ring up the embassy to ask them to stretch a
+point and see to it out of office hours, then Josef should take me round
+to the police.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know how we got out of that room. It was Monica, with her sweet
+womanly tact, who managed it. I believe the madman even demanded to see
+my passport, but Monica scraped me through that trap as well.</p>
+
+<p>I had left my hat and coat in the entrance hall downstairs. I put on my
+coat, then went to Monica in the morning-room.</p>
+
+<p>There was much she wanted to say&mdash;I could see it in her eyes&mdash;but I
+think she gathered from my face what I was going to do, so she said
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>At the door I said aloud, for the benefit of Josef, who was on the
+stairs:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good, my lady. I will come straight back from the embassy and then
+go with Josef to the police.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The next moment I was adrift in Berlin.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII" />CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>I FIND ACHILLES IN HIS TENT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Outside darkness had fallen. I had a vague suspicion that the
+house might be watched, but I found the Bendler-Strasse quite
+undisturbed. It ran its quiet, aristocratic length to the tangle of
+bare branches marking the Tiergarten-Strasse with not so much as
+a dog to strike terror into the heart of the amateur spy. Even in the
+Tiergarten-Strasse, where the Jewish millionaires live, there was little
+traffic and few people about, and I felt singularly unromantic as I
+walked briskly along the clean pavements towards Unter den Linden.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the original object of my journey into Germany stood clearly
+before me. An extraordinary series of adventures had deflected me from
+my course, but never from my purpose. I realized that I should never
+feel happy in my mind again if I left Germany without being assured as
+to my brother's fate. And now I was on the threshold either of a great
+discovery or of an overwhelming disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>For the street called In den Zelten was my next objective. I knew I
+might be on the wrong track altogether in my interpretation of what I
+was pleased to term in my mind the message from Francis. If I had read
+it falsely&mdash;if, perhaps, it were not from him at all&mdash;then all the hopes
+I had built on this mad dash into the enemy's country would collapse
+like a house of cards. Then, indeed, I should be in a sorry pass.</p>
+
+<p>But my luck was in, I felt. Hitherto, I had triumphed over all
+difficulties. I would trust in my destiny to the last.</p>
+
+<p>I had taken the precaution of turning up my overcoat collar and of
+pulling my hat well down over my eyes, but no one troubled me. I
+reflected that only Clubfoot and Schmalz were in a position to recognize
+me and that, if I steered clear of places like hotels and restaurants
+and railway stations, where criminals always seem to be caught, I might
+continue to enjoy comparative immunity. But the trouble was the passport
+question. That reminded me.</p>
+
+<p>I must get rid of Semlin's passport. As I walked along I tore it into
+tiny pieces, dropping each fragment at a good interval from the other.
+It cost me something to do it, for a passport is always useful to flash
+in the eyes of the ignorant. But this passport was dangerous. It might
+denounce me to a man who would not otherwise recognize me.</p>
+
+<p>I had some difficulty in finding In den Zelten. I had to ask the way,
+once of a postman and once of a wounded soldier who was limping along
+with crutches. Finally, I found it, a narrowish street running off a
+corner of the great square in front of the Reichstag. No. 2 was the
+second house on the right.</p>
+
+<p>I had no plan. Nevertheless, I walked boldly upstairs. There was but one
+flat on each floor. At the third story I halted, rather out of breath,
+in front of a door with a small brass plate inscribed with the name
+&quot;Eugen Kore.&quot; I rang the bell boldly.</p>
+
+<p>An elderly man-servant opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Herr Eugen Kore at home?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at me suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has the gentleman an appointment?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then the Herr will not receive the gentleman,&quot; came the answer, and the
+man made as though to close the door.</p>
+
+<p>I had an inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A moment!&quot; I cried, and I added the word &quot;Achilles&quot; in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>The servant opened the door wide to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why didn't you say that at once?&quot; he said. &quot;Please step in. I will see
+if the Herr can receive you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He led the way through a hall into a sitting-room and left me there. The
+place was a perfect museum of art treasures, old Dutch and Italian
+masters on the walls, some splendid Florentine chests, a fine old
+dresser loaded with ancient pewter. On a mantelshelf was an
+extraordinary collection of old keys, each with its label. &quot;Key of the
+fortress of Spandau, 1715.&quot; &quot;Key of the Postern Gate of the Pasha's
+Palace at Belgrade, 1810,&quot; &quot;House Key from Nuremberg, 1567,&quot; were some
+of the descriptions I read.</p>
+
+<p>Then a voice behind me said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! you admire my little treasures!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Turning, I saw a short, stout man, of a marked Jewish appearance, with a
+bald head, a fat nose, little beady eyes and a large waist.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eugen Kore!&quot; he introduced himself with a bow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Meyer!&quot; I replied, in the German fashion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what can we do for Herr ... Meyer?&quot; he asked in oily tones, pausing
+just long enough before he pronounced the name I gave to let me see that
+he believed it to be a pseudonym.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I believe you know a friend of mine, whose address I am anxious to
+find,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; sighed the little Jew, &quot;a man of affairs like myself meets so many
+people that he may be pardoned.... What did you say his name was, this
+friend of yours?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I thought I would try the effect of the name &quot;Eichenholz&quot; upon this
+enigmatic creature.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eichenholz? Eichenholz?&quot; Kore repeated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I seem to know the name ... it seems familiar ... now let me see
+again.... Eichenholz, Eichenholz. ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While he was speaking he unlocked one of the oak cabinets and a safe
+came to view. Opening this, he brought out a ledger and ran his finger
+down the names. Then he shut the book, replaced it, locked the safe and
+the cabinet, and turned to me again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; he said, &quot;I know the name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His reticence was disconcerting.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you tell me where I can find him?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>I was getting a trifle nettled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, where?&quot; I queried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is all very well, young Sir,&quot; said the Jew. &quot;You come in here from
+nowhere, you introduce yourself as Meyer; you ask me 'Who?' and 'What?'
+and 'Where?'&mdash;questions that, mark you, in my business, may have
+valuable answers. We private enquiry agents must live, my dear sir, we
+must eat and drink like other men, and these are hard times, very hard
+times. I will ask you a question if I may. Meyer? Who is Meyer?
+Everybody in this country is called Meyer!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I smiled at this bizarre speech.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This Eichenholz, now,&quot; I said, &quot;... supposing he were my brother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He might congratulate himself,&quot; Kore said, blinking his little lizard
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And he sent me word to call and see you to find out his whereabouts.
+You seem to like riddles, Herr Kore.... I will read you one!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And I read him the message from Francis ... all but the first two lines.</p>
+
+<p>The little Jew beamed with delight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach! that is bright!&quot; he cried, &quot;oi, oi, oi, but he is smart, this Herr
+Eichenholz! Who'd have thought of that? Brilliant, brilliant!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you say, Herr Kore, enquiry agents must live, and I am quite
+prepared to pay for the information I require....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I pulled out my portfolio as I spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The matter is quite simple,&quot; Kore replied. &quot;It is already arranged. The
+charge is five hundred marks. My client said to me the last time I saw
+him, 'Kore,' he said, 'if one should come asking news of me you will
+give him the word and he will pay you five hundred marks.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The word?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The word,&quot; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must take Dutch money,&quot; I said. &quot;Here you are ... work it out in
+gulden ... and I'll pay!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He manipulated a stump of pencil on a writing block and I paid him his
+money.</p>
+
+<p>Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Boonekamp!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Boonekamp?&quot; I echoed stupidly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the word,&quot; the little Jew chuckled, laughing at my dumbfounded
+expression, &quot;and, if you want to know, I understand it as little as you
+do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But ... Boonekamp,&quot; I repeated. &quot;Is it a man's name, a place? It sounds
+Dutch. Have you no idea? ... come, I'm ready to pay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps ...&quot; the Jew began.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What? Perhaps what?&quot; I exclaimed impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Possibly....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Out with it, man!&quot; I cried, &quot;and say what you mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps, if I could render to the gentleman the service I rendered to
+his brother, I might be able to throw light....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What service did you render to my brother?&quot; I demanded hastily. &quot;I'm in
+the dark.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has the gentleman no little difficulty perhaps? ... about his military
+service, about his papers? The gentleman is young and strong ... has he
+been to the front? Was life irksome there? Did he ever long for the
+sweets of home life? Did he never envy those who have been medically
+rejected? The rich men's sons, perhaps, with clever fathers who know how
+to get what they want?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His little eyes bored into mine like gimlets.</p>
+
+<p>I began to understand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And if I had?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then all old Kore can say is that the gentleman has come to the right
+shop, as his gracious brother did. How can we serve the gentleman now?
+What are his requirements? It is a difficult, a dangerous business. It
+costs money, much money, but it can be arranged ... it can be arranged.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But if you do for me what you did for my brother,&quot; I said, &quot;I don't see
+how that helps to explain this word, this clue to his address!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear sir, I am as much in the dark as you are yourself about the
+significance of this word. But I can tell you this, your brother, thanks
+to my intervention, found himself placed in a situation in which he
+might well have come across this word....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; I said impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, if we obliged the gentleman as we obliged his brother, the
+gentleman might be taken where his brother was taken, the gentleman is
+young and smart, he might perhaps find a clue ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop talking riddles, for Heaven's sake!&quot; I cried in exasperation, &quot;and
+answer my questions plainly. First, what did you do for my brother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your brother had deserted from the front&mdash;that is the most difficult
+class of business we have to deal with&mdash;we procured him a <i>permis de
+s&eacute;jour</i> for fifteen days and a post in a safe place where no enquiries
+would be made after him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And then?&quot; I cried, trembling with curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>The Jew shrugged his shoulders, waving his hands to and fro in the air.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then he disappeared. I saw him a few days before he went, and he gave
+me the instructions I have repeated to you for anybody who should come
+asking for him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But didn't he tell you where he was going?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He didn't even tell me he was going, Herr. He just vanished.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When was this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Somewhere about the first week in July ... it was the week of the bad
+news from France.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The message was dated July 1st, I remembered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have a good set of Swedish papers,&quot; the Jew continued, &quot;very
+respectable timber merchant ... with those one could live in the best
+hotels and no one say a word. Or Hungarian papers, a party rejected
+medically ... very safe those, but perhaps the gentleman doesn't speak
+Hungarian. That would be essential.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am in the same case as my brother,&quot; I said, &quot;I must disappear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a deserter, Herr?&quot; The Jew cringed at the word.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I said. &quot;After all, why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I daren't do this kind of business any more, my dear sir, I really
+daren't! They are making it too dangerous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, come!&quot; I said, &quot;you were boasting just now that you could smooth
+out any difficulties. You can produce me a very satisfactory passport
+from somewhere, I am sure!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Passport! Out of the question, my dear sir! Let once one of my
+passports go wrong and I am ruined. Oh, no! no passports where deserters
+are concerned! I don't like the business ... it's not safe! At the
+beginning of the war ... ah! that was different! Oi, oi, but they ran
+from the Yser and from Ypres! Oi, oi, and from Verdun! But now the
+police are more watchful. No! It is not worth it! It would cost you too
+much money, besides.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I thought the miserable cur was trying to raise the price on me, but I
+was mistaken. He was frightened: the business was genuinely distasteful
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>I tried, as a final attempt to persuade him, an old trick: I showed him
+my money. He wavered at once, and, after many objections, protesting to
+the last, he left the room. He returned with a handful of filthy papers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I oughtn't to do it; I know I shall rue it; but you have overpersuaded
+me and I liked Herr Eichenholz, a noble gentleman and free with his
+money&mdash;see here, the papers of a waiter, Julius Zimmermann, called up
+with the Landwehr but discharged medically unfit, military pay-book and
+<i>permis de s&eacute;jour</i> for fifteen days. These papers are only a guarantee
+in case you come across the police: no questions will be asked where I
+shall send you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But a fifteen days' permit!&quot; I said. &quot;What am I to do at the end of
+that time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave it to me,&quot; Kore said craftily. &quot;I will get it renewed for you. It
+will be all right!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But in the meantime....&quot; I objected.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I place you as waiter with a friend of mine who is kind to poor fellows
+like yourself. Your brother was with him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I want to be free to move around.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Impossible,&quot; the Jew answered firmly. &quot;You must get into your part and
+live quietly in seclusion until the enquiries after you have abated.
+Then we may see as to what is next to be done. There you are, a fine set
+of papers and a safe, comfortable life far away from the trenches&mdash;all
+snug and secure&mdash;cheap (in spite of the danger to me), because you are a
+lad of spirit and I liked your brother ... ten thousand marks!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I breathed again. Once we had reached the haggling stage, I knew the
+papers would be mine all right. With Semlin's money and my own I found I
+had about &pound;550, but I had no intention of paying out &pound;500 straight away.
+So I beat the fellow down unmercifully and finally secured the lot for
+3600 marks&mdash;&pound;180.</p>
+
+<p>But, even after I had paid the fellow his money, I was not done with
+him. He had his eye on his perquisites.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your clothes will never do,&quot; he said; &quot;such richness of apparel, such
+fine stuff&mdash;we must give you others.&quot; He rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>The old man-servant appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A waiter's suit&mdash;for the Linien-Strasse!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then he led me into a bedroom where a worn suit of German shoddy was
+spread out on a sofa. He made me change into it, and then handed me a
+threadbare green overcoat and a greasy green felt hat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So!&quot; he said. &quot;Now, if you don't shave for a day or two, you will look
+the part to the life!&quot;&mdash;a remark which, while encouraging, was hardly
+complimentary.</p>
+
+<p>He gave me a muffler to tie round my neck and lower part of my face and,
+with that greasy hat pulled down over my eyes and in those worn and
+shrunken clothes, I must say I looked a pretty villainous person, the
+very antithesis of the sleek, well-dressed young fellow that had entered
+the flat half an hour before.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Julius,&quot; said Kore humorously, &quot;come, my lad, and we will seek out
+together the good situation I have found for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A horse-cab was at the door and we entered it together. The Jew chatted
+pleasantly as we rattled through the darkness. He complimented me on my
+ready wit in deciphering Francis' message.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How do you like my idea?&quot; he said, &quot;'Achilles in his Tent'... that is
+the device of the hidden part of my business&mdash;you observe the parallel,
+do you not?' Achilles holding himself aloof from the army and young men
+like yourself who prefer the gentle pursuits of peace to the sterner
+profession of war! Clients of mine who have enjoyed a classical
+education have thought very highly of the humour of my device.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The cab dropped us at the corner of the Friedrich-Strasse, which was
+ablaze with light from end to end, and the Linien-Strasse, a narrow,
+squalid thoroughfare of dirty houses and mean shops. The street was all
+but deserted at that hour save for an occasional policeman, but from
+cellars with steps leading down from the streets came the jingle of
+automatic pianos and bursts of merriment to show that the Linien-Strasse
+was by no means asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Before one of these cellar entrances the Jew stopped. At the foot of the
+steep staircase leading down from the street was a glazed door, its
+panels all glistening with moisture from the heated atmosphere within.
+Kore led the way down, I following.</p>
+
+<p>A nauseous wave of hot air, mingled with rank tobacco smoke, smote us
+full as we opened the door. At first I could see nothing except a very
+fat man, against a dense curtain of smoke, sitting at a table before an
+enormous glass goblet of beer. Then, as the haze drifted before the
+draught, I distinguished the outline of a long, low-ceilinged room,
+with small tables set along either side and a little bar, presided over
+by a tawdry female with chemically tinted hair, at the end. Most of the
+tables were occupied, and there was almost as much noise as smoke in the
+place.</p>
+
+<p>A woman's voice screamed: &quot;Shut the door, can't you, I'm freezing!&quot; I
+obeyed and, following Kore to a table, sat down. A man in his
+shirt-sleeves, who was pulling beer at the bar, left his beer-engine
+and, coming across the room to Kore, greeted him cordially, and asked
+him what we would take.</p>
+
+<p>Kore nudged me with his elbow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll take a Boonekamp each, Haase,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV" />CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>CLUBFOOT COMES TO HAASE'S</h3>
+
+
+<p>Kore presently retired to an inner room with the man in shirt-sleeves,
+whom I judged to be the landlord, and in a little the flaxen-haired lady
+at the bar beckoned me over and bade me join them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is Julius Zimmermann, the young man I have spoken of,&quot; said the
+Jew; then turning to me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herr Haase is willing to take you on as waiter here on my
+recommendation, Julius, See that you do not make me repent of my
+kindness!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here the man in shirt-sleeves, a great, fat fellow with a bullet head
+and a huge double chin, chuckled loudly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kolossal!&quot; he cried. &quot;Herr Kore loves his joke! Ausgezeichnet!&quot; And he
+wagged his head roguishly at me.</p>
+
+<p>On that Kore took his leave, promising to look in and see how I was
+faring in a few days' time. The landlord opened a low door in the corner
+and revealed a kind of large cupboard, windowless and horribly stale and
+stuffy, where there were two unsavoury-looking beds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will sleep here with Otto,&quot; said the landlord. Pointing to a dirty
+white apron lying on one of the beds, he bade me take off my overcoat
+and jacket and put it on.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was Johann's,&quot; he said, &quot;but Johann won't want it any more. A good
+lad, Johann, but rash. I always said he would come to a bad end.&quot; And he
+laughed noisily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can go and help with the waiting now,&quot; he went on. &quot;Otto will show
+you what to do!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And so I found myself, within twenty-four hours, spy, male nurse and
+waiter in turn.</p>
+
+<p>I am loth to dwell on the degradation of the days that followed. That
+cellar tavern was a foul sink of iniquity, and in serving the dregs of
+humanity that gathered nightly there I felt I had indeed sunk to the
+lowest depths. The place was a regular thieves' kitchen ... what is
+called in the hideous Yiddish jargon that is the criminal slang of
+modern Germany a &quot;Kaschemme.&quot; Never in my life have I seen such brutish
+faces as those that leered at me nightly through the smoke haze as I
+shuffled from table to table in my mean German clothes. Gallows' birds,
+sneak thieves, receivers, bullies, prostitutes and harpies of every
+description came together every evening in Herr Haase's beer-cellar.
+Many of the men wore the soiled and faded field-grey of the soldier back
+from the front, and in looking at their sordid, vulpine faces, inflamed
+with drink, I felt I could fathom the very soul of Belgium's misery.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation was all of crime and deeds of violence. The men back
+from the front told gloatingly of rapine and feastings in lonely Belgian
+villages or dwelt ghoulishly on the horrors of the battlefield, the
+mounds of decaying corpses, the ghastly mutilations they had seen in the
+dead. There were tales, too, of &quot;vengeance&quot; wreaked on &quot;the treacherous
+English.&quot; One story, in particular, of the fate of a Scottish
+Sergeant ... &quot;der Hochl&auml;nder&quot; they called him in this oft-told
+tale ... still makes me quiver with impotent rage when I think of it.</p>
+
+<p>One evening the name of the Hotel Esplanade caught my ear. I approached
+the table and found two flashily dressed bullies and a bedraggled drab
+from the streets talking in admiration of my exploit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Clubfoot met his match that time,&quot; the woman cried. &quot;The dirty dog! But
+why didn't this English spy make a job of it and kill the scum? Pah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she spat elegantly into the sawdust on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wouldn't be in that fellow's shoes for something,&quot; muttered one of
+the men. &quot;No one ever had the better of Clubfoot yet. Do you remember
+Meinhardt, Franz? He tried to cheat Clubfoot, and we know what happened
+to him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They're raking the whole city for this Englishman,&quot; answered the other
+man. &quot;Vogel, who works for Section Seven, you know the man I mean, was
+telling me. They've done every hotel in Berlin and the suburbs, but they
+haven't found him. They raided Bauer's in the Favoriten-Strasse last
+night. The Englishman wasn't there, but they got three or four others
+they were looking for&mdash;Fritz and another deserter included. I was nearly
+there myself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I was always hearing references of this kind to my exploit. I was never
+spoken of except in terms of admiration, but the name of Clubfoot&mdash;der
+Stelze&mdash;excited only execration and terror.</p>
+
+<p>I lived in daily fear of a raid at Haase's. Why the place had escaped so
+long, with all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I couldn't
+imagine. It was one of those defects in German organization which puzzle
+the best of us at times. In the meantime, I was powerless to escape. The
+first thing Haase had done was to take away my papers&mdash;to send them to
+the police, as he explained&mdash;but he never gave them back, and when I
+asked for them he put me off with an excuse.</p>
+
+<p>I was a virtual prisoner in the place. On my feet from morning till
+night, I had indeed few opportunities for going out; but once, during
+a slack time in the afternoon, when I broached the subject to the
+landlord, he refused harshly to let me out of his sight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The street is not healthy for you just now. You would be a danger to
+yourself and to all of us!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>My life in that foul den was a burden to me. The living conditions were
+unspeakable. Otto, a pale and ill-tempered consumptive, compelled, like
+me, to rise in the darkness of the dawn, never washed, and his
+companionship in the stuffy hole where we slept was offensive beyond
+belief. He openly jeered at my early morning journeys out to a narrow,
+stinking court, where I exulted in the ice-cold water from the pump. And
+the food! It was only when I saw the mean victuals&mdash;the coarse and often
+tainted horseflesh, the unappetizing war-bread, the coffee substitute,
+and the rest&mdash;that I realized how Germany was suffering, though only
+through her poor as yet, from the British blockade. That thought used to
+help to overcome the nausea with which I sat down to eat.</p>
+
+<p>Domestic life at Haase's was a hell upon earth. Haase himself was a
+drunken bully, who made advances to every woman he met, and whose
+complicated intrigues with the feminine portion of his client&egrave;le led to
+frequent scenes with the fair-haired Hebe who presided at the bar and
+over his household. It was she and Otto who fared daily forth to take
+their places in the long queues that waited for hours with food cards
+outside the provision shops.</p>
+
+<p>These trips seemed to tell upon her temper, which would flash out
+wrathfully at meal-times, when Haase began his inevitable grumbling
+about the food. As Otto took a malicious delight in these family scenes,
+I was frequently called upon to assume the role of peace-maker. More
+than once I intervened to save Madame from the violence she had called
+down upon herself by the sharpness of her tongue. She was a poor, faded
+creature, and the tragedy of it all was that she was in love with this
+degraded bully. She was grateful to me for my good offices, I think,
+for, though she hardly ever addressed me, her manner was always
+friendly.</p>
+
+<p>These days of dreary squalor would have been unbearable if it had not
+been for my elucidation of the word Boonekamp, which was said to hold
+the clue to my brother's address. On the wall in the cubby-hole where I
+slept was a tattered advertisement card of this <i>ap&eacute;ritif</i>&mdash;for such is
+the preparation&mdash;proclaiming it to be &quot;Germany's Best Cordial.&quot; As I
+undressed at night, I often used to stare at this placard, wondering
+what connection Boonekamp could possibly have with my brother. I
+determined to take the first opportunity of examining the card itself.
+One morning, while Otto was out in the queue at the butcher's, I slipped
+away from the cellar to our sleeping-place and, lighting my candle, took
+down the card and examined it closely. It was perfectly plain, red
+letters on a green background in front, white at the back.</p>
+
+<p>As I was replacing the card on the nail I saw some writing in pencil on
+the wall where the card had hung. My heart seemed to stand still with
+the joy of my discovery. For the writing was in my brother's neat,
+artistic hand, the words were English, and, best of all, my brother's
+initials were attached. This is what I read:</p>
+
+<p>(Facsimile.) 5.7.16.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will find me at the Caf&eacute; Regina, D&uuml;sseldorf&mdash;F.O.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After that I felt I could bear with everything. The message awakened
+hope that was fast dying in my heart. At least on July 5th, Francis was
+alive. To that fact I clung as to a sheet-anchor. It gave me courage for
+the hardest part of all my experiences in Germany, those long days of
+waiting in that den of thieves. For I knew I must be patient. Presently,
+I hoped, I might extract my papers from Haase or persuade Kore, when he
+came back, to see me, to give me a permit that would enable me to get to
+D&uuml;sseldorf. But the term of my permit was fast running out and the Jew
+never came.</p>
+
+<p>There were often moments when I longed to ask Haase or one of the others
+about the time my brother had served in that place. But I feared to draw
+attention to myself. No one asked any questions of me (questions as to
+personal antecedents were discouraged at Haase's), and, as long as I
+remained the unpaid, useful drudge I felt that my desire for obscurity
+would be respected. Desultory questions about my predecessors elicited
+no information about Francis. The Haase establishment seemed to have had
+a succession of vague and shadowy retainers.</p>
+
+<p>Only about Johann, whose apron I wore, did Otto become communicative.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A stupid fellow!&quot; he declared. &quot;He was well off here. Haase liked him,
+the customers liked him, especially the ladies. But he must fall in love
+with Frau Hedwig (the lady at the bar), then he quarrelled with Haase
+and threatened him&mdash;you know, about customers who haven't got their
+papers in order. The next time Johann went out, they arrested him. And
+he was shot at Spandau!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shot?&quot; I exclaimed. &quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As a deserter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But was he a deserter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ach! was! But he had a deserter's papers in his pockets ... his own had
+vanished. Ach! it's a bad thing to quarrel with Haase!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I made a point of keeping on the right side of the landlord after that.
+By my unfailing diligence I even managed to secure his grudging
+approval, though he was always ready to fly into a passion at the least
+opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>One evening about six o'clock a young man, whom I had never seen among
+our regular customers, came down the stairs from the street and asked
+for Haase, who was asleep on the sofa in the inner room. At the sight of
+the youth, Frau Hedwig jumped off her perch behind the bar and vanished.
+She came back directly and, ignoring me, conducted the young man into
+the inner room, where he remained for about half an hour. Then he
+reappeared again, accompanied by Frau Hedwig, and went off.</p>
+
+<p>I was shocked by the change in the appearance of the woman. Her face was
+pale, her eyes red with weeping, and her eyes kept wandering towards the
+door. It was a slack time of the day within and the cellar was free of
+customers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You look poorly, Frau Hedwig,&quot; I said. &quot;Trouble with Haase again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at me and shook her head, her eyes brimming over. A tear
+ran down the rouge on her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must speak,&quot; she said. &quot;I can't bear this suspense alone. You are a
+kind young man. You are discreet. Julius, there is trouble brewing for
+us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you mean?&quot; I asked. A foreboding of evil rose within me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kore!&quot; she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kore?&quot; I echoed. &quot;What of him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked fearfully about her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He was taken yesterday morning,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you mean arrested?&quot; I exclaimed, unwilling to believe the staggering
+news.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They entered his apartment early in the morning and seized him in bed.
+Ach! it is dreadful!&quot; And she buried her face in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But surely,&quot; I added soothingly, though with an icy fear at my heart,
+&quot;there is no need to despair. What is an arrest to-day with all these
+regulations....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The woman raised her face, pallid beneath its paint, to mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kore was shot at Moabit Prison this morning,&quot; she said in a low voice.
+&quot;That young man brought the news just now.&quot; Then she added breathlessly,
+her words pouring out in a torrent:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't know what this means to us. Haase had dealings with this Jew.
+If they have shot him, it is because they have found out from him all
+they want to know. That means our ruin, that means that Haase will go
+the same way as the Jew.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But Haase is stubborn, foolhardy. The messenger warned him that a raid
+might be expected here at any moment. I have pleaded with him in vain.
+He believes that Kore has split; he believes the police may come, but he
+says they daren't touch him: he has been too useful to them: he knows
+too much. Ach, I am afraid! I am afraid!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Haase's voice sounded from the inner room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hedwig!&quot; he called.</p>
+
+<p>The woman hastily dried her eyes and disappeared through the door.</p>
+
+<p>The coast was clear, if I wanted to escape, but where could I go,
+without a paper or passport, a hunted man?</p>
+
+<p>The news of Kore's arrest and execution haunted me. Of course, the man
+was in a most perilous trade, and had probably been playing the game for
+years. But suppose they had tracked me to the house in the street called
+In den Zelten.</p>
+
+<p>I crossed the room and opened the door to the street. I had never set
+foot outside since I had come, and, hopeless as it would be for me to
+attempt to escape, I thought I might reconnoitre the surroundings of the
+beer-cellar for the event of flight.</p>
+
+<p>I lightly ran up the stairs to the street and nearly cannoned into a man
+who was lounging in the entrance. We both apologized, but he stared at
+me hard before he strolled on. Then I saw another man sauntering along
+on the opposite side of the street. Further away, at the corner, two men
+were loitering.</p>
+
+<p>Every one of them had his eyes fixed on the cellar entrance at which I
+was standing.</p>
+
+<p>I knew they could not see my face, for the street was but dimly lit, and
+behind me was the dark background of the cellar stairway. I took a grip
+on my nerves and very deliberately lit a cigarette and smoked it, as if
+I had come up from below to get a breath of fresh air. I waited a
+little while and then went down.</p>
+
+<p>I was scarcely back in the cellar when Haase appeared from the inner
+room, followed by the woman. He carried himself erect, and his eyes were
+shining. I didn't like the man, but I must say he looked game. In his
+hand he carried my papers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here you are, my lad,&quot; he said in quite a friendly tone, &quot;put 'em in
+your pocket&mdash;you may want 'em to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at the papers before I followed his advice.</p>
+
+<p>He noted my action and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They have told you about Johann,&quot; he said. &quot;Never fear, Julius, you and
+I are good friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The papers were those of Julius Zimmermann all right.</p>
+
+<p>We were having supper at one of the tables in the front room&mdash;there were
+only a couple of customers, as it was so early&mdash;when a man, a regular
+visitor of ours, came down the stairs hurriedly. He went straight over
+to Haase and spoke into his ear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mind yourself, Haase,&quot; I heard him say. &quot;Do you know who had Kore
+arrested and shot? It was Clubfoot. There is more in this than we know.
+Mind yourself and get out! In an hour or so it may be too late.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then he scurried away, leaving me dazed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By God!&quot; said the landlord, bringing a great fist down on the table so
+that the glasses rang, &quot;they won't touch me. Not the devil himself will
+make me leave this house before they come, if coming they are!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The woman burst into tears, while Otto blinked his watery eyes in
+terror. I sat and looked at my plate, my heart too full for words. It
+was bitter to have dared so much to get this far and then find the path
+blocked, as it seemed, by an insuperable barrier. They were after me all
+right: the mention of Clubfoot's name, the swift, stern retribution that
+had befallen Kore, made that certain&mdash;and I could do nothing. That
+cellar was a cul-de-sac, a regular trap, and I knew that if I stirred a
+foot from the house I should fall into the hands of those men keeping
+their silent vigil in the street.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, I must wait, as calmly as I might, and see what the evening
+would bring forth. Gradually the cellar filled up as people drifted in,
+but many familiar faces, I noticed, were missing. Evidently the ill
+tidings had spread. Once a man looked in for a glass of beer and drifted
+out again, leaving the door open. As I was closing it, I heard a muffled
+exclamation and the sound of a scuffle at the head of the stairs. It was
+so quietly done that nobody below, save myself, knew what had happened.
+The incident showed me that the watch was well kept.</p>
+
+<p>The evening wore on&mdash;interminably, as it seemed to me. I darted to and
+fro from the bar, laden with mugs of beer and glasses of schnaps,
+incessantly, up and down. But I never failed, whenever there came a
+pause in the orders, to see that my journey finished somewhere in the
+neighbourhood of the door. A faint hope was glimmering in my brain.</p>
+
+<p>Until the end of my life, that interminable evening in the beer-cellar
+will remain stamped in my memory. I can still see the scene in its every
+detail, and I know I shall carry the picture with me to the grave; the
+long, low room with its blackened ceiling, the garish yellow gaslight,
+the smoke haze, the crowded tables, Otto, shuffling hither and hither
+with his mean and sulky air, Frau Hedwig, preoccupied at her desk,
+red-eyed, a graven image of woe, and Haase, presiding over the
+beer-engine, silent, defiant, calm, but watchful every time the door
+opened.</p>
+
+<p>When at last the blow fell, it came suddenly. A trampling of feet on the
+stairs, a great blowing of whistles ... then the door was burst open
+just as everybody in the cellar sprang to their feet amid exclamations
+and oaths from the men and shrill screams from the women. Outlined in
+the doorway stood Clubfoot, majestic, authoritative, wearing some kind
+of little skull-cap, such as duelling students wear, over a black silk
+handkerchief bound about his head. At the sight of the man the hubbub
+ceased on the instant. All were still save Haase, whose bull-like voice
+roaring for silence broke on the quiet of the room with the force of an
+explosion.</p>
+
+<p>I was in my corner by the door, pressed back against the coats and hats
+hanging on the wall. In front of me a frieze of frightened faces
+screened me from observation. Quickly, I slipped off my apron.</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot, after casting a cursory glance round the room, strode its
+length towards the bar where Haase stood, a crowd of plain-clothes men
+and policemen at his heels. Then quite suddenly the light went out,
+plunging the place into darkness. Instantly the room was in confusion;
+women screamed; a voice, which I recognized as Clubfoot's, bawled
+stentorianly for lights ... the moment had come to act.</p>
+
+<p>I grabbed a hat and coat from the hall, got into them somehow, and
+darted to the door. In the dim light shining down the stairs from a
+street lamp outside, I saw a man at the door. Apparently he was guarding
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Back!&quot; he cried, as I stepped up to him.</p>
+
+<p>I flashed in his eyes the silver star I held in my hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Chief wants lanterns!&quot; I said low in his ear.</p>
+
+<p>He grabbed my hand holding the badge and lowered it to the light.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All right, comrade,&quot; he replied. &quot;Drechsler has a lantern, I think!
+You'll find him outside!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I rushed up the stairs right into a group of three policemen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Chief wants Drechsler at once with the lantern,&quot; I shouted, and
+showed my star. The three dispersed in different directions calling for
+Drechsler.</p>
+
+<p>I walked quickly away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV" />CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WAITER AT THE CAFE REGINA</h3>
+
+
+<p>I calculated that I had at least two hours, at most three, in which to
+get clear of Berlin. However swiftly Clubfoot might act, it would take
+him certainly an hour and a half, I reckoned, from the discovery of my
+flight from Haase's to warn the police at the railway stations to detain
+me. If I could lay a false trail I might at the worst prolong this
+period of grace; at the best I might mislead him altogether as to my
+ultimate destination, which was, of course, D&uuml;sseldorf. The unknown
+quantity in my reckonings was the time it would take Clubfoot to send
+out a warning all over Germany to detain Julius Zimmermann, waiter and
+deserter, wherever and whenever apprehended.</p>
+
+<p>At the first turning I came to after leaving Haase's, tram-lines ran
+across the street. A tram was waiting, bound in a southerly direction,
+where the centre of the city lay. I jumped on to the front platform
+beside the woman driver. It is fairly dark in front and the conductor
+cannot see your face as you pay your fare through a trap in the door
+leading to the interior of the tram. I left the tram at Unter den Linden
+and walked down some side streets until I came across a quiet-looking
+caf&eacute;. There I got a railway guide and set about reviewing my plans.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten minutes to twelve. A man in my position would in all
+probability make for the frontier. So, I judged, Clubfoot must
+calculate, though, I fancied, he must have wondered why I had not long
+since attempted to escape back to England. D&uuml;sseldorf was on the main
+road to Holland, and it would certainly be the more prudent course, say,
+to make for the Rhine and travel on to my destination by a Rhine
+steamer. But time was the paramount factor in my case. By leaving
+immediately&mdash;that very night&mdash;for D&uuml;sseldorf I might possibly reach
+there before the local authorities had had time to receive the warning
+to be on the look-out for a man answering to my description. If I could
+leave behind in Berlin a really good false clue, it was just possible
+that Clubfoot might follow it up <i>before</i> taking general dispositions to
+secure my arrest if that clue failed. I decided I must gamble on this
+hypothesis.</p>
+
+<p>The railway guide showed that a train left for D&uuml;sseldorf from the
+Potsdamer Bahnhof&mdash;the great railway terminus in the very centre of
+Berlin&mdash;at 12.45 a.m. That left me roughly three-quarters of an hour to
+lay my false trail and catch my train. My false trail should lead
+Clubfoot in a totally unexpected direction, I determined, for it is the
+unexpected that first engages the notice of the alert, detective type of
+mind. I would also have to select another terminus.</p>
+
+<p>Why not Munich? A large city on the high road to a foreign
+frontier&mdash;Switzerland&mdash;with authorities whose easy-going ways are
+proverbial in Germany. You leave Berlin for Munich from the Anhalter
+Bahnhof, a terminus which was well suited for my purpose, as it is only
+a few minutes' drive from the Potsdamer station.</p>
+
+<p>The railway guide showed there was a train leaving for Munich at 12.30
+a.m.&mdash;an express. That would do admirably. Munich it should be then.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately I had plenty of money. I had taken the precaution of
+getting Kore to change my money into German notes before we left In den
+Zelten ... at a preposterous rate of exchange, be it said. How lost I
+should have been without Semlin's wad of notes!</p>
+
+<p>I paid for my coffee and set forth again. It was 12.15 as I walked into
+the hall of the Anhalt station.</p>
+
+<p>Remembering the ruse which the friendly guide at Rotterdam had taught
+me, I began by purchasing a platform ticket. Then I looked about for an
+official upon whom I could suitably impress my identity. Presently I
+espied a pompous-looking fellow in a bright blue uniform and scarlet
+cap, some kind of junior stationmaster, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>I approached him and, raising my hat, politely asked him if he could
+tell me when there was a train leaving for Munich.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The express goes at 12.30,&quot; he said, &quot;but only first and second class,
+and you'll have to pay the supplementary charge. The slow train is not
+till 5.49.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I assumed an expression of vexation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose I must go by the express,&quot; I said. &quot;Can you tell me where the
+booking-office is?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The official pointed to a pigeon-hole and I took care to speak loud
+enough for him to hear me ask for a second-class ticket, single, to
+Munich.</p>
+
+<p>I walked upstairs and presented my Munich ticket to the collector at the
+barrier. Then I hurried past the main-line platforms over the suburban
+side, where I gave up my platform ticket and descended again to the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>It was just on the half-hour as I came out of the station. Not a cab to
+be seen! I hastened as fast as my legs would carry me until, breathless
+and panting, I reached the Potsdam terminus. The clock over the station
+pointed to 12.39.</p>
+
+<p>A long queue, composed mostly of soldiers returning to Belgium and the
+front, stood in front of the booking-office. The military were getting
+their warrants changed for tickets. I chafed at the delay, but it was
+actually this circumstance which afforded me the chance of getting my
+ticket for D&uuml;sseldorf without leaving any clue behind.</p>
+
+<p>A big, bearded Landsturm man with a kind face was at the pigeon-hole.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am very late for my train, my friend,&quot; I said, &quot;would you get me a
+third-class single for D&uuml;sseldorf?&quot; I handed him a twenty-mark note.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Right you are,&quot; he answered readily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There,&quot; he said, handing me my ticket and a handful of change, &quot;and
+lucky you are to be going to the Rhine. I'm from the Rhine myself and
+now I'm going back to guarding the bridges in Belgium!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him and wished him luck. Here at least was a witness who was
+not likely to trouble me. And with a thankful heart I bolted on to the
+platform and caught the train.</p>
+
+<p>Third-class travel in Germany is not a hobby to be cultivated if your
+means allow the luxury of better accommodation. The travelling German
+has a habit of taking off his boots when he journeys in the train by
+night&mdash;and a carriageful of lower middle-class Huns, thus unshod, in
+the temperature at which railway compartments are habitually kept in
+Germany, is an environment which makes neither for comfort nor for
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The atmosphere, indeed, was so unbearable that I spent most of the night
+in the corridor. Here I was able to destroy the papers of Julius
+Zimmermann, waiter ... I felt I was in greater danger whilst I had them
+on me ... and to assure myself that my precious document was in its
+usual place&mdash;in my portfolio. It was then I made the discovery,
+annihilating at the first shock, that my silver badge had disappeared. I
+could not remember what I had done with it in the excitement of my
+escape from Haase's. I remembered having it in my hand and showing it to
+the police at the top of the stairs, but after that my mind was a blank.
+I could only imagine I must have carried it unconsciously in my hand and
+then dropped it unwittingly. I looked at the place where it had been
+clasped on my braces: it was not there and I searched all my pockets for
+it in vain.</p>
+
+<p>I had relied upon it as a stand-by in case there were trouble at the
+station in D&uuml;sseldorf. Now I found myself defenceless if I were
+challenged. It was a hard knock, but I consoled myself by the reflection
+that, by now, Clubfoot knew I had this badge ... it would doubtless
+figure in any description circulated about me.</p>
+
+<p>It was a most unpleasant journey. There was some kind of choral society
+on the train, occupying seven or eight compartments of the third-class
+coach in which I was travelling. For the first few hours they made night
+hideous with part-songs, catches and glees chanted with a volume of
+sound that in that confined place was simply deafening. Then the noise
+abated as one by one the singers dropped off to sleep. Presently silence
+fell, while the train rushed forward in the darkness bearing me towards
+fresh perils, fresh adventures.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A gust of fresh air in my face, the trample of feet, loud greetings in
+guttural German, awoke me with a start. It was broad daylight and
+through my compartment, to which I had crept in the night, weary with
+standing, filed the jovial members of the choral society, with bags in
+their hands and huge cockades in their buttonholes. There was a band on
+the platform and a huge choir of men who bawled a stentorian-voiced hymn
+of greeting. &quot;D&uuml;sseldorf&quot; was the name printed on the station lamps.</p>
+
+<p>All the passengers, save the members of the choral society, had left the
+train, apparently, for every carriage door stood open. I sprang to my
+feet and let myself go with the stream of men. Thus I swept out of the
+train and right into the midst of the jostling crowd of bandsmen,
+singers and spectators on the platform. I stood with the new arrivals
+until the hymn was ended and thus solidly <i>encadr&eacute;s</i> by the
+D&uuml;sseldorfers, we drifted out through the barrier into the station
+courtyard. There brakes were waiting into which the jolly choristers,
+guests and hosts, clambered noisily. But I walked straight on into the
+streets, scarcely able to realize that no one had questioned me, that at
+last, unhindered, I stood before my goal.</p>
+
+<p>D&uuml;sseldorf is a bright, clean town with a touch of good taste in its
+public buildings to remind one that this busy, industrial city has found
+time even while making money to have called into being a school of art
+of its own. It was a delightful morning with dazzling sunshine and an
+eager nip in the air that spoke of the swift, deep river that bathes the
+city walls. I revelled in the clear, cold atmosphere after the foulness
+of the drinking-den and the stifling heat of the journey. I exulted in
+the sense of liberty I experienced at having once more eluded the grim
+clutches of Clubfoot. Above all, my heart sang within me at the thought
+of an early meeting with Francis. In the mood I was in, I would admit no
+possibility of disappointment now. Francis and I would come together at
+last.</p>
+
+<p>I came upon a public square presently and there facing me was a great,
+big caf&eacute;, white and new and dazzling, with large plate-glass windows
+and rows of tables on a covered verandah outside. It was undoubtedly a
+&quot;<i>kolossal</i>&quot; establishment after the best Berlin style. So that there
+might be no mistake about the name it was placarded all over the front
+of the place in gilt letters three feet high on glass panels&mdash;Caf&eacute;
+Regina.</p>
+
+<p>It was about nine o'clock in the morning and at that early hour I had
+the place to myself. I felt very small, sitting at a tiny table, with
+tables on every side of me, stretching away as it were into the
+<i>Ewigkeit</i>, in a vast white room with mural paintings of the crassest
+school of impressionism.</p>
+
+<p>I ordered a good, substantial breakfast and whiled away the time while
+it was coming by glancing at the morning paper which the waiter brought
+me.</p>
+
+<p>My eyes ran down the columns without my heeding what I read, for my
+thoughts were busy with Francis. When did he come to the caf&eacute;? How was
+he living at D&uuml;sseldorf?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, I found myself looking at a name I knew ... it was in the
+personal paragraphs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lieut.-General Count von Boden,&quot; the paragraph ran, &quot;Aide-de-Camp to
+H.M. the Emperor, has been placed on the retired list owing to
+ill-health. General von Boden has left for Abbazia, where he will take
+up his permanent residence.&quot; There followed the usual biographical
+notes.</p>
+
+<p>Of a truth, Clubfoot was a power in the land.</p>
+
+<p>I ate my breakfast at a table by the open door, and surveyed the busy
+life of the square where the pigeons circled in the sunshine. A waiter
+stood on the verandah idly watching the birds as they pecked at the
+stones. I was struck with the profound melancholy depicted in his face.
+His cheeks were sunken and he had a pinched look which I had observed in
+the features of most of the customers at Haase's. I set it down to the
+insufficient feeding which is general among the lower classes in Germany
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>But in addition to this man's wasted appearance, his eyes were hollow,
+there were deep lines about his mouth and he wore a haggard look that
+had something strangely pathetic about it. His air of brooding sadness
+seemed to attract me, and I found my eyes continually wandering back to
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>And then, without warning, through some mysterious whispering of the
+blood, the truth came to me that this was my brother. I don't know
+whether it was a passing mood reflected in his face or the shifting
+lights and shadows in his eyes that lifted the veil. I only know that
+through those features ravaged by care and suffering and in spite of
+them I caught a glimpse of the brother I had come to seek.</p>
+
+<p>I rattled a spoon on the table and called softly out to the verandah.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Kellner!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man turned.</p>
+
+<p>I beckoned to him. He came over to my table. He never recognized me, so
+dull was he with disappointment ... me with my unshaven, unkempt
+appearance and in my mean German shoddy ... but stood silently, awaiting
+my bidding.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Francis,&quot; I said softly ... and I spoke in German ... &quot;Francis, don't
+you know me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was magnificent, strong and resourceful in his joy at our meeting as
+he had been in his months of weary waiting.</p>
+
+<p>Only his mouth quivered a little as instantly his hands busied
+themselves with clearing away my breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Jawohl!&quot; he answered in a perfectly emotionless voice.</p>
+
+<p>And then he smiled and in a flash the old Francis stood before me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a word now,&quot; he said in German as he cleared away the breakfast.
+&quot;I am off this afternoon. Meet me on the river promenade by the Schiller
+statue at a quarter past two and we'll go for a walk. Don't stay here
+now but come back and lunch in the restaurant ... it's always crowded
+and pretty safe!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then he called out into the void:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty-six wants to pay!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Such was my meeting with my brother.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI" />CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>A HAND-CLASP BY THE RHINE</h3>
+
+
+<p>That afternoon Francis and I walked out along the banks of the swiftly
+flowing Rhine until we were far beyond the city. Anxious though I was
+that he should reveal to me that part of his life which lay hidden
+beneath those lines of suffering in his face, he made me tell my story
+first. So I unfolded to him the extraordinary series of adventures that
+had befallen me since the night I had blundered upon the trail of a
+great secret in that evil hotel at Rotterdam.</p>
+
+<p>Francis did not once interrupt the flow of my narrative. He listened
+with the most tense interest but with a growing concern which betrayed
+itself clearly on his face. At the end of my story, I silently handed to
+him the half of the stolen letter I had seized from Clubfoot at the
+Hotel Esplanade.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Keep it, Francis,&quot; I said. &quot;It's safer with a respectable waiter like
+you than with a hunted outcast like myself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My brother smiled wanly, but his face assumed the look of grave anxiety
+with which he had heard my tale. He scrutinized the slips of paper very
+closely, then tucked them away in a letter-case, which he buttoned up in
+his hip pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fortune is a strange goddess, Des,&quot; he said, his weary eyes roving out
+over the turgid, yellow stream, &quot;and she has been kind to you, though,
+God knows, you have played a man's part in all this. She has placed in
+your possession something for which at least five men have died in vain,
+something that has filled my thoughts, sleeping and waking, for more
+than half a year. What you have told me throws a good deal of light upon
+the mystery which I came to this cursed country to elucidate, but it
+also deepens the darkness which still envelops many points in the
+affair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know there are issues in this game of ours, old man, that stand
+even higher than the confidence that there has always been between us
+two. That is why I wrote to you so seldom out in France&mdash;I could tell
+you nothing about my work: that is one of the rules of our game. But now
+you have broken into the scramble yourself, I feel that we are partners,
+so I will tell you all I know.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen, then. Some time about the beginning of the year a letter
+written by a German interned at one of the camps in England was stopped
+by the Camp Censor. This German went by the name of Schulte: he was
+arrested at a house in Dalston the day after we declared war on
+Germany. There was a good reason for this, for our friend Schulte&mdash;we
+don't know his real name&mdash;was known to my Chief as one of the most
+daring and successful spies that ever operated in the British Isles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Therefore, a sharp eye was kept on his correspondence, and one day this
+letter was seized. It was, I believe, perfectly harmless to the eye, but
+the expert to whom it was eventually submitted soon detected a
+conventional code in the chatty phrases about the daily life of the
+camp. It proved to be a communication from Schulte to a third party
+relating to a certain letter which, apparently, the writer imagined the
+third party had a considerable interest in acquiring. For he offered to
+sell this letter to the third party, mentioning a sum so preposterously
+high that it attracted the earnest attention of our Intelligence people.
+On half the sum mentioned being paid into the writer's account at a
+certain bank in London, the letter went on to say, the writer would
+forward the address at which the object in question would be found.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was a simple matter to send Schulte a letter in return, agreeing to
+his terms, and to have the payment made, as desired, into the bank he
+mentioned. His communication in reply to this was duly stopped. The
+address he gave was that of a house situated on the outskirts of
+Cleves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We had no idea what this letter was, but its apparent value in the eyes
+of the shrewd Mr. Schulte made it highly desirable that we should obtain
+possession of it without delay. Four of us were selected for this
+dangerous mission of getting into Germany and fetching it, by hook or by
+crook, from the house at Cleves where it was deposited. We four were to
+enter Germany by different routes and different means and to converge on
+Cleves (which is quite close to the Dutch frontier).</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would take too long to tell you of the very exact organization which
+we worked out to exclude all risk of failure and the various schemes we
+evolved for keeping in touch with one another though working separately
+and in rotation. Nor does it matter very much how I got into Germany.
+The fact is that, at my very first attempt to get across the frontier, I
+realized that some immensely powerful force was working against me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I managed it, with half a dozen hairbreadth escapes, and I set down my
+success solely to my knowledge of German and to that old trick of mine
+of German imitations. But I felt everywhere the influence of this unseen
+hand, enforcing a meticulous vigilance which it was almost impossible to
+escape. I was not surprised, therefore, to learn that two of my
+companions came to grief at the very outset.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My brother lowered his voice and looked about him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know what happened to those two gallant fellows?&quot; he said. &quot;Jack
+Tracy was found dead on the railway: Herbert Arbuthnot was discovered
+hanging in a wood. 'Suicide of an Unknown Individual' was what the
+German papers called it in each case. But I heard the truth ... never
+mind how. They were ambushed and slaughtered in cold blood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the third man you spoke of?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Philip Brewster? Vanished, Des ... vanished utterly. I fear he, too,
+has gone west, poor chap!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of the whole four of us I was the only one to reach our objective.
+There I drew blank. The letter was not in the hiding-place indicated.
+I think it never had been or the Huns would have got it. I felt all the
+time that they didn't know exactly where the letter was but that
+they anticipated our attempt to get it, hence the unceasing vigilance all
+along the frontier and inside it, too.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They damned nearly got me at Cleves: I escaped as by a miracle, and the
+providential thing for me was that I had never posed as anything but a
+German, only I varied the type I represented almost from day to day.
+Thus I left no traces behind or they would have had me long since.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sadness in my brother's voice increased and the shadows deepened in
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I tried to get out,&quot; he continued. &quot;But it was hopeless from the
+first. They knew they had one of us left in the net and they closed
+every outlet. I made two separate attempts to cross the line back into
+Holland, but both failed. The second time I literally had to flee for my
+life. I went straight to Berlin, feeling that a big city, as remote from
+the frontier as possible, was the only safe hiding-place for me as long
+as the hue and cry lasted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was in a desperate bad way, too, for I had had to abandon the last
+set of identity papers left to me when I bolted. I landed in Berlin with
+the knowledge that no roof could safely shelter me until I got a fresh
+lot of papers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I knew of Kore&mdash;I had heard of him and his shirkers' and deserters'
+agency in my travels&mdash;and I went straight to him. He sent me to
+Haase's ... this was towards the end of June. It was when I was at
+Haase's that I sent out that message to van Urutius that fell into your
+hands. That happened like this.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was rather friendly with a chap that frequented Haase's, a man
+employed in the packing department at the Metal Works at Steglitz. He
+was telling us one night how short-handed they were and what good money
+packers were earning. I was sick of being cooped up in that stinking
+cellar, so, more by way of a joke than anything else, I offered to come
+and lend a hand in the packing department. I thought I might get a
+chance of escape, as I saw none at Haase's. To my surprise, Haase, who
+was sitting at the table, rather fancied the idea and said I could go if
+I paid him half my wages: I was getting nothing at the beer-cellar.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So I was taken on at Steglitz, sleeping at Haase's and helping in the
+beer-cellar in the evenings. One day a package for old van Urutius came
+to me to be made up and suddenly it occurred to me that here was a
+chance of sending out a message to the outside world. I hoped that old
+van U., if he tumbled to the 'Eichenholz,' would send it to you and that
+you would pass it on to my Chief in London.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you expected me to come after you?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; replied Francis promptly, &quot;I did not. But the arrangement was
+that, if none of us four men had turned up at Head-quarters by May 15th,
+a fifth man should come in and be at a given rendezvous near the
+frontier on June 15th. I went to the place on June 15th, but he never
+showed up and, though I waited about for a couple of days, I saw no
+sign of him. I made my final attempt to get out and it failed, so, when
+I fled to Berlin, I knew that I had cut off all means of communication
+with home. As a last hope, I dashed off that cipher on the spur of the
+moment and tucked it into old van U's invoice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But why 'Achilles' with one 'l'?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They knew all about Kore's agency at Head-quarters, but I didn't dare
+mention Kore's name for fear the parcel might be opened. So I purposely
+spelt 'Achilles' with one 'l' to draw attention to the code word, so
+that they should know where news of me was to be found. It was devilish
+smart of you to decipher that, Des!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Francis smiled at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I meant to stay quietly in Berlin, going daily between Haase's and the
+factory and wait, for a month or two, in case that message got home. But
+Kore began to give trouble. At the beginning of July he came to see me
+and hinted that the renewal of my <i>permis de s&eacute;jour</i> would cost money. I
+paid him, but I realized then that I was absolutely in his power and I
+had no intention of being blackmailed. So I made use of his cupidity to
+leave a message for the man who, I hoped, would be coming after me,
+wrote that line on the wall under the Boonekamp poster in that filthy
+hovel where we slept and came up here after a job I had heard of at the
+Caf&eacute; Regina.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And now, Des, old man,&quot; said my brother, &quot;you know all that I know!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And Clubfoot?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; said Francis, shaking his head, &quot;there I think I recognize the
+hand that has been against us from the start, though who the man is, and
+what his power, I, like you, only know from what he told you himself.
+The Germans are clever enough, as we know from their communiqu&eacute;s, to
+tell the truth when it suits their book. I believe that Clubfoot was
+telling you the truth in what he said about his mission that night at
+the Esplanade.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You and I know now that the Kaiser wrote that letter ... we also know
+that it was addressed to an influential English friend of William II.
+You have seen the date ... Berlin, July 31st, 1914 ... the eve of the
+outbreak of the world war. Even from this half in my pocket ... and you
+who have seen both halves of the letter will confirm what I say ... I
+can imagine what an effect on the international situation this letter
+would have had if it had reached the man for whom it was destined. But
+it did not ... why, we don't know. We do know, however, that the Emperor
+is keenly anxious to regain possession of his letter ... you yourself
+were a witness of his anxiety and you know that he put the matter into
+the hands of the man Clubfoot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I observed thoughtfully, &quot;Clubfoot, whoever he is, seems to have
+made every effort to keep my escapades dark....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Precisely,&quot; said Francis, &quot;and lucky for you too. Otherwise Clubfoot
+would have had you stopped at the frontier. But obviously secrecy is an
+essential part of his instructions, and he has shown himself willing to
+risk almost anything rather than call in the aid of the regular police.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But they can always hush these things up!&quot; I objected.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From the public, yes, but not from the Court. This letter looks
+uncommonly like one of William's sudden impulses ... and I fancy
+anything of the kind would get very little tolerance in Germany in
+war-time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But who is Clubfoot?&quot; I questioned.</p>
+
+<p>My brother furrowed his brows anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Des,&quot; he said, &quot;I don't know. He is certainly not a regular official of
+the German Intelligence like Steinhauer and the others. But I <i>have</i>
+heard of a clubfooted German on two occasions ... both were dark and
+mysterious affairs, in both he played a leading role and both ended in
+the violent death of one of our men.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then Tracy and the others...?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Victims of this man, Des, without any doubt,&quot; my brother answered. He
+paused a moment reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a code of honour in our game, old man,&quot; he said, &quot;and there
+are lots of men in the German secret service who live up to it. We give
+and take plenty of hard knocks in the rough-and-tumble of the chase, but
+ambush and assassination are barred.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He took a deep breath and added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the man Clubfoot doesn't play the game!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Francis,&quot; I said, &quot;I wish I'd known something of this that night I had
+him at my mercy at the Esplanade. He would not have got off with a
+cracked skull ... with one blow. There would have been another blow for
+Tracy, one for Arbuthnot, one for the other man ... until the account
+was settled and I'd beaten his brains out on the carpet. But if we meet
+him again, Francis, ... as, please God, we shall! ... there will be no
+code of honour for <i>him</i> ... we'll finish him in cold blood as we'd kill
+a rat!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My brother thrust out his hand at me and we clasped hands on it.</p>
+
+<p>Evening was falling and lights were beginning to twinkle from the
+further bank of the river.</p>
+
+<p>We stood for a moment in silence with the river rushing at our feet.
+Then we turned and started to tramp back towards the city. Francis
+linked his arm in mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And now, Des,&quot; he said in his old affectionate way, &quot;tell me some more
+about Monica!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Out of that talk germinated in my head the only plan that seemed to
+offer us a chance of escape. I was quite prepared to believe Francis
+when he declared that the frontier was at present impassable: if the
+vigilance had been increased before it would be redoubled now that I had
+again eluded Clubfoot. We should, therefore, have to find some cover
+where we could lie doggo until the excitement passed.</p>
+
+<p>You remember that Monica told me, the last time I had seen her, that she
+was shortly going to Schloss Bellevue, a shooting-box belonging to her
+husband, to arrange some shoots in connection with the Governmental
+scheme for putting game on the market. Monica, you will recollect, had
+offered to take me with her, and I had fully meant to accompany her but
+for Gerry's unfortunate persistence in the matter of my passport.</p>
+
+<p>I now proposed to Francis that we should avail ourselves of Monica's
+offer and make for Castle Bellevue. The place was well suited for our
+purpose as it lies near Cleves, and in its immediate neighbourhood is
+the Reichswald, that great forest which stretches from Germany clear
+across into Holland. All through my wanderings, I had kept this forest
+in the back of my head as a region which must offer facilities for
+slipping unobserved across the frontier. Now I learnt from Francis that
+he had spent months in the vicinity of Cleves, and I was not surprised
+to find, when I outlined this plan to him, that he knew the Reichswald
+pretty well.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It'll be none too easy to get across through the forest,&quot; he said
+doubtfully, &quot;it's very closely patrolled, but I do know of one place
+where we could lie pretty snug for a day or two waiting for a chance to
+make a dash. But we have no earthly chance of getting through at
+present: our clubfooted pal will see to that all right. And I don't much
+like the idea of going to Bellevue either: it will be horribly dangerous
+for Monica!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't think so,&quot; I said. &quot;The whole place will be overrun with
+people, guests, servants, beaters and the like, for these shoots. Both
+you and I know German and we look rough enough: we ought to be able to
+get an emergency job about the place without embarrassing Monica in the
+least. I don't believe they will ever dream of looking for us so close
+to this frontier. The only possible trail they can pick up after me in
+Berlin leads to Munich. Clubfoot is bound to think I am making for the
+Swiss frontier.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Well, the long and the short of it was that my suggestion was carried,
+and we resolved to set out for Bellevue that very night. My brother
+declared he would not return to the caf&eacute;: with the present shortage of
+men, such desertions were by no means uncommon, and if he were to give
+notice formally it might only lead to embarrassing explanations.</p>
+
+<p>So we strolled back to the city in the gathering darkness, bought a map
+of the Rhine and a couple of rucksacks and laid in a small stock of
+provisions at a great department store, biscuits, chocolates, some hard
+sausage and two small flasks of rum. Then Francis took me to a little
+restaurant where he was known and introduced me to the friendly
+proprietor, a very jolly old Rheinlander, as his brother just out of
+hospital. I did my country good service, I think, by giving a most
+harrowing account of the terrible efficiency of the British army on the
+Somme!</p>
+
+<p>Then we dined and over our meal consulted the map.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the map,&quot; I said, &quot;Bellevue should be about fifty miles from here.
+My idea is that we should walk only at night and lie up during the day,
+as a room is out of the question for me without any papers. I think we
+should keep away from the Rhine, don't you? As otherwise we shall pass
+through Wesel, which is a fortress, and, consequently, devilish
+unhealthy for both of us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Francis nodded with his mouth full.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At present we can count on about twelve hours of darkness,&quot; I
+continued, &quot;so, leaving a margin for the slight d&eacute;tour we shall make,
+for rests and for losing the way, I think we ought to be able to reach
+Castle Bellevue on the third night from this. If the weather holds up,
+it won't be too bad, but if it rains, it will be hellish! Now, have you
+any suggestions?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My brother acquiesced, as, indeed, he had in everything I had proposed
+since we met. Poor fellow, he had had a roughish time: he seemed glad to
+have the direction of affairs taken out of his hands for a bit.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past seven that evening, our packs on our backs, we stood on the
+outskirts of the town where the road branches off to Crefeld. In the
+pocket of the overcoat I had filched from Haase's I found an automatic
+pistol, fully loaded (most of our customers at the beer-cellar went
+armed).</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've got the document, Francis,&quot; I said. &quot;You'd better have this,
+too!&quot; and I passed him the gun.</p>
+
+<p>Francis waved it aside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You keep it,&quot; he said grimly, &quot;it may serve you instead of a passport.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I slipped the weapon back into my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>A cold drop of rain fell upon my face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, hell!&quot; I cried, &quot;it's beginning to rain!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And thus we set out upon our journey.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was a nightmare tramp. The rain never ceased. By day we lay in icy
+misery, chilled to the bone in our sopping clothes, in some dank ditch
+or wet undergrowth, with aching bones and blistered feet, fearing
+detection, but fearing, even more, the coming of night and the
+resumption of our march. Yet we stuck to our programme like Spartans,
+and about eight o'clock on the third evening, hobbling painfully along
+the road that runs from Cleves to Calcar, we were rewarded by the sight
+of a long massive building, with turrets at the corners, standing back
+from the highway behind a tall brick wall.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bellevue!&quot; I said to Francis, with pointing finger.</p>
+
+<p>We left the road and climbing a wooden palisade, struck out across the
+fields with the idea of getting into the park from the back. We passed
+some black and silent farm buildings, went through a gate and into a
+paddock, on the further side of which ran the wall surrounding the
+place. Somewhere beyond the wall a fire was blazing. We could see the
+leaping light of the flames and drifting smoke. At the same moment we
+heard voices, loud voices disputing in German.</p>
+
+<p>We crept across the paddock to the wall, I gave Francis a back and he
+hoisted himself to the top and looked over. In a moment he sprang
+lightly down, a finger to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Soldiers round a fire,&quot; he whispered. &quot;There must be troops billeted
+here. Come on ... we'll go further round!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We ran softly along the wall to where it turned to the right and
+followed it round. Presently we came to a small iron gate in the wall.
+It stood open.</p>
+
+<p>We listened. The sound of voices was fainter here. We still saw the
+reflection of the flames in the sky. Otherwise, there was no sign or
+sound of human life.</p>
+
+<p>The gate led into an ornamental garden with the Castle at the further
+end. All the windows were in darkness. We threaded a garden path leading
+to the house. It brought us in front of a glass door. I turned the
+handle and it yielded to my grasp.</p>
+
+<p>I whispered to Francis:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stay where you are! And if you hear me shout, fly for your life!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For, I reflected, the place might be full of troops. If there were any
+risk it would be better for me to take it since Francis, with his
+identity papers, had a better chance than I of bringing the document
+into safety.</p>
+
+<p>I opened the glass door and found myself in a lobby with a door on the
+right.</p>
+
+<p>I listened again. All was still. I cautiously opened the door and
+looked in. As I did so the place was suddenly flooded with light and a
+voice&mdash;a voice I had often heard in my dreams&mdash;called out imperiously:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stay where you are and put your hands above your head!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot stood there, a pistol in his great hand pointed at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Grundt!&quot; I shouted but I did not move.</p>
+
+<p>And Clubfoot laughed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII" />CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>FRANCIS TAKES UP THE NARRATIVE</h3>
+
+
+<p>I saw the lights flash up in the room. I heard Desmond cry out:
+&quot;Grundt;&quot; Instantly I flung myself flat on my face in the flower bed,
+lest Desmond's shout might have alarmed the soldiers about the fire. But
+no one came; the gardens remained dark and damp and silent, and I heard
+no sound from the room in which I knew my brother to be in the clutches
+of that man.</p>
+
+<p>Desmond's cry pulled me together. It seemed to arouse me from the
+lethargy into which I had sunk during all those months of danger and
+disappointment. It shook me into life. If I was to save him, not a
+moment was to be lost. Clubfoot would act swiftly, I knew. So must I.
+But first I must find out what the situation was, the meaning of
+Clubfoot's presence in Monica's house, of those soldiers in the park.
+And, above all, was Monica herself at the Castle?</p>
+
+<p>I had noticed a little estaminet place on the road, about a hundred
+yards before we reached the Schloss. I might, at least, be able to pick
+up something there. Accordingly, I stole across the garden, scaled the
+wall again and reached the road in safety.</p>
+
+<p>The estaminet was full of people, brutish-looking peasants swilling neat
+spirits, cattle drovers and the like. I stood up at the bar and ordered
+a double noggin of <i>Korn</i>&mdash;a raw spirit made in these parts from
+potatoes, very potent but at least pure. A man in corduroys and leggings
+was drinking at the bar, a bluff sort of chap, who readily entered into
+conversation. A casual question of mine about the game conditions
+elicited from him the information that he was an under-keeper at the
+Castle. It was a busy time for them, he told me, as four big shoots had
+been arranged. The first was to take place the next day. There were
+plenty of birds, and he thought the Frau Gr&auml;fin's guests ought to be
+satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>I asked him if there was a big party staying at the Castle. No, he told
+me, only one gentleman besides the officer billeted there, but a lot of
+people were coming over for the shoot the next day, the officers from
+Cleves and Goch, the Chief Magistrate from Cleves, and a number of
+farmers from round about.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I expect you will find the soldiers billeted at the Castle useful as
+beaters,&quot; I enquired with a purpose.</p>
+
+<p>The man assented grudgingly. Gamekeepers are first-class grumblers. But
+the soldiers were not many. For his part he could do without them
+altogether. They were such terrible poachers to have about the place, he
+declared. But what they would do for beaters without them, he didn't
+know ... they were very short of beaters ... that was a fact.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am staying at Cleves,&quot; I said, &quot;and I'm out of a job. I am not long
+from hospital, and they've discharged me from the army. I wouldn't mind
+earning a few marks as a beater, and I'd like to see the sport. I used
+to do a bit of shooting myself down on the Rhine where I come from.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. &quot;That's none of my
+business, getting the beaters together,&quot; he replied. &quot;Besides, I shall
+have the head gamekeeper after me if I go bringing strangers in....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I ordered another drink for both of us, and won the man round without
+much difficulty. He pouched my five mark note and announced that he
+would manage it ... the Frau Gr&auml;fin was to see some men who had offered
+their services as beaters after dinner at the Castle that evening. He
+would take me along.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later I stood, as one of a group of shaggy and bedraggled
+rustics, in a big stone courtyard outside the main entrance to the
+Castle. The head gamekeeper mustered us with his eye and, bidding us
+follow him, led the way under a vaulted gateway through a massive door
+into a small lobby which had apparently been built into the great hall
+of the Castle, for it opened right into it.</p>
+
+<p>We found ourselves in a splendid old feudal hall, oak-lined and
+oak-raftered, with lines of dusty banners just visible in the twilight
+reigning in the upper part of the vast place. The modern generation had
+forborne to desecrate the fine old room with electric light, and massive
+silver candlesticks shed a soft light on the table set at the far end of
+the hall, where dinner, apparently, was just at an end.</p>
+
+<p>Three people were sitting at the table, a woman at the head, who, even
+before I had taken in the details I have just set down, I knew to be
+Monica, though her back was towards me. On one side of the table was a
+big, heavy man whom I recognized as Clubfoot, on the other side a pale
+slip of a lad in officer's uniform with only one arm ... Schmalz, no
+doubt.</p>
+
+<p>A servant said something to Monica, who, asking permission of her
+companions by a gesture, left the table and came across the hall. To my
+surprise, she was dressed in deepest black with linen cuffs. Her face was
+pale and set, and there was a look of fear and suffering in her eyes
+that wrung my very heart.</p>
+
+<p>I had shuffled into the last place of the row in which the head keeper
+had ranged us. Monica spoke a word or two to each of the men, who
+shambled off in turn with low obeisances. Directly she stopped in front
+of me I knew she had recognized me&mdash;I felt it rather, for she made no
+sign&mdash;though the time I had had in Germany had altered my appearance, I
+dare say, and I must have looked pretty rough with my three days' beard
+and muddy clothes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; she said with all her languor <i>de grande dame</i>, &quot;you are the man
+of whom Heinrich spoke. You have just come out of hospital, I think?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Beg the Frau Gr&auml;fin's pardon,&quot; I mumbled out in the thick patois of the
+Rhine which I had learnt at Bonn, &quot;I served with the Herr Graf in
+Galicia, and I thought maybe the Frau Gr&auml;fin ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped me with a gesture.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herr Doktor!&quot; she called to the dinner-table.</p>
+
+<p>By Jove! this girl had grit: her pluck was splendid.</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot came stumping over, all smiles after his food and smoking a
+long cigar that smelt delicious.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Frau Gr&auml;fin?&quot; he queried, glancing at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is a man who served under my husband in Galicia. He is ill and out
+of work, and wishes me to help him. I should wish, therefore, to see him
+in my sitting-room, if you will allow me....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Frau Gr&auml;fin, most certainly. There surely was no need ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Johann!&quot; Monica called the servant I had seen before, &quot;take this man
+into the sitting-room!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The servant led the way across the hall into a snugly furnished library
+with a dainty writing-desk and pretty chintz curtains. Monica followed
+and sat down at the desk.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now tell me what you wish to say ...&quot; she began in German as the servant
+left the room, but almost as soon as he had gone she was on her feet,
+clasping my hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Francis!&quot; she whispered in English in a great sob, &quot;oh, Francis! what
+have they done to you to make you look like that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I gripped her wrist tightly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Frau Gr&auml;fin,&quot; I said in German, still in that hideous patois, &quot;you must
+be calm.&quot; And I whispered in English in her ear:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monica, be brave! And talk German whatever you do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She regained her self-possession at once.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I understand,&quot; she answered, sitting down at her desk again; &quot;it is
+more prudent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And for the rest of the time we spoke in German.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Desmond?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Locked up in Grundt's bedroom,&quot; she replied. &quot;I met them pushing him
+along the corridor&mdash;it was horrible! Grundt won't let him out of his
+sight. Oh, it was madness to have come. If only I could have warned
+you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is Grundt doing here?&quot; I asked. &quot;And those soldiers and that
+officer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear,&quot; she answered, and her eyes flashed mischief in a sudden
+change of mood, &quot;I'm in preventive arrest!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Monica....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Listen! Gerry and that spying man-servant of his made trouble. When Des
+went off that evening and didn't come back, Gerry insisted that we
+should notify the police. He made an awful scene, then the valet chipped
+in, and from what he said I knew he meant mischief. I didn't dare trust
+Gerry with the truth, so I let him send a note to the police. They came
+round and asked a lot of questions and went away again, so I thought
+we'd heard the last of it and came up here. Gerry wouldn't come. He's
+gone off to Baden-Baden on some new cure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About a week ago the Chief Magistrate at Cleves, who is an old friend
+of ours, motored over, and after a lot of talk, blurted out that I was
+to consider myself under arrest, and that an officer and a detachment of
+men from Goch were coming over to guard the house. The magistrate man
+would have told me anything I wanted to know, but he knew nothing: he
+simply carried out his orders. Then the lieutenant and his men arrived,
+and since that time I have been a prisoner in the house and grounds. I
+was terribly scared about Des until Grundt arrived suddenly, two nights
+ago, and I saw at once by his face that Des was still at large. But,
+Francis, that Clubfoot man came here to catch Des ... and he has simply
+walked into the trap.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And Desmond?&quot; I asked. &quot;What is Clubfoot going to do about him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He was with Des for about an hour in his room, and I heard him tell
+Schmalz he would 'try again' after dinner. Oh, Francis, I am frightened
+of that man ... not a word has he said to me about my knowing
+Desmond&mdash;not a word about my harbouring Des in Berlin ... but he knows
+everything, and he watches me the whole time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I glanced through the open door into the hall. The candles still burnt
+on the dinner-table, where Clubfoot and the officer sat conversing in
+low tones.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have been here long enough,&quot; I said. &quot;But before I go, I want you to
+answer one or two questions, Monica. Will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Francis,&quot; she said, raising her eyes to mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What time is the shoot to-morrow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At ten o'clock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are Grundt and Schmalz going?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You too?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Could you get away back to the house by 12.30?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not alone. One of them is always with me out of doors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Could you meet me alone anywhere outside at that time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is a quarry outside a village called Quellenburg ... it is on the
+edge of our preserves ... just off the road. We ought to be as far as
+that by twelve. If it is necessary, I will try and give them the slip
+and hide in one of the caves there. Then, when you came, if you whistled
+I could come out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good. That will do excellently. We will arrange it so. Now, another
+question ... how many soldiers have you here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sixteen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are they all going beating?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, no! Only ten of them. The other six and the sergeant remain
+behind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you a car here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, but Grundt has one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How many servants will there be in the house to-morrow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only Johann, the butler, and the maids ... a woman cook and two girls.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can you contrive to have Johann out of the house between 10 and 12:30
+to-morrow morning?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I can send him to Cleves with a note.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The maids too?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, the maids too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good. Now will you do one thing more&mdash;the hardest of all? I want you
+to send a message to Desmond. Can you arrange it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell me what your message is, and I may be able to answer you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want you to tell him that he must at all costs contrive to keep
+Grundt from going to that shoot to-morrow ... at any rate between ten
+and twelve. He must manage to let Grundt believe that he is going to
+tell him where Grundt may find what he is after ... but he must keep him
+in suspense during those hours.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And after?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There will be no after,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will see that Des gets your message,&quot; Monica replied, &quot;for I will
+take it myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Monica,&quot; I said, &quot;I don't want...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Francis,&quot; ...she spoke almost in a whisper ... &quot;my life in this country
+is over,&quot; ... and she touched her widow's weeds.... &quot;Karl was killed at
+Predeal three weeks ago.... You know as well as I do that I am involved
+in this affair as much as you and Des ... and I will share the risk if
+only you will take me away with you ... that is if you ...&quot; She
+faltered.</p>
+
+<p>I heard the chairs scrape in the corner of the hall where the
+dinner-party was breaking up.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Frau Gr&auml;fin has only to command,&quot; I said. &quot;The Frau Gr&auml;fin knows I
+have been waiting for years....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot was crossing towards the open door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;... I never expected to find the Frau Gr&auml;fin so gracious.... I had
+never hoped that the Frau Gr&auml;fin would be willing to do so much for
+me ... the Frau Gr&auml;fin has made me very happy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot stood on the threshold and listened to my halting speech.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can bring your things in when you come to-morrow ...&quot; Monica said.
+&quot;The keeper will tell you what time you must be here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then she dismissed me, but as I went I heard her say:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herr Doktor! Can I have a word with you?&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII" />CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>I GO ON WITH THE STORY</h3>
+
+
+<p>I was in the billiard-room of the Castle, a dusty place, obviously
+little used, for it smelt of damp. A fire was burning in the grate,
+however, and on a table in the corner, which was littered with papers,
+stood a dispatch box.</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot wore a dinner-coat and, as he laughed, his white expanse of
+shirt-front heaved to the shaking of his deep chest. For a moment,
+however, I had little thought of him or the ugly-looking Browning he
+held in his fist. My ears were strained for any sound that might betray
+Francis' presence in the garden. But all remained silent as the grave.</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot, still chuckling audibly, walked over to me. I thought he was
+going to shoot me, he came so straight and so fast, but it was only to
+get behind me and shut the door, driving me, as he did so, farther into
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>The door by which he had entered stood open. Without taking his eyes off
+me or deflecting his weapon from its aim, he called out:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Schmalz!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A light step resounded, and the one-armed lieutenant tripped into the
+room. When he saw me, he stopped dead. Then he softly began to circle
+round me with a mincing step, murmuring to himself: &quot;So! So!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good evening, Dr. Semlin!&quot; he said in English. &quot;Say, I'm mighty glad to
+see you! Well, Okewood, dear old boy, here we are again. What? Herr
+Julius Zimmermann ...&quot; and he broke into German, &quot;<i>es freut mich!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I could have killed him where he stood, maimed though he was, for his
+fluency in the American and English idiom alone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Search him, Schmalz!&quot; commanded Clubfoot curtly.</p>
+
+<p>Schmalz ran the fingers of his one arm over my pockets, flinging my
+portfolio on the billiard-table towards Clubfoot, and the other articles
+as they came to light ... my pistol, watch, cigarette-case and so
+forth ... on to a leather lounge against the wall. In his search he
+brushed me with his severed stump ... ugh, it was horrible!</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot had snatched up the portfolio and hastily examined it. He shook
+the contents out on the billiard-table and examined them carefully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not there!&quot; he said. &quot;Run him upstairs, and we'll strip him,&quot; he
+ordered; &quot;and let not our clever young friend forget that I'm behind him
+with my little toy!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Schmalz gripped me by the collar, spitefully digging his knuckles into
+my neck, and propelled me out of the room ... almost into the arms of
+Monica.</p>
+
+<p>She screamed and, turning, fled away down the passage. Clubfoot laughed
+noisily, but I reflected mournfully that in my present sorry plight,
+unwashed and unshaven, in filthy clothes, haled along like a common
+pickpocket, even my own mother would not have recognized me.</p>
+
+<p>There was a degrading scene in the bedroom to which they dragged me,
+where the two men stripped me to the skin and pawed over every single
+article of clothing I possessed. Physically and mentally, I cowered in
+my nudity before the unwholesome gaze of these two sinister cripples. Of
+all my experiences in Germany, I still look back upon that as almost my
+worst ordeal.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, they found nothing, search as they might, and presently they
+flung my clothes back at me and bade me get dressed again, &quot;for you and
+I, young man,&quot; said Clubfoot, with his glinting smile, &quot;have got to have
+a little talk together!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When I was once more clothed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can leave us, Schmalz!&quot; commanded Clubfoot, &quot;and send up the
+sergeant when I ring: he shall look after this tricky Englishman whilst
+we are at dinner with our charming hostess.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Schmalz went out and left us alone. Clubfoot lighted a cigar. He smoked
+in silence for a few minutes. I said nothing, for really there was
+nothing for me to say. They hadn't got their precious document, and it
+was not likely they would ever recover it now. I feared greatly that
+Francis in his loyalty might make an attempt to rescue me, but I hoped,
+whatever he did, he would think first of putting the document in a place
+of safety. I was more or less resigned to my fate. I was in their hands
+properly now, and whether they got the document or not, my doom was
+sealed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will pay you the compliment of saying, my dear Captain Okewood,&quot;
+Clubfoot remarked in that urbane voice of his which always made my
+blood run cold, &quot;that never before in my career have I devoted so much
+thought to any single individual, in the different cases I have handled,
+as I have to you. As an individual, you are a paltry thing: it is rather
+your remarkable good fortune that interests me as a philosopher of
+sorts.... I assure you it will cause me serious concern to be the
+instrument of severing your really extraordinary strain of good luck. I
+don't mind telling you, as man to man, that I have not yet entirely
+decided in my mind what to do with you now that I've got you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've got me, certainly,&quot; I replied, &quot;but you would vastly prefer to
+have what I have not got.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us not forget to be always content with small mercies,&quot;
+answered the other, smiling with a gleam of his golden teeth,... &quot;that
+is a favourite maxim of mine. As you truly remark, I would certainly
+prefer the ... the jewel to the infinitely less precious
+and ... interesting ... casket. But what I have, I hold. And I
+have you ... and your accomplice as well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no accomplice,&quot; I denied stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Surely you forget our gracious hostess, our most charming Countess? Was
+it not thanks to the interest she deigned to take in your safety that I
+came here? Had it not been for that circumstance, I should scarcely have
+ventured to intrude upon her widowhood....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Her widowhood?&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot smiled again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You cannot have followed the newspapers in your ... retreat, my dear
+Captain Okewood,&quot; he replied, &quot;or surely you would have read the
+afflicting intelligence that Count Rachwitz, A.D.C. to Field-Marshal von
+Mackensen, was killed by a shell that fell into the Brigade Head-quarters
+where he was lunching at Predeal. Ah, yes,&quot; he sighed, &quot;our beautiful
+Countess is now a widow, alone ...&quot; he paused, then added, &quot;... and
+unprotected!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I understood his allusion and went cold with fear. Why, Monica was
+involved in this affair as much as I. Surely they wouldn't dare to touch
+her....</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot leaned forward and tapped me on the knee.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will be sensible, Okewood,&quot; he said confidentially. &quot;You've lost.
+You can't save yourself. Your life was forfeit from the moment you
+crossed the threshold of his Majesty's private apartments ... but you
+can save <i>her</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I shook his huge hand off my leg.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You won't bluff me,&quot; I answered roughly. &quot;You daren't touch the
+Countess Rachwitz, an American lady, niece of an American ambassador,
+married into one of your leading families ... no, Herr Doktor, you must
+try something else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know why Schmalz is here?&quot; he asked patiently, &quot;and those
+soldiers?... You must have passed through the cordon to come here. Your
+little friend is in preventive arrest. She would be in gaol (she doesn't
+know it), but that His Majesty was unwilling to put this affront on the
+Rachwitz family in their great affliction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Countess Rachwitz has nothing whatever to do with me,&quot; ... rather a
+foolish lie, I thought to myself too late, as I was in her house.</p>
+
+<p>But Clubfoot remained quite unperturbed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall take you into my confidence, my dear sir,&quot; he said, &quot;to show
+that I know you to be stating an untruth. The Countess, on the contrary,
+is, to use a vulgar phrase, in it up to the neck. Thanks to the amazing
+imbecility of the Berlin police, I was not informed of your brief stay
+at the Bendler-Strasse, even after they were called in by the invalid
+American gentleman in the matter of your hasty flight when asked to have
+your passport put in order. But we are systematic, we Germans; we are
+painstaking; and I set about going through every possible place that
+might afford you shelter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the course of my investigations I came across our mutual friend,
+Herr Kore. A perusal of his very business-like ledgers showed me that on
+the day following your disappearance from the Esplanade he had received
+3,600 marks from a certain E. 2 ... all names in his books were in
+cipher. Under the influence of my winning personality, Herr Kore told me
+all he knew; I pursued my investigations and then discovered what the
+asinine police had omitted to tell me, namely, that on the date in
+question an alleged American had made a hurried flight from the Countess
+Rachwitz's apartment in the Bendler-Strasse. An admirable fellow ... Max
+or Otto, or some name like that ... anyhow, he was valet to Madame's
+invalid brother, was able to fill in all the lacunae, and I was thus
+enabled to draw up a very strong case against your well-meaning but
+singularly ill-advised hostess. By this time the lady had left Berlin
+for this charming old-world seat, and I promptly took measures to have
+her placed in preventive arrest whilst I tracked <i>you</i> down.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You got away again. Even Jupiter nods, you know, my dear Captain
+Okewood, and I frankly admit I overlooked the silver badge which you had
+in your possession. I must compliment you also on your adroitness in
+leaving us that false trail to Munich. It took me in to the extent that
+I dispatched an emissary to hunt you down in that delightful capital,
+but, for myself, I have a certain <i>flair</i> in these matters, and I
+thought you would sooner or later come to Bellevue. You will admit that
+I showed some perspicacity?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're wasting time with all this talk,&quot; I said sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot raised a hand deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I take a pride in my work,&quot; he observed half-apologetically. Then he
+added:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not forget that your pretty Countess is not an American. She
+is a German. She is also a widow. You may not know the relations that
+existed between her and her late husband, but they were not, I assure
+you, of such warmth that the Rachwitz family would unduly mourn her
+loss. Do you suppose we care a fig for all the American ambassadors that
+ever left the States? My dear sir, I observe that you are still
+lamentably ignorant of the revolution that war brings into international
+relations. In war, where the national interest is concerned, the
+individual is nothing. If he or she must be removed, puff! you snuff the
+offender out. Afterwards you can always pay or apologize, or do what is
+required.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I listened in silence; I had no defence to offer in face of this deadly
+logic, the logic of the stronger man.</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot produced a paper from his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Read that!&quot; he said, tossing it over to me. &quot;It is the summons for the
+Countess Rachwitz to appear before a court-martial. Date blank, you see.
+You needn't tear it up ... I've got several spare blank forms ... one
+for you, too!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt my courage ebbing and my heart turning to water. I handed him
+back his paper in silence. The booming of a dinner gong suddenly swelled
+into the stillness of the room. Clubfoot rose and rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here's my offer, Okewood!&quot; he said. &quot;You shall restore that letter to
+me in its integrity, and the Countess Rachwitz shall go free provided
+she leaves this country and does not return. That's my last word! Take
+the night to sleep on it! I shall come for my answer in the morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A sergeant in field-grey with a rifle and fixed bayonet stood in the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I make you responsible for this man, Sergeant,&quot; said Clubfoot, &quot;until I
+return in an hour or so. Food will be sent up for him and you will
+personally assure yourself that no message is conveyed to him by that or
+any other means.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I had washed, I had brushed my clothes, I had dined, and I sat in
+silence by the table, in the most utter dejection of spirit, I think,
+into which it is possible for a man to fall. I was so totally crushed by
+the disappointment of the evening that I don't think I pondered much
+about my own fate at all. But my thoughts were busy with Monica. My life
+was my own, and I knew I had a lien on my brother's if thereby our
+mission might be carried through to the end. But had I the right to
+sacrifice Monica?</p>
+
+<p>And then the unexpected happened. The door opened, and she came in,
+Schmalz behind her. He dismissed the sergeant with a word of caution to
+see that the sentries round the house were vigilant, and followed the
+man out, leaving Monica and me alone.</p>
+
+<p>The girl stopped the torrent of self-reproach that rose to my lips with
+a pretty gesture. She was pale, but she held her head as high as ever.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Schmalz has given me five minutes alone with you, Des,&quot; she said, &quot;to
+plead with you for my life, that you may betray your trust. No, don't
+speak ... there is no time to waste in words. I have a message for you
+from Francis.... Yes, I have seen him here, this very night.... He says
+you must contrive at all costs to keep Grundt from going to the shoot at
+ten o'clock to-morrow, and to detain him with you from ten to twelve.
+That is all I know about it.... But Francis has planned something, and
+you and I have got to trust him. Now, listen ... I shall tell Clubfoot I
+have pleaded with you and that you show signs of weakening. Say nothing
+to-night, temporize with him when he comes for his answer in the
+morning, and then send for him at a quarter to ten, when he will be
+leaving the house with the others. The rest I leave to you. Good night,
+Des, and cheer up!&quot;...</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Monica,&quot; I cried, &quot;what about you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She reddened deliciously under her pallor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Des,&quot; she replied happily, &quot;we are allies now, we three. If all goes
+well, I'm coming with you and Francis!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With that she was gone. A few minutes after, a couple of soldiers
+arrived with Schmalz and took me downstairs to a dark cellar in the
+basement, where I was locked in for the night.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I was dreaming of the front ... again I sniffed the old familiar smells,
+the scent of fresh earth, the fetid odour of death; again I heard
+outside the trench the faint rattle of tools, the low whispers of our
+wiring party; again I saw the very lights soaring skyward and revealing
+the desolation of the battlefield in their glare. Someone was shaking me
+by the shoulder. It was my servant come to wake me.... I must have
+fallen asleep. Was it stand-to so soon? I sat up and rubbed my eyes and
+awoke to the anguish of another day.</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant stood at the cellar door, framed in the bright morning
+light.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are to come upstairs!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>He took me to the billiard-room, where Clubfoot, sleek and washed and
+shaved, sat at the writing-table in the sunshine, opening letters and
+sipping coffee. A clock on a bracket above his head pointed to eight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You wish to speak to me, I believe,&quot; he said carelessly, running his
+eye over a letter in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must give me a little more time, Herr Doktor,&quot; I said. &quot;I was worn
+out last night and I could not look at things in their proper light. If
+you could spare me a few hours more....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I put a touch of pleading into my voice, which struck him at once.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am not unreasonable, my dear Captain Okewood,&quot; he replied, &quot;but you
+will understand that I am not to be trifled with, so I give you fair
+warning. I will give you until....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is eight o'clock now,&quot; I interrupted. &quot;I tell you what, give me
+until ten. Will that do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot nodded assent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take this man upstairs to my bedroom,&quot; he ordered the sergeant. &quot;Stay
+with him while he has his breakfast, and bring him back here at ten
+o'clock. And tell Schmidt to leave my car at the door: he needn't wait,
+as he is to beat: I will drive myself to the shoot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I don't really remember what happened after that. I swallowed some
+breakfast, but I had no idea what I was eating, and the sergeant, who
+was a model of Prussian discipline, declined with a surly frown to enter
+into conversation with me. My morale was very low: when I look back upon
+that morning I think I must have been pretty near the breaking-point.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat and waited I heard the house in a turmoil of preparation for
+the shoot. There was the sound of voices, of heavy boots in the hall, of
+wheels and horses in the yard without. Then the noises died away and all
+was still. Shortly afterwards, the clock pointing to ten, the sergeant
+escorted me downstairs again to the billiard-room.</p>
+
+<p>Grundt was still sitting there. A hot wave of anger drove the blood into
+my cheeks as I looked at him, fat and soft and so triumphant at his
+victory. The sight of him, however, gave me the tonic I needed. My nerve
+was shaken badly, but I was determined it must answer to this last
+strain, to play this uncouth fish for two hours. After that ... if
+nothing happened ...</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot sent the sergeant away.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can look after him myself now,&quot; he said, in a blithe tone that
+betrayed his conviction of success. So the sergeant saluted and left the
+room, his footsteps echoing down the passages like the leaden feet of
+Destiny, relentless, inexorable.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX" />CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>WE HAVE A RECKONING WITH CLUBFOOT</h3>
+
+
+<p>I looked at Clubfoot.</p>
+
+<p>I must play him with caution, with method, too.</p>
+
+<p>Only by acting on a most exact system could I hope to hold him in that
+room for two hours. I had four points to argue with him and I would
+devote half an hour to each of them by the clock on the bracket above
+his head. If only I could keep him confident in his victory, I might
+hope to prevent him finding out that I was playing with him ... but two
+hours is a long time ... it would be a near thing.</p>
+
+<p>One point in my favour ... my manner gave him the assurance of success
+from the start. There was nothing counterfeit about my tone of humility,
+for in truth I was very near despair. I was making this last effort at
+the bidding of my brother, but I felt it to be a forlorn hope: in my
+heart of hearts I knew I was down and out.</p>
+
+<p>So I went straight to the point and told Clubfoot that I was beaten,
+that he should have his paper. But there were difficulties about the
+execution of both sides of the bargain. We had deceived one another.
+What mutual guarantees could we exchange that would give each of us the
+assurance of fair play?</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot settled this point in characteristic fashion. He protested his
+good faith elaborately, but the gist of his remarks was that he held the
+cards and that, consequently, it was he who must be trusted, whilst I
+furnished the guarantee.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst we were discussing this point the clock chimed the half-hour.</p>
+
+<p>I switched the conversation to Monica. I was not at all concerned about
+myself, I said, but I must feel sure in my mind that no ill should
+befall her. To this Clubfoot replied that I might set my mind at ease:
+the moment the document was in his hands he would give orders for her
+release: I should be there and might see it done myself.</p>
+
+<p>What guarantee was there, I asked, that she would not be detained before
+she reached the frontier?</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot was getting a little restless. With his eye on the clock but in
+a placid voice he again protested that his word was the sole guarantee
+he could offer.</p>
+
+<p>We discussed this too. My manner was earnest and nervous, I know, and I
+think he enjoyed playing with me. I told him frankly that his reputation
+belied his protestations of good faith. At this he laughed and
+cynically admitted that this was quite possibly the case.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nevertheless, it is I who give the guarantee,&quot; he said in a tone that
+brooked no contradiction.</p>
+
+<p>The clock struck eleven.</p>
+
+<p>One hour to go!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, Okewood,&quot; he added good-naturedly, &quot;we waste time. Up to this
+you've had all the sport, you know. You wouldn't have me miss the first
+day's shooting I've had this year. Where have you got this letter of
+ours?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was an extraordinary man. To hear him address me, you would never
+have supposed that he was sending me to my death. He appeared to have
+forgotten this detail. It meant so little to him that he probably had.</p>
+
+<p>I turned to my third point. He made things very hard for me, I said, but
+I was the vanquished and must give way. The trouble was that the
+document was still in two portions and neither half was here.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You indicate where the halves are hidden,&quot; said Clubfoot promptly. &quot;I
+will accompany you to the hiding-places and you will hand them to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But they are nowhere near here,&quot; I replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then where are they?&quot; answered Clubfoot impatiently. &quot;Come, I am
+waiting and it's getting late!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will take several days to recover both portions,&quot; I muttered
+unwillingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That does not matter,&quot; retorted the other; &quot;there is no particular
+hurry ... now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he smiled grimly.</p>
+
+<p>I dared not raise my eyes to the clock, for I felt the German's gaze on
+me. An intuitive instinct told me that his suspicions had been awakened
+by my reluctance. I was very nearly at the end of my resources.</p>
+
+<p>Would the clock never strike?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I tell you frankly, Herr Doktor,&quot; I said in a voice that trembled with
+anxiety, &quot;I cannot leave the Countess unprotected whilst we travel
+together to the hiding-places of the document. I only feel sure of her
+safety whilst she is near me....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot bent his brows at me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you suggest then?&quot; he said very sternly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You go and recover the two halves at the places I indicate,&quot; I
+stammered out, &quot;and ... and ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A faint whirr and the silver chime rang out twice.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour more!</p>
+
+<p>How still the house was! I could hear the clock ticking&mdash;no, that
+thudding must be my heart. My wits failed me, my mind had become a
+blank, my throat was dry with fear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've wasted an hour and a half over you, young man,&quot; said Clubfoot
+suddenly, &quot;and it's time that this conversation was brought to a close.
+I warn you again that I am not to be trifled with. The situation is
+perfectly clear: it rests with you whether the Countess Rachwitz goes
+free or is court-martialled this afternoon at Cleves and shot this
+evening. Your suggestion is absurd. I'll be reasonable with you. We will
+both stay here. I will wire for the two portions of the letter to be
+fetched at the places you indicate, and as soon as I hold the entire
+letter in my hands the Countess will be driven to the frontier. I will
+allow her butler here to accompany her and he can return and assure you
+that she is in safety.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stretched out his hand and pulled a block of telegraph forms towards
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where shall we find the two halves?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One is in Holland,&quot; I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you dare to play me false....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He broke off when he saw my face.</p>
+
+<p>The room was going round with me. My hands felt cold as ice. I was
+struggling for the mastery over myself, but I felt my body swaying.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; exclaimed Clubfoot musingly, &quot;that would be Semlin's half.... I
+might have known.... Well, never mind, Schmalz can take my car and fetch
+it. He can be back by to-morrow. Where is he to go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The other half is in Berlin,&quot; I said desperately. My voice sounded to
+me like a third person speaking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's simpler,&quot; replied Clubfoot. &quot;Ten minutes to twelve now ... if I
+wire at once, that half should be here by midnight.... I'll get the
+message off immediately....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at me, pencil in hand.</p>
+
+<p>It was the end. I had kept faith with Francis to the limit of my powers,
+but now my resistance was broken. He had failed me ... not me, but
+Monica, rather.... I could not save her now. Like some nightmare film,
+the crowded hours of the past few weeks flashed past my eyes, a jostling
+procession of figures&mdash;Semlin with his blue lips and livid face, Schratt
+with her bejewelled hands, the Jew Kore, Haase with his bullet head,
+Francis, sadly musing on the caf&eacute; verandah ... and Monica, all in white,
+as I saw her that night at the Esplanade ... my thoughts always came
+back to her, a white and pitiful figure in some dusty courtyard at
+lamplight facing a row of levelled rifles....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am waiting!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot's voice broke stridently upon the silence.</p>
+
+<p>Should I tell him the truth now?</p>
+
+<p>It was three minutes to the hour.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come! The two addresses!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I would keep faith to the last.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herr Doktor!&quot; I faltered.</p>
+
+<p>He dashed the pencil down on the table and sprang to his feet. He
+caught me by the lapels of my coat and shook me in an iron grip.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The addresses, you dog!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>The clock whirred faintly. There was a knock at the door.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come in!&quot; roared Clubfoot and resumed his seat.</p>
+
+<p>The clock was chiming twelve.</p>
+
+<p>An officer stepped in briskly and saluted.</p>
+
+<p>It was Francis!... Francis, freshly shaved, his moustache neatly
+trimmed, a monocle in his eye, in a beautifully waisted grey military
+overcoat, one white-gloved hand raised in salute to his helmet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hauptmann von Salzmann!&quot; ... he introduced himself, clicking his heels
+and bowing to Clubfoot, who glared at him, frowning at the interruption.
+He spoke with the clipped, mincing utterance of the typical Prussian
+officer. &quot;I am looking for Herr Leutnant Schmalz,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is not in,&quot; answered Clubfoot in a surly voice. &quot;He is out and I am
+busy ... I do not wish to be disturbed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As Schmalz is out,&quot; the officer returned suavely, advancing to the
+desk, &quot;I must trouble you for an instant, I fear. I have been sent over
+from Goch to inspect the guard here. But I find no guard ... there is
+not a man in the place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Clubfoot angrily heaved his unwieldy bulk from his chair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gott im Himmel!&quot; he cried savagely. &quot;It is incredible that I can never
+be left in peace. What the devil has the guard got to do with me? Will
+you understand that I have nothing to do with the guard! There is a
+sergeant somewhere ... curse him for a lazy scoundrel ... I'll ring ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He never finished the sentence. As he turned his back on my brother to
+reach the bell in the wall, Francis sprang on him from behind, seizing
+his bull neck in an iron grip and driving his knee at the same moment
+into that vast expanse of back.</p>
+
+<p>The huge German, taken by surprise, crashed over backwards, my brother
+on top of him.</p>
+
+<p>It was so quickly done that, for the instant, I was dumbfounded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quick, Des, the door!&quot; my brother gasped. &quot;Lock the door!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The big German was roaring like a bull and plunging wildly under my
+brother's fingers, his clubfoot beating a thunderous tattoo on the
+parquet floor. In his fall Clubfoot's left arm had been bent under him
+and was now pinioned to the ground by his great weight. With his free
+right arm he strove fiercely to force off my brother's fingers as
+Francis fought to get a grip on the man's throat and choke him into
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>I darted to the door. The key was on the inside and I turned it in a
+trice. As I turned to go to my brother's help my eye caught sight of the
+butt of my pistol lying where Schmalz had thrown it the evening before
+under my overcoat on the leather lounge.</p>
+
+<p>I snatched up the weapon and dropped by my brother's side, crushing
+Clubfoot's right arm to the ground. I thrust the pistol in his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop that noise!&quot; I commanded.</p>
+
+<p>The German obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Better search him, Francis,&quot; I said to my brother. &quot;He probably has a
+Browning on him somewhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Francis went through the man's pockets, reaching up and putting each
+article as it came to light on the desk above him. From an inner breast
+pocket he extracted the Browning. He glanced at it: the magazine was
+full with a cartridge in the breech.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hadn't we better truss him up?&quot; Francis said to me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I said. I was still kneeling on the German's arm. He seemed
+exhausted. His head had fallen back upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me up, curse you!&quot; he choked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No!&quot; I said again and Francis turned and looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>Each of us knew what was in the other's mind, my brother and I. We were
+thinking of a hand-clasp we had exchanged on the banks of the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>I was about to speak but Francis checked me. He was trembling all over.
+I could feel his elbow quiver where it touched mine.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Des, please ...&quot; he pleaded, &quot;let me ... this is my show....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then, in a voice that vibrated with suppressed passion, he spoke swiftly
+to Clubfoot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Take a good look at me, Grundt,&quot; he said sternly. &quot;You don't know me,
+do you? I am Francis Okewood, brother of the man who has brought you to
+your fall. You don't know me, but you knew some of my friends, I think.
+Jack Tracy? Do you remember him? And Herbert Arbuthnot? Ah, you knew
+him, too. And Philip Brewster? You remember him as well, do you? No need
+to ask you what happened to poor Philip!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man on the floor answered nothing, but I saw the colour very slowly
+fade from his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>My brother spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There were four of us after that letter, as you knew, Grundt, and three
+of us are dead. But you never got me. I was the fourth man, the unknown
+quantity in all your elaborate calculations ... and it seems to me I
+spoiled your reckoning ... I and this brother of mine ... an amateur at
+the game, Grundt!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Still Clubfoot was silent, but I noticed a bead of perspiration tremble
+on his forehead, then trickle down his ashen cheeks and drop splashing
+to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Francis continued in the same deep, relentless voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I never thought I should have to soil my hands by ridding the world of
+a man like you, Grundt, but it has come to it and you have to die. I'd
+have killed you in hot blood when I first came in but for Jack and
+Herbert and the others ... for their sake you had to know who is your
+executioner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My brother raised the pistol. As he did so the man on the floor, by a
+tremendous effort of strength, rose erect to his knees, flinging me
+headlong. Then there was a hot burst of flame close to my cheek as I lay
+on the floor, a deafening report, a thud and a sickening gurgle.</p>
+
+<p>Something twitched a little on the ground and then lay still.</p>
+
+<p>We rose to our feet together.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Des,&quot; said my brother unsteadily, &quot;it seems rather like murder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Francis,&quot; I whispered back, &quot;it was justice!&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX" />CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>CHARLEMAGNE'S RIDE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past twelve. Funny, how my
+eyes kept coming back to that clock! There was a smell of warm gunpowder
+in the room, and the autumn sunshine, struggling feebly through the
+window, caught the blue edges of a little haze of smoke that hung lazily
+in the air by the desk in the corner. How close the room was! And how
+that clock face seemed to stare at me! I felt very sick....</p>
+
+<p>Lord! What a draught! A gust of icy air was raging in my face. The room
+was still swaying to and fro....</p>
+
+<p>I was in the front seat of a car beside Francis, who was driving. We
+were fairly flying along a broad and empty road, the tall poplars with
+which it was lined scudding away into the vanishing landscape as we
+whizzed by. The surface was terrible, and the car pitched this way and
+that as we tore along. But Francis had her well in hand. He sat at the
+wheel, very cool and deliberate and very grave, still in his officer's
+uniform, and his eyes had a cold glint that told me he was keyed up to
+top pitch.</p>
+
+<p>We slackened speed a fraction to negotiate a turn off to the right down
+a side road. We seemed to take that corner on two wheels. A thin church
+spire protruded from the trees in the centre of the group of houses
+which we were approaching so furiously. The village was all but
+deserted: everybody seemed to be indoors at their midday meal, but
+Francis slowed down and ran along the dirty street at a demure pace. The
+village passed, he jammed down the accelerator and once more the car
+sprang forward.</p>
+
+<p>The country was flat as a pancake, but presently the fields fell away a
+bit from the road with boulders and patches of gorse here and there. The
+next moment we were slackening speed. We drew up by a rough track which
+led off the road and vanished into a tangle of stunted trees and scrub
+growing across the yellow face of a sand-pit.</p>
+
+<p>Francis motioned me to get out, and then sprang to the ground himself,
+leaving the engine throbbing. His face was grey and set.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stay here!&quot; he whispered to me. &quot;You've got your pistol? Good. If
+anybody attempts to interfere with you, shoot!&quot; He dashed into the
+tangle and was swallowed up. I heard a whistle, and a whistle in answer,
+and a minute later he appeared again helping Monica through the thick
+undergrowth.</p>
+
+<p>Monica looked as pretty as a picture in her dark green shooting suit
+and her muffler. She was as excited as a child at its first play.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A car!&quot; she exclaimed. &quot;Oh, Francis, I'll sit beside you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My brother glanced at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty to one!&quot; he murmured. He had a hunted look on his face. Monica
+saw it and it sobered her.</p>
+
+<p>They got up in front, and I sat in the body of the car.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hang on to that!&quot; said Francis, handing me over a leather case. I
+recognized it at a glance. It was Clubfoot's dispatch-box. Francis was
+thorough in everything.</p>
+
+<p>Once more we dashed out along the desolate country roads. We saw hardly
+a soul. Houses were few and far between and, save for an occasional
+greybeard hoeing in the wet fields or an old woman hobbling along the
+road, the countryside seemed dead. In the cold air the engine ran
+splendidly, and Francis got every ounce of horse-power out of it.</p>
+
+<p>On we rushed, the wind in our ears, the cold air in our faces, until we
+found ourselves racing along an avenue of old trees that led straight as
+an arrow right into the heart of the forest. It was as silent as the
+grave: the air was dank and chill and the trees dripped sorrowfully into
+the brimming ruts of the road.</p>
+
+<p>We whizzed past many tracks leading into the depths of the forest, but
+it was not until the car had eaten up some five kilometres of the main
+road that Francis slowed to a halt. He consulted a map he pulled from
+his pocket, then glanced at his watch with puckered brow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had hoped to take the car into the forest,&quot; he said, &quot;but the roads
+are so soft we shan't get a yard. Still we can but try.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We went forward again, very slowly, to where a track ran off to the
+left. It was badly ploughed up, and the ruts were fully a foot deep.
+Monica and I got out to lighten the car, and Francis ran her in. But he
+hadn't gone five yards before the car was bogged up to the axles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll have to leave it,&quot; he said, jumping out. &quot;It's ten minutes to
+two ... we haven't a second to lose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He pulled a cloth cap from the pocket of his military overcoat, then
+stripped off the coat, showing his ordinary clothes underneath, and very
+shiny black field-boots up to his knees. He put his helmet in the
+overcoat and made a roll of it, tucking it under his arm, and then
+donned his cap.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; he said, &quot;We'll have to run for it, Monica, I'm afraid: we must
+reach our cover while the light lasts or I shan't be able to find it and
+it will be dark in these woods in about two hours from now. Are you
+ready?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We struck off the track into the forest. There was not much undergrowth,
+and the trees were not planted very close, so our way was not impeded.
+We jogged on over a carpet of wet leaves, stumbling over the roots of
+the trees, tearing our clothes on the brambles, bringing down showers of
+raindrops from the branches of pine or fir we brushed on our headlong
+course. Now a squirrel bolted up his tree, now a rabbit frisked back
+into his hole, now a soft-eyed deer crashed away into the bushes on our
+approach. The place was so still that it gave me confidence. There was
+not a trace of man now that we were away from the marks of his carts on
+the tracks, and I began to feel, in the presence of the stately, silent
+trees, that at last I was safe from the menace that had hung over me for
+so long.</p>
+
+<p>We rested frequently, breathless and panting, a hand to the side. Monica
+was a marvel of endurance. Her boots were sopping, her skirt wet to the
+waist, her face was scratched, and her hair was coming down, but she
+never complained. Francis was seemingly tireless and was always the one
+to lead the way when we started afresh.</p>
+
+<p>It was heavy going, for at every step our feet sank deep in the leaves.
+The forest was undulating with deep hollows and steep banks, which tried
+us a good deal. It soon became evident that we could not keep up the
+pace. Monica was tiring visibly, and I had had about enough; Francis,
+too, seemed done up. We slackened to a walk. We were toiling painfully
+up on of these steep banks when Francis, who was leading, held up his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Charlemagne's Ride!&quot; he whispered as we came up. We looked down from
+the top of the bank and saw below us a broad forest glade, canopied by
+the thick branches of the ancient trees that met overhead, and leading
+up a slope, narrowing as it went, to a path that lost itself among the
+shadows that were falling fast upon the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Francis clambered down the bank and we followed. Twilight reigned below
+in the glade under the lofty roof of branches and our feet rustled
+softly as we trod the leaves underfoot. It was a ghostly place, and
+Monica clutched my arm as we went quickly after Francis, who, striding
+rapidly ahead, threatened to be swallowed up in the shadows of the
+autumn evening. He led us up the slope and along the narrow path. A path
+struck off it, and he took it. It led us into a thicker part of the
+forest than we had yet struck, where there were great boulders
+protruding from the dripping bushes, and brambles grew so thick that in
+places they obscured the track.</p>
+
+<p>The forest sloped up again, and in front of us was a steep bank, its
+sides dotted with great rocks and a tangle of brambles and undergrowth.
+Francis stooped between two boulders at the foot of the slope, then
+turning and beckoning us to follow, disappeared. Monica went in after
+him, and I came last. We were in a kind of narrow entrance, scooped out
+of the earth between the rocks, and it led down to a broad chamber,
+which had apparently been dug beneath some of the boulders, for,
+stretching out my hand, I found the roof was rock and damp to the touch.</p>
+
+<p>Francis and Monica were standing in this chamber as I came down.
+Directly I entered I knew why they stood so still. A glimmer of light
+came from the farther end of the cave and a strange sound, a sort of
+strangled sobbing, reached our ears.</p>
+
+<p>I crept forward in the dark in the direction of the light. My
+outstretched hands came upon a low opening. I stooped and, crawling
+round a rock, saw another chamber illuminated by a guttering candle
+stuck by its wax to the earthen wall. On the floor a man was lying,
+sobbing as though his heart would break. He was wearing some kind of
+military great-coat with a yellow stripe running down the back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pst!&quot; I called to him, drawing my pistol from my pocket. As I did so,
+Francis behind me touched my arm to let me know he was there.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pst!&quot; I called again louder.</p>
+
+<p>The man swung round on to his knees with a sudden, frightened spring.
+When he saw my pistol, he jerked his hands above his head. Dirty and
+unshaven, with the tears all wet on his face, he looked a woe-begone and
+tragic figure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kamerad! Kamerad!&quot; he muttered stupidly at me. &quot;Napoo! Kaput!
+Englander!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I gazed at the stranger, hardly able to believe my ears. That trench
+jargon in this place!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you English?&quot; I asked him.</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of my voice he stared about him wildly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, I be English, zur,&quot; he replied with a strong West Country burr,
+&quot;God help me!&quot; And, heedless of me and my pistol, he covered his face
+with his hands and burst into a wild fit of sobbing again, rocking
+himself to and fro in his grief.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go back to Monica!&quot; I whispered to Francis. &quot;I'll see to this fellow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I managed to pacify him presently. Habit is a tenacious ruler and,
+grotesque figures though we were, the &quot;zur&quot; he had addressed to me
+brought out the officer in me. I talked to him as I would have done to
+one of my own men, and he quietened down at last and looked up at me.</p>
+
+<p>He was only a lad&mdash;I could tell that by the clearness of his skin and
+the brightness of his eyes&mdash;but his face was wan and wasted, and at the
+first glance he looked like a man of forty. Under his great-coat, which
+was German, he was clad in filthy rags which once had been a khaki
+uniform, as the cut&mdash;and nothing else&mdash;revealed.</p>
+
+<p>He told me his simple story in his soft Somersetshire accent, just the
+plain tale of the fate that has overtaken thousands of our
+fellow-countrymen since the war began. His name was Maggs, Sapper
+Ebenezer Maggs, of the Royal Engineers, and he was captured near Mons in
+August, 1914, when out laying a line with a party. With a long train of
+British prisoners&mdash;&quot;zum of 'em was terrible bad, zur, dying, as you
+might say&quot;&mdash;he had been marched off to a town and paraded to the railway
+station through streets thronged with jeering German soldiery. In cattle
+trucks, the fit, the wounded, the dying and the dead herded together,
+without food or water, they had made their journey into Germany with
+hostile mobs at every station, once the frontier was past, brutal men
+and shrieking women, to whom not even the dying were sacred.</p>
+
+<p>It was a terrible tale, that lost nothing of its horror from the simple,
+unadorned style of this West Country farmer's son. He had been one of
+the ragged, emaciated band of British prisoners of war who had shivered
+through that first long winter in the starvation camp of Friedrichsfeld,
+near Wesel. For two years he had endured the filthy food, the neglect,
+the harsh treatment, then a resourceful Belgian friend, whom he called
+John, in happier days a contraband runner on this very frontier, had
+shown him a means to escape. Five days before they had left the camp and
+separated, agreeing to meet at Charlemagne's Ride in the forest and try
+to force the frontier together. &quot;John&quot; had never come. For twenty-four
+hours Maggs had waited in vain, then his courage had forsaken him, and
+he had crept to that hole in his grief.</p>
+
+<p>I went and fetched Francis and Monica. Maggs shrunk back as they came
+in.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I bean't fit cumpany for no lady, zur,&quot; he whispered to me, &quot;I be that
+durty, fair crawling I be ... We couldn't keep clean nohow in that camp!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All the good soldier's horror of dirt was in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's all right, Maggs,&quot; I answered soothingly, &quot;she'll understand!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We sat down on the floor in the light of Sapper Maggs' candle, and
+Francis and I reviewed our situation. The cave we were in ... an old
+Smuggler's <i>cache</i> ... was where Francis had spent several days during
+his different attempts to get across the frontier. The border line was
+only about a quarter of a mile distant and ran right through the forest.
+There was no live-wire fencing in the forest, such as the Germans have
+erected along the frontier between Holland and Belgium. The frontier was
+guarded by patrols. These patrols were posted four men to every two
+hundred yards along the line through the forest, so that two men,
+patrolling in pairs, covered a hundred yards apiece.</p>
+
+<p>It was now half-past five in the evening. We both agreed that we should
+certainly make the attempt to cross the frontier that night. Francis
+nudged me, indicating the sapper with his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Maggs,&quot; I said, &quot;we are all in a bad way, but our case is more
+desperate than yours. I shall not tell you more than this, that, if we
+are caught, any of us three, we shall be shot, and anyone caught with us
+will fare the same. If you will take my advice, you will leave us and
+start off by yourself: the worst that can happen to you is to be sent
+back to your camp. You will be punished for running away, but you won't
+lose your life!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sapper Maggs shook his yellow head.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll stay,&quot; he answered stolidly; &quot;it's more cumfortable-like for us
+four to 'old together, and it's a better protection for the lady. I
+bean't afear'd of no Gers, I bean't! I'll go along o' yew officers and
+the lady, if yew don't mind, zur!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So it was settled, and we four agreed to unite forces. Before we set out
+Francis wanted to go and reconnoitre. I thought he had done more than
+his share that day, and said so. But Francis insisted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know my way blindfold about the forest, old man&quot; he said &quot;it'll be
+far safer for me than for you. I'll leave you the map and mark the
+route you are to follow, so that you can find the way if anything
+happens to me. If I'm not back by midnight, you ought certainly not to
+wait any longer, but make the attempt by yourselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>My brother handed me back the document and went over the route we were
+to follow on the map. Then he deposited his bundle in the cave and
+declared himself ready.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And don't forget old Clubfoot's box,&quot; he said by way of a parting
+injunction.</p>
+
+<p>Monica took him out to the entrance of our refuge. She was dabbing her
+eyes with her handkerchief when she returned. To divert her thoughts, I
+questioned her about the events that had led to my rescue, and she told
+me how, at Francis' request, she had got all the servants out of the
+Castle on different pretexts. It was Francis who had got rid of the
+soldiers remaining as a guard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You remember the Captain of K&ouml;penick trick,&quot; she said. &quot;Well, Francis
+played it off on the sergeant and those six men. He slept at Cleves, had
+himself trimmed up at the barber's, bought those field-boots he is
+wearing, and stole that helmet and great-coat off the pegs in the
+passage at Schmidt's Caf&eacute;, where the officers always go and drink beer
+after morning parade. Then he drove out to the Castle&mdash;he knew that the
+place would be deserted once the shoot had started&mdash;and told the
+sergeant he had been sent from Goch to inspect the guard. I think he is
+just splendid! He inspected the men and cursed everybody up and down,
+and sent the sergeant out to the paddock with orders to drill them for
+two hours. Francis was telling me all about it as we came along. He says
+that if you can get hold of a uniform and hector a German enough, he
+will never call your bluff. Can you beat it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The hours dragged wearily on. We had no food, and Maggs, who had eaten
+the last of his provisions twenty-four hours before&mdash;the British soldier
+is a bad hoarder&mdash;soon consumed the last of my cigarettes. It was past
+ten o'clock when I heard a step outside. The next moment Francis came
+in, white and breathless.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They're beating the forest for us,&quot; he panted. &quot;The place is full of
+men. I had to crawl the whole way there and back, and I'm soaked to the
+skin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I pointed to Monica, who was fast asleep, and he lowered his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Des,&quot; he said, &quot;I've hoped as long as I dared, but now I believe the
+game's up. They're beating the forest in a great circle, soldiers and
+police and customs men. If we set out at once we can reach the frontier
+before they get here, but what's the use of that ... every patrol is on
+the look-out for us ... the forest seems ablaze with torches.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must try it, Francis,&quot; I said. &quot;We haven't a dog's chance if we
+stay here!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think you're right,&quot; he answered. &quot;Well, here's the plan. There's a
+deep ravine that runs clear across the frontier. I spent an hour in it.
+They've built a plank bridge across the top just this side of the line,
+and the patrol comes to the ravine about every three minutes. It is
+practically impossible to get out of sight and sound along that ravine
+in three minutes, but ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unless we could drar the patrol's attention away!&quot; said Sapper Maggs.</p>
+
+<p>But Francis ignored the interruption.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;... We can at least try it. Come on, we must be starting! Thank God,
+there's no moon; it's as dark as the devil outside!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We roused up Monica and groped our way out of the cave into the black
+and dripping forest. Somewhere in the distance a faint glare reddened
+the sky. From time to time I thought I heard a shout, but it sounded far
+away.</p>
+
+<p>We crawled stealthily forward, Francis in front, then Monica, Maggs and
+I last. In a few minutes we were wet through, and our hands, blue and
+dead with cold, were scratched and torn. Our progress was interminably
+slow. Every few yards Francis raised his hand and we stopped.</p>
+
+<p>At last we reached the gloomy glade where, as Francis had told us,
+according to popular belief, the wraith of Charlemagne was still seen on
+the night of St. Hubert's Day galloping along with his ghostly
+followers of the chase. The rustling of leaves caught our ears;
+instantly we all lay prone behind a bank.</p>
+
+<p>A group of men came swinging along the glade. One of them was singing an
+ancient German soldier song:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Die V&ouml;glein im Walde
+Sie singen so sch&ouml;n
+In der Heimat, in der Heimat,
+Da gibt's ein Wiederseh'n.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The relief patrol!&quot; I whispered to Francis, as soon as they were past.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The other lot they relieve will be back this way in a minute. We must
+get across quickly.&quot; My brother stood erect, and tiptoed swiftly across
+Charlemagne's Ride, and we followed.</p>
+
+<p>We must have crawled for an hour before we came to the ravine. It was a
+deep, narrow ditch with steep sides, full of undergrowth and brambles.
+Now we could hear distinctly the voices of men all around us, as it
+seemed, and to right and to left and in front we caught at intervals
+glimpses of red flames through the trees. We could only proceed at a
+snail's pace lest the continual rustle of our footsteps should betray
+us. So each advanced a few paces in turn; then we all paused, and then
+the next one went forward. We could no longer crawl; the undergrowth was
+too thick for that; we had to go forward bent double.</p>
+
+<p>We had progressed like this for fully half an hour when Francis, who
+was in front as usual, beckoned us to lie down. We all lay motionless
+among the brambles.</p>
+
+<p>Then a voice somewhere above us said in German:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I'll have a man at the plank here, sergeant: he can watch the
+ravine.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Another voice answered:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good, Herr Leutnant, but in that case the patrols to right and
+left need not cross the plank each time; they can turn when they come to
+the ravine guard.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The voices died away in a murmur. I craned my neck aloft. It was so
+dark, I could see nothing save the fretwork of branches against the
+night sky. I whispered to Francis, who was just in front of me:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unless we make a dash for it now that man will hear us rustling along!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Francis held up a finger. I heard a heavy footstep along the bank above
+us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Too late!&quot; my brother whispered back. &quot;Do you hear the patrols?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Footsteps crashing through the undergrowth resounded on the right and
+left.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cold work!&quot; said a voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bitter!&quot; came the answer, just above our heads.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Seen anything?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The rustling began again on the right, and died away.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They're closing in on the left!&quot; Another voice this time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Heard anything, you?&quot; from the voice above us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a thing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The rustling broke out once more on the left, and gradually became lost
+in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Silence.</p>
+
+<p>I felt a hot breath in my ear. Sapper Maggs stood by my side.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There be a feller a-watching for us up there?&quot; he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If us could drar his 'tention away, yew could slip by, next time the
+patrols is past, couldn't 'ee?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Again I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It'd be worse for yew than for me, supposin' yew'd be ca-art, that's
+what t'other officer said, warn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And once more I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>The hot whisper came again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll drar 'un off for ee, zur, nex' time the patrols pass. When I
+holler, yew and the others, yew run. Thirty-one forty-three Sapper
+Maggs, R.E., from Chewton Mendip ... that's me... maybe yew'll let us
+have a bit o' writing to the camp.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stretched out my hand in the darkness to stop him. He had gone.</p>
+
+<p>I leant forward and whispered to Francis:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When you hear a shout, we make a dash for it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I felt him look at me in surprise&mdash;it was too dark to see his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Right!&quot; he whispered back.</p>
+
+<p>Now to the left we heard voices shouting and saw torches gleaming red
+among the trees. To right and rear answering shouts resounded.</p>
+
+<p>Again the patrols met at the plank above our heads, and again their
+departing footsteps rustled in the leaves.</p>
+
+<p>The murmur of voices grew nearer. We could faintly smell the burning
+resin of the torches.</p>
+
+<p>Then a wild yell rent the forest. The voice above us shouted &quot;Halt!&quot; but
+the echo was lost in the deafening report of a rifle.</p>
+
+<p>Francis caught Monica by the wrist and dragged her forward. We went
+plunging and crashing through the tangle of the ravine. We heard a
+second shot and a third, commands were shouted, the red glare deepened
+in the sky....</p>
+
+<p>Monica collapsed quite suddenly at my feet. She never uttered a sound,
+but fell prone, her face as white as paper. Without a word we picked her
+up between us and went on, stumbling, gasping, coughing, our clothes
+rent and torn, the blood oozing from the deep scratches on our faces and
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>At length our strength gave out. We laid Monica down in the ravine and
+drew the under growth over her, then we crawled in under the brambles
+exhausted, beat.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn was streaking the sky with lemon when a dog jumped sniffing down
+into our hiding-place. Francis and Monica were asleep.</p>
+
+<p>A man stood at the top of the ravine looking down on us. He carried a
+gun over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you had an accident?&quot; he said kindly.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke in Dutch.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI" />CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>RED TABS EXPLAINS</h3>
+
+
+<p>From the Argyllshire hills winter has stolen down upon us in the night.
+Behind him he has left his white mantle, and it now lies outspread from
+the topmost mountain peaks to the softly lapping tide at the black edges
+of the loch. Yet as I sit adding the last words to this plain account of
+a curious episode in my life, the wintry scene dissolves before my eyes,
+and I see again that dawn in the forest ... Francis and Monica, sleeping
+side by side, like the babes in the wood, half covered with leaves, the
+eager, panting retriever, and myself, poor, ragged scarecrow, staring
+openmouthed at the Dutchman whose kindly enquiry has just revealed to me
+the wondrous truth ... that we are safe across the frontier.</p>
+
+<p>What a disproportionate view one takes of events in which one is the
+principal actor! The great issues vanish away, the little things loom
+out large. When I look back on that morning I encounter in my memory no
+recollection of extravagant demonstrations of joy at our delivery, no
+hysteria, no heroics. But I find a fragrant remembrance of a glorious
+hot bath and an epic breakfast in the house of that kindly Dutchman,
+followed by a whirlwind burst of hospitality on our arrival at the house
+of van Urutius, which was not more than ten miles from the fringe of the
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>Madame van Urutius took charge of Monica, who was promptly sent to bed,
+whilst Francis and I went straight on to Rotterdam, where we had an
+interview at the British Consulate, with the result that we were able to
+catch the steamer for England the next day.</p>
+
+<p>As the result of various telegrams which Francis dispatched from
+Rotterdam, a car was waiting for us on our arrival at Fenchurch Street
+the next evening. In it we drove off for an interview with my brother's
+Chief. Francis insisted that I should hand over personally the portion
+of the document in our possession.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You got hold of it, Des,&quot; he said, &quot;and it's only fair that you should
+get all the credit. I have Clubfoot's dispatch-box to show as the result
+of my trip. It's only a pity we could not have got the other half out of
+the cloak-room at Rotterdam.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We were shown straight in to the Chief. I was rather taken aback by the
+easy calm of his manner in receiving us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How are you, Okewood?&quot; he said, nodding to Francis. &quot;This your brother?
+How d'ye do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He gave me his hand and was silent. There was a distinct pause. Feeling
+distinctly embarrassed, I lugged out my portfolio, extracted the three
+slips of paper and laid them on the desk before the Chief.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've brought you something,&quot; I said lamely.</p>
+
+<p>He picked up the slips of paper and looked at them for a moment. Then he
+lifted a cardboard folder from the desk in front of him, opened it and
+displayed the other half of the Kaiser's letter, the fragment I had
+believed to be reposing in a bag at Rotterdam railway station. He placed
+the two fragments side by side. They fitted exactly. Then he closed the
+folder, carried it across the room to a safe and locked it up. Coming
+back, he held out his two hands to us, giving the right to me, the left
+to Francis.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have done very well,&quot; he said. &quot;Good boys! Good boys!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that other half ...&quot; I began.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your friend Ashcroft is by no means such a fool as he looks,&quot; the Chief
+chuckled. &quot;He did a wise thing. He brought your two letters to me. I saw
+to the rest. So, when your brother's telegram arrived from Rotterdam, I
+got the other half of the letter out of the safe; I thought I'd be ready
+for you, you see!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how did you know we had the remaining portion of the letter?&quot; I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>The Chief chuckled again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My young men don't wire for cars to meet 'em at the station when they
+have failed,&quot; he replied. &quot;Now, tell me all about it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So I told him my whole story from the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>When I had finished, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You appear to have a very fine natural disposition for our game,
+Okewood. It seems a pity to waste it in regimental work ...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I broke in hastily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've got a few weeks' sick leave left,&quot; I said, &quot;and after that I was
+looking forward to going back to the front for a rest. This sort of
+thing is too exciting for me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, well,&quot; answered the Chief, &quot;we'll see about that afterwards. In
+the meantime, we shall not forget what you have done ... and I shall see
+that it is not forgotten elsewhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On that we left him. It was only outside that I remembered that he had
+told me nothing of what I was burning to know about the origin and
+disappearance of the Kaiser's letter.</p>
+
+<p>It was my old friend, Red Tabs, whom I met on one of our many visits to
+mysterious but obviously important officials, that finally cleared up
+for me the many obscure points in this adventure of mine. When he saw me
+he burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Pon my soul,&quot; he grinned, &quot;you seem to be able to act on a hint, don't
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then he told me the story of the Kaiser's letter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no need to speak of the contents of this amazing letter,&quot; he
+began, &quot;for you are probably more familiar with them than I am. The date
+alone will suffice ... July 31st, 1914 ... it explains a great deal. The
+last day of July was the moment when the peace of Europe was literally
+trembling in the balance. You know the Emperor's wayward, capricious
+nature, his eagerness for fame and military glory, his morbid terror of
+the unknown. In that fateful last week of July he was torn between
+opposing forces. On the one side was ranged the whole of the Prussian
+military party, led by the Crown Prince and the Emperor's own immediate
+entourage; on the other, the record of prosperity which years of peace
+had conferred on his realms. He had to choose between his own
+megalomania craving for military laurels, on the one hand, and, on the
+other, that place in history as the Prince of Peace for which, in his
+gentler moments, he has so often hankered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Kaiser is a man of moods. He sat down and penned this letter in a
+fit of despondency and indecision, when the vision of Peace seemed
+fairer to him than the spectre of War. God knows what violent emotion
+impelled him to write this extraordinary appeal to his English friend,
+an appeal which, if published, would convict him of the deepest
+treachery to his ally, but he wrote the letter and forthwith dispatched
+it to London. He did not make use of the regular courier: he sent the
+letter by a man of his own choosing, who had special instructions to
+hand the letter in person to Prince Lichnowski, the German ambassador.
+Lichnowski was to deliver the missive personally to its destined
+recipient.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Almost as soon as the letter was away, the Kaiser seems to have
+realised what he had done, to have repented of his action. Attempts to
+stop the messenger before he reached the coast appear to have failed. At
+any rate, we know that all through July 31st and August 1st Lichnowski,
+in London, was bombarded with dispatches ordering him to send the
+messenger with the letter back to Berlin as soon as he reached the
+embassy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The courier never got as far as Carlton House Terrace. Someone in the
+War party at the Court of Berlin got wind of the fateful letter and sent
+word to someone in the German embassy in London&mdash;the Prussian jingoes
+were well represented there by K&uuml;hlmann and others of his ilk&mdash;to
+intercept the letter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The letter was intercepted. How it was done and by whom we have never
+found out, but Lichnowski never saw that letter. Nor did the courier
+leave London. With the Imperial letter still in possession, apparently,
+he went to a house at Dalston, where he was arrested on the day after we
+declared war on Germany.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This courier went by the name of Schulte. We did not know him at the
+time to be travelling on the Emperor's business, but we knew him very
+well as one of the most daring and successful spies that Germany had
+ever employed in this country. One of our people picked him up quite by
+chance on his arrival in London, and shadowed him to Dalston, where we
+promptly laid him by the heels when war broke out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Schulte was interned. You have heard how one of his letters, stopped by
+the Camp Censor, put us on the track of the intercepted letter, and you
+know the steps we took to obtain possession of the document. But we were
+misled ... not by Schulte, but through the treachery of a man in whom he
+confided, the interpreter at the internment camp.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To this man Schulte entrusted the famous letter, telling him to send it
+by an underground route to a certain address at Cleves, and promising
+him in return a commission of twenty-five per cent on the price to be
+paid for the letter. The interpreter took the letter, but did not do as
+he was bid. On the contrary, he wrote to the go-between, with whom
+Schulte had been in correspondence (probably Clubfoot), and announced
+that he knew where the letter was and was prepared to sell it, only the
+purchaser would have to come to England and fetch it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, to make a long story short, the interpreter made a deal with the
+Huns, and this Dr. Semlin was sent to England from Washington, where he
+had been working for Bernstorff, to fetch the letter at the address in
+London indicated by the interpreter. In the meantime, we had got after
+the interpreter, who, like Schulte, had been in the espionage business
+all his life, and he was arrested.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We know what Semlin found when he reached London. The wily interpreter
+had sliced the letter in two, so as to make sure of his money, meaning,
+no doubt, to hand over the other portion as soon as the price had been
+paid. But by the time Semlin got to London the interpreter was jugged
+and Semlin had to report that he had only got half the letter. The rest
+you know ... how Grundt was sent for, how he came to this country and
+retrieved the other portion. Don't ask me how he set about it: I don't
+know, and we never found out even where the interpreter deposited the
+second half or how Grundt discovered its hiding-place. But he executed
+his mission and got clear away with the goods. The rest of the tale you
+know better than I do!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But Clubfoot,&quot; I asked, &quot;who is he?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are many who have asked that question,&quot; Red Tabs replied gravely,
+&quot;and some have not waited long for their answer. The man was known by
+name and reputation to very few, by sight to even fewer, yet I doubt if
+any man of his time wielded greater power in secret than he.
+Officially, he was nothing, he didn't exist; but in the dark places,
+where his ways were laid, he watched and plotted and spied for his
+master, the tool of the Imperial spite as he was the instrument of the
+Imperial vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A man like the Kaiser,&quot; my friend continued, &quot;monarch though he is,
+has many enemies naturally, and makes many more. Head of the Army,
+head of the Navy, head of the Church, head of the State&mdash;undisputed,
+autocratic head&mdash;he is confronted at every turn by personal issues
+woven and intertwined with political questions. It was in this sphere,
+where the personal is grafted on the political, that Clubfoot reigned
+supreme ... here and in another sphere, where German William is not only
+monarch, but also a very ordinary man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are phases in every man's life, Okewood, which hardly bear the
+light of day. In an autocracy, however, such phases are generally
+inextricably entangled with political questions. It was in these dark
+places that Clubfoot flourished ... he and his men ... 'the G gang' we
+called them, from the letter 'G' (signifying <i>Garde</i> or <i>Guard</i>) on
+their secret-service badges.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Clubfoot was answerable to no one save to the Emperor alone. His work
+was of so delicate, so confidential a nature, that he rendered an
+account of his services only to his Imperial master. There was none to
+stay his hand, to check him in his courses, save only this neurotic,
+capricious cripple who is always open to flattery....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Red Tabs thought for a minute and then went on.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one may catalogue,&quot; he said, &quot;the crimes that Clubfoot committed,
+the infamies he had to his account. Not even the Kaiser himself, I dare
+say, knows the manner in which his orders to this black-guard were
+executed&mdash;orders rapped out often enough, I swear, in a fit of
+petulance, a gust of passion, and forgotten the next moment in the
+excitement of some fresh sensation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know a little of Clubfoot's record, of innocent lives wrecked, of
+careers ruined, of sudden disappearances, of violent deaths. When you
+and your brother put it across der Stelze, Okewood, you settled a long
+outstanding account we had against him, but you also rendered his
+fellow-Huns a signal service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I thought of the comments I had heard on Clubfoot among the customers at
+Haase's, and I felt that Red Tabs had hit the right nail on the head
+again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the way?&quot; said Red Tabs, as I rose to go, &quot;would you care to see
+Clubfoot's epitaph? I kept it for you.&quot; He handed me a German
+newspaper&mdash;the <i>Berliner Tageblatt</i>, I think it was&mdash;with a paragraph
+marked in red pencil. I read:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We regret to report the sudden death from apoplexy of Dr. Adolf
+Grundt, an inspector of secondary schools. The deceased was closely
+connected for many years with a number of charitable institutions
+enjoying the patronage of the Emperor. His Majesty frequently consulted
+Dr. Grundt regarding the distribution of the sums allocated annually
+from the Privy purse for benevolent objects.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pretty fair specimen of Prussian cynicism?&quot; laughed Red Tabs. But I
+held my head ... the game was too deep for me.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Every week a hamper of good things is dispatched to 3143 Sapper Ebenezer
+Maggs, British Prisoner of War, Gefangenen-Lager, Friedrichsfeld bei
+Wesel. I have been in communication with his people, and since his
+flight from the camp they have not had a line from him. They will let me
+know at once if they hear, but I am restless and anxious about him.</p>
+
+<p>I dare not write lest I compromise him: I dare not make official enquiry
+as to his safety for the same reason. If he survived those shots in the
+dark, he is certainly undergoing punishment, and in that case he would
+be deprived of the privilege of writing or receiving letters....</p>
+
+<p>But the weeks slip by and no message comes to me from Chewton Mendip.
+Almost daily I wonder if the gallant lad survived that night to return
+to the misery of the starvation camp, or whether, out of the darkness of
+the forest, his brave soul soared free, achieving its final release from
+the sufferings of this world.... Poor Sapper Maggs!</p>
+
+<p>Francis and Monica are honeymooning on the Riviera. Gerry, I am sure,
+would have refused to attend the wedding, only he wasn't asked. Francis
+is getting a billet on the Intelligence out in France when his leave is
+up.</p>
+
+<p>I have got my step, antedated back to the day I went into Germany.
+Francis has been told that something is coming to him and me in the New
+Year's Honours.</p>
+
+<p>I don't worry much. I am going back to the front on Christmas Eve.</p>
+
+
+<p>THE END</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE RETURN OF CLUBFOOT</h2>
+
+<h4>By Valentine Williams.</h4>
+
+<p>Whilst spending a holiday in a small Central American Republic, Desmond
+Okewood, of the Secret Service, learns from a dying beach-comber of a
+hidden treasure.</p>
+
+<p>With the assistance of a millionaire, he sets out for Cock Island, in
+the Pacific. To his astonishment he discovers that the Man with the
+Clubfoot, whom he had regarded as dead, has anticipated him. It is
+obvious to Okewood that his old enemy is also in search of the hidden
+gold, and there ensues a thrilling sequence of adventures, in which the
+millionaire's pretty niece takes a prominent part.</p>
+
+<p>Okewood has the cipher, and the Man with the Clubfoot determines to
+secure it, for without that cipher it is impossible to discover the
+hiding-place of the treasure; but there is something that the Man with
+the Clubfoot does not know, whereas Okewood does.</p>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT ***</div>
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+Project Gutenberg's The Man with the Clubfoot, by Valentine Williams
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Man with the Clubfoot
+
+Author: Valentine Williams
+
+Release Date: March 9, 2005 [EBook #15302]
+[Last updated: February 27, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Ciesielski, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan, and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT
+
+                         BY VALENTINE WILLIAMS
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE SECRET HAND," "THE YELLOW STREAK," "THE RETURN OF
+CLUBFOOT," "THE ORANGE DIVAN," "CLUBFOOT THE AVENGER"
+
+                                 1918
+
+
+
+
+WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT
+
+
+"The Man with the Clubfoot" is one of the most ingenious and sinister
+secret agents in Europe. It is to him that the task is assigned of
+regaining possession of an indiscreet letter written by the Kaiser.
+
+Desmond Okewood, a young British officer with a genius for secret
+service work, sets out to thwart this man and, incidentally, discover
+the whereabouts of his brother.
+
+He penetrates into Germany disguised, and meets with many thrilling
+adventures before he finally achieves his mission.
+
+In "The Man with the Clubfoot," Valentine Williams has written a
+thrilling romance of mystery, love and intrigue, that in every sense of
+the word may be described as "breathless."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+       I. I seek a Bed in Rotterdam
+
+      II. The Cipher with the Invoice
+
+     III. A Visitor in the Night
+
+      IV. Destiny knocks at the Door
+
+       V. The Lady of the Vos in't Tuintje
+
+      VI. I board the Berlin Train and leave a Lame Gentleman on the
+          Platform
+
+     VII. In which a Silver Star acts as a Charm
+
+    VIII. I hear of Clubfoot and meet his Employer
+
+      IX. I encounter an old Acquaintance who leads me to a delightful
+          Surprise
+
+       X. A Glass of Wine with Clubfoot
+
+      XI. Miss Mary Prendergast risks her Reputation
+
+     XII. His Excellency the General is worried
+
+    XIII. I find Achilles in his Tent
+
+     XIV. Clubfoot comes to Haase's
+
+      XV. The Waiter at the Café Regina
+
+     XVI. A Hand-clasp by the Rhine
+
+    XVII. Francis takes up the Narrative
+
+   XVIII. I go on with the Story
+
+     XIX. We have a Reckoning with Clubfoot
+
+      XX. Charlemagne's Ride
+
+     XXI. Red Tabs explains
+
+
+
+
+The Man with the Clubfoot
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I SEEK A BED IN ROTTERDAM
+
+
+The reception clerk looked up from the hotel register and shook his head
+firmly. "Very sorry, saire," he said, "not a bed in ze house." And he
+closed the book with a snap.
+
+Outside the rain came down heavens hard. Every one who came into the
+brightly lit hotel vestibule entered with a gush of water. I felt I
+would rather die than face the wind-swept streets of Rotterdam again.
+
+I turned once more to the clerk who was now busy at the key-rack.
+
+"Haven't you really a corner? I wouldn't mind where it was, as it is
+only for the night. Come now..."
+
+"Very sorry, saire. We have two gentlemen sleeping in ze bathrooms
+already. If you had reserved..." And he shrugged his shoulders and bent
+towards a visitor who was demanding his key.
+
+I turned away with rage in my heart. What a cursed fool I had been not
+to wire from Groningen! I had fully intended to, but the extraordinary
+conversation I had had with Dicky Allerton had put everything else out
+of my head. At every hotel I had tried it had been the same
+story--Cooman's, the Maas, the Grand, all were full even to the
+bathrooms. If I had only wired....
+
+As I passed out into the porch I bethought myself of the porter. A hotel
+porter had helped me out of a similar plight in Breslau once years ago.
+This porter, with his red, drink-sodden face and tarnished gold braid,
+did not promise well, so far as a recommendation for a lodging for the
+night was concerned. Still...
+
+I suppose it was my mind dwelling on my experience at Breslau that made
+me address the man in German. When one has been familiar with a foreign
+tongue from one's boyhood, it requires but a very slight mental impulse
+to drop into it. From such slight beginnings do great enterprises
+spring. If I had known the immense ramification of adventure that was to
+spread its roots from that simple question, I verily believe my heart
+would have failed me and I would have run forth into the night and the
+rain and roamed the streets till morning.
+
+Well, I found myself asking the man in German if he knew where I could
+get a room for the night.
+
+He shot a quick glance at me from under his reddened eyelids.
+
+"The gentleman would doubtless like a German house?" he queried.
+
+You may hardly credit it, but my interview with Dicky Allerton that
+afternoon had simply driven the war out of my mind. When one has lived
+much among foreign peoples, one's mentality slips automatically into
+their skin. I was now thinking in German--at least so it seems to me
+when I look back upon that night--and I answered without reflecting.
+
+"I don't care where it is as long as I can get somewhere to sleep out of
+this infernal rain!"
+
+"The gentleman can have a good, clean bed at the Hotel Sixt in the
+little street they call the Vos in't Tuintje, on the canal behind the
+Bourse. The proprietress is a good German, jawohl ... Frau Anna Schratt
+her name is. The gentleman need only say he comes from Franz at the
+Bopparder Hof."
+
+I gave the man a gulden and bade him get me a cab.
+
+It was still pouring. As we rattled away over the glistening
+cobble-stones, my mind travelled back over the startling events of the
+day. My talk with old Dicky had given me such a mental jar that I found
+it at first wellnigh impossible to concentrate my thoughts. That's the
+worst of shell-shock. You think you are cured, you feel fit and well,
+and then suddenly the machinery of your mind checks and halts and
+creaks. Ever since I had left hospital convalescent after being wounded
+on the Somme ("gunshot wound in head and cerebral concussion" the
+doctors called it), I had trained myself, whenever my brain was _en
+panne_, to go back to the beginning of things and work slowly up to the
+present by methodical stages.
+
+Let's see then--I was "boarded" at Millbank and got three months' leave;
+then I did a month in the Little Johns' bungalow in Cornwall. There I
+got the letter from Dicky Allerton, who, before the war, had been in
+partnership with my brother Francis in the motor business at Coventry.
+Dicky had been with the Naval Division at Antwerp and was interned with
+the rest of the crowd when they crossed the Dutch frontier in those
+disastrous days of October, 1914.
+
+Dicky wrote from Groningen, just a line. Now that I was on leave, if I
+were fit to travel, would I come to Groningen and see him? "I have had a
+curious communication which seems to have to do with poor Francis," he
+added. That was all.
+
+My brain was still halting, so I turned to Francis. Here again I had to
+go back. Francis, rejected on all sides for active service, owing to
+what he scornfully used to call "the shirkers' ailment, varicose veins,"
+had flatly declined to carry on with his motor business after Dicky had
+joined up, although their firm was doing government work. Finally, he
+had vanished into the maw of the War Office and all I knew was that he
+was "something on the Intelligence." More than this not even _he_ would
+tell me, and when he finally disappeared from London, just about the
+time that I was popping the parapet with my battalion at Neuve Chapelle,
+he left me his London chambers as his only address for letters.
+
+Ah! now it was all coming back--Francis' infrequent letters to me about
+nothing at all, then his will, forwarded to me for safe keeping when I
+was home on leave last Christmas, and after that, silence. Not another
+letter, not a word about him, not a shred of information. He had utterly
+vanished.
+
+I remembered my frantic inquiries, my vain visits to the War Office, my
+perplexity at the imperturbable silence of the various officials I
+importuned for news of my poor brother. Then there was that lunch at the
+Bath Club with Sonny Martin of the Heavies and a friend of his, some
+kind of staff captain in red tabs. I don't think I heard his name, but I
+know he was at the War Office, and presently over our cigars and coffee
+I laid before him the mysterious facts about my brother's case.
+
+"Perhaps you knew Francis?" I said in conclusion. "Yes," he replied, "I
+know him well." "_Know_ him," I repeated, "_know_ him then ... then you
+think ... you have reason to believe he is still alive...?"
+
+Red Tabs cocked his eye at the gilded cornice of the ceiling and blew a
+ring from his cigar. But he said nothing.
+
+I persisted with my questions but it was of no avail. Red Tabs only
+laughed and said: "I know nothing at all except that your brother is a
+most delightful fellow with all your own love of getting his own way."
+
+Then Sonny Martin, who is the perfection of tact and diplomacy--probably
+on that account he failed for the Diplomatic--chipped in with an
+anecdote about a man who was rating the waiter at an adjoining table,
+and I held my peace. But as Red Tabs rose to go, a little later, he held
+my hand for a minute in his and with that curious look of his, said
+slowly and with meaning:
+
+"When a nation is at war, officers on _active service_ must occasionally
+disappear, sometimes in their country's interest, sometimes in their
+own."
+
+He emphasised the words "on active service."
+
+In a flash my eyes were opened. How blind I had been! Francis was in
+Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE CIPHER WITH THE INVOICE
+
+
+Red Tabs' sphinx-like declaration was no riddle to me. I knew at once
+that Francis must be on secret service in the enemy's country and that
+country Germany. My brother's extraordinary knowledge of the Germans,
+their customs, life and dialects, rendered him ideally suitable for any
+such perilous mission. Francis always had an extraordinary talent for
+languages: he seemed to acquire them all without any mental effort, but
+in German he was supreme. During the year that he and I spent at
+Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's house at Bonn, he rapidly outdistanced
+me, and though, at the end of our time, I could speak German like a
+German, Francis was able, in addition, to speak Bonn and Cologne
+_patois_ like a native of those ancient cities--ay and he could drill a
+squad of recruits in their own language like the smartest _Leutnant_
+ever fledged from Gross-Lichterfelde.
+
+He never had any difficulty in passing himself off as a German. Well I
+remember his delight when he was claimed as a fellow Rheinländer by a
+German officer we met, one summer before the war, combining golf with a
+little useful espionage at Cromer.
+
+I don't think Francis had any ulterior motive in his study of German.
+He simply found he had this imitative faculty; philology had always
+interested him, so even after he had gone into the motor trade, he used
+to amuse himself on business trips to Germany by acquiring new dialects.
+
+His German imitations were extraordinarily funny. One of his "star
+turns", was a noisy sitting of the Reichstag with speeches by Prince
+Bülow and August Bebel and "interruptions"; another, a patriotic oration
+by an old Prussian General at a Kaiser's birthday dinner. Francis had a
+marvellous faculty not only of _seeming_ German, but even of almost
+looking like a German, so absolutely was he able to slip into the skin
+of the part.
+
+Yet never in my wildest moments had I dreamt that he would try and get
+into Germany in war-time, into that land where every citizen is
+catalogued and pigeonholed from the cradle. But Red Tabs' oracular
+utterance had made everything clear to me. Why a mission to Germany
+would be the very thing that Francis would give his eyes to be allowed
+to attempt! Francis with his utter disregard of danger, his love of
+taking risks, his impish delight in taking a rise out of the stodgy
+Hun--why, if there were Englishmen brave enough to take chances of
+that kind, Francis would be the first to volunteer.
+
+Yes, if Francis were on a mission anywhere it would be to Germany. But
+what prospect had he of ever returning--with the frontiers closed and
+ingress and egress practically barred even to pro-German neutrals? Many
+a night in the trenches I had a mental vision of Francis, so debonair
+and so fearless, facing a firing squad of Prussian privates.
+
+From the day of the luncheon at the Bath Club to this very afternoon I
+had had no further inkling of my brother's whereabouts or fate. The
+authorities at home professed ignorance, as I knew, in duty bound, they
+would, and I had nothing to hang any theory on to until Dicky Allerton's
+letter came. Ashcroft at the F.O. fixed up my passports for me and I
+lost no time in exchanging the white gulls and red cliffs of Cornwall
+for the windmills and trim canals of Holland.
+
+And now in my breast pocket lay, written on a small piece of cheap
+foreign notepaper, the tidings I had come to Groningen to seek. Yet so
+trivial, so nonsensical, so baffling was the message that I already felt
+my trip to Holland to have been a fruitless errand.
+
+I found Dicky fat and bursting with health in his quarters at the
+internment camp. He only knew that Francis had disappeared. When I told
+him of my meeting with Red Tabs at the Bath Club, of the latter's words
+to me at parting and of my own conviction in the matter he whistled,
+then looked grave.
+
+He went straight to the point in his bluff direct way.
+
+"I am going to tell you a story first, Desmond," he said to me, "then
+I'll show you a piece of paper. Whether the two together fit in with
+your theory as to poor Francis' disappearance will be for you to judge.
+Until now I must confess--I had felt inclined to dismiss the only
+reference this document appears to make to your brother as a mere
+coincidence in names, but what you have told me makes things
+interesting--by Jove, it does, though. Well, here's the yarn first of
+all.
+
+"Your brother and I have had dealings in the past with a Dutchman in the
+motor business at Nymwegen, name of Van Urutius. He has often been over
+to see us at Coventry in the old days and Francis has stayed with him at
+Nymwegen once or twice on his way back from Germany--Nymwegen, you know,
+is close to the German frontier. Old Urutius has been very decent to me
+since I have been in gaol here and has been over several times,
+generally with a box or two of those nice Dutch cigars."
+
+"Dicky," I broke in on him, "get on with the story. What the devil's all
+this got to do with Francis? The document--"
+
+"Steady, my boy!" was the imperturbable reply, "let me spin my yarn my
+own way. I'm coming to the piece of paper....
+
+"Well, then, old Urutius came to see me ten days ago. All I knew about
+Francis I had told him, namely, that Francis had entered the army and
+was missing. It was no business of the old Mynheer if Francis was in the
+Intelligence, so I didn't tell him that. Van U. is a staunch friend of
+the English, but you know the saying that if a man doesn't know he can't
+split.
+
+"My old Dutch pal, then, turned up here ten days ago. He was bubbling
+over with excitement. 'Mr. Allerton' he says, 'I haf a writing, a most
+mysterious writing--a I think, from Francis Okewood.'
+
+"I sat tight. If there were any revelations coming they were going to be
+Dutch, not British. On that I was resolved.
+
+"'I haf received;' the old Dutchman went on, from Gairemany a parcel of
+metal shields, plates--what you call 'em--of tin, _hein?_ What I haf to
+advertise my business. They arrife las' week--I open the parcel myself
+and on the top is the envelope with the invoice.'
+
+"Mynheer paused; he has a good sense of the dramatic.
+
+"'Well', I said, 'did it bite you or say "Gott strafe England?" Or
+what?'
+
+"Van Urutius ignored my flippancy and resumed. 'I open the envelope and
+there in the invoice I find this writing--here!'
+
+"And here," said Dicky, diving into his pocket, "is the writing!"
+
+And he thrust into my eagerly outstretched hand a very thin half-sheet
+of foreign notepaper, of that kind of cheap glazed notepaper you get in
+cafes on the Continent when you ask for writing materials.
+
+Three lines of German, written in fluent German characters in purple ink
+beneath the name and address of Mynheer van Urutius ... that was all.
+
+My heart sank with disappointment and wretchedness as I read the
+inscription.
+
+Here is the document:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Herr Willem van Urutius,
+Automobilgeschäft,
+Nymwegen.
+_Alexandtr-Straat_ 81 bis.
+
+Berlin, Iten Juli, 16.
+
+O Eichenholz! O Eichenholz!
+Wie leer sind deine Blätter.
+
+Wie Achiles in dem Zelte.
+
+Wo zweie sich zanken
+Erfreut sich der Dritte.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+(Translation.)
+
+Mr. Willem van Urutius,
+Automobile Agent,
+Nymwegen.
+81 bis _Alexander-Straat._
+
+Berlin, 1st July, 16.
+
+O Oak-tree! O Oak-tree,
+How empty are thy leaves.
+
+Like Achiles in the tent.
+
+When two people fall out
+The third party rejoices.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I stared at this nonsensical document in silence. My thoughts were
+almost too bitter for words.
+
+At last I spoke.
+
+"What's all this rigmarole got to do with Francis, Dicky?" I asked,
+vainly trying to suppress the bitterness in my voice. "This looks like a
+list of copybook maxims for your Dutch friend's advertisement cards...."
+
+But I returned to the study of the piece of paper.
+
+"Not so fast, old bird," Dicky replied coolly, "let me finish my story.
+Old Stick-in-the-mud is a lot shrewder than we think.
+
+"'When I read the writing,' he told me, 'I think he is all robbish, but
+then I ask myself, Who shall put robbish in my invoices? And then I
+read the writing again and once again, and then I see he is a message.'"
+
+"Stop, Dicky!" I cried, "of course, what an ass I am! Why
+_Eichenholz_...."
+
+"Exactly," retorted Dicky, "as the old Mynheer was the first to see,
+_Eichenholz_ translated into English is 'Oak-tree' or 'Oak-wood'--in
+other words, Francis."
+
+"Then, Dicky...." I interrupted.
+
+"Just a minute," said Dicky, putting up his hand. "I confess I thought,
+on first seeing this message or whatever it is, that there must be
+simply a coincidence of name and that somebody's idle scribbling had
+found its way into old van U.'s invoice. But now that you have told me
+that Francis may have actually got into Germany, then, I must say, it
+looks as if this might be an attempt of his to communicate with home."
+
+"Where did the Dutchman's packet of stuff come from?" I asked.
+
+"From the Berlin Metal Works in Steglitz, a suburb of Berlin: he has
+dealt with them for years."
+
+"But then what does all the rest of it mean ... all this about Achilles
+and the rest?"
+
+"Ah, Desmond!" was Dicky's reply, "that's where you've got not only me,
+but also Mynheer van Urutius."
+
+"'O oak-wood! O oak-wood, how empty are thy leaves!'.... That sounds
+like a taunt, don't you think, Dicky?" said I.
+
+"_Or_ a confession of failure from Francis ... to let us know that he
+has done nothing, adding that he is accordingly sulking 'like Achilles
+in his tent.'"
+
+"But, see here, Richard Allerton," I said, "Francis would never spell
+'Achilles' with one 'l' ... now, would he?"
+
+"By Jove!" said Dicky, looking at the paper again, "nobody would but a
+very uneducated person. I know nothing about German, but tell me, is
+that the hand of an educated German? Is it Francis' handwriting?"
+
+"Certainly, it is an educated hand," I replied, "but I'm dashed if I can
+say whether it is Francis' German handwriting: it can scarcely be
+because, as I have already remarked, he spells 'Achilles' with one 'l.'"
+
+Then the fog came down over us again. We sat helplessly and gazed at the
+fateful paper.
+
+"There's only one thing for it, Dicky," I said finally, "I'll take the
+blooming thing back to London with me and hand it over to the
+Intelligence. After all, Francis may have a code with them. Possibly
+they will see light where we grope in darkness."
+
+"Desmond," said Dicky, giving me his hand, "that's the most sensible
+suggestion you've made yet. Go home and good luck to you. But promise me
+you'll come back here and tell me if that piece of paper brings the
+news that dear old Francis is alive."
+
+So I left Dicky but I did not go home. I was not destined to see my home
+for many a weary week.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A VISITOR IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+A volley of invective from the box of the cab--bad language in Dutch is
+fearfully effective--aroused me from my musings. The cab, a small,
+uncomfortable box with a musty smell, stopped with a jerk that flung me
+forward. From the outer darkness furious altercation resounded above the
+plashing of the rain. I peered through the streaming glass of the
+windows but could distinguish nothing save the yellow blur of a lamp.
+Then a vehicle of some kind seemed to move away in front of us, for I
+heard the grating of wheels against the kerb, and my cab drew up to the
+pavement.
+
+On alighting, I found myself in a narrow, dark street with high houses
+on either side. A grimy lamp with the word "Hôtel" in half-obliterated
+characters painted on it hung above my head, announcing that I had
+arrived at my destination. As I paid off the cabman another cab passed.
+It was apparently the one with which my Jehu had had words, for he
+turned round and shouted abuse into the night.
+
+My cabman departed, leaving me with my bag on the pavement at my feet,
+gazing at a narrow dirty door, the upper half of which was filled in
+with frosted glass. I was at last awake to the fact that I, an
+Englishman, was going to spend the night in a German hotel to which I
+had been specially recommended by a German porter on the understanding
+that I was a German. I knew that, according to the Dutch neutrality
+regulations, my passport would have to be handed in for inspection by
+the police and that therefore I could not pass myself off as a German.
+
+"Bah!" I said to give myself courage, "this is a free country, a neutral
+country. They may be offensive, they may overcharge you, in a Hun hotel,
+but they can't eat you. Besides, any bed in a night like this!" and I
+pushed open the door.
+
+Within, the hotel proved to be rather better than its uninviting
+exterior promised. There was a small vestibule with a little glass cage
+of an office on one side and beyond it an old-fashioned flight of
+stairs, with a glass knob on the post at the foot, winding to the upper
+stories.
+
+At the sound of my footsteps on the mosaic flooring, a waiter emerged
+from a little cubby-hole under the stairs. He had a blue apron girt
+about his waist, but otherwise he wore the short coat and the dicky and
+white tie of the Continental hotel waiter. His hands were grimy with
+black marks and so was his apron. He had apparently been cleaning
+boots.
+
+He was a big, fat, blonde man with narrow, cruel little eyes. His hair
+was cut so short that his head appeared to be shaven. He advanced
+quickly towards me and asked me in German in a truculent voice what I
+wanted.
+
+I replied in the same language, I wanted a room.
+
+He shot a glance at me through his little slits of eyes on hearing my
+good Bonn accent, but his manner did not change.
+
+"The hotel is full. The gentleman cannot have a bed here. The
+proprietress is out at present. I regret...." He spat this all out in
+the offhand insolent manner of the Prussian official.
+
+"It was Franz, of the Bopparder Hof, who recommended me to come here," I
+said. I was not going out again into the rain for a whole army of
+Prussian waiters.
+
+"He told me that Frau Schratt would make me very comfortable," I added.
+
+The waiter's manner changed at once.
+
+"So, so," he said--quite genially this time--"it was Franz who sent the
+gentleman to us. He is a good friend of the house, is Franz. Ja, Frau
+Schratt is unfortunately out just now, but as soon as the lady returns I
+will inform her you are here. In the meantime, I will give the gentleman
+a room."
+
+He handed me a candlestick and a key.
+
+"So," he grunted, "No. 31, the third floor."
+
+A clock rang out the hour somewhere in the distance.
+
+"Ten o'clock already," he said. "The gentleman's papers can wait till
+to-morrow, it is so late. Or perhaps the gentleman will give them to the
+proprietress. She must come any moment."
+
+As I mounted the winding staircase I heard him murmur again:
+
+"So, so, Franz sent him here! Ach, der Franz!"
+
+As soon as I had passed out of sight of the lighted hall I found myself
+in complete darkness. On each landing a jet of gas, turned down low,
+flung a dim and flickering light a few yards around. On the third floor
+I was able to distinguish by the gas rays a small plaque fastened to the
+wall inscribed with an arrow pointing to the right above the figures:
+46-30.
+
+I stopped to strike a match to light my candle. The whole hotel seemed
+wrapped in silence, the only sound the rushing of water in the gutters
+without. Then from the darkness of the narrow corridor that stretched
+out in front of me, I heard the rattle of a key in a lock.
+
+I advanced down the corridor, the pale glimmer of my candle showing me
+as I passed a succession of yellow doors, each bearing a white porcelain
+plate inscribed with a number in black. No. 46 was the first room on
+the right counting from the landing: the even numbers were on the right,
+the odd on the left: therefore I reckoned on finding my room the last on
+the left at the end of the corridor.
+
+The corridor presently took a sharp turn. As I came round the bend I
+heard again the sound of a key and then the rattling of a door knob, but
+the corridor bending again, I could not see the author of the noise
+until I had turned the corner.
+
+I ran right into a man fumbling at a door on the left-hand side of the
+passage, the last door but one. A mirror at the end of the corridor
+caught and threw back the reflection of my candle.
+
+The man looked up as I approached. He was wearing a soft black felt hat
+and a black overcoat and on his arm hung an umbrella streaming with
+rain. His candlestick stood on the floor at his feet. It had apparently
+just been extinguished, for my nostrils sniffed the odour of burning
+tallow.
+
+"You have a light?" the stranger said in German in a curiously
+breathless voice. "I have just come upstairs and the wind blew out my
+candle and I could not get the door open. Perhaps you could ..." He
+broke off gasping and put his hand to his heart.
+
+"Allow me," I said. The lock of the door was inverted and to open the
+door you had to insert the key upside-down. I did so and the door
+opened easily. As it swung back I noticed the number of the room was 33,
+next door to mine.
+
+"Can I be of any assistance to you? Are you unwell?" I said, at the same
+time lifting my candle and scanning the stranger's features.
+
+He was a young man with close-cropped black hair, fine dark eyes and an
+aquiline nose with a deep furrow between the eyebrows. The crispness of
+his hair and the high cheekbones gave a suggestion of Jewish blood. His
+face was very pale and his lips were blueish. I saw the perspiration
+glistening on his forehead.
+
+"Thank you, it is nothing," the man replied in the same breathless
+voice. "I am only a little out of breath with carrying my bag upstairs.
+That's all."
+
+"You must have arrived just before I did," I said, remembering the cab
+that had driven away from the hotel as I drove up.
+
+"That is so," he answered, pushing open his door as he spoke. He
+disappeared into the darkness of the room and suddenly the door shut
+with a slam that re-echoed through the house.
+
+As I had calculated, my room was next door to his, the end room of the
+corridor. It smelt horribly close and musty and the first thing I did
+was to stride across to the windows and fling them back wide.
+
+I found myself looking across a dark and narrow canal, on whose
+stagnant water loomed large the black shapes of great barges, into the
+windows of gaunt and weather-stained houses over the way. Not a light
+shone in any window. Away in the distance the same clock as I had heard
+before struck the quarter--a single, clear chime.
+
+It was the regular bedroom of the _maison meublée_--worn carpet,
+discoloured and dingy wallpaper, faded rep curtains and mahogany
+bedstead with a vast _édredon_, like a giant pincushion. My candle,
+guttering wildly in the unaccustomed breeze blowing dankly through the
+chamber, was the sole illuminant. There was neither gas nor electric
+light laid on.
+
+The house had relapsed into quiet. The bedroom had an evil look and
+this, combined with the dank air from the canal, gave my thoughts a
+sombre tinge.
+
+"Well," I said to myself, "you're a nice kind of ass! Here you are, a
+British officer, posing as a brother Hun in a cut-throat Hun hotel, with
+a waiter who looks like the official Prussian executioner. What's going
+to happen to you, young feller my lad, when Madame comes along and finds
+you have a British passport? A very pretty kettle of fish, I must say!
+
+"And suppose Madame takes it into her head to toddle along up here
+to-night and calls your bluff and summons the gentle Hans or Fritz or
+whatever that ruffianly waiter's name is to come upstairs and settle
+your hash! What sort of a fight are you going to put up in that narrow
+corridor out there with a Hun next door and probably on every side of
+you, and no exit this end? You don't know a living soul in Rotterdam and
+no one will be a penny the wiser if you vanish off the face of the
+earth ... at any rate no one on this side of the water."
+
+Starting to undress, I noticed a little door on the left-hand side of
+the bed. I found it opened into a small _cabinet de toilette_, a narrow
+slip of a room with a wash-hand stand and a very dirty window covered
+with yellow paper. I pulled open this window with great difficulty--it
+cannot have been opened for years--and found it gave on to a very small
+and deep interior court, just an air shaft round which the house was
+built. At the bottom was a tiny paved court not more than five foot
+square, entirely isolated save on one side where there was a basement
+window with a flight of steps leading down from the court through an
+iron grating. From this window a faint yellow streak of light was
+visible. The air was damp and chill and horrid odours of a dirty kitchen
+were wafted up the shaft. So I closed the window and set about turning
+in.
+
+I took off my coat and waistcoat, then bethought me of the mysterious
+document I had received from Dicky. Once more I looked at those
+enigmatical words:
+
+_O Oak-wood! O Oak-wood_ (for that much was
+clear),
+_How empty are thy leaves.
+_Like Achiles_ (with one "l") _in the tent.
+When two people fall out
+The third party rejoices._
+
+What did it all mean? Had Francis fallen out with some confederate who,
+having had his revenge by denouncing my brother, now took this
+extraordinary step to announce his victim's fate to the latter's
+friends? "Like Achilles in the tent!" Why not "in _his_ tent"?
+Surely ...
+
+A curious choking noise, the sound of a strangled cough, suddenly broke
+the profound silence of the house. My heart seemed to stop for a moment.
+I hardly dared raise my eyes from the paper which I was conning, leaning
+over the table in my shirt and trousers.
+
+The noise continued, a hideous, deep-throated gurgling. Then I heard a
+faint foot-fall in the corridor without.
+
+I raised my eyes to the door.
+
+Someone or something was scratching the panels, furiously, frantically.
+
+The door-knob was rattled loudly. The noise broke in raucously upon that
+horrid gurgling sound without. It snapped the spell that bound me.
+
+I moved resolutely towards the door. Even as I stepped forward the
+gurgling resolved itself into a strangled cry.
+
+"Ach! ich sterbe" were the words I heard.
+
+Then the door burst open with a crash, there was a swooping rush of wind
+and rain through the room, the curtains flapped madly from the windows.
+
+The candle flared up wildly.
+
+Then it went out.
+
+Something fell heavily into the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DESTINY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR
+
+
+There are two things at least that modern warfare teaches you, one is to
+keep cool in an emergency, the other is not to be afraid of a corpse.
+Therefore I was scarcely surprised to find myself standing there in the
+dark calmly reviewing the extraordinary situation in which I now found
+myself. That's the curious thing about shell-shock: after it a motor
+back-firing or a tyre bursting will reduce a man to tears, but in face
+of danger he will probably find himself in full possession of his wits
+as long as there is no sudden and violent noise connected with it.
+
+Brief as the sounds without had been, I was able on reflection to
+identify that gasping gurgle, that rapid patter of the hands. Anyone who
+has seen a man die quickly knows them. Accordingly I surmised that
+somebody had come to my door at the point of death, probably to seek
+assistance.
+
+Then I thought of the man next door, his painful breathlessness, his
+blueish lips, when I found him wrestling with his key, and I guessed
+who was my nocturnal visitor lying prone in the dark at my feet.
+
+Shielding the candle with my hand I rekindled it. Then I grappled with
+the flapping curtains and got the windows shut. Then only did I raise my
+candle until its beams shone down upon the silent figure lying across
+the threshold of the room.
+
+It was the man from No. 33. He was quite dead. His face was livid and
+distorted, his eyes glassy between the half-closed lids, while his
+fingers, still stiffly clutching, showed paint and varnish and dust
+beneath the nails where he had pawed door and carpet in his death agony.
+
+One did not need to be a doctor to see that a heart attack had swiftly
+and suddenly struck him down.
+
+Now that I knew the worst I acted with decision. I dragged the body by
+the shoulders into the room until it lay in the centre of the carpet.
+Then I locked the door.
+
+The foreboding of evil that had cast its black shadow over my thoughts
+from the moment I crossed the threshold of this sinister hotel came over
+me strongly again. Indeed, my position was, to say the least, scarcely
+enviable. Here was I, a British officer with British papers of identity,
+about to be discovered in a German hotel, into which I had introduced
+myself under false pretences, at dead of night alone with the corpse of
+a German or Austrian (for such the dead man apparently was)!
+
+It was undoubtedly a most awkward fix.
+
+I listened.
+
+Everything in the hotel was silent as the grave.
+
+I turned from my gloomy forebodings to look again at the stranger. In
+his crisp black hair and slightly protuberant cheekbones I traced again
+the hint of Jewish ancestry I had remarked before. Now that the man's
+eyes--his big, thoughtful eyes that had stared at me out of the darkness
+of the corridor--were closed, he looked far less foreign than before: in
+fact he might almost have passed as an Englishman.
+
+He was a young man--about my own age, I judged--(I shall be twenty-eight
+next birthday) and about my own height, which is five feet ten. There
+was something about his appearance and build that struck a chord very
+faintly in my memory.
+
+Had I seen the fellow before?
+
+I remembered now that I had noticed something oddly familiar about him
+when I first saw him for that brief moment in the corridor.
+
+I looked down at him again as he lay on his back on the faded carpet. I
+brought the candle down closer and scanned his features.
+
+He certainly looked less foreign than he did before. He might not be a
+German after all: more likely a Hungarian or a Pole, perhaps even a
+Dutchman. His German had been too flawless for a Frenchman--for a
+Hungarian, either, for that matter.
+
+I leant back on my knees to ease my cramped position. As I did so I
+caught a glimpse of the stranger's three-quarters face.
+
+Why! He reminded me of Francis a little!
+
+There certainly was a suggestion of my brother in the man's appearance.
+Was it the thick black hair, the small dark moustache? Was it the
+well-chiselled mouth? It was rather a hint of Francis than a resemblance
+to him.
+
+The stranger was fully dressed. The jacket of his blue serge suit had
+fallen open and I saw a portfolio in the inner breast pocket. Here, I
+thought, might be a clue to the dead man's identity. I fished out the
+portfolio, then rapidly ran my fingers over the stranger's other
+pockets.
+
+I left the portfolio to the last.
+
+The jacket pockets contained nothing else except a white silk
+handkerchief unmarked. In the right-hand top pocket of the waistcoat was
+a neat silver cigarette case, perfectly plain, containing half a dozen
+cigarettes. I took one out and looked at it. It was a Melania, a
+cigarette I happen to know for they stock them at one of my clubs, the
+Dionysus, and it chances to be the only place in London where you can
+get the brand.
+
+It looked as if my unknown friend had come from London.
+
+There was also a plain silver watch of Swiss make.
+
+In the trousers pocket was some change, a little English silver and
+coppers, some Dutch silver and paper money. In the right-hand trouser
+pocket was a bunch of keys.
+
+That was all.
+
+I put the different articles on the floor beside me. Then I got up, put
+the candle on the table, drew the chair up to it and opened the
+portfolio.
+
+In a little pocket of the inner flap were visiting cards. Some were
+simply engraved with the name in small letters:
+
+Dr. Semlin
+
+Others were more detailed:
+
+Dr. Semlin, Brooklyn, N.Y.
+The Halewright Mfg. Co., Ltd.
+
+There were also half a dozen private cards:
+
+Dr. Semlin, 333 E. 73rd St., New York.
+Rivington Park House.
+
+In the packet of cards was a solitary one, larger than the rest, an
+expensive affair on thick, highly glazed millboard, bearing in gothic
+characters the name:
+
+Otto von Steinhardt.
+
+On this card was written in pencil, above the name:
+
+"Hotel Sixt, Vos in't Tuintje," and in brackets, thus: "(Mme. Anna
+Schratt.)"
+
+In another pocket of the portfolio was an American passport surmounted
+by a flaming eagle and sealed with a vast red seal, sending greetings to
+all and sundry on behalf of Henry Semlin, a United States citizen,
+travelling to Europe. Details in the body of the document set forth that
+Henry Semlin was born at Brooklyn on 31st March, 1886, that his hair was
+Black, nose Aquiline, chin Firm, and that of special marks he had None.
+The description was good enough to show me that it was undoubtedly the
+body of Henry Semlin that lay at my feet.
+
+The passport had been issued at Washington three months earlier. The
+only _visa_ it bore was that of the American Embassy in London, dated
+two days previously. With it was a British permit, issued to Henry
+Semlin, Manufacturer, granting him authority to leave the United Kingdom
+for the purpose of travelling to Rotterdam, further a bill for luncheon
+served on board the Dutch Royal mail steamer _Koningin Regentes_ on
+yesterday's date.
+
+In the long and anguishing weeks that followed on that anxious night in
+the Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often wondered to what
+malicious promptings, to what insane impulse, I owed the idea that
+suddenly germinated in my brain as I sat fingering the dead man's
+letter-case in that squalid room. The impulse sprang into my brain like
+a flash and like a flash I acted on it, though I can hardly believe I
+meant to pursue it to its logical conclusion until I stood once more
+outside the door of my room.
+
+The examination of the dead man's papers had shown me that he was an
+American business man, who had just come from London, having but
+recently proceeded to England from the United States.
+
+What puzzled me was why an American manufacturer, seemingly of some
+substance and decently dressed, should go to a German hotel on the
+recommendation of a German, from his name, and the style of his visiting
+card, a man of good family.
+
+Semlin might, of course, have been, like myself, a traveller benighted
+in Rotterdam, owing his recommendation to the hotel to a German
+acquaintance in the city. Still, Americans are cautious folk and I found
+it rather improbable that this American business man should adventure
+himself into this evil-looking house with a large sum of money on his
+person--he had several hundred pounds of money in Dutch currency notes
+in a thick wad in his portfolio.
+
+I knew that the British authorities discouraged, as far as they could,
+neutrals travelling to and fro between England and Germany in war-time.
+Possibly Semlin wanted to do business in Germany on his European trip as
+well as in England. Knowing the attitude of the British authorities, he
+may well have made his arrangements in Holland for getting into Germany
+lest the British police should get wind of his purpose and stop him
+crossing to Rotterdam.
+
+But his German was so flawless, with no trace of Americanism in voice or
+accent. And I knew what good use the German Intelligence had made of
+neutral passports in the past. Therefore I determined to go next door
+and have a look at Dr. Semlin's luggage. In the back of my mind was ever
+that harebrain resolve, half-formed as yet but none the less firmly
+rooted in my head.
+
+Taking up my candle again, I stole out of the room. As I stood in the
+corridor and turned to lock the bedroom door behind me, the mirror at
+the end of the passage caught the reflection of my candle.
+
+I looked and saw myself in the glass, a white, staring face.
+
+I looked again. Then I fathomed the riddle that had puzzled me in the
+dead face of the stranger in my room.
+
+It was not the face of Francis that his features suggested.
+
+It was mine!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next moment I found myself in No. 33. I could see no sign of the key
+of the room; Semlin must have dropped it in his fall, so it behoved me
+to make haste for fear of any untoward interruption. I had not yet heard
+eleven strike on the clock.
+
+The stranger's hat and overcoat lay on a chair. The hat was from
+Scott's: there was nothing except a pair of leather gloves in the
+overcoat pockets.
+
+A bag, in size something between a small kit-bag and a large handbag,
+stood open on the table. It contained a few toilet necessaries, a pair
+of pyjamas, a clean shirt, a pair of slippers, ... nothing of importance
+and not a scrap of paper of any kind.
+
+I went through everything again, looked in the sponge bag, opened the
+safety razor case, shook out the shirt, and finally took everything out
+of the bag and stacked the things on the table.
+
+At the bottom of the bag I made a strange discovery. The interior of
+the bag was fitted with that thin yellow canvas-like material with which
+nearly all cheap bags, like this one was, are lined. At the bottom of
+the bag an oblong piece of the lining had apparently been torn clean
+out. The leather of the bag showed through the slit. Yet the lining
+round the edges of the gap showed no fraying, no trace of rough usage.
+On the contrary, the edges were pasted neatly down on the leather.
+
+I lifted the bag and examined it. As I did so I saw lying on the table
+beside it an oblong of yellow canvas. I picked it up and found the under
+side stained with paste and the brown of the leather.
+
+It was the missing piece of lining and it was stiff with something that
+crackled inside it.
+
+I slit the piece of canvas up one side with my penknife. It contained
+three long fragments of paper, a thick, expensive, highly glazed paper.
+Top, bottom and left-hand side of each was trim and glossy: the fourth
+side showed a broken edge as though it had been roughly cut with a
+knife. The three slips of paper were the halves of three quarto sheets
+of writing, torn in two, lengthways, from top to bottom.
+
+At the top of each slip was part of some kind of crest in gold, what, it
+was not possible to determine, for the crest had been in the centre of
+the sheet and the cut had gone right through it.
+
+The letter was written in English but the name of the recipient as also
+the date was on the missing half.
+
+Somewhere in the silence of the night I heard a door bang. I thrust the
+slips of paper in their canvas covering into my trousers pocket. I must
+not be found in that room. With trembling hands I started to put the
+things back in the bag. Those slips of paper, I reflected as I worked,
+at least rent the veil of mystery enveloping the corpse that lay
+stiffening in the next room. This, at any rate, was certain: German or
+American or hyphenate, Henry Semlin, manufacturer and spy, had voyaged
+from America to England not for the purposes of trade but to get hold of
+that mutilated document now reposing in my pocket. Why he had only got
+half the letter and what had happened to the other half was more than I
+could say ... it sufficed for me to know that its importance to somebody
+was sufficient to warrant a journey on its behalf from one side to the
+other of the Atlantic.
+
+As I opened the bag my fingers encountered a hard substance, as of
+metal, embedded in the slack of the lining in the joints of the mouth.
+At first I thought it was a coin, then I felt some kind of clasp or
+fastening behind it and it seemed to be a brooch. Out came my pocket
+knife again and there lay a small silver star, about as big as a
+regimental cap badge, embedded in the thin canvas. It bore an
+inscription. In stencilled letters I read:
+
+O2 G
+Abt. VII.
+
+Here was Dr. Semlin's real visiting-card.
+
+I held in my hand a badge of the German secret police.
+
+You cannot penetrate far behind the scenes in Germany without coming
+across the traces of Section Seven of the Berlin Police Presidency, the
+section that is known euphemistically as that of the Political Police.
+Ostensibly it attends to the safety of the monarch, and of distinguished
+personages generally, and the numerous suite that used to accompany the
+Kaiser on his visits to England invariably included two or three
+top-hatted representatives of the section.
+
+The ramifications of _Abteilung Sieben_ are, in reality, much wider. It
+does such work in connection with the newspapers as is even too dirty
+for the German Foreign Office to touch, comprising everything from the
+launching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets against
+inconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthful
+foreign correspondents to the frontier. It is the obedient handmaiden of
+the Intelligence Department of both War Office and Admiralty in Germany,
+and renders faithful service to the espionage which is constantly
+maintained on officials, politicians, the clergy and the general public
+in that land of careful organisation.
+
+Section Seven is a vast subterranean department. Always working in the
+dark, its political complexion is a handy cloak for blacker and more
+sinister activities. It is frequently entrusted with commissions of
+which it would be inexpedient for official Germany to have cognizance
+and of which, accordingly, official Germany can always safely repudiate
+when occasion demands.
+
+I thrust the pin of the badge into my braces and fastened it there,
+crammed the rest of the dead man's effects into his bag, stuck his hat
+upon my head and threw his overcoat on my arm, picked up his bag and
+crept away. In another minute I was back in my room, my brain aflame
+with the fire of a great enterprise.
+
+Here, to my hand, lay the key of that locked land which held the secret
+of my lost brother. The question I had been asking myself, ever since I
+had first discovered the dead man's American papers of identity, was
+this. Had I the nerve to avail myself of Semlin's American passport to
+get into Germany? The answer to that question lay in the little silver
+badge. I knew that no German official, whatever his standing, whatever
+his orders, would refuse passage to the silver star of Section Seven. It
+need only be used, too, as a last resource, for I had my papers as a
+neutral. Could I but once set foot in Germany, I was quite ready to
+depend on my wits to see me through. One advantage, I knew, I must
+forgo. That was the half-letter in its canvas case.
+
+If that document was of importance to Section Seven of the German
+Police, then it was of equal, nay, of greater importance to my country.
+If I went, that should remain behind in safe keeping. On that I was
+determined.
+
+"Never before, since the war began," I told myself, "can any Englishman
+have had such an opportunity vouchsafed to him for getting easily and
+safely into that jealously guarded land as you have now! You have plenty
+of money, what with your own and this ..." and I fingered Semlin's wad
+of notes, "and provided you can keep your head sufficiently to remember
+always that you are a German, once over the frontier you should be able
+to give the Huns the slip and try and follow up the trail of poor
+Francis.
+
+"And maybe," I argued further (so easily is one's better judgment
+defeated when one is young and set on a thing), "maybe in German
+surroundings, you may get some sense into that mysterious jingle you got
+from Dicky Allerton as the sole existing clue to the disappearance of
+Francis."
+
+Nevertheless, I wavered. The risks were awful. I had to get out of that
+evil hotel in the guise of Dr. Semlin, with, as the sole safeguard
+against exposure, should I fall in with the dead man's employers or
+friends, that slight and possibly imaginative resemblance between him
+and me: I had to take such measures as would prevent the fraud from
+being detected when the body was discovered in the hotel: above all, I
+had to ascertain, before I could definitely resolve to push on into
+Germany, whether Semlin was already known to the people at the hotel or
+whether--as I surmised to be the case--this was also his first visit to
+the house in the Vos in't Tuintje.
+
+In any case, I was quite determined in my own mind that the only way to
+get out of the place with Semlin's document without considerable
+unpleasantness, if not grave danger, would be to transfer his identity
+and effects to myself and vice versa. When I saw the way a little
+clearer I could decide whether to take the supreme risk and adventure
+myself into the enemy's country.
+
+Whatever I was going to do, there were not many hours of the night left
+in which to act, and I was determined to be out of that house of ill
+omen before day dawned. If I could get clear of the hotel and at the
+same time ascertain that Semlin was as much a stranger there as myself,
+I could decide on my further course of action in the greater freedom of
+the streets of Rotterdam. One thing was certain: the waiter had let the
+question of Semlin's papers stand over until the morning, as he had done
+in my case, for Semlin still had his passport in his possession.
+
+After all, if Semlin was unknown at the hotel, the waiter had only seen
+him for the same brief moment as he had seen me.
+
+Thus I reasoned and argued with myself, but in the meantime I acted. I
+had nothing compromising in my suit-case, so that caused no difficulty.
+My British passport and permit and anything bearing any relation to my
+personality, such as my watch and cigarette case, both of which were
+engraved with my initials, I transferred to the dead man's pockets. As I
+bent over the stiff, cold figure with its livid face and clutching
+fingers, I felt a difficulty which I had hitherto resolutely shirked
+forcing itself squarely into the forefront of my mind.
+
+What was I going to do about the body?
+
+At that moment came a low knocking.
+
+With a sudden sinking at the heart I remembered I had forgotten to lock
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE LADY OF THE VOS IN'T TUINTJE
+
+
+Here was Destiny knocking at the door. In that instant my mind was made
+up. For the moment, at any rate, I had every card in my hands. I would
+bluff these stodgy Huns: I would brazen it out: I would be Semlin and go
+through with it to the bitter end, aye, and if it took me to the very
+gates of Hell.
+
+The knocking was repeated.
+
+"May one come in?" said a woman's voice in German.
+
+I stepped across the corpse and opened the door a foot or so.
+
+There stood a woman with a lamp. She was a middle-aged woman with an
+egg-shaped face, fat and white and puffy, and pale, crafty eyes. She was
+in her outdoor clothes, with an enormous vulgar-looking hat and an
+old-fashioned sealskin cape with a high collar. The cape which was
+glistening with rain was half open, and displayed a vast bosom tightly
+compressed into a white silk blouse. In one hand she carried an oil
+lamp.
+
+"Frau Schratt," she said by way of introduction, and raised the lamp to
+look more closely at me.
+
+Then I saw her face change. She was looking past me into the room, and I
+knew that the lamplight was falling full upon the ghastly thing that lay
+upon the floor.
+
+I realized the woman was about to scream, so I seized her by the wrist.
+She had disgusting hands, fat and podgy and covered with rings.
+
+"Quiet!" I whispered fiercely in her ear, never relaxing my grip on her
+wrist. "You will be quiet and come in here, do you understand?"
+
+She sought to shrink from me, but I held her fast and drew her into the
+room.
+
+She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse. She
+seemed to have regained her self-possession. The woman was no longer
+frightened. I felt instinctively that her fears had been all for
+herself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor. When she
+spoke her manner was almost business-like.
+
+"I was told nothing of this," she said. "Who is it? What do you want me
+to do?"
+
+Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant
+odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of
+death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking
+in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that
+makes my blood run cold whenever I think of her.
+
+Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed. She became
+polite. She was obsequious. Of the two, the first manner became her
+vastly better. She looked at me with a curious air, almost with
+reverence, as it seemed to me. She said, in a purring voice:
+
+"Ach, so! I did not understand. The gentleman must excuse me."
+
+And she purred again:
+
+"So!"
+
+It was then I noticed that her eyes were fastened upon my chest. I
+followed their direction.
+
+They rested on the silver badge I had stuck in my braces.
+
+I understood and held my peace. Silence was my only trump until I knew
+how the land lay. If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all I
+wanted to know.
+
+In fact, she began to speak again.
+
+"I expected _you_," she said, "but not... _this_. Who is it this time? A
+Frenchman, eh?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"An Englishman," I said curtly.
+
+Her eyes opened in wonder.
+
+"Ach, nein!" she cried--and you would have said her voice vibrated with
+pleasure--"An Englishman! Ei, ei!"
+
+If ever a human being licked its chops, that woman did.
+
+She wagged her head and repeated to herself:
+
+"Ei, ei !" adding, as if to explain her surprise, "he is the first we
+have had.
+
+"You brought him here, eh! But why up here? Or did der Stelze send him?"
+
+She fired this string of questions at me without pausing for a reply.
+She continued:
+
+"I was out, but Karl told me. There was another came, too: Franz sent
+him."
+
+"This is he," I said. "I caught him prying in my room and he died."
+
+"Ach!" she ejaculated ... and in her voice was all the world of
+admiration that a German woman feels for brute man.... "The Herr
+Englander came into your room and he died. So, so! But one must speak to
+Franz. The man drinks too much. He is always drunk. He makes mistakes.
+It will not do. I will...."
+
+"I wish you to do nothing against Franz," I said. "This Englishman spoke
+German well: Karl will tell you."
+
+"As the gentleman wishes," was the woman's reply in a voice so silky and
+so servile that I felt my gorge rise.
+
+"She looks like a slug!" I said to myself, as she stood there, fat and
+sleek and horrible.
+
+"Here are his passport and other papers," I said, bending down and
+taking them from the dead man's pocket. "He was an English officer, you
+see?" And I unfolded the little black book stamped with the Royal Arms.
+
+She leant forward and I was all but stifled with the stale odour of the
+patchouli with which her faded body was drenched.
+
+Then, making a sheaf of passport and permit, I held them in the flame of
+the candle.
+
+"But we always keep them!" expostulated the hotel-keeper.
+
+"This passport must die with the man," I replied firmly. "He must not be
+traced. I want no awkward enquiries made, you understand. Therefore ..."
+and I flung the burning mass of papers into the grate.
+
+"Good, good!" said the German and put her lamp down on the table. "There
+was a telephone message for you," she added, "to say that der Stelze
+will come at eight in the morning to receive what you have brought."
+
+The deuce! This was getting awkward. Who the devil was Stelze?
+
+"Coming at eight is he?" I said, simply for the sake of saying
+something.
+
+"Jawohl!" replied Frau Schratt. "He was here already this morning. He
+was nervous, oh! very, and expected you to be here. Already two days he
+is waiting here to go on."
+
+"So," I said, "he is going to take ... _it_ on with him, is he?" (I
+knew where he was "going on" to, well enough: he was going to see that
+document safe into Germany.)
+
+There was a malicious ring in the woman's voice when she spoke of
+Stelze. I thought I might profit by this. So I drew her out.
+
+"So Stelze called to-day and gave you his orders, did he?" I said,
+"and ... and took charge of things generally, eh?"
+
+Her little eyes snapped viciously.
+
+"Ach!" she said, "der Stelze is der Stelze. He has power; he has
+authority; he can make and unmake men. But I ... I in my time have
+broken a dozen better men than he and yet he dares to tell Anna Schratt
+that ... that ..."
+
+She raised her voice hysterically, but broke off before she could finish
+the sentence. I saw she thought she had said too much.
+
+"He won't play that game with me," I said. Strength is the quality that
+every German, man, woman and child, respects, and strength alone. My
+safety depended on my showing this ignoble creature that I received
+orders from no one. "You know what he is. One runs the risk, one takes
+trouble, one is successful. Then he steps in and gathers the laurels.
+No, I am not going to wait for him."
+
+The hotel-keeper sprang to her feet, her faded face all ravaged by the
+shadow of a great fear.
+
+"You wouldn't dare!" she said.
+
+"I would," I retorted. "I've done my work and I'll report to
+head-quarters and to no one else!"
+
+My eyes fell upon the body.
+
+"Now, what are we going to do with this?" I said. "You must help me,
+Frau Schratt. This is serious. This must not be found here."
+
+She looked up at me in surprise.
+
+"That?" she said, and she kicked the body with her foot. "Oh, that will
+be all right with die Schratt! 'It must not be found here'" (she
+mimicked my grave tone). "It will not be found here, young man!"
+
+And she chuckled with all the full-bodied good humour of a fat person.
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I mean what I mean, young man, and what you mean," she replied. "When
+they are in a difficulty, when there are complications, when there is
+any unpleasantness.. like _this_ ... they remember die Schratt, 'die
+fesche Anna,' as they called me once, and it is 'gnadige Frau' here and
+'gnadige Frau' there and a diamond bracelet or a pearl ring, if only I
+will do the little conjuring trick that will smooth everything over. But
+when all goes well, then I am 'old Schratt,' 'old hag,' 'old woman,' and
+I must take my orders and beg nicely and ... bah!"
+
+Her words ended in a gulp, which in any other woman would have been a
+sob.
+
+Then she added in her hard harlot's voice:
+
+"You needn't worry your head about _him,_ there! Leave him to me! It's
+my trade!"
+
+At those words, which covered God only knows what horrors of midnight
+disappearances, of ghoulish rites with packing-case and sack, in the
+dark cellars of that evil house, I felt that, could I but draw back from
+the enterprise to which I had so rashly committed myself, I would do so
+gladly. Only then did I begin to realize something of the utter
+ruthlessness, the cold, calculating ferocity, of the most bitter and
+most powerful enemy which the British Empire has ever had.
+
+But it was too late to withdraw now. The die was cast. Destiny, knocking
+at my door, had found me ready to follow, and I was committed to
+whatever might befall me in my new personality.
+
+The German woman turned to go.
+
+"Der Stelze will be here at eight, then," she said. "I suppose the
+gentleman will take his early morning coffee before."
+
+"I shan't be here," I said. "You can tell your friend I've gone."
+
+She turned on me like a flash.
+
+She was hard as flint again.
+
+"Nein!" she cried. "You stay here!"
+
+"No," I answered with equal force, "not I ..."
+
+"... Orders are orders and you and I must obey!"
+
+"But who is Stelze that he should give orders to me?" I cried.
+
+"Who is...?" She spoke aghast.
+
+"... And you yourself," I continued, "were saying ..."
+
+"When an order has been given, what you or I think or say is of no
+account," the woman said. "It is an order: you and I know _whose_ order.
+Let that suffice. You stay here! Good night!"
+
+With that she was gone. She closed the door behind her; the key rattled
+in the lock and I realized that I was a prisoner. I heard the woman's
+footfalls die away down the corridor.
+
+That distant clock cleaved the silence of the night with twelve
+ponderous strokes. Then the chimes played a pretty jingling little tune
+that rang out clearly in the still, rain-washed air.
+
+I stood petrified and reflected on my next move.
+
+Twelve o'clock! I had eight hours' grace before Stelze, the man of
+mystery and might, arrived to unmask me and hand me over to the tender
+mercies of Madame and of Karl. Before eight o'clock arrived I must--so I
+summed up my position--be clear of the hotel and in the train for the
+German frontier--if I could get a train--else I must be out of
+Rotterdam, by that hour.
+
+But I must _act_ and act without delay. There was no knowing when that
+dead man lying on the floor might procure me another visit from Madame
+and her myrmidons. The sooner I was out of that house of death the
+better.
+
+The door was solid; the lock was strong. That I discovered without any
+trouble. In any case, I reflected, the front-door of the hotel would be
+barred and bolted at this hour of the night, and I could scarcely dare
+hope to escape by the front without detection, even if Karl were not
+actually in the entrance hall. There must be a back entrance to the
+hotel, I thought, for I had seen that the windows of my room opened on
+to the narrow street lining the canal which ran at the back of the
+house.
+
+Escape by the windows was impossible. The front of the house dropped
+sheer down and there was nothing to give one a foothold. But I
+remembered the window in the _cabinet de toilette_ giving on to the
+little air-shaft. That seemed to offer a slender chance of escape.
+
+For the second time that night I opened the casement and inhaled the
+fetid odours arising from the narrow court. All the windows looking,
+like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a light
+still burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair to
+the little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry,
+but I thought I could recognize the outline of a door.
+
+From the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ to the yard the sides of
+the house, cased in stained and dirty stucco, fell sheer away. Measured
+with the eye the drop from window to the pavement was about fifty feet.
+With a rope and something to break one's fall, it might, I fancied, be
+managed....
+
+From that on, things moved swiftly. First with my penknife I ripped the
+tailor's tab with my name from the inside pocket of my coat and burnt it
+in the candle; nothing else I had on was marked, for I had had to buy a
+lot of new garments when I came out of hospital. I took Semlin's
+overcoat, hat and bag into the _cabinet de toilette_ and stood them in
+readiness by the window. As a precaution against surprise I pushed the
+massive mahogany bedstead right across the doorway and thus barricaded
+the entrance to the room.
+
+From either side of the fireplace hung two bell-ropes, twisted silk
+cords of faded crimson with dusty tassels. Mounting on the mantelpiece I
+cut the bell-ropes off short where they joined the wire. Testing them I
+found them apparently solid--at any rate they must serve. I knotted them
+together.
+
+Back to the _cabinet de toilette_ I went to find a suitable object to
+which to fasten my rope. There was nothing in the little room save the
+washstand, and that was fragile and quite unsuited for the purpose. I
+noticed that the window was fitted with shutters on the outside
+fastened back against the wall. They had not been touched for years, I
+should say, for the iron peg holding them back was heavy with rust and
+the shutters were covered with dust. I closed the left-hand shutter and
+found that it fastened solidly to the window-frame by means of massive
+iron bolts, top and bottom.
+
+Here was the required support for my rope. The poker thrust though the
+wooden slips of the shutter held the rope quite solidly. I attached my
+rope to the poker with an expert knot that I had picked up at a course
+in tying knots during a preposterously dull week I had spent at the base
+in France. Then I dragged from the bed the gigantic eiderdown pincushion
+and the two massive pillows, stripping off the pillow-slips lest their
+whiteness might attract attention whilst they were fulfilling the
+unusual mission for which I destined them.
+
+At the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ I listened a moment. All was
+silent as the grave. Resolutely I pitched out the eiderdown into the
+dark and dirty air shaft. It sailed gracefully earthwards and settled
+with a gentle plop on the stones of the tiny yard. The pillows followed.
+The heavier thud they would have made was deadened by the billowy mass
+of the _édredon_. Semlin's bag went next, and made no sound to speak of;
+then his overcoat and hat followed suit.
+
+I noticed, with a grateful heart, that the eiderdown and pillows
+covered practically the whole of the flags of the yard.
+
+I went back once more to the room and blew out the candle. Then, taking
+a short hold on my silken rope, I clambered out over the window ledge
+and started to let myself down, hand over hand, into the depths.
+
+My two bell-ropes, knotted together, were about twenty feet long, so I
+had to reckon on a clear drop of something over thirty feet. The poker
+and shutter held splendidly firm, and I found little difficulty in
+lowering myself, though I barked my knuckles most unpleasantly on the
+rough stucco of the wall. As I reached the extremity of my rope I
+glanced downward. The red splash of the eiderdown, just visible in the
+light from the adjoining window, seemed to be a horrible distance below
+me. My spirit failed me. My determination began to ebb. I could never
+risk it.
+
+The rope settled the question for me. It snapped without warning--how it
+had supported my weight up to then I don't know--and I fell in a heap
+(and, as it seemed to me at the time, with a most reverberating crash)
+on to the soft divan I had prepared for my reception.
+
+I came down hard, very hard, but old Madame's plump eiderdown and
+pillows certainly helped to break my fall. I dropped square on top of
+the eiderdown with one knee on a pillow and, though shaken and jarred, I
+found I had broken no bones.
+
+Nor did my sense leave me. In a minute I was up on my feet again. I
+listened. All was still silent. I cast a glance upwards. The window from
+which I had descended was still dark. I could see the broken bell-ropes
+dangling from the shutter, and I noted, with a glow of professional
+pride, that my expert join between the two ropes had not given. The
+lower rope had parted in the middle ....
+
+I crammed Semlin's hat on my head, retrieved his bag and overcoat from
+the corner of the court where they had fallen and the next moment was
+tiptoeing down the ladder.
+
+The iron stair ran down beside the window in which I had seen the light
+burning. The lower part of the window was screened off by a dirty muslin
+curtain. Through the upper part I caught a glimpse of a sort of scullery
+with a paraffin lamp standing on a wooden table. The room was empty.
+From top to bottom the window was protected by heavy iron bars.
+
+At the foot of the iron stair stood, as I had anticipated, a door. It
+was my last chance of escape. It stood a dozen yards from the bottom of
+the ladder across a dank, little paved area where tins of refuse were
+standing--a small door with a brass handle.
+
+I ducked low as I clambered down the iron ladder so as not to be seen
+from the window should anyone enter the scullery as I passed. Treading
+very softly I crept across the little area and, as quietly as I could,
+turned the handle of the door.
+
+It turned round easily in my hand, but nothing happened.
+
+The door was locked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+I BOARD THE BERLIN TRAIN AND LEAVE A LAME GENTLEMAN ON THE PLATFORM
+
+
+I was caught like a rat in a trap. I could not return by the way I had
+come and the only egress was closed to me. The area door and window were
+the only means of escape from the little court. The one was locked, the
+other barred. I was fairly trapped. All I had to do now was to wait
+until my absence was discovered and the broken rope found to show them
+where I was. Then they would come down to the area, I should be
+confronted with the man, Stelze, and my goose would be fairly cooked.
+
+As quietly as I could I made a complete, thorough, rapid examination of
+the area. It was a dank, dark place, only lit where the yellow light
+streamed forth from the scullery. It had a couple of low bays hollowed
+out of the masonry under the little courtyard, the one filled with wood
+blocks, the other with broken packingcases, old bottles and like
+rubbish. I explored these until my hands came in contact with the damp
+bricks at the back, but in vain. Door and window remained the only
+means of escape.
+
+Four tall tin refuse tins stood in line in front of these two bays, a
+fifth was stowed away under the iron stair. They were all nearly full of
+refuse, so were useless as hiding places. In any case it accorded
+neither with the part I was playing nor with my sense of the ludicrous
+to be discovered by the hotel domestics hiding in a refuse bin.
+
+I was at my wits' end to know what to do. I had dared so much, all had
+gone so surprisingly well, that it was heartbreaking to be foiled with
+liberty almost within my grasp. A great wave of disappointment swept
+over me until I felt my very heart sicken. Then I heard footsteps and
+hope revived within me.
+
+I shrunk back into the darkness of the area behind the refuse bins
+standing in front of the bay nearest the door.
+
+Within the house footsteps were approaching the scullery. I heard a door
+open, then a man's voice singing. He was warbling in a fine mellow
+baritone that popular German ballad:
+
+"Das haben die Mädchen so gerne
+Die im Stübchen und die im _Salong."_
+
+The voice hung lovingly and wavered and trilled on that word _"Salong"_:
+the effect was so much to the singer's liking that he sang the stave
+over again. A bumping and a rattle as of loose objects in an empty box
+formed the accompaniment to his song.
+
+"A cheery fellow!" I said to myself. If only I could see who it was! But
+I dare not move into that patch of yellow light from which the only view
+into the scullery was afforded.
+
+The singing stopped. Again I heard a door open. Was he going away?
+
+Then I saw a thin shaft of light under the area door.
+
+The next moment it was flung back and the waiter, Karl, appeared, still
+in his blue apron, a bucket in either hand.
+
+He was coming to the refuse bins.
+
+Pudd'n Head Wilson's advice came into my mind; "When angry count up to
+four; when very angry, swear." I was not angry but scared, terribly
+scared, scared so that I could hear my heart pulsating in great thuds in
+my ears. Nevertheless, I followed the advice of the sage of Dawson's
+Landing and counted to myself: one, two, three, four, one, two, three,
+four; while my heart hammered out: Keep cool, keep cool, keep cool! And
+all the time I remained crouching behind the first two refuse bins
+nearest the door.
+
+The waiter hummed to himself the melody of his little ditty in a deep
+bourdon as he paused a moment at the door. Then he advanced slowly
+across the area.
+
+Would he stop at the refuse bins behind which I cowered?
+
+No, he passed them.
+
+The third? The fourth?
+
+No!
+
+He walked straight across the area and went to the bin beneath the
+stairs.
+
+I muttered a blessing inwardly on the careful habits of the German who
+organizes even his refuse into separate tubs.
+
+The man had his back to the door.
+
+Now or never was my chance.
+
+I crawled round my friendly garbage tins, reached the area door on
+tip-toe and stepped softly into the house. As I did so I heard the clank
+of tin as Karl replaced the lid of the tub.
+
+A dark passage stretched out in front of me. Immediately to my right was
+the scullery door wide open. I must avoid the scullery at all costs. The
+man might remain there and I could not risk him driving me before him
+back to the entrance hall of the hotel.
+
+I crept down the dark passage with hands outstretched. Presently they
+fell upon the latch of a door. I pressed it, the door opened inwards
+into the darkness and I passed through. As I softly closed the door
+behind me I heard Karl's heavy step and the grinding of the key as he
+locked the area door.
+
+I stood in a kind of cupboard in pitch darkness, hardly daring to
+breathe.
+
+Once more I heard the man singing his idiotic song. I did not dare look
+out from my hiding-place, for his voice sounded so near that I feared he
+might be still in the passage.
+
+So I stood and waited.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I must have stayed there for an hour in the dark. I heard the waiter
+coming and going in the scullery, listened to his heavy tramp, to his
+everlasting snatch of song, to the rattle of utensils, as he went about
+his work. Every minute of the time I was tortured by the apprehension
+that he would come to the cupboard in the passage.
+
+It was cold in that damp subterranean place. The cupboard was roomy
+enough, so I thought I would put on the overcoat I was carrying. As I
+stretched out my arm, my hand struck hard against some kind of
+projecting hook in the wall behind me.
+
+"Damn!" I swore savagely under my breath, but I put out my hand again to
+find out what had hurt me. My fingers encountered the cold iron of a
+latch. I pressed it and it gave.
+
+A door swung open and I found myself in another little area with a
+flight of stone steps leading to the street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was in a narrow lane driven between the tall sides of the houses. It
+was a cul-de-sac. At the open end I could see the glimmer of street
+lamps. It had stopped raining and the air was fresh and pleasant.
+Carrying my bag I walked briskly down the lane and presently emerged in
+a quiet thoroughfare traversed by a canal--probably the street, I
+thought, that I had seen from the windows of my bedroom. The Hotel Sixt
+lay to the right of the lane: I struck out to the left and in a few
+minutes found myself in an open square behind the Bourse.
+
+There I found a cab-rank with three or four cabs drawn up in line, the
+horses somnolent, the drivers snoring inside their vehicles. I stirred
+up the first and bade the driver take me to the Café Tarnowski.
+
+Everyone who has been to Holland knows the Café Tarnowski at Rotterdam.
+It is an immense place with hundreds of marble-topped tables tucked away
+among palms under a vast glazed roof. Day or night it never closes: the
+waiters succeed each other in shifts: day and night the great hall
+resounds to the cry of orders, the patter of the waiters' feet, the
+click of dominoes on the marble tables.
+
+Delicious Dutch café au lait, a beefsteak and fried potatoes, most
+succulent of all Dutch dishes, crisp white bread, hot from the midnight
+baking, and appetizing Dutch butter, largely compensated for the thrills
+of the night. Then I sent for some more coffee, black this time, and a
+railway guide, and lighting a cigarette began to frame my plan of
+campaign.
+
+The train for Berlin left Rotterdam at seven in the morning. It was now
+ten minutes past two, so I had plenty of time. From that night onward, I
+told myself, I was a German, and from that moment I set myself
+assiduously to _feel_ myself a German as well as enact the part.
+
+"It's no use dressing a part," Francis used to say to me; "you must
+_feel_ it as well. If I were going to disguise myself as a Berliner, I
+should not be content to shave my head and wear a bowler hat with a
+morning coat and get my nails manicured pink. I should begin by
+persuading myself that I was the Lord of creation, that bad manners is a
+sign of manly strength and that dishonesty is the highest form of
+diplomacy. Then only should I set about getting the costume!"
+
+Poor old Francis! How shrewd he was and how well he knew his Berliners!
+
+There is nothing like newspapers for giving one an idea of national
+sentiment. I had not spoken to a German, save to a few terrified German
+rats, prisoners of war in France, since the beginning of the war and I
+knew that my knowledge of German thought must be rusty. So I sent the
+willing waiter for all the German papers and periodicals he could lay
+his hands on. He returned with stacks of them, _Berliner Tageblatt,
+Kélnische Zeitung, Vorwérts;_ the alleged comic papers, _Kladderadatsch,
+Lustige Blétter_ and _Simplicissimus;_ the illustrated press, _Leipziger
+Illustrirte Zeitung, Der Weltkrieg im Bild,_ and the rest: that
+remarkable café even took in such less popular publications as Harden's
+_Zukunft_ and semi-blackmailing rags like _Der Roland von Berlin._
+
+For two hours I saturated myself with German contemporary thought as
+expressed in the German press. I deliberately laid my mind open to
+conviction; I repeated to myself over and over again: "We Germans are
+fighting a defensive war: the scoundrelly Grey made the world-war: Gott
+strafe England!" Absurd as this proceeding seems to me when I look back
+upon it, I would not laugh at myself at the time. I must be German, I
+must feel German, I must think German: on that would my safety in the
+immediate future depend.
+
+I laid aside my reading in the end with a feeling of utter amazement. In
+every one of these publications, in peace-time so widely dissimilar in
+conviction and trend, I found the same mentality, the same outlook, the
+same parrot-like cries. What the _Cologne Gazette_ shrieked from its
+editorial columns, the comic (God save the mark) press echoed in foul
+and hideous caricature. Here was organization with a vengeance, the
+mobilization of national thought, a series of gramophone records fed
+into a thousand different machines so that each might play the selfsame
+tune.
+
+"You needn't worry about your German mentality," I told myself, "you've
+got it all here! You've only got to be a parrot like the rest and you'll
+be as good a Hun as Hindenburg!"
+
+A Continental waiter, they say, can get one anything one chooses to ask
+for at any hour of the day or night. I was about to put this theory to
+the test.
+
+"Waiter," I said (of course, in German), "I want a bag, a handbag. Do
+you think you could get me one?"
+
+"Does the gentleman want it now?" the man replied.
+
+"This very minute," I answered.
+
+"About that size?"--indicating Semlin's. "Yes, or smaller if you like: I
+am not particular."
+
+"I will see what can be done."
+
+In ten minutes the man was back with a brown leather bag about a size
+smaller than Semlin's. It was not new and he charged me thirty gulden
+(which is about fifty shillings) for it. I paid with a willing heart and
+tipped him generously to boot, for I wanted a bag and could not wait
+till the shops opened without missing the train for Germany.
+
+I paid my bill and drove off to the Central Station through the dark
+streets with my two bags. The clocks were striking six as I entered
+under the great glass dome of the station hall.
+
+I went straight to the booking-office, and bought a first-class ticket,
+single, to Berlin. One never knows what may happen and I had several
+things to do before the train went.
+
+The bookstall was just opening. I purchased a sovereign's worth of books
+and magazines, English, French and German, and crammed them into the bag
+I had procured at the café. Thus laden I adjourned to the station
+buffet.
+
+There I set about executing a scheme I had evolved for leaving the
+document which Semlin had brought from England in a place of safety,
+whence it could be recovered without difficulty, should anything happen
+to me. I knew no one in Holland save Dicky, and I could not send him the
+document, for I did not trust the post. For the same reason I would not
+post the document home to my bank in England: besides, I knew one could
+not register letters until eight o'clock, by which hour I hoped to be
+well on my way into Germany.
+
+No, my bag, conveniently weighted with books and deposited at the
+station cloak-room, should be my safe. The comparative security of
+station cloak-rooms as safe deposits has long been recognized by jewel
+thieves and the like and this means of leaving my document behind in
+safety seemed to me to be better than any other I could think of.
+
+So I dived into my bag and from the piles of literature it contained
+picked up a book at random. It was a German brochure: _Gott strafe
+England!_ by Prof. Dr. Hugo Bischoff, of the University of Göttingen.
+The irony of the thing appealed to my sense of humour. "So be it!" I
+said. "The worthy Professor's fulminations against my country shall have
+the honour of harbouring the document which is, apparently, of such
+value to _his_ country!" And I tucked the little canvas case away inside
+the pages of the pamphlet, stuck the pamphlet deep down among the books
+and shut the bag.
+
+Seeing its harmless appearance the cloak-room receipt--I
+calculated--would, unlike Semlin's document, attract no attention if, by
+any mischance, it fell into wrong hands _en route._ I therefore did not
+scruple to commit it to the post. Before taking my bag of books to the
+cloak-room I wrote two letters. Both were to Ashcroft--Ashcroft of the
+Foreign Office, who got me my passport and permit to come to Rotterdam.
+Herbert Ashcroft and I were old friends. I addressed the envelopes to
+his private house in London. The Postal Censor, I knew, keen though he
+always is after letters from neutral countries, would leave old
+Herbert's correspondence alone.
+
+The first letter was brief. "Dear Herbert," I wrote, "would you mind
+looking after the enclosed until you hear from me again? Filthy weather
+here. Yours, D.O." This letter was destined to contain the cloak-room
+receipt. To conceal the importance of an enclosure, it is always a good
+dodge to send the covering letter under separate cover.
+
+"Dear Herbert," I said in my second letter, "If you don't hear from me
+within two months of this date regarding the enclosure you will have
+already received, please send someone, or, preferably, go yourself and
+collect my luggage at the cloak-room of the Rotterdam Central Station. I
+know how busy you always are. Therefore you will understand my reasons
+for making this inordinate claim upon your time. Yours, D.O." And, by
+way of a clue, I added, inconsequently enough: _"Gott strafe England!"_
+
+I chuckled inwardly at the thought of Herbert's face on receiving this
+preposterous demand that he should abandon his dusty desk in Downing
+Street and betake himself across the North Sea to fetch my luggage. But
+he'd go all right. I knew my Herbert, dull and dry and conventional, but
+a most faithful friend.
+
+I called a porter at the entrance of the buffet and handing him Semlin's
+bag and overcoat, bade him find me a first-class carriage in the Berlin
+train when it arrived. I would meet him on the platform. Then, at the
+cloak-room opposite, I gave in my bag of books, put the receipt in the
+first letter and posted it in the letter-box within the station. I went
+out into the streets with the second letter and posted it in a
+letter-box let into the wall of a tobacconist's shop in a quiet street a
+few turnings away. By this arrangement I reckoned Herbert would get the
+letter with the receipt before the covering letter arrived.
+
+Returning to the railway station I noticed a kind of slop shop which
+despite the early hour was already open. A fat Jew in his shirt-sleeves,
+his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, stood at the entrance framed in
+hanging overcoats and bats and boots. I had no umbrella and it struck me
+that a waterproof of some kind might not be a bad addition to my
+extremely scanty wardrobe. Moreover, I reflected that with the rubber
+shortage rain-coats must be at a premium in Germany.
+
+So I followed the bowing son of Shem into his dark and dirty shop and
+emerged presently wearing an appallingly ugly green mackintosh reeking
+hideously of rubber. It was a shocking garment but I reflected that I
+was a German and must choose my garb accordingly.
+
+Outside the shop I nearly ran into a little man who was loafing in the
+doorway. He was a wizened, scrubby old fellow wearing a dirty peaked cap
+with a band of tarnished gold. I knew him at once for one of those
+guides, half tout, half bully, that infest the railway termini of all
+great Continental cities.
+
+"Want a guide, sir?" the man said in German.
+
+I shook my head and hurried on. The man trotted beside me. "Want a good,
+cheap hotel, sir? Good, respectable house.... Want a ..."
+
+"Ach! gehen sie zum Teufel!" I cried angrily. But the man persisted,
+running along beside me and reeling off his tout's patter in a wheezing,
+asthmatic voice. I struck off blindly down the first turning we came to,
+hoping to be rid of the fellow, but in vain. Finally, I stopped and held
+out a gulden.
+
+"Take this and go away!" I said.
+
+The old fellow waved the coin aside.
+
+"Danke, danke," he said nonchalantly, looking at the same time to right
+and left.
+
+Then he said in a calm English voice, utterly different from his whining
+accents of a moment before:
+
+"You must be a dam' cool hand!"
+
+But he didn't bluff me, staggered though I was. I said quickly in
+German:
+
+"What do you want with me? I don't understand you. If you annoy me any
+more I shall call the police!"
+
+Again he spoke in English and it was the voice of a well-bred Englishman
+that spoke:
+
+"You're either a past master at the game or raving mad. Why! the whole
+station is humming after you! Yet you walked out of the buffet and
+through the whole lot of them without turning a hair. No wonder they
+never spotted you!"
+
+Again I answered in German:
+
+"Ich verstehe nicht!"
+
+But he went on in English, without seeming to notice my observation:
+
+"Hang it all, man, you can't go into Germany wearing a regimental tie!"
+
+My hand flew to my collar and the blood to my head. What a cursed
+amateur I was, after all! I had entirely forgotten that I was wearing my
+regimental colours. I was crimson with vexation but also with a sense of
+relief. I felt I might trust this man. It would be a sharp German agent
+who would notice a small detail like that.
+
+Still I resolved to stick to German: I would trust nobody.
+
+But the guide had started his patter again. I saw two workmen
+approaching. When they had passed, he said, this time in English:
+
+"You're quite right to be cautious with a stranger like me, but I want
+to warn you. Why, I've been following you round all the morning. Lucky
+for you it was me and not one of the others...."
+
+Still I was silent. The little man went on:
+
+"For the past half-hour they have been combing that station for you. How
+you managed to escape them I don't know except that none of them seems
+to have a very clear idea of your appearance. You don't look very
+British, I grant you; but I spotted your tie and then I recognized the
+British officer all right.
+
+"No, don't worry to tell me anything about yourself--it is none of my
+business to know, any more than you will find out anything about me. I
+know where you are going, for I heard you take your ticket; but you may
+as well understand that you have as much chance of getting into your
+train if you walk into the railway hall and up the stairs in the
+ordinary way as you have of flying across the frontier."
+
+"But they can't stop me!" I said. "This isn't Germany...."
+
+"Bah!" said the guide. "You will be jostled, there will be an
+altercation, a false charge, and you will miss your train! _They_ will
+attend to the rest!
+
+"Damn it, man," he went on, "I know what I'm talking about. Here, come
+with me and I'll show you. You have twenty minutes before the train
+goes. Now start the German again!"
+
+We went down the street together for all the world like a "mug" in tow
+of one of those black-guard guides. As we approached the station the
+guide said in his whining German:
+
+"Pay attention to me now. I shall leave you here. Go to the suburban
+booking-office--the entrance is in the street to the left of the
+station hall. Go into the first-class waiting-room and look out of
+the window that gives on to the station hall. There you will see some
+of the forces mobilized against you. There is a regular cordon of
+guides--like me--drawn across the entrances to the main-line
+platforms--unostentatiously, of course. If you look you will see plenty
+of plain-clothes Huns, too...."
+
+"Guides?" I said.
+
+He nodded cheerfully.
+
+"Looks bad for me, doesn't it? But one gets better results by being one
+of them. Oh! it's all right. In any case you've got to trust me now.
+
+"See here! When you have satisfied yourself that I'm correct in what I
+say, take a platform ticket and walk upstairs to platform No. 5. On that
+platform you will find a train. Go to the end where the metals run out
+of the station, where the engine would be coupled on, and get into the
+last first-class carriage. On no account move from there until you see
+me. Now then, I'll have that gulden!"
+
+I gave him the coin. The old fellow looked at it and wagged his head, so
+I gave him another, whereupon he took off his cap, bowed low and hurried
+off.
+
+In the suburban side waiting-room I peered out of the window on to the
+station hall. True enough, I saw one, two, four, six guides loafing
+about the barriers leading to the main-line platforms. There seemed to
+be a lot of people in the hall and certainly a number of the men
+possessed that singular taste in dress, those rotundities of contour,
+by which one may distinguish the German in a crowd.
+
+I now had no hesitation in following the guide's instructions to the
+letter. Platform No. 5 was completely deserted as I emerged breathless
+from the long staircase and I had no difficulty in getting into the last
+first-class carriage unobserved. I sat down by the window on the far
+side of the carriage.
+
+Alongside it ran the brown panels and gold lettering of a German
+restaurant car.
+
+I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to seven. There was no sign of
+my mysterious friend. I wondered vaguely, too, what had become of my
+porter. True, there was nothing of importance in Semlin's bag, but a
+traveller with luggage always commands more confidence than one without.
+
+Five minutes to seven! Still no word from the guide. The minutes ticked
+away. By Jove! I was going to miss the train. But I sat resolutely in my
+corner. I had put my trust in this man. I would trust him to the last.
+
+Suddenly his face appeared in the window at my elbow. The door was flung
+open.
+
+"Quick!" he whispered in my ear, "follow me."
+
+"My things ..." I gasped with one foot on the foot-board of the other
+train. At the same moment the train began to move.
+
+The guide pointed to the carriage into which I had clambered.
+
+"The porter ..." I cried from the open door, thinking he had not
+understood me.
+
+The guide pointed towards the carriage again, then tapped himself on the
+chest with a significant smile.
+
+The next moment he had disappeared and I had not even thanked him.
+
+The Berlin train bumped ponderously out of the station. Peering
+cautiously out of the carriage, I caught a glimpse of the waiter, Karl,
+hurrying down the platform. With him was a swarthy, massively built man
+who leaned heavily on a stick and limped painfully as he ran. One of his
+feet, I could see, was misshapen and the sweat was pouring down his
+face.
+
+I would have liked to wave my hand to the pair, but I prudently drew
+back out of sight of the platform.
+
+Caution, caution, caution, must henceforward be my watchword.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IN WHICH A SILVER STAR ACTS AS A CHARM
+
+
+I have often remarked in life that there are days when some benevolent
+deity seems to be guiding one's every action. On such days, do what you
+will, you cannot go wrong. As the Berlin train bumped thunderously over
+the culverts spanning the canals between the tall, grey houses of
+Rotterdam and rushed out imperiously into the plain of windmills and
+pollards beyond, I reflected that this must be my good day, so kindly
+had some fairy godmother shepherded my footsteps since I had left the
+café.
+
+So engrossed had I been, indeed, in the great enterprise on which I was
+embarked, that my actions throughout the morning had been mainly
+automatic. Yet how uniformly had they tended to protect me! I had bought
+my ticket in advance; I had given my overcoat and bag to a porter that I
+now knew to have been my saviour in disguise; I had sallied forth from
+the station and thus given him an opportunity for safe converse with me.
+The omens were good: I could trust my luck to-day, I felt, and, greatly
+comforted, I began to look about me.
+
+I found myself, the only occupant, in a first-class carriage. On the
+window was plastered a notice, in Dutch and German, to the effect that
+the carriage was reserved. Suddenly I thought of my bag and overcoat.
+They were nowhere to be seen. After a little search I found them beneath
+the seat. In the overcoat pocket was a black tie.
+
+I lost no time in taking the hint. If any of you who read this tale
+should one day notice a ganger on the railway between Rotterdam and
+Dordrecht wearing the famous colours of a famous regiment round his neck
+you will understand how they got there. Then, wearied out with the
+fatigues of my sleepless night, I fell into a deep slumber, my verdant
+waterproof swathed round me, Semlin's overcoat about my knees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was dreaming fitfully of a mad escape from hordes of wildly clutching
+guides, led by Karl the waiter, when the screaming of brakes brought me
+to my senses. The train was sensibly slackening speed. Outside the
+autumn sun was shining over pleasant brown stretches of moorland bright
+with heather. The next moment and before I was fully awake we had glided
+to a standstill at a very spick and span station and the familiar cry
+of "Alles aussteigen!" rang in my ears.
+
+We were in Germany.
+
+The realization fell upon me like a thunderclap. I was in the enemy's
+country, sailing under false colours, with only the most meagre
+information about the man whose place I had taken and no plausible tale,
+such as I had fully intended to have ready, to carry me through the
+rigorous scrutiny of the frontier police.
+
+What was my firm? The Halewright Manufacturing Company. What did we
+manufacture? I had not the faintest idea. Why was I coming to Germany at
+all? Again I was at a loss.
+
+The clink of iron-shod heels in the corridor and an officer, followed
+closely by two privates, the white cross of the Landwehr in their
+helmets, stood at the door.
+
+"Your papers, please," he said curtly but politely.
+
+I handed over my American passport.
+
+"This has not been viséd," said the officer.
+
+With a pang I realized that again I was at fault. Of course, the
+passport should have been stamped at the German Consulate at Rotterdam.
+
+"I had no time," I said boldly. "I am travelling on most important
+business to Berlin. I only reached Rotterdam last night, after the
+Consulate was closed."
+
+The lieutenant turned to one of his guards.
+
+"Take the gentleman to the Customs Hall," he said and went on to the
+next carriage.
+
+The soldier appropriated my overcoat and bag and beckoned me to follow
+him. Outside the platform was railed off. Everyone, I noticed, was
+shepherded into a long narrow pen made with iron hurdles leading to a
+locked door over which was written: Zoll-Revision. I was going to take
+my place in the queue when the soldier prodded me with his elbow. He led
+me to a side door which opened in the gaunt, bare Customs Hall with its
+long row of trestles for the examination of the passengers' luggage. In
+a corner behind a desk was a large group of officers and subordinate
+officials, all in the grey-green uniform I knew so well from the life in
+the trenches. The principal seemed to be an immense man, inordinately
+gross and fat, with a bloated face and great gold spectacles. He was
+roaring in a loud, angry voice:
+
+"He's not come! There you are! Again we shall have all the trouble for
+nothing!"
+
+I thought he looked an extraordinarily bad-tempered individual and I
+fervently prayed that I should not be brought before him.
+
+The doors were flung open. With a rush the hall was invaded with a
+heterogeneous mob of people huddled pellmell together and driven along
+before a line of soldiers. For an hour or more babel reigned. Officials
+bawled at the public: the place rang with the sounds of angry
+altercation. After a furious dispute one man, wildly gesticulating, was
+dragged away by two soldiers.
+
+I never saw such a thorough examination in my life. People's bags were
+literally turned upside down and every single object pried into and
+besnuffled. After the customs' examination passengers were passed on to
+the searching-rooms, the men to one side, the women to the other. I
+caught sight of a female searcher lolling at a door ... a monstrous and
+grim female who reminded me of those dreadful bathing women at the
+seaside in our early youth.
+
+The fat official had vanished into an office leading off the Customs
+Hall. He was, I surmised, the last instance, for several passengers,
+including a very respectably dressed old lady, were driven into the side
+office and were seen no more.
+
+During all this scene of confusion no one had taken any notice of me. My
+guard looked straight in front of him and said never a word. When the
+hall was all but cleared, a man came to the office door and made a sign
+to my sentinel.
+
+At a table in the office which, despite the sunshine outside, was heated
+like a greenhouse, I found the fat official. Something had evidently
+upset him, for his brows were clouded with anger and his mastiff-like
+cheeks were trembling with irritation. He thrust a hand out as I
+entered.
+
+"Your papers!" he grunted.
+
+I handed over my passport.
+
+Directly he had examined it, a red flush spread over his cheeks and
+forehead and he brought his hand down on the table with a crash. The
+sentry beside me winced perceptibly.
+
+"It's not viséd," the fat official screamed in a voice shrill with
+anger. "It's worthless... what good do you think is this to me?"
+
+"Excuse me ..." I said in German.
+
+"I won't excuse you," he roared. "Who are you? What do you want in
+Germany? You've been to London, I see by this passport."
+
+"I had no time to get my passport stamped at the Consulate at
+Rotterdam," I said. "I arrived there too late in the evening. I could
+not wait. I am going to Berlin on most important business."
+
+"That's nothing to do with it," the man shouted. He was working himself
+up into a fine frenzy. "Your passport is not in order. You're not a
+German. You're an American. We Germans know what to think of our
+American friends, especially those who come from London."
+
+A voice outside shouted: "Nach Berlin alles einsteigen." I said as
+politely as I could, despite my growing annoyance:
+
+"I don't wish to miss my train. My journey to Berlin is of the utmost
+importance. I trust the train can be held back until I have satisfied
+you of my good faith. I have here a card from Herr von Steinhardt."
+
+I paused to let the name sink in. I was convinced he must be a big bug
+of some kind in the German service.
+
+"I don't care a rap for Herr von Steinhardt or Herr von anybody else,"
+the German cried. Then he said curtly to a cringing secretary beside
+him:
+
+"Has he been searched?"
+
+The secretary cast a frightened look at the sentry.
+
+"No, Herr Major," said the secretary.
+
+"Well, take him away and strip him and bring me anything you find!"
+
+The sentry spun on his heel like an automaton.
+
+The moment had come to play my last card, I felt: I could not risk being
+delayed on the frontier lest Stelze and his friends should catch up with
+me. I was surprised to find that apparently they had not telegraphed to
+have me stopped.
+
+"One moment, Herr Major," I said.
+
+"Take him away!" The fat man waved me aside.
+
+"I warn you," I continued, "that I am on important business. I can
+convince you of that, too. Only ..." and I looked round the office. "All
+these must go."
+
+To my amazement the fat man's anger vanished utterly. He stared hard at
+me, then took off his spectacles and polished them with his
+handkerchief. After this he said nonchalantly: "Everybody get outside
+except this gentleman!" The sentry, who had spun round on his heel
+again, seemed about to speak: his voice expired before it came out of
+his mouth: he saluted, spun round again and followed the rest out of the
+room.
+
+When the place was cleared I pulled my left brace out of the armhole of
+my waistcoat and displayed the silver star.
+
+The fat man sprang up.
+
+"The Herr Doktor must excuse me: I am overwhelmed: I had no idea that
+the Herr Doktor was not one of these tiresome American spies that are
+overrunning our country. The Herr Doktor will understand.... If the Herr
+Doktor had but said ..."
+
+"Herr Major," I said, endeavouring to put as much insolence as I could
+into my voice (that is what a German understands), "I am not in the
+habit of bleating my business to every fool I meet. Now I must go back
+to the train."
+
+"The Berlin train has gone, Herr Doktor, but..."
+
+"The Berlin train gone?" I said. "But my business brooks no delay. I
+tell you I must be in Berlin to-night!"
+
+"There is no question of your taking the ordinary train, Herr Doktor,"
+the fat man replied smoothly, "but unfortunately the special which I had
+ready for you has been countermanded. I thought you were not coming
+again."
+
+A special? By Jove! I was evidently a personage of note. But a special
+would never do! Where the deuce was it going to take me?
+
+"The Berlin train was to have been held back until your special was
+clear," the Major went on, "but we must stop her at Wesel until you have
+passed. I will attend to that at once!"
+
+He gave some order down the telephone and after a brisk conversation
+turned to me with a beaming face:
+
+"They will stop her at Wesel and the special will be ready in
+twenty-five minutes. But there is no hurry. You have an hour or more to
+spare. Might I offer the Herr Doktor a glass of beer and a sandwich at
+our officers' casino here?"
+
+Well, I was in for it this time. A special bearing me Heaven knows
+whither on unknown business...! Perhaps I might be able to extract a
+little information out of my fat friend if I went with him, so I
+accepted his invitation with suitable condescension.
+
+The Major excused himself for an instant and returned with my overcoat
+and bag.
+
+"So!" he cried, "we can leave these here until we come back!" Behind him
+through the open door I saw a group of officials peering curiously into
+the room. As we walked through their midst, they fell back with
+precipitation. There was a positive reverence about their manner which I
+found extremely puzzling.
+
+A waggonette, driven by an orderly, stood in the station yard, one of
+the Customs officials, hat in hand, at the door. We drove rapidly
+through very spick-and-span streets to a little square where the sentry
+at an iron gate denoted the Officers' Club. In the anteroom four or five
+officers in field-grey uniform were lounging. As we entered they sprang
+to their feet and remained stiffly standing while the Major presented
+them, Hauptmann Pfahl, Oberleutnant Meyer ... a string of names. One of
+the officers had lost an arm, another was very lame, the remainder were
+obvious dug-outs.
+
+"An American gentleman, a good friend of ours," was the form in which
+the Major introduced me to the company. Again I found myself mystified
+by the extraordinary demonstrations of respect with which I was
+received. Germans don't like Americans, especially since they took to
+selling shells to the Allies, and I began to think that all these
+officers must know more about me and my mission than I did myself. A
+stolid orderly, wearing white gloves, brought beer and some
+extraordinary nasty-looking sardine sandwiches which, on sampling, I
+realized to be made of "war bread."
+
+While the beer was being poured out I glanced round the room, bare and
+very simply furnished. Terrible chromo-lithographs of the Kaiser and the
+Crown Prince hung on the walls above a glass filled with war trophies.
+With a horrible sickness at heart I recognized amongst other emblems a
+glengarry with a silver badge and a British steel helmet with a gaping
+hole through the crown. Then I remembered I was in the region of the
+VIIth Corps, which supplies some of our toughest opponents on the
+Western front.
+
+Conversation was polite and perfunctory.
+
+"It is on occasions such as these," said the lame officer, "that one
+recognizes how our brothers overseas are helping the German cause."
+
+"Your work must be extraordinarily interesting," observed one of the
+dug-outs.
+
+"All your difficulties are now over," said the Major, much in the manner
+of the chorus of a Greek play. "You will be in Berlin to-night, where
+your labours will be doubtless rewarded. American friends of Germany are
+not popular in London, I should imagine!"
+
+I murmured: "Hardly."
+
+"You must possess infinite tact to have aroused no suspicion," said the
+Major.
+
+"That depends," I said.
+
+"Pardon me," replied the Major, in whom I began to recognize all the
+signs of an unmitigated gossip, "I know something of the importance of
+your mission. I speak amongst ourselves, is it not so, gentlemen? There
+were special orders about you from the Corps Command at Münster. Your
+special has been waiting for you here for four days. The gentleman who
+came to meet you has been in a fever of expectation. He had already left
+the station this morning when ... when I met you, I sent word for him to
+pick you up here."
+
+The plot was thickening. I most certainly was a personage of note.
+
+"What part of America do you come from, Mr. Semlin?" said a voice in
+perfect English from the corner. The one-armed officer was speaking.
+
+"From Brooklyn," I said stoutly, though my heart seemed turned to ice
+with the shock of hearing my own tongue.
+
+"You have no accent," the other replied suavely.
+
+"Some Americans," I retorted sententiously, "would regard that as a
+compliment. Not all Americans talk through their noses any more than we
+all chew or spit in public."
+
+"I know," said the young man. "I was brought up there!"
+
+We were surrounded by smiling faces. This officer who could speak
+English was evidently regarded as a bit of a wag by his comrades. I
+seized the opportunity to give them in German a humorous description of
+my simplicity in explaining to a man brought up in the United States
+that all Americans were not the caricatures depicted in the European
+comic press.
+
+There was a roar of laughter from the room.
+
+"Ach, dieser Schmalz!" guffawed the Major, beating his thigh in ecstasy.
+"Kolossal!" echoed one of the dug-outs. The lame man smiled wanly and
+said it was "incredible how humorous Schmalz could be."
+
+I had hoped that the conversation might now be carried on again in
+German. Nothing of the kind. The room leant back in its chairs, as if
+expecting the fun to go on.
+
+It did.
+
+"You get your clothes in London," the young officer said.
+
+He was a trimly built young man, very pale from recent illness, with
+flaxen hair and a bright, bold blue eye--the eye of a fighter. His left
+sleeve was empty and was fastened across his tunic, in a button-hole of
+which was twisted the black and white ribbon of the Iron Cross.
+
+"Generally," I answered shortly, "when I go to England. Clothes are
+cheaper in London."
+
+"You must have a good ear for languages," Schmalz continued; "you speak
+German like a German and English ..." he paused appreciably, "... like
+an Englishman."
+
+I felt horribly nervous. This young man never took his eyes off me: he
+had been staring at me ever since I had entered the room. His manner
+was perfectly calm and suave.
+
+Still I kept my end up very creditably, I think.
+
+"And not a bad accomplishment, either," I said, smiling brightly, "if
+one has to visit London in war-time."
+
+Schmalz smiled back with perfect courtesy. But he continued to stare
+relentlessly at me. I felt scared.
+
+"What is Schmalz jabbering about now?" said one of the dug-outs. I
+translated for the benefit of the company. My résumé gave the dug-out
+who had spoken the opportunity for launching out on an interminable
+anecdote about an ulster he had bought on a holiday at Brighton. The
+story lasted until the white-gloved orderly came and announced that "a
+gentleman" was there, asking for the Herr Major.
+
+"That'll be your man," exclaimed the Major, starting up--I noticed he
+made no attempt to bring the stranger in. "Come, let us go to him!"
+
+I stood up and took my leave. Schmalz came to the door of the anteroom
+with us.
+
+"You are going to Berlin?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," I replied.
+
+"Where shall you be staying?" he asked again.
+
+"Oh, probably at the Adlon!"
+
+"I myself shall be in Berlin next week for my medical examination, and
+perhaps we may meet again. I should much like to talk more with you
+about America ... and London. We must have mutual acquaintances."
+
+I murmured something about being only too glad, at the same time making
+a mental note to get out of Berlin as soon as I conveniently could.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+I HEAR OF CLUBFOOT AND MEET HIS EMPLOYER
+
+
+As we went down the staircase, the Major whispered to me:
+
+"I don't think your man wished me to know his name, for he did not
+introduce himself when he arrived and he does not come to our Casino.
+But I know him for all that: it is the young Count von Boden, of the
+Uhlans of the Guard: his father, the General, is one of the Emperor's
+aides-de-camp: he was, for a time, tutor to the Crown Prince."
+
+A motor-car stood at the door, in it a young man in a grey-blue military
+great-coat and a flat cap with a pink band round it. He sprang out as we
+appeared. His manner was most _empressé_. He completely ignored my
+companion.
+
+"I am extremely glad to see you, Herr Doktor," he said. "You are
+most anxiously expected. I must present my apologies for not being
+at the station to welcome you, but, apparently, there was some
+misunderstanding. The arrangements at the station for your reception
+seem to have broken down completely ..." and he stared through his
+monocle at the old Major, who flushed with vexation.
+
+"If you will step into my car," the young man added, "I will drive you
+to the station. We need not detain this gentleman any longer."
+
+I felt sorry for the old Major, who had remained silent under the
+withering insolence of this young lieutenant, so I shook hands with him
+cordially and thanked him for his hospitality. He was a jovial old
+fellow after all.
+
+The young Count drove himself and chatted amiably as we whirled through
+the streets. "I must introduce myself," he said: "Lieutenant Count von
+Boden of the 2nd Uhlans of the Guard. I did not wish to say anything
+before that old chatterbox. I trust you have had a pleasant journey. Von
+Steinhardt, of our Legation at the Hague, was instructed to make all
+arrangements for your comfort on this side. But I was forgetting, you
+and he must be old acquaintances, Herr Doktor!"
+
+I said something appropriate about von Steinhardt's invariable kindness.
+Inwardly, I noted the explanation of the visiting card in the portfolio
+in my pocket.
+
+At the station we found two orderlies, one with my things, the other
+with von Boden's luggage and fur _pélisse_. The platforms were now
+deserted save for sentries: all life at this dreary frontier station
+seemed to die with the passing of the mail train.
+
+I could not help noticing, after we had left the car and were strolling
+up and down the platform waiting for the special, that my companion kept
+casting furtive glances at my feet. I looked down at my boots: they
+wanted brushing, certainly, but otherwise I could see nothing wrong with
+them. They were brown, it is true, and I reflected that the German man
+about town has a way of regulating his tastes in footgear by the
+calendar, and that brown boots are seldom worn in Germany after
+September 1st.
+
+Our special came in, an engine and tender, a brakesman's van, a single
+carriage and a guard's van. The stationmaster bid us a most ceremonious
+adieu, and the guard, cap in hand, helped me into the train.
+
+It was a Pullman car in which I found myself, with comfortable
+arm-chairs and small tables. One of the orderlies was laying the table
+for luncheon, and here, presently, the young Count and I ate a meal,
+which, save for the inevitable "_Kriegsbrod_," showed few signs of the
+stringency of the British blockade. But by this time I had fully
+realized that, for some unknown reason, no pains were spared to do me
+honour, so probably the fare was something out of the common.
+
+My companion was a bright, amusing fellow and delightfully typical of
+his class. He had seen a year's service with the cavalry on the Eastern
+front, had been seriously wounded and was now attached to the General
+Staff in Berlin in what I judged to be a decorative rather than a useful
+capacity, for, apart from what he had learnt in his own campaigning he
+seemed singularly ignorant of the development of the military situation.
+Particularly, his ignorance of conditions on the Western front was
+supreme. He was full to the brim with the most extraordinary fables
+about the British. He solemnly assured me, for example--on the faith of
+a friend of his who had seen them--that Japanese were fighting with the
+English in France, dressed as Highlanders--his friend had heard these
+Asiatic Scotsmen talking Japanese, he declared. I thought of the
+Gaelic-speaking battalions of the Camerons and could hardly suppress a
+smile.
+
+Young von Boden was superbly contemptuous of the officers of the obscure
+and much reduced infantry battalion doing garrison duty at Goch, the
+frontier station we had just left, where--as he was careful to explain
+to me--he had spent four days of unrelieved boredom, waiting for me.
+
+"Of course, in war time we are a united army and all that," he observed
+unsophistically, "but none of these fellows at Goch was a fit companion
+for a dashing cavalry officer. They were a dull lot. I wouldn't go near
+the Casino. I met some of them at the hotel one evening. That was
+enough for me. Why, only one of them knew anything at all about Berlin,
+and that was the lame fellow. Now, there is one thing we learn in the
+cavalry...."
+
+But I had ceased to listen. In his irresponsible chatter the boy used a
+word that struck a harsh note which went jarring through my brain. He
+had mentioned "the lame fellow," using a German word "der Stelze." In a
+flash I saw before me again that scene in the squalid bedroom in the Vos
+in't Tuintje--the candle guttering in the draught, the livid corpse on
+the floor and that sinister woman crying out: "Der Stelze has power, he
+has authority, he can make and unmake men!"
+
+The mind has unaccountable lapses. The phrase had slipped out of my
+German vocabulary. I had not even recognized it until the boy had rapped
+it out in a context with which I was familiar and then it had come back.
+With it, it brought that tableau in the dimly lit room, but also
+another--a picture of a vast and massive man, swarthy and sinister, with
+a clubfoot, limping heavily after Karl, the waiter, on the platform at
+Rotterdam.
+
+That, then, was why the young lieutenant had glanced down at my feet at
+the station at Goch, The messenger he had come to meet, the bearer of
+the document, the man of power and authority, was clubfooted, and I was
+he!
+
+But seeing I was free of any physical deformity, to say nothing of the
+fact that I in no way resembled the clubfooted man I had seen on the
+platform at Rotterdam, why had the young lieutenant accepted me so
+readily? I hazarded the reason to be that he had orders to meet a person
+who had not been further designated to him except that he would arrive
+by a certain train. The Major at the station would be responsible for
+establishing my _bona fides_. Once that officer had turned me over to
+the emissary, the latter's sole responsibility consisted in conducting
+me to the unknown goal to which the special train was rapidly bearing
+us. Such are the marvels of discipline!
+
+My companion was, indeed, the model of discretion in everything touching
+myself and my business. Curiosity about your neighhour's affairs is a
+cardinal German failing, yet the Count manifested not the slightest
+desire to learn anything about me or my mission to Berlin. You may be
+sure that I, for my part, did nothing to enlighten him. It was not,
+indeed, in my power to do so. Yet the young man's reserve was so marked
+that I was convinced he had his orders to avoid the topic.
+
+As the train rushed through Westphalia, through busy stations with
+glimpses of sidings full of trucks loaded to the brim, past towns whose
+very outlines were blurred by the mirk of smoke from a hundred factory
+chimneys, my thoughts were busy with that swarthy cripple. I had broken
+away from him with one portion of a highly prized document, yet he had
+made no attempt to have me arrested at the frontier. Clearly, then, he
+must still look upon me as an ally and must therefore be yet in
+ignorance of the identity of the dead man lying in my chamber at the
+Hotel Sixt. The friendly guide had told me that the party "combing out"
+the station at Rotterdam for me did not appear to know what I looked
+like.
+
+_Was it possible, then, that Clubfoot did not know Semlin by sight?_
+
+The fact that Semlin had only recently crossed the Atlantic seemed to
+confirm this supposition.
+
+Then the document. Semlin had half. Who had the other half? Surely
+Clubfoot.... Clubfoot who was to have called at the hotel that morning
+to receive what I had brought from England. Perhaps, after all, my
+random declaration to the hotel-keeper had not been so far wrong;
+Clubfoot wanted to take the whole document to Berlin and reap all the
+laurels at the cost of half the danger and labour. That would explain
+his present silence. He suspected Semlin of treachery, not to the common
+cause, but to him!
+
+It looked as if I might have a free run until Clubfoot could reach
+Berlin. That, unless he also took a special, could not be until the
+next evening at earliest. But, more redoubtable than a meeting with
+the man of power and authority, hung over me, an ever-present nightmare,
+the interview which I felt awaited me at the end of my present
+journey ... the interview at which I must render an account of my
+mission.
+
+Evening was falling as we ran through the inhospitable region of sand
+and water and pine that engirdles Berlin. We glided at diminished speed
+through the trim suburbs, skirted the city, on whose tall buildings the
+electric sky-signs were already beginning to twinkle, crashed heavily
+over a vast network of metals at some great terminus, then tore off
+again into the gathering darkness. In a little, we slowed down again. We
+were running through wooded country. From the darkness ahead a lantern
+waved at us and the train stopped with a jerk at a little wayside
+station, a tiny box of an affair. A tall, solid figure, wearing a spiked
+helmet and grey military great-coat, stood in solitary grandeur in the
+centre of the little platform, the wavering rays of a flickering gas
+lamp reflected in his brilliantly polished top-boots.
+
+"Here we are at last!" said my companion.
+
+I stepped out to meet my fate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young lieutenant was rigid at the salute before the figure on the
+platform.
+
+I heard the end of a sentence as I alighted "... the gentleman I was to
+meet, Excellency!"
+
+The other looked at me. He was a big man with a crimson face. He made no
+attempt at greeting, but said in a hoarse voice: "Have the goodness to
+come with me. The orderlies will attend to your things." And, with
+clinking spurs, he strode out through some big kind of anteroom, swathed
+in wrappings, into a yard beyond, where a big limousine was throbbing
+gently.
+
+He stood aside to let me get in, then mounted himself, followed, rather
+to my surprise, by the young Count, whose responsibility for myself had
+ended, I imagined, on "delivering the goods." My surprise was of short
+duration, for once in the car the young Uhlan dropped all the formality
+he had displayed on the platform and addressed the elder officer as
+"papa." This, then, was old General von Boden, of whom the Major had
+spoken, Aide-de-Camp to the Kaiser and formerly tutor to the Crown
+Prince.
+
+Father and son chatted in a desultory fashion across the car, and I took
+the opportunity of studying the old gentleman. His face was of the most
+prodigious purple hue, and so highly polished that it continually caught
+the reflection of the small electric lamp in the roof. Huge gold
+spectacles with glasses so thick that they distorted his eyes,
+straddled a great beak-like nose. He had doffed his helmet and was
+mopping his brow, and I saw a high perfectly bald dome-like head,
+brilliantly polished and almost as red as his face. He was clean shaven
+and by no means young, for the flesh hung in bags about his face. Long
+years of the habit of command had left their mark in an imperiousness of
+manner which might easily yield to ruthlessness I judged.
+
+"I thought I should have had orders before I left the Villa," the
+General said to his son, "then you could have gone straight there. I
+suppose he means to see him here: that is why he wanted him brought to
+the Villa. But he's always the same: he never can make up his mind." And
+he grunted.
+
+"Perhaps there will be something waiting at home," he added in his
+hoarse barrack-yard voice.
+
+We drove through a white gate into a little drive which brought us up in
+front of a long, low villa. Neither father nor son had opened their lips
+to me during the drive from the station and I had not ventured to put a
+question to either of them, but I knew we were in Potsdam. The little
+station in the woods was Wild-Park, I suspected, the private station
+used by the Emperor on his frequent journeys and situated in the grounds
+of the New Palace. All the officials of the Prussian Court have villas
+at Potsdam, though why I had been brought there in connection with an
+affair that must surely rather interest the Wilhelm-Strasse or the
+Police Presidency was more than I could fathom.
+
+There was a frightful scene in the hall. Without any warning the General
+turned on the orderly who had opened the door and screamed abuse at him.
+"Camel! Ox! Sheep's-head!" he roared, his face and shining pate
+deepening their vermilion hue. "Do I give orders that they shall be
+forgotten? What do you mean? You ass...." He put his white-gloved hands
+on the man's shoulders and shook him until the fellow's teeth must have
+rattled in his head. The orderly, white to the lips, hung limp in the
+old man's grasp, muttering apologies: "Ach! Exzellenz! Exzellenz will
+excuse me...."
+
+It was a revolting spectacle, but it did not make the least impression
+on the son, who, putting down his cap and great-coat and unhooking his
+sword, led me into a kind of study. "These orderlies are such
+thickheads!" he said.
+
+"Rudi! Rudi!" a hoarse, strident voice screamed from the hall. The
+lieutenant ran out.
+
+"You've got to take the fellow to Berlin to-night. The message was here
+all the time--that numskull Heinrich forgot it. And we've got to keep
+the fellow here till then! An outrage, having the house used as a
+barrack for a rascally detective!" Thus much I heard, as the door had
+been left open. Then it closed and I heard no more.
+
+As I had heard this much, there was a certain irony in the invitation to
+dinner subsequently conveyed to me by the young Uhlan. There was nothing
+for it but to accept. I knew I was caught deep in the meshes of Prussian
+discipline, every one had his orders and blindly carried them out, from
+the garrulous Major on the frontier to this preposterous _Exzellenz_,
+this Imperial aide-de-camp of Potsdam. I was already a tiny cog in a
+great machine. I should have to revolve or be crushed.
+
+His Excellency left me in no doubt on this point. When I was ushered
+into his study, after a much-needed wash and a shave, he received me
+standing and said point-blank: "Your orders are to stay here until ten
+o'clock to-night, when you will be taken to Berlin by Lieutenant Count
+von Boden. I don't know you, I don't know your business, but I have
+received certain orders concerning you which I intend to carry out. For
+that reason you will dine with us here. After you have seen the person
+to whom you are to be taken to-night, Lieutenant Count von Boden will
+accompany you to the railway station at Spandau, where a special train
+will be in readiness in which he will conduct you back to the frontier.
+I wish you clearly to understand that the Lieutenant is responsible for
+seeing these orders carried out and will use all means to that end. Have
+I made myself clear?"
+
+The old man's manner was indescribably threatening. "This is the machine
+we are out to smash," I had said to myself when I saw him savaging his
+servant in the hall and I repeated the phrase to myself now. But to the
+General I said: "Perfectly, Your Excellency!"
+
+"Then let us go to dinner," said the General.
+
+It was a nightmare meal. A faded and shrunken female, to whom I was not
+introduced--some kind of relative who kept house for the General, I
+supposed--was the only other person present. She never opened her lips
+save, with eyes glazed with terror, to give some whispered instruction
+to the orderly anent the General's food or wine. We dined in a
+depressing room with dark brown wallpaper decorated with dusty stags'
+antlers, an enormous green-tiled stove dominating everything. The
+General and his son ate solidly through the courses while the lady
+pecked furtively at her plate. As for myself I could not eat for sheer
+fright. Every nerve in my body was vibrating at the thought of the
+evening before me. If I could not avoid the interview, I was resolutely
+determined to give Master von Boden the slip rather than return to the
+frontier empty-handed. I had not braved all these perils to be packed
+off home without, at least, making an attempt to find Francis. Besides,
+I meant if I could to get the other half of that document.
+
+There was some quite excellent Rhine wine, and I drank plenty of it. So
+did the General, with the result that, when the veins starting purple
+from his temples proclaimed that he had eaten to repletion, his temper
+seemed to have improved. He unbent sufficiently to present me with quite
+the worst cigar I have ever smoked.
+
+I smoked it in silence whilst father and son talked shop. The female had
+faded away. Both men, I found to my surprise, were furious and bitter
+opponents of Hindenburg, as I have since learnt most of the old school
+of the Prussian Army are. They spoke little of England: their thoughts
+seemed to be centred on Russia as the arch-enemy. They pinned their
+faith on Falkenhayn and Mackensen. They had no words strong enough in
+their denunciation of Hindenburg, whom they always referred to as "the
+Drunkard" ... "der Säufer." Nor were they sparing of criticism of what
+they called the Kaiser's "weakness" in letting him rise to power.
+
+The humming of a car outside broke up our gathering. Remembering that I
+was but a humble servant before this great military luminary, I thanked
+the General with due servility for his hospitality. Then the Count and I
+went out to the car and presently drove forth into the night.
+
+We entered Berlin from the west, as it seemed to me, but then struck off
+in a southerly direction and were soon in the commercial quarter of the
+city, all but deserted at that hour, save for the trams. Then I caught a
+glimpse of lamps reflected in water, and the next moment the car had
+stopped on a bridge over a canal or river. My companion sprang out and
+hurried me to a small gate in an iron railing enclosing a vast edifice
+looming black in the night, while the car moved off into the darkness.
+
+The gate was open. Half a dozen yards from it was a small, slender tower
+with a pointed roof jutting out from the corner of the building. In the
+tower was a door which yielded easily to my companion's vigorous push as
+a clock somewhere within the building beat a double stroke--half-past
+ten.
+
+The door led into a little vestibule brilliantly lit with electric
+light. There a man was waiting, a fine, upstanding bearded fellow in a
+kind of green hunting costume.
+
+"So, Payer!" said the young Uhlan. "Here is the gentleman. I shall be at
+the west entrance afterwards. You will bring him down yourself to the
+car."
+
+"Jawohl, Herr Graf!" answered the man in green, and the lieutenant
+vanished through the door into the night.
+
+A terrifying, an incredible suspicion that had overwhelmed me directly I
+stepped out of the car now came surging through my brain. That vast,
+black edifice, that slender tower at the corner--did I not know them?
+
+Mechanically, I followed the man in green. My suspicions deepened
+with every step. In a little, they became certainty. Up a shallow and
+winding stair, along a long and broad corridor, hung with rich
+tapestries, the polished parquet glistening faintly in the dim light,
+through splendid suites of gilded apartments with old pictures and
+splendid furniture... here a lackey with powdered hair yawning on a
+landing, there a sentry in field-grey immobile before a door...I was in
+the Berlin Schloss.
+
+The Castle seemed to sleep. A hushed silence lay over all. Everywhere
+lights were dim, staircases wound down into emptiness, corridors
+stretched away into dusky solitude. Now and then an attendant in evening
+dress tiptoed past us or an officer vanished round a corner, noiselessly
+save for a faint clink of spurs.
+
+Thus we traversed, as it seemed to me, miles of silence and of twilight,
+and all the time my blood hammered at my temples and my throat grew dry
+as I thought of the ordeal that stood before me. To whom was I thus
+bidden, secretly, in the night?
+
+We were in a broad and pleasant passage now, panelled in cheerful light
+brown oak with red hangings. After the desolation of the State
+apartments, this comfortable corridor had at least the appearance of
+leading to the habitation of man. A giant trooper in field-grey with a
+curious silver gorget suspended round his neck by a chain paced up and
+down the passage, his jackboots making no sound upon the soft, thick
+carpet with which the floor was covered.
+
+The man in green stopped at the door. Holding up a warning hand to me,
+he bent his head and listened. There was a moment of absolute silence.
+Not a sound was to be heard throughout the whole Castle. Then the man in
+green knocked softly and was admitted, leaving me outside.
+
+A moment later, the door swung open again. A tall, elegant man with grey
+hair and that indefinite air of good breeding that you find in every man
+who has spent a life at court, came out hurriedly. He looked pale and
+harassed.
+
+On seeing me, he stopped short.
+
+"Dr. Grundt? Where is Dr. Grundt?" he asked and his eyes dropped to my
+feet. He started and raised them to my face.
+
+The trooper had drifted out of earshot. I could see him, immobile as a
+statue, standing at the end of the corridor. Except for him and us, the
+passage was deserted.
+
+Again the elderly man spoke and his voice betrayed his anxiety.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked almost in a whisper. "What have you done with
+Grundt? Why has he not come?"
+
+Boldly I took the plunge.
+
+"I am Semlin," I said.
+
+"Semlin," echoed the other, "--ah yes! the Embassy in Washington wrote
+about you--but Grundt was to have come...."
+
+"Listen," I said, "Grundt could not come. We had to separate and he sent
+me on ahead...."
+
+"But ... but ..."--the man was stammering now in his anxiety--"... you
+succeeded?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+He heaved a sigh of relief.
+
+"It will be awkward, very awkward, this change in the arrangements," he
+said. "You will have to explain everything to him, everything. Wait
+there an instant."
+
+He darted back into the room.
+
+Once more I stood and waited in that silent place, so restful and so
+still that one felt oneself in a world far removed from the angry strife
+of nations. And I wondered if my interview--the meeting I had so much
+dreaded--was at an end.
+
+"Pst, Pst!" The elderly man stood at the open door.
+
+He led me through a room, a cosy place, smelling pleasantly of leather
+furniture, to a door. He opened it, revealing across a narrow threshold
+another door. On this he knocked.
+
+"Herein!" cried a voice--a harsh, metallic voice.
+
+My companion turned the handle and, opening the door, thrust me into the
+room. The door closed behind me.
+
+I found myself facing the Emperor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+I ENCOUNTER AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE WHO LEADS ME TO A DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE
+
+
+He stood in the centre of the room, facing the door, his legs, straddled
+apart, planted firmly on the ground, one hand behind his back, the
+other, withered and useless like the rest of the arm, thrust into the
+side pocket of his tunic. He wore a perfectly plain undress uniform of
+field-grey, and the unusual simplicity of his dress, coupled with the
+fact that he was bare-headed, rendered him so unlike his conventional
+portraits in the full panoply of war that I doubt if I should have
+recognized him--paradoxical as it may seem--but for the havoc depicted
+in every lineament of those once so familiar features.
+
+Only one man in the world to-day could look like that. Only one man in
+the world to-day could show, by the ravage in his face, the appalling
+weight of responsibility slowly crushing one of the most vigorous and
+resilient personalities in Europe. His figure, erstwhile erect and
+well-knit, seemed to have shrunk, and his withered arm, unnaturally
+looped away into his pocket, assumed a prominence that lent something
+sinister to that forbidding grey and harassed face.
+
+His head was sunk forward on his breast. His face, always intensely
+sallow, almost Italian in its olive tint, was livid. All its alertness
+was gone; the features seemed to have collapsed, and the flesh hung
+flabbily, bulging in deep pouches under the eyes and in loose folds at
+the corners of the mouth. His head was grizzled an iron-grey but the
+hair at the temples was white as driven snow. Only his eyes were
+unchanged. They were the same grey, steely eyes, restless, shifting,
+unreliable, mirrors of the man's impulsive, wayward and fickle mind.
+
+He lowered at me. His brow was furrowed and his eyes flashed malice. In
+the brief instant in which I gazed at him I thought of a phrase a friend
+had used after seeing the Kaiser in one of his angry moods--"His icy,
+black look."
+
+I was so taken aback at finding myself in the Emperor's presence that I
+forgot my part and remained staring in stupefaction at the apparition.
+The other was seemingly too busy with his thoughts to notice my
+forgetfulness, for he spoke at once, imperiously, in the harsh staccato
+of a command.
+
+"What is this I hear?" he said. "Why has not Grundt come? What are you
+doing here?"
+
+By this time I had elaborated the fable I had begun to tell in the
+corridor without. I had it ready now: it was thin, but it must suffice.
+
+"If your Majesty will allow me, I will explain," I said. The Emperor was
+rocking himself to and fro, in nervous irritability, on his feet. His
+eyes were never steady for an instant: now they searched my face, now
+they fell to the floor, now they scanned the ceiling.
+
+"Dr. Grundt and I succeeded in our quest, dangerous though it was. As
+your Majesty is aware, the ... the ... the object had been divided...."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know! Go on!" the other said, pausing for a moment in his
+rocking.
+
+"I was to have left England first with my portion. I could not get away.
+Everyone is searched for letters and papers at Tilbury. I devised a
+scheme and we tested it, but it failed."
+
+"How? It failed?" the other cried.
+
+"With no detriment to the success of our mission, Your Majesty."
+
+"Explain! What was your stratagem?"
+
+"I cut a piece of the lining from a handbag and in this I wrapped a
+perfectly harmless letter addressed to an English shipping agent in
+Rotterdam. I then pasted the fragment of the lining back in its place in
+the bottom of the bag. Grundt gave the bag to one of our number as an
+experiment to see if it would elude the vigilance of the English
+police."
+
+A light of interest was growing in the Emperor's manner, banishing his
+ill-temper. Anything novel always appealed to him.
+
+"Well?" he said.
+
+"The ruse was detected, the letter was found and our man was fined
+twenty pounds at the police court. It was then that Dr. Grundt decided
+to send me...."
+
+"You've got it with you?" the other exclaimed eagerly.
+
+"No, Your Majesty," I said. "I had no means of bringing it away. Dr.
+Grundt, on the other hand ..." And I doubled up my leg and touched my
+foot.
+
+The Emperor stared at me and the furrow reappeared between his eyes.
+Then a smile broke out on his face, a warm, attractive smile, like
+sunshine after rain, and he burst into a regular guffaw. I knew His
+Majesty's weakness for jokes at the expense of the physical deformities
+of others, but I had scarcely dared to hope that my subtle reference to
+Grundt's clubfoot as a hiding-place for compromising papers would have
+had such a success. For the Kaiser fairly revelled in the idea and
+laughed loud and long, his sides fairly shaking.
+
+"Ach, der Stelze! Excellent! Excellent!" he cried. "Plessen, come and
+hear how we've diddled the Englander again!"
+
+We were in a long room, lofty, with a great window at the far end, where
+the room seemed to run to the right and left in the shape of a T. From
+the big writing-desk with its litter of photographs in heavy silver
+frames, the little bronze busts of the Empress, the water-colour
+sea-scapes and other little touches, I judged this to be the Emperor's
+study.
+
+At the monarch's call, a white-haired officer emerged from the further
+end of the room, that part which was hidden from my view.
+
+The Kaiser put his hand on his shoulder.
+
+"A great joke, Plessen!" he said, chuckling. Then, to me:
+
+"Tell it again!"
+
+I had warmed to my work now. I gave as drily humorous an account as I
+could of Dr. Grundt, fat and massive and podgy, hobbling on board the
+steamer at Tilbury, under the noses of the British police, with the
+document stowed away in his boot.
+
+The Kaiser punctuated my story with gusty guffaws, and emphasized the
+fun of the _dénouement_ by poking the General in the ribs.
+
+Plessen laughed very heartily, as indeed he was expected to. Then he
+said suavely:
+
+"But has the stratagem succeeded, Your Majesty?"
+
+The monarch knit his brow and looked at me.
+
+"Well, young man, did it work?"
+
+"... Because," Plessen went on, "if so, Grundt must be in Holland. In
+that case, why is he not here?"
+
+My heart sank within me. Above all things, I knew I must keep my
+countenance. The least sign of embarrassment and I was lost. Yet I felt
+the blood fleeing from my face and I was glad I stood in the shadow.
+
+A knock came to the door. The elderly chamberlain who had met me outside
+appeared.
+
+"Your Majesty will excuse me ... General Baron von Fischer is there to
+report...."
+
+"Presently, presently," was the answer in an irritable tone. "I am
+engaged just now...."
+
+The old courtier paused irresolutely for a moment.
+
+"Well, what is it; what is it?"
+
+"Despatches from General Head-quarters, Your Majesty! The General asked
+me to say the matter was urgent!"
+
+The Kaiser wakened in an instant.
+
+"Bring him in!" Then, to Plessen, he added in a voice from which all
+mirth had vanished, in accents of gloom:
+
+"At this hour, Plessen? If things have again gone wrong on the Somme!"
+
+An officer came in quickly, rigid with a frozen face, helmet on head,
+portfolio under his arm. The Kaiser walked the length of the room to his
+desk and sat down. Plessen and the other followed him. I remained where
+I was. They seemed to have forgotten all about me.
+
+A murmur rose from the desk. The officer was delivering his report. Then
+the Kaiser seemed to question him, for I heard his hard, metallic
+voice:
+
+"Contalmaison ... Trones Wood ... heavy losses ... forced
+back ... terrific artillery fire ..." were words that reached me.
+The Kaiser's voice rose on a high note of irritability. Suddenly he
+dashed the papers on the desk from him and exclaimed:
+
+"It is outrageous! I'll break him! Not another man shall he have if I
+must go myself and teach his men their duty!"
+
+Plessen hurriedly left the desk and came to me. His old face was white
+and his hands were shaking.
+
+"Get out of here!" he said to me in a fierce undertone. "Wait outside
+and I will see you later!" Still, from the desk, resounded that harsh,
+strident voice, running on in an ascending scale, pouring forth a
+foaming torrent of menace.
+
+I had often heard of the sudden paroxysms of fury from which the Kaiser
+was said to suffer of recent years, but never in my wildest daydreams
+did I ever imagine I should assist at one.
+
+Gladly enough did I exchange the highly charged electrical atmosphere of
+the Imperial study for the repose of the quiet corridor. Its perfect
+tranquillity was as balm to my quivering nerves. Of the man in green
+nothing was to be seen. Only the trooper continued his silent vigil.
+
+Again I acted on impulse. I was wearing my grass-green raincoat, my hat
+I carried in my hand. I might therefore easily pass for one just leaving
+the Castle. Without hesitation, I turned to the left, the way I had
+come, and plunged once more into the labyrinth of galleries and
+corridors and landings by which the man in green had led me. I very soon
+lost myself, so I decided to descend the next staircase I should come
+to. I followed this plan and went down a broad flight of stairs, at the
+foot of which I found a night porter, clad in a vast overcoat bedizened
+with eagles and seated on a stool, reading a newspaper.
+
+He stopped me and asked me my business. I told him I was coming from the
+Emperor's private apartments, whereupon he demanded my pass. I showed
+him my badge which entirely satisfied him, though he muttered something
+about "new faces" and not having seen me before. I asked him for the way
+out. He said that at the end of the gallery I should come to the west
+entrance. I felt I had had a narrow squeak of running into my mentor
+outside. I told the man I wanted the other entrance ... I had my car
+there.
+
+"You mean the south entrance?" he asked, and proceeded to give me
+directions which brought me, without further difficulty, out upon the
+open space in front of the great equestrian statue of the Emperor
+William I.
+
+It was a clear, starry night and I heaved a sigh of relief as I saw the
+Schloss-Platz glittering in the cold light of the arc lamps. So pressing
+had been the danger threatening me that the atmosphere of the Castle
+seemed stifling in comparison with the keen night air. A new confidence
+filled my veins as I strode along, though the perils to which I was
+advancing were not a whit less than those I had just escaped. For I had
+burnt my boats. My disappearance from the Castle must surely arouse
+suspicion and it was only a matter of hours for the hue and cry to be
+raised after me. At best it might be delayed until Clubfoot presented
+himself at the Castle.
+
+I could not remain in Berlin, that was clear. My American passport was
+not in order, and if I were to fall back upon my silver badge, I should
+instantly come into contact with the police with all kinds of unwelcome
+consequences. No, I must get out of Berlin at all costs. Well away from
+the capital, I might possibly utilize my silver badge or by its help
+procure identity papers that would give me a status of some kind.
+
+But Francis? Baffled as I was by that obscure jingle of German,
+something seemed to tell me that it was a message from my brother. It
+was dated from Berlin, and I felt that the solution of the riddle, if
+riddle it were, must be found here.
+
+I had reached Unter den Linden. I entered a café and ordered a glass of
+beer. The place was a blaze of light and dense with a blue cloud of
+tobacco smoke. A noisy band was crashing out popular tunes and there was
+a loud buzz of conversation rising from every table. It was all very
+cheerful and the noise and the bustle did me good after the strain of
+the night.
+
+I drew from my pocket the slip of paper I had had from Dicky and fell to
+scanning it again. I had not been twelve hours in Germany, but already I
+was conscious that, for anyone acting a part, let anything go wrong with
+his identity papers and he could never leave the country. If he were
+lucky, he might lie doggo; but there was no other course.
+
+Supposing, then, that this had happened to Francis (as, indeed, Red Tabs
+had hinted to me was the case) what course would he adopt? He would try
+and smuggle out a message announcing his plight. Yes, I think that is
+what I myself would do in similar circumstances.
+
+Well, I would accept this as a message from Francis. Now to study it
+once more.
+
+_O Eichenholz! O Eichenholz!
+Wie leer sind deine Blätter.
+Wie Achiles in dem Zelte.
+Wo zweie sich zanken
+Erfreut sich der Dritte._
+
+The message fell into three parts, each consisting of a phrase. The
+first phrase might certainly be a warning that Francis had failed in
+his mission.
+
+_"O Okewood! how empty are thy leaves!"_
+
+What, then, of the other two phrases?
+
+They were short and simple. Whatever message they conveyed, it could not
+be a lengthy one. Nor was it likely that they contained a report of
+Francis' mission to Germany, whatever it had been. Indeed, it was not
+conceivable that my brother would send any such report to a Dutchman
+like van Urutius, a friendly enough fellow, yet a mere acquaintance and
+an alien at that.
+
+The message carried in those two phrases must be, I felt sure, a
+personal one, relating to my brother's welfare. What would he desire to
+say? That he was arrested, that he was going to be shot? Possibly, but
+more probably his idea in sending out word was to explain his silence
+and also to obtain assistance.
+
+My eye recurred continually to the final phrase: "When _two_ people fall
+out, the _third_ party rejoices."
+
+Might not these numerals refer to the number of a street? Might not in
+these two phrases be hidden an address at which one might find Francis,
+or at the worst, hear news of him?
+
+I sent for the Berlin Directory. I turned up the streets section and
+eagerly ran my eye down the columns of the "A's." I did not find what I
+was looking for, and that was an "Achilles-Strasse," either with two
+"l's" or with one.
+
+Then I tried "Eichenholz." There was an "Eichenbaum-Allee" in the Berlin
+suburb called West-End, but that was all. I tried for a "Blätter" or a
+"Blatt-Strasse" with an equally negative result.
+
+It was discouraging work, but I went back to the paper again. The only
+other word likely to serve as a street remaining in the puzzle was
+"Zelt."
+
+"Wie Achiles in dem Zelte."
+
+Wearily I opened the directory at the "Z's."
+
+There, staring me in the face, I found the street called "In den
+Zelten."
+
+I had struck the trail at last.
+
+In den Zelten, I discovered, on referring to the directory again,
+derived its name "In the Tents," from the fact that in earlier days a
+number of open-air beer-gardens and booths had occupied the site which
+faces the northern side of the Tiergarten. It was not a long street. The
+directory showed but fifty-six houses, several of which, I noticed, were
+still beer-gardens. It appeared to be a fashionable thoroughfare, for
+most of the occupants were titled people. No. 3, I was interested to
+see, was still noted as the Berlin office of _The Times_.
+
+The last phrase in the message decidedly gave the number. _Two_ must
+refer to the number of the house: _third_ to the number of the floor,
+since practically all dwelling-houses in Berlin are divided off into
+flats.
+
+As for the "Achiles," I gave it up.
+
+I looked at my watch. It was twenty past eleven: too late to begin my
+search that night. Then I suddenly realized how utterly exhausted I was.
+I had been two nights out of bed without sleep, for I had sat up on deck
+crossing over to Holland, and the succession of adventures that had
+befallen me since I left London had driven all thought of weariness from
+my mind. But now came the reaction and I felt myself yearning for a hot
+bath and for a nice comfortable bed. To go to an hotel at that hour of
+night, without luggage and with an American passport not in order, would
+be to court disaster. It looked as though I should have to hang about
+the cafés and night restaurants until morning, investigate the clue of
+the street called In den Zelten, and then get away from Berlin as fast
+as ever I could.
+
+But my head was nodding with drowsiness. I must pull myself together. I
+decided I would have some black coffee, and I raised my eyes to find the
+waiter. They fell upon the pale face and elegant figure of the one-armed
+officer I had met at the Casino at Goch ... the young lieutenant they
+had called Schmalz.
+
+He had just entered the café and was standing at the door, looking about
+him. I felt a sudden pang of uneasiness at the sight of him, for I
+remembered his cross-examination of me at Goch. But I could not escape
+without paying my bill; besides, he blocked the way.
+
+He settled my doubts and fears by walking straight over to my table.
+
+"Good evening, Herr Doktor," he said in German, with his pleasant smile.
+"This indeed is an unexpected pleasure! So you are seeing how we poor
+Germans are amusing ourselves in war-time. You must admit that we do not
+take our pleasures sadly. You permit me?"
+
+Without waiting for my reply, he sat down at my table and ordered a
+glass of beer.
+
+"I wish you had appeared sooner," I exclaimed in as friendly a tone as I
+could muster, "for I am just going. I have had a long and tiring journey
+and am anxious to go to an hotel."
+
+Directly I had spoken I realized my blunder.
+
+"You have not got an hotel yet?" said Schmalz. "Why, how curious! Nor
+have I!S As you are a stranger in Berlin, you must allow me to appoint
+myself your guide. Let us go to an hotel together, shall we?"
+
+I wanted to demur, difficult as it was to find any acceptable excuse,
+but his manner was so friendly, his offer seemed so sincere, that I felt
+my resolution wavering. He had a winning personality, this frank,
+handsome boy. And I was so dog-tired!
+
+He perceived my reluctance but also my indecision.
+
+"We'll go to any hotel you like," he said brightly. "But you Americans
+are spoilt in the matter of luxurious hotels, I know. Still, I tell you
+we have not much to learn in that line in Berlin. Suppose we go to the
+Esplanade. It's a fine hotel ... the Hamburg American line run it, you
+know. I am very well known there, quite the _Hauskind_ ... my uncle was
+a captain of one of their liners. They will make us very comfortable:
+they always give me a little suite, bedroom, sitting-room and bath, very
+reasonably: I'll make them do the same for you."
+
+If I had been less weary--I have often thought since--I would have got
+up and fled from the café rather than have countenanced any such mad
+proposal. But I was drunk with sleep heaviness and I snatched at this
+chance of getting a good night's rest, for I felt that, under the aegis
+of this young officer, I could count on any passport difficulties at the
+hotel being postponed until morning. By that time, I meant to be out of
+the hotel and away on my investigations.
+
+So I accepted Schmalz's suggestion.
+
+"By the way," I said, "I have no luggage. My bag got mislaid somehow at
+the station and I don't really feel up to going after it to-night."
+
+"I will fix you up," the other replied promptly, "and with pyjamas in
+the American fashion. By the by," he added, lowering his voice, "I
+thought it better to speak German. English is not heard gladly in
+Berlin just now."
+
+"I quite understand," I said. Then, to change the subject, which I did
+not like particularly, I added:
+
+"Surely, you have been very quick in coming down from the frontier. Did
+you come by train?"
+
+"Oh, no!" he answered. "I found that the car in which you drove to the
+station ... it belonged to the gentleman who came to meet you, you
+know ... was being sent back to Berlin by road, so I got the driver to
+give me a lift."
+
+He said this quite airily, with his usual tone of candour. But for a
+moment I regretted my decision to go to the Esplanade with him. What if
+he knew more than he seemed to know?
+
+I dismissed the suspicion from my mind.
+
+"Bah!" I said to myself, "you are getting jumpy. Besides, it is too late
+to turn back now!"
+
+We had a friendly wrangle as to who should pay for the drinks, and it
+ended in my paying. Then, after a long wait, we managed to get a cab, an
+antique-looking "growler" driven by an octogenarian in a coat of many
+capes, and drove to the Esplanade.
+
+It was a regular palace of a place, with a splendid vestibule with walls
+and pavement of different-hued marbles, with palm trees over-shadowing
+a little fountain tinkling in a jade basin, with servants in gaudy
+liveries. The reception clerk overwhelmed me with the cordiality of his
+welcome to my companion and "the American gentleman," and after a
+certain amount of coquettish protestations about the difficulty of
+providing accommodation, allotted us a double suite on the entresol,
+consisting of two bedrooms with a common sitting-room and bathroom.
+
+In his immaculate evening dress, he was a Beau Brummell among hotel
+clerks, that man. The luggage of the American gentleman should be
+fetched in the morning. The gentleman's papers? There was no hurry: the
+Herr Leutnant would explain to his friend the forms that had to be
+filled in: they could be given to the waiter in the morning. Would the
+gentlemen take anything before retiring? A whisky-soda--ah! whisky was
+getting scarce. No? Nothing? He had the honour to wish the gentlemen
+pleasant repose.
+
+We went to the lift in procession, Beau Brummell in front, then a
+waiter, then ourselves and the gold-braided hall porter bringing up the
+rear. One or two people were sitting in the lounge, attended by a
+platoon of waiters. The whole place gave an impression of wealth and
+luxury altogether out of keeping with British ideas of the stringency of
+life in Germany under the British blockade. I could not help reflecting
+to myself mournfully that Germany did not seem to feel the pinch very
+much.
+
+At the lift the procession bowed itself away and we went up in charge of
+the liftman, a gorgeous individual who looked like one of the Pope's
+Swiss Guards. We reached the centresol in an instant. The Lieutenant led
+the way along the dimly lighted corridor.
+
+"Here is the sitting-room," he said, opening a door. "This is my room,
+this the bathroom, and this," he flung open the fourth door, "is your
+room!"
+
+He stood aside to let me pass. The lights in the room were full on. In
+an arm-chair a big man in an overcoat was sitting.
+
+He had a heavy square face and a clubfoot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A GLASS OF WINE WITH CLUBFOOT
+
+
+I walked boldly into the room. All sense of fear had vanished in a wave
+of anger that swept over me, anger with myself for letting myself be
+trapped, anger with my companion for his treachery.
+
+Schmalz stood at my elbow with a smile full of malice on his face.
+
+"There now!" he cried, "you see, you are among friends! Am I not
+thoughtful to have prepared this little surprise for you? See, I have
+brought you to the one man you have crossed so many hundreds of miles of
+ocean to see! Herr Doktor! this is Dr. Semlin. Dr. Semlin: Dr. Grundt."
+
+The other had by now heaved his unwieldy frame from the chair.
+
+"Dr. Semlin?" he said, in a perfectly emotionless voice, _une voix
+blanche_, as the French say, "this is an unexpected pleasure. I never
+thought we should meet in Berlin. I had believed our rendezvous to have
+been fixed for Rotterdam. Still, better late than never!" And he
+extended to me a white, fat hand.
+
+"Our friend, the Herr Leutnant," I answered carelessly, "omitted to
+inform me that he was acquainted with you, as, indeed, he failed to warn
+me that I should have the pleasure of seeing you here to-night."
+
+"We owe that pleasure," Clubfoot replied with a smile that displayed a
+glitter of gold in his teeth, "to a purely fortuitous encounter at the
+Casino at Goch, as, indeed, it would appear, I am similarly indebted to
+chance for the unlooked-for boon of making your personal acquaintance
+here this evening."
+
+He bowed to Schmalz as he said this.
+
+"But come," he went on, "if I may make bold to offer you the hospitality
+of your own room, sit down and try a glass of this excellent
+Brauneberger. Rhine wine must be scarce where you come from. We have
+much to tell one another, you and I."
+
+Again he bared his golden teeth in a smile.
+
+"By all means," I said. "But I fear we keep our young friend from his
+bed. Doubtless, you have no secrets from him, but you will agree, Herr
+Doktor, that our conversation should best be tête-à-tète."
+
+"Schmalz, dear friend," Clubfoot exclaimed with a sigh of regret, "much
+as I should like ... I am indeed truly sorry that we should be deprived
+of your company, but I cannot contest the profound accuracy of our
+friend's remark. If you could go to the sitting-room for a few
+minutes...."
+
+The young lieutenant flushed angrily.
+
+"If you prefer my room to my company ... by all means," he retorted
+gruffly, "but I think, in the circumstances, that I shall go to bed."
+
+And he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, shutting the door
+with rather more force than was necessary, I thought.
+
+Clubfoot sighed.
+
+"Ach! youth! youth!" he cried, "the same impetuous youth that is at
+this very moment hacking out for Germany a world empire amidst the
+nations in arms. A wonderful race, a race of giants, our German youth,
+Herr Doktor ... the mainspring of our great German machine--as they find
+who resist it. A glass of wine!"
+
+The man's speech and manner boded ill for me, I felt. I would have
+infinitely preferred violent language and open threats to the subtle
+menace that lay concealed beneath all this suavity.
+
+"You smoke?" queried Clubfoot. "No!"--he held up his hand to stop me as
+I was reaching for my cigarette case, "you shall have a cigar--not one
+of our poor German Hamburgers, but a fine Havana cigar given me by a
+member of the English Privy Council. You stare! Aha! I repeat, by a
+member of the English Privy Council, to me, the Boche, the barbarian,
+the Hun! No hole and corner work for the old doctor. _Der Stelze_ may be
+lame, Clubfoot may be past his work, but when he travels _en mission_,
+he travels _en prince_, the man of wealth and substance. There is none
+too high to do him honour, to listen to his views on poor, misguided
+Germany, the land of thinkers sold into bondage to the militarists! Bah!
+the fools!"
+
+He snarled venomously. This man was beginning to interest me. His rapid
+change of moods was fascinating, now the kindly philosopher, now the
+Teuton braggart, now the Hun incorporate. As he limped across the room
+to fetch his cigar case from the mantelpiece, I studied him.
+
+He was a vast man, not so much by reason of his height, which was below
+the medium, but his bulk, which was enormous. The span of his shoulders
+was immense, and, though a heavy paunch and a white flabbiness of face
+spoke of a gross, sedentary life, he was obviously a man of quite
+unusual strength. His arms particularly were out of all proportion to
+his stature, being so long that his hands hung down on either side of
+him when he stood erect, like the paws of some giant ape. Altogether,
+there was something decidedly simian about his appearance his squat nose
+with hairy, open nostrils, and the general hirsuteness of the man, his
+bushy eyebrows, the tufts of black hair on his cheekbones and on the
+backs of his big, spade like hands. And there was that in his eyes, dark
+and courageous beneath the shaggy brows, that hinted at accesses of
+ape-like fury, uncontrollable and ferocious.
+
+He gave me his cigar which, as he had said, was a good one, and, after a
+preliminary sip of his wine, began to speak.
+
+"I am a plain man, Herr Doktor," he said, "and I like plain speaking.
+That is why I am going to speak quite plainly to you. When it became
+apparent to that person whom it is not necessary to name further greatly
+desired a certain letter to be recovered, I naturally expected that I,
+who am a past member in affairs of this order, notably, on behalf of the
+person concerned, would have been entrusted with the mission. It was I
+who discovered the author of the theft in an English internment camp; it
+was I who prevailed upon him to acquiesce in our terms; it was I who
+finally located the hiding place of the document ... all this, mark you,
+without setting foot in England."
+
+My thoughts flew back again to the three slips of paper in their canvas
+cover, the divided crest, the big, sprawling, upright handwriting. I
+should have known that hand. I had seen it often enough on certain
+photographs which were accorded the place of honour in the drawing room
+at Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's at Bonn.
+
+"I therefore had the prior claim," Clubfoot continued, "to be entrusted
+with the important task of fetching the document and of handing it back
+to the writer. But the gentleman was in a hurry; the gentleman always
+is; he could not wait for that old slowcoach of a Clubfoot to mature his
+plans for getting into England, securing the document, and getting out
+again.
+
+"So Bernstorff is called into consultation, the head of an embassy that
+has made the German secret service the laughing-stock of the world, an
+ambassador that has his private papers filched by a common sneak-thief
+in the underground railway and is fool enough to send home the most
+valuable documents by a jackass of a military attaché who lets the whole
+lot be taken from him by a dunderheaded British customs officer at
+Falmouth! _This_ was the man who was to replace _me!_
+
+"Bernstorff is accordingly bidden to despatch one of his trusty servants
+to England, with all suitable precautions, to do _my_ work. You are
+chosen, and I will pay you the compliment of saying that you fulfilled
+your mission in a manner that is singularly out of keeping with the
+usual method of procedure of that gentleman's emissaries.
+
+"But, my dear Doktor ... pray fill your glass. That cigar is good, is it
+not? I thought you would appreciate a good cigar.... As I was saying,
+you were handicapped from the first. When you reach the place indicated
+to you in your instructions, you find only half the document. The wily
+thief has sliced it in two so as to make sure of his money before
+parting with the goods. They didn't know, of course, that Clubfoot, the
+old slowcoach, who is past his work, was aware of this already, and had
+made his plans accordingly. But, in the end, they had to send for me.
+'The good Clubfoot,' 'old chap,' 'sly old fox,' and all the rest of
+it--would run across to England and secure the other half, while Count
+Bernstorff's smart young man from America would wait in Rotterdam until
+Herr Dr. Grundt arrived and handed him the other portion.
+
+"But Count Bernstorff's young man does nothing of the kind. He is
+one too many for the old fox. He does not wait for him. He runs away,
+after displaying unusual determination in dealing with a prying
+Englander--whose fate should be a lesson to all who interfere in other
+people's business--and goes to Germany, leaving poor old Clubfoot in the
+lurch. You must admit, Herr Doktor, that I have been hardly used--by
+yourself as well as by another person?"
+
+My throat was dry with anxiety. What did the man mean by his veiled
+allusions to "all who interfere in other people's business?"
+
+I cleared my throat to speak.
+
+Clubfoot raised a great hand in deprecation.
+
+"No explanation, Herr Doktor, I beg" (his tone was perfectly
+unconcerned and friendly), "let me have my say. When I found out that
+you had left Rotterdam--by the way, you must let me congratulate you on
+the remarkable fertility of resource you displayed in quitting Frau
+Schratt's hospitable house--when I found you were gone, I sat down and
+thought things out.
+
+"I reflected that an astute American like yourself (believe me, you are
+very astute) would probably be accustomed to look at everything from the
+business standpoint. 'I will also consider the matter from the business
+standpoint,' I said to myself, and I decided that, in your place, I too
+would not be content to accept, as sole payment for the danger of my
+mission, the scarcely generous compensation that Count Bernstorff allots
+to his collaborators. No, I should wish to secure a little renown for
+myself, or, were that not possible, then some monetary gain
+proportionate with the risks I had run. You see, I have been at pains to
+put myself wholly in your place. I hope I have not said anything
+tactless. If so, I can at least acquit myself of any desire to offend."
+
+"On the contrary, Herr Doktor," I replied, "you are the model of tact
+and diplomacy."
+
+His eyes narrowed a little at this. I thought he wouldn't like that word
+"diplomacy."
+
+"Another glass of wine? You may safely venture; there is not a headache
+in a bottle of it. Well, Herr Doktor, since you have followed me so
+patiently thus far, I will go further. I told you, when I first saw you
+this evening, that I was delighted at our meeting. That was no mere
+banality, but the sober truth. For, you see, I am the very person with
+whom, in the circumstances, you would wish to get in touch. Deprived of
+the honour, rightly belonging to me, of undertaking this mission
+single-handed and of fulfilling it alone, I find that you can enable me
+to carry out the mission to a successful conclusion, whilst I, for my
+part, am able and willing to recompense your services as they deserve
+and not according to Bernstorff's starvation scale.
+
+"To make a long story short, Herr Doktor ... how much?"
+
+He brought his remarks to this abrupt anticlimax so suddenly that I was
+taken aback. The man was watching me intently for all his apparent
+nonchalance, and I felt more than ever the necessity for being on my
+guard. If I could only fathom how much he knew. Of two things I felt
+fairly sure: the fellow believed me to be Semlin and was under the
+impression that I still retained my portion of the document. I should
+have to gain time. The bargain he proposed over my half of the letter
+might give me an opportunity of doing that. Moreover, I must find out
+whether he really had the other half of the document, and in that case,
+where he kept it.
+
+He broke the silence.
+
+"Well, Herr Doktor," he said, "do you want me to start the bidding? You
+needn't be afraid. I am generous."
+
+I leant forward earnestly in my chair.
+
+"You have spoken with admirable frankness, Herr Doktor," I said, "and I
+will be equally plain, but I will be brief. In the first place, I wish
+to know that you are the man you profess to be: so far, you must
+remember, I have only the assurance of our excitable young friend."
+
+"Your caution is most praiseworthy," said the other, "but I should
+imagine I carry my name written on my boot." And he lifted his hideous
+and deformed foot.
+
+"That is scarcely sufficient guarantee," I answered, "in a matter of
+this importance. A detail like that could easily be counterfeited, or
+otherwise provided for."
+
+"My badge," and the man produced from his waistcoat pocket a silver star
+identical with the one I carried on my braces, but bearing only the
+letter "G" above the inscription "Abt. VII."
+
+"That, even," I retorted, "is not conclusive."
+
+Clubfoot's mind was extraordinarily alert, however gross and heavy his
+body might be.
+
+He paused for a moment in reflection, his hands crossed upon his great
+paunch.
+
+"Why not?" he said suddenly, reached out for his cigar-case, beside him
+on the table, and produced three slips of paper highly glazed and
+covered with that unforgettable, sprawling hand, a portion of a gilded
+crest at the top--in short, the missing half of the document I had found
+in Semlin's bag. Clubfoot held them out fanwise for me to see, but well
+out of my reach, and he kept a great, spatulate thumb over the top of
+the first sheet where the name of the addressee should have been.
+
+"I trust you are now convinced, Herr Doktor," he said, with a smile that
+bared his teeth, and, putting the pieces together, he folded them
+across, tucked them away in the cigar-case again, and thrust it into his
+pocket.
+
+I must test the ground further.
+
+"Has it occurred to you, Herr Doktor," I asked, "that we have very
+little time at our disposal? The person whom we serve must be anxiously
+waiting...."
+
+Clubfoot laughed and shook his head.
+
+"I want that half-letter badly," he said, "but there's no violent hurry.
+So I fear you must leave that argument out of your presentation of the
+case, for it has no commercial value. The person you speak of is not in
+Berlin."
+
+I had heard something of the Kaiser's sudden appearances and
+disappearances during the war, but I had not thought they could be so
+well managed as to be kept from the knowledge of one of his own trusted
+servants, for such I judged Clubfoot to be. Evidently, he knew nothing
+of my visit to the Castle that evening, and I was for a moment
+unpatriotic enough to wish I had kept my half of the letter that I might
+give it to Clubfoot now to save the coming exposure. "A thousand
+dollars!" Clubfoot said.
+
+I remained silent.
+
+"Two? Three? Four thousand? Man, you are greedy. Well, I will make it
+five thousand--twenty thousand marks...."
+
+"Herr Doktor," I said, "I don't want your money. I want to be fair with
+you. When the ... the person we know of sends for you, we will go
+together. You shall tell the large part you have played in this affair.
+I only want credit for what I have done, nothing more...."
+
+A knock came at the door. The porter entered.
+
+"A telegram for the Herr Doktor," he said, presenting a salver.
+
+Somewhere near by a band was playing dance music ... one of those
+rousing, splendidly accented Viennese waltzes. There seemed to be a ball
+on, for through the open door of the room, I heard, mingled with the
+strains of the music, the sound of feet and the hum of voices.
+
+Then the door closed, shutting out the outer world again.
+
+"You permit me," said Grundt curtly, as he broke the seal of the
+telegram. So as not to seem to observe him, I got up and walked across
+to the window, and leaned against the warm radiator.
+
+"Well?" said a voice from the arm-chair.
+
+"Well?" I echoed.
+
+"I have made you my proposal, Herr Doktor: you have made yours. Yours is
+quite unacceptable. I have told you with great frankness why it is
+necessary that I should have your portion of the document and the sum I
+am prepared to pay for it. I set its value at five thousand dollars. I
+will pay you the money over in cash, here and now, in good German
+bank-notes, in exchange for those slips of paper."
+
+The man's suavity had all but vanished: his voice was harsh and stern.
+His eyes glittered under his shaggy brows as he looked at me. Had I been
+less agitated, I should have noted this, as a portent of the coming
+storm, also his great ape's hands picking nervously at the telegram in
+his lap.
+
+"I have already told you," I said firmly, "that I don't want your money.
+You know my terms!"
+
+He rose up from his seat and his figure seemed to tower.
+
+"Terms?" he cried in a voice that quivered with suppressed passion,
+"terms? Understand that I give orders. I accept terms from no man. We
+waste time here talking. Come, take the money and give me the paper."
+
+I shook my head. My brain was clear, but I felt the crisis was coming. I
+took a good grip with my hands of the marble slab covering the radiator
+behind me to give me confidence. The slab yielded: mechanically I noted
+that it was loose.
+
+The man in front of me was shaking with rage.
+
+"Listen!" he said. "I'll give you one more chance. But mark my words
+well. Do you know what happened to the man that stole that document? The
+English took him out and shot him on account of what was found in his
+house when they raided it. Do you know what happened to the interpreter
+at the internment camp, who was our go-between, who played us false by
+cutting the document in half? The English shot _him_ too, on account of
+what was found in letters that came to him openly through the post? And
+who settled Schulte? And who settled the other man? Who contrived the
+traps that sent them to their doom? It was _I_, Grundt, _I_, the
+cripple, _I_, the Clubfoot, that had these traitors despatched as an
+example to the six thousand of us who serve our Emperor and empire in
+darkness! You dog, I'll smash you!"
+
+He was gibbering like an angry ape: his frame was shaking with fury:
+every hair in the tangle on his face and hands seemed to bristle with
+his Berserker frenzy.
+
+But he kept away from me, and I saw that he was still fighting to
+preserve his self-control.
+
+I maintained a bold front.
+
+"This may do for your own people," I said contemptuously, "but it
+doesn't impress me, I'm an American citizen!"
+
+He was calmer now, but his eyes glittered dangerously.
+
+"An American citizen?" he said in an icy tone. Then he fairly hissed at
+me:
+
+"You fool! Blind, besotted fool! Do you think you can trifle with the
+might of the German Empire? Ah! I've played a pretty game with you, you
+dirty English dog! I've watched you squirming and writhing whilst the
+stupid German told you his pretty little tale and plied you with his
+wine and his cigars. You're in our power now, you miserable English
+hound! Do you understand that? Now call on your fleet to come and save
+you!
+
+"Listen! I'll be frank with you to the last. I've had my suspicions of
+you from the first, when they telephoned me that you had escaped from
+the hotel, but I wanted to make _sure_. Ever since you have been in this
+room it has been in my power to push that bell there and send you to
+Spandau, where they rid us of such dirty dogs as you.
+
+"But the game amused me. I liked to see the Herr Englander playing the
+spy against _me_, the master of them all. Do you know, you fool, that
+old Schratt knows English, that she spent years of her harlot's life in
+London, and that when you allowed her a glimpse of that passport, your
+own passport, the one you so cleverly burned, she remembered the name?
+Ah! you didn't know that, did you?
+
+"Shall I tell you what was in that telegram they just brought me? It was
+from Schratt, our faithful Schratt, who shall have a bangle for this
+night's work, to say that the corpse at the hotel has a chain round its
+neck with an identity disc in the name of Semlin. Ha! you didn't know
+that either, did you?
+
+"And _you_ would bargain and chaffer with me! _You_ would dictate your
+terms, you scum! _You_ with your head in a noose, a spy that has failed
+in his mission, a miserable wretch that I can send to his death with a
+flip of my little finger! You impudent hound! Well, you'll get your
+deserts this time, Captain Desmond Okewood ... but I'll have that paper
+first!"
+
+Roaring "Give it to me!" he rushed at me like some frenzied beast of the
+jungle. The veins stood out at his temples, his hairy nostrils opened
+and closed as his breath came faster, his long arms shot out and his
+great paws clutched at my throat.
+
+But I was waiting for him. As he came at me, I heard his clubfoot stump
+once on the polished floor, then, from the radiator behind me, I raised
+high in my arms the heavy marble slab, and with every ounce of strength
+in my body brought it crashing down on his head.
+
+He fell like a log, the blood oozing sluggishly from his head on to the
+parquet. I stopped an instant, snatched the cigar-case from the pocket
+where he had placed it, extracted the document and fled from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MISS MARY PRENDERGAST RISKS HER REPUTATION
+
+
+The rooms of our suite were intercommunicating so that you could pass
+from one to the other without going into the corridor at all. Schmalz
+had retired this way, going from my room through the bathroom to his own
+room. In the excitement of the moment I forgot all about this, else I
+should not have omitted such an elementary precaution as slipping the
+bolt of the door communicating between my room and the bathroom.
+
+As I stepped out into the corridor, with the crash of that heavy body
+still ringing in my ears, I thought I caught the sound of a light step
+in the bathroom; the next moment I heard a door open and then a loud
+exclamation of horror in the room I had just left.
+
+The corridor was dim and deserted. The place seemed uninhabited. No
+boots stood outside the rooms, and open doors, one after the other, were
+sufficient indication that the apartments they led to were untenanted.
+
+I didn't pause to reason or to plan. On hearing that long drawn out cry
+of horror, I dashed blindly down the corridor at top speed, followed it
+round to the right and then, catching sight of a small staircase, rushed
+up it three steps at a time. As I reached the top I heard a loud cry
+somewhere on the floor below. Then a door banged, there was the sound of
+running feet and ... silence.
+
+I found myself on the next floor in a corridor similar to the one I had
+just left. Like it, it was desolate and dimly lit. Like it, it showed
+room after room silent and empty. Agitated as I was, the contrast with
+the bright and busy vestibule and the throng of uniformed servants below
+was so marked that it struck me with convincing force. Even the hotels,
+it seemed, were part and parcel of the great German publicity bluff
+which I had noted in my reading of the German papers at Rotterdam.
+
+I had no plan in my head, only a wild desire to put as much distance as
+possible between me and that ape-man in the room below. So, after
+pausing a moment to listen and draw breath, I started off again.
+Suddenly a door down the corridor, not ten paces away from me, opened
+and a woman came out. I stopped dead in my headlong course, but it was
+too late and I found myself confronting her.
+
+She was young and very beautiful with masses of thick brown hair
+clustering round a very white forehead. She was in evening dress, all
+in white, with an ermine wrap.
+
+Even as I looked at her I knew her and she knew me.
+
+"Monica," I whispered.
+
+"Why! Desmond!" she said.
+
+A regular hubbub echoed from below. Voices were crying out, doors were
+banging, there was the sound of feet.
+
+The girl was speaking, saying in her low and pleasant voice phrases that
+were vague to me about her surprise, her delight at seeing me. But I did
+not listen to her. I was straining my ears towards that volume of
+chaotic noises which came swelling up from below.
+
+"Monica!" I interrupted swiftly, "have you any place to hide me? This
+place is dangerous for me.... I must get away. If you can't save me,
+don't stay here but get away yourself as fast as you can. They're after
+me and if they catch you with me it will be bad for you!"
+
+Without a word the girl turned round to the room she had just left. She
+beckoned to me, then knocked and went in. I followed her. It was a big,
+pleasant bedroom, elegantly furnished with a soft carpet and silk
+hangings, and I know not what, with shaded lights and flowers in
+profusion. Sitting up in bed was a stout, placid-looking woman in a pink
+silk kimono with her hair coquettishly braided in two short pigtails
+which hung down on either side of her face.
+
+Monica closed the door softly behind her.
+
+"Why, Monica!" she exclaimed in horror--and her speech was that of the
+United States--"what on earth ...?"
+
+"Not a word, Mary, but let me explain...."
+
+"But for land's sake, Monica...."
+
+"Mary, I want you to help...."
+
+"But say, child, a man ... in my bedroom ... at this time o' night...."
+
+"Oh, shucks, Mary! let me talk."
+
+The distress of the woman in bed was so comic that I could scarcely help
+laughing. She had dragged the bed-clothes up till only her eyes could be
+seen. Her pigtails bobbed about in her emotion.
+
+"Now, Mary dear, listen here. You're a friend of mine. This is Desmond
+Okewood, another, a very old and dear friend of mine too. Well, you
+know, Mary, this isn't a healthy country these times for an English
+officer. That's what Desmond here is. I didn't know he was in Germany. I
+don't know a thing about him except what he's told me and that's that
+he's in danger and wants me to help him. I met him outside and brought
+him right in here, as I know you would want me to, wouldn't you, dear?"
+
+The lady poked her nose over the top of the bed-clothes.
+
+"Present the gentleman properly, Monica!" she said severely.
+
+"Captain Okewood ... Miss Mary Prendergast," said Monica.
+
+The lady's head, pigtails and all, now appeared. She appeared to be
+somewhat mollified.
+
+"I can't say I approve of your way of doing things, Monica," she
+observed, but less severely than before, "and I can't think what an
+English officer wants in my bedroom at ten minutes of two in the
+morning, but if those Deutschers want to find him, perhaps I can
+understand!"
+
+Here she smiled affectionately on the beautiful girl at my side.
+
+"Ah! Mary, you're a dear," replied Monica.
+
+"I knew you'd help us. Why, a British officer in Germany ... isn't it
+too thrilling?"
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"But, Des," she said, "what do you want me to do?"
+
+I knew I could trust Monica and I resolved I would trust her friend
+too... she looked a white woman all right. And if she was a friend of
+Monica's, her heart would be in the right place. Francis and I had known
+Monica all our lives almost. Her father had lived for years ... indeed
+to the day of his death ... in London as the principal European
+representative of a big American financial house. They had lived next
+door to us in London and Francis and I had known Monica from the days
+when she was a pretty kid in short skirts until she had made her debut
+and the American ambassadress had presented her at Buckingham Palace. At
+various stages of our lives, both Francis and I had been in love with
+her, I believe, but my life in the army had kept me much abroad, so
+Francis had seen most of her and had been the hardest hit.
+
+Then the father died and Monica went travelling abroad in great state,
+as befits a young heiress, with a prodigiously respectable American
+chaperon and a retinue of retainers. I never knew the rights of the case
+between her and Francis, but at one of the German embassies abroad--I
+think in Vienna--she met the young Count Rachwitz, head of one of the
+great Silesian noble houses, and married him.
+
+It was not on the usual rock--money--that this German-American marriage
+was wrecked, for the Count was very wealthy himself. I had supposed that
+the German man's habitual attitude of mind towards women had not suited
+the girl's independent spirit on hearing that Monica, a few years after
+her marriage, had left her husband and gone to live in America. I had
+not seen her since she left London, and, though we wrote to one another
+at intervals, I had not heard from her since the war started and had no
+idea that she had returned to Germany. Monica Rachwitz was, in fact, the
+last person I should ever have expected to meet in Berlin in war-time.
+
+So, as briefly as I could and listening intently throughout for any
+sounds from the corridor, I gave the two women the story of the
+disappearance of Francis and my journey into Germany to look for him. At
+the mention of my brother's name, I noticed that the girl stiffened and
+her face grew rigid, but when I told her of my fears for his safety her
+blue eyes seemed to me to grow dim. I described to them my adventure in
+the hotel at Rotterdam, my reception in the house of General von Boden,
+and my interview at the Castle, ending with the experiences of that
+night, the trap laid for me at the hotel and my encounter with Clubfoot
+in the room below. Two things only I kept back: the message from Francis
+and the document. I decided within myself that the fewer people in those
+secrets the safer they would be. I am afraid, therefore, that my account
+of my interview with the Emperor was a trifle garbled, for I made out
+that I did not know why I was bidden to the presence and that our
+conversation was interrupted before I could discover the reason.
+
+The two women listened with grave faces. Only once did Monica interrupt
+me. It was when I mentioned General von Boden.
+
+"I know the beast," she said. "But, oh, Des!" she exclaimed, "you seem
+to have fallen right among the top set in this country. They're a bad
+lot to cross. I fear you are in terrible danger."
+
+"I believe you, Monica," I answered, dolefully enough. "And that's just
+where I feel such a beast for throwing myself upon your mercy in this
+way. But I was pretty desperate when I met you just now and I didn't
+know where to turn. Still, I want you to understand that if you can only
+get me out of this place I shall not trouble you further. I came to this
+country on my own responsibility and I'm going through with it alone. I
+have no intention of implicating anybody else along with me. But I
+confess I don't believe it is possible to get away from this hotel.
+They're watching every door by now. Besides..."
+
+I stopped abruptly. A noise outside caught my listening ear. Footsteps
+were approaching along the corridor. I heard doors open and shut. They
+were hunting for me, floor by floor, room by room.
+
+"Open that wardrobe," said a voice from the bed: a firm, business-like
+voice that was good to hear. "Open it and get right in, young man; but
+don't go mussing up my good dresses whatever you do! And you, Monica,
+quick! Switch off those lights all but this one by the bed. Good! Now go
+to the door and ask them what they mean by making this noise at this
+time of night with me ill and all!"
+
+I got into the wardrobe and Monica shut me in. I heard the bedroom door
+open, then voices. I waited patiently for five minutes, then the
+wardrobe door opened again.
+
+"Come out, Des," said Monica, "and thank Mary Prendergast for her
+cleverness."
+
+"What did they say?" I asked.
+
+"That reception clerk was along. He was most apologetic--they know me
+here, you see. He told me how a fellow had made a desperate attack upon
+a gentleman on the floor below and had got away. They thought he must be
+hiding somewhere in the hotel. I told him I'd been sitting here for an
+hour chatting with Miss Prendergast and that we hadn't heard a sound.
+They went away then!"
+
+"You won't catch any Deutschers fooling Mary Prendergast," said the
+jovial lady in the bed; "but, children, what next?"
+
+Monica spoke--quite calmly. She was always perfectly self-possessed.
+
+"My brother is stopping with me in our apartment in the
+Bendler-Strasse," she said. "You remember Gerry, Des--he got all smashed
+up flying, you know, and is practically a cripple. He's been so much
+better here that I've been trying to get an attendant to look after him,
+to dress him and so on, but we couldn't find anybody; men are so scarce
+nowadays! You could come home with me, Des, and take this man's place
+for a day or two ... I'm afraid it couldn't be longer, for one would
+have to register you with the police--every one has to be registered,
+you know--and I suppose you have no papers that are any good--now."
+
+"You are too kind, Monica," I answered, "but you risk too much and I
+can't accept."
+
+"It's no risk for a day or two," she said. "I am a person of consequence
+in official Germany, you know, with my husband A.D.C. to Marshal von
+Mackensen: and I can always say I forgot to send in your papers. If they
+come down upon me afterwards I should say I meant to register you but
+had to discharge you suddenly ... for drink!"
+
+"But how can I get away from here?" I objected.
+
+"I guess we can fix that too," she replied. "My car is coming for me at
+two--it must be that now--I have been at a dance downstairs--one of the
+Radolin girls is getting married to-morrow--it was so deadly dull I ran
+up here and woke up Mary Prendergast to talk. You shall be my chauffeur!
+I know you drive a car! You ought to be able to manage mine ... it's a
+Mercédès."
+
+"I can drive any old car," I said, "but I'm blessed ..."
+
+"Wait there!" cried this remarkable girl, and ran out of the room.
+
+For twenty minutes I stood and made small talk with Miss Prendergast.
+They were the longest twenty minutes I have ever spent. I was dead tired
+in any case, but my desperate position kept my thoughts so busy that,
+for all my endeavours to be polite, I fear my conversation was extremely
+distraught.
+
+"You poor boy!" suddenly said Miss Mary Prendergast, totally ignoring a
+profound remark I was making regarding Mr. Wilson's policy, "don't you
+go on talking to me! Sit down on that chair and go to sleep! You look
+just beat!"
+
+I sat down and nodded in the arm-chair.
+
+Suddenly I was awake. Monica stood before me. She drew from under her
+cape a livery cap and uniform.
+
+"Put these things on," she said, "and listen carefully. When you leave
+here, turn to the right and take the little staircase you will find on
+the right. Go down to the bottom, go through the glass doors, and across
+the room you will find there, to a door in a corner which leads to the
+ballroom entrance of the hotel. I will give you my ermine wrap to carry.
+I shall be waiting there. You will help me on with my cloak and escort
+me to the car. Is that clear?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Now, pay attention once more, for I shall not be able to speak to you
+again. I shall have to give you your directions for finding the way to
+the Bendler-Strasse."
+
+She did so and added:
+
+"Drive carefully, whatever you do. If we had a smash and the police
+intervened, it might be most awkward for you."
+
+"But your chauffeur," I said, "what will he do?"
+
+"Oh, Carter," she answered carelessly, "he's tickled to death ... he's
+American, you see ... he drove me out into the Tiergarten just now and
+took off his livery, then drove me back here, hopped off and went home."
+
+"But can you trust him?" I asked anxiously.
+
+"Like myself," she said. "Besides, Carter's been to Belgium ... he drove
+Count Rachwitz, my husband, while he was on duty there. And Carter
+hasn't forgotten what he saw in Belgium!"
+
+She gave me the key of the garage and further instructions how to put
+the car up. Carter would give me a bed at the garage and would bring me
+round to the house early in the morning as if I were applying for the
+job of male attendant for Gerry.
+
+"I will go down first," Monica said, "so as not to keep you waiting. My,
+but they're rattled downstairs--all the crowd at Olga von Radolin's
+dance have got hold of the story and the place is full of policemen. But
+there'll be no danger if you walk straight up to me in the hall and
+keep your face turned away from the crowd as much as possible."
+
+She kissed Miss Prendergast and slipped away. What a splendid pair of
+women they were: so admirably cool and resourceful: they seemed to have
+thought of everything.
+
+"Good night, Miss Prendergast," I said. "You have done me a good turn. I
+shall never forget it!" And as the only means at my disposal for showing
+my gratitude, I kissed her hand.
+
+She coloured up like a girl.
+
+"It's a long time since any one did that to a silly old woman like me,"
+she said musingly. "Was it you or your brother," she asked abruptly,
+"who nearly broke my poor girl's heart?"
+
+"I shouldn't like to say," I answered; "but I don't think, speaking
+personally, that Monica ever cared enough about me for me to plead
+guilty."
+
+She sniffed contemptuously.
+
+"If that is so," she said, "all I can say is that you seem to have all
+the brains of your family!"
+
+With that I took my leave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I reached the ballroom vestibule without meeting a soul. The place was
+crowded with people, officers in uniform, glittering with decorations,
+women in evening dress, coachmen, footmen, chauffeurs, waiters.
+Everybody was talking sixteen to the dozen, and there were such dense
+knots of people that at first I couldn't see Monica. Two policemen were
+standing at the swing-doors leading into the street, and with them a
+civilian who looked like a detective. I caught sight of Monica, almost
+at the detective's elbow, talking to two very elegant-looking officers.
+I pushed my way across the vestibule, turned my back on the detective
+and stood impassively beside her.
+
+"Ah! there you are, Carter!" she said. "Gute Nacht, Herr Baron! Auf
+wiedersehen, Durchlaucht!"
+
+The two officers kissed her hand whilst I helped her into her wrap. Then
+I marched straight out of the swing-doors in front of her, looking
+neither to right nor to left, past the detective and the two policemen.
+The detective may have looked at me: if so, I didn't perceive it. I had
+made up my mind not to see him.
+
+Outside Monica took the lead and brought me over to a chocolate-coloured
+limousine drawn up at the pavement. I noted with dismay that the engine
+was stopped. That might mean further delay whilst I cranked up. But a
+friendly chauffeur standing by seized the handle and started the engine
+whilst I assisted Monica into the car, and the next moment we were
+gliding smoothly over the asphalt under the twinkling arc-lamps.
+
+The Bendler-Strasse is off the Tiergarten, not far from the Esplanade,
+and I found my way there without much difficulty. I flatter myself that
+both Monica and I played our parts well, and I am sure nothing could
+have been more professional than the way I helped her to alight. It was
+an apartment house and she had the key of the front door, so, after
+seeing her safely within doors, I returned to the car and drove it round
+to the garage by a carriage-way leading to the rear of the premises.
+
+As I unlocked the double doors of the garage, a man came down a ladder
+outside the place leading to the upper room.
+
+"Did it work all right, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Is that Carter?" I said.
+
+"Sure that's me," came the cheery response. "Stand by now and we'll run
+her in. Then I'll show you where you are to sleep!"
+
+We stowed the car away and he took me upstairs to his quarters, a bright
+little room with electric light, a table with a red cloth, a cheerful
+open fire and two beds. The walls were ornamented with pictures cut from
+the American Sunday supplements, mostly feminine and horsy studies.
+
+"It's a bit rough, mister," said Carter, "but it's the best I can do.
+Gee! but you look that dawg-gorn tired I guess you could sleep
+anywheres!"
+
+He was a friendly fellow, pleasant-looking in an ugly way, with a button
+nose and honest eyes.
+
+"Say, but I like to think of the way we fooled them Deutschers," he
+chuckled. He kept on chuckling to himself whilst I took off my boots and
+began to undress.
+
+"That there is your bed," he said, pointing; "the footman used to sleep
+there but they grabbed him for the army. There's a pair of Mr. Gerry's
+pyjamas for you and you'll find a cup of cocoa down warming by the fire.
+It's all a bit rough, but it's the best we can do. I guess you want to
+go to sleep mortal bad, so I'll be going down. The bed's clean... there
+are clean sheets on it...."
+
+"But I won't turn you out of your room," I said. "There are two beds.
+You must take yours."
+
+"Don't you fret yourself about me," he answered. "I'll make myself
+comfortable down in the garage. I don't often see a gentleman in this
+dawg-gorn country, and when I do I know how to treat him."
+
+He wouldn't listen to me, but stumped off down the stairs. As he went I
+heard him murmuring to himself:
+
+"Gee! but we surely fooled those Deutschers some!"
+
+I drank this admirable fellow's cocoa; I warmed myself at his fire.
+Then with a thankful heart I crawled into bed and sank into a deep and
+dreamless sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIS EXCELLENCY THE GENERAL IS WORRIED
+
+
+I sat with Monica in her boudoir, which, unlike the usual run of German
+rooms, had an open fireplace in which a cheerful fire was burning.
+Monica, in a ravishing kimono, was perched on the leather railed seat
+running round the fireplace, one little foot in a satin slipper held out
+to the blaze. In that pretty room she made a charming picture, which for
+a moment almost made me forget the manifold dangers besetting me.
+
+The doughty Carter had acquitted himself nobly of his task. When I
+awoke, feeling like a giant refreshed, he had the fire blazing merrily
+in the fireplace, while on the table a delicious breakfast of tea and
+fried eggs and biscuits was spread.
+
+"There ain't no call to mess yourself up inside with that dam' war bread
+of theirs," he chirped. "Miss Monica, she lets me have biscuits, same
+like she has herself. I always calls her Miss Monica," he explained,
+"like what they did over at her uncle's place in Long Island, where I
+used to work."
+
+After breakfast he produced hot water, a safety razor and other toilet
+requisites, a clean shirt and collar, an overcoat and a Stetson hat--all
+from Gerry's wardrobe, I presumed. My boots, too, were beautifully
+polished, and it was as a new man altogether, fresh in mind and clean in
+body, that I presented myself, about ten o'clock in the morning, at the
+front door and demanded the "Frau Gräfin." By Carter's advice I had
+removed my moustache, and my clean-shaven countenance, together with my
+black felt hat and dark overcoat, gave me, I think, that appearance of
+rather dour respectability which one looks for in a male attendant.
+
+Now Monica and I sat and reviewed the situation together.
+
+"German servants spend their lives in prying into their masters'
+affairs," she said, "but we shan't be interrupted here. That door leads
+into Gerry's room: he was asleep when I went in just now. I'll take you
+into him presently. Now tell me about yourself ... and Francis!"
+
+I told her again, but at greater length, all I knew about Francis, his
+mission into Germany, his long silence.
+
+"I acted on impulse," I said, "but, believe me, I acted for the best.
+Only, everything seems to have conspired against me. I appear to have
+walked straight into a mesh of the most appalling complications which
+reach right up to the Throne."
+
+"Never mind, Des," she said, leaning over and putting a little hand on
+my arm, "it was for Francis; you and I would do anything to help him,
+wouldn't we? ... if he is still alive. Impulse is not such a bad thing,
+after all. If I had acted on impulse once, maybe poor Francis would not
+now be in the fix he is...."
+
+And she sighed.
+
+"Things look black enough, Des," she went on. "Maybe you and I won't get
+the chance of another chat like this again and that's why I'm going to
+tell you something I have never told anybody else. I am only telling you
+so as you will know that, whatever happens, you will always find in me
+an ally in your search ... though, tied as I am, I scarcely think I can
+ever help you much.
+
+"Your brother wanted me to marry him. I liked him better than
+anybody else I had ever met ... or have ever met since, for that
+matter.... Daddy was dead, I was absolutely free to please myself, so no
+difficulties stood in the way. But your brother was proud ... his pride
+was greater than his love for me, I told him when we parted ... and he
+wouldn't hear of marriage until he had made himself independent, though
+I had enough for both of us. He wanted me to wait a year or two until
+he had got his business started properly, but his pride angered me and
+I wouldn't.
+
+"So we quarrelled and I went abroad with Mrs. Rushwood. Francis never
+wrote: all I heard about him was an occasional scrap in your letters.
+Mrs. Rushwood was crazy about titles, and she ran me round from court to
+court, always looking for what she called a suitable _pari_ for me. At
+Vienna we met Rachwitz ... he was very good looking and very well
+mannered and seemed to be really fond of me.
+
+"Well, I gave Francis another chance. I wrote him a friendly letter and
+told him about Rachwitz wanting to marry me and asked his advice. He
+wrote me back a beastly letter, a wicked letter, Des. 'Any girl who is
+fool enough to sell herself for a title,' he said, 'richly deserves a
+German husband.' What do you think of that?"
+
+"Poor old Francis," I said. "He was terribly fond of you, Monica!"
+
+"Well, his letter did it. I married Rachwitz ... and have been miserable
+ever since. I'm not going to bore you with a long story about my
+matrimonial troubles. No! I'm not going to cry either! I'm not crying!
+Karl is not a bad man, as German men go, and he's a gentleman, but his
+love affairs and his drunken parties and his attitude of mind towards
+me ... it was so utterly different to everything I had been used to.
+Then you know, I left him...."
+
+"But, Monica," I exclaimed, "what are you doing here then?"
+
+She sighed wearily.
+
+"I'm a German by marriage, Des," she said, "you can't get away from
+that. My husband's country ... my country ... is at war and the wives
+must play their part, wherever their heart is. Karl never asked me to
+come back, I'll give him the credit for that. I came of my own accord
+because I felt my place was here. So I go round to needlework parties
+and sewing bees and Red Cross matinées and try to be civil to the German
+women and listen to their boasting and bragging about their army, their
+hypocrisy about Belgium, their vilification of the best friends Daddy
+and I ever had, you English! But doing my duty by my husband does not
+forbid me to help my friends when they are in danger. That's why you can
+count on me, Des."
+
+And she gave me her hand.
+
+"I want to be frank with you, too," I said, "so, whatever happens to me,
+you won't feel I have deceived you about things. I can't say much
+because my secret is not healthy for anyone to share, and, should they
+trace any connection between you and me, if they get me, it will be
+better for you not to have known anything compromising. But I want to
+tell you this. There is a consideration at stake which is higher than
+my own safety, higher even than Francis'. I don't believe I am afraid to
+die: if I escape here, I shall probably get killed at the front sooner
+or later: it is because of this consideration I speak of that I want to
+get away with my life back to England."
+
+Monica laughed happily.
+
+"Why do men always take us women to be fools?" she said. "You're a
+dangerous man to have around, Des, I know that, without worrying my head
+about any old secret. But you are my friend and Francis' brother and I'm
+going to help you.
+
+"Now, listen! Old von Boden was at that party last night: he came in
+late. Rudi von Boden, he told me, is going to take despatches to
+Rumania, to Mackensen's head-quarters. Well, I telephoned the old man
+this morning and asked him if Rudi would take a parcel for me to Karl.
+He said he would and the General is coming here to lunch to-day to fetch
+it.
+
+"Von Boden is an old beast and runs after every woman he meets. He is by
+way of being partial to me, if you please, sir. I think I should be able
+to find out from him what are the latest developments in your case.
+There's nothing in the paper this morning about the affair at the
+Esplanade. But then, these things are always hushed up."
+
+"He'll hardly say much in the circumstances," I objected "After all,
+the Kaiser is involved...."
+
+"My dear Des, opinion of feminine intelligence in military circles in
+this country is so low that the women in the army set at Court are very
+often far better informed than the General Staff. Von Boden will tell me
+all I want to know."
+
+What a girl she was!
+
+"About your friend, the clubfooted man," she went on, "I'm rather
+puzzled. He must be a person of considerable importance to be fetched by
+special train straight into the Emperor's private apartments, where very
+few people ever penetrate, I assure you. But I've never heard of him.
+He's certainly not a Court official. Nor is he the head of the Political
+Police ... that's Henninger, a friend of Karl's. Still, there are people
+of great importance working in dark places in this country and I guess
+Clubfoot must be one of them.
+
+"Now, I think I ought to take you into Gerry. I want to speak to you
+about him, Des. I daren't tell him who you are. Gerry's not himself.
+He's been a nervous wreck ever since his accident and I can't trust him.
+He's a very conventional man and his principles would never hear of me
+harbouring a ... a ..."
+
+"Spy?" I suggested.
+
+"No, a friend," she corrected. "So you'll just have to be a male nurse,
+I guess. A German-American would be best, I think, as you'll have to
+read the German papers to Gerry--he doesn't know a word of German. Then,
+you must have a name of some kind...."
+
+"Frederick Meyer," I suggested promptly, "from Pittsburg. It'll have to
+be Pittsburg: Francis went there for a bit, you know: he wrote me a lot
+about the place and I've seen pictures of it, too. It's the only
+American city I know anything about."
+
+"Let it be Meyer from Pittsburg, then," smiled Monica, "but you've got a
+terrible English accent, Des. I guess we'll have to tell Gerry you were
+years nursing in London before the war."
+
+She hesitated a moment, then added:
+
+"Des, I'm afraid you'll find Gerry very trying. He's awfully irritable
+and ... and very spiteful. So you must be careful not to give yourself
+away."
+
+I had only met the brother once and my recollection of him was of a good
+looking, rather spoilt young man. He had been brought up entirely in the
+States by the Long Island uncle whose great fortune he had inherited.
+
+"You'll be quite safe up here for the present," Monica went on. "You'll
+sleep in the little room off Gerry's and I'll have your meals served
+there too. After I have found out from the General how things stand,
+we'll decide what's to be done next."
+
+"I'll be very wary with Master Gerry," I said. "But, Monica, though he
+has only seen me once, he knows Francis pretty well and we are rather
+alike. Do you think he'll recognize me?"
+
+"Why, Desmond, it's years since he saw you. And you're not much like
+Francis with your moustache off. If you're careful, it'll be all right!
+It isn't for long, either. Now we'll go in. Come along."
+
+As we entered, a petulant voice cried:
+
+"Is that you, Monica? Say, am I to be left alone all the morning?"
+
+"Gerry dear," answered Monica very sweetly, "I've been engaging someone
+to look after you a bit. Come here, Meyer! This is Frederick Meyer,
+Gerry!"
+
+I should never have recognized the handsome, rather indolent youth I had
+met in London in the pale man with features drawn with pain who gazed
+frowningly at me from the bed.
+
+"Who is he? Where did you get him from? Does he know German?"
+
+He shot a string of questions at Monica, who answered them in her sweet,
+patient way.
+
+He was apparently satisfied, for, when Monica presently got up to leave
+us, he threw me an armful of German papers and bade me read to him.
+
+I had not sat with him for ten minutes before I realized what an
+impossible creature the man was. Nothing I could do was right. Now he
+didn't want to hear the war news, then it was the report of the
+Reichstag debate that bored him, now I didn't read loud enough, then my
+voice jarred on him. Finally, he snatched the paper out of my hand.
+
+"I can't understand half you say," he cried in accents shrill with
+irritability; "you mouth and mumble like an Englishman. You say you are
+an American?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I answered meekly, "but I resided for many years in
+England."
+
+"Well, it's a good thing you're not there now. Those English are just
+plumb crazy. They'll never whip Germany, not if they try for a century.
+Why, look what this country has done in this war? Nothing can stand
+against her! It's organization, that's what it is! The Germans lead the
+world. Take their doctors! I have been to every specialist in America
+about my back and paid them thousands of dollars. And what good did they
+do me? Not a thing. I come to Germany, they charge me a quarter of the
+fees, and I feel a different man already. Before tackling the Germans,
+the English ..."
+
+Thus he ran on. I knew the type well, the American who is hypnotized by
+German efficiency and thoroughness so completely that he does not see
+the reverse side of the medal.
+
+He exhausted himself on the topic at last and bade me read to him again.
+
+"Read about the affair at the Hotel Esplanade last night," he commanded.
+
+I had kept an eye open for this very item but, as Monica had said, the
+papers contained no hint of it. I wondered how Gerry knew about it.
+Monica would not have told him.
+
+"What affair do you mean?" I said. "There is nothing about it in the
+papers."
+
+"Of course there is, you fool. What is the use of my hiring you to read
+the papers to me if you can't find news that's spread all over the
+place? It's no use giving me the paper ... you know I can't read it!
+Here, Josef will know!"
+
+A man-servant had come noiselessly into the room with some clothes.
+
+Gerry turned to him.
+
+"Josef, where did you see that story you were telling me about an
+English spy assaulting a man at the Esplanade last night?"
+
+"Dot ain't in de paper, sir. I haf heard dis from de chauffeur of de
+Biedermanns next door. He wass at de hotel himself wid hiss shentleman
+lars' night at de dance. Dey won't put dat in no paper, sir."
+
+And the man chuckled.
+
+I felt none too comfortable during all this and was glad to be told to
+read on and be damned.
+
+I read to the young American all the morning. He went on exactly like a
+very badly brought up child. He was fretful and quarrelsome and
+sometimes abusive, and I had some difficulty in keeping my temper. He
+continually recurred to my English accent and jeered so offensively and
+so pointedly at what he called "your English friends" that I began to
+believe there was some purpose behind his attitude. But it was only part
+of his invalid's fractiousness, for when the valet, Josef, appeared with
+the luncheon tray, the American seemed anxious to make amends for his
+behaviour.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm a bit trying at times, Meyer," he said with a pleasant
+smile. "But you're a good fellow. Go and have your lunch. You needn't
+come back till four: I always sleep after luncheon. Here, have a cigar!"
+
+I took the cigar with all humility as beseemed my rôle and followed the
+valet into an adjoining room, where the table was laid for me. I am
+keenly sensitive to outside influences, and I felt instinctively
+distrustful of the man Josef. I expect he resented my intrusion into a
+sphere where his influence had probably been supreme and where he had
+doubtless managed to secure a good harvest of pickings.
+
+He left me to my luncheon and went away. After an excellent lunch,
+washed down by some first-rate claret, I was enjoying my cigar over a
+book when Josef reappeared again.
+
+"The Frau Gräfin will see you downstairs!" he said.
+
+Monica received me in a morning-room (the apartment was on two floors).
+She was very much agitated and had lost all her habitual calm.
+
+"Des," she said, "von Boden has been here!"
+
+"Well!" I replied eagerly.
+
+"I wasn't very successful," she went on "I'm in deep water, Des, and
+that's the truth. I have never seen the old General as he was to-day.
+He's a frightful bully and tyrant, but even his worst enemy never
+accused him of cowardice. But, Des, to-day the man was cowed. He seemed
+to be in terror of his life and I had the greatest difficulty in making
+him say anything at all about your affair.
+
+"I made a joking allusion to the escapade at the hotel last night and he
+said:
+
+"'Yesterday may prove the ruin of not only my career but that of my
+son's also. Yesterday gained for me as an enemy, Madam, a man whom it
+spells ruin, perhaps death, to offend.'
+
+"'You mean the Emperor?' I asked.
+
+"'The Emperor!' he said. 'Oh! of course, he's furious. No, I was not
+speaking of the Emperor!'
+
+"Then he changed the subject and it took me all my tact to get back to
+it. I asked him if they had caught the author of the attack at the
+Esplanade. He said, no, but it was only a question of time: the fellow
+couldn't escape. I said I supposed they would offer a reward and publish
+a description of the assailant all over the country. He told me they
+would do nothing of the sort.
+
+"'The public will hear nothing about the affair,' he said, 'and if you
+will take my advice, Countess, you will forget all about it. In any
+case, the Princess Radolin is writing to all her guests at the ball last
+night to urge them strongly to say nothing about the incident. The
+employees of the hotel will keep their mouths shut. The interests at
+stake forbid that there should be any attempt whatsoever made in public
+to throw light on the affair.'
+
+"That is all I could get out of him. But I have something further to
+tell you. The General went away immediately after lunch. Almost as soon
+as he had gone I was called to the telephone. Dr. Henninger was there:
+he is the head of the Political Police, you know. He gave me the same
+advice as the General, namely, to forget all about what occurred at the
+Esplanade last night. And then the Princess Radolin rang me up to say
+the same thing. She seemed very frightened: she was quite tearful.
+Someone evidently had scared her badly."
+
+"Monica," I said, "it's quite clear I can't stay here. My dear girl, if
+I am discovered in your house, there is no knowing what trouble may not
+come upon you."
+
+"If there is any risk," she answered, "it's a risk I am ready to take.
+You have nowhere to go to in Berlin, and if you are caught outside they
+might find out where you had been hiding and then we should be as badly
+off as before. No, you stay right on here, and maybe in a day or two I
+can get you away. I've been thinking something out.
+
+"Karl has a place near the Dutch frontier, Schloss Bellevue, it is
+called, close to Cleves. It's an old place and has been in the family
+for generations. Karl, however, only uses it as a shooting-box: we had
+big shoots up there every autumn before the war.
+
+"There has been no shooting there for two years now and the place is
+overstocked with game. The Government has been appealing to people with
+shooting preserves to kill their game and put it on the market, so I had
+arranged to go up to Bellevue this month and see the agent about this. I
+thought if I could prevail on Gerry to come with me, you could accompany
+him and you might get across the Dutch frontier from there. It's only
+about fifteen miles away from the Castle. If I can get a move on Gerry,
+there is no reason why we shouldn't go away in a day or two. In the
+meantime you'll be quite safe here."
+
+I told her I must think it over: she seemed to be risking too much. But
+I think my mind was already made up. I could not bring destruction on
+this faithful friend.
+
+Then I went upstairs again to Gerry, who was in as vile a temper as
+before. His lunch had disagreed with him: he hadn't slept: the room was
+not hot enough ... these were a few of the complaints he showered at me
+as soon as I appeared. He was in his most impish and malicious mood. He
+sent me running hither and thither: he gave me an order and withdrew it
+in the same breath: my complacency seemed to irritate him, to encourage
+him to provoke me.
+
+At last he came back to his old sore subject, my English accent.
+
+"I guess our good American is too homely for a fine English gentleman
+like you," he said, "but I believe you'll as lief speak as you were
+taught before you're through with this city. An English accent is not
+healthy in Berlin at present, Mister Meyer, sir, and you'd best learn to
+talk like the rest of us if you want to keep on staying in this house.
+
+"I'm in no state to be worried just now and I've no notion of having
+the police in here because some of their dam' plain-clothes men have
+heard my attendant saying 'charnce' and 'darnce' like any
+Britisher--especially with this English spy running round loose. By the
+way, you'll have to be registered? Has my sister seen about it yet?"
+
+I said she was attending to it.
+
+"I want to know if she's done it. I'm a helpless cripple and I can't get
+a thing done for me. Have you given her your papers? Yes, or no?"
+
+This was a bad fix. With all the persistence of the invalid, the man was
+harping on his latest whim.
+
+So I lied. The Countess had my papers, I said.
+
+Instantly he rang the bell and demanded Monica and had fretted himself
+into a fine state by the time she appeared.
+
+"What's this I hear, Monica?" he cried in his high-pitched, querulous
+voice. "Hasn't Meyer been registered with the police yet?"
+
+"I'm going to see to it myself in the morning, Gerry," she said.
+
+"In the morning. In the morning!" he cried, throwing up his hands. "Good
+God, how can you be so shiftless? A law is a law. The man's papers must
+be sent in to-day ... this instant."
+
+Monica looked appealingly at me.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm to blame, sir," I said. "The fact is, my passport is
+not quite in order and I shall have to take it to the embassy before I
+send it to the police."
+
+Then I saw Josef standing by the bed, a salver in his hand.
+
+"Zom letters, sir," he said to Gerry. I wondered how long he had been in
+the room.
+
+Gerry waved the letters aside and burst into a regular screaming fit.
+He wouldn't have things done that way in the house; he wouldn't
+have unknown foreigners brought in, with the city thick with
+spies--especially people with an English accent--his nerves wouldn't
+stand it: Monica ought to know better, and so on and so forth. The long
+and the short of it was that I was ordered to produce my passport
+immediately. Monica was to ring up the embassy to ask them to stretch a
+point and see to it out of office hours, then Josef should take me round
+to the police.
+
+I don't know how we got out of that room. It was Monica, with her sweet
+womanly tact, who managed it. I believe the madman even demanded to see
+my passport, but Monica scraped me through that trap as well.
+
+I had left my hat and coat in the entrance hall downstairs. I put on my
+coat, then went to Monica in the morning-room.
+
+There was much she wanted to say--I could see it in her eyes--but I
+think she gathered from my face what I was going to do, so she said
+nothing.
+
+At the door I said aloud, for the benefit of Josef, who was on the
+stairs:
+
+"Very good, my lady. I will come straight back from the embassy and then
+go with Josef to the police."
+
+The next moment I was adrift in Berlin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+I FIND ACHILLES IN HIS TENT
+
+
+Outside darkness had fallen. I had a vague suspicion that the
+house might be watched, but I found the Bendler-Strasse quite
+undisturbed. It ran its quiet, aristocratic length to the tangle of
+bare branches marking the Tiergarten-Strasse with not so much as
+a dog to strike terror into the heart of the amateur spy. Even in the
+Tiergarten-Strasse, where the Jewish millionaires live, there was little
+traffic and few people about, and I felt singularly unromantic as I
+walked briskly along the clean pavements towards Unter den Linden.
+
+Once more the original object of my journey into Germany stood clearly
+before me. An extraordinary series of adventures had deflected me from
+my course, but never from my purpose. I realized that I should never
+feel happy in my mind again if I left Germany without being assured as
+to my brother's fate. And now I was on the threshold either of a great
+discovery or of an overwhelming disappointment.
+
+For the street called In den Zelten was my next objective. I knew I
+might be on the wrong track altogether in my interpretation of what I
+was pleased to term in my mind the message from Francis. If I had read
+it falsely--if, perhaps, it were not from him at all--then all the hopes
+I had built on this mad dash into the enemy's country would collapse
+like a house of cards. Then, indeed, I should be in a sorry pass.
+
+But my luck was in, I felt. Hitherto, I had triumphed over all
+difficulties. I would trust in my destiny to the last.
+
+I had taken the precaution of turning up my overcoat collar and of
+pulling my hat well down over my eyes, but no one troubled me. I
+reflected that only Clubfoot and Schmalz were in a position to recognize
+me and that, if I steered clear of places like hotels and restaurants
+and railway stations, where criminals always seem to be caught, I might
+continue to enjoy comparative immunity. But the trouble was the passport
+question. That reminded me.
+
+I must get rid of Semlin's passport. As I walked along I tore it into
+tiny pieces, dropping each fragment at a good interval from the other.
+It cost me something to do it, for a passport is always useful to flash
+in the eyes of the ignorant. But this passport was dangerous. It might
+denounce me to a man who would not otherwise recognize me.
+
+I had some difficulty in finding In den Zelten. I had to ask the way,
+once of a postman and once of a wounded soldier who was limping along
+with crutches. Finally, I found it, a narrowish street running off a
+corner of the great square in front of the Reichstag. No. 2 was the
+second house on the right.
+
+I had no plan. Nevertheless, I walked boldly upstairs. There was but one
+flat on each floor. At the third story I halted, rather out of breath,
+in front of a door with a small brass plate inscribed with the name
+"Eugen Kore." I rang the bell boldly.
+
+An elderly man-servant opened the door.
+
+"Is Herr Eugen Kore at home?" I asked.
+
+The man looked at me suspiciously.
+
+"Has the gentleman an appointment?" he said.
+
+"No," I replied.
+
+"Then the Herr will not receive the gentleman," came the answer, and the
+man made as though to close the door.
+
+I had an inspiration.
+
+"A moment!" I cried, and I added the word "Achilles" in a low voice.
+
+The servant opened the door wide to me.
+
+"Why didn't you say that at once?" he said. "Please step in. I will see
+if the Herr can receive you."
+
+He led the way through a hall into a sitting-room and left me there. The
+place was a perfect museum of art treasures, old Dutch and Italian
+masters on the walls, some splendid Florentine chests, a fine old
+dresser loaded with ancient pewter. On a mantelshelf was an
+extraordinary collection of old keys, each with its label. "Key of the
+fortress of Spandau, 1715." "Key of the Postern Gate of the Pasha's
+Palace at Belgrade, 1810," "House Key from Nuremberg, 1567," were some
+of the descriptions I read.
+
+Then a voice behind me said:
+
+"Ah! you admire my little treasures!"
+
+Turning, I saw a short, stout man, of a marked Jewish appearance, with a
+bald head, a fat nose, little beady eyes and a large waist.
+
+"Eugen Kore!" he introduced himself with a bow.
+
+"Meyer!" I replied, in the German fashion.
+
+"And what can we do for Herr ... Meyer?" he asked in oily tones, pausing
+just long enough before he pronounced the name I gave to let me see that
+he believed it to be a pseudonym.
+
+"I believe you know a friend of mine, whose address I am anxious to
+find," I said.
+
+"Ah!" sighed the little Jew, "a man of affairs like myself meets so many
+people that he may be pardoned.... What did you say his name was, this
+friend of yours?"
+
+I thought I would try the effect of the name "Eichenholz" upon this
+enigmatic creature.
+
+"Eichenholz? Eichenholz?" Kore repeated.
+
+"I seem to know the name ... it seems familiar ... now let me see
+again.... Eichenholz, Eichenholz. ..."
+
+While he was speaking he unlocked one of the oak cabinets and a safe
+came to view. Opening this, he brought out a ledger and ran his finger
+down the names. Then he shut the book, replaced it, locked the safe and
+the cabinet, and turned to me again.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I know the name."
+
+His reticence was disconcerting.
+
+"Can you tell me where I can find him?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," was the reply.
+
+I was getting a trifle nettled.
+
+"Well, where?" I queried.
+
+"This is all very well, young Sir," said the Jew. "You come in here from
+nowhere, you introduce yourself as Meyer; you ask me 'Who?' and 'What?'
+and 'Where?'--questions that, mark you, in my business, may have
+valuable answers. We private enquiry agents must live, my dear sir, we
+must eat and drink like other men, and these are hard times, very hard
+times. I will ask you a question if I may. Meyer? Who is Meyer?
+Everybody in this country is called Meyer!"
+
+I smiled at this bizarre speech.
+
+"This Eichenholz, now," I said, "... supposing he were my brother."
+
+"He might congratulate himself," Kore said, blinking his little lizard
+eyes.
+
+"And he sent me word to call and see you to find out his whereabouts.
+You seem to like riddles, Herr Kore.... I will read you one!"
+
+And I read him the message from Francis ... all but the first two lines.
+
+The little Jew beamed with delight.
+
+"Ach! that is bright!" he cried, "oi, oi, oi, but he is smart, this Herr
+Eichenholz! Who'd have thought of that? Brilliant, brilliant!"
+
+"As you say, Herr Kore, enquiry agents must live, and I am quite
+prepared to pay for the information I require...."
+
+I pulled out my portfolio as I spoke.
+
+"The matter is quite simple," Kore replied. "It is already arranged. The
+charge is five hundred marks. My client said to me the last time I saw
+him, 'Kore,' he said, 'if one should come asking news of me you will
+give him the word and he will pay you five hundred marks.'"
+
+"The word?" I said.
+
+"The word," he repeated.
+
+"You must take Dutch money," I said. "Here you are ... work it out in
+gulden ... and I'll pay!"
+
+He manipulated a stump of pencil on a writing block and I paid him his
+money.
+
+Then he said:
+
+"Boonekamp!"
+
+"Boonekamp?" I echoed stupidly.
+
+"That's the word," the little Jew chuckled, laughing at my dumbfounded
+expression, "and, if you want to know, I understand it as little as you
+do."
+
+"But ... Boonekamp," I repeated. "Is it a man's name, a place? It sounds
+Dutch. Have you no idea? ... come, I'm ready to pay."
+
+"Perhaps ..." the Jew began.
+
+"What? Perhaps what?" I exclaimed impatiently.
+
+"Possibly...."
+
+"Out with it, man!" I cried, "and say what you mean."
+
+"Perhaps, if I could render to the gentleman the service I rendered to
+his brother, I might be able to throw light...."
+
+"What service did you render to my brother?" I demanded hastily. "I'm in
+the dark."
+
+"Has the gentleman no little difficulty perhaps? ... about his military
+service, about his papers? The gentleman is young and strong ... has he
+been to the front? Was life irksome there? Did he ever long for the
+sweets of home life? Did he never envy those who have been medically
+rejected? The rich men's sons, perhaps, with clever fathers who know how
+to get what they want?"
+
+His little eyes bored into mine like gimlets.
+
+I began to understand.
+
+"And if I had?"
+
+"Then all old Kore can say is that the gentleman has come to the right
+shop, as his gracious brother did. How can we serve the gentleman now?
+What are his requirements? It is a difficult, a dangerous business. It
+costs money, much money, but it can be arranged ... it can be arranged."
+
+"But if you do for me what you did for my brother," I said, "I don't see
+how that helps to explain this word, this clue to his address!"
+
+"My dear sir, I am as much in the dark as you are yourself about the
+significance of this word. But I can tell you this, your brother, thanks
+to my intervention, found himself placed in a situation in which he
+might well have come across this word...."
+
+"Well?" I said impatiently.
+
+"Well, if we obliged the gentleman as we obliged his brother, the
+gentleman might be taken where his brother was taken, the gentleman is
+young and smart, he might perhaps find a clue ..."
+
+"Stop talking riddles, for Heaven's sake!" I cried in exasperation, "and
+answer my questions plainly. First, what did you do for my brother?"
+
+"Your brother had deserted from the front--that is the most difficult
+class of business we have to deal with--we procured him a _permis de
+séjour_ for fifteen days and a post in a safe place where no enquiries
+would be made after him."
+
+"And then?" I cried, trembling with curiosity.
+
+The Jew shrugged his shoulders, waving his hands to and fro in the air.
+
+"Then he disappeared. I saw him a few days before he went, and he gave
+me the instructions I have repeated to you for anybody who should come
+asking for him."
+
+"But didn't he tell you where he was going?"
+
+"He didn't even tell me he was going, Herr. He just vanished."
+
+"When was this?"
+
+"Somewhere about the first week in July ... it was the week of the bad
+news from France."
+
+The message was dated July 1st, I remembered.
+
+"I have a good set of Swedish papers," the Jew continued, "very
+respectable timber merchant ... with those one could live in the best
+hotels and no one say a word. Or Hungarian papers, a party rejected
+medically ... very safe those, but perhaps the gentleman doesn't speak
+Hungarian. That would be essential."
+
+"I am in the same case as my brother," I said, "I must disappear."
+
+"Not a deserter, Herr?" The Jew cringed at the word.
+
+"Yes," I said. "After all, why not?"
+
+"I daren't do this kind of business any more, my dear sir, I really
+daren't! They are making it too dangerous."
+
+"Come, come!" I said, "you were boasting just now that you could smooth
+out any difficulties. You can produce me a very satisfactory passport
+from somewhere, I am sure!"
+
+"Passport! Out of the question, my dear sir! Let once one of my
+passports go wrong and I am ruined. Oh, no! no passports where deserters
+are concerned! I don't like the business ... it's not safe! At the
+beginning of the war ... ah! that was different! Oi, oi, but they ran
+from the Yser and from Ypres! Oi, oi, and from Verdun! But now the
+police are more watchful. No! It is not worth it! It would cost you too
+much money, besides."
+
+I thought the miserable cur was trying to raise the price on me, but I
+was mistaken. He was frightened: the business was genuinely distasteful
+to him.
+
+I tried, as a final attempt to persuade him, an old trick: I showed him
+my money. He wavered at once, and, after many objections, protesting to
+the last, he left the room. He returned with a handful of filthy papers.
+
+"I oughtn't to do it; I know I shall rue it; but you have overpersuaded
+me and I liked Herr Eichenholz, a noble gentleman and free with his
+money--see here, the papers of a waiter, Julius Zimmermann, called up
+with the Landwehr but discharged medically unfit, military pay-book and
+_permis de séjour_ for fifteen days. These papers are only a guarantee
+in case you come across the police: no questions will be asked where I
+shall send you."
+
+"But a fifteen days' permit!" I said. "What am I to do at the end of
+that time?"
+
+"Leave it to me," Kore said craftily. "I will get it renewed for you. It
+will be all right!"
+
+"But in the meantime...." I objected.
+
+"I place you as waiter with a friend of mine who is kind to poor fellows
+like yourself. Your brother was with him."
+
+"But I want to be free to move around."
+
+"Impossible," the Jew answered firmly. "You must get into your part and
+live quietly in seclusion until the enquiries after you have abated.
+Then we may see as to what is next to be done. There you are, a fine set
+of papers and a safe, comfortable life far away from the trenches--all
+snug and secure--cheap (in spite of the danger to me), because you are a
+lad of spirit and I liked your brother ... ten thousand marks!"
+
+I breathed again. Once we had reached the haggling stage, I knew the
+papers would be mine all right. With Semlin's money and my own I found I
+had about £550, but I had no intention of paying out £500 straight away.
+So I beat the fellow down unmercifully and finally secured the lot for
+3600 marks--£180.
+
+But, even after I had paid the fellow his money, I was not done with
+him. He had his eye on his perquisites.
+
+"Your clothes will never do," he said; "such richness of apparel, such
+fine stuff--we must give you others." He rang the bell.
+
+The old man-servant appeared.
+
+"A waiter's suit--for the Linien-Strasse!" he said.
+
+Then he led me into a bedroom where a worn suit of German shoddy was
+spread out on a sofa. He made me change into it, and then handed me a
+threadbare green overcoat and a greasy green felt hat.
+
+"So!" he said. "Now, if you don't shave for a day or two, you will look
+the part to the life!"--a remark which, while encouraging, was hardly
+complimentary.
+
+He gave me a muffler to tie round my neck and lower part of my face and,
+with that greasy hat pulled down over my eyes and in those worn and
+shrunken clothes, I must say I looked a pretty villainous person, the
+very antithesis of the sleek, well-dressed young fellow that had entered
+the flat half an hour before.
+
+"Now, Julius," said Kore humorously, "come, my lad, and we will seek out
+together the good situation I have found for you."
+
+A horse-cab was at the door and we entered it together. The Jew chatted
+pleasantly as we rattled through the darkness. He complimented me on my
+ready wit in deciphering Francis' message.
+
+"How do you like my idea?" he said, "'Achilles in his Tent'... that is
+the device of the hidden part of my business--you observe the parallel,
+do you not?' Achilles holding himself aloof from the army and young men
+like yourself who prefer the gentle pursuits of peace to the sterner
+profession of war! Clients of mine who have enjoyed a classical
+education have thought very highly of the humour of my device."
+
+The cab dropped us at the corner of the Friedrich-Strasse, which was
+ablaze with light from end to end, and the Linien-Strasse, a narrow,
+squalid thoroughfare of dirty houses and mean shops. The street was all
+but deserted at that hour save for an occasional policeman, but from
+cellars with steps leading down from the streets came the jingle of
+automatic pianos and bursts of merriment to show that the Linien-Strasse
+was by no means asleep.
+
+Before one of these cellar entrances the Jew stopped. At the foot of the
+steep staircase leading down from the street was a glazed door, its
+panels all glistening with moisture from the heated atmosphere within.
+Kore led the way down, I following.
+
+A nauseous wave of hot air, mingled with rank tobacco smoke, smote us
+full as we opened the door. At first I could see nothing except a very
+fat man, against a dense curtain of smoke, sitting at a table before an
+enormous glass goblet of beer. Then, as the haze drifted before the
+draught, I distinguished the outline of a long, low-ceilinged room,
+with small tables set along either side and a little bar, presided over
+by a tawdry female with chemically tinted hair, at the end. Most of the
+tables were occupied, and there was almost as much noise as smoke in the
+place.
+
+A woman's voice screamed: "Shut the door, can't you, I'm freezing!" I
+obeyed and, following Kore to a table, sat down. A man in his
+shirt-sleeves, who was pulling beer at the bar, left his beer-engine
+and, coming across the room to Kore, greeted him cordially, and asked
+him what we would take.
+
+Kore nudged me with his elbow.
+
+"We'll take a Boonekamp each, Haase," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CLUBFOOT COMES TO HAASE'S
+
+
+Kore presently retired to an inner room with the man in shirt-sleeves,
+whom I judged to be the landlord, and in a little the flaxen-haired lady
+at the bar beckoned me over and bade me join them.
+
+"This is Julius Zimmermann, the young man I have spoken of," said the
+Jew; then turning to me:
+
+"Herr Haase is willing to take you on as waiter here on my
+recommendation, Julius, See that you do not make me repent of my
+kindness!"
+
+Here the man in shirt-sleeves, a great, fat fellow with a bullet head
+and a huge double chin, chuckled loudly.
+
+"Kolossal!" he cried. "Herr Kore loves his joke! Ausgezeichnet!" And he
+wagged his head roguishly at me.
+
+On that Kore took his leave, promising to look in and see how I was
+faring in a few days' time. The landlord opened a low door in the corner
+and revealed a kind of large cupboard, windowless and horribly stale and
+stuffy, where there were two unsavoury-looking beds.
+
+"You will sleep here with Otto," said the landlord. Pointing to a dirty
+white apron lying on one of the beds, he bade me take off my overcoat
+and jacket and put it on.
+
+"It was Johann's," he said, "but Johann won't want it any more. A good
+lad, Johann, but rash. I always said he would come to a bad end." And he
+laughed noisily.
+
+"You can go and help with the waiting now," he went on. "Otto will show
+you what to do!"
+
+And so I found myself, within twenty-four hours, spy, male nurse and
+waiter in turn.
+
+I am loth to dwell on the degradation of the days that followed. That
+cellar tavern was a foul sink of iniquity, and in serving the dregs of
+humanity that gathered nightly there I felt I had indeed sunk to the
+lowest depths. The place was a regular thieves' kitchen ... what is
+called in the hideous Yiddish jargon that is the criminal slang of
+modern Germany a "Kaschemme." Never in my life have I seen such brutish
+faces as those that leered at me nightly through the smoke haze as I
+shuffled from table to table in my mean German clothes. Gallows' birds,
+sneak thieves, receivers, bullies, prostitutes and harpies of every
+description came together every evening in Herr Haase's beer-cellar.
+Many of the men wore the soiled and faded field-grey of the soldier back
+from the front, and in looking at their sordid, vulpine faces, inflamed
+with drink, I felt I could fathom the very soul of Belgium's misery.
+
+The conversation was all of crime and deeds of violence. The men back
+from the front told gloatingly of rapine and feastings in lonely Belgian
+villages or dwelt ghoulishly on the horrors of the battlefield, the
+mounds of decaying corpses, the ghastly mutilations they had seen in the
+dead. There were tales, too, of "vengeance" wreaked on "the treacherous
+English." One story, in particular, of the fate of a Scottish
+Sergeant ... "der Hochländer" they called him in this oft-told
+tale ... still makes me quiver with impotent rage when I think of it.
+
+One evening the name of the Hotel Esplanade caught my ear. I approached
+the table and found two flashily dressed bullies and a bedraggled drab
+from the streets talking in admiration of my exploit.
+
+"Clubfoot met his match that time," the woman cried. "The dirty dog! But
+why didn't this English spy make a job of it and kill the scum? Pah!"
+
+And she spat elegantly into the sawdust on the floor.
+
+"I wouldn't be in that fellow's shoes for something," muttered one of
+the men. "No one ever had the better of Clubfoot yet. Do you remember
+Meinhardt, Franz? He tried to cheat Clubfoot, and we know what happened
+to him!"
+
+"They're raking the whole city for this Englishman," answered the other
+man. "Vogel, who works for Section Seven, you know the man I mean, was
+telling me. They've done every hotel in Berlin and the suburbs, but they
+haven't found him. They raided Bauer's in the Favoriten-Strasse last
+night. The Englishman wasn't there, but they got three or four others
+they were looking for--Fritz and another deserter included. I was nearly
+there myself!"
+
+I was always hearing references of this kind to my exploit. I was never
+spoken of except in terms of admiration, but the name of Clubfoot--der
+Stelze--excited only execration and terror.
+
+I lived in daily fear of a raid at Haase's. Why the place had escaped so
+long, with all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I couldn't
+imagine. It was one of those defects in German organization which puzzle
+the best of us at times. In the meantime, I was powerless to escape. The
+first thing Haase had done was to take away my papers--to send them to
+the police, as he explained--but he never gave them back, and when I
+asked for them he put me off with an excuse.
+
+I was a virtual prisoner in the place. On my feet from morning till
+night, I had indeed few opportunities for going out; but once, during
+a slack time in the afternoon, when I broached the subject to the
+landlord, he refused harshly to let me out of his sight.
+
+"The street is not healthy for you just now. You would be a danger to
+yourself and to all of us!" he said.
+
+My life in that foul den was a burden to me. The living conditions were
+unspeakable. Otto, a pale and ill-tempered consumptive, compelled, like
+me, to rise in the darkness of the dawn, never washed, and his
+companionship in the stuffy hole where we slept was offensive beyond
+belief. He openly jeered at my early morning journeys out to a narrow,
+stinking court, where I exulted in the ice-cold water from the pump. And
+the food! It was only when I saw the mean victuals--the coarse and often
+tainted horseflesh, the unappetizing war-bread, the coffee substitute,
+and the rest--that I realized how Germany was suffering, though only
+through her poor as yet, from the British blockade. That thought used to
+help to overcome the nausea with which I sat down to eat.
+
+Domestic life at Haase's was a hell upon earth. Haase himself was a
+drunken bully, who made advances to every woman he met, and whose
+complicated intrigues with the feminine portion of his clientèle led to
+frequent scenes with the fair-haired Hebe who presided at the bar and
+over his household. It was she and Otto who fared daily forth to take
+their places in the long queues that waited for hours with food cards
+outside the provision shops.
+
+These trips seemed to tell upon her temper, which would flash out
+wrathfully at meal-times, when Haase began his inevitable grumbling
+about the food. As Otto took a malicious delight in these family scenes,
+I was frequently called upon to assume the role of peace-maker. More
+than once I intervened to save Madame from the violence she had called
+down upon herself by the sharpness of her tongue. She was a poor, faded
+creature, and the tragedy of it all was that she was in love with this
+degraded bully. She was grateful to me for my good offices, I think,
+for, though she hardly ever addressed me, her manner was always
+friendly.
+
+These days of dreary squalor would have been unbearable if it had not
+been for my elucidation of the word Boonekamp, which was said to hold
+the clue to my brother's address. On the wall in the cubby-hole where I
+slept was a tattered advertisement card of this _apéritif_--for such is
+the preparation--proclaiming it to be "Germany's Best Cordial." As I
+undressed at night, I often used to stare at this placard, wondering
+what connection Boonekamp could possibly have with my brother. I
+determined to take the first opportunity of examining the card itself.
+One morning, while Otto was out in the queue at the butcher's, I slipped
+away from the cellar to our sleeping-place and, lighting my candle, took
+down the card and examined it closely. It was perfectly plain, red
+letters on a green background in front, white at the back.
+
+As I was replacing the card on the nail I saw some writing in pencil on
+the wall where the card had hung. My heart seemed to stand still with
+the joy of my discovery. For the writing was in my brother's neat,
+artistic hand, the words were English, and, best of all, my brother's
+initials were attached. This is what I read:
+
+(Facsimile.) 5.7.16.
+
+"You will find me at the Café Regina, Düsseldorf--F.O."
+
+After that I felt I could bear with everything. The message awakened
+hope that was fast dying in my heart. At least on July 5th, Francis was
+alive. To that fact I clung as to a sheet-anchor. It gave me courage for
+the hardest part of all my experiences in Germany, those long days of
+waiting in that den of thieves. For I knew I must be patient. Presently,
+I hoped, I might extract my papers from Haase or persuade Kore, when he
+came back, to see me, to give me a permit that would enable me to get to
+Düsseldorf. But the term of my permit was fast running out and the Jew
+never came.
+
+There were often moments when I longed to ask Haase or one of the others
+about the time my brother had served in that place. But I feared to draw
+attention to myself. No one asked any questions of me (questions as to
+personal antecedents were discouraged at Haase's), and, as long as I
+remained the unpaid, useful drudge I felt that my desire for obscurity
+would be respected. Desultory questions about my predecessors elicited
+no information about Francis. The Haase establishment seemed to have had
+a succession of vague and shadowy retainers.
+
+Only about Johann, whose apron I wore, did Otto become communicative.
+
+"A stupid fellow!" he declared. "He was well off here. Haase liked him,
+the customers liked him, especially the ladies. But he must fall in love
+with Frau Hedwig (the lady at the bar), then he quarrelled with Haase
+and threatened him--you know, about customers who haven't got their
+papers in order. The next time Johann went out, they arrested him. And
+he was shot at Spandau!"
+
+"Shot?" I exclaimed. "Why?"
+
+"As a deserter."
+
+"But was he a deserter?"
+
+"Ach! was! But he had a deserter's papers in his pockets ... his own had
+vanished. Ach! it's a bad thing to quarrel with Haase!"
+
+I made a point of keeping on the right side of the landlord after that.
+By my unfailing diligence I even managed to secure his grudging
+approval, though he was always ready to fly into a passion at the least
+opportunity.
+
+One evening about six o'clock a young man, whom I had never seen among
+our regular customers, came down the stairs from the street and asked
+for Haase, who was asleep on the sofa in the inner room. At the sight of
+the youth, Frau Hedwig jumped off her perch behind the bar and vanished.
+She came back directly and, ignoring me, conducted the young man into
+the inner room, where he remained for about half an hour. Then he
+reappeared again, accompanied by Frau Hedwig, and went off.
+
+I was shocked by the change in the appearance of the woman. Her face was
+pale, her eyes red with weeping, and her eyes kept wandering towards the
+door. It was a slack time of the day within and the cellar was free of
+customers.
+
+"You look poorly, Frau Hedwig," I said. "Trouble with Haase again?"
+
+She looked up at me and shook her head, her eyes brimming over. A tear
+ran down the rouge on her cheek.
+
+"I must speak," she said. "I can't bear this suspense alone. You are a
+kind young man. You are discreet. Julius, there is trouble brewing for
+us!"
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked. A foreboding of evil rose within me.
+
+"Kore!" she whispered.
+
+"Kore?" I echoed. "What of him?"
+
+She looked fearfully about her.
+
+"He was taken yesterday morning," she said.
+
+"Do you mean arrested?" I exclaimed, unwilling to believe the staggering
+news.
+
+"They entered his apartment early in the morning and seized him in bed.
+Ach! it is dreadful!" And she buried her face in her hands.
+
+"But surely," I added soothingly, though with an icy fear at my heart,
+"there is no need to despair. What is an arrest to-day with all these
+regulations...."
+
+The woman raised her face, pallid beneath its paint, to mine.
+
+"Kore was shot at Moabit Prison this morning," she said in a low voice.
+"That young man brought the news just now." Then she added breathlessly,
+her words pouring out in a torrent:
+
+"You don't know what this means to us. Haase had dealings with this Jew.
+If they have shot him, it is because they have found out from him all
+they want to know. That means our ruin, that means that Haase will go
+the same way as the Jew.
+
+"But Haase is stubborn, foolhardy. The messenger warned him that a raid
+might be expected here at any moment. I have pleaded with him in vain.
+He believes that Kore has split; he believes the police may come, but he
+says they daren't touch him: he has been too useful to them: he knows
+too much. Ach, I am afraid! I am afraid!"
+
+Haase's voice sounded from the inner room.
+
+"Hedwig!" he called.
+
+The woman hastily dried her eyes and disappeared through the door.
+
+The coast was clear, if I wanted to escape, but where could I go,
+without a paper or passport, a hunted man?
+
+The news of Kore's arrest and execution haunted me. Of course, the man
+was in a most perilous trade, and had probably been playing the game for
+years. But suppose they had tracked me to the house in the street called
+In den Zelten.
+
+I crossed the room and opened the door to the street. I had never set
+foot outside since I had come, and, hopeless as it would be for me to
+attempt to escape, I thought I might reconnoitre the surroundings of the
+beer-cellar for the event of flight.
+
+I lightly ran up the stairs to the street and nearly cannoned into a man
+who was lounging in the entrance. We both apologized, but he stared at
+me hard before he strolled on. Then I saw another man sauntering along
+on the opposite side of the street. Further away, at the corner, two men
+were loitering.
+
+Every one of them had his eyes fixed on the cellar entrance at which I
+was standing.
+
+I knew they could not see my face, for the street was but dimly lit, and
+behind me was the dark background of the cellar stairway. I took a grip
+on my nerves and very deliberately lit a cigarette and smoked it, as if
+I had come up from below to get a breath of fresh air. I waited a
+little while and then went down.
+
+I was scarcely back in the cellar when Haase appeared from the inner
+room, followed by the woman. He carried himself erect, and his eyes were
+shining. I didn't like the man, but I must say he looked game. In his
+hand he carried my papers.
+
+"Here you are, my lad," he said in quite a friendly tone, "put 'em in
+your pocket--you may want 'em to-night."
+
+I glanced at the papers before I followed his advice.
+
+He noted my action and laughed.
+
+"They have told you about Johann," he said. "Never fear, Julius, you and
+I are good friends."
+
+The papers were those of Julius Zimmermann all right.
+
+We were having supper at one of the tables in the front room--there were
+only a couple of customers, as it was so early--when a man, a regular
+visitor of ours, came down the stairs hurriedly. He went straight over
+to Haase and spoke into his ear.
+
+"Mind yourself, Haase," I heard him say. "Do you know who had Kore
+arrested and shot? It was Clubfoot. There is more in this than we know.
+Mind yourself and get out! In an hour or so it may be too late."
+
+Then he scurried away, leaving me dazed.
+
+"By God!" said the landlord, bringing a great fist down on the table so
+that the glasses rang, "they won't touch me. Not the devil himself will
+make me leave this house before they come, if coming they are!"
+
+The woman burst into tears, while Otto blinked his watery eyes in
+terror. I sat and looked at my plate, my heart too full for words. It
+was bitter to have dared so much to get this far and then find the path
+blocked, as it seemed, by an insuperable barrier. They were after me all
+right: the mention of Clubfoot's name, the swift, stern retribution that
+had befallen Kore, made that certain--and I could do nothing. That
+cellar was a cul-de-sac, a regular trap, and I knew that if I stirred a
+foot from the house I should fall into the hands of those men keeping
+their silent vigil in the street.
+
+Therefore, I must wait, as calmly as I might, and see what the evening
+would bring forth. Gradually the cellar filled up as people drifted in,
+but many familiar faces, I noticed, were missing. Evidently the ill
+tidings had spread. Once a man looked in for a glass of beer and drifted
+out again, leaving the door open. As I was closing it, I heard a muffled
+exclamation and the sound of a scuffle at the head of the stairs. It was
+so quietly done that nobody below, save myself, knew what had happened.
+The incident showed me that the watch was well kept.
+
+The evening wore on--interminably, as it seemed to me. I darted to and
+fro from the bar, laden with mugs of beer and glasses of schnaps,
+incessantly, up and down. But I never failed, whenever there came a
+pause in the orders, to see that my journey finished somewhere in the
+neighbourhood of the door. A faint hope was glimmering in my brain.
+
+Until the end of my life, that interminable evening in the beer-cellar
+will remain stamped in my memory. I can still see the scene in its every
+detail, and I know I shall carry the picture with me to the grave; the
+long, low room with its blackened ceiling, the garish yellow gaslight,
+the smoke haze, the crowded tables, Otto, shuffling hither and hither
+with his mean and sulky air, Frau Hedwig, preoccupied at her desk,
+red-eyed, a graven image of woe, and Haase, presiding over the
+beer-engine, silent, defiant, calm, but watchful every time the door
+opened.
+
+When at last the blow fell, it came suddenly. A trampling of feet on the
+stairs, a great blowing of whistles ... then the door was burst open
+just as everybody in the cellar sprang to their feet amid exclamations
+and oaths from the men and shrill screams from the women. Outlined in
+the doorway stood Clubfoot, majestic, authoritative, wearing some kind
+of little skull-cap, such as duelling students wear, over a black silk
+handkerchief bound about his head. At the sight of the man the hubbub
+ceased on the instant. All were still save Haase, whose bull-like voice
+roaring for silence broke on the quiet of the room with the force of an
+explosion.
+
+I was in my corner by the door, pressed back against the coats and hats
+hanging on the wall. In front of me a frieze of frightened faces
+screened me from observation. Quickly, I slipped off my apron.
+
+Clubfoot, after casting a cursory glance round the room, strode its
+length towards the bar where Haase stood, a crowd of plain-clothes men
+and policemen at his heels. Then quite suddenly the light went out,
+plunging the place into darkness. Instantly the room was in confusion;
+women screamed; a voice, which I recognized as Clubfoot's, bawled
+stentorianly for lights ... the moment had come to act.
+
+I grabbed a hat and coat from the hall, got into them somehow, and
+darted to the door. In the dim light shining down the stairs from a
+street lamp outside, I saw a man at the door. Apparently he was guarding
+it.
+
+"Back!" he cried, as I stepped up to him.
+
+I flashed in his eyes the silver star I held in my hand.
+
+"The Chief wants lanterns!" I said low in his ear.
+
+He grabbed my hand holding the badge and lowered it to the light.
+
+"All right, comrade," he replied. "Drechsler has a lantern, I think!
+You'll find him outside!"
+
+I rushed up the stairs right into a group of three policemen.
+
+"The Chief wants Drechsler at once with the lantern," I shouted, and
+showed my star. The three dispersed in different directions calling for
+Drechsler.
+
+I walked quickly away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE WAITER AT THE CAFE REGINA
+
+
+I calculated that I had at least two hours, at most three, in which to
+get clear of Berlin. However swiftly Clubfoot might act, it would take
+him certainly an hour and a half, I reckoned, from the discovery of my
+flight from Haase's to warn the police at the railway stations to detain
+me. If I could lay a false trail I might at the worst prolong this
+period of grace; at the best I might mislead him altogether as to my
+ultimate destination, which was, of course, Düsseldorf. The unknown
+quantity in my reckonings was the time it would take Clubfoot to send
+out a warning all over Germany to detain Julius Zimmermann, waiter and
+deserter, wherever and whenever apprehended.
+
+At the first turning I came to after leaving Haase's, tram-lines ran
+across the street. A tram was waiting, bound in a southerly direction,
+where the centre of the city lay. I jumped on to the front platform
+beside the woman driver. It is fairly dark in front and the conductor
+cannot see your face as you pay your fare through a trap in the door
+leading to the interior of the tram. I left the tram at Unter den Linden
+and walked down some side streets until I came across a quiet-looking
+café. There I got a railway guide and set about reviewing my plans.
+
+It was ten minutes to twelve. A man in my position would in all
+probability make for the frontier. So, I judged, Clubfoot must
+calculate, though, I fancied, he must have wondered why I had not long
+since attempted to escape back to England. Düsseldorf was on the main
+road to Holland, and it would certainly be the more prudent course, say,
+to make for the Rhine and travel on to my destination by a Rhine
+steamer. But time was the paramount factor in my case. By leaving
+immediately--that very night--for Düsseldorf I might possibly reach
+there before the local authorities had had time to receive the warning
+to be on the look-out for a man answering to my description. If I could
+leave behind in Berlin a really good false clue, it was just possible
+that Clubfoot might follow it up _before_ taking general dispositions to
+secure my arrest if that clue failed. I decided I must gamble on this
+hypothesis.
+
+The railway guide showed that a train left for Düsseldorf from the
+Potsdamer Bahnhof--the great railway terminus in the very centre of
+Berlin--at 12.45 a.m. That left me roughly three-quarters of an hour to
+lay my false trail and catch my train. My false trail should lead
+Clubfoot in a totally unexpected direction, I determined, for it is the
+unexpected that first engages the notice of the alert, detective type of
+mind. I would also have to select another terminus.
+
+Why not Munich? A large city on the high road to a foreign
+frontier--Switzerland--with authorities whose easy-going ways are
+proverbial in Germany. You leave Berlin for Munich from the Anhalter
+Bahnhof, a terminus which was well suited for my purpose, as it is only
+a few minutes' drive from the Potsdamer station.
+
+The railway guide showed there was a train leaving for Munich at 12.30
+a.m.--an express. That would do admirably. Munich it should be then.
+
+Fortunately I had plenty of money. I had taken the precaution of
+getting Kore to change my money into German notes before we left In den
+Zelten ... at a preposterous rate of exchange, be it said. How lost I
+should have been without Semlin's wad of notes!
+
+I paid for my coffee and set forth again. It was 12.15 as I walked into
+the hall of the Anhalt station.
+
+Remembering the ruse which the friendly guide at Rotterdam had taught
+me, I began by purchasing a platform ticket. Then I looked about for an
+official upon whom I could suitably impress my identity. Presently I
+espied a pompous-looking fellow in a bright blue uniform and scarlet
+cap, some kind of junior stationmaster, I thought.
+
+I approached him and, raising my hat, politely asked him if he could
+tell me when there was a train leaving for Munich.
+
+"The express goes at 12.30," he said, "but only first and second class,
+and you'll have to pay the supplementary charge. The slow train is not
+till 5.49."
+
+I assumed an expression of vexation.
+
+"I suppose I must go by the express," I said. "Can you tell me where the
+booking-office is?"
+
+The official pointed to a pigeon-hole and I took care to speak loud
+enough for him to hear me ask for a second-class ticket, single, to
+Munich.
+
+I walked upstairs and presented my Munich ticket to the collector at the
+barrier. Then I hurried past the main-line platforms over the suburban
+side, where I gave up my platform ticket and descended again to the
+street.
+
+It was just on the half-hour as I came out of the station. Not a cab to
+be seen! I hastened as fast as my legs would carry me until, breathless
+and panting, I reached the Potsdam terminus. The clock over the station
+pointed to 12.39.
+
+A long queue, composed mostly of soldiers returning to Belgium and the
+front, stood in front of the booking-office. The military were getting
+their warrants changed for tickets. I chafed at the delay, but it was
+actually this circumstance which afforded me the chance of getting my
+ticket for Düsseldorf without leaving any clue behind.
+
+A big, bearded Landsturm man with a kind face was at the pigeon-hole.
+
+"I am very late for my train, my friend," I said, "would you get me a
+third-class single for Düsseldorf?" I handed him a twenty-mark note.
+
+"Right you are," he answered readily.
+
+"There," he said, handing me my ticket and a handful of change, "and
+lucky you are to be going to the Rhine. I'm from the Rhine myself and
+now I'm going back to guarding the bridges in Belgium!"
+
+I thanked him and wished him luck. Here at least was a witness who was
+not likely to trouble me. And with a thankful heart I bolted on to the
+platform and caught the train.
+
+Third-class travel in Germany is not a hobby to be cultivated if your
+means allow the luxury of better accommodation. The travelling German
+has a habit of taking off his boots when he journeys in the train by
+night--and a carriageful of lower middle-class Huns, thus unshod, in
+the temperature at which railway compartments are habitually kept in
+Germany, is an environment which makes neither for comfort nor for
+sleep.
+
+The atmosphere, indeed, was so unbearable that I spent most of the night
+in the corridor. Here I was able to destroy the papers of Julius
+Zimmermann, waiter ... I felt I was in greater danger whilst I had them
+on me ... and to assure myself that my precious document was in its
+usual place--in my portfolio. It was then I made the discovery,
+annihilating at the first shock, that my silver badge had disappeared. I
+could not remember what I had done with it in the excitement of my
+escape from Haase's. I remembered having it in my hand and showing it to
+the police at the top of the stairs, but after that my mind was a blank.
+I could only imagine I must have carried it unconsciously in my hand and
+then dropped it unwittingly. I looked at the place where it had been
+clasped on my braces: it was not there and I searched all my pockets for
+it in vain.
+
+I had relied upon it as a stand-by in case there were trouble at the
+station in Düsseldorf. Now I found myself defenceless if I were
+challenged. It was a hard knock, but I consoled myself by the reflection
+that, by now, Clubfoot knew I had this badge ... it would doubtless
+figure in any description circulated about me.
+
+It was a most unpleasant journey. There was some kind of choral society
+on the train, occupying seven or eight compartments of the third-class
+coach in which I was travelling. For the first few hours they made night
+hideous with part-songs, catches and glees chanted with a volume of
+sound that in that confined place was simply deafening. Then the noise
+abated as one by one the singers dropped off to sleep. Presently silence
+fell, while the train rushed forward in the darkness bearing me towards
+fresh perils, fresh adventures.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A gust of fresh air in my face, the trample of feet, loud greetings in
+guttural German, awoke me with a start. It was broad daylight and
+through my compartment, to which I had crept in the night, weary with
+standing, filed the jovial members of the choral society, with bags in
+their hands and huge cockades in their buttonholes. There was a band on
+the platform and a huge choir of men who bawled a stentorian-voiced hymn
+of greeting. "Düsseldorf" was the name printed on the station lamps.
+
+All the passengers, save the members of the choral society, had left the
+train, apparently, for every carriage door stood open. I sprang to my
+feet and let myself go with the stream of men. Thus I swept out of the
+train and right into the midst of the jostling crowd of bandsmen,
+singers and spectators on the platform. I stood with the new arrivals
+until the hymn was ended and thus solidly _encadrés_ by the
+Düsseldorfers, we drifted out through the barrier into the station
+courtyard. There brakes were waiting into which the jolly choristers,
+guests and hosts, clambered noisily. But I walked straight on into the
+streets, scarcely able to realize that no one had questioned me, that at
+last, unhindered, I stood before my goal.
+
+Düsseldorf is a bright, clean town with a touch of good taste in its
+public buildings to remind one that this busy, industrial city has found
+time even while making money to have called into being a school of art
+of its own. It was a delightful morning with dazzling sunshine and an
+eager nip in the air that spoke of the swift, deep river that bathes the
+city walls. I revelled in the clear, cold atmosphere after the foulness
+of the drinking-den and the stifling heat of the journey. I exulted in
+the sense of liberty I experienced at having once more eluded the grim
+clutches of Clubfoot. Above all, my heart sang within me at the thought
+of an early meeting with Francis. In the mood I was in, I would admit no
+possibility of disappointment now. Francis and I would come together at
+last.
+
+I came upon a public square presently and there facing me was a great,
+big café, white and new and dazzling, with large plate-glass windows
+and rows of tables on a covered verandah outside. It was undoubtedly a
+"_kolossal_" establishment after the best Berlin style. So that there
+might be no mistake about the name it was placarded all over the front
+of the place in gilt letters three feet high on glass panels--Café
+Regina.
+
+It was about nine o'clock in the morning and at that early hour I had
+the place to myself. I felt very small, sitting at a tiny table, with
+tables on every side of me, stretching away as it were into the
+_Ewigkeit_, in a vast white room with mural paintings of the crassest
+school of impressionism.
+
+I ordered a good, substantial breakfast and whiled away the time while
+it was coming by glancing at the morning paper which the waiter brought
+me.
+
+My eyes ran down the columns without my heeding what I read, for my
+thoughts were busy with Francis. When did he come to the café? How was
+he living at Düsseldorf?
+
+Suddenly, I found myself looking at a name I knew ... it was in the
+personal paragraphs.
+
+"Lieut.-General Count von Boden," the paragraph ran, "Aide-de-Camp to
+H.M. the Emperor, has been placed on the retired list owing to
+ill-health. General von Boden has left for Abbazia, where he will take
+up his permanent residence." There followed the usual biographical
+notes.
+
+Of a truth, Clubfoot was a power in the land.
+
+I ate my breakfast at a table by the open door, and surveyed the busy
+life of the square where the pigeons circled in the sunshine. A waiter
+stood on the verandah idly watching the birds as they pecked at the
+stones. I was struck with the profound melancholy depicted in his face.
+His cheeks were sunken and he had a pinched look which I had observed in
+the features of most of the customers at Haase's. I set it down to the
+insufficient feeding which is general among the lower classes in Germany
+to-day.
+
+But in addition to this man's wasted appearance, his eyes were hollow,
+there were deep lines about his mouth and he wore a haggard look that
+had something strangely pathetic about it. His air of brooding sadness
+seemed to attract me, and I found my eyes continually wandering back to
+his face.
+
+And then, without warning, through some mysterious whispering of the
+blood, the truth came to me that this was my brother. I don't know
+whether it was a passing mood reflected in his face or the shifting
+lights and shadows in his eyes that lifted the veil. I only know that
+through those features ravaged by care and suffering and in spite of
+them I caught a glimpse of the brother I had come to seek.
+
+I rattled a spoon on the table and called softly out to the verandah.
+
+"_Kellner!_"
+
+The man turned.
+
+I beckoned to him. He came over to my table. He never recognized me, so
+dull was he with disappointment ... me with my unshaven, unkempt
+appearance and in my mean German shoddy ... but stood silently, awaiting
+my bidding.
+
+"Francis," I said softly ... and I spoke in German ... "Francis, don't
+you know me?"
+
+He was magnificent, strong and resourceful in his joy at our meeting as
+he had been in his months of weary waiting.
+
+Only his mouth quivered a little as instantly his hands busied
+themselves with clearing away my breakfast.
+
+"Jawohl!" he answered in a perfectly emotionless voice.
+
+And then he smiled and in a flash the old Francis stood before me.
+
+"Not a word now," he said in German as he cleared away the breakfast.
+"I am off this afternoon. Meet me on the river promenade by the Schiller
+statue at a quarter past two and we'll go for a walk. Don't stay here
+now but come back and lunch in the restaurant ... it's always crowded
+and pretty safe!"
+
+Then he called out into the void:
+
+"Twenty-six wants to pay!"
+
+Such was my meeting with my brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A HAND-CLASP BY THE RHINE
+
+
+That afternoon Francis and I walked out along the banks of the swiftly
+flowing Rhine until we were far beyond the city. Anxious though I was
+that he should reveal to me that part of his life which lay hidden
+beneath those lines of suffering in his face, he made me tell my story
+first. So I unfolded to him the extraordinary series of adventures that
+had befallen me since the night I had blundered upon the trail of a
+great secret in that evil hotel at Rotterdam.
+
+Francis did not once interrupt the flow of my narrative. He listened
+with the most tense interest but with a growing concern which betrayed
+itself clearly on his face. At the end of my story, I silently handed to
+him the half of the stolen letter I had seized from Clubfoot at the
+Hotel Esplanade.
+
+"Keep it, Francis," I said. "It's safer with a respectable waiter like
+you than with a hunted outcast like myself!"
+
+My brother smiled wanly, but his face assumed the look of grave anxiety
+with which he had heard my tale. He scrutinized the slips of paper very
+closely, then tucked them away in a letter-case, which he buttoned up in
+his hip pocket.
+
+"Fortune is a strange goddess, Des," he said, his weary eyes roving out
+over the turgid, yellow stream, "and she has been kind to you, though,
+God knows, you have played a man's part in all this. She has placed in
+your possession something for which at least five men have died in vain,
+something that has filled my thoughts, sleeping and waking, for more
+than half a year. What you have told me throws a good deal of light upon
+the mystery which I came to this cursed country to elucidate, but it
+also deepens the darkness which still envelops many points in the
+affair.
+
+"You know there are issues in this game of ours, old man, that stand
+even higher than the confidence that there has always been between us
+two. That is why I wrote to you so seldom out in France--I could tell
+you nothing about my work: that is one of the rules of our game. But now
+you have broken into the scramble yourself, I feel that we are partners,
+so I will tell you all I know.
+
+"Listen, then. Some time about the beginning of the year a letter
+written by a German interned at one of the camps in England was stopped
+by the Camp Censor. This German went by the name of Schulte: he was
+arrested at a house in Dalston the day after we declared war on
+Germany. There was a good reason for this, for our friend Schulte--we
+don't know his real name--was known to my Chief as one of the most
+daring and successful spies that ever operated in the British Isles.
+
+"Therefore, a sharp eye was kept on his correspondence, and one day this
+letter was seized. It was, I believe, perfectly harmless to the eye, but
+the expert to whom it was eventually submitted soon detected a
+conventional code in the chatty phrases about the daily life of the
+camp. It proved to be a communication from Schulte to a third party
+relating to a certain letter which, apparently, the writer imagined the
+third party had a considerable interest in acquiring. For he offered to
+sell this letter to the third party, mentioning a sum so preposterously
+high that it attracted the earnest attention of our Intelligence people.
+On half the sum mentioned being paid into the writer's account at a
+certain bank in London, the letter went on to say, the writer would
+forward the address at which the object in question would be found."
+
+"It was a simple matter to send Schulte a letter in return, agreeing to
+his terms, and to have the payment made, as desired, into the bank he
+mentioned. His communication in reply to this was duly stopped. The
+address he gave was that of a house situated on the outskirts of
+Cleves.
+
+"We had no idea what this letter was, but its apparent value in the eyes
+of the shrewd Mr. Schulte made it highly desirable that we should obtain
+possession of it without delay. Four of us were selected for this
+dangerous mission of getting into Germany and fetching it, by hook or by
+crook, from the house at Cleves where it was deposited. We four were to
+enter Germany by different routes and different means and to converge on
+Cleves (which is quite close to the Dutch frontier).
+
+"It would take too long to tell you of the very exact organization which
+we worked out to exclude all risk of failure and the various schemes we
+evolved for keeping in touch with one another though working separately
+and in rotation. Nor does it matter very much how I got into Germany.
+The fact is that, at my very first attempt to get across the frontier, I
+realized that some immensely powerful force was working against me.
+
+"I managed it, with half a dozen hairbreadth escapes, and I set down my
+success solely to my knowledge of German and to that old trick of mine
+of German imitations. But I felt everywhere the influence of this unseen
+hand, enforcing a meticulous vigilance which it was almost impossible to
+escape. I was not surprised, therefore, to learn that two of my
+companions came to grief at the very outset."
+
+My brother lowered his voice and looked about him.
+
+"Do you know what happened to those two gallant fellows?" he said. "Jack
+Tracy was found dead on the railway: Herbert Arbuthnot was discovered
+hanging in a wood. 'Suicide of an Unknown Individual' was what the
+German papers called it in each case. But I heard the truth ... never
+mind how. They were ambushed and slaughtered in cold blood."
+
+"And the third man you spoke of?" I asked.
+
+"Philip Brewster? Vanished, Des ... vanished utterly. I fear he, too,
+has gone west, poor chap!
+
+"Of the whole four of us I was the only one to reach our objective.
+There I drew blank. The letter was not in the hiding-place indicated.
+I think it never had been or the Huns would have got it. I felt all the
+time that they didn't know exactly where the letter was but that
+they anticipated our attempt to get it, hence the unceasing vigilance all
+along the frontier and inside it, too.
+
+"They damned nearly got me at Cleves: I escaped as by a miracle, and the
+providential thing for me was that I had never posed as anything but a
+German, only I varied the type I represented almost from day to day.
+Thus I left no traces behind or they would have had me long since."
+
+The sadness in my brother's voice increased and the shadows deepened in
+his face.
+
+"Then I tried to get out," he continued. "But it was hopeless from the
+first. They knew they had one of us left in the net and they closed
+every outlet. I made two separate attempts to cross the line back into
+Holland, but both failed. The second time I literally had to flee for my
+life. I went straight to Berlin, feeling that a big city, as remote from
+the frontier as possible, was the only safe hiding-place for me as long
+as the hue and cry lasted.
+
+"I was in a desperate bad way, too, for I had had to abandon the last
+set of identity papers left to me when I bolted. I landed in Berlin with
+the knowledge that no roof could safely shelter me until I got a fresh
+lot of papers.
+
+"I knew of Kore--I had heard of him and his shirkers' and deserters'
+agency in my travels--and I went straight to him. He sent me to
+Haase's ... this was towards the end of June. It was when I was at
+Haase's that I sent out that message to van Urutius that fell into your
+hands. That happened like this.
+
+"I was rather friendly with a chap that frequented Haase's, a man
+employed in the packing department at the Metal Works at Steglitz. He
+was telling us one night how short-handed they were and what good money
+packers were earning. I was sick of being cooped up in that stinking
+cellar, so, more by way of a joke than anything else, I offered to come
+and lend a hand in the packing department. I thought I might get a
+chance of escape, as I saw none at Haase's. To my surprise, Haase, who
+was sitting at the table, rather fancied the idea and said I could go if
+I paid him half my wages: I was getting nothing at the beer-cellar.
+
+"So I was taken on at Steglitz, sleeping at Haase's and helping in the
+beer-cellar in the evenings. One day a package for old van Urutius came
+to me to be made up and suddenly it occurred to me that here was a
+chance of sending out a message to the outside world. I hoped that old
+van U., if he tumbled to the 'Eichenholz,' would send it to you and that
+you would pass it on to my Chief in London."
+
+"Then you expected me to come after you?" I said.
+
+"No," replied Francis promptly, "I did not. But the arrangement was
+that, if none of us four men had turned up at Head-quarters by May 15th,
+a fifth man should come in and be at a given rendezvous near the
+frontier on June 15th. I went to the place on June 15th, but he never
+showed up and, though I waited about for a couple of days, I saw no
+sign of him. I made my final attempt to get out and it failed, so, when
+I fled to Berlin, I knew that I had cut off all means of communication
+with home. As a last hope, I dashed off that cipher on the spur of the
+moment and tucked it into old van U's invoice."
+
+"But why 'Achilles' with one 'l'?" I asked.
+
+"They knew all about Kore's agency at Head-quarters, but I didn't dare
+mention Kore's name for fear the parcel might be opened. So I purposely
+spelt 'Achilles' with one 'l' to draw attention to the code word, so
+that they should know where news of me was to be found. It was devilish
+smart of you to decipher that, Des!"
+
+Francis smiled at me.
+
+"I meant to stay quietly in Berlin, going daily between Haase's and the
+factory and wait, for a month or two, in case that message got home. But
+Kore began to give trouble. At the beginning of July he came to see me
+and hinted that the renewal of my _permis de séjour_ would cost money. I
+paid him, but I realized then that I was absolutely in his power and I
+had no intention of being blackmailed. So I made use of his cupidity to
+leave a message for the man who, I hoped, would be coming after me,
+wrote that line on the wall under the Boonekamp poster in that filthy
+hovel where we slept and came up here after a job I had heard of at the
+Café Regina.
+
+"And now, Des, old man," said my brother, "you know all that I know!"
+
+"And Clubfoot?"
+
+"Ah!" said Francis, shaking his head, "there I think I recognize the
+hand that has been against us from the start, though who the man is, and
+what his power, I, like you, only know from what he told you himself.
+The Germans are clever enough, as we know from their communiqués, to
+tell the truth when it suits their book. I believe that Clubfoot was
+telling you the truth in what he said about his mission that night at
+the Esplanade.
+
+"You and I know now that the Kaiser wrote that letter ... we also know
+that it was addressed to an influential English friend of William II.
+You have seen the date ... Berlin, July 31st, 1914 ... the eve of the
+outbreak of the world war. Even from this half in my pocket ... and you
+who have seen both halves of the letter will confirm what I say ... I
+can imagine what an effect on the international situation this letter
+would have had if it had reached the man for whom it was destined. But
+it did not ... why, we don't know. We do know, however, that the Emperor
+is keenly anxious to regain possession of his letter ... you yourself
+were a witness of his anxiety and you know that he put the matter into
+the hands of the man Clubfoot."
+
+"Well," I observed thoughtfully, "Clubfoot, whoever he is, seems to have
+made every effort to keep my escapades dark...."
+
+"Precisely," said Francis, "and lucky for you too. Otherwise Clubfoot
+would have had you stopped at the frontier. But obviously secrecy is an
+essential part of his instructions, and he has shown himself willing to
+risk almost anything rather than call in the aid of the regular police."
+
+"But they can always hush these things up!" I objected.
+
+"From the public, yes, but not from the Court. This letter looks
+uncommonly like one of William's sudden impulses ... and I fancy
+anything of the kind would get very little tolerance in Germany in
+war-time."
+
+"But who is Clubfoot?" I questioned.
+
+My brother furrowed his brows anxiously.
+
+"Des," he said, "I don't know. He is certainly not a regular official of
+the German Intelligence like Steinhauer and the others. But I _have_
+heard of a clubfooted German on two occasions ... both were dark and
+mysterious affairs, in both he played a leading role and both ended in
+the violent death of one of our men."
+
+"Then Tracy and the others...?" I asked.
+
+"Victims of this man, Des, without any doubt," my brother answered. He
+paused a moment reflectively.
+
+"There is a code of honour in our game, old man," he said, "and there
+are lots of men in the German secret service who live up to it. We give
+and take plenty of hard knocks in the rough-and-tumble of the chase, but
+ambush and assassination are barred."
+
+He took a deep breath and added:
+
+"But the man Clubfoot doesn't play the game!"
+
+"Francis," I said, "I wish I'd known something of this that night I had
+him at my mercy at the Esplanade. He would not have got off with a
+cracked skull ... with one blow. There would have been another blow for
+Tracy, one for Arbuthnot, one for the other man ... until the account
+was settled and I'd beaten his brains out on the carpet. But if we meet
+him again, Francis, ... as, please God, we shall! ... there will be no
+code of honour for _him_ ... we'll finish him in cold blood as we'd kill
+a rat!"
+
+My brother thrust out his hand at me and we clasped hands on it.
+
+Evening was falling and lights were beginning to twinkle from the
+further bank of the river.
+
+We stood for a moment in silence with the river rushing at our feet.
+Then we turned and started to tramp back towards the city. Francis
+linked his arm in mine.
+
+"And now, Des," he said in his old affectionate way, "tell me some more
+about Monica!"
+
+Out of that talk germinated in my head the only plan that seemed to
+offer us a chance of escape. I was quite prepared to believe Francis
+when he declared that the frontier was at present impassable: if the
+vigilance had been increased before it would be redoubled now that I had
+again eluded Clubfoot. We should, therefore, have to find some cover
+where we could lie doggo until the excitement passed.
+
+You remember that Monica told me, the last time I had seen her, that she
+was shortly going to Schloss Bellevue, a shooting-box belonging to her
+husband, to arrange some shoots in connection with the Governmental
+scheme for putting game on the market. Monica, you will recollect, had
+offered to take me with her, and I had fully meant to accompany her but
+for Gerry's unfortunate persistence in the matter of my passport.
+
+I now proposed to Francis that we should avail ourselves of Monica's
+offer and make for Castle Bellevue. The place was well suited for our
+purpose as it lies near Cleves, and in its immediate neighbourhood is
+the Reichswald, that great forest which stretches from Germany clear
+across into Holland. All through my wanderings, I had kept this forest
+in the back of my head as a region which must offer facilities for
+slipping unobserved across the frontier. Now I learnt from Francis that
+he had spent months in the vicinity of Cleves, and I was not surprised
+to find, when I outlined this plan to him, that he knew the Reichswald
+pretty well.
+
+"It'll be none too easy to get across through the forest," he said
+doubtfully, "it's very closely patrolled, but I do know of one place
+where we could lie pretty snug for a day or two waiting for a chance to
+make a dash. But we have no earthly chance of getting through at
+present: our clubfooted pal will see to that all right. And I don't much
+like the idea of going to Bellevue either: it will be horribly dangerous
+for Monica!"
+
+"I don't think so," I said. "The whole place will be overrun with
+people, guests, servants, beaters and the like, for these shoots. Both
+you and I know German and we look rough enough: we ought to be able to
+get an emergency job about the place without embarrassing Monica in the
+least. I don't believe they will ever dream of looking for us so close
+to this frontier. The only possible trail they can pick up after me in
+Berlin leads to Munich. Clubfoot is bound to think I am making for the
+Swiss frontier."
+
+Well, the long and the short of it was that my suggestion was carried,
+and we resolved to set out for Bellevue that very night. My brother
+declared he would not return to the café: with the present shortage of
+men, such desertions were by no means uncommon, and if he were to give
+notice formally it might only lead to embarrassing explanations.
+
+So we strolled back to the city in the gathering darkness, bought a map
+of the Rhine and a couple of rucksacks and laid in a small stock of
+provisions at a great department store, biscuits, chocolates, some hard
+sausage and two small flasks of rum. Then Francis took me to a little
+restaurant where he was known and introduced me to the friendly
+proprietor, a very jolly old Rheinlander, as his brother just out of
+hospital. I did my country good service, I think, by giving a most
+harrowing account of the terrible efficiency of the British army on the
+Somme!
+
+Then we dined and over our meal consulted the map.
+
+"By the map," I said, "Bellevue should be about fifty miles from here.
+My idea is that we should walk only at night and lie up during the day,
+as a room is out of the question for me without any papers. I think we
+should keep away from the Rhine, don't you? As otherwise we shall pass
+through Wesel, which is a fortress, and, consequently, devilish
+unhealthy for both of us."
+
+Francis nodded with his mouth full.
+
+"At present we can count on about twelve hours of darkness," I
+continued, "so, leaving a margin for the slight détour we shall make,
+for rests and for losing the way, I think we ought to be able to reach
+Castle Bellevue on the third night from this. If the weather holds up,
+it won't be too bad, but if it rains, it will be hellish! Now, have you
+any suggestions?"
+
+My brother acquiesced, as, indeed, he had in everything I had proposed
+since we met. Poor fellow, he had had a roughish time: he seemed glad to
+have the direction of affairs taken out of his hands for a bit.
+
+At half-past seven that evening, our packs on our backs, we stood on the
+outskirts of the town where the road branches off to Crefeld. In the
+pocket of the overcoat I had filched from Haase's I found an automatic
+pistol, fully loaded (most of our customers at the beer-cellar went
+armed).
+
+"You've got the document, Francis," I said. "You'd better have this,
+too!" and I passed him the gun.
+
+Francis waved it aside.
+
+"You keep it," he said grimly, "it may serve you instead of a passport."
+
+So I slipped the weapon back into my pocket.
+
+A cold drop of rain fell upon my face.
+
+"Oh, hell!" I cried, "it's beginning to rain!"
+
+And thus we set out upon our journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a nightmare tramp. The rain never ceased. By day we lay in icy
+misery, chilled to the bone in our sopping clothes, in some dank ditch
+or wet undergrowth, with aching bones and blistered feet, fearing
+detection, but fearing, even more, the coming of night and the
+resumption of our march. Yet we stuck to our programme like Spartans,
+and about eight o'clock on the third evening, hobbling painfully along
+the road that runs from Cleves to Calcar, we were rewarded by the sight
+of a long massive building, with turrets at the corners, standing back
+from the highway behind a tall brick wall.
+
+"Bellevue!" I said to Francis, with pointing finger.
+
+We left the road and climbing a wooden palisade, struck out across the
+fields with the idea of getting into the park from the back. We passed
+some black and silent farm buildings, went through a gate and into a
+paddock, on the further side of which ran the wall surrounding the
+place. Somewhere beyond the wall a fire was blazing. We could see the
+leaping light of the flames and drifting smoke. At the same moment we
+heard voices, loud voices disputing in German.
+
+We crept across the paddock to the wall, I gave Francis a back and he
+hoisted himself to the top and looked over. In a moment he sprang
+lightly down, a finger to his lips.
+
+"Soldiers round a fire," he whispered. "There must be troops billeted
+here. Come on ... we'll go further round!"
+
+We ran softly along the wall to where it turned to the right and
+followed it round. Presently we came to a small iron gate in the wall.
+It stood open.
+
+We listened. The sound of voices was fainter here. We still saw the
+reflection of the flames in the sky. Otherwise, there was no sign or
+sound of human life.
+
+The gate led into an ornamental garden with the Castle at the further
+end. All the windows were in darkness. We threaded a garden path leading
+to the house. It brought us in front of a glass door. I turned the
+handle and it yielded to my grasp.
+
+I whispered to Francis:
+
+"Stay where you are! And if you hear me shout, fly for your life!"
+
+For, I reflected, the place might be full of troops. If there were any
+risk it would be better for me to take it since Francis, with his
+identity papers, had a better chance than I of bringing the document
+into safety.
+
+I opened the glass door and found myself in a lobby with a door on the
+right.
+
+I listened again. All was still. I cautiously opened the door and
+looked in. As I did so the place was suddenly flooded with light and a
+voice--a voice I had often heard in my dreams--called out imperiously:
+
+"Stay where you are and put your hands above your head!"
+
+Clubfoot stood there, a pistol in his great hand pointed at me.
+
+"Grundt!" I shouted but I did not move.
+
+And Clubfoot laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+FRANCIS TAKES UP THE NARRATIVE
+
+
+I saw the lights flash up in the room. I heard Desmond cry out:
+"Grundt;" Instantly I flung myself flat on my face in the flower bed,
+lest Desmond's shout might have alarmed the soldiers about the fire. But
+no one came; the gardens remained dark and damp and silent, and I heard
+no sound from the room in which I knew my brother to be in the clutches
+of that man.
+
+Desmond's cry pulled me together. It seemed to arouse me from the
+lethargy into which I had sunk during all those months of danger and
+disappointment. It shook me into life. If I was to save him, not a
+moment was to be lost. Clubfoot would act swiftly, I knew. So must I.
+But first I must find out what the situation was, the meaning of
+Clubfoot's presence in Monica's house, of those soldiers in the park.
+And, above all, was Monica herself at the Castle?
+
+I had noticed a little estaminet place on the road, about a hundred
+yards before we reached the Schloss. I might, at least, be able to pick
+up something there. Accordingly, I stole across the garden, scaled the
+wall again and reached the road in safety.
+
+The estaminet was full of people, brutish-looking peasants swilling neat
+spirits, cattle drovers and the like. I stood up at the bar and ordered
+a double noggin of _Korn_--a raw spirit made in these parts from
+potatoes, very potent but at least pure. A man in corduroys and leggings
+was drinking at the bar, a bluff sort of chap, who readily entered into
+conversation. A casual question of mine about the game conditions
+elicited from him the information that he was an under-keeper at the
+Castle. It was a busy time for them, he told me, as four big shoots had
+been arranged. The first was to take place the next day. There were
+plenty of birds, and he thought the Frau Gräfin's guests ought to be
+satisfied.
+
+I asked him if there was a big party staying at the Castle. No, he told
+me, only one gentleman besides the officer billeted there, but a lot of
+people were coming over for the shoot the next day, the officers from
+Cleves and Goch, the Chief Magistrate from Cleves, and a number of
+farmers from round about.
+
+"I expect you will find the soldiers billeted at the Castle useful as
+beaters," I enquired with a purpose.
+
+The man assented grudgingly. Gamekeepers are first-class grumblers. But
+the soldiers were not many. For his part he could do without them
+altogether. They were such terrible poachers to have about the place, he
+declared. But what they would do for beaters without them, he didn't
+know ... they were very short of beaters ... that was a fact.
+
+"I am staying at Cleves," I said, "and I'm out of a job. I am not long
+from hospital, and they've discharged me from the army. I wouldn't mind
+earning a few marks as a beater, and I'd like to see the sport. I used
+to do a bit of shooting myself down on the Rhine where I come from."
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "That's none of my
+business, getting the beaters together," he replied. "Besides, I shall
+have the head gamekeeper after me if I go bringing strangers in...."
+
+I ordered another drink for both of us, and won the man round without
+much difficulty. He pouched my five mark note and announced that he
+would manage it ... the Frau Gräfin was to see some men who had offered
+their services as beaters after dinner at the Castle that evening. He
+would take me along.
+
+Half an hour later I stood, as one of a group of shaggy and bedraggled
+rustics, in a big stone courtyard outside the main entrance to the
+Castle. The head gamekeeper mustered us with his eye and, bidding us
+follow him, led the way under a vaulted gateway through a massive door
+into a small lobby which had apparently been built into the great hall
+of the Castle, for it opened right into it.
+
+We found ourselves in a splendid old feudal hall, oak-lined and
+oak-raftered, with lines of dusty banners just visible in the twilight
+reigning in the upper part of the vast place. The modern generation had
+forborne to desecrate the fine old room with electric light, and massive
+silver candlesticks shed a soft light on the table set at the far end of
+the hall, where dinner, apparently, was just at an end.
+
+Three people were sitting at the table, a woman at the head, who, even
+before I had taken in the details I have just set down, I knew to be
+Monica, though her back was towards me. On one side of the table was a
+big, heavy man whom I recognized as Clubfoot, on the other side a pale
+slip of a lad in officer's uniform with only one arm ... Schmalz, no
+doubt.
+
+A servant said something to Monica, who, asking permission of her
+companions by a gesture, left the table and came across the hall. To my
+surprise, she was dressed in deepest black with linen cuffs. Her face was
+pale and set, and there was a look of fear and suffering in her eyes
+that wrung my very heart.
+
+I had shuffled into the last place of the row in which the head keeper
+had ranged us. Monica spoke a word or two to each of the men, who
+shambled off in turn with low obeisances. Directly she stopped in front
+of me I knew she had recognized me--I felt it rather, for she made no
+sign--though the time I had had in Germany had altered my appearance, I
+dare say, and I must have looked pretty rough with my three days' beard
+and muddy clothes.
+
+"Ah!" she said with all her languor _de grande dame_, "you are the man
+of whom Heinrich spoke. You have just come out of hospital, I think?"
+
+"Beg the Frau Gräfin's pardon," I mumbled out in the thick patois of the
+Rhine which I had learnt at Bonn, "I served with the Herr Graf in
+Galicia, and I thought maybe the Frau Gräfin ..."
+
+She stopped me with a gesture.
+
+"Herr Doktor!" she called to the dinner-table.
+
+By Jove! this girl had grit: her pluck was splendid.
+
+Clubfoot came stumping over, all smiles after his food and smoking a
+long cigar that smelt delicious.
+
+"Frau Gräfin?" he queried, glancing at me.
+
+"This is a man who served under my husband in Galicia. He is ill and out
+of work, and wishes me to help him. I should wish, therefore, to see him
+in my sitting-room, if you will allow me...."
+
+"But, Frau Gräfin, most certainly. There surely was no need ..."
+
+"Johann!" Monica called the servant I had seen before, "take this man
+into the sitting-room!"
+
+The servant led the way across the hall into a snugly furnished library
+with a dainty writing-desk and pretty chintz curtains. Monica followed
+and sat down at the desk.
+
+"Now tell me what you wish to say ..." she began in German as the servant
+left the room, but almost as soon as he had gone she was on her feet,
+clasping my hands.
+
+"Francis!" she whispered in English in a great sob, "oh, Francis! what
+have they done to you to make you look like that?"
+
+I gripped her wrist tightly.
+
+"Frau Gräfin," I said in German, still in that hideous patois, "you must
+be calm." And I whispered in English in her ear:
+
+"Monica, be brave! And talk German whatever you do."
+
+She regained her self-possession at once.
+
+"I understand," she answered, sitting down at her desk again; "it is
+more prudent."
+
+And for the rest of the time we spoke in German.
+
+"Desmond?" I asked.
+
+"Locked up in Grundt's bedroom," she replied. "I met them pushing him
+along the corridor--it was horrible! Grundt won't let him out of his
+sight. Oh, it was madness to have come. If only I could have warned
+you!"
+
+"What is Grundt doing here?" I asked. "And those soldiers and that
+officer?"
+
+"My dear," she answered, and her eyes flashed mischief in a sudden
+change of mood, "I'm in preventive arrest!"
+
+"But, Monica...."
+
+"Listen! Gerry and that spying man-servant of his made trouble. When Des
+went off that evening and didn't come back, Gerry insisted that we
+should notify the police. He made an awful scene, then the valet chipped
+in, and from what he said I knew he meant mischief. I didn't dare trust
+Gerry with the truth, so I let him send a note to the police. They came
+round and asked a lot of questions and went away again, so I thought
+we'd heard the last of it and came up here. Gerry wouldn't come. He's
+gone off to Baden-Baden on some new cure.
+
+"About a week ago the Chief Magistrate at Cleves, who is an old friend
+of ours, motored over, and after a lot of talk, blurted out that I was
+to consider myself under arrest, and that an officer and a detachment of
+men from Goch were coming over to guard the house. The magistrate man
+would have told me anything I wanted to know, but he knew nothing: he
+simply carried out his orders. Then the lieutenant and his men arrived,
+and since that time I have been a prisoner in the house and grounds. I
+was terribly scared about Des until Grundt arrived suddenly, two nights
+ago, and I saw at once by his face that Des was still at large. But,
+Francis, that Clubfoot man came here to catch Des ... and he has simply
+walked into the trap."
+
+"And Desmond?" I asked. "What is Clubfoot going to do about him?"
+
+"He was with Des for about an hour in his room, and I heard him tell
+Schmalz he would 'try again' after dinner. Oh, Francis, I am frightened
+of that man ... not a word has he said to me about my knowing
+Desmond--not a word about my harbouring Des in Berlin ... but he knows
+everything, and he watches me the whole time."
+
+I glanced through the open door into the hall. The candles still burnt
+on the dinner-table, where Clubfoot and the officer sat conversing in
+low tones.
+
+"I have been here long enough," I said. "But before I go, I want you to
+answer one or two questions, Monica. Will you?"
+
+"Yes, Francis," she said, raising her eyes to mine.
+
+"What time is the shoot to-morrow?"
+
+"At ten o'clock."
+
+"Are Grundt and Schmalz going?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Could you get away back to the house by 12.30?"
+
+"Not alone. One of them is always with me out of doors."
+
+"Could you meet me alone anywhere outside at that time?"
+
+"There is a quarry outside a village called Quellenburg ... it is on the
+edge of our preserves ... just off the road. We ought to be as far as
+that by twelve. If it is necessary, I will try and give them the slip
+and hide in one of the caves there. Then, when you came, if you whistled
+I could come out."
+
+"Good. That will do excellently. We will arrange it so. Now, another
+question ... how many soldiers have you here?"
+
+"Sixteen."
+
+"Are they all going beating?"
+
+"Oh, no! Only ten of them. The other six and the sergeant remain
+behind."
+
+"Have you a car here?"
+
+"No, but Grundt has one."
+
+"How many servants will there be in the house to-morrow?"
+
+"Only Johann, the butler, and the maids ... a woman cook and two girls."
+
+"Can you contrive to have Johann out of the house between 10 and 12:30
+to-morrow morning?"
+
+"Yes, I can send him to Cleves with a note."
+
+"The maids too?"
+
+"Yes, the maids too."
+
+"Good. Now will you do one thing more--the hardest of all? I want you
+to send a message to Desmond. Can you arrange it?"
+
+"Tell me what your message is, and I may be able to answer you."
+
+"I want you to tell him that he must at all costs contrive to keep
+Grundt from going to that shoot to-morrow ... at any rate between ten
+and twelve. He must manage to let Grundt believe that he is going to
+tell him where Grundt may find what he is after ... but he must keep him
+in suspense during those hours."
+
+"And after?"
+
+"There will be no after," I said.
+
+"I will see that Des gets your message," Monica replied, "for I will
+take it myself."
+
+"No, Monica," I said, "I don't want..."
+
+"Francis," ...she spoke almost in a whisper ... "my life in this country
+is over," ... and she touched her widow's weeds.... "Karl was killed at
+Predeal three weeks ago.... You know as well as I do that I am involved
+in this affair as much as you and Des ... and I will share the risk if
+only you will take me away with you ... that is if you ..." She
+faltered.
+
+I heard the chairs scrape in the corner of the hall where the
+dinner-party was breaking up.
+
+"The Frau Gräfin has only to command," I said. "The Frau Gräfin knows I
+have been waiting for years...."
+
+Clubfoot was crossing towards the open door.
+
+"... I never expected to find the Frau Gräfin so gracious.... I had
+never hoped that the Frau Gräfin would be willing to do so much for
+me ... the Frau Gräfin has made me very happy."
+
+Clubfoot stood on the threshold and listened to my halting speech.
+
+"You can bring your things in when you come to-morrow ..." Monica said.
+"The keeper will tell you what time you must be here."
+
+Then she dismissed me, but as I went I heard her say:
+
+"Herr Doktor! Can I have a word with you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+I GO ON WITH THE STORY
+
+
+I was in the billiard-room of the Castle, a dusty place, obviously
+little used, for it smelt of damp. A fire was burning in the grate,
+however, and on a table in the corner, which was littered with papers,
+stood a dispatch box.
+
+Clubfoot wore a dinner-coat and, as he laughed, his white expanse of
+shirt-front heaved to the shaking of his deep chest. For a moment,
+however, I had little thought of him or the ugly-looking Browning he
+held in his fist. My ears were strained for any sound that might betray
+Francis' presence in the garden. But all remained silent as the grave.
+
+Clubfoot, still chuckling audibly, walked over to me. I thought he was
+going to shoot me, he came so straight and so fast, but it was only to
+get behind me and shut the door, driving me, as he did so, farther into
+the room.
+
+The door by which he had entered stood open. Without taking his eyes off
+me or deflecting his weapon from its aim, he called out:
+
+"Schmalz!"
+
+A light step resounded, and the one-armed lieutenant tripped into the
+room. When he saw me, he stopped dead. Then he softly began to circle
+round me with a mincing step, murmuring to himself: "So! So!"
+
+"Good evening, Dr. Semlin!" he said in English. "Say, I'm mighty glad to
+see you! Well, Okewood, dear old boy, here we are again. What? Herr
+Julius Zimmermann ..." and he broke into German, "_es freut mich!_"
+
+I could have killed him where he stood, maimed though he was, for his
+fluency in the American and English idiom alone.
+
+"Search him, Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot curtly.
+
+Schmalz ran the fingers of his one arm over my pockets, flinging my
+portfolio on the billiard-table towards Clubfoot, and the other articles
+as they came to light ... my pistol, watch, cigarette-case and so
+forth ... on to a leather lounge against the wall. In his search he
+brushed me with his severed stump ... ugh, it was horrible!
+
+Clubfoot had snatched up the portfolio and hastily examined it. He shook
+the contents out on the billiard-table and examined them carefully.
+
+"Not there!" he said. "Run him upstairs, and we'll strip him," he
+ordered; "and let not our clever young friend forget that I'm behind him
+with my little toy!"
+
+Schmalz gripped me by the collar, spitefully digging his knuckles into
+my neck, and propelled me out of the room ... almost into the arms of
+Monica.
+
+She screamed and, turning, fled away down the passage. Clubfoot laughed
+noisily, but I reflected mournfully that in my present sorry plight,
+unwashed and unshaven, in filthy clothes, haled along like a common
+pickpocket, even my own mother would not have recognized me.
+
+There was a degrading scene in the bedroom to which they dragged me,
+where the two men stripped me to the skin and pawed over every single
+article of clothing I possessed. Physically and mentally, I cowered in
+my nudity before the unwholesome gaze of these two sinister cripples. Of
+all my experiences in Germany, I still look back upon that as almost my
+worst ordeal.
+
+Of course, they found nothing, search as they might, and presently they
+flung my clothes back at me and bade me get dressed again, "for you and
+I, young man," said Clubfoot, with his glinting smile, "have got to have
+a little talk together!"
+
+When I was once more clothed--
+
+"You can leave us, Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot, "and send up the
+sergeant when I ring: he shall look after this tricky Englishman whilst
+we are at dinner with our charming hostess."
+
+Schmalz went out and left us alone. Clubfoot lighted a cigar. He smoked
+in silence for a few minutes. I said nothing, for really there was
+nothing for me to say. They hadn't got their precious document, and it
+was not likely they would ever recover it now. I feared greatly that
+Francis in his loyalty might make an attempt to rescue me, but I hoped,
+whatever he did, he would think first of putting the document in a place
+of safety. I was more or less resigned to my fate. I was in their hands
+properly now, and whether they got the document or not, my doom was
+sealed.
+
+"I will pay you the compliment of saying, my dear Captain Okewood,"
+Clubfoot remarked in that urbane voice of his which always made my
+blood run cold, "that never before in my career have I devoted so much
+thought to any single individual, in the different cases I have handled,
+as I have to you. As an individual, you are a paltry thing: it is rather
+your remarkable good fortune that interests me as a philosopher of
+sorts.... I assure you it will cause me serious concern to be the
+instrument of severing your really extraordinary strain of good luck. I
+don't mind telling you, as man to man, that I have not yet entirely
+decided in my mind what to do with you now that I've got you!"
+
+I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"You've got me, certainly," I replied, "but you would vastly prefer to
+have what I have not got."
+
+"Let us not forget to be always content with small mercies,"
+answered the other, smiling with a gleam of his golden teeth,... "that
+is a favourite maxim of mine. As you truly remark, I would certainly
+prefer the ... the jewel to the infinitely less precious
+and ... interesting ... casket. But what I have, I hold. And I
+have you ... and your accomplice as well."
+
+"I have no accomplice," I denied stoutly.
+
+"Surely you forget our gracious hostess, our most charming Countess? Was
+it not thanks to the interest she deigned to take in your safety that I
+came here? Had it not been for that circumstance, I should scarcely have
+ventured to intrude upon her widowhood...."
+
+"Her widowhood?" I exclaimed.
+
+Clubfoot smiled again.
+
+"You cannot have followed the newspapers in your ... retreat, my dear
+Captain Okewood," he replied, "or surely you would have read the
+afflicting intelligence that Count Rachwitz, A.D.C. to Field-Marshal von
+Mackensen, was killed by a shell that fell into the Brigade Head-quarters
+where he was lunching at Predeal. Ah, yes," he sighed, "our beautiful
+Countess is now a widow, alone ..." he paused, then added, "... and
+unprotected!"
+
+I understood his allusion and went cold with fear. Why, Monica was
+involved in this affair as much as I. Surely they wouldn't dare to touch
+her....
+
+Clubfoot leaned forward and tapped me on the knee.
+
+"You will be sensible, Okewood," he said confidentially. "You've lost.
+You can't save yourself. Your life was forfeit from the moment you
+crossed the threshold of his Majesty's private apartments ... but you
+can save _her_."
+
+I shook his huge hand off my leg.
+
+"You won't bluff me," I answered roughly. "You daren't touch the
+Countess Rachwitz, an American lady, niece of an American ambassador,
+married into one of your leading families ... no, Herr Doktor, you must
+try something else."
+
+"Do you know why Schmalz is here?" he asked patiently, "and those
+soldiers?... You must have passed through the cordon to come here. Your
+little friend is in preventive arrest. She would be in gaol (she doesn't
+know it), but that His Majesty was unwilling to put this affront on the
+Rachwitz family in their great affliction."
+
+"The Countess Rachwitz has nothing whatever to do with me," ... rather a
+foolish lie, I thought to myself too late, as I was in her house.
+
+But Clubfoot remained quite unperturbed.
+
+"I shall take you into my confidence, my dear sir," he said, "to show
+that I know you to be stating an untruth. The Countess, on the contrary,
+is, to use a vulgar phrase, in it up to the neck. Thanks to the amazing
+imbecility of the Berlin police, I was not informed of your brief stay
+at the Bendler-Strasse, even after they were called in by the invalid
+American gentleman in the matter of your hasty flight when asked to have
+your passport put in order. But we are systematic, we Germans; we are
+painstaking; and I set about going through every possible place that
+might afford you shelter.
+
+"In the course of my investigations I came across our mutual friend,
+Herr Kore. A perusal of his very business-like ledgers showed me that on
+the day following your disappearance from the Esplanade he had received
+3,600 marks from a certain E. 2 ... all names in his books were in
+cipher. Under the influence of my winning personality, Herr Kore told me
+all he knew; I pursued my investigations and then discovered what the
+asinine police had omitted to tell me, namely, that on the date in
+question an alleged American had made a hurried flight from the Countess
+Rachwitz's apartment in the Bendler-Strasse. An admirable fellow ... Max
+or Otto, or some name like that ... anyhow, he was valet to Madame's
+invalid brother, was able to fill in all the lacunae, and I was thus
+enabled to draw up a very strong case against your well-meaning but
+singularly ill-advised hostess. By this time the lady had left Berlin
+for this charming old-world seat, and I promptly took measures to have
+her placed in preventive arrest whilst I tracked _you_ down.
+
+"You got away again. Even Jupiter nods, you know, my dear Captain
+Okewood, and I frankly admit I overlooked the silver badge which you had
+in your possession. I must compliment you also on your adroitness in
+leaving us that false trail to Munich. It took me in to the extent that
+I dispatched an emissary to hunt you down in that delightful capital,
+but, for myself, I have a certain _flair_ in these matters, and I
+thought you would sooner or later come to Bellevue. You will admit that
+I showed some perspicacity?"
+
+"You're wasting time with all this talk," I said sullenly.
+
+Clubfoot raised a hand deprecatingly.
+
+"I take a pride in my work," he observed half-apologetically. Then he
+added:
+
+"You must not forget that your pretty Countess is not an American. She
+is a German. She is also a widow. You may not know the relations that
+existed between her and her late husband, but they were not, I assure
+you, of such warmth that the Rachwitz family would unduly mourn her
+loss. Do you suppose we care a fig for all the American ambassadors that
+ever left the States? My dear sir, I observe that you are still
+lamentably ignorant of the revolution that war brings into international
+relations. In war, where the national interest is concerned, the
+individual is nothing. If he or she must be removed, puff! you snuff the
+offender out. Afterwards you can always pay or apologize, or do what is
+required."
+
+I listened in silence; I had no defence to offer in face of this deadly
+logic, the logic of the stronger man.
+
+Clubfoot produced a paper from his pocket.
+
+"Read that!" he said, tossing it over to me. "It is the summons for the
+Countess Rachwitz to appear before a court-martial. Date blank, you see.
+You needn't tear it up ... I've got several spare blank forms ... one
+for you, too!"
+
+I felt my courage ebbing and my heart turning to water. I handed him
+back his paper in silence. The booming of a dinner gong suddenly swelled
+into the stillness of the room. Clubfoot rose and rang the bell.
+
+"Here's my offer, Okewood!" he said. "You shall restore that letter to
+me in its integrity, and the Countess Rachwitz shall go free provided
+she leaves this country and does not return. That's my last word! Take
+the night to sleep on it! I shall come for my answer in the morning."
+
+A sergeant in field-grey with a rifle and fixed bayonet stood in the
+doorway.
+
+"I make you responsible for this man, Sergeant," said Clubfoot, "until I
+return in an hour or so. Food will be sent up for him and you will
+personally assure yourself that no message is conveyed to him by that or
+any other means."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I had washed, I had brushed my clothes, I had dined, and I sat in
+silence by the table, in the most utter dejection of spirit, I think,
+into which it is possible for a man to fall. I was so totally crushed by
+the disappointment of the evening that I don't think I pondered much
+about my own fate at all. But my thoughts were busy with Monica. My life
+was my own, and I knew I had a lien on my brother's if thereby our
+mission might be carried through to the end. But had I the right to
+sacrifice Monica?
+
+And then the unexpected happened. The door opened, and she came in,
+Schmalz behind her. He dismissed the sergeant with a word of caution to
+see that the sentries round the house were vigilant, and followed the
+man out, leaving Monica and me alone.
+
+The girl stopped the torrent of self-reproach that rose to my lips with
+a pretty gesture. She was pale, but she held her head as high as ever.
+
+"Schmalz has given me five minutes alone with you, Des," she said, "to
+plead with you for my life, that you may betray your trust. No, don't
+speak ... there is no time to waste in words. I have a message for you
+from Francis.... Yes, I have seen him here, this very night.... He says
+you must contrive at all costs to keep Grundt from going to the shoot at
+ten o'clock to-morrow, and to detain him with you from ten to twelve.
+That is all I know about it.... But Francis has planned something, and
+you and I have got to trust him. Now, listen ... I shall tell Clubfoot I
+have pleaded with you and that you show signs of weakening. Say nothing
+to-night, temporize with him when he comes for his answer in the
+morning, and then send for him at a quarter to ten, when he will be
+leaving the house with the others. The rest I leave to you. Good night,
+Des, and cheer up!"...
+
+"But, Monica," I cried, "what about you?"
+
+She reddened deliciously under her pallor.
+
+"Des," she replied happily, "we are allies now, we three. If all goes
+well, I'm coming with you and Francis!"
+
+With that she was gone. A few minutes after, a couple of soldiers
+arrived with Schmalz and took me downstairs to a dark cellar in the
+basement, where I was locked in for the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was dreaming of the front ... again I sniffed the old familiar smells,
+the scent of fresh earth, the fetid odour of death; again I heard
+outside the trench the faint rattle of tools, the low whispers of our
+wiring party; again I saw the very lights soaring skyward and revealing
+the desolation of the battlefield in their glare. Someone was shaking me
+by the shoulder. It was my servant come to wake me.... I must have
+fallen asleep. Was it stand-to so soon? I sat up and rubbed my eyes and
+awoke to the anguish of another day.
+
+The sergeant stood at the cellar door, framed in the bright morning
+light.
+
+"You are to come upstairs!" he said.
+
+He took me to the billiard-room, where Clubfoot, sleek and washed and
+shaved, sat at the writing-table in the sunshine, opening letters and
+sipping coffee. A clock on a bracket above his head pointed to eight.
+
+"You wish to speak to me, I believe," he said carelessly, running his
+eye over a letter in his hand.
+
+"You must give me a little more time, Herr Doktor," I said. "I was worn
+out last night and I could not look at things in their proper light. If
+you could spare me a few hours more...."
+
+I put a touch of pleading into my voice, which struck him at once.
+
+"I am not unreasonable, my dear Captain Okewood," he replied, "but you
+will understand that I am not to be trifled with, so I give you fair
+warning. I will give you until...."
+
+"It is eight o'clock now," I interrupted. "I tell you what, give me
+until ten. Will that do?"
+
+Clubfoot nodded assent.
+
+"Take this man upstairs to my bedroom," he ordered the sergeant. "Stay
+with him while he has his breakfast, and bring him back here at ten
+o'clock. And tell Schmidt to leave my car at the door: he needn't wait,
+as he is to beat: I will drive myself to the shoot."
+
+I don't really remember what happened after that. I swallowed some
+breakfast, but I had no idea what I was eating, and the sergeant, who
+was a model of Prussian discipline, declined with a surly frown to enter
+into conversation with me. My morale was very low: when I look back upon
+that morning I think I must have been pretty near the breaking-point.
+
+As I sat and waited I heard the house in a turmoil of preparation for
+the shoot. There was the sound of voices, of heavy boots in the hall, of
+wheels and horses in the yard without. Then the noises died away and all
+was still. Shortly afterwards, the clock pointing to ten, the sergeant
+escorted me downstairs again to the billiard-room.
+
+Grundt was still sitting there. A hot wave of anger drove the blood into
+my cheeks as I looked at him, fat and soft and so triumphant at his
+victory. The sight of him, however, gave me the tonic I needed. My nerve
+was shaken badly, but I was determined it must answer to this last
+strain, to play this uncouth fish for two hours. After that ... if
+nothing happened ...
+
+Clubfoot sent the sergeant away.
+
+"I can look after him myself now," he said, in a blithe tone that
+betrayed his conviction of success. So the sergeant saluted and left the
+room, his footsteps echoing down the passages like the leaden feet of
+Destiny, relentless, inexorable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+WE HAVE A RECKONING WITH CLUBFOOT
+
+
+I looked at Clubfoot.
+
+I must play him with caution, with method, too.
+
+Only by acting on a most exact system could I hope to hold him in that
+room for two hours. I had four points to argue with him and I would
+devote half an hour to each of them by the clock on the bracket above
+his head. If only I could keep him confident in his victory, I might
+hope to prevent him finding out that I was playing with him ... but two
+hours is a long time ... it would be a near thing.
+
+One point in my favour ... my manner gave him the assurance of success
+from the start. There was nothing counterfeit about my tone of humility,
+for in truth I was very near despair. I was making this last effort at
+the bidding of my brother, but I felt it to be a forlorn hope: in my
+heart of hearts I knew I was down and out.
+
+So I went straight to the point and told Clubfoot that I was beaten,
+that he should have his paper. But there were difficulties about the
+execution of both sides of the bargain. We had deceived one another.
+What mutual guarantees could we exchange that would give each of us the
+assurance of fair play?
+
+Clubfoot settled this point in characteristic fashion. He protested his
+good faith elaborately, but the gist of his remarks was that he held the
+cards and that, consequently, it was he who must be trusted, whilst I
+furnished the guarantee.
+
+Whilst we were discussing this point the clock chimed the half-hour.
+
+I switched the conversation to Monica. I was not at all concerned about
+myself, I said, but I must feel sure in my mind that no ill should
+befall her. To this Clubfoot replied that I might set my mind at ease:
+the moment the document was in his hands he would give orders for her
+release: I should be there and might see it done myself.
+
+What guarantee was there, I asked, that she would not be detained before
+she reached the frontier?
+
+Clubfoot was getting a little restless. With his eye on the clock but in
+a placid voice he again protested that his word was the sole guarantee
+he could offer.
+
+We discussed this too. My manner was earnest and nervous, I know, and I
+think he enjoyed playing with me. I told him frankly that his reputation
+belied his protestations of good faith. At this he laughed and
+cynically admitted that this was quite possibly the case.
+
+"Nevertheless, it is I who give the guarantee," he said in a tone that
+brooked no contradiction.
+
+The clock struck eleven.
+
+One hour to go!
+
+"Come, Okewood," he added good-naturedly, "we waste time. Up to this
+you've had all the sport, you know. You wouldn't have me miss the first
+day's shooting I've had this year. Where have you got this letter of
+ours?"
+
+He was an extraordinary man. To hear him address me, you would never
+have supposed that he was sending me to my death. He appeared to have
+forgotten this detail. It meant so little to him that he probably had.
+
+I turned to my third point. He made things very hard for me, I said, but
+I was the vanquished and must give way. The trouble was that the
+document was still in two portions and neither half was here.
+
+"You indicate where the halves are hidden," said Clubfoot promptly. "I
+will accompany you to the hiding-places and you will hand them to me."
+
+"But they are nowhere near here," I replied.
+
+"Then where are they?" answered Clubfoot impatiently. "Come, I am
+waiting and it's getting late!"
+
+"It will take several days to recover both portions," I muttered
+unwillingly.
+
+"That does not matter," retorted the other; "there is no particular
+hurry ... now!"
+
+And he smiled grimly.
+
+I dared not raise my eyes to the clock, for I felt the German's gaze on
+me. An intuitive instinct told me that his suspicions had been awakened
+by my reluctance. I was very nearly at the end of my resources.
+
+Would the clock never strike?
+
+"I tell you frankly, Herr Doktor," I said in a voice that trembled with
+anxiety, "I cannot leave the Countess unprotected whilst we travel
+together to the hiding-places of the document. I only feel sure of her
+safety whilst she is near me...."
+
+Clubfoot bent his brows at me.
+
+"What do you suggest then?" he said very sternly.
+
+"You go and recover the two halves at the places I indicate," I
+stammered out, "and ... and ..."
+
+A faint whirr and the silver chime rang out twice.
+
+Half an hour more!
+
+How still the house was! I could hear the clock ticking--no, that
+thudding must be my heart. My wits failed me, my mind had become a
+blank, my throat was dry with fear.
+
+"I've wasted an hour and a half over you, young man," said Clubfoot
+suddenly, "and it's time that this conversation was brought to a close.
+I warn you again that I am not to be trifled with. The situation is
+perfectly clear: it rests with you whether the Countess Rachwitz goes
+free or is court-martialled this afternoon at Cleves and shot this
+evening. Your suggestion is absurd. I'll be reasonable with you. We will
+both stay here. I will wire for the two portions of the letter to be
+fetched at the places you indicate, and as soon as I hold the entire
+letter in my hands the Countess will be driven to the frontier. I will
+allow her butler here to accompany her and he can return and assure you
+that she is in safety."
+
+He stretched out his hand and pulled a block of telegraph forms towards
+him.
+
+"Where shall we find the two halves?" he said.
+
+"One is in Holland," I murmured.
+
+He looked up quickly.
+
+"If you dare to play me false...."
+
+He broke off when he saw my face.
+
+The room was going round with me. My hands felt cold as ice. I was
+struggling for the mastery over myself, but I felt my body swaying.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Clubfoot musingly, "that would be Semlin's half.... I
+might have known.... Well, never mind, Schmalz can take my car and fetch
+it. He can be back by to-morrow. Where is he to go?"
+
+"The other half is in Berlin," I said desperately. My voice sounded to
+me like a third person speaking.
+
+"That's simpler," replied Clubfoot. "Ten minutes to twelve now ... if I
+wire at once, that half should be here by midnight.... I'll get the
+message off immediately...."
+
+He looked up at me, pencil in hand.
+
+It was the end. I had kept faith with Francis to the limit of my powers,
+but now my resistance was broken. He had failed me ... not me, but
+Monica, rather.... I could not save her now. Like some nightmare film,
+the crowded hours of the past few weeks flashed past my eyes, a jostling
+procession of figures--Semlin with his blue lips and livid face, Schratt
+with her bejewelled hands, the Jew Kore, Haase with his bullet head,
+Francis, sadly musing on the café verandah ... and Monica, all in white,
+as I saw her that night at the Esplanade ... my thoughts always came
+back to her, a white and pitiful figure in some dusty courtyard at
+lamplight facing a row of levelled rifles....
+
+"I am waiting!"
+
+Clubfoot's voice broke stridently upon the silence.
+
+Should I tell him the truth now?
+
+It was three minutes to the hour.
+
+"Come! The two addresses!"
+
+I would keep faith to the last.
+
+"Herr Doktor!" I faltered.
+
+He dashed the pencil down on the table and sprang to his feet. He
+caught me by the lapels of my coat and shook me in an iron grip.
+
+"The addresses, you dog!" he said.
+
+The clock whirred faintly. There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in!" roared Clubfoot and resumed his seat.
+
+The clock was chiming twelve.
+
+An officer stepped in briskly and saluted.
+
+It was Francis!... Francis, freshly shaved, his moustache neatly
+trimmed, a monocle in his eye, in a beautifully waisted grey military
+overcoat, one white-gloved hand raised in salute to his helmet.
+
+"Hauptmann von Salzmann!" ... he introduced himself, clicking his heels
+and bowing to Clubfoot, who glared at him, frowning at the interruption.
+He spoke with the clipped, mincing utterance of the typical Prussian
+officer. "I am looking for Herr Leutnant Schmalz," he said.
+
+"He is not in," answered Clubfoot in a surly voice. "He is out and I am
+busy ... I do not wish to be disturbed."
+
+"As Schmalz is out," the officer returned suavely, advancing to the
+desk, "I must trouble you for an instant, I fear. I have been sent over
+from Goch to inspect the guard here. But I find no guard ... there is
+not a man in the place."
+
+Clubfoot angrily heaved his unwieldy bulk from his chair.
+
+"Gott im Himmel!" he cried savagely. "It is incredible that I can never
+be left in peace. What the devil has the guard got to do with me? Will
+you understand that I have nothing to do with the guard! There is a
+sergeant somewhere ... curse him for a lazy scoundrel ... I'll ring ..."
+
+He never finished the sentence. As he turned his back on my brother to
+reach the bell in the wall, Francis sprang on him from behind, seizing
+his bull neck in an iron grip and driving his knee at the same moment
+into that vast expanse of back.
+
+The huge German, taken by surprise, crashed over backwards, my brother
+on top of him.
+
+It was so quickly done that, for the instant, I was dumbfounded.
+
+"Quick, Des, the door!" my brother gasped. "Lock the door!"
+
+The big German was roaring like a bull and plunging wildly under my
+brother's fingers, his clubfoot beating a thunderous tattoo on the
+parquet floor. In his fall Clubfoot's left arm had been bent under him
+and was now pinioned to the ground by his great weight. With his free
+right arm he strove fiercely to force off my brother's fingers as
+Francis fought to get a grip on the man's throat and choke him into
+silence.
+
+I darted to the door. The key was on the inside and I turned it in a
+trice. As I turned to go to my brother's help my eye caught sight of the
+butt of my pistol lying where Schmalz had thrown it the evening before
+under my overcoat on the leather lounge.
+
+I snatched up the weapon and dropped by my brother's side, crushing
+Clubfoot's right arm to the ground. I thrust the pistol in his face.
+
+"Stop that noise!" I commanded.
+
+The German obeyed.
+
+"Better search him, Francis," I said to my brother. "He probably has a
+Browning on him somewhere."
+
+Francis went through the man's pockets, reaching up and putting each
+article as it came to light on the desk above him. From an inner breast
+pocket he extracted the Browning. He glanced at it: the magazine was
+full with a cartridge in the breech.
+
+"Hadn't we better truss him up?" Francis said to me.
+
+"No," I said. I was still kneeling on the German's arm. He seemed
+exhausted. His head had fallen back upon the ground.
+
+"Let me up, curse you!" he choked.
+
+"No!" I said again and Francis turned and looked at me.
+
+Each of us knew what was in the other's mind, my brother and I. We were
+thinking of a hand-clasp we had exchanged on the banks of the Rhine.
+
+I was about to speak but Francis checked me. He was trembling all over.
+I could feel his elbow quiver where it touched mine.
+
+"No, Des, please ..." he pleaded, "let me ... this is my show...."
+
+Then, in a voice that vibrated with suppressed passion, he spoke swiftly
+to Clubfoot.
+
+"Take a good look at me, Grundt," he said sternly. "You don't know me,
+do you? I am Francis Okewood, brother of the man who has brought you to
+your fall. You don't know me, but you knew some of my friends, I think.
+Jack Tracy? Do you remember him? And Herbert Arbuthnot? Ah, you knew
+him, too. And Philip Brewster? You remember him as well, do you? No need
+to ask you what happened to poor Philip!"
+
+The man on the floor answered nothing, but I saw the colour very slowly
+fade from his cheeks.
+
+My brother spoke again.
+
+"There were four of us after that letter, as you knew, Grundt, and three
+of us are dead. But you never got me. I was the fourth man, the unknown
+quantity in all your elaborate calculations ... and it seems to me I
+spoiled your reckoning ... I and this brother of mine ... an amateur at
+the game, Grundt!"
+
+Still Clubfoot was silent, but I noticed a bead of perspiration tremble
+on his forehead, then trickle down his ashen cheeks and drop splashing
+to the floor.
+
+Francis continued in the same deep, relentless voice.
+
+"I never thought I should have to soil my hands by ridding the world of
+a man like you, Grundt, but it has come to it and you have to die. I'd
+have killed you in hot blood when I first came in but for Jack and
+Herbert and the others ... for their sake you had to know who is your
+executioner."
+
+My brother raised the pistol. As he did so the man on the floor, by a
+tremendous effort of strength, rose erect to his knees, flinging me
+headlong. Then there was a hot burst of flame close to my cheek as I lay
+on the floor, a deafening report, a thud and a sickening gurgle.
+
+Something twitched a little on the ground and then lay still.
+
+We rose to our feet together.
+
+"Des," said my brother unsteadily, "it seems rather like murder."
+
+"No, Francis," I whispered back, "it was justice!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHARLEMAGNE'S RIDE
+
+
+The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past twelve. Funny, how my
+eyes kept coming back to that clock! There was a smell of warm gunpowder
+in the room, and the autumn sunshine, struggling feebly through the
+window, caught the blue edges of a little haze of smoke that hung lazily
+in the air by the desk in the corner. How close the room was! And how
+that clock face seemed to stare at me! I felt very sick....
+
+Lord! What a draught! A gust of icy air was raging in my face. The room
+was still swaying to and fro....
+
+I was in the front seat of a car beside Francis, who was driving. We
+were fairly flying along a broad and empty road, the tall poplars with
+which it was lined scudding away into the vanishing landscape as we
+whizzed by. The surface was terrible, and the car pitched this way and
+that as we tore along. But Francis had her well in hand. He sat at the
+wheel, very cool and deliberate and very grave, still in his officer's
+uniform, and his eyes had a cold glint that told me he was keyed up to
+top pitch.
+
+We slackened speed a fraction to negotiate a turn off to the right down
+a side road. We seemed to take that corner on two wheels. A thin church
+spire protruded from the trees in the centre of the group of houses
+which we were approaching so furiously. The village was all but
+deserted: everybody seemed to be indoors at their midday meal, but
+Francis slowed down and ran along the dirty street at a demure pace. The
+village passed, he jammed down the accelerator and once more the car
+sprang forward.
+
+The country was flat as a pancake, but presently the fields fell away a
+bit from the road with boulders and patches of gorse here and there. The
+next moment we were slackening speed. We drew up by a rough track which
+led off the road and vanished into a tangle of stunted trees and scrub
+growing across the yellow face of a sand-pit.
+
+Francis motioned me to get out, and then sprang to the ground himself,
+leaving the engine throbbing. His face was grey and set.
+
+"Stay here!" he whispered to me. "You've got your pistol? Good. If
+anybody attempts to interfere with you, shoot!" He dashed into the
+tangle and was swallowed up. I heard a whistle, and a whistle in answer,
+and a minute later he appeared again helping Monica through the thick
+undergrowth.
+
+Monica looked as pretty as a picture in her dark green shooting suit
+and her muffler. She was as excited as a child at its first play.
+
+"A car!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Francis, I'll sit beside you!"
+
+My brother glanced at his watch.
+
+"Twenty to one!" he murmured. He had a hunted look on his face. Monica
+saw it and it sobered her.
+
+They got up in front, and I sat in the body of the car.
+
+"Hang on to that!" said Francis, handing me over a leather case. I
+recognized it at a glance. It was Clubfoot's dispatch-box. Francis was
+thorough in everything.
+
+Once more we dashed out along the desolate country roads. We saw hardly
+a soul. Houses were few and far between and, save for an occasional
+greybeard hoeing in the wet fields or an old woman hobbling along the
+road, the countryside seemed dead. In the cold air the engine ran
+splendidly, and Francis got every ounce of horse-power out of it.
+
+On we rushed, the wind in our ears, the cold air in our faces, until we
+found ourselves racing along an avenue of old trees that led straight as
+an arrow right into the heart of the forest. It was as silent as the
+grave: the air was dank and chill and the trees dripped sorrowfully into
+the brimming ruts of the road.
+
+We whizzed past many tracks leading into the depths of the forest, but
+it was not until the car had eaten up some five kilometres of the main
+road that Francis slowed to a halt. He consulted a map he pulled from
+his pocket, then glanced at his watch with puckered brow.
+
+"I had hoped to take the car into the forest," he said, "but the roads
+are so soft we shan't get a yard. Still we can but try."
+
+We went forward again, very slowly, to where a track ran off to the
+left. It was badly ploughed up, and the ruts were fully a foot deep.
+Monica and I got out to lighten the car, and Francis ran her in. But he
+hadn't gone five yards before the car was bogged up to the axles.
+
+"We'll have to leave it," he said, jumping out. "It's ten minutes to
+two ... we haven't a second to lose."
+
+He pulled a cloth cap from the pocket of his military overcoat, then
+stripped off the coat, showing his ordinary clothes underneath, and very
+shiny black field-boots up to his knees. He put his helmet in the
+overcoat and made a roll of it, tucking it under his arm, and then
+donned his cap.
+
+"Now," he said, "We'll have to run for it, Monica, I'm afraid: we must
+reach our cover while the light lasts or I shan't be able to find it and
+it will be dark in these woods in about two hours from now. Are you
+ready?"
+
+We struck off the track into the forest. There was not much undergrowth,
+and the trees were not planted very close, so our way was not impeded.
+We jogged on over a carpet of wet leaves, stumbling over the roots of
+the trees, tearing our clothes on the brambles, bringing down showers of
+raindrops from the branches of pine or fir we brushed on our headlong
+course. Now a squirrel bolted up his tree, now a rabbit frisked back
+into his hole, now a soft-eyed deer crashed away into the bushes on our
+approach. The place was so still that it gave me confidence. There was
+not a trace of man now that we were away from the marks of his carts on
+the tracks, and I began to feel, in the presence of the stately, silent
+trees, that at last I was safe from the menace that had hung over me for
+so long.
+
+We rested frequently, breathless and panting, a hand to the side. Monica
+was a marvel of endurance. Her boots were sopping, her skirt wet to the
+waist, her face was scratched, and her hair was coming down, but she
+never complained. Francis was seemingly tireless and was always the one
+to lead the way when we started afresh.
+
+It was heavy going, for at every step our feet sank deep in the leaves.
+The forest was undulating with deep hollows and steep banks, which tried
+us a good deal. It soon became evident that we could not keep up the
+pace. Monica was tiring visibly, and I had had about enough; Francis,
+too, seemed done up. We slackened to a walk. We were toiling painfully
+up on of these steep banks when Francis, who was leading, held up his
+hand.
+
+"Charlemagne's Ride!" he whispered as we came up. We looked down from
+the top of the bank and saw below us a broad forest glade, canopied by
+the thick branches of the ancient trees that met overhead, and leading
+up a slope, narrowing as it went, to a path that lost itself among the
+shadows that were falling fast upon the forest.
+
+Francis clambered down the bank and we followed. Twilight reigned below
+in the glade under the lofty roof of branches and our feet rustled
+softly as we trod the leaves underfoot. It was a ghostly place, and
+Monica clutched my arm as we went quickly after Francis, who, striding
+rapidly ahead, threatened to be swallowed up in the shadows of the
+autumn evening. He led us up the slope and along the narrow path. A path
+struck off it, and he took it. It led us into a thicker part of the
+forest than we had yet struck, where there were great boulders
+protruding from the dripping bushes, and brambles grew so thick that in
+places they obscured the track.
+
+The forest sloped up again, and in front of us was a steep bank, its
+sides dotted with great rocks and a tangle of brambles and undergrowth.
+Francis stooped between two boulders at the foot of the slope, then
+turning and beckoning us to follow, disappeared. Monica went in after
+him, and I came last. We were in a kind of narrow entrance, scooped out
+of the earth between the rocks, and it led down to a broad chamber,
+which had apparently been dug beneath some of the boulders, for,
+stretching out my hand, I found the roof was rock and damp to the touch.
+
+Francis and Monica were standing in this chamber as I came down.
+Directly I entered I knew why they stood so still. A glimmer of light
+came from the farther end of the cave and a strange sound, a sort of
+strangled sobbing, reached our ears.
+
+I crept forward in the dark in the direction of the light. My
+outstretched hands came upon a low opening. I stooped and, crawling
+round a rock, saw another chamber illuminated by a guttering candle
+stuck by its wax to the earthen wall. On the floor a man was lying,
+sobbing as though his heart would break. He was wearing some kind of
+military great-coat with a yellow stripe running down the back.
+
+"Pst!" I called to him, drawing my pistol from my pocket. As I did so,
+Francis behind me touched my arm to let me know he was there.
+
+"Pst!" I called again louder.
+
+The man swung round on to his knees with a sudden, frightened spring.
+When he saw my pistol, he jerked his hands above his head. Dirty and
+unshaven, with the tears all wet on his face, he looked a woe-begone and
+tragic figure.
+
+"Kamerad! Kamerad!" he muttered stupidly at me. "Napoo! Kaput!
+Englander!"
+
+I gazed at the stranger, hardly able to believe my ears. That trench
+jargon in this place!
+
+"Are you English?" I asked him.
+
+At the sound of my voice he stared about him wildly.
+
+"Ay, I be English, zur," he replied with a strong West Country burr,
+"God help me!" And, heedless of me and my pistol, he covered his face
+with his hands and burst into a wild fit of sobbing again, rocking
+himself to and fro in his grief.
+
+"Go back to Monica!" I whispered to Francis. "I'll see to this fellow!"
+
+I managed to pacify him presently. Habit is a tenacious ruler and,
+grotesque figures though we were, the "zur" he had addressed to me
+brought out the officer in me. I talked to him as I would have done to
+one of my own men, and he quietened down at last and looked up at me.
+
+He was only a lad--I could tell that by the clearness of his skin and
+the brightness of his eyes--but his face was wan and wasted, and at the
+first glance he looked like a man of forty. Under his great-coat, which
+was German, he was clad in filthy rags which once had been a khaki
+uniform, as the cut--and nothing else--revealed.
+
+He told me his simple story in his soft Somersetshire accent, just the
+plain tale of the fate that has overtaken thousands of our
+fellow-countrymen since the war began. His name was Maggs, Sapper
+Ebenezer Maggs, of the Royal Engineers, and he was captured near Mons in
+August, 1914, when out laying a line with a party. With a long train of
+British prisoners--"zum of 'em was terrible bad, zur, dying, as you
+might say"--he had been marched off to a town and paraded to the railway
+station through streets thronged with jeering German soldiery. In cattle
+trucks, the fit, the wounded, the dying and the dead herded together,
+without food or water, they had made their journey into Germany with
+hostile mobs at every station, once the frontier was past, brutal men
+and shrieking women, to whom not even the dying were sacred.
+
+It was a terrible tale, that lost nothing of its horror from the simple,
+unadorned style of this West Country farmer's son. He had been one of
+the ragged, emaciated band of British prisoners of war who had shivered
+through that first long winter in the starvation camp of Friedrichsfeld,
+near Wesel. For two years he had endured the filthy food, the neglect,
+the harsh treatment, then a resourceful Belgian friend, whom he called
+John, in happier days a contraband runner on this very frontier, had
+shown him a means to escape. Five days before they had left the camp and
+separated, agreeing to meet at Charlemagne's Ride in the forest and try
+to force the frontier together. "John" had never come. For twenty-four
+hours Maggs had waited in vain, then his courage had forsaken him, and
+he had crept to that hole in his grief.
+
+I went and fetched Francis and Monica. Maggs shrunk back as they came
+in.
+
+"I bean't fit cumpany for no lady, zur," he whispered to me, "I be that
+durty, fair crawling I be ... We couldn't keep clean nohow in that camp!"
+
+All the good soldier's horror of dirt was in his voice.
+
+"That's all right, Maggs," I answered soothingly, "she'll understand!"
+
+We sat down on the floor in the light of Sapper Maggs' candle, and
+Francis and I reviewed our situation. The cave we were in ... an old
+Smuggler's _cache_ ... was where Francis had spent several days during
+his different attempts to get across the frontier. The border line was
+only about a quarter of a mile distant and ran right through the forest.
+There was no live-wire fencing in the forest, such as the Germans have
+erected along the frontier between Holland and Belgium. The frontier was
+guarded by patrols. These patrols were posted four men to every two
+hundred yards along the line through the forest, so that two men,
+patrolling in pairs, covered a hundred yards apiece.
+
+It was now half-past five in the evening. We both agreed that we should
+certainly make the attempt to cross the frontier that night. Francis
+nudged me, indicating the sapper with his eyes.
+
+"Maggs," I said, "we are all in a bad way, but our case is more
+desperate than yours. I shall not tell you more than this, that, if we
+are caught, any of us three, we shall be shot, and anyone caught with us
+will fare the same. If you will take my advice, you will leave us and
+start off by yourself: the worst that can happen to you is to be sent
+back to your camp. You will be punished for running away, but you won't
+lose your life!"
+
+Sapper Maggs shook his yellow head.
+
+"I'll stay," he answered stolidly; "it's more cumfortable-like for us
+four to 'old together, and it's a better protection for the lady. I
+bean't afear'd of no Gers, I bean't! I'll go along o' yew officers and
+the lady, if yew don't mind, zur!"
+
+So it was settled, and we four agreed to unite forces. Before we set out
+Francis wanted to go and reconnoitre. I thought he had done more than
+his share that day, and said so. But Francis insisted.
+
+"I know my way blindfold about the forest, old man" he said "it'll be
+far safer for me than for you. I'll leave you the map and mark the
+route you are to follow, so that you can find the way if anything
+happens to me. If I'm not back by midnight, you ought certainly not to
+wait any longer, but make the attempt by yourselves."
+
+My brother handed me back the document and went over the route we were
+to follow on the map. Then he deposited his bundle in the cave and
+declared himself ready.
+
+"And don't forget old Clubfoot's box," he said by way of a parting
+injunction.
+
+Monica took him out to the entrance of our refuge. She was dabbing her
+eyes with her handkerchief when she returned. To divert her thoughts, I
+questioned her about the events that had led to my rescue, and she told
+me how, at Francis' request, she had got all the servants out of the
+Castle on different pretexts. It was Francis who had got rid of the
+soldiers remaining as a guard.
+
+"You remember the Captain of Köpenick trick," she said. "Well, Francis
+played it off on the sergeant and those six men. He slept at Cleves, had
+himself trimmed up at the barber's, bought those field-boots he is
+wearing, and stole that helmet and great-coat off the pegs in the
+passage at Schmidt's Café, where the officers always go and drink beer
+after morning parade. Then he drove out to the Castle--he knew that the
+place would be deserted once the shoot had started--and told the
+sergeant he had been sent from Goch to inspect the guard. I think he is
+just splendid! He inspected the men and cursed everybody up and down,
+and sent the sergeant out to the paddock with orders to drill them for
+two hours. Francis was telling me all about it as we came along. He says
+that if you can get hold of a uniform and hector a German enough, he
+will never call your bluff. Can you beat it?"
+
+The hours dragged wearily on. We had no food, and Maggs, who had eaten
+the last of his provisions twenty-four hours before--the British soldier
+is a bad hoarder--soon consumed the last of my cigarettes. It was past
+ten o'clock when I heard a step outside. The next moment Francis came
+in, white and breathless.
+
+"They're beating the forest for us," he panted. "The place is full of
+men. I had to crawl the whole way there and back, and I'm soaked to the
+skin."
+
+I pointed to Monica, who was fast asleep, and he lowered his voice.
+
+"Des," he said, "I've hoped as long as I dared, but now I believe the
+game's up. They're beating the forest in a great circle, soldiers and
+police and customs men. If we set out at once we can reach the frontier
+before they get here, but what's the use of that ... every patrol is on
+the look-out for us ... the forest seems ablaze with torches."
+
+"We must try it, Francis," I said. "We haven't a dog's chance if we
+stay here!"
+
+"I think you're right," he answered. "Well, here's the plan. There's a
+deep ravine that runs clear across the frontier. I spent an hour in it.
+They've built a plank bridge across the top just this side of the line,
+and the patrol comes to the ravine about every three minutes. It is
+practically impossible to get out of sight and sound along that ravine
+in three minutes, but ..."
+
+"Unless we could drar the patrol's attention away!" said Sapper Maggs.
+
+But Francis ignored the interruption.
+
+"... We can at least try it. Come on, we must be starting! Thank God,
+there's no moon; it's as dark as the devil outside!"
+
+We roused up Monica and groped our way out of the cave into the black
+and dripping forest. Somewhere in the distance a faint glare reddened
+the sky. From time to time I thought I heard a shout, but it sounded far
+away.
+
+We crawled stealthily forward, Francis in front, then Monica, Maggs and
+I last. In a few minutes we were wet through, and our hands, blue and
+dead with cold, were scratched and torn. Our progress was interminably
+slow. Every few yards Francis raised his hand and we stopped.
+
+At last we reached the gloomy glade where, as Francis had told us,
+according to popular belief, the wraith of Charlemagne was still seen on
+the night of St. Hubert's Day galloping along with his ghostly
+followers of the chase. The rustling of leaves caught our ears;
+instantly we all lay prone behind a bank.
+
+A group of men came swinging along the glade. One of them was singing an
+ancient German soldier song:
+
+"Die Vöglein im Walde
+Sie singen so schön
+In der Heimat, in der Heimat,
+Da gibt's ein Wiederseh'n."
+
+"The relief patrol!" I whispered to Francis, as soon as they were past.
+
+"The other lot they relieve will be back this way in a minute. We must
+get across quickly." My brother stood erect, and tiptoed swiftly across
+Charlemagne's Ride, and we followed.
+
+We must have crawled for an hour before we came to the ravine. It was a
+deep, narrow ditch with steep sides, full of undergrowth and brambles.
+Now we could hear distinctly the voices of men all around us, as it
+seemed, and to right and to left and in front we caught at intervals
+glimpses of red flames through the trees. We could only proceed at a
+snail's pace lest the continual rustle of our footsteps should betray
+us. So each advanced a few paces in turn; then we all paused, and then
+the next one went forward. We could no longer crawl; the undergrowth was
+too thick for that; we had to go forward bent double.
+
+We had progressed like this for fully half an hour when Francis, who
+was in front as usual, beckoned us to lie down. We all lay motionless
+among the brambles.
+
+Then a voice somewhere above us said in German:
+
+"And I'll have a man at the plank here, sergeant: he can watch the
+ravine."
+
+Another voice answered:
+
+"Very good, Herr Leutnant, but in that case the patrols to right and
+left need not cross the plank each time; they can turn when they come to
+the ravine guard."
+
+The voices died away in a murmur. I craned my neck aloft. It was so
+dark, I could see nothing save the fretwork of branches against the
+night sky. I whispered to Francis, who was just in front of me:
+
+"Unless we make a dash for it now that man will hear us rustling along!"
+
+Francis held up a finger. I heard a heavy footstep along the bank above
+us.
+
+"Too late!" my brother whispered back. "Do you hear the patrols?"
+
+Footsteps crashing through the undergrowth resounded on the right and
+left.
+
+"Cold work!" said a voice.
+
+"Bitter!" came the answer, just above our heads.
+
+"Seen anything?"
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+The rustling began again on the right, and died away.
+
+"They're closing in on the left!" Another voice this time.
+
+"Heard anything, you?" from the voice above us.
+
+"Not a thing!"
+
+The rustling broke out once more on the left, and gradually became lost
+in the distance.
+
+Silence.
+
+I felt a hot breath in my ear. Sapper Maggs stood by my side.
+
+"There be a feller a-watching for us up there?" he whispered.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"If us could drar his 'tention away, yew could slip by, next time the
+patrols is past, couldn't 'ee?"
+
+Again I nodded.
+
+"It'd be worse for yew than for me, supposin' yew'd be ca-art, that's
+what t'other officer said, warn't it?"
+
+And once more I nodded.
+
+The hot whisper came again.
+
+"I'll drar 'un off for ee, zur, nex' time the patrols pass. When I
+holler, yew and the others, yew run. Thirty-one forty-three Sapper
+Maggs, R.E., from Chewton Mendip ... that's me... maybe yew'll let us
+have a bit o' writing to the camp."
+
+I stretched out my hand in the darkness to stop him. He had gone.
+
+I leant forward and whispered to Francis:
+
+"When you hear a shout, we make a dash for it!"
+
+I felt him look at me in surprise--it was too dark to see his face.
+
+"Right!" he whispered back.
+
+Now to the left we heard voices shouting and saw torches gleaming red
+among the trees. To right and rear answering shouts resounded.
+
+Again the patrols met at the plank above our heads, and again their
+departing footsteps rustled in the leaves.
+
+The murmur of voices grew nearer. We could faintly smell the burning
+resin of the torches.
+
+Then a wild yell rent the forest. The voice above us shouted "Halt!" but
+the echo was lost in the deafening report of a rifle.
+
+Francis caught Monica by the wrist and dragged her forward. We went
+plunging and crashing through the tangle of the ravine. We heard a
+second shot and a third, commands were shouted, the red glare deepened
+in the sky....
+
+Monica collapsed quite suddenly at my feet. She never uttered a sound,
+but fell prone, her face as white as paper. Without a word we picked her
+up between us and went on, stumbling, gasping, coughing, our clothes
+rent and torn, the blood oozing from the deep scratches on our faces and
+hands.
+
+At length our strength gave out. We laid Monica down in the ravine and
+drew the under growth over her, then we crawled in under the brambles
+exhausted, beat.
+
+Dawn was streaking the sky with lemon when a dog jumped sniffing down
+into our hiding-place. Francis and Monica were asleep.
+
+A man stood at the top of the ravine looking down on us. He carried a
+gun over his shoulder.
+
+"Have you had an accident?" he said kindly.
+
+He spoke in Dutch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+RED TABS EXPLAINS
+
+
+From the Argyllshire hills winter has stolen down upon us in the night.
+Behind him he has left his white mantle, and it now lies outspread from
+the topmost mountain peaks to the softly lapping tide at the black edges
+of the loch. Yet as I sit adding the last words to this plain account of
+a curious episode in my life, the wintry scene dissolves before my eyes,
+and I see again that dawn in the forest ... Francis and Monica, sleeping
+side by side, like the babes in the wood, half covered with leaves, the
+eager, panting retriever, and myself, poor, ragged scarecrow, staring
+openmouthed at the Dutchman whose kindly enquiry has just revealed to me
+the wondrous truth ... that we are safe across the frontier.
+
+What a disproportionate view one takes of events in which one is the
+principal actor! The great issues vanish away, the little things loom
+out large. When I look back on that morning I encounter in my memory no
+recollection of extravagant demonstrations of joy at our delivery, no
+hysteria, no heroics. But I find a fragrant remembrance of a glorious
+hot bath and an epic breakfast in the house of that kindly Dutchman,
+followed by a whirlwind burst of hospitality on our arrival at the house
+of van Urutius, which was not more than ten miles from the fringe of the
+forest.
+
+Madame van Urutius took charge of Monica, who was promptly sent to bed,
+whilst Francis and I went straight on to Rotterdam, where we had an
+interview at the British Consulate, with the result that we were able to
+catch the steamer for England the next day.
+
+As the result of various telegrams which Francis dispatched from
+Rotterdam, a car was waiting for us on our arrival at Fenchurch Street
+the next evening. In it we drove off for an interview with my brother's
+Chief. Francis insisted that I should hand over personally the portion
+of the document in our possession.
+
+"You got hold of it, Des," he said, "and it's only fair that you should
+get all the credit. I have Clubfoot's dispatch-box to show as the result
+of my trip. It's only a pity we could not have got the other half out of
+the cloak-room at Rotterdam."
+
+We were shown straight in to the Chief. I was rather taken aback by the
+easy calm of his manner in receiving us.
+
+"How are you, Okewood?" he said, nodding to Francis. "This your brother?
+How d'ye do?"
+
+He gave me his hand and was silent. There was a distinct pause. Feeling
+distinctly embarrassed, I lugged out my portfolio, extracted the three
+slips of paper and laid them on the desk before the Chief.
+
+"I've brought you something," I said lamely.
+
+He picked up the slips of paper and looked at them for a moment. Then he
+lifted a cardboard folder from the desk in front of him, opened it and
+displayed the other half of the Kaiser's letter, the fragment I had
+believed to be reposing in a bag at Rotterdam railway station. He placed
+the two fragments side by side. They fitted exactly. Then he closed the
+folder, carried it across the room to a safe and locked it up. Coming
+back, he held out his two hands to us, giving the right to me, the left
+to Francis.
+
+"You have done very well," he said. "Good boys! Good boys!"
+
+"But that other half ..." I began.
+
+"Your friend Ashcroft is by no means such a fool as he looks," the Chief
+chuckled. "He did a wise thing. He brought your two letters to me. I saw
+to the rest. So, when your brother's telegram arrived from Rotterdam, I
+got the other half of the letter out of the safe; I thought I'd be ready
+for you, you see!"
+
+"But how did you know we had the remaining portion of the letter?" I
+asked.
+
+The Chief chuckled again.
+
+"My young men don't wire for cars to meet 'em at the station when they
+have failed," he replied. "Now, tell me all about it!"
+
+So I told him my whole story from the beginning.
+
+When I had finished, he said:
+
+"You appear to have a very fine natural disposition for our game,
+Okewood. It seems a pity to waste it in regimental work ..."
+
+I broke in hastily.
+
+"I've got a few weeks' sick leave left," I said, "and after that I was
+looking forward to going back to the front for a rest. This sort of
+thing is too exciting for me!"
+
+"Well, well," answered the Chief, "we'll see about that afterwards. In
+the meantime, we shall not forget what you have done ... and I shall see
+that it is not forgotten elsewhere."
+
+On that we left him. It was only outside that I remembered that he had
+told me nothing of what I was burning to know about the origin and
+disappearance of the Kaiser's letter.
+
+It was my old friend, Red Tabs, whom I met on one of our many visits to
+mysterious but obviously important officials, that finally cleared up
+for me the many obscure points in this adventure of mine. When he saw me
+he burst out laughing.
+
+"'Pon my soul," he grinned, "you seem to be able to act on a hint, don't
+you?"
+
+Then he told me the story of the Kaiser's letter.
+
+"There is no need to speak of the contents of this amazing letter," he
+began, "for you are probably more familiar with them than I am. The date
+alone will suffice ... July 31st, 1914 ... it explains a great deal. The
+last day of July was the moment when the peace of Europe was literally
+trembling in the balance. You know the Emperor's wayward, capricious
+nature, his eagerness for fame and military glory, his morbid terror of
+the unknown. In that fateful last week of July he was torn between
+opposing forces. On the one side was ranged the whole of the Prussian
+military party, led by the Crown Prince and the Emperor's own immediate
+entourage; on the other, the record of prosperity which years of peace
+had conferred on his realms. He had to choose between his own
+megalomania craving for military laurels, on the one hand, and, on the
+other, that place in history as the Prince of Peace for which, in his
+gentler moments, he has so often hankered.
+
+"The Kaiser is a man of moods. He sat down and penned this letter in a
+fit of despondency and indecision, when the vision of Peace seemed
+fairer to him than the spectre of War. God knows what violent emotion
+impelled him to write this extraordinary appeal to his English friend,
+an appeal which, if published, would convict him of the deepest
+treachery to his ally, but he wrote the letter and forthwith dispatched
+it to London. He did not make use of the regular courier: he sent the
+letter by a man of his own choosing, who had special instructions to
+hand the letter in person to Prince Lichnowski, the German ambassador.
+Lichnowski was to deliver the missive personally to its destined
+recipient.
+
+"Almost as soon as the letter was away, the Kaiser seems to have
+realised what he had done, to have repented of his action. Attempts to
+stop the messenger before he reached the coast appear to have failed. At
+any rate, we know that all through July 31st and August 1st Lichnowski,
+in London, was bombarded with dispatches ordering him to send the
+messenger with the letter back to Berlin as soon as he reached the
+embassy.
+
+"The courier never got as far as Carlton House Terrace. Someone in the
+War party at the Court of Berlin got wind of the fateful letter and sent
+word to someone in the German embassy in London--the Prussian jingoes
+were well represented there by Kühlmann and others of his ilk--to
+intercept the letter.
+
+"The letter was intercepted. How it was done and by whom we have never
+found out, but Lichnowski never saw that letter. Nor did the courier
+leave London. With the Imperial letter still in possession, apparently,
+he went to a house at Dalston, where he was arrested on the day after we
+declared war on Germany.
+
+"This courier went by the name of Schulte. We did not know him at the
+time to be travelling on the Emperor's business, but we knew him very
+well as one of the most daring and successful spies that Germany had
+ever employed in this country. One of our people picked him up quite by
+chance on his arrival in London, and shadowed him to Dalston, where we
+promptly laid him by the heels when war broke out.
+
+"Schulte was interned. You have heard how one of his letters, stopped by
+the Camp Censor, put us on the track of the intercepted letter, and you
+know the steps we took to obtain possession of the document. But we were
+misled ... not by Schulte, but through the treachery of a man in whom he
+confided, the interpreter at the internment camp.
+
+"To this man Schulte entrusted the famous letter, telling him to send it
+by an underground route to a certain address at Cleves, and promising
+him in return a commission of twenty-five per cent on the price to be
+paid for the letter. The interpreter took the letter, but did not do as
+he was bid. On the contrary, he wrote to the go-between, with whom
+Schulte had been in correspondence (probably Clubfoot), and announced
+that he knew where the letter was and was prepared to sell it, only the
+purchaser would have to come to England and fetch it.
+
+"Well, to make a long story short, the interpreter made a deal with the
+Huns, and this Dr. Semlin was sent to England from Washington, where he
+had been working for Bernstorff, to fetch the letter at the address in
+London indicated by the interpreter. In the meantime, we had got after
+the interpreter, who, like Schulte, had been in the espionage business
+all his life, and he was arrested.
+
+"We know what Semlin found when he reached London. The wily interpreter
+had sliced the letter in two, so as to make sure of his money, meaning,
+no doubt, to hand over the other portion as soon as the price had been
+paid. But by the time Semlin got to London the interpreter was jugged
+and Semlin had to report that he had only got half the letter. The rest
+you know ... how Grundt was sent for, how he came to this country and
+retrieved the other portion. Don't ask me how he set about it: I don't
+know, and we never found out even where the interpreter deposited the
+second half or how Grundt discovered its hiding-place. But he executed
+his mission and got clear away with the goods. The rest of the tale you
+know better than I do!"
+
+"But Clubfoot," I asked, "who is he?"
+
+"There are many who have asked that question," Red Tabs replied gravely,
+"and some have not waited long for their answer. The man was known by
+name and reputation to very few, by sight to even fewer, yet I doubt if
+any man of his time wielded greater power in secret than he.
+Officially, he was nothing, he didn't exist; but in the dark places,
+where his ways were laid, he watched and plotted and spied for his
+master, the tool of the Imperial spite as he was the instrument of the
+Imperial vengeance.
+
+"A man like the Kaiser," my friend continued, "monarch though he is,
+has many enemies naturally, and makes many more. Head of the Army,
+head of the Navy, head of the Church, head of the State--undisputed,
+autocratic head--he is confronted at every turn by personal issues
+woven and intertwined with political questions. It was in this sphere,
+where the personal is grafted on the political, that Clubfoot reigned
+supreme ... here and in another sphere, where German William is not only
+monarch, but also a very ordinary man.
+
+"There are phases in every man's life, Okewood, which hardly bear the
+light of day. In an autocracy, however, such phases are generally
+inextricably entangled with political questions. It was in these dark
+places that Clubfoot flourished ... he and his men ... 'the G gang' we
+called them, from the letter 'G' (signifying _Garde_ or _Guard_) on
+their secret-service badges.
+
+"Clubfoot was answerable to no one save to the Emperor alone. His work
+was of so delicate, so confidential a nature, that he rendered an
+account of his services only to his Imperial master. There was none to
+stay his hand, to check him in his courses, save only this neurotic,
+capricious cripple who is always open to flattery...."
+
+Red Tabs thought for a minute and then went on.
+
+"No one may catalogue," he said, "the crimes that Clubfoot committed,
+the infamies he had to his account. Not even the Kaiser himself, I dare
+say, knows the manner in which his orders to this black-guard were
+executed--orders rapped out often enough, I swear, in a fit of
+petulance, a gust of passion, and forgotten the next moment in the
+excitement of some fresh sensation.
+
+"I know a little of Clubfoot's record, of innocent lives wrecked, of
+careers ruined, of sudden disappearances, of violent deaths. When you
+and your brother put it across der Stelze, Okewood, you settled a long
+outstanding account we had against him, but you also rendered his
+fellow-Huns a signal service."
+
+I thought of the comments I had heard on Clubfoot among the customers at
+Haase's, and I felt that Red Tabs had hit the right nail on the head
+again.
+
+"By the way?" said Red Tabs, as I rose to go, "would you care to see
+Clubfoot's epitaph? I kept it for you." He handed me a German
+newspaper--the _Berliner Tageblatt_, I think it was--with a paragraph
+marked in red pencil. I read:
+
+"We regret to report the sudden death from apoplexy of Dr. Adolf
+Grundt, an inspector of secondary schools. The deceased was closely
+connected for many years with a number of charitable institutions
+enjoying the patronage of the Emperor. His Majesty frequently consulted
+Dr. Grundt regarding the distribution of the sums allocated annually
+from the Privy purse for benevolent objects."
+
+"Pretty fair specimen of Prussian cynicism?" laughed Red Tabs. But I
+held my head ... the game was too deep for me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every week a hamper of good things is dispatched to 3143 Sapper Ebenezer
+Maggs, British Prisoner of War, Gefangenen-Lager, Friedrichsfeld bei
+Wesel. I have been in communication with his people, and since his
+flight from the camp they have not had a line from him. They will let me
+know at once if they hear, but I am restless and anxious about him.
+
+I dare not write lest I compromise him: I dare not make official enquiry
+as to his safety for the same reason. If he survived those shots in the
+dark, he is certainly undergoing punishment, and in that case he would
+be deprived of the privilege of writing or receiving letters....
+
+But the weeks slip by and no message comes to me from Chewton Mendip.
+Almost daily I wonder if the gallant lad survived that night to return
+to the misery of the starvation camp, or whether, out of the darkness of
+the forest, his brave soul soared free, achieving its final release from
+the sufferings of this world.... Poor Sapper Maggs!
+
+Francis and Monica are honeymooning on the Riviera. Gerry, I am sure,
+would have refused to attend the wedding, only he wasn't asked. Francis
+is getting a billet on the Intelligence out in France when his leave is
+up.
+
+I have got my step, antedated back to the day I went into Germany.
+Francis has been told that something is coming to him and me in the New
+Year's Honours.
+
+I don't worry much. I am going back to the front on Christmas Eve.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN OF CLUBFOOT
+
+By Valentine Williams.
+
+Whilst spending a holiday in a small Central American Republic, Desmond
+Okewood, of the Secret Service, learns from a dying beach-comber of a
+hidden treasure.
+
+With the assistance of a millionaire, he sets out for Cock Island, in
+the Pacific. To his astonishment he discovers that the Man with the
+Clubfoot, whom he had regarded as dead, has anticipated him. It is
+obvious to Okewood that his old enemy is also in search of the hidden
+gold, and there ensues a thrilling sequence of adventures, in which the
+millionaire's pretty niece takes a prominent part.
+
+Okewood has the cipher, and the Man with the Clubfoot determines to
+secure it, for without that cipher it is impossible to discover the
+hiding-place of the treasure; but there is something that the Man with
+the Clubfoot does not know, whereas Okewood does.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Man with the Clubfoot, by Valentine Williams
+
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+Project Gutenberg's The Man with the Clubfoot, by Valentine Williams
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Man with the Clubfoot
+
+Author: Valentine Williams
+
+Release Date: March 9, 2005 [EBook #15302]
+[Last updated: February 27, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Michael Ciesielski, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan, and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT
+
+                         BY VALENTINE WILLIAMS
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE SECRET HAND," "THE YELLOW STREAK," "THE RETURN OF
+CLUBFOOT," "THE ORANGE DIVAN," "CLUBFOOT THE AVENGER"
+
+                                 1918
+
+
+
+
+WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT
+
+
+"The Man with the Clubfoot" is one of the most ingenious and sinister
+secret agents in Europe. It is to him that the task is assigned of
+regaining possession of an indiscreet letter written by the Kaiser.
+
+Desmond Okewood, a young British officer with a genius for secret
+service work, sets out to thwart this man and, incidentally, discover
+the whereabouts of his brother.
+
+He penetrates into Germany disguised, and meets with many thrilling
+adventures before he finally achieves his mission.
+
+In "The Man with the Clubfoot," Valentine Williams has written a
+thrilling romance of mystery, love and intrigue, that in every sense of
+the word may be described as "breathless."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+       I. I seek a Bed in Rotterdam
+
+      II. The Cipher with the Invoice
+
+     III. A Visitor in the Night
+
+      IV. Destiny knocks at the Door
+
+       V. The Lady of the Vos in't Tuintje
+
+      VI. I board the Berlin Train and leave a Lame Gentleman on the
+          Platform
+
+     VII. In which a Silver Star acts as a Charm
+
+    VIII. I hear of Clubfoot and meet his Employer
+
+      IX. I encounter an old Acquaintance who leads me to a delightful
+          Surprise
+
+       X. A Glass of Wine with Clubfoot
+
+      XI. Miss Mary Prendergast risks her Reputation
+
+     XII. His Excellency the General is worried
+
+    XIII. I find Achilles in his Tent
+
+     XIV. Clubfoot comes to Haase's
+
+      XV. The Waiter at the Cafe Regina
+
+     XVI. A Hand-clasp by the Rhine
+
+    XVII. Francis takes up the Narrative
+
+   XVIII. I go on with the Story
+
+     XIX. We have a Reckoning with Clubfoot
+
+      XX. Charlemagne's Ride
+
+     XXI. Red Tabs explains
+
+
+
+
+The Man with the Clubfoot
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I SEEK A BED IN ROTTERDAM
+
+
+The reception clerk looked up from the hotel register and shook his head
+firmly. "Very sorry, saire," he said, "not a bed in ze house." And he
+closed the book with a snap.
+
+Outside the rain came down heavens hard. Every one who came into the
+brightly lit hotel vestibule entered with a gush of water. I felt I
+would rather die than face the wind-swept streets of Rotterdam again.
+
+I turned once more to the clerk who was now busy at the key-rack.
+
+"Haven't you really a corner? I wouldn't mind where it was, as it is
+only for the night. Come now..."
+
+"Very sorry, saire. We have two gentlemen sleeping in ze bathrooms
+already. If you had reserved..." And he shrugged his shoulders and bent
+towards a visitor who was demanding his key.
+
+I turned away with rage in my heart. What a cursed fool I had been not
+to wire from Groningen! I had fully intended to, but the extraordinary
+conversation I had had with Dicky Allerton had put everything else out
+of my head. At every hotel I had tried it had been the same
+story--Cooman's, the Maas, the Grand, all were full even to the
+bathrooms. If I had only wired....
+
+As I passed out into the porch I bethought myself of the porter. A hotel
+porter had helped me out of a similar plight in Breslau once years ago.
+This porter, with his red, drink-sodden face and tarnished gold braid,
+did not promise well, so far as a recommendation for a lodging for the
+night was concerned. Still...
+
+I suppose it was my mind dwelling on my experience at Breslau that made
+me address the man in German. When one has been familiar with a foreign
+tongue from one's boyhood, it requires but a very slight mental impulse
+to drop into it. From such slight beginnings do great enterprises
+spring. If I had known the immense ramification of adventure that was to
+spread its roots from that simple question, I verily believe my heart
+would have failed me and I would have run forth into the night and the
+rain and roamed the streets till morning.
+
+Well, I found myself asking the man in German if he knew where I could
+get a room for the night.
+
+He shot a quick glance at me from under his reddened eyelids.
+
+"The gentleman would doubtless like a German house?" he queried.
+
+You may hardly credit it, but my interview with Dicky Allerton that
+afternoon had simply driven the war out of my mind. When one has lived
+much among foreign peoples, one's mentality slips automatically into
+their skin. I was now thinking in German--at least so it seems to me
+when I look back upon that night--and I answered without reflecting.
+
+"I don't care where it is as long as I can get somewhere to sleep out of
+this infernal rain!"
+
+"The gentleman can have a good, clean bed at the Hotel Sixt in the
+little street they call the Vos in't Tuintje, on the canal behind the
+Bourse. The proprietress is a good German, jawohl ... Frau Anna Schratt
+her name is. The gentleman need only say he comes from Franz at the
+Bopparder Hof."
+
+I gave the man a gulden and bade him get me a cab.
+
+It was still pouring. As we rattled away over the glistening
+cobble-stones, my mind travelled back over the startling events of the
+day. My talk with old Dicky had given me such a mental jar that I found
+it at first wellnigh impossible to concentrate my thoughts. That's the
+worst of shell-shock. You think you are cured, you feel fit and well,
+and then suddenly the machinery of your mind checks and halts and
+creaks. Ever since I had left hospital convalescent after being wounded
+on the Somme ("gunshot wound in head and cerebral concussion" the
+doctors called it), I had trained myself, whenever my brain was _en
+panne_, to go back to the beginning of things and work slowly up to the
+present by methodical stages.
+
+Let's see then--I was "boarded" at Millbank and got three months' leave;
+then I did a month in the Little Johns' bungalow in Cornwall. There I
+got the letter from Dicky Allerton, who, before the war, had been in
+partnership with my brother Francis in the motor business at Coventry.
+Dicky had been with the Naval Division at Antwerp and was interned with
+the rest of the crowd when they crossed the Dutch frontier in those
+disastrous days of October, 1914.
+
+Dicky wrote from Groningen, just a line. Now that I was on leave, if I
+were fit to travel, would I come to Groningen and see him? "I have had a
+curious communication which seems to have to do with poor Francis," he
+added. That was all.
+
+My brain was still halting, so I turned to Francis. Here again I had to
+go back. Francis, rejected on all sides for active service, owing to
+what he scornfully used to call "the shirkers' ailment, varicose veins,"
+had flatly declined to carry on with his motor business after Dicky had
+joined up, although their firm was doing government work. Finally, he
+had vanished into the maw of the War Office and all I knew was that he
+was "something on the Intelligence." More than this not even _he_ would
+tell me, and when he finally disappeared from London, just about the
+time that I was popping the parapet with my battalion at Neuve Chapelle,
+he left me his London chambers as his only address for letters.
+
+Ah! now it was all coming back--Francis' infrequent letters to me about
+nothing at all, then his will, forwarded to me for safe keeping when I
+was home on leave last Christmas, and after that, silence. Not another
+letter, not a word about him, not a shred of information. He had utterly
+vanished.
+
+I remembered my frantic inquiries, my vain visits to the War Office, my
+perplexity at the imperturbable silence of the various officials I
+importuned for news of my poor brother. Then there was that lunch at the
+Bath Club with Sonny Martin of the Heavies and a friend of his, some
+kind of staff captain in red tabs. I don't think I heard his name, but I
+know he was at the War Office, and presently over our cigars and coffee
+I laid before him the mysterious facts about my brother's case.
+
+"Perhaps you knew Francis?" I said in conclusion. "Yes," he replied, "I
+know him well." "_Know_ him," I repeated, "_know_ him then ... then you
+think ... you have reason to believe he is still alive...?"
+
+Red Tabs cocked his eye at the gilded cornice of the ceiling and blew a
+ring from his cigar. But he said nothing.
+
+I persisted with my questions but it was of no avail. Red Tabs only
+laughed and said: "I know nothing at all except that your brother is a
+most delightful fellow with all your own love of getting his own way."
+
+Then Sonny Martin, who is the perfection of tact and diplomacy--probably
+on that account he failed for the Diplomatic--chipped in with an
+anecdote about a man who was rating the waiter at an adjoining table,
+and I held my peace. But as Red Tabs rose to go, a little later, he held
+my hand for a minute in his and with that curious look of his, said
+slowly and with meaning:
+
+"When a nation is at war, officers on _active service_ must occasionally
+disappear, sometimes in their country's interest, sometimes in their
+own."
+
+He emphasised the words "on active service."
+
+In a flash my eyes were opened. How blind I had been! Francis was in
+Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE CIPHER WITH THE INVOICE
+
+
+Red Tabs' sphinx-like declaration was no riddle to me. I knew at once
+that Francis must be on secret service in the enemy's country and that
+country Germany. My brother's extraordinary knowledge of the Germans,
+their customs, life and dialects, rendered him ideally suitable for any
+such perilous mission. Francis always had an extraordinary talent for
+languages: he seemed to acquire them all without any mental effort, but
+in German he was supreme. During the year that he and I spent at
+Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's house at Bonn, he rapidly outdistanced
+me, and though, at the end of our time, I could speak German like a
+German, Francis was able, in addition, to speak Bonn and Cologne
+_patois_ like a native of those ancient cities--ay and he could drill a
+squad of recruits in their own language like the smartest _Leutnant_
+ever fledged from Gross-Lichterfelde.
+
+He never had any difficulty in passing himself off as a German. Well I
+remember his delight when he was claimed as a fellow Rheinlaender by a
+German officer we met, one summer before the war, combining golf with a
+little useful espionage at Cromer.
+
+I don't think Francis had any ulterior motive in his study of German.
+He simply found he had this imitative faculty; philology had always
+interested him, so even after he had gone into the motor trade, he used
+to amuse himself on business trips to Germany by acquiring new dialects.
+
+His German imitations were extraordinarily funny. One of his "star
+turns", was a noisy sitting of the Reichstag with speeches by Prince
+Buelow and August Bebel and "interruptions"; another, a patriotic oration
+by an old Prussian General at a Kaiser's birthday dinner. Francis had a
+marvellous faculty not only of _seeming_ German, but even of almost
+looking like a German, so absolutely was he able to slip into the skin
+of the part.
+
+Yet never in my wildest moments had I dreamt that he would try and get
+into Germany in war-time, into that land where every citizen is
+catalogued and pigeonholed from the cradle. But Red Tabs' oracular
+utterance had made everything clear to me. Why a mission to Germany
+would be the very thing that Francis would give his eyes to be allowed
+to attempt! Francis with his utter disregard of danger, his love of
+taking risks, his impish delight in taking a rise out of the stodgy
+Hun--why, if there were Englishmen brave enough to take chances of
+that kind, Francis would be the first to volunteer.
+
+Yes, if Francis were on a mission anywhere it would be to Germany. But
+what prospect had he of ever returning--with the frontiers closed and
+ingress and egress practically barred even to pro-German neutrals? Many
+a night in the trenches I had a mental vision of Francis, so debonair
+and so fearless, facing a firing squad of Prussian privates.
+
+From the day of the luncheon at the Bath Club to this very afternoon I
+had had no further inkling of my brother's whereabouts or fate. The
+authorities at home professed ignorance, as I knew, in duty bound, they
+would, and I had nothing to hang any theory on to until Dicky Allerton's
+letter came. Ashcroft at the F.O. fixed up my passports for me and I
+lost no time in exchanging the white gulls and red cliffs of Cornwall
+for the windmills and trim canals of Holland.
+
+And now in my breast pocket lay, written on a small piece of cheap
+foreign notepaper, the tidings I had come to Groningen to seek. Yet so
+trivial, so nonsensical, so baffling was the message that I already felt
+my trip to Holland to have been a fruitless errand.
+
+I found Dicky fat and bursting with health in his quarters at the
+internment camp. He only knew that Francis had disappeared. When I told
+him of my meeting with Red Tabs at the Bath Club, of the latter's words
+to me at parting and of my own conviction in the matter he whistled,
+then looked grave.
+
+He went straight to the point in his bluff direct way.
+
+"I am going to tell you a story first, Desmond," he said to me, "then
+I'll show you a piece of paper. Whether the two together fit in with
+your theory as to poor Francis' disappearance will be for you to judge.
+Until now I must confess--I had felt inclined to dismiss the only
+reference this document appears to make to your brother as a mere
+coincidence in names, but what you have told me makes things
+interesting--by Jove, it does, though. Well, here's the yarn first of
+all.
+
+"Your brother and I have had dealings in the past with a Dutchman in the
+motor business at Nymwegen, name of Van Urutius. He has often been over
+to see us at Coventry in the old days and Francis has stayed with him at
+Nymwegen once or twice on his way back from Germany--Nymwegen, you know,
+is close to the German frontier. Old Urutius has been very decent to me
+since I have been in gaol here and has been over several times,
+generally with a box or two of those nice Dutch cigars."
+
+"Dicky," I broke in on him, "get on with the story. What the devil's all
+this got to do with Francis? The document--"
+
+"Steady, my boy!" was the imperturbable reply, "let me spin my yarn my
+own way. I'm coming to the piece of paper....
+
+"Well, then, old Urutius came to see me ten days ago. All I knew about
+Francis I had told him, namely, that Francis had entered the army and
+was missing. It was no business of the old Mynheer if Francis was in the
+Intelligence, so I didn't tell him that. Van U. is a staunch friend of
+the English, but you know the saying that if a man doesn't know he can't
+split.
+
+"My old Dutch pal, then, turned up here ten days ago. He was bubbling
+over with excitement. 'Mr. Allerton' he says, 'I haf a writing, a most
+mysterious writing--a I think, from Francis Okewood.'
+
+"I sat tight. If there were any revelations coming they were going to be
+Dutch, not British. On that I was resolved.
+
+"'I haf received;' the old Dutchman went on, from Gairemany a parcel of
+metal shields, plates--what you call 'em--of tin, _hein?_ What I haf to
+advertise my business. They arrife las' week--I open the parcel myself
+and on the top is the envelope with the invoice.'
+
+"Mynheer paused; he has a good sense of the dramatic.
+
+"'Well', I said, 'did it bite you or say "Gott strafe England?" Or
+what?'
+
+"Van Urutius ignored my flippancy and resumed. 'I open the envelope and
+there in the invoice I find this writing--here!'
+
+"And here," said Dicky, diving into his pocket, "is the writing!"
+
+And he thrust into my eagerly outstretched hand a very thin half-sheet
+of foreign notepaper, of that kind of cheap glazed notepaper you get in
+cafes on the Continent when you ask for writing materials.
+
+Three lines of German, written in fluent German characters in purple ink
+beneath the name and address of Mynheer van Urutius ... that was all.
+
+My heart sank with disappointment and wretchedness as I read the
+inscription.
+
+Here is the document:
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Herr Willem van Urutius,
+Automobilgeschaeft,
+Nymwegen.
+_Alexandtr-Straat_ 81 bis.
+
+Berlin, Iten Juli, 16.
+
+O Eichenholz! O Eichenholz!
+Wie leer sind deine Blaetter.
+
+Wie Achiles in dem Zelte.
+
+Wo zweie sich zanken
+Erfreut sich der Dritte.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+(Translation.)
+
+Mr. Willem van Urutius,
+Automobile Agent,
+Nymwegen.
+81 bis _Alexander-Straat._
+
+Berlin, 1st July, 16.
+
+O Oak-tree! O Oak-tree,
+How empty are thy leaves.
+
+Like Achiles in the tent.
+
+When two people fall out
+The third party rejoices.
+
+*       *       *       *       *
+
+I stared at this nonsensical document in silence. My thoughts were
+almost too bitter for words.
+
+At last I spoke.
+
+"What's all this rigmarole got to do with Francis, Dicky?" I asked,
+vainly trying to suppress the bitterness in my voice. "This looks like a
+list of copybook maxims for your Dutch friend's advertisement cards...."
+
+But I returned to the study of the piece of paper.
+
+"Not so fast, old bird," Dicky replied coolly, "let me finish my story.
+Old Stick-in-the-mud is a lot shrewder than we think.
+
+"'When I read the writing,' he told me, 'I think he is all robbish, but
+then I ask myself, Who shall put robbish in my invoices? And then I
+read the writing again and once again, and then I see he is a message.'"
+
+"Stop, Dicky!" I cried, "of course, what an ass I am! Why
+_Eichenholz_...."
+
+"Exactly," retorted Dicky, "as the old Mynheer was the first to see,
+_Eichenholz_ translated into English is 'Oak-tree' or 'Oak-wood'--in
+other words, Francis."
+
+"Then, Dicky...." I interrupted.
+
+"Just a minute," said Dicky, putting up his hand. "I confess I thought,
+on first seeing this message or whatever it is, that there must be
+simply a coincidence of name and that somebody's idle scribbling had
+found its way into old van U.'s invoice. But now that you have told me
+that Francis may have actually got into Germany, then, I must say, it
+looks as if this might be an attempt of his to communicate with home."
+
+"Where did the Dutchman's packet of stuff come from?" I asked.
+
+"From the Berlin Metal Works in Steglitz, a suburb of Berlin: he has
+dealt with them for years."
+
+"But then what does all the rest of it mean ... all this about Achilles
+and the rest?"
+
+"Ah, Desmond!" was Dicky's reply, "that's where you've got not only me,
+but also Mynheer van Urutius."
+
+"'O oak-wood! O oak-wood, how empty are thy leaves!'.... That sounds
+like a taunt, don't you think, Dicky?" said I.
+
+"_Or_ a confession of failure from Francis ... to let us know that he
+has done nothing, adding that he is accordingly sulking 'like Achilles
+in his tent.'"
+
+"But, see here, Richard Allerton," I said, "Francis would never spell
+'Achilles' with one 'l' ... now, would he?"
+
+"By Jove!" said Dicky, looking at the paper again, "nobody would but a
+very uneducated person. I know nothing about German, but tell me, is
+that the hand of an educated German? Is it Francis' handwriting?"
+
+"Certainly, it is an educated hand," I replied, "but I'm dashed if I can
+say whether it is Francis' German handwriting: it can scarcely be
+because, as I have already remarked, he spells 'Achilles' with one 'l.'"
+
+Then the fog came down over us again. We sat helplessly and gazed at the
+fateful paper.
+
+"There's only one thing for it, Dicky," I said finally, "I'll take the
+blooming thing back to London with me and hand it over to the
+Intelligence. After all, Francis may have a code with them. Possibly
+they will see light where we grope in darkness."
+
+"Desmond," said Dicky, giving me his hand, "that's the most sensible
+suggestion you've made yet. Go home and good luck to you. But promise me
+you'll come back here and tell me if that piece of paper brings the
+news that dear old Francis is alive."
+
+So I left Dicky but I did not go home. I was not destined to see my home
+for many a weary week.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A VISITOR IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+A volley of invective from the box of the cab--bad language in Dutch is
+fearfully effective--aroused me from my musings. The cab, a small,
+uncomfortable box with a musty smell, stopped with a jerk that flung me
+forward. From the outer darkness furious altercation resounded above the
+plashing of the rain. I peered through the streaming glass of the
+windows but could distinguish nothing save the yellow blur of a lamp.
+Then a vehicle of some kind seemed to move away in front of us, for I
+heard the grating of wheels against the kerb, and my cab drew up to the
+pavement.
+
+On alighting, I found myself in a narrow, dark street with high houses
+on either side. A grimy lamp with the word "Hotel" in half-obliterated
+characters painted on it hung above my head, announcing that I had
+arrived at my destination. As I paid off the cabman another cab passed.
+It was apparently the one with which my Jehu had had words, for he
+turned round and shouted abuse into the night.
+
+My cabman departed, leaving me with my bag on the pavement at my feet,
+gazing at a narrow dirty door, the upper half of which was filled in
+with frosted glass. I was at last awake to the fact that I, an
+Englishman, was going to spend the night in a German hotel to which I
+had been specially recommended by a German porter on the understanding
+that I was a German. I knew that, according to the Dutch neutrality
+regulations, my passport would have to be handed in for inspection by
+the police and that therefore I could not pass myself off as a German.
+
+"Bah!" I said to give myself courage, "this is a free country, a neutral
+country. They may be offensive, they may overcharge you, in a Hun hotel,
+but they can't eat you. Besides, any bed in a night like this!" and I
+pushed open the door.
+
+Within, the hotel proved to be rather better than its uninviting
+exterior promised. There was a small vestibule with a little glass cage
+of an office on one side and beyond it an old-fashioned flight of
+stairs, with a glass knob on the post at the foot, winding to the upper
+stories.
+
+At the sound of my footsteps on the mosaic flooring, a waiter emerged
+from a little cubby-hole under the stairs. He had a blue apron girt
+about his waist, but otherwise he wore the short coat and the dicky and
+white tie of the Continental hotel waiter. His hands were grimy with
+black marks and so was his apron. He had apparently been cleaning
+boots.
+
+He was a big, fat, blonde man with narrow, cruel little eyes. His hair
+was cut so short that his head appeared to be shaven. He advanced
+quickly towards me and asked me in German in a truculent voice what I
+wanted.
+
+I replied in the same language, I wanted a room.
+
+He shot a glance at me through his little slits of eyes on hearing my
+good Bonn accent, but his manner did not change.
+
+"The hotel is full. The gentleman cannot have a bed here. The
+proprietress is out at present. I regret...." He spat this all out in
+the offhand insolent manner of the Prussian official.
+
+"It was Franz, of the Bopparder Hof, who recommended me to come here," I
+said. I was not going out again into the rain for a whole army of
+Prussian waiters.
+
+"He told me that Frau Schratt would make me very comfortable," I added.
+
+The waiter's manner changed at once.
+
+"So, so," he said--quite genially this time--"it was Franz who sent the
+gentleman to us. He is a good friend of the house, is Franz. Ja, Frau
+Schratt is unfortunately out just now, but as soon as the lady returns I
+will inform her you are here. In the meantime, I will give the gentleman
+a room."
+
+He handed me a candlestick and a key.
+
+"So," he grunted, "No. 31, the third floor."
+
+A clock rang out the hour somewhere in the distance.
+
+"Ten o'clock already," he said. "The gentleman's papers can wait till
+to-morrow, it is so late. Or perhaps the gentleman will give them to the
+proprietress. She must come any moment."
+
+As I mounted the winding staircase I heard him murmur again:
+
+"So, so, Franz sent him here! Ach, der Franz!"
+
+As soon as I had passed out of sight of the lighted hall I found myself
+in complete darkness. On each landing a jet of gas, turned down low,
+flung a dim and flickering light a few yards around. On the third floor
+I was able to distinguish by the gas rays a small plaque fastened to the
+wall inscribed with an arrow pointing to the right above the figures:
+46-30.
+
+I stopped to strike a match to light my candle. The whole hotel seemed
+wrapped in silence, the only sound the rushing of water in the gutters
+without. Then from the darkness of the narrow corridor that stretched
+out in front of me, I heard the rattle of a key in a lock.
+
+I advanced down the corridor, the pale glimmer of my candle showing me
+as I passed a succession of yellow doors, each bearing a white porcelain
+plate inscribed with a number in black. No. 46 was the first room on
+the right counting from the landing: the even numbers were on the right,
+the odd on the left: therefore I reckoned on finding my room the last on
+the left at the end of the corridor.
+
+The corridor presently took a sharp turn. As I came round the bend I
+heard again the sound of a key and then the rattling of a door knob, but
+the corridor bending again, I could not see the author of the noise
+until I had turned the corner.
+
+I ran right into a man fumbling at a door on the left-hand side of the
+passage, the last door but one. A mirror at the end of the corridor
+caught and threw back the reflection of my candle.
+
+The man looked up as I approached. He was wearing a soft black felt hat
+and a black overcoat and on his arm hung an umbrella streaming with
+rain. His candlestick stood on the floor at his feet. It had apparently
+just been extinguished, for my nostrils sniffed the odour of burning
+tallow.
+
+"You have a light?" the stranger said in German in a curiously
+breathless voice. "I have just come upstairs and the wind blew out my
+candle and I could not get the door open. Perhaps you could ..." He
+broke off gasping and put his hand to his heart.
+
+"Allow me," I said. The lock of the door was inverted and to open the
+door you had to insert the key upside-down. I did so and the door
+opened easily. As it swung back I noticed the number of the room was 33,
+next door to mine.
+
+"Can I be of any assistance to you? Are you unwell?" I said, at the same
+time lifting my candle and scanning the stranger's features.
+
+He was a young man with close-cropped black hair, fine dark eyes and an
+aquiline nose with a deep furrow between the eyebrows. The crispness of
+his hair and the high cheekbones gave a suggestion of Jewish blood. His
+face was very pale and his lips were blueish. I saw the perspiration
+glistening on his forehead.
+
+"Thank you, it is nothing," the man replied in the same breathless
+voice. "I am only a little out of breath with carrying my bag upstairs.
+That's all."
+
+"You must have arrived just before I did," I said, remembering the cab
+that had driven away from the hotel as I drove up.
+
+"That is so," he answered, pushing open his door as he spoke. He
+disappeared into the darkness of the room and suddenly the door shut
+with a slam that re-echoed through the house.
+
+As I had calculated, my room was next door to his, the end room of the
+corridor. It smelt horribly close and musty and the first thing I did
+was to stride across to the windows and fling them back wide.
+
+I found myself looking across a dark and narrow canal, on whose
+stagnant water loomed large the black shapes of great barges, into the
+windows of gaunt and weather-stained houses over the way. Not a light
+shone in any window. Away in the distance the same clock as I had heard
+before struck the quarter--a single, clear chime.
+
+It was the regular bedroom of the _maison meublee_--worn carpet,
+discoloured and dingy wallpaper, faded rep curtains and mahogany
+bedstead with a vast _edredon_, like a giant pincushion. My candle,
+guttering wildly in the unaccustomed breeze blowing dankly through the
+chamber, was the sole illuminant. There was neither gas nor electric
+light laid on.
+
+The house had relapsed into quiet. The bedroom had an evil look and
+this, combined with the dank air from the canal, gave my thoughts a
+sombre tinge.
+
+"Well," I said to myself, "you're a nice kind of ass! Here you are, a
+British officer, posing as a brother Hun in a cut-throat Hun hotel, with
+a waiter who looks like the official Prussian executioner. What's going
+to happen to you, young feller my lad, when Madame comes along and finds
+you have a British passport? A very pretty kettle of fish, I must say!
+
+"And suppose Madame takes it into her head to toddle along up here
+to-night and calls your bluff and summons the gentle Hans or Fritz or
+whatever that ruffianly waiter's name is to come upstairs and settle
+your hash! What sort of a fight are you going to put up in that narrow
+corridor out there with a Hun next door and probably on every side of
+you, and no exit this end? You don't know a living soul in Rotterdam and
+no one will be a penny the wiser if you vanish off the face of the
+earth ... at any rate no one on this side of the water."
+
+Starting to undress, I noticed a little door on the left-hand side of
+the bed. I found it opened into a small _cabinet de toilette_, a narrow
+slip of a room with a wash-hand stand and a very dirty window covered
+with yellow paper. I pulled open this window with great difficulty--it
+cannot have been opened for years--and found it gave on to a very small
+and deep interior court, just an air shaft round which the house was
+built. At the bottom was a tiny paved court not more than five foot
+square, entirely isolated save on one side where there was a basement
+window with a flight of steps leading down from the court through an
+iron grating. From this window a faint yellow streak of light was
+visible. The air was damp and chill and horrid odours of a dirty kitchen
+were wafted up the shaft. So I closed the window and set about turning
+in.
+
+I took off my coat and waistcoat, then bethought me of the mysterious
+document I had received from Dicky. Once more I looked at those
+enigmatical words:
+
+_O Oak-wood! O Oak-wood_ (for that much was
+clear),
+_How empty are thy leaves.
+_Like Achiles_ (with one "l") _in the tent.
+When two people fall out
+The third party rejoices._
+
+What did it all mean? Had Francis fallen out with some confederate who,
+having had his revenge by denouncing my brother, now took this
+extraordinary step to announce his victim's fate to the latter's
+friends? "Like Achilles in the tent!" Why not "in _his_ tent"?
+Surely ...
+
+A curious choking noise, the sound of a strangled cough, suddenly broke
+the profound silence of the house. My heart seemed to stop for a moment.
+I hardly dared raise my eyes from the paper which I was conning, leaning
+over the table in my shirt and trousers.
+
+The noise continued, a hideous, deep-throated gurgling. Then I heard a
+faint foot-fall in the corridor without.
+
+I raised my eyes to the door.
+
+Someone or something was scratching the panels, furiously, frantically.
+
+The door-knob was rattled loudly. The noise broke in raucously upon that
+horrid gurgling sound without. It snapped the spell that bound me.
+
+I moved resolutely towards the door. Even as I stepped forward the
+gurgling resolved itself into a strangled cry.
+
+"Ach! ich sterbe" were the words I heard.
+
+Then the door burst open with a crash, there was a swooping rush of wind
+and rain through the room, the curtains flapped madly from the windows.
+
+The candle flared up wildly.
+
+Then it went out.
+
+Something fell heavily into the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DESTINY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR
+
+
+There are two things at least that modern warfare teaches you, one is to
+keep cool in an emergency, the other is not to be afraid of a corpse.
+Therefore I was scarcely surprised to find myself standing there in the
+dark calmly reviewing the extraordinary situation in which I now found
+myself. That's the curious thing about shell-shock: after it a motor
+back-firing or a tyre bursting will reduce a man to tears, but in face
+of danger he will probably find himself in full possession of his wits
+as long as there is no sudden and violent noise connected with it.
+
+Brief as the sounds without had been, I was able on reflection to
+identify that gasping gurgle, that rapid patter of the hands. Anyone who
+has seen a man die quickly knows them. Accordingly I surmised that
+somebody had come to my door at the point of death, probably to seek
+assistance.
+
+Then I thought of the man next door, his painful breathlessness, his
+blueish lips, when I found him wrestling with his key, and I guessed
+who was my nocturnal visitor lying prone in the dark at my feet.
+
+Shielding the candle with my hand I rekindled it. Then I grappled with
+the flapping curtains and got the windows shut. Then only did I raise my
+candle until its beams shone down upon the silent figure lying across
+the threshold of the room.
+
+It was the man from No. 33. He was quite dead. His face was livid and
+distorted, his eyes glassy between the half-closed lids, while his
+fingers, still stiffly clutching, showed paint and varnish and dust
+beneath the nails where he had pawed door and carpet in his death agony.
+
+One did not need to be a doctor to see that a heart attack had swiftly
+and suddenly struck him down.
+
+Now that I knew the worst I acted with decision. I dragged the body by
+the shoulders into the room until it lay in the centre of the carpet.
+Then I locked the door.
+
+The foreboding of evil that had cast its black shadow over my thoughts
+from the moment I crossed the threshold of this sinister hotel came over
+me strongly again. Indeed, my position was, to say the least, scarcely
+enviable. Here was I, a British officer with British papers of identity,
+about to be discovered in a German hotel, into which I had introduced
+myself under false pretences, at dead of night alone with the corpse of
+a German or Austrian (for such the dead man apparently was)!
+
+It was undoubtedly a most awkward fix.
+
+I listened.
+
+Everything in the hotel was silent as the grave.
+
+I turned from my gloomy forebodings to look again at the stranger. In
+his crisp black hair and slightly protuberant cheekbones I traced again
+the hint of Jewish ancestry I had remarked before. Now that the man's
+eyes--his big, thoughtful eyes that had stared at me out of the darkness
+of the corridor--were closed, he looked far less foreign than before: in
+fact he might almost have passed as an Englishman.
+
+He was a young man--about my own age, I judged--(I shall be twenty-eight
+next birthday) and about my own height, which is five feet ten. There
+was something about his appearance and build that struck a chord very
+faintly in my memory.
+
+Had I seen the fellow before?
+
+I remembered now that I had noticed something oddly familiar about him
+when I first saw him for that brief moment in the corridor.
+
+I looked down at him again as he lay on his back on the faded carpet. I
+brought the candle down closer and scanned his features.
+
+He certainly looked less foreign than he did before. He might not be a
+German after all: more likely a Hungarian or a Pole, perhaps even a
+Dutchman. His German had been too flawless for a Frenchman--for a
+Hungarian, either, for that matter.
+
+I leant back on my knees to ease my cramped position. As I did so I
+caught a glimpse of the stranger's three-quarters face.
+
+Why! He reminded me of Francis a little!
+
+There certainly was a suggestion of my brother in the man's appearance.
+Was it the thick black hair, the small dark moustache? Was it the
+well-chiselled mouth? It was rather a hint of Francis than a resemblance
+to him.
+
+The stranger was fully dressed. The jacket of his blue serge suit had
+fallen open and I saw a portfolio in the inner breast pocket. Here, I
+thought, might be a clue to the dead man's identity. I fished out the
+portfolio, then rapidly ran my fingers over the stranger's other
+pockets.
+
+I left the portfolio to the last.
+
+The jacket pockets contained nothing else except a white silk
+handkerchief unmarked. In the right-hand top pocket of the waistcoat was
+a neat silver cigarette case, perfectly plain, containing half a dozen
+cigarettes. I took one out and looked at it. It was a Melania, a
+cigarette I happen to know for they stock them at one of my clubs, the
+Dionysus, and it chances to be the only place in London where you can
+get the brand.
+
+It looked as if my unknown friend had come from London.
+
+There was also a plain silver watch of Swiss make.
+
+In the trousers pocket was some change, a little English silver and
+coppers, some Dutch silver and paper money. In the right-hand trouser
+pocket was a bunch of keys.
+
+That was all.
+
+I put the different articles on the floor beside me. Then I got up, put
+the candle on the table, drew the chair up to it and opened the
+portfolio.
+
+In a little pocket of the inner flap were visiting cards. Some were
+simply engraved with the name in small letters:
+
+Dr. Semlin
+
+Others were more detailed:
+
+Dr. Semlin, Brooklyn, N.Y.
+The Halewright Mfg. Co., Ltd.
+
+There were also half a dozen private cards:
+
+Dr. Semlin, 333 E. 73rd St., New York.
+Rivington Park House.
+
+In the packet of cards was a solitary one, larger than the rest, an
+expensive affair on thick, highly glazed millboard, bearing in gothic
+characters the name:
+
+Otto von Steinhardt.
+
+On this card was written in pencil, above the name:
+
+"Hotel Sixt, Vos in't Tuintje," and in brackets, thus: "(Mme. Anna
+Schratt.)"
+
+In another pocket of the portfolio was an American passport surmounted
+by a flaming eagle and sealed with a vast red seal, sending greetings to
+all and sundry on behalf of Henry Semlin, a United States citizen,
+travelling to Europe. Details in the body of the document set forth that
+Henry Semlin was born at Brooklyn on 31st March, 1886, that his hair was
+Black, nose Aquiline, chin Firm, and that of special marks he had None.
+The description was good enough to show me that it was undoubtedly the
+body of Henry Semlin that lay at my feet.
+
+The passport had been issued at Washington three months earlier. The
+only _visa_ it bore was that of the American Embassy in London, dated
+two days previously. With it was a British permit, issued to Henry
+Semlin, Manufacturer, granting him authority to leave the United Kingdom
+for the purpose of travelling to Rotterdam, further a bill for luncheon
+served on board the Dutch Royal mail steamer _Koningin Regentes_ on
+yesterday's date.
+
+In the long and anguishing weeks that followed on that anxious night in
+the Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often wondered to what
+malicious promptings, to what insane impulse, I owed the idea that
+suddenly germinated in my brain as I sat fingering the dead man's
+letter-case in that squalid room. The impulse sprang into my brain like
+a flash and like a flash I acted on it, though I can hardly believe I
+meant to pursue it to its logical conclusion until I stood once more
+outside the door of my room.
+
+The examination of the dead man's papers had shown me that he was an
+American business man, who had just come from London, having but
+recently proceeded to England from the United States.
+
+What puzzled me was why an American manufacturer, seemingly of some
+substance and decently dressed, should go to a German hotel on the
+recommendation of a German, from his name, and the style of his visiting
+card, a man of good family.
+
+Semlin might, of course, have been, like myself, a traveller benighted
+in Rotterdam, owing his recommendation to the hotel to a German
+acquaintance in the city. Still, Americans are cautious folk and I found
+it rather improbable that this American business man should adventure
+himself into this evil-looking house with a large sum of money on his
+person--he had several hundred pounds of money in Dutch currency notes
+in a thick wad in his portfolio.
+
+I knew that the British authorities discouraged, as far as they could,
+neutrals travelling to and fro between England and Germany in war-time.
+Possibly Semlin wanted to do business in Germany on his European trip as
+well as in England. Knowing the attitude of the British authorities, he
+may well have made his arrangements in Holland for getting into Germany
+lest the British police should get wind of his purpose and stop him
+crossing to Rotterdam.
+
+But his German was so flawless, with no trace of Americanism in voice or
+accent. And I knew what good use the German Intelligence had made of
+neutral passports in the past. Therefore I determined to go next door
+and have a look at Dr. Semlin's luggage. In the back of my mind was ever
+that harebrain resolve, half-formed as yet but none the less firmly
+rooted in my head.
+
+Taking up my candle again, I stole out of the room. As I stood in the
+corridor and turned to lock the bedroom door behind me, the mirror at
+the end of the passage caught the reflection of my candle.
+
+I looked and saw myself in the glass, a white, staring face.
+
+I looked again. Then I fathomed the riddle that had puzzled me in the
+dead face of the stranger in my room.
+
+It was not the face of Francis that his features suggested.
+
+It was mine!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next moment I found myself in No. 33. I could see no sign of the key
+of the room; Semlin must have dropped it in his fall, so it behoved me
+to make haste for fear of any untoward interruption. I had not yet heard
+eleven strike on the clock.
+
+The stranger's hat and overcoat lay on a chair. The hat was from
+Scott's: there was nothing except a pair of leather gloves in the
+overcoat pockets.
+
+A bag, in size something between a small kit-bag and a large handbag,
+stood open on the table. It contained a few toilet necessaries, a pair
+of pyjamas, a clean shirt, a pair of slippers, ... nothing of importance
+and not a scrap of paper of any kind.
+
+I went through everything again, looked in the sponge bag, opened the
+safety razor case, shook out the shirt, and finally took everything out
+of the bag and stacked the things on the table.
+
+At the bottom of the bag I made a strange discovery. The interior of
+the bag was fitted with that thin yellow canvas-like material with which
+nearly all cheap bags, like this one was, are lined. At the bottom of
+the bag an oblong piece of the lining had apparently been torn clean
+out. The leather of the bag showed through the slit. Yet the lining
+round the edges of the gap showed no fraying, no trace of rough usage.
+On the contrary, the edges were pasted neatly down on the leather.
+
+I lifted the bag and examined it. As I did so I saw lying on the table
+beside it an oblong of yellow canvas. I picked it up and found the under
+side stained with paste and the brown of the leather.
+
+It was the missing piece of lining and it was stiff with something that
+crackled inside it.
+
+I slit the piece of canvas up one side with my penknife. It contained
+three long fragments of paper, a thick, expensive, highly glazed paper.
+Top, bottom and left-hand side of each was trim and glossy: the fourth
+side showed a broken edge as though it had been roughly cut with a
+knife. The three slips of paper were the halves of three quarto sheets
+of writing, torn in two, lengthways, from top to bottom.
+
+At the top of each slip was part of some kind of crest in gold, what, it
+was not possible to determine, for the crest had been in the centre of
+the sheet and the cut had gone right through it.
+
+The letter was written in English but the name of the recipient as also
+the date was on the missing half.
+
+Somewhere in the silence of the night I heard a door bang. I thrust the
+slips of paper in their canvas covering into my trousers pocket. I must
+not be found in that room. With trembling hands I started to put the
+things back in the bag. Those slips of paper, I reflected as I worked,
+at least rent the veil of mystery enveloping the corpse that lay
+stiffening in the next room. This, at any rate, was certain: German or
+American or hyphenate, Henry Semlin, manufacturer and spy, had voyaged
+from America to England not for the purposes of trade but to get hold of
+that mutilated document now reposing in my pocket. Why he had only got
+half the letter and what had happened to the other half was more than I
+could say ... it sufficed for me to know that its importance to somebody
+was sufficient to warrant a journey on its behalf from one side to the
+other of the Atlantic.
+
+As I opened the bag my fingers encountered a hard substance, as of
+metal, embedded in the slack of the lining in the joints of the mouth.
+At first I thought it was a coin, then I felt some kind of clasp or
+fastening behind it and it seemed to be a brooch. Out came my pocket
+knife again and there lay a small silver star, about as big as a
+regimental cap badge, embedded in the thin canvas. It bore an
+inscription. In stencilled letters I read:
+
+O2 G
+Abt. VII.
+
+Here was Dr. Semlin's real visiting-card.
+
+I held in my hand a badge of the German secret police.
+
+You cannot penetrate far behind the scenes in Germany without coming
+across the traces of Section Seven of the Berlin Police Presidency, the
+section that is known euphemistically as that of the Political Police.
+Ostensibly it attends to the safety of the monarch, and of distinguished
+personages generally, and the numerous suite that used to accompany the
+Kaiser on his visits to England invariably included two or three
+top-hatted representatives of the section.
+
+The ramifications of _Abteilung Sieben_ are, in reality, much wider. It
+does such work in connection with the newspapers as is even too dirty
+for the German Foreign Office to touch, comprising everything from the
+launching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets against
+inconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthful
+foreign correspondents to the frontier. It is the obedient handmaiden of
+the Intelligence Department of both War Office and Admiralty in Germany,
+and renders faithful service to the espionage which is constantly
+maintained on officials, politicians, the clergy and the general public
+in that land of careful organisation.
+
+Section Seven is a vast subterranean department. Always working in the
+dark, its political complexion is a handy cloak for blacker and more
+sinister activities. It is frequently entrusted with commissions of
+which it would be inexpedient for official Germany to have cognizance
+and of which, accordingly, official Germany can always safely repudiate
+when occasion demands.
+
+I thrust the pin of the badge into my braces and fastened it there,
+crammed the rest of the dead man's effects into his bag, stuck his hat
+upon my head and threw his overcoat on my arm, picked up his bag and
+crept away. In another minute I was back in my room, my brain aflame
+with the fire of a great enterprise.
+
+Here, to my hand, lay the key of that locked land which held the secret
+of my lost brother. The question I had been asking myself, ever since I
+had first discovered the dead man's American papers of identity, was
+this. Had I the nerve to avail myself of Semlin's American passport to
+get into Germany? The answer to that question lay in the little silver
+badge. I knew that no German official, whatever his standing, whatever
+his orders, would refuse passage to the silver star of Section Seven. It
+need only be used, too, as a last resource, for I had my papers as a
+neutral. Could I but once set foot in Germany, I was quite ready to
+depend on my wits to see me through. One advantage, I knew, I must
+forgo. That was the half-letter in its canvas case.
+
+If that document was of importance to Section Seven of the German
+Police, then it was of equal, nay, of greater importance to my country.
+If I went, that should remain behind in safe keeping. On that I was
+determined.
+
+"Never before, since the war began," I told myself, "can any Englishman
+have had such an opportunity vouchsafed to him for getting easily and
+safely into that jealously guarded land as you have now! You have plenty
+of money, what with your own and this ..." and I fingered Semlin's wad
+of notes, "and provided you can keep your head sufficiently to remember
+always that you are a German, once over the frontier you should be able
+to give the Huns the slip and try and follow up the trail of poor
+Francis.
+
+"And maybe," I argued further (so easily is one's better judgment
+defeated when one is young and set on a thing), "maybe in German
+surroundings, you may get some sense into that mysterious jingle you got
+from Dicky Allerton as the sole existing clue to the disappearance of
+Francis."
+
+Nevertheless, I wavered. The risks were awful. I had to get out of that
+evil hotel in the guise of Dr. Semlin, with, as the sole safeguard
+against exposure, should I fall in with the dead man's employers or
+friends, that slight and possibly imaginative resemblance between him
+and me: I had to take such measures as would prevent the fraud from
+being detected when the body was discovered in the hotel: above all, I
+had to ascertain, before I could definitely resolve to push on into
+Germany, whether Semlin was already known to the people at the hotel or
+whether--as I surmised to be the case--this was also his first visit to
+the house in the Vos in't Tuintje.
+
+In any case, I was quite determined in my own mind that the only way to
+get out of the place with Semlin's document without considerable
+unpleasantness, if not grave danger, would be to transfer his identity
+and effects to myself and vice versa. When I saw the way a little
+clearer I could decide whether to take the supreme risk and adventure
+myself into the enemy's country.
+
+Whatever I was going to do, there were not many hours of the night left
+in which to act, and I was determined to be out of that house of ill
+omen before day dawned. If I could get clear of the hotel and at the
+same time ascertain that Semlin was as much a stranger there as myself,
+I could decide on my further course of action in the greater freedom of
+the streets of Rotterdam. One thing was certain: the waiter had let the
+question of Semlin's papers stand over until the morning, as he had done
+in my case, for Semlin still had his passport in his possession.
+
+After all, if Semlin was unknown at the hotel, the waiter had only seen
+him for the same brief moment as he had seen me.
+
+Thus I reasoned and argued with myself, but in the meantime I acted. I
+had nothing compromising in my suit-case, so that caused no difficulty.
+My British passport and permit and anything bearing any relation to my
+personality, such as my watch and cigarette case, both of which were
+engraved with my initials, I transferred to the dead man's pockets. As I
+bent over the stiff, cold figure with its livid face and clutching
+fingers, I felt a difficulty which I had hitherto resolutely shirked
+forcing itself squarely into the forefront of my mind.
+
+What was I going to do about the body?
+
+At that moment came a low knocking.
+
+With a sudden sinking at the heart I remembered I had forgotten to lock
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE LADY OF THE VOS IN'T TUINTJE
+
+
+Here was Destiny knocking at the door. In that instant my mind was made
+up. For the moment, at any rate, I had every card in my hands. I would
+bluff these stodgy Huns: I would brazen it out: I would be Semlin and go
+through with it to the bitter end, aye, and if it took me to the very
+gates of Hell.
+
+The knocking was repeated.
+
+"May one come in?" said a woman's voice in German.
+
+I stepped across the corpse and opened the door a foot or so.
+
+There stood a woman with a lamp. She was a middle-aged woman with an
+egg-shaped face, fat and white and puffy, and pale, crafty eyes. She was
+in her outdoor clothes, with an enormous vulgar-looking hat and an
+old-fashioned sealskin cape with a high collar. The cape which was
+glistening with rain was half open, and displayed a vast bosom tightly
+compressed into a white silk blouse. In one hand she carried an oil
+lamp.
+
+"Frau Schratt," she said by way of introduction, and raised the lamp to
+look more closely at me.
+
+Then I saw her face change. She was looking past me into the room, and I
+knew that the lamplight was falling full upon the ghastly thing that lay
+upon the floor.
+
+I realized the woman was about to scream, so I seized her by the wrist.
+She had disgusting hands, fat and podgy and covered with rings.
+
+"Quiet!" I whispered fiercely in her ear, never relaxing my grip on her
+wrist. "You will be quiet and come in here, do you understand?"
+
+She sought to shrink from me, but I held her fast and drew her into the
+room.
+
+She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse. She
+seemed to have regained her self-possession. The woman was no longer
+frightened. I felt instinctively that her fears had been all for
+herself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor. When she
+spoke her manner was almost business-like.
+
+"I was told nothing of this," she said. "Who is it? What do you want me
+to do?"
+
+Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant
+odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of
+death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking
+in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that
+makes my blood run cold whenever I think of her.
+
+Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed. She became
+polite. She was obsequious. Of the two, the first manner became her
+vastly better. She looked at me with a curious air, almost with
+reverence, as it seemed to me. She said, in a purring voice:
+
+"Ach, so! I did not understand. The gentleman must excuse me."
+
+And she purred again:
+
+"So!"
+
+It was then I noticed that her eyes were fastened upon my chest. I
+followed their direction.
+
+They rested on the silver badge I had stuck in my braces.
+
+I understood and held my peace. Silence was my only trump until I knew
+how the land lay. If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all I
+wanted to know.
+
+In fact, she began to speak again.
+
+"I expected _you_," she said, "but not... _this_. Who is it this time? A
+Frenchman, eh?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"An Englishman," I said curtly.
+
+Her eyes opened in wonder.
+
+"Ach, nein!" she cried--and you would have said her voice vibrated with
+pleasure--"An Englishman! Ei, ei!"
+
+If ever a human being licked its chops, that woman did.
+
+She wagged her head and repeated to herself:
+
+"Ei, ei !" adding, as if to explain her surprise, "he is the first we
+have had.
+
+"You brought him here, eh! But why up here? Or did der Stelze send him?"
+
+She fired this string of questions at me without pausing for a reply.
+She continued:
+
+"I was out, but Karl told me. There was another came, too: Franz sent
+him."
+
+"This is he," I said. "I caught him prying in my room and he died."
+
+"Ach!" she ejaculated ... and in her voice was all the world of
+admiration that a German woman feels for brute man.... "The Herr
+Englander came into your room and he died. So, so! But one must speak to
+Franz. The man drinks too much. He is always drunk. He makes mistakes.
+It will not do. I will...."
+
+"I wish you to do nothing against Franz," I said. "This Englishman spoke
+German well: Karl will tell you."
+
+"As the gentleman wishes," was the woman's reply in a voice so silky and
+so servile that I felt my gorge rise.
+
+"She looks like a slug!" I said to myself, as she stood there, fat and
+sleek and horrible.
+
+"Here are his passport and other papers," I said, bending down and
+taking them from the dead man's pocket. "He was an English officer, you
+see?" And I unfolded the little black book stamped with the Royal Arms.
+
+She leant forward and I was all but stifled with the stale odour of the
+patchouli with which her faded body was drenched.
+
+Then, making a sheaf of passport and permit, I held them in the flame of
+the candle.
+
+"But we always keep them!" expostulated the hotel-keeper.
+
+"This passport must die with the man," I replied firmly. "He must not be
+traced. I want no awkward enquiries made, you understand. Therefore ..."
+and I flung the burning mass of papers into the grate.
+
+"Good, good!" said the German and put her lamp down on the table. "There
+was a telephone message for you," she added, "to say that der Stelze
+will come at eight in the morning to receive what you have brought."
+
+The deuce! This was getting awkward. Who the devil was Stelze?
+
+"Coming at eight is he?" I said, simply for the sake of saying
+something.
+
+"Jawohl!" replied Frau Schratt. "He was here already this morning. He
+was nervous, oh! very, and expected you to be here. Already two days he
+is waiting here to go on."
+
+"So," I said, "he is going to take ... _it_ on with him, is he?" (I
+knew where he was "going on" to, well enough: he was going to see that
+document safe into Germany.)
+
+There was a malicious ring in the woman's voice when she spoke of
+Stelze. I thought I might profit by this. So I drew her out.
+
+"So Stelze called to-day and gave you his orders, did he?" I said,
+"and ... and took charge of things generally, eh?"
+
+Her little eyes snapped viciously.
+
+"Ach!" she said, "der Stelze is der Stelze. He has power; he has
+authority; he can make and unmake men. But I ... I in my time have
+broken a dozen better men than he and yet he dares to tell Anna Schratt
+that ... that ..."
+
+She raised her voice hysterically, but broke off before she could finish
+the sentence. I saw she thought she had said too much.
+
+"He won't play that game with me," I said. Strength is the quality that
+every German, man, woman and child, respects, and strength alone. My
+safety depended on my showing this ignoble creature that I received
+orders from no one. "You know what he is. One runs the risk, one takes
+trouble, one is successful. Then he steps in and gathers the laurels.
+No, I am not going to wait for him."
+
+The hotel-keeper sprang to her feet, her faded face all ravaged by the
+shadow of a great fear.
+
+"You wouldn't dare!" she said.
+
+"I would," I retorted. "I've done my work and I'll report to
+head-quarters and to no one else!"
+
+My eyes fell upon the body.
+
+"Now, what are we going to do with this?" I said. "You must help me,
+Frau Schratt. This is serious. This must not be found here."
+
+She looked up at me in surprise.
+
+"That?" she said, and she kicked the body with her foot. "Oh, that will
+be all right with die Schratt! 'It must not be found here'" (she
+mimicked my grave tone). "It will not be found here, young man!"
+
+And she chuckled with all the full-bodied good humour of a fat person.
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I mean what I mean, young man, and what you mean," she replied. "When
+they are in a difficulty, when there are complications, when there is
+any unpleasantness.. like _this_ ... they remember die Schratt, 'die
+fesche Anna,' as they called me once, and it is 'gnadige Frau' here and
+'gnadige Frau' there and a diamond bracelet or a pearl ring, if only I
+will do the little conjuring trick that will smooth everything over. But
+when all goes well, then I am 'old Schratt,' 'old hag,' 'old woman,' and
+I must take my orders and beg nicely and ... bah!"
+
+Her words ended in a gulp, which in any other woman would have been a
+sob.
+
+Then she added in her hard harlot's voice:
+
+"You needn't worry your head about _him,_ there! Leave him to me! It's
+my trade!"
+
+At those words, which covered God only knows what horrors of midnight
+disappearances, of ghoulish rites with packing-case and sack, in the
+dark cellars of that evil house, I felt that, could I but draw back from
+the enterprise to which I had so rashly committed myself, I would do so
+gladly. Only then did I begin to realize something of the utter
+ruthlessness, the cold, calculating ferocity, of the most bitter and
+most powerful enemy which the British Empire has ever had.
+
+But it was too late to withdraw now. The die was cast. Destiny, knocking
+at my door, had found me ready to follow, and I was committed to
+whatever might befall me in my new personality.
+
+The German woman turned to go.
+
+"Der Stelze will be here at eight, then," she said. "I suppose the
+gentleman will take his early morning coffee before."
+
+"I shan't be here," I said. "You can tell your friend I've gone."
+
+She turned on me like a flash.
+
+She was hard as flint again.
+
+"Nein!" she cried. "You stay here!"
+
+"No," I answered with equal force, "not I ..."
+
+"... Orders are orders and you and I must obey!"
+
+"But who is Stelze that he should give orders to me?" I cried.
+
+"Who is...?" She spoke aghast.
+
+"... And you yourself," I continued, "were saying ..."
+
+"When an order has been given, what you or I think or say is of no
+account," the woman said. "It is an order: you and I know _whose_ order.
+Let that suffice. You stay here! Good night!"
+
+With that she was gone. She closed the door behind her; the key rattled
+in the lock and I realized that I was a prisoner. I heard the woman's
+footfalls die away down the corridor.
+
+That distant clock cleaved the silence of the night with twelve
+ponderous strokes. Then the chimes played a pretty jingling little tune
+that rang out clearly in the still, rain-washed air.
+
+I stood petrified and reflected on my next move.
+
+Twelve o'clock! I had eight hours' grace before Stelze, the man of
+mystery and might, arrived to unmask me and hand me over to the tender
+mercies of Madame and of Karl. Before eight o'clock arrived I must--so I
+summed up my position--be clear of the hotel and in the train for the
+German frontier--if I could get a train--else I must be out of
+Rotterdam, by that hour.
+
+But I must _act_ and act without delay. There was no knowing when that
+dead man lying on the floor might procure me another visit from Madame
+and her myrmidons. The sooner I was out of that house of death the
+better.
+
+The door was solid; the lock was strong. That I discovered without any
+trouble. In any case, I reflected, the front-door of the hotel would be
+barred and bolted at this hour of the night, and I could scarcely dare
+hope to escape by the front without detection, even if Karl were not
+actually in the entrance hall. There must be a back entrance to the
+hotel, I thought, for I had seen that the windows of my room opened on
+to the narrow street lining the canal which ran at the back of the
+house.
+
+Escape by the windows was impossible. The front of the house dropped
+sheer down and there was nothing to give one a foothold. But I
+remembered the window in the _cabinet de toilette_ giving on to the
+little air-shaft. That seemed to offer a slender chance of escape.
+
+For the second time that night I opened the casement and inhaled the
+fetid odours arising from the narrow court. All the windows looking,
+like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a light
+still burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair to
+the little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry,
+but I thought I could recognize the outline of a door.
+
+From the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ to the yard the sides of
+the house, cased in stained and dirty stucco, fell sheer away. Measured
+with the eye the drop from window to the pavement was about fifty feet.
+With a rope and something to break one's fall, it might, I fancied, be
+managed....
+
+From that on, things moved swiftly. First with my penknife I ripped the
+tailor's tab with my name from the inside pocket of my coat and burnt it
+in the candle; nothing else I had on was marked, for I had had to buy a
+lot of new garments when I came out of hospital. I took Semlin's
+overcoat, hat and bag into the _cabinet de toilette_ and stood them in
+readiness by the window. As a precaution against surprise I pushed the
+massive mahogany bedstead right across the doorway and thus barricaded
+the entrance to the room.
+
+From either side of the fireplace hung two bell-ropes, twisted silk
+cords of faded crimson with dusty tassels. Mounting on the mantelpiece I
+cut the bell-ropes off short where they joined the wire. Testing them I
+found them apparently solid--at any rate they must serve. I knotted them
+together.
+
+Back to the _cabinet de toilette_ I went to find a suitable object to
+which to fasten my rope. There was nothing in the little room save the
+washstand, and that was fragile and quite unsuited for the purpose. I
+noticed that the window was fitted with shutters on the outside
+fastened back against the wall. They had not been touched for years, I
+should say, for the iron peg holding them back was heavy with rust and
+the shutters were covered with dust. I closed the left-hand shutter and
+found that it fastened solidly to the window-frame by means of massive
+iron bolts, top and bottom.
+
+Here was the required support for my rope. The poker thrust though the
+wooden slips of the shutter held the rope quite solidly. I attached my
+rope to the poker with an expert knot that I had picked up at a course
+in tying knots during a preposterously dull week I had spent at the base
+in France. Then I dragged from the bed the gigantic eiderdown pincushion
+and the two massive pillows, stripping off the pillow-slips lest their
+whiteness might attract attention whilst they were fulfilling the
+unusual mission for which I destined them.
+
+At the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ I listened a moment. All was
+silent as the grave. Resolutely I pitched out the eiderdown into the
+dark and dirty air shaft. It sailed gracefully earthwards and settled
+with a gentle plop on the stones of the tiny yard. The pillows followed.
+The heavier thud they would have made was deadened by the billowy mass
+of the _edredon_. Semlin's bag went next, and made no sound to speak of;
+then his overcoat and hat followed suit.
+
+I noticed, with a grateful heart, that the eiderdown and pillows
+covered practically the whole of the flags of the yard.
+
+I went back once more to the room and blew out the candle. Then, taking
+a short hold on my silken rope, I clambered out over the window ledge
+and started to let myself down, hand over hand, into the depths.
+
+My two bell-ropes, knotted together, were about twenty feet long, so I
+had to reckon on a clear drop of something over thirty feet. The poker
+and shutter held splendidly firm, and I found little difficulty in
+lowering myself, though I barked my knuckles most unpleasantly on the
+rough stucco of the wall. As I reached the extremity of my rope I
+glanced downward. The red splash of the eiderdown, just visible in the
+light from the adjoining window, seemed to be a horrible distance below
+me. My spirit failed me. My determination began to ebb. I could never
+risk it.
+
+The rope settled the question for me. It snapped without warning--how it
+had supported my weight up to then I don't know--and I fell in a heap
+(and, as it seemed to me at the time, with a most reverberating crash)
+on to the soft divan I had prepared for my reception.
+
+I came down hard, very hard, but old Madame's plump eiderdown and
+pillows certainly helped to break my fall. I dropped square on top of
+the eiderdown with one knee on a pillow and, though shaken and jarred, I
+found I had broken no bones.
+
+Nor did my sense leave me. In a minute I was up on my feet again. I
+listened. All was still silent. I cast a glance upwards. The window from
+which I had descended was still dark. I could see the broken bell-ropes
+dangling from the shutter, and I noted, with a glow of professional
+pride, that my expert join between the two ropes had not given. The
+lower rope had parted in the middle ....
+
+I crammed Semlin's hat on my head, retrieved his bag and overcoat from
+the corner of the court where they had fallen and the next moment was
+tiptoeing down the ladder.
+
+The iron stair ran down beside the window in which I had seen the light
+burning. The lower part of the window was screened off by a dirty muslin
+curtain. Through the upper part I caught a glimpse of a sort of scullery
+with a paraffin lamp standing on a wooden table. The room was empty.
+From top to bottom the window was protected by heavy iron bars.
+
+At the foot of the iron stair stood, as I had anticipated, a door. It
+was my last chance of escape. It stood a dozen yards from the bottom of
+the ladder across a dank, little paved area where tins of refuse were
+standing--a small door with a brass handle.
+
+I ducked low as I clambered down the iron ladder so as not to be seen
+from the window should anyone enter the scullery as I passed. Treading
+very softly I crept across the little area and, as quietly as I could,
+turned the handle of the door.
+
+It turned round easily in my hand, but nothing happened.
+
+The door was locked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+I BOARD THE BERLIN TRAIN AND LEAVE A LAME GENTLEMAN ON THE PLATFORM
+
+
+I was caught like a rat in a trap. I could not return by the way I had
+come and the only egress was closed to me. The area door and window were
+the only means of escape from the little court. The one was locked, the
+other barred. I was fairly trapped. All I had to do now was to wait
+until my absence was discovered and the broken rope found to show them
+where I was. Then they would come down to the area, I should be
+confronted with the man, Stelze, and my goose would be fairly cooked.
+
+As quietly as I could I made a complete, thorough, rapid examination of
+the area. It was a dank, dark place, only lit where the yellow light
+streamed forth from the scullery. It had a couple of low bays hollowed
+out of the masonry under the little courtyard, the one filled with wood
+blocks, the other with broken packingcases, old bottles and like
+rubbish. I explored these until my hands came in contact with the damp
+bricks at the back, but in vain. Door and window remained the only
+means of escape.
+
+Four tall tin refuse tins stood in line in front of these two bays, a
+fifth was stowed away under the iron stair. They were all nearly full of
+refuse, so were useless as hiding places. In any case it accorded
+neither with the part I was playing nor with my sense of the ludicrous
+to be discovered by the hotel domestics hiding in a refuse bin.
+
+I was at my wits' end to know what to do. I had dared so much, all had
+gone so surprisingly well, that it was heartbreaking to be foiled with
+liberty almost within my grasp. A great wave of disappointment swept
+over me until I felt my very heart sicken. Then I heard footsteps and
+hope revived within me.
+
+I shrunk back into the darkness of the area behind the refuse bins
+standing in front of the bay nearest the door.
+
+Within the house footsteps were approaching the scullery. I heard a door
+open, then a man's voice singing. He was warbling in a fine mellow
+baritone that popular German ballad:
+
+"Das haben die Maedchen so gerne
+Die im Stuebchen und die im _Salong."_
+
+The voice hung lovingly and wavered and trilled on that word _"Salong"_:
+the effect was so much to the singer's liking that he sang the stave
+over again. A bumping and a rattle as of loose objects in an empty box
+formed the accompaniment to his song.
+
+"A cheery fellow!" I said to myself. If only I could see who it was! But
+I dare not move into that patch of yellow light from which the only view
+into the scullery was afforded.
+
+The singing stopped. Again I heard a door open. Was he going away?
+
+Then I saw a thin shaft of light under the area door.
+
+The next moment it was flung back and the waiter, Karl, appeared, still
+in his blue apron, a bucket in either hand.
+
+He was coming to the refuse bins.
+
+Pudd'n Head Wilson's advice came into my mind; "When angry count up to
+four; when very angry, swear." I was not angry but scared, terribly
+scared, scared so that I could hear my heart pulsating in great thuds in
+my ears. Nevertheless, I followed the advice of the sage of Dawson's
+Landing and counted to myself: one, two, three, four, one, two, three,
+four; while my heart hammered out: Keep cool, keep cool, keep cool! And
+all the time I remained crouching behind the first two refuse bins
+nearest the door.
+
+The waiter hummed to himself the melody of his little ditty in a deep
+bourdon as he paused a moment at the door. Then he advanced slowly
+across the area.
+
+Would he stop at the refuse bins behind which I cowered?
+
+No, he passed them.
+
+The third? The fourth?
+
+No!
+
+He walked straight across the area and went to the bin beneath the
+stairs.
+
+I muttered a blessing inwardly on the careful habits of the German who
+organizes even his refuse into separate tubs.
+
+The man had his back to the door.
+
+Now or never was my chance.
+
+I crawled round my friendly garbage tins, reached the area door on
+tip-toe and stepped softly into the house. As I did so I heard the clank
+of tin as Karl replaced the lid of the tub.
+
+A dark passage stretched out in front of me. Immediately to my right was
+the scullery door wide open. I must avoid the scullery at all costs. The
+man might remain there and I could not risk him driving me before him
+back to the entrance hall of the hotel.
+
+I crept down the dark passage with hands outstretched. Presently they
+fell upon the latch of a door. I pressed it, the door opened inwards
+into the darkness and I passed through. As I softly closed the door
+behind me I heard Karl's heavy step and the grinding of the key as he
+locked the area door.
+
+I stood in a kind of cupboard in pitch darkness, hardly daring to
+breathe.
+
+Once more I heard the man singing his idiotic song. I did not dare look
+out from my hiding-place, for his voice sounded so near that I feared he
+might be still in the passage.
+
+So I stood and waited.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I must have stayed there for an hour in the dark. I heard the waiter
+coming and going in the scullery, listened to his heavy tramp, to his
+everlasting snatch of song, to the rattle of utensils, as he went about
+his work. Every minute of the time I was tortured by the apprehension
+that he would come to the cupboard in the passage.
+
+It was cold in that damp subterranean place. The cupboard was roomy
+enough, so I thought I would put on the overcoat I was carrying. As I
+stretched out my arm, my hand struck hard against some kind of
+projecting hook in the wall behind me.
+
+"Damn!" I swore savagely under my breath, but I put out my hand again to
+find out what had hurt me. My fingers encountered the cold iron of a
+latch. I pressed it and it gave.
+
+A door swung open and I found myself in another little area with a
+flight of stone steps leading to the street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was in a narrow lane driven between the tall sides of the houses. It
+was a cul-de-sac. At the open end I could see the glimmer of street
+lamps. It had stopped raining and the air was fresh and pleasant.
+Carrying my bag I walked briskly down the lane and presently emerged in
+a quiet thoroughfare traversed by a canal--probably the street, I
+thought, that I had seen from the windows of my bedroom. The Hotel Sixt
+lay to the right of the lane: I struck out to the left and in a few
+minutes found myself in an open square behind the Bourse.
+
+There I found a cab-rank with three or four cabs drawn up in line, the
+horses somnolent, the drivers snoring inside their vehicles. I stirred
+up the first and bade the driver take me to the Cafe Tarnowski.
+
+Everyone who has been to Holland knows the Cafe Tarnowski at Rotterdam.
+It is an immense place with hundreds of marble-topped tables tucked away
+among palms under a vast glazed roof. Day or night it never closes: the
+waiters succeed each other in shifts: day and night the great hall
+resounds to the cry of orders, the patter of the waiters' feet, the
+click of dominoes on the marble tables.
+
+Delicious Dutch cafe au lait, a beefsteak and fried potatoes, most
+succulent of all Dutch dishes, crisp white bread, hot from the midnight
+baking, and appetizing Dutch butter, largely compensated for the thrills
+of the night. Then I sent for some more coffee, black this time, and a
+railway guide, and lighting a cigarette began to frame my plan of
+campaign.
+
+The train for Berlin left Rotterdam at seven in the morning. It was now
+ten minutes past two, so I had plenty of time. From that night onward, I
+told myself, I was a German, and from that moment I set myself
+assiduously to _feel_ myself a German as well as enact the part.
+
+"It's no use dressing a part," Francis used to say to me; "you must
+_feel_ it as well. If I were going to disguise myself as a Berliner, I
+should not be content to shave my head and wear a bowler hat with a
+morning coat and get my nails manicured pink. I should begin by
+persuading myself that I was the Lord of creation, that bad manners is a
+sign of manly strength and that dishonesty is the highest form of
+diplomacy. Then only should I set about getting the costume!"
+
+Poor old Francis! How shrewd he was and how well he knew his Berliners!
+
+There is nothing like newspapers for giving one an idea of national
+sentiment. I had not spoken to a German, save to a few terrified German
+rats, prisoners of war in France, since the beginning of the war and I
+knew that my knowledge of German thought must be rusty. So I sent the
+willing waiter for all the German papers and periodicals he could lay
+his hands on. He returned with stacks of them, _Berliner Tageblatt,
+Kelnische Zeitung, Vorwerts;_ the alleged comic papers, _Kladderadatsch,
+Lustige Bletter_ and _Simplicissimus;_ the illustrated press, _Leipziger
+Illustrirte Zeitung, Der Weltkrieg im Bild,_ and the rest: that
+remarkable cafe even took in such less popular publications as Harden's
+_Zukunft_ and semi-blackmailing rags like _Der Roland von Berlin._
+
+For two hours I saturated myself with German contemporary thought as
+expressed in the German press. I deliberately laid my mind open to
+conviction; I repeated to myself over and over again: "We Germans are
+fighting a defensive war: the scoundrelly Grey made the world-war: Gott
+strafe England!" Absurd as this proceeding seems to me when I look back
+upon it, I would not laugh at myself at the time. I must be German, I
+must feel German, I must think German: on that would my safety in the
+immediate future depend.
+
+I laid aside my reading in the end with a feeling of utter amazement. In
+every one of these publications, in peace-time so widely dissimilar in
+conviction and trend, I found the same mentality, the same outlook, the
+same parrot-like cries. What the _Cologne Gazette_ shrieked from its
+editorial columns, the comic (God save the mark) press echoed in foul
+and hideous caricature. Here was organization with a vengeance, the
+mobilization of national thought, a series of gramophone records fed
+into a thousand different machines so that each might play the selfsame
+tune.
+
+"You needn't worry about your German mentality," I told myself, "you've
+got it all here! You've only got to be a parrot like the rest and you'll
+be as good a Hun as Hindenburg!"
+
+A Continental waiter, they say, can get one anything one chooses to ask
+for at any hour of the day or night. I was about to put this theory to
+the test.
+
+"Waiter," I said (of course, in German), "I want a bag, a handbag. Do
+you think you could get me one?"
+
+"Does the gentleman want it now?" the man replied.
+
+"This very minute," I answered.
+
+"About that size?"--indicating Semlin's. "Yes, or smaller if you like: I
+am not particular."
+
+"I will see what can be done."
+
+In ten minutes the man was back with a brown leather bag about a size
+smaller than Semlin's. It was not new and he charged me thirty gulden
+(which is about fifty shillings) for it. I paid with a willing heart and
+tipped him generously to boot, for I wanted a bag and could not wait
+till the shops opened without missing the train for Germany.
+
+I paid my bill and drove off to the Central Station through the dark
+streets with my two bags. The clocks were striking six as I entered
+under the great glass dome of the station hall.
+
+I went straight to the booking-office, and bought a first-class ticket,
+single, to Berlin. One never knows what may happen and I had several
+things to do before the train went.
+
+The bookstall was just opening. I purchased a sovereign's worth of books
+and magazines, English, French and German, and crammed them into the bag
+I had procured at the cafe. Thus laden I adjourned to the station
+buffet.
+
+There I set about executing a scheme I had evolved for leaving the
+document which Semlin had brought from England in a place of safety,
+whence it could be recovered without difficulty, should anything happen
+to me. I knew no one in Holland save Dicky, and I could not send him the
+document, for I did not trust the post. For the same reason I would not
+post the document home to my bank in England: besides, I knew one could
+not register letters until eight o'clock, by which hour I hoped to be
+well on my way into Germany.
+
+No, my bag, conveniently weighted with books and deposited at the
+station cloak-room, should be my safe. The comparative security of
+station cloak-rooms as safe deposits has long been recognized by jewel
+thieves and the like and this means of leaving my document behind in
+safety seemed to me to be better than any other I could think of.
+
+So I dived into my bag and from the piles of literature it contained
+picked up a book at random. It was a German brochure: _Gott strafe
+England!_ by Prof. Dr. Hugo Bischoff, of the University of Goettingen.
+The irony of the thing appealed to my sense of humour. "So be it!" I
+said. "The worthy Professor's fulminations against my country shall have
+the honour of harbouring the document which is, apparently, of such
+value to _his_ country!" And I tucked the little canvas case away inside
+the pages of the pamphlet, stuck the pamphlet deep down among the books
+and shut the bag.
+
+Seeing its harmless appearance the cloak-room receipt--I
+calculated--would, unlike Semlin's document, attract no attention if, by
+any mischance, it fell into wrong hands _en route._ I therefore did not
+scruple to commit it to the post. Before taking my bag of books to the
+cloak-room I wrote two letters. Both were to Ashcroft--Ashcroft of the
+Foreign Office, who got me my passport and permit to come to Rotterdam.
+Herbert Ashcroft and I were old friends. I addressed the envelopes to
+his private house in London. The Postal Censor, I knew, keen though he
+always is after letters from neutral countries, would leave old
+Herbert's correspondence alone.
+
+The first letter was brief. "Dear Herbert," I wrote, "would you mind
+looking after the enclosed until you hear from me again? Filthy weather
+here. Yours, D.O." This letter was destined to contain the cloak-room
+receipt. To conceal the importance of an enclosure, it is always a good
+dodge to send the covering letter under separate cover.
+
+"Dear Herbert," I said in my second letter, "If you don't hear from me
+within two months of this date regarding the enclosure you will have
+already received, please send someone, or, preferably, go yourself and
+collect my luggage at the cloak-room of the Rotterdam Central Station. I
+know how busy you always are. Therefore you will understand my reasons
+for making this inordinate claim upon your time. Yours, D.O." And, by
+way of a clue, I added, inconsequently enough: _"Gott strafe England!"_
+
+I chuckled inwardly at the thought of Herbert's face on receiving this
+preposterous demand that he should abandon his dusty desk in Downing
+Street and betake himself across the North Sea to fetch my luggage. But
+he'd go all right. I knew my Herbert, dull and dry and conventional, but
+a most faithful friend.
+
+I called a porter at the entrance of the buffet and handing him Semlin's
+bag and overcoat, bade him find me a first-class carriage in the Berlin
+train when it arrived. I would meet him on the platform. Then, at the
+cloak-room opposite, I gave in my bag of books, put the receipt in the
+first letter and posted it in the letter-box within the station. I went
+out into the streets with the second letter and posted it in a
+letter-box let into the wall of a tobacconist's shop in a quiet street a
+few turnings away. By this arrangement I reckoned Herbert would get the
+letter with the receipt before the covering letter arrived.
+
+Returning to the railway station I noticed a kind of slop shop which
+despite the early hour was already open. A fat Jew in his shirt-sleeves,
+his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, stood at the entrance framed in
+hanging overcoats and bats and boots. I had no umbrella and it struck me
+that a waterproof of some kind might not be a bad addition to my
+extremely scanty wardrobe. Moreover, I reflected that with the rubber
+shortage rain-coats must be at a premium in Germany.
+
+So I followed the bowing son of Shem into his dark and dirty shop and
+emerged presently wearing an appallingly ugly green mackintosh reeking
+hideously of rubber. It was a shocking garment but I reflected that I
+was a German and must choose my garb accordingly.
+
+Outside the shop I nearly ran into a little man who was loafing in the
+doorway. He was a wizened, scrubby old fellow wearing a dirty peaked cap
+with a band of tarnished gold. I knew him at once for one of those
+guides, half tout, half bully, that infest the railway termini of all
+great Continental cities.
+
+"Want a guide, sir?" the man said in German.
+
+I shook my head and hurried on. The man trotted beside me. "Want a good,
+cheap hotel, sir? Good, respectable house.... Want a ..."
+
+"Ach! gehen sie zum Teufel!" I cried angrily. But the man persisted,
+running along beside me and reeling off his tout's patter in a wheezing,
+asthmatic voice. I struck off blindly down the first turning we came to,
+hoping to be rid of the fellow, but in vain. Finally, I stopped and held
+out a gulden.
+
+"Take this and go away!" I said.
+
+The old fellow waved the coin aside.
+
+"Danke, danke," he said nonchalantly, looking at the same time to right
+and left.
+
+Then he said in a calm English voice, utterly different from his whining
+accents of a moment before:
+
+"You must be a dam' cool hand!"
+
+But he didn't bluff me, staggered though I was. I said quickly in
+German:
+
+"What do you want with me? I don't understand you. If you annoy me any
+more I shall call the police!"
+
+Again he spoke in English and it was the voice of a well-bred Englishman
+that spoke:
+
+"You're either a past master at the game or raving mad. Why! the whole
+station is humming after you! Yet you walked out of the buffet and
+through the whole lot of them without turning a hair. No wonder they
+never spotted you!"
+
+Again I answered in German:
+
+"Ich verstehe nicht!"
+
+But he went on in English, without seeming to notice my observation:
+
+"Hang it all, man, you can't go into Germany wearing a regimental tie!"
+
+My hand flew to my collar and the blood to my head. What a cursed
+amateur I was, after all! I had entirely forgotten that I was wearing my
+regimental colours. I was crimson with vexation but also with a sense of
+relief. I felt I might trust this man. It would be a sharp German agent
+who would notice a small detail like that.
+
+Still I resolved to stick to German: I would trust nobody.
+
+But the guide had started his patter again. I saw two workmen
+approaching. When they had passed, he said, this time in English:
+
+"You're quite right to be cautious with a stranger like me, but I want
+to warn you. Why, I've been following you round all the morning. Lucky
+for you it was me and not one of the others...."
+
+Still I was silent. The little man went on:
+
+"For the past half-hour they have been combing that station for you. How
+you managed to escape them I don't know except that none of them seems
+to have a very clear idea of your appearance. You don't look very
+British, I grant you; but I spotted your tie and then I recognized the
+British officer all right.
+
+"No, don't worry to tell me anything about yourself--it is none of my
+business to know, any more than you will find out anything about me. I
+know where you are going, for I heard you take your ticket; but you may
+as well understand that you have as much chance of getting into your
+train if you walk into the railway hall and up the stairs in the
+ordinary way as you have of flying across the frontier."
+
+"But they can't stop me!" I said. "This isn't Germany...."
+
+"Bah!" said the guide. "You will be jostled, there will be an
+altercation, a false charge, and you will miss your train! _They_ will
+attend to the rest!
+
+"Damn it, man," he went on, "I know what I'm talking about. Here, come
+with me and I'll show you. You have twenty minutes before the train
+goes. Now start the German again!"
+
+We went down the street together for all the world like a "mug" in tow
+of one of those black-guard guides. As we approached the station the
+guide said in his whining German:
+
+"Pay attention to me now. I shall leave you here. Go to the suburban
+booking-office--the entrance is in the street to the left of the
+station hall. Go into the first-class waiting-room and look out of
+the window that gives on to the station hall. There you will see some
+of the forces mobilized against you. There is a regular cordon of
+guides--like me--drawn across the entrances to the main-line
+platforms--unostentatiously, of course. If you look you will see plenty
+of plain-clothes Huns, too...."
+
+"Guides?" I said.
+
+He nodded cheerfully.
+
+"Looks bad for me, doesn't it? But one gets better results by being one
+of them. Oh! it's all right. In any case you've got to trust me now.
+
+"See here! When you have satisfied yourself that I'm correct in what I
+say, take a platform ticket and walk upstairs to platform No. 5. On that
+platform you will find a train. Go to the end where the metals run out
+of the station, where the engine would be coupled on, and get into the
+last first-class carriage. On no account move from there until you see
+me. Now then, I'll have that gulden!"
+
+I gave him the coin. The old fellow looked at it and wagged his head, so
+I gave him another, whereupon he took off his cap, bowed low and hurried
+off.
+
+In the suburban side waiting-room I peered out of the window on to the
+station hall. True enough, I saw one, two, four, six guides loafing
+about the barriers leading to the main-line platforms. There seemed to
+be a lot of people in the hall and certainly a number of the men
+possessed that singular taste in dress, those rotundities of contour,
+by which one may distinguish the German in a crowd.
+
+I now had no hesitation in following the guide's instructions to the
+letter. Platform No. 5 was completely deserted as I emerged breathless
+from the long staircase and I had no difficulty in getting into the last
+first-class carriage unobserved. I sat down by the window on the far
+side of the carriage.
+
+Alongside it ran the brown panels and gold lettering of a German
+restaurant car.
+
+I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to seven. There was no sign of
+my mysterious friend. I wondered vaguely, too, what had become of my
+porter. True, there was nothing of importance in Semlin's bag, but a
+traveller with luggage always commands more confidence than one without.
+
+Five minutes to seven! Still no word from the guide. The minutes ticked
+away. By Jove! I was going to miss the train. But I sat resolutely in my
+corner. I had put my trust in this man. I would trust him to the last.
+
+Suddenly his face appeared in the window at my elbow. The door was flung
+open.
+
+"Quick!" he whispered in my ear, "follow me."
+
+"My things ..." I gasped with one foot on the foot-board of the other
+train. At the same moment the train began to move.
+
+The guide pointed to the carriage into which I had clambered.
+
+"The porter ..." I cried from the open door, thinking he had not
+understood me.
+
+The guide pointed towards the carriage again, then tapped himself on the
+chest with a significant smile.
+
+The next moment he had disappeared and I had not even thanked him.
+
+The Berlin train bumped ponderously out of the station. Peering
+cautiously out of the carriage, I caught a glimpse of the waiter, Karl,
+hurrying down the platform. With him was a swarthy, massively built man
+who leaned heavily on a stick and limped painfully as he ran. One of his
+feet, I could see, was misshapen and the sweat was pouring down his
+face.
+
+I would have liked to wave my hand to the pair, but I prudently drew
+back out of sight of the platform.
+
+Caution, caution, caution, must henceforward be my watchword.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IN WHICH A SILVER STAR ACTS AS A CHARM
+
+
+I have often remarked in life that there are days when some benevolent
+deity seems to be guiding one's every action. On such days, do what you
+will, you cannot go wrong. As the Berlin train bumped thunderously over
+the culverts spanning the canals between the tall, grey houses of
+Rotterdam and rushed out imperiously into the plain of windmills and
+pollards beyond, I reflected that this must be my good day, so kindly
+had some fairy godmother shepherded my footsteps since I had left the
+cafe.
+
+So engrossed had I been, indeed, in the great enterprise on which I was
+embarked, that my actions throughout the morning had been mainly
+automatic. Yet how uniformly had they tended to protect me! I had bought
+my ticket in advance; I had given my overcoat and bag to a porter that I
+now knew to have been my saviour in disguise; I had sallied forth from
+the station and thus given him an opportunity for safe converse with me.
+The omens were good: I could trust my luck to-day, I felt, and, greatly
+comforted, I began to look about me.
+
+I found myself, the only occupant, in a first-class carriage. On the
+window was plastered a notice, in Dutch and German, to the effect that
+the carriage was reserved. Suddenly I thought of my bag and overcoat.
+They were nowhere to be seen. After a little search I found them beneath
+the seat. In the overcoat pocket was a black tie.
+
+I lost no time in taking the hint. If any of you who read this tale
+should one day notice a ganger on the railway between Rotterdam and
+Dordrecht wearing the famous colours of a famous regiment round his neck
+you will understand how they got there. Then, wearied out with the
+fatigues of my sleepless night, I fell into a deep slumber, my verdant
+waterproof swathed round me, Semlin's overcoat about my knees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was dreaming fitfully of a mad escape from hordes of wildly clutching
+guides, led by Karl the waiter, when the screaming of brakes brought me
+to my senses. The train was sensibly slackening speed. Outside the
+autumn sun was shining over pleasant brown stretches of moorland bright
+with heather. The next moment and before I was fully awake we had glided
+to a standstill at a very spick and span station and the familiar cry
+of "Alles aussteigen!" rang in my ears.
+
+We were in Germany.
+
+The realization fell upon me like a thunderclap. I was in the enemy's
+country, sailing under false colours, with only the most meagre
+information about the man whose place I had taken and no plausible tale,
+such as I had fully intended to have ready, to carry me through the
+rigorous scrutiny of the frontier police.
+
+What was my firm? The Halewright Manufacturing Company. What did we
+manufacture? I had not the faintest idea. Why was I coming to Germany at
+all? Again I was at a loss.
+
+The clink of iron-shod heels in the corridor and an officer, followed
+closely by two privates, the white cross of the Landwehr in their
+helmets, stood at the door.
+
+"Your papers, please," he said curtly but politely.
+
+I handed over my American passport.
+
+"This has not been vised," said the officer.
+
+With a pang I realized that again I was at fault. Of course, the
+passport should have been stamped at the German Consulate at Rotterdam.
+
+"I had no time," I said boldly. "I am travelling on most important
+business to Berlin. I only reached Rotterdam last night, after the
+Consulate was closed."
+
+The lieutenant turned to one of his guards.
+
+"Take the gentleman to the Customs Hall," he said and went on to the
+next carriage.
+
+The soldier appropriated my overcoat and bag and beckoned me to follow
+him. Outside the platform was railed off. Everyone, I noticed, was
+shepherded into a long narrow pen made with iron hurdles leading to a
+locked door over which was written: Zoll-Revision. I was going to take
+my place in the queue when the soldier prodded me with his elbow. He led
+me to a side door which opened in the gaunt, bare Customs Hall with its
+long row of trestles for the examination of the passengers' luggage. In
+a corner behind a desk was a large group of officers and subordinate
+officials, all in the grey-green uniform I knew so well from the life in
+the trenches. The principal seemed to be an immense man, inordinately
+gross and fat, with a bloated face and great gold spectacles. He was
+roaring in a loud, angry voice:
+
+"He's not come! There you are! Again we shall have all the trouble for
+nothing!"
+
+I thought he looked an extraordinarily bad-tempered individual and I
+fervently prayed that I should not be brought before him.
+
+The doors were flung open. With a rush the hall was invaded with a
+heterogeneous mob of people huddled pellmell together and driven along
+before a line of soldiers. For an hour or more babel reigned. Officials
+bawled at the public: the place rang with the sounds of angry
+altercation. After a furious dispute one man, wildly gesticulating, was
+dragged away by two soldiers.
+
+I never saw such a thorough examination in my life. People's bags were
+literally turned upside down and every single object pried into and
+besnuffled. After the customs' examination passengers were passed on to
+the searching-rooms, the men to one side, the women to the other. I
+caught sight of a female searcher lolling at a door ... a monstrous and
+grim female who reminded me of those dreadful bathing women at the
+seaside in our early youth.
+
+The fat official had vanished into an office leading off the Customs
+Hall. He was, I surmised, the last instance, for several passengers,
+including a very respectably dressed old lady, were driven into the side
+office and were seen no more.
+
+During all this scene of confusion no one had taken any notice of me. My
+guard looked straight in front of him and said never a word. When the
+hall was all but cleared, a man came to the office door and made a sign
+to my sentinel.
+
+At a table in the office which, despite the sunshine outside, was heated
+like a greenhouse, I found the fat official. Something had evidently
+upset him, for his brows were clouded with anger and his mastiff-like
+cheeks were trembling with irritation. He thrust a hand out as I
+entered.
+
+"Your papers!" he grunted.
+
+I handed over my passport.
+
+Directly he had examined it, a red flush spread over his cheeks and
+forehead and he brought his hand down on the table with a crash. The
+sentry beside me winced perceptibly.
+
+"It's not vised," the fat official screamed in a voice shrill with
+anger. "It's worthless... what good do you think is this to me?"
+
+"Excuse me ..." I said in German.
+
+"I won't excuse you," he roared. "Who are you? What do you want in
+Germany? You've been to London, I see by this passport."
+
+"I had no time to get my passport stamped at the Consulate at
+Rotterdam," I said. "I arrived there too late in the evening. I could
+not wait. I am going to Berlin on most important business."
+
+"That's nothing to do with it," the man shouted. He was working himself
+up into a fine frenzy. "Your passport is not in order. You're not a
+German. You're an American. We Germans know what to think of our
+American friends, especially those who come from London."
+
+A voice outside shouted: "Nach Berlin alles einsteigen." I said as
+politely as I could, despite my growing annoyance:
+
+"I don't wish to miss my train. My journey to Berlin is of the utmost
+importance. I trust the train can be held back until I have satisfied
+you of my good faith. I have here a card from Herr von Steinhardt."
+
+I paused to let the name sink in. I was convinced he must be a big bug
+of some kind in the German service.
+
+"I don't care a rap for Herr von Steinhardt or Herr von anybody else,"
+the German cried. Then he said curtly to a cringing secretary beside
+him:
+
+"Has he been searched?"
+
+The secretary cast a frightened look at the sentry.
+
+"No, Herr Major," said the secretary.
+
+"Well, take him away and strip him and bring me anything you find!"
+
+The sentry spun on his heel like an automaton.
+
+The moment had come to play my last card, I felt: I could not risk being
+delayed on the frontier lest Stelze and his friends should catch up with
+me. I was surprised to find that apparently they had not telegraphed to
+have me stopped.
+
+"One moment, Herr Major," I said.
+
+"Take him away!" The fat man waved me aside.
+
+"I warn you," I continued, "that I am on important business. I can
+convince you of that, too. Only ..." and I looked round the office. "All
+these must go."
+
+To my amazement the fat man's anger vanished utterly. He stared hard at
+me, then took off his spectacles and polished them with his
+handkerchief. After this he said nonchalantly: "Everybody get outside
+except this gentleman!" The sentry, who had spun round on his heel
+again, seemed about to speak: his voice expired before it came out of
+his mouth: he saluted, spun round again and followed the rest out of the
+room.
+
+When the place was cleared I pulled my left brace out of the armhole of
+my waistcoat and displayed the silver star.
+
+The fat man sprang up.
+
+"The Herr Doktor must excuse me: I am overwhelmed: I had no idea that
+the Herr Doktor was not one of these tiresome American spies that are
+overrunning our country. The Herr Doktor will understand.... If the Herr
+Doktor had but said ..."
+
+"Herr Major," I said, endeavouring to put as much insolence as I could
+into my voice (that is what a German understands), "I am not in the
+habit of bleating my business to every fool I meet. Now I must go back
+to the train."
+
+"The Berlin train has gone, Herr Doktor, but..."
+
+"The Berlin train gone?" I said. "But my business brooks no delay. I
+tell you I must be in Berlin to-night!"
+
+"There is no question of your taking the ordinary train, Herr Doktor,"
+the fat man replied smoothly, "but unfortunately the special which I had
+ready for you has been countermanded. I thought you were not coming
+again."
+
+A special? By Jove! I was evidently a personage of note. But a special
+would never do! Where the deuce was it going to take me?
+
+"The Berlin train was to have been held back until your special was
+clear," the Major went on, "but we must stop her at Wesel until you have
+passed. I will attend to that at once!"
+
+He gave some order down the telephone and after a brisk conversation
+turned to me with a beaming face:
+
+"They will stop her at Wesel and the special will be ready in
+twenty-five minutes. But there is no hurry. You have an hour or more to
+spare. Might I offer the Herr Doktor a glass of beer and a sandwich at
+our officers' casino here?"
+
+Well, I was in for it this time. A special bearing me Heaven knows
+whither on unknown business...! Perhaps I might be able to extract a
+little information out of my fat friend if I went with him, so I
+accepted his invitation with suitable condescension.
+
+The Major excused himself for an instant and returned with my overcoat
+and bag.
+
+"So!" he cried, "we can leave these here until we come back!" Behind him
+through the open door I saw a group of officials peering curiously into
+the room. As we walked through their midst, they fell back with
+precipitation. There was a positive reverence about their manner which I
+found extremely puzzling.
+
+A waggonette, driven by an orderly, stood in the station yard, one of
+the Customs officials, hat in hand, at the door. We drove rapidly
+through very spick-and-span streets to a little square where the sentry
+at an iron gate denoted the Officers' Club. In the anteroom four or five
+officers in field-grey uniform were lounging. As we entered they sprang
+to their feet and remained stiffly standing while the Major presented
+them, Hauptmann Pfahl, Oberleutnant Meyer ... a string of names. One of
+the officers had lost an arm, another was very lame, the remainder were
+obvious dug-outs.
+
+"An American gentleman, a good friend of ours," was the form in which
+the Major introduced me to the company. Again I found myself mystified
+by the extraordinary demonstrations of respect with which I was
+received. Germans don't like Americans, especially since they took to
+selling shells to the Allies, and I began to think that all these
+officers must know more about me and my mission than I did myself. A
+stolid orderly, wearing white gloves, brought beer and some
+extraordinary nasty-looking sardine sandwiches which, on sampling, I
+realized to be made of "war bread."
+
+While the beer was being poured out I glanced round the room, bare and
+very simply furnished. Terrible chromo-lithographs of the Kaiser and the
+Crown Prince hung on the walls above a glass filled with war trophies.
+With a horrible sickness at heart I recognized amongst other emblems a
+glengarry with a silver badge and a British steel helmet with a gaping
+hole through the crown. Then I remembered I was in the region of the
+VIIth Corps, which supplies some of our toughest opponents on the
+Western front.
+
+Conversation was polite and perfunctory.
+
+"It is on occasions such as these," said the lame officer, "that one
+recognizes how our brothers overseas are helping the German cause."
+
+"Your work must be extraordinarily interesting," observed one of the
+dug-outs.
+
+"All your difficulties are now over," said the Major, much in the manner
+of the chorus of a Greek play. "You will be in Berlin to-night, where
+your labours will be doubtless rewarded. American friends of Germany are
+not popular in London, I should imagine!"
+
+I murmured: "Hardly."
+
+"You must possess infinite tact to have aroused no suspicion," said the
+Major.
+
+"That depends," I said.
+
+"Pardon me," replied the Major, in whom I began to recognize all the
+signs of an unmitigated gossip, "I know something of the importance of
+your mission. I speak amongst ourselves, is it not so, gentlemen? There
+were special orders about you from the Corps Command at Muenster. Your
+special has been waiting for you here for four days. The gentleman who
+came to meet you has been in a fever of expectation. He had already left
+the station this morning when ... when I met you, I sent word for him to
+pick you up here."
+
+The plot was thickening. I most certainly was a personage of note.
+
+"What part of America do you come from, Mr. Semlin?" said a voice in
+perfect English from the corner. The one-armed officer was speaking.
+
+"From Brooklyn," I said stoutly, though my heart seemed turned to ice
+with the shock of hearing my own tongue.
+
+"You have no accent," the other replied suavely.
+
+"Some Americans," I retorted sententiously, "would regard that as a
+compliment. Not all Americans talk through their noses any more than we
+all chew or spit in public."
+
+"I know," said the young man. "I was brought up there!"
+
+We were surrounded by smiling faces. This officer who could speak
+English was evidently regarded as a bit of a wag by his comrades. I
+seized the opportunity to give them in German a humorous description of
+my simplicity in explaining to a man brought up in the United States
+that all Americans were not the caricatures depicted in the European
+comic press.
+
+There was a roar of laughter from the room.
+
+"Ach, dieser Schmalz!" guffawed the Major, beating his thigh in ecstasy.
+"Kolossal!" echoed one of the dug-outs. The lame man smiled wanly and
+said it was "incredible how humorous Schmalz could be."
+
+I had hoped that the conversation might now be carried on again in
+German. Nothing of the kind. The room leant back in its chairs, as if
+expecting the fun to go on.
+
+It did.
+
+"You get your clothes in London," the young officer said.
+
+He was a trimly built young man, very pale from recent illness, with
+flaxen hair and a bright, bold blue eye--the eye of a fighter. His left
+sleeve was empty and was fastened across his tunic, in a button-hole of
+which was twisted the black and white ribbon of the Iron Cross.
+
+"Generally," I answered shortly, "when I go to England. Clothes are
+cheaper in London."
+
+"You must have a good ear for languages," Schmalz continued; "you speak
+German like a German and English ..." he paused appreciably, "... like
+an Englishman."
+
+I felt horribly nervous. This young man never took his eyes off me: he
+had been staring at me ever since I had entered the room. His manner
+was perfectly calm and suave.
+
+Still I kept my end up very creditably, I think.
+
+"And not a bad accomplishment, either," I said, smiling brightly, "if
+one has to visit London in war-time."
+
+Schmalz smiled back with perfect courtesy. But he continued to stare
+relentlessly at me. I felt scared.
+
+"What is Schmalz jabbering about now?" said one of the dug-outs. I
+translated for the benefit of the company. My resume gave the dug-out
+who had spoken the opportunity for launching out on an interminable
+anecdote about an ulster he had bought on a holiday at Brighton. The
+story lasted until the white-gloved orderly came and announced that "a
+gentleman" was there, asking for the Herr Major.
+
+"That'll be your man," exclaimed the Major, starting up--I noticed he
+made no attempt to bring the stranger in. "Come, let us go to him!"
+
+I stood up and took my leave. Schmalz came to the door of the anteroom
+with us.
+
+"You are going to Berlin?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," I replied.
+
+"Where shall you be staying?" he asked again.
+
+"Oh, probably at the Adlon!"
+
+"I myself shall be in Berlin next week for my medical examination, and
+perhaps we may meet again. I should much like to talk more with you
+about America ... and London. We must have mutual acquaintances."
+
+I murmured something about being only too glad, at the same time making
+a mental note to get out of Berlin as soon as I conveniently could.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+I HEAR OF CLUBFOOT AND MEET HIS EMPLOYER
+
+
+As we went down the staircase, the Major whispered to me:
+
+"I don't think your man wished me to know his name, for he did not
+introduce himself when he arrived and he does not come to our Casino.
+But I know him for all that: it is the young Count von Boden, of the
+Uhlans of the Guard: his father, the General, is one of the Emperor's
+aides-de-camp: he was, for a time, tutor to the Crown Prince."
+
+A motor-car stood at the door, in it a young man in a grey-blue military
+great-coat and a flat cap with a pink band round it. He sprang out as we
+appeared. His manner was most _empresse_. He completely ignored my
+companion.
+
+"I am extremely glad to see you, Herr Doktor," he said. "You are
+most anxiously expected. I must present my apologies for not being
+at the station to welcome you, but, apparently, there was some
+misunderstanding. The arrangements at the station for your reception
+seem to have broken down completely ..." and he stared through his
+monocle at the old Major, who flushed with vexation.
+
+"If you will step into my car," the young man added, "I will drive you
+to the station. We need not detain this gentleman any longer."
+
+I felt sorry for the old Major, who had remained silent under the
+withering insolence of this young lieutenant, so I shook hands with him
+cordially and thanked him for his hospitality. He was a jovial old
+fellow after all.
+
+The young Count drove himself and chatted amiably as we whirled through
+the streets. "I must introduce myself," he said: "Lieutenant Count von
+Boden of the 2nd Uhlans of the Guard. I did not wish to say anything
+before that old chatterbox. I trust you have had a pleasant journey. Von
+Steinhardt, of our Legation at the Hague, was instructed to make all
+arrangements for your comfort on this side. But I was forgetting, you
+and he must be old acquaintances, Herr Doktor!"
+
+I said something appropriate about von Steinhardt's invariable kindness.
+Inwardly, I noted the explanation of the visiting card in the portfolio
+in my pocket.
+
+At the station we found two orderlies, one with my things, the other
+with von Boden's luggage and fur _pelisse_. The platforms were now
+deserted save for sentries: all life at this dreary frontier station
+seemed to die with the passing of the mail train.
+
+I could not help noticing, after we had left the car and were strolling
+up and down the platform waiting for the special, that my companion kept
+casting furtive glances at my feet. I looked down at my boots: they
+wanted brushing, certainly, but otherwise I could see nothing wrong with
+them. They were brown, it is true, and I reflected that the German man
+about town has a way of regulating his tastes in footgear by the
+calendar, and that brown boots are seldom worn in Germany after
+September 1st.
+
+Our special came in, an engine and tender, a brakesman's van, a single
+carriage and a guard's van. The stationmaster bid us a most ceremonious
+adieu, and the guard, cap in hand, helped me into the train.
+
+It was a Pullman car in which I found myself, with comfortable
+arm-chairs and small tables. One of the orderlies was laying the table
+for luncheon, and here, presently, the young Count and I ate a meal,
+which, save for the inevitable "_Kriegsbrod_," showed few signs of the
+stringency of the British blockade. But by this time I had fully
+realized that, for some unknown reason, no pains were spared to do me
+honour, so probably the fare was something out of the common.
+
+My companion was a bright, amusing fellow and delightfully typical of
+his class. He had seen a year's service with the cavalry on the Eastern
+front, had been seriously wounded and was now attached to the General
+Staff in Berlin in what I judged to be a decorative rather than a useful
+capacity, for, apart from what he had learnt in his own campaigning he
+seemed singularly ignorant of the development of the military situation.
+Particularly, his ignorance of conditions on the Western front was
+supreme. He was full to the brim with the most extraordinary fables
+about the British. He solemnly assured me, for example--on the faith of
+a friend of his who had seen them--that Japanese were fighting with the
+English in France, dressed as Highlanders--his friend had heard these
+Asiatic Scotsmen talking Japanese, he declared. I thought of the
+Gaelic-speaking battalions of the Camerons and could hardly suppress a
+smile.
+
+Young von Boden was superbly contemptuous of the officers of the obscure
+and much reduced infantry battalion doing garrison duty at Goch, the
+frontier station we had just left, where--as he was careful to explain
+to me--he had spent four days of unrelieved boredom, waiting for me.
+
+"Of course, in war time we are a united army and all that," he observed
+unsophistically, "but none of these fellows at Goch was a fit companion
+for a dashing cavalry officer. They were a dull lot. I wouldn't go near
+the Casino. I met some of them at the hotel one evening. That was
+enough for me. Why, only one of them knew anything at all about Berlin,
+and that was the lame fellow. Now, there is one thing we learn in the
+cavalry...."
+
+But I had ceased to listen. In his irresponsible chatter the boy used a
+word that struck a harsh note which went jarring through my brain. He
+had mentioned "the lame fellow," using a German word "der Stelze." In a
+flash I saw before me again that scene in the squalid bedroom in the Vos
+in't Tuintje--the candle guttering in the draught, the livid corpse on
+the floor and that sinister woman crying out: "Der Stelze has power, he
+has authority, he can make and unmake men!"
+
+The mind has unaccountable lapses. The phrase had slipped out of my
+German vocabulary. I had not even recognized it until the boy had rapped
+it out in a context with which I was familiar and then it had come back.
+With it, it brought that tableau in the dimly lit room, but also
+another--a picture of a vast and massive man, swarthy and sinister, with
+a clubfoot, limping heavily after Karl, the waiter, on the platform at
+Rotterdam.
+
+That, then, was why the young lieutenant had glanced down at my feet at
+the station at Goch, The messenger he had come to meet, the bearer of
+the document, the man of power and authority, was clubfooted, and I was
+he!
+
+But seeing I was free of any physical deformity, to say nothing of the
+fact that I in no way resembled the clubfooted man I had seen on the
+platform at Rotterdam, why had the young lieutenant accepted me so
+readily? I hazarded the reason to be that he had orders to meet a person
+who had not been further designated to him except that he would arrive
+by a certain train. The Major at the station would be responsible for
+establishing my _bona fides_. Once that officer had turned me over to
+the emissary, the latter's sole responsibility consisted in conducting
+me to the unknown goal to which the special train was rapidly bearing
+us. Such are the marvels of discipline!
+
+My companion was, indeed, the model of discretion in everything touching
+myself and my business. Curiosity about your neighhour's affairs is a
+cardinal German failing, yet the Count manifested not the slightest
+desire to learn anything about me or my mission to Berlin. You may be
+sure that I, for my part, did nothing to enlighten him. It was not,
+indeed, in my power to do so. Yet the young man's reserve was so marked
+that I was convinced he had his orders to avoid the topic.
+
+As the train rushed through Westphalia, through busy stations with
+glimpses of sidings full of trucks loaded to the brim, past towns whose
+very outlines were blurred by the mirk of smoke from a hundred factory
+chimneys, my thoughts were busy with that swarthy cripple. I had broken
+away from him with one portion of a highly prized document, yet he had
+made no attempt to have me arrested at the frontier. Clearly, then, he
+must still look upon me as an ally and must therefore be yet in
+ignorance of the identity of the dead man lying in my chamber at the
+Hotel Sixt. The friendly guide had told me that the party "combing out"
+the station at Rotterdam for me did not appear to know what I looked
+like.
+
+_Was it possible, then, that Clubfoot did not know Semlin by sight?_
+
+The fact that Semlin had only recently crossed the Atlantic seemed to
+confirm this supposition.
+
+Then the document. Semlin had half. Who had the other half? Surely
+Clubfoot.... Clubfoot who was to have called at the hotel that morning
+to receive what I had brought from England. Perhaps, after all, my
+random declaration to the hotel-keeper had not been so far wrong;
+Clubfoot wanted to take the whole document to Berlin and reap all the
+laurels at the cost of half the danger and labour. That would explain
+his present silence. He suspected Semlin of treachery, not to the common
+cause, but to him!
+
+It looked as if I might have a free run until Clubfoot could reach
+Berlin. That, unless he also took a special, could not be until the
+next evening at earliest. But, more redoubtable than a meeting with
+the man of power and authority, hung over me, an ever-present nightmare,
+the interview which I felt awaited me at the end of my present
+journey ... the interview at which I must render an account of my
+mission.
+
+Evening was falling as we ran through the inhospitable region of sand
+and water and pine that engirdles Berlin. We glided at diminished speed
+through the trim suburbs, skirted the city, on whose tall buildings the
+electric sky-signs were already beginning to twinkle, crashed heavily
+over a vast network of metals at some great terminus, then tore off
+again into the gathering darkness. In a little, we slowed down again. We
+were running through wooded country. From the darkness ahead a lantern
+waved at us and the train stopped with a jerk at a little wayside
+station, a tiny box of an affair. A tall, solid figure, wearing a spiked
+helmet and grey military great-coat, stood in solitary grandeur in the
+centre of the little platform, the wavering rays of a flickering gas
+lamp reflected in his brilliantly polished top-boots.
+
+"Here we are at last!" said my companion.
+
+I stepped out to meet my fate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young lieutenant was rigid at the salute before the figure on the
+platform.
+
+I heard the end of a sentence as I alighted "... the gentleman I was to
+meet, Excellency!"
+
+The other looked at me. He was a big man with a crimson face. He made no
+attempt at greeting, but said in a hoarse voice: "Have the goodness to
+come with me. The orderlies will attend to your things." And, with
+clinking spurs, he strode out through some big kind of anteroom, swathed
+in wrappings, into a yard beyond, where a big limousine was throbbing
+gently.
+
+He stood aside to let me get in, then mounted himself, followed, rather
+to my surprise, by the young Count, whose responsibility for myself had
+ended, I imagined, on "delivering the goods." My surprise was of short
+duration, for once in the car the young Uhlan dropped all the formality
+he had displayed on the platform and addressed the elder officer as
+"papa." This, then, was old General von Boden, of whom the Major had
+spoken, Aide-de-Camp to the Kaiser and formerly tutor to the Crown
+Prince.
+
+Father and son chatted in a desultory fashion across the car, and I took
+the opportunity of studying the old gentleman. His face was of the most
+prodigious purple hue, and so highly polished that it continually caught
+the reflection of the small electric lamp in the roof. Huge gold
+spectacles with glasses so thick that they distorted his eyes,
+straddled a great beak-like nose. He had doffed his helmet and was
+mopping his brow, and I saw a high perfectly bald dome-like head,
+brilliantly polished and almost as red as his face. He was clean shaven
+and by no means young, for the flesh hung in bags about his face. Long
+years of the habit of command had left their mark in an imperiousness of
+manner which might easily yield to ruthlessness I judged.
+
+"I thought I should have had orders before I left the Villa," the
+General said to his son, "then you could have gone straight there. I
+suppose he means to see him here: that is why he wanted him brought to
+the Villa. But he's always the same: he never can make up his mind." And
+he grunted.
+
+"Perhaps there will be something waiting at home," he added in his
+hoarse barrack-yard voice.
+
+We drove through a white gate into a little drive which brought us up in
+front of a long, low villa. Neither father nor son had opened their lips
+to me during the drive from the station and I had not ventured to put a
+question to either of them, but I knew we were in Potsdam. The little
+station in the woods was Wild-Park, I suspected, the private station
+used by the Emperor on his frequent journeys and situated in the grounds
+of the New Palace. All the officials of the Prussian Court have villas
+at Potsdam, though why I had been brought there in connection with an
+affair that must surely rather interest the Wilhelm-Strasse or the
+Police Presidency was more than I could fathom.
+
+There was a frightful scene in the hall. Without any warning the General
+turned on the orderly who had opened the door and screamed abuse at him.
+"Camel! Ox! Sheep's-head!" he roared, his face and shining pate
+deepening their vermilion hue. "Do I give orders that they shall be
+forgotten? What do you mean? You ass...." He put his white-gloved hands
+on the man's shoulders and shook him until the fellow's teeth must have
+rattled in his head. The orderly, white to the lips, hung limp in the
+old man's grasp, muttering apologies: "Ach! Exzellenz! Exzellenz will
+excuse me...."
+
+It was a revolting spectacle, but it did not make the least impression
+on the son, who, putting down his cap and great-coat and unhooking his
+sword, led me into a kind of study. "These orderlies are such
+thickheads!" he said.
+
+"Rudi! Rudi!" a hoarse, strident voice screamed from the hall. The
+lieutenant ran out.
+
+"You've got to take the fellow to Berlin to-night. The message was here
+all the time--that numskull Heinrich forgot it. And we've got to keep
+the fellow here till then! An outrage, having the house used as a
+barrack for a rascally detective!" Thus much I heard, as the door had
+been left open. Then it closed and I heard no more.
+
+As I had heard this much, there was a certain irony in the invitation to
+dinner subsequently conveyed to me by the young Uhlan. There was nothing
+for it but to accept. I knew I was caught deep in the meshes of Prussian
+discipline, every one had his orders and blindly carried them out, from
+the garrulous Major on the frontier to this preposterous _Exzellenz_,
+this Imperial aide-de-camp of Potsdam. I was already a tiny cog in a
+great machine. I should have to revolve or be crushed.
+
+His Excellency left me in no doubt on this point. When I was ushered
+into his study, after a much-needed wash and a shave, he received me
+standing and said point-blank: "Your orders are to stay here until ten
+o'clock to-night, when you will be taken to Berlin by Lieutenant Count
+von Boden. I don't know you, I don't know your business, but I have
+received certain orders concerning you which I intend to carry out. For
+that reason you will dine with us here. After you have seen the person
+to whom you are to be taken to-night, Lieutenant Count von Boden will
+accompany you to the railway station at Spandau, where a special train
+will be in readiness in which he will conduct you back to the frontier.
+I wish you clearly to understand that the Lieutenant is responsible for
+seeing these orders carried out and will use all means to that end. Have
+I made myself clear?"
+
+The old man's manner was indescribably threatening. "This is the machine
+we are out to smash," I had said to myself when I saw him savaging his
+servant in the hall and I repeated the phrase to myself now. But to the
+General I said: "Perfectly, Your Excellency!"
+
+"Then let us go to dinner," said the General.
+
+It was a nightmare meal. A faded and shrunken female, to whom I was not
+introduced--some kind of relative who kept house for the General, I
+supposed--was the only other person present. She never opened her lips
+save, with eyes glazed with terror, to give some whispered instruction
+to the orderly anent the General's food or wine. We dined in a
+depressing room with dark brown wallpaper decorated with dusty stags'
+antlers, an enormous green-tiled stove dominating everything. The
+General and his son ate solidly through the courses while the lady
+pecked furtively at her plate. As for myself I could not eat for sheer
+fright. Every nerve in my body was vibrating at the thought of the
+evening before me. If I could not avoid the interview, I was resolutely
+determined to give Master von Boden the slip rather than return to the
+frontier empty-handed. I had not braved all these perils to be packed
+off home without, at least, making an attempt to find Francis. Besides,
+I meant if I could to get the other half of that document.
+
+There was some quite excellent Rhine wine, and I drank plenty of it. So
+did the General, with the result that, when the veins starting purple
+from his temples proclaimed that he had eaten to repletion, his temper
+seemed to have improved. He unbent sufficiently to present me with quite
+the worst cigar I have ever smoked.
+
+I smoked it in silence whilst father and son talked shop. The female had
+faded away. Both men, I found to my surprise, were furious and bitter
+opponents of Hindenburg, as I have since learnt most of the old school
+of the Prussian Army are. They spoke little of England: their thoughts
+seemed to be centred on Russia as the arch-enemy. They pinned their
+faith on Falkenhayn and Mackensen. They had no words strong enough in
+their denunciation of Hindenburg, whom they always referred to as "the
+Drunkard" ... "der Saeufer." Nor were they sparing of criticism of what
+they called the Kaiser's "weakness" in letting him rise to power.
+
+The humming of a car outside broke up our gathering. Remembering that I
+was but a humble servant before this great military luminary, I thanked
+the General with due servility for his hospitality. Then the Count and I
+went out to the car and presently drove forth into the night.
+
+We entered Berlin from the west, as it seemed to me, but then struck off
+in a southerly direction and were soon in the commercial quarter of the
+city, all but deserted at that hour, save for the trams. Then I caught a
+glimpse of lamps reflected in water, and the next moment the car had
+stopped on a bridge over a canal or river. My companion sprang out and
+hurried me to a small gate in an iron railing enclosing a vast edifice
+looming black in the night, while the car moved off into the darkness.
+
+The gate was open. Half a dozen yards from it was a small, slender tower
+with a pointed roof jutting out from the corner of the building. In the
+tower was a door which yielded easily to my companion's vigorous push as
+a clock somewhere within the building beat a double stroke--half-past
+ten.
+
+The door led into a little vestibule brilliantly lit with electric
+light. There a man was waiting, a fine, upstanding bearded fellow in a
+kind of green hunting costume.
+
+"So, Payer!" said the young Uhlan. "Here is the gentleman. I shall be at
+the west entrance afterwards. You will bring him down yourself to the
+car."
+
+"Jawohl, Herr Graf!" answered the man in green, and the lieutenant
+vanished through the door into the night.
+
+A terrifying, an incredible suspicion that had overwhelmed me directly I
+stepped out of the car now came surging through my brain. That vast,
+black edifice, that slender tower at the corner--did I not know them?
+
+Mechanically, I followed the man in green. My suspicions deepened
+with every step. In a little, they became certainty. Up a shallow and
+winding stair, along a long and broad corridor, hung with rich
+tapestries, the polished parquet glistening faintly in the dim light,
+through splendid suites of gilded apartments with old pictures and
+splendid furniture... here a lackey with powdered hair yawning on a
+landing, there a sentry in field-grey immobile before a door...I was in
+the Berlin Schloss.
+
+The Castle seemed to sleep. A hushed silence lay over all. Everywhere
+lights were dim, staircases wound down into emptiness, corridors
+stretched away into dusky solitude. Now and then an attendant in evening
+dress tiptoed past us or an officer vanished round a corner, noiselessly
+save for a faint clink of spurs.
+
+Thus we traversed, as it seemed to me, miles of silence and of twilight,
+and all the time my blood hammered at my temples and my throat grew dry
+as I thought of the ordeal that stood before me. To whom was I thus
+bidden, secretly, in the night?
+
+We were in a broad and pleasant passage now, panelled in cheerful light
+brown oak with red hangings. After the desolation of the State
+apartments, this comfortable corridor had at least the appearance of
+leading to the habitation of man. A giant trooper in field-grey with a
+curious silver gorget suspended round his neck by a chain paced up and
+down the passage, his jackboots making no sound upon the soft, thick
+carpet with which the floor was covered.
+
+The man in green stopped at the door. Holding up a warning hand to me,
+he bent his head and listened. There was a moment of absolute silence.
+Not a sound was to be heard throughout the whole Castle. Then the man in
+green knocked softly and was admitted, leaving me outside.
+
+A moment later, the door swung open again. A tall, elegant man with grey
+hair and that indefinite air of good breeding that you find in every man
+who has spent a life at court, came out hurriedly. He looked pale and
+harassed.
+
+On seeing me, he stopped short.
+
+"Dr. Grundt? Where is Dr. Grundt?" he asked and his eyes dropped to my
+feet. He started and raised them to my face.
+
+The trooper had drifted out of earshot. I could see him, immobile as a
+statue, standing at the end of the corridor. Except for him and us, the
+passage was deserted.
+
+Again the elderly man spoke and his voice betrayed his anxiety.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked almost in a whisper. "What have you done with
+Grundt? Why has he not come?"
+
+Boldly I took the plunge.
+
+"I am Semlin," I said.
+
+"Semlin," echoed the other, "--ah yes! the Embassy in Washington wrote
+about you--but Grundt was to have come...."
+
+"Listen," I said, "Grundt could not come. We had to separate and he sent
+me on ahead...."
+
+"But ... but ..."--the man was stammering now in his anxiety--"... you
+succeeded?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+He heaved a sigh of relief.
+
+"It will be awkward, very awkward, this change in the arrangements," he
+said. "You will have to explain everything to him, everything. Wait
+there an instant."
+
+He darted back into the room.
+
+Once more I stood and waited in that silent place, so restful and so
+still that one felt oneself in a world far removed from the angry strife
+of nations. And I wondered if my interview--the meeting I had so much
+dreaded--was at an end.
+
+"Pst, Pst!" The elderly man stood at the open door.
+
+He led me through a room, a cosy place, smelling pleasantly of leather
+furniture, to a door. He opened it, revealing across a narrow threshold
+another door. On this he knocked.
+
+"Herein!" cried a voice--a harsh, metallic voice.
+
+My companion turned the handle and, opening the door, thrust me into the
+room. The door closed behind me.
+
+I found myself facing the Emperor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+I ENCOUNTER AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE WHO LEADS ME TO A DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE
+
+
+He stood in the centre of the room, facing the door, his legs, straddled
+apart, planted firmly on the ground, one hand behind his back, the
+other, withered and useless like the rest of the arm, thrust into the
+side pocket of his tunic. He wore a perfectly plain undress uniform of
+field-grey, and the unusual simplicity of his dress, coupled with the
+fact that he was bare-headed, rendered him so unlike his conventional
+portraits in the full panoply of war that I doubt if I should have
+recognized him--paradoxical as it may seem--but for the havoc depicted
+in every lineament of those once so familiar features.
+
+Only one man in the world to-day could look like that. Only one man in
+the world to-day could show, by the ravage in his face, the appalling
+weight of responsibility slowly crushing one of the most vigorous and
+resilient personalities in Europe. His figure, erstwhile erect and
+well-knit, seemed to have shrunk, and his withered arm, unnaturally
+looped away into his pocket, assumed a prominence that lent something
+sinister to that forbidding grey and harassed face.
+
+His head was sunk forward on his breast. His face, always intensely
+sallow, almost Italian in its olive tint, was livid. All its alertness
+was gone; the features seemed to have collapsed, and the flesh hung
+flabbily, bulging in deep pouches under the eyes and in loose folds at
+the corners of the mouth. His head was grizzled an iron-grey but the
+hair at the temples was white as driven snow. Only his eyes were
+unchanged. They were the same grey, steely eyes, restless, shifting,
+unreliable, mirrors of the man's impulsive, wayward and fickle mind.
+
+He lowered at me. His brow was furrowed and his eyes flashed malice. In
+the brief instant in which I gazed at him I thought of a phrase a friend
+had used after seeing the Kaiser in one of his angry moods--"His icy,
+black look."
+
+I was so taken aback at finding myself in the Emperor's presence that I
+forgot my part and remained staring in stupefaction at the apparition.
+The other was seemingly too busy with his thoughts to notice my
+forgetfulness, for he spoke at once, imperiously, in the harsh staccato
+of a command.
+
+"What is this I hear?" he said. "Why has not Grundt come? What are you
+doing here?"
+
+By this time I had elaborated the fable I had begun to tell in the
+corridor without. I had it ready now: it was thin, but it must suffice.
+
+"If your Majesty will allow me, I will explain," I said. The Emperor was
+rocking himself to and fro, in nervous irritability, on his feet. His
+eyes were never steady for an instant: now they searched my face, now
+they fell to the floor, now they scanned the ceiling.
+
+"Dr. Grundt and I succeeded in our quest, dangerous though it was. As
+your Majesty is aware, the ... the ... the object had been divided...."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know! Go on!" the other said, pausing for a moment in his
+rocking.
+
+"I was to have left England first with my portion. I could not get away.
+Everyone is searched for letters and papers at Tilbury. I devised a
+scheme and we tested it, but it failed."
+
+"How? It failed?" the other cried.
+
+"With no detriment to the success of our mission, Your Majesty."
+
+"Explain! What was your stratagem?"
+
+"I cut a piece of the lining from a handbag and in this I wrapped a
+perfectly harmless letter addressed to an English shipping agent in
+Rotterdam. I then pasted the fragment of the lining back in its place in
+the bottom of the bag. Grundt gave the bag to one of our number as an
+experiment to see if it would elude the vigilance of the English
+police."
+
+A light of interest was growing in the Emperor's manner, banishing his
+ill-temper. Anything novel always appealed to him.
+
+"Well?" he said.
+
+"The ruse was detected, the letter was found and our man was fined
+twenty pounds at the police court. It was then that Dr. Grundt decided
+to send me...."
+
+"You've got it with you?" the other exclaimed eagerly.
+
+"No, Your Majesty," I said. "I had no means of bringing it away. Dr.
+Grundt, on the other hand ..." And I doubled up my leg and touched my
+foot.
+
+The Emperor stared at me and the furrow reappeared between his eyes.
+Then a smile broke out on his face, a warm, attractive smile, like
+sunshine after rain, and he burst into a regular guffaw. I knew His
+Majesty's weakness for jokes at the expense of the physical deformities
+of others, but I had scarcely dared to hope that my subtle reference to
+Grundt's clubfoot as a hiding-place for compromising papers would have
+had such a success. For the Kaiser fairly revelled in the idea and
+laughed loud and long, his sides fairly shaking.
+
+"Ach, der Stelze! Excellent! Excellent!" he cried. "Plessen, come and
+hear how we've diddled the Englander again!"
+
+We were in a long room, lofty, with a great window at the far end, where
+the room seemed to run to the right and left in the shape of a T. From
+the big writing-desk with its litter of photographs in heavy silver
+frames, the little bronze busts of the Empress, the water-colour
+sea-scapes and other little touches, I judged this to be the Emperor's
+study.
+
+At the monarch's call, a white-haired officer emerged from the further
+end of the room, that part which was hidden from my view.
+
+The Kaiser put his hand on his shoulder.
+
+"A great joke, Plessen!" he said, chuckling. Then, to me:
+
+"Tell it again!"
+
+I had warmed to my work now. I gave as drily humorous an account as I
+could of Dr. Grundt, fat and massive and podgy, hobbling on board the
+steamer at Tilbury, under the noses of the British police, with the
+document stowed away in his boot.
+
+The Kaiser punctuated my story with gusty guffaws, and emphasized the
+fun of the _denouement_ by poking the General in the ribs.
+
+Plessen laughed very heartily, as indeed he was expected to. Then he
+said suavely:
+
+"But has the stratagem succeeded, Your Majesty?"
+
+The monarch knit his brow and looked at me.
+
+"Well, young man, did it work?"
+
+"... Because," Plessen went on, "if so, Grundt must be in Holland. In
+that case, why is he not here?"
+
+My heart sank within me. Above all things, I knew I must keep my
+countenance. The least sign of embarrassment and I was lost. Yet I felt
+the blood fleeing from my face and I was glad I stood in the shadow.
+
+A knock came to the door. The elderly chamberlain who had met me outside
+appeared.
+
+"Your Majesty will excuse me ... General Baron von Fischer is there to
+report...."
+
+"Presently, presently," was the answer in an irritable tone. "I am
+engaged just now...."
+
+The old courtier paused irresolutely for a moment.
+
+"Well, what is it; what is it?"
+
+"Despatches from General Head-quarters, Your Majesty! The General asked
+me to say the matter was urgent!"
+
+The Kaiser wakened in an instant.
+
+"Bring him in!" Then, to Plessen, he added in a voice from which all
+mirth had vanished, in accents of gloom:
+
+"At this hour, Plessen? If things have again gone wrong on the Somme!"
+
+An officer came in quickly, rigid with a frozen face, helmet on head,
+portfolio under his arm. The Kaiser walked the length of the room to his
+desk and sat down. Plessen and the other followed him. I remained where
+I was. They seemed to have forgotten all about me.
+
+A murmur rose from the desk. The officer was delivering his report. Then
+the Kaiser seemed to question him, for I heard his hard, metallic
+voice:
+
+"Contalmaison ... Trones Wood ... heavy losses ... forced
+back ... terrific artillery fire ..." were words that reached me.
+The Kaiser's voice rose on a high note of irritability. Suddenly he
+dashed the papers on the desk from him and exclaimed:
+
+"It is outrageous! I'll break him! Not another man shall he have if I
+must go myself and teach his men their duty!"
+
+Plessen hurriedly left the desk and came to me. His old face was white
+and his hands were shaking.
+
+"Get out of here!" he said to me in a fierce undertone. "Wait outside
+and I will see you later!" Still, from the desk, resounded that harsh,
+strident voice, running on in an ascending scale, pouring forth a
+foaming torrent of menace.
+
+I had often heard of the sudden paroxysms of fury from which the Kaiser
+was said to suffer of recent years, but never in my wildest daydreams
+did I ever imagine I should assist at one.
+
+Gladly enough did I exchange the highly charged electrical atmosphere of
+the Imperial study for the repose of the quiet corridor. Its perfect
+tranquillity was as balm to my quivering nerves. Of the man in green
+nothing was to be seen. Only the trooper continued his silent vigil.
+
+Again I acted on impulse. I was wearing my grass-green raincoat, my hat
+I carried in my hand. I might therefore easily pass for one just leaving
+the Castle. Without hesitation, I turned to the left, the way I had
+come, and plunged once more into the labyrinth of galleries and
+corridors and landings by which the man in green had led me. I very soon
+lost myself, so I decided to descend the next staircase I should come
+to. I followed this plan and went down a broad flight of stairs, at the
+foot of which I found a night porter, clad in a vast overcoat bedizened
+with eagles and seated on a stool, reading a newspaper.
+
+He stopped me and asked me my business. I told him I was coming from the
+Emperor's private apartments, whereupon he demanded my pass. I showed
+him my badge which entirely satisfied him, though he muttered something
+about "new faces" and not having seen me before. I asked him for the way
+out. He said that at the end of the gallery I should come to the west
+entrance. I felt I had had a narrow squeak of running into my mentor
+outside. I told the man I wanted the other entrance ... I had my car
+there.
+
+"You mean the south entrance?" he asked, and proceeded to give me
+directions which brought me, without further difficulty, out upon the
+open space in front of the great equestrian statue of the Emperor
+William I.
+
+It was a clear, starry night and I heaved a sigh of relief as I saw the
+Schloss-Platz glittering in the cold light of the arc lamps. So pressing
+had been the danger threatening me that the atmosphere of the Castle
+seemed stifling in comparison with the keen night air. A new confidence
+filled my veins as I strode along, though the perils to which I was
+advancing were not a whit less than those I had just escaped. For I had
+burnt my boats. My disappearance from the Castle must surely arouse
+suspicion and it was only a matter of hours for the hue and cry to be
+raised after me. At best it might be delayed until Clubfoot presented
+himself at the Castle.
+
+I could not remain in Berlin, that was clear. My American passport was
+not in order, and if I were to fall back upon my silver badge, I should
+instantly come into contact with the police with all kinds of unwelcome
+consequences. No, I must get out of Berlin at all costs. Well away from
+the capital, I might possibly utilize my silver badge or by its help
+procure identity papers that would give me a status of some kind.
+
+But Francis? Baffled as I was by that obscure jingle of German,
+something seemed to tell me that it was a message from my brother. It
+was dated from Berlin, and I felt that the solution of the riddle, if
+riddle it were, must be found here.
+
+I had reached Unter den Linden. I entered a cafe and ordered a glass of
+beer. The place was a blaze of light and dense with a blue cloud of
+tobacco smoke. A noisy band was crashing out popular tunes and there was
+a loud buzz of conversation rising from every table. It was all very
+cheerful and the noise and the bustle did me good after the strain of
+the night.
+
+I drew from my pocket the slip of paper I had had from Dicky and fell to
+scanning it again. I had not been twelve hours in Germany, but already I
+was conscious that, for anyone acting a part, let anything go wrong with
+his identity papers and he could never leave the country. If he were
+lucky, he might lie doggo; but there was no other course.
+
+Supposing, then, that this had happened to Francis (as, indeed, Red Tabs
+had hinted to me was the case) what course would he adopt? He would try
+and smuggle out a message announcing his plight. Yes, I think that is
+what I myself would do in similar circumstances.
+
+Well, I would accept this as a message from Francis. Now to study it
+once more.
+
+_O Eichenholz! O Eichenholz!
+Wie leer sind deine Blaetter.
+Wie Achiles in dem Zelte.
+Wo zweie sich zanken
+Erfreut sich der Dritte._
+
+The message fell into three parts, each consisting of a phrase. The
+first phrase might certainly be a warning that Francis had failed in
+his mission.
+
+_"O Okewood! how empty are thy leaves!"_
+
+What, then, of the other two phrases?
+
+They were short and simple. Whatever message they conveyed, it could not
+be a lengthy one. Nor was it likely that they contained a report of
+Francis' mission to Germany, whatever it had been. Indeed, it was not
+conceivable that my brother would send any such report to a Dutchman
+like van Urutius, a friendly enough fellow, yet a mere acquaintance and
+an alien at that.
+
+The message carried in those two phrases must be, I felt sure, a
+personal one, relating to my brother's welfare. What would he desire to
+say? That he was arrested, that he was going to be shot? Possibly, but
+more probably his idea in sending out word was to explain his silence
+and also to obtain assistance.
+
+My eye recurred continually to the final phrase: "When _two_ people fall
+out, the _third_ party rejoices."
+
+Might not these numerals refer to the number of a street? Might not in
+these two phrases be hidden an address at which one might find Francis,
+or at the worst, hear news of him?
+
+I sent for the Berlin Directory. I turned up the streets section and
+eagerly ran my eye down the columns of the "A's." I did not find what I
+was looking for, and that was an "Achilles-Strasse," either with two
+"l's" or with one.
+
+Then I tried "Eichenholz." There was an "Eichenbaum-Allee" in the Berlin
+suburb called West-End, but that was all. I tried for a "Blaetter" or a
+"Blatt-Strasse" with an equally negative result.
+
+It was discouraging work, but I went back to the paper again. The only
+other word likely to serve as a street remaining in the puzzle was
+"Zelt."
+
+"Wie Achiles in dem Zelte."
+
+Wearily I opened the directory at the "Z's."
+
+There, staring me in the face, I found the street called "In den
+Zelten."
+
+I had struck the trail at last.
+
+In den Zelten, I discovered, on referring to the directory again,
+derived its name "In the Tents," from the fact that in earlier days a
+number of open-air beer-gardens and booths had occupied the site which
+faces the northern side of the Tiergarten. It was not a long street. The
+directory showed but fifty-six houses, several of which, I noticed, were
+still beer-gardens. It appeared to be a fashionable thoroughfare, for
+most of the occupants were titled people. No. 3, I was interested to
+see, was still noted as the Berlin office of _The Times_.
+
+The last phrase in the message decidedly gave the number. _Two_ must
+refer to the number of the house: _third_ to the number of the floor,
+since practically all dwelling-houses in Berlin are divided off into
+flats.
+
+As for the "Achiles," I gave it up.
+
+I looked at my watch. It was twenty past eleven: too late to begin my
+search that night. Then I suddenly realized how utterly exhausted I was.
+I had been two nights out of bed without sleep, for I had sat up on deck
+crossing over to Holland, and the succession of adventures that had
+befallen me since I left London had driven all thought of weariness from
+my mind. But now came the reaction and I felt myself yearning for a hot
+bath and for a nice comfortable bed. To go to an hotel at that hour of
+night, without luggage and with an American passport not in order, would
+be to court disaster. It looked as though I should have to hang about
+the cafes and night restaurants until morning, investigate the clue of
+the street called In den Zelten, and then get away from Berlin as fast
+as ever I could.
+
+But my head was nodding with drowsiness. I must pull myself together. I
+decided I would have some black coffee, and I raised my eyes to find the
+waiter. They fell upon the pale face and elegant figure of the one-armed
+officer I had met at the Casino at Goch ... the young lieutenant they
+had called Schmalz.
+
+He had just entered the cafe and was standing at the door, looking about
+him. I felt a sudden pang of uneasiness at the sight of him, for I
+remembered his cross-examination of me at Goch. But I could not escape
+without paying my bill; besides, he blocked the way.
+
+He settled my doubts and fears by walking straight over to my table.
+
+"Good evening, Herr Doktor," he said in German, with his pleasant smile.
+"This indeed is an unexpected pleasure! So you are seeing how we poor
+Germans are amusing ourselves in war-time. You must admit that we do not
+take our pleasures sadly. You permit me?"
+
+Without waiting for my reply, he sat down at my table and ordered a
+glass of beer.
+
+"I wish you had appeared sooner," I exclaimed in as friendly a tone as I
+could muster, "for I am just going. I have had a long and tiring journey
+and am anxious to go to an hotel."
+
+Directly I had spoken I realized my blunder.
+
+"You have not got an hotel yet?" said Schmalz. "Why, how curious! Nor
+have I! As you are a stranger in Berlin, you must allow me to appoint
+myself your guide. Let us go to an hotel together, shall we?"
+
+I wanted to demur, difficult as it was to find any acceptable excuse,
+but his manner was so friendly, his offer seemed so sincere, that I felt
+my resolution wavering. He had a winning personality, this frank,
+handsome boy. And I was so dog-tired!
+
+He perceived my reluctance but also my indecision.
+
+"We'll go to any hotel you like," he said brightly. "But you Americans
+are spoilt in the matter of luxurious hotels, I know. Still, I tell you
+we have not much to learn in that line in Berlin. Suppose we go to the
+Esplanade. It's a fine hotel ... the Hamburg American line run it, you
+know. I am very well known there, quite the _Hauskind_ ... my uncle was
+a captain of one of their liners. They will make us very comfortable:
+they always give me a little suite, bedroom, sitting-room and bath, very
+reasonably: I'll make them do the same for you."
+
+If I had been less weary--I have often thought since--I would have got
+up and fled from the cafe rather than have countenanced any such mad
+proposal. But I was drunk with sleep heaviness and I snatched at this
+chance of getting a good night's rest, for I felt that, under the aegis
+of this young officer, I could count on any passport difficulties at the
+hotel being postponed until morning. By that time, I meant to be out of
+the hotel and away on my investigations.
+
+So I accepted Schmalz's suggestion.
+
+"By the way," I said, "I have no luggage. My bag got mislaid somehow at
+the station and I don't really feel up to going after it to-night."
+
+"I will fix you up," the other replied promptly, "and with pyjamas in
+the American fashion. By the by," he added, lowering his voice, "I
+thought it better to speak German. English is not heard gladly in
+Berlin just now."
+
+"I quite understand," I said. Then, to change the subject, which I did
+not like particularly, I added:
+
+"Surely, you have been very quick in coming down from the frontier. Did
+you come by train?"
+
+"Oh, no!" he answered. "I found that the car in which you drove to the
+station ... it belonged to the gentleman who came to meet you, you
+know ... was being sent back to Berlin by road, so I got the driver to
+give me a lift."
+
+He said this quite airily, with his usual tone of candour. But for a
+moment I regretted my decision to go to the Esplanade with him. What if
+he knew more than he seemed to know?
+
+I dismissed the suspicion from my mind.
+
+"Bah!" I said to myself, "you are getting jumpy. Besides, it is too late
+to turn back now!"
+
+We had a friendly wrangle as to who should pay for the drinks, and it
+ended in my paying. Then, after a long wait, we managed to get a cab, an
+antique-looking "growler" driven by an octogenarian in a coat of many
+capes, and drove to the Esplanade.
+
+It was a regular palace of a place, with a splendid vestibule with walls
+and pavement of different-hued marbles, with palm trees over-shadowing
+a little fountain tinkling in a jade basin, with servants in gaudy
+liveries. The reception clerk overwhelmed me with the cordiality of his
+welcome to my companion and "the American gentleman," and after a
+certain amount of coquettish protestations about the difficulty of
+providing accommodation, allotted us a double suite on the entresol,
+consisting of two bedrooms with a common sitting-room and bathroom.
+
+In his immaculate evening dress, he was a Beau Brummell among hotel
+clerks, that man. The luggage of the American gentleman should be
+fetched in the morning. The gentleman's papers? There was no hurry: the
+Herr Leutnant would explain to his friend the forms that had to be
+filled in: they could be given to the waiter in the morning. Would the
+gentlemen take anything before retiring? A whisky-soda--ah! whisky was
+getting scarce. No? Nothing? He had the honour to wish the gentlemen
+pleasant repose.
+
+We went to the lift in procession, Beau Brummell in front, then a
+waiter, then ourselves and the gold-braided hall porter bringing up the
+rear. One or two people were sitting in the lounge, attended by a
+platoon of waiters. The whole place gave an impression of wealth and
+luxury altogether out of keeping with British ideas of the stringency of
+life in Germany under the British blockade. I could not help reflecting
+to myself mournfully that Germany did not seem to feel the pinch very
+much.
+
+At the lift the procession bowed itself away and we went up in charge of
+the liftman, a gorgeous individual who looked like one of the Pope's
+Swiss Guards. We reached the centresol in an instant. The Lieutenant led
+the way along the dimly lighted corridor.
+
+"Here is the sitting-room," he said, opening a door. "This is my room,
+this the bathroom, and this," he flung open the fourth door, "is your
+room!"
+
+He stood aside to let me pass. The lights in the room were full on. In
+an arm-chair a big man in an overcoat was sitting.
+
+He had a heavy square face and a clubfoot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A GLASS OF WINE WITH CLUBFOOT
+
+
+I walked boldly into the room. All sense of fear had vanished in a wave
+of anger that swept over me, anger with myself for letting myself be
+trapped, anger with my companion for his treachery.
+
+Schmalz stood at my elbow with a smile full of malice on his face.
+
+"There now!" he cried, "you see, you are among friends! Am I not
+thoughtful to have prepared this little surprise for you? See, I have
+brought you to the one man you have crossed so many hundreds of miles of
+ocean to see! Herr Doktor! this is Dr. Semlin. Dr. Semlin: Dr. Grundt."
+
+The other had by now heaved his unwieldy frame from the chair.
+
+"Dr. Semlin?" he said, in a perfectly emotionless voice, _une voix
+blanche_, as the French say, "this is an unexpected pleasure. I never
+thought we should meet in Berlin. I had believed our rendezvous to have
+been fixed for Rotterdam. Still, better late than never!" And he
+extended to me a white, fat hand.
+
+"Our friend, the Herr Leutnant," I answered carelessly, "omitted to
+inform me that he was acquainted with you, as, indeed, he failed to warn
+me that I should have the pleasure of seeing you here to-night."
+
+"We owe that pleasure," Clubfoot replied with a smile that displayed a
+glitter of gold in his teeth, "to a purely fortuitous encounter at the
+Casino at Goch, as, indeed, it would appear, I am similarly indebted to
+chance for the unlooked-for boon of making your personal acquaintance
+here this evening."
+
+He bowed to Schmalz as he said this.
+
+"But come," he went on, "if I may make bold to offer you the hospitality
+of your own room, sit down and try a glass of this excellent
+Brauneberger. Rhine wine must be scarce where you come from. We have
+much to tell one another, you and I."
+
+Again he bared his golden teeth in a smile.
+
+"By all means," I said. "But I fear we keep our young friend from his
+bed. Doubtless, you have no secrets from him, but you will agree, Herr
+Doktor, that our conversation should best be tete-a-tete."
+
+"Schmalz, dear friend," Clubfoot exclaimed with a sigh of regret, "much
+as I should like ... I am indeed truly sorry that we should be deprived
+of your company, but I cannot contest the profound accuracy of our
+friend's remark. If you could go to the sitting-room for a few
+minutes...."
+
+The young lieutenant flushed angrily.
+
+"If you prefer my room to my company ... by all means," he retorted
+gruffly, "but I think, in the circumstances, that I shall go to bed."
+
+And he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, shutting the door
+with rather more force than was necessary, I thought.
+
+Clubfoot sighed.
+
+"Ach! youth! youth!" he cried, "the same impetuous youth that is at
+this very moment hacking out for Germany a world empire amidst the
+nations in arms. A wonderful race, a race of giants, our German youth,
+Herr Doktor ... the mainspring of our great German machine--as they find
+who resist it. A glass of wine!"
+
+The man's speech and manner boded ill for me, I felt. I would have
+infinitely preferred violent language and open threats to the subtle
+menace that lay concealed beneath all this suavity.
+
+"You smoke?" queried Clubfoot. "No!"--he held up his hand to stop me as
+I was reaching for my cigarette case, "you shall have a cigar--not one
+of our poor German Hamburgers, but a fine Havana cigar given me by a
+member of the English Privy Council. You stare! Aha! I repeat, by a
+member of the English Privy Council, to me, the Boche, the barbarian,
+the Hun! No hole and corner work for the old doctor. _Der Stelze_ may be
+lame, Clubfoot may be past his work, but when he travels _en mission_,
+he travels _en prince_, the man of wealth and substance. There is none
+too high to do him honour, to listen to his views on poor, misguided
+Germany, the land of thinkers sold into bondage to the militarists! Bah!
+the fools!"
+
+He snarled venomously. This man was beginning to interest me. His rapid
+change of moods was fascinating, now the kindly philosopher, now the
+Teuton braggart, now the Hun incorporate. As he limped across the room
+to fetch his cigar case from the mantelpiece, I studied him.
+
+He was a vast man, not so much by reason of his height, which was below
+the medium, but his bulk, which was enormous. The span of his shoulders
+was immense, and, though a heavy paunch and a white flabbiness of face
+spoke of a gross, sedentary life, he was obviously a man of quite
+unusual strength. His arms particularly were out of all proportion to
+his stature, being so long that his hands hung down on either side of
+him when he stood erect, like the paws of some giant ape. Altogether,
+there was something decidedly simian about his appearance his squat nose
+with hairy, open nostrils, and the general hirsuteness of the man, his
+bushy eyebrows, the tufts of black hair on his cheekbones and on the
+backs of his big, spade like hands. And there was that in his eyes, dark
+and courageous beneath the shaggy brows, that hinted at accesses of
+ape-like fury, uncontrollable and ferocious.
+
+He gave me his cigar which, as he had said, was a good one, and, after a
+preliminary sip of his wine, began to speak.
+
+"I am a plain man, Herr Doktor," he said, "and I like plain speaking.
+That is why I am going to speak quite plainly to you. When it became
+apparent to that person whom it is not necessary to name further greatly
+desired a certain letter to be recovered, I naturally expected that I,
+who am a past member in affairs of this order, notably, on behalf of the
+person concerned, would have been entrusted with the mission. It was I
+who discovered the author of the theft in an English internment camp; it
+was I who prevailed upon him to acquiesce in our terms; it was I who
+finally located the hiding place of the document ... all this, mark you,
+without setting foot in England."
+
+My thoughts flew back again to the three slips of paper in their canvas
+cover, the divided crest, the big, sprawling, upright handwriting. I
+should have known that hand. I had seen it often enough on certain
+photographs which were accorded the place of honour in the drawing room
+at Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's at Bonn.
+
+"I therefore had the prior claim," Clubfoot continued, "to be entrusted
+with the important task of fetching the document and of handing it back
+to the writer. But the gentleman was in a hurry; the gentleman always
+is; he could not wait for that old slowcoach of a Clubfoot to mature his
+plans for getting into England, securing the document, and getting out
+again.
+
+"So Bernstorff is called into consultation, the head of an embassy that
+has made the German secret service the laughing-stock of the world, an
+ambassador that has his private papers filched by a common sneak-thief
+in the underground railway and is fool enough to send home the most
+valuable documents by a jackass of a military attache who lets the whole
+lot be taken from him by a dunderheaded British customs officer at
+Falmouth! _This_ was the man who was to replace _me!_
+
+"Bernstorff is accordingly bidden to despatch one of his trusty servants
+to England, with all suitable precautions, to do _my_ work. You are
+chosen, and I will pay you the compliment of saying that you fulfilled
+your mission in a manner that is singularly out of keeping with the
+usual method of procedure of that gentleman's emissaries.
+
+"But, my dear Doktor ... pray fill your glass. That cigar is good, is it
+not? I thought you would appreciate a good cigar.... As I was saying,
+you were handicapped from the first. When you reach the place indicated
+to you in your instructions, you find only half the document. The wily
+thief has sliced it in two so as to make sure of his money before
+parting with the goods. They didn't know, of course, that Clubfoot, the
+old slowcoach, who is past his work, was aware of this already, and had
+made his plans accordingly. But, in the end, they had to send for me.
+'The good Clubfoot,' 'old chap,' 'sly old fox,' and all the rest of
+it--would run across to England and secure the other half, while Count
+Bernstorff's smart young man from America would wait in Rotterdam until
+Herr Dr. Grundt arrived and handed him the other portion.
+
+"But Count Bernstorff's young man does nothing of the kind. He is
+one too many for the old fox. He does not wait for him. He runs away,
+after displaying unusual determination in dealing with a prying
+Englander--whose fate should be a lesson to all who interfere in other
+people's business--and goes to Germany, leaving poor old Clubfoot in the
+lurch. You must admit, Herr Doktor, that I have been hardly used--by
+yourself as well as by another person?"
+
+My throat was dry with anxiety. What did the man mean by his veiled
+allusions to "all who interfere in other people's business?"
+
+I cleared my throat to speak.
+
+Clubfoot raised a great hand in deprecation.
+
+"No explanation, Herr Doktor, I beg" (his tone was perfectly
+unconcerned and friendly), "let me have my say. When I found out that
+you had left Rotterdam--by the way, you must let me congratulate you on
+the remarkable fertility of resource you displayed in quitting Frau
+Schratt's hospitable house--when I found you were gone, I sat down and
+thought things out.
+
+"I reflected that an astute American like yourself (believe me, you are
+very astute) would probably be accustomed to look at everything from the
+business standpoint. 'I will also consider the matter from the business
+standpoint,' I said to myself, and I decided that, in your place, I too
+would not be content to accept, as sole payment for the danger of my
+mission, the scarcely generous compensation that Count Bernstorff allots
+to his collaborators. No, I should wish to secure a little renown for
+myself, or, were that not possible, then some monetary gain
+proportionate with the risks I had run. You see, I have been at pains to
+put myself wholly in your place. I hope I have not said anything
+tactless. If so, I can at least acquit myself of any desire to offend."
+
+"On the contrary, Herr Doktor," I replied, "you are the model of tact
+and diplomacy."
+
+His eyes narrowed a little at this. I thought he wouldn't like that word
+"diplomacy."
+
+"Another glass of wine? You may safely venture; there is not a headache
+in a bottle of it. Well, Herr Doktor, since you have followed me so
+patiently thus far, I will go further. I told you, when I first saw you
+this evening, that I was delighted at our meeting. That was no mere
+banality, but the sober truth. For, you see, I am the very person with
+whom, in the circumstances, you would wish to get in touch. Deprived of
+the honour, rightly belonging to me, of undertaking this mission
+single-handed and of fulfilling it alone, I find that you can enable me
+to carry out the mission to a successful conclusion, whilst I, for my
+part, am able and willing to recompense your services as they deserve
+and not according to Bernstorff's starvation scale.
+
+"To make a long story short, Herr Doktor ... how much?"
+
+He brought his remarks to this abrupt anticlimax so suddenly that I was
+taken aback. The man was watching me intently for all his apparent
+nonchalance, and I felt more than ever the necessity for being on my
+guard. If I could only fathom how much he knew. Of two things I felt
+fairly sure: the fellow believed me to be Semlin and was under the
+impression that I still retained my portion of the document. I should
+have to gain time. The bargain he proposed over my half of the letter
+might give me an opportunity of doing that. Moreover, I must find out
+whether he really had the other half of the document, and in that case,
+where he kept it.
+
+He broke the silence.
+
+"Well, Herr Doktor," he said, "do you want me to start the bidding? You
+needn't be afraid. I am generous."
+
+I leant forward earnestly in my chair.
+
+"You have spoken with admirable frankness, Herr Doktor," I said, "and I
+will be equally plain, but I will be brief. In the first place, I wish
+to know that you are the man you profess to be: so far, you must
+remember, I have only the assurance of our excitable young friend."
+
+"Your caution is most praiseworthy," said the other, "but I should
+imagine I carry my name written on my boot." And he lifted his hideous
+and deformed foot.
+
+"That is scarcely sufficient guarantee," I answered, "in a matter of
+this importance. A detail like that could easily be counterfeited, or
+otherwise provided for."
+
+"My badge," and the man produced from his waistcoat pocket a silver star
+identical with the one I carried on my braces, but bearing only the
+letter "G" above the inscription "Abt. VII."
+
+"That, even," I retorted, "is not conclusive."
+
+Clubfoot's mind was extraordinarily alert, however gross and heavy his
+body might be.
+
+He paused for a moment in reflection, his hands crossed upon his great
+paunch.
+
+"Why not?" he said suddenly, reached out for his cigar-case, beside him
+on the table, and produced three slips of paper highly glazed and
+covered with that unforgettable, sprawling hand, a portion of a gilded
+crest at the top--in short, the missing half of the document I had found
+in Semlin's bag. Clubfoot held them out fanwise for me to see, but well
+out of my reach, and he kept a great, spatulate thumb over the top of
+the first sheet where the name of the addressee should have been.
+
+"I trust you are now convinced, Herr Doktor," he said, with a smile that
+bared his teeth, and, putting the pieces together, he folded them
+across, tucked them away in the cigar-case again, and thrust it into his
+pocket.
+
+I must test the ground further.
+
+"Has it occurred to you, Herr Doktor," I asked, "that we have very
+little time at our disposal? The person whom we serve must be anxiously
+waiting...."
+
+Clubfoot laughed and shook his head.
+
+"I want that half-letter badly," he said, "but there's no violent hurry.
+So I fear you must leave that argument out of your presentation of the
+case, for it has no commercial value. The person you speak of is not in
+Berlin."
+
+I had heard something of the Kaiser's sudden appearances and
+disappearances during the war, but I had not thought they could be so
+well managed as to be kept from the knowledge of one of his own trusted
+servants, for such I judged Clubfoot to be. Evidently, he knew nothing
+of my visit to the Castle that evening, and I was for a moment
+unpatriotic enough to wish I had kept my half of the letter that I might
+give it to Clubfoot now to save the coming exposure. "A thousand
+dollars!" Clubfoot said.
+
+I remained silent.
+
+"Two? Three? Four thousand? Man, you are greedy. Well, I will make it
+five thousand--twenty thousand marks...."
+
+"Herr Doktor," I said, "I don't want your money. I want to be fair with
+you. When the ... the person we know of sends for you, we will go
+together. You shall tell the large part you have played in this affair.
+I only want credit for what I have done, nothing more...."
+
+A knock came at the door. The porter entered.
+
+"A telegram for the Herr Doktor," he said, presenting a salver.
+
+Somewhere near by a band was playing dance music ... one of those
+rousing, splendidly accented Viennese waltzes. There seemed to be a ball
+on, for through the open door of the room, I heard, mingled with the
+strains of the music, the sound of feet and the hum of voices.
+
+Then the door closed, shutting out the outer world again.
+
+"You permit me," said Grundt curtly, as he broke the seal of the
+telegram. So as not to seem to observe him, I got up and walked across
+to the window, and leaned against the warm radiator.
+
+"Well?" said a voice from the arm-chair.
+
+"Well?" I echoed.
+
+"I have made you my proposal, Herr Doktor: you have made yours. Yours is
+quite unacceptable. I have told you with great frankness why it is
+necessary that I should have your portion of the document and the sum I
+am prepared to pay for it. I set its value at five thousand dollars. I
+will pay you the money over in cash, here and now, in good German
+bank-notes, in exchange for those slips of paper."
+
+The man's suavity had all but vanished: his voice was harsh and stern.
+His eyes glittered under his shaggy brows as he looked at me. Had I been
+less agitated, I should have noted this, as a portent of the coming
+storm, also his great ape's hands picking nervously at the telegram in
+his lap.
+
+"I have already told you," I said firmly, "that I don't want your money.
+You know my terms!"
+
+He rose up from his seat and his figure seemed to tower.
+
+"Terms?" he cried in a voice that quivered with suppressed passion,
+"terms? Understand that I give orders. I accept terms from no man. We
+waste time here talking. Come, take the money and give me the paper."
+
+I shook my head. My brain was clear, but I felt the crisis was coming. I
+took a good grip with my hands of the marble slab covering the radiator
+behind me to give me confidence. The slab yielded: mechanically I noted
+that it was loose.
+
+The man in front of me was shaking with rage.
+
+"Listen!" he said. "I'll give you one more chance. But mark my words
+well. Do you know what happened to the man that stole that document? The
+English took him out and shot him on account of what was found in his
+house when they raided it. Do you know what happened to the interpreter
+at the internment camp, who was our go-between, who played us false by
+cutting the document in half? The English shot _him_ too, on account of
+what was found in letters that came to him openly through the post? And
+who settled Schulte? And who settled the other man? Who contrived the
+traps that sent them to their doom? It was _I_, Grundt, _I_, the
+cripple, _I_, the Clubfoot, that had these traitors despatched as an
+example to the six thousand of us who serve our Emperor and empire in
+darkness! You dog, I'll smash you!"
+
+He was gibbering like an angry ape: his frame was shaking with fury:
+every hair in the tangle on his face and hands seemed to bristle with
+his Berserker frenzy.
+
+But he kept away from me, and I saw that he was still fighting to
+preserve his self-control.
+
+I maintained a bold front.
+
+"This may do for your own people," I said contemptuously, "but it
+doesn't impress me, I'm an American citizen!"
+
+He was calmer now, but his eyes glittered dangerously.
+
+"An American citizen?" he said in an icy tone. Then he fairly hissed at
+me:
+
+"You fool! Blind, besotted fool! Do you think you can trifle with the
+might of the German Empire? Ah! I've played a pretty game with you, you
+dirty English dog! I've watched you squirming and writhing whilst the
+stupid German told you his pretty little tale and plied you with his
+wine and his cigars. You're in our power now, you miserable English
+hound! Do you understand that? Now call on your fleet to come and save
+you!
+
+"Listen! I'll be frank with you to the last. I've had my suspicions of
+you from the first, when they telephoned me that you had escaped from
+the hotel, but I wanted to make _sure_. Ever since you have been in this
+room it has been in my power to push that bell there and send you to
+Spandau, where they rid us of such dirty dogs as you.
+
+"But the game amused me. I liked to see the Herr Englander playing the
+spy against _me_, the master of them all. Do you know, you fool, that
+old Schratt knows English, that she spent years of her harlot's life in
+London, and that when you allowed her a glimpse of that passport, your
+own passport, the one you so cleverly burned, she remembered the name?
+Ah! you didn't know that, did you?
+
+"Shall I tell you what was in that telegram they just brought me? It was
+from Schratt, our faithful Schratt, who shall have a bangle for this
+night's work, to say that the corpse at the hotel has a chain round its
+neck with an identity disc in the name of Semlin. Ha! you didn't know
+that either, did you?
+
+"And _you_ would bargain and chaffer with me! _You_ would dictate your
+terms, you scum! _You_ with your head in a noose, a spy that has failed
+in his mission, a miserable wretch that I can send to his death with a
+flip of my little finger! You impudent hound! Well, you'll get your
+deserts this time, Captain Desmond Okewood ... but I'll have that paper
+first!"
+
+Roaring "Give it to me!" he rushed at me like some frenzied beast of the
+jungle. The veins stood out at his temples, his hairy nostrils opened
+and closed as his breath came faster, his long arms shot out and his
+great paws clutched at my throat.
+
+But I was waiting for him. As he came at me, I heard his clubfoot stump
+once on the polished floor, then, from the radiator behind me, I raised
+high in my arms the heavy marble slab, and with every ounce of strength
+in my body brought it crashing down on his head.
+
+He fell like a log, the blood oozing sluggishly from his head on to the
+parquet. I stopped an instant, snatched the cigar-case from the pocket
+where he had placed it, extracted the document and fled from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MISS MARY PRENDERGAST RISKS HER REPUTATION
+
+
+The rooms of our suite were intercommunicating so that you could pass
+from one to the other without going into the corridor at all. Schmalz
+had retired this way, going from my room through the bathroom to his own
+room. In the excitement of the moment I forgot all about this, else I
+should not have omitted such an elementary precaution as slipping the
+bolt of the door communicating between my room and the bathroom.
+
+As I stepped out into the corridor, with the crash of that heavy body
+still ringing in my ears, I thought I caught the sound of a light step
+in the bathroom; the next moment I heard a door open and then a loud
+exclamation of horror in the room I had just left.
+
+The corridor was dim and deserted. The place seemed uninhabited. No
+boots stood outside the rooms, and open doors, one after the other, were
+sufficient indication that the apartments they led to were untenanted.
+
+I didn't pause to reason or to plan. On hearing that long drawn out cry
+of horror, I dashed blindly down the corridor at top speed, followed it
+round to the right and then, catching sight of a small staircase, rushed
+up it three steps at a time. As I reached the top I heard a loud cry
+somewhere on the floor below. Then a door banged, there was the sound of
+running feet and ... silence.
+
+I found myself on the next floor in a corridor similar to the one I had
+just left. Like it, it was desolate and dimly lit. Like it, it showed
+room after room silent and empty. Agitated as I was, the contrast with
+the bright and busy vestibule and the throng of uniformed servants below
+was so marked that it struck me with convincing force. Even the hotels,
+it seemed, were part and parcel of the great German publicity bluff
+which I had noted in my reading of the German papers at Rotterdam.
+
+I had no plan in my head, only a wild desire to put as much distance as
+possible between me and that ape-man in the room below. So, after
+pausing a moment to listen and draw breath, I started off again.
+Suddenly a door down the corridor, not ten paces away from me, opened
+and a woman came out. I stopped dead in my headlong course, but it was
+too late and I found myself confronting her.
+
+She was young and very beautiful with masses of thick brown hair
+clustering round a very white forehead. She was in evening dress, all
+in white, with an ermine wrap.
+
+Even as I looked at her I knew her and she knew me.
+
+"Monica," I whispered.
+
+"Why! Desmond!" she said.
+
+A regular hubbub echoed from below. Voices were crying out, doors were
+banging, there was the sound of feet.
+
+The girl was speaking, saying in her low and pleasant voice phrases that
+were vague to me about her surprise, her delight at seeing me. But I did
+not listen to her. I was straining my ears towards that volume of
+chaotic noises which came swelling up from below.
+
+"Monica!" I interrupted swiftly, "have you any place to hide me? This
+place is dangerous for me.... I must get away. If you can't save me,
+don't stay here but get away yourself as fast as you can. They're after
+me and if they catch you with me it will be bad for you!"
+
+Without a word the girl turned round to the room she had just left. She
+beckoned to me, then knocked and went in. I followed her. It was a big,
+pleasant bedroom, elegantly furnished with a soft carpet and silk
+hangings, and I know not what, with shaded lights and flowers in
+profusion. Sitting up in bed was a stout, placid-looking woman in a pink
+silk kimono with her hair coquettishly braided in two short pigtails
+which hung down on either side of her face.
+
+Monica closed the door softly behind her.
+
+"Why, Monica!" she exclaimed in horror--and her speech was that of the
+United States--"what on earth ...?"
+
+"Not a word, Mary, but let me explain...."
+
+"But for land's sake, Monica...."
+
+"Mary, I want you to help...."
+
+"But say, child, a man ... in my bedroom ... at this time o' night...."
+
+"Oh, shucks, Mary! let me talk."
+
+The distress of the woman in bed was so comic that I could scarcely help
+laughing. She had dragged the bed-clothes up till only her eyes could be
+seen. Her pigtails bobbed about in her emotion.
+
+"Now, Mary dear, listen here. You're a friend of mine. This is Desmond
+Okewood, another, a very old and dear friend of mine too. Well, you
+know, Mary, this isn't a healthy country these times for an English
+officer. That's what Desmond here is. I didn't know he was in Germany. I
+don't know a thing about him except what he's told me and that's that
+he's in danger and wants me to help him. I met him outside and brought
+him right in here, as I know you would want me to, wouldn't you, dear?"
+
+The lady poked her nose over the top of the bed-clothes.
+
+"Present the gentleman properly, Monica!" she said severely.
+
+"Captain Okewood ... Miss Mary Prendergast," said Monica.
+
+The lady's head, pigtails and all, now appeared. She appeared to be
+somewhat mollified.
+
+"I can't say I approve of your way of doing things, Monica," she
+observed, but less severely than before, "and I can't think what an
+English officer wants in my bedroom at ten minutes of two in the
+morning, but if those Deutschers want to find him, perhaps I can
+understand!"
+
+Here she smiled affectionately on the beautiful girl at my side.
+
+"Ah! Mary, you're a dear," replied Monica.
+
+"I knew you'd help us. Why, a British officer in Germany ... isn't it
+too thrilling?"
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"But, Des," she said, "what do you want me to do?"
+
+I knew I could trust Monica and I resolved I would trust her friend
+too... she looked a white woman all right. And if she was a friend of
+Monica's, her heart would be in the right place. Francis and I had known
+Monica all our lives almost. Her father had lived for years ... indeed
+to the day of his death ... in London as the principal European
+representative of a big American financial house. They had lived next
+door to us in London and Francis and I had known Monica from the days
+when she was a pretty kid in short skirts until she had made her debut
+and the American ambassadress had presented her at Buckingham Palace. At
+various stages of our lives, both Francis and I had been in love with
+her, I believe, but my life in the army had kept me much abroad, so
+Francis had seen most of her and had been the hardest hit.
+
+Then the father died and Monica went travelling abroad in great state,
+as befits a young heiress, with a prodigiously respectable American
+chaperon and a retinue of retainers. I never knew the rights of the case
+between her and Francis, but at one of the German embassies abroad--I
+think in Vienna--she met the young Count Rachwitz, head of one of the
+great Silesian noble houses, and married him.
+
+It was not on the usual rock--money--that this German-American marriage
+was wrecked, for the Count was very wealthy himself. I had supposed that
+the German man's habitual attitude of mind towards women had not suited
+the girl's independent spirit on hearing that Monica, a few years after
+her marriage, had left her husband and gone to live in America. I had
+not seen her since she left London, and, though we wrote to one another
+at intervals, I had not heard from her since the war started and had no
+idea that she had returned to Germany. Monica Rachwitz was, in fact, the
+last person I should ever have expected to meet in Berlin in war-time.
+
+So, as briefly as I could and listening intently throughout for any
+sounds from the corridor, I gave the two women the story of the
+disappearance of Francis and my journey into Germany to look for him. At
+the mention of my brother's name, I noticed that the girl stiffened and
+her face grew rigid, but when I told her of my fears for his safety her
+blue eyes seemed to me to grow dim. I described to them my adventure in
+the hotel at Rotterdam, my reception in the house of General von Boden,
+and my interview at the Castle, ending with the experiences of that
+night, the trap laid for me at the hotel and my encounter with Clubfoot
+in the room below. Two things only I kept back: the message from Francis
+and the document. I decided within myself that the fewer people in those
+secrets the safer they would be. I am afraid, therefore, that my account
+of my interview with the Emperor was a trifle garbled, for I made out
+that I did not know why I was bidden to the presence and that our
+conversation was interrupted before I could discover the reason.
+
+The two women listened with grave faces. Only once did Monica interrupt
+me. It was when I mentioned General von Boden.
+
+"I know the beast," she said. "But, oh, Des!" she exclaimed, "you seem
+to have fallen right among the top set in this country. They're a bad
+lot to cross. I fear you are in terrible danger."
+
+"I believe you, Monica," I answered, dolefully enough. "And that's just
+where I feel such a beast for throwing myself upon your mercy in this
+way. But I was pretty desperate when I met you just now and I didn't
+know where to turn. Still, I want you to understand that if you can only
+get me out of this place I shall not trouble you further. I came to this
+country on my own responsibility and I'm going through with it alone. I
+have no intention of implicating anybody else along with me. But I
+confess I don't believe it is possible to get away from this hotel.
+They're watching every door by now. Besides..."
+
+I stopped abruptly. A noise outside caught my listening ear. Footsteps
+were approaching along the corridor. I heard doors open and shut. They
+were hunting for me, floor by floor, room by room.
+
+"Open that wardrobe," said a voice from the bed: a firm, business-like
+voice that was good to hear. "Open it and get right in, young man; but
+don't go mussing up my good dresses whatever you do! And you, Monica,
+quick! Switch off those lights all but this one by the bed. Good! Now go
+to the door and ask them what they mean by making this noise at this
+time of night with me ill and all!"
+
+I got into the wardrobe and Monica shut me in. I heard the bedroom door
+open, then voices. I waited patiently for five minutes, then the
+wardrobe door opened again.
+
+"Come out, Des," said Monica, "and thank Mary Prendergast for her
+cleverness."
+
+"What did they say?" I asked.
+
+"That reception clerk was along. He was most apologetic--they know me
+here, you see. He told me how a fellow had made a desperate attack upon
+a gentleman on the floor below and had got away. They thought he must be
+hiding somewhere in the hotel. I told him I'd been sitting here for an
+hour chatting with Miss Prendergast and that we hadn't heard a sound.
+They went away then!"
+
+"You won't catch any Deutschers fooling Mary Prendergast," said the
+jovial lady in the bed; "but, children, what next?"
+
+Monica spoke--quite calmly. She was always perfectly self-possessed.
+
+"My brother is stopping with me in our apartment in the
+Bendler-Strasse," she said. "You remember Gerry, Des--he got all smashed
+up flying, you know, and is practically a cripple. He's been so much
+better here that I've been trying to get an attendant to look after him,
+to dress him and so on, but we couldn't find anybody; men are so scarce
+nowadays! You could come home with me, Des, and take this man's place
+for a day or two ... I'm afraid it couldn't be longer, for one would
+have to register you with the police--every one has to be registered,
+you know--and I suppose you have no papers that are any good--now."
+
+"You are too kind, Monica," I answered, "but you risk too much and I
+can't accept."
+
+"It's no risk for a day or two," she said. "I am a person of consequence
+in official Germany, you know, with my husband A.D.C. to Marshal von
+Mackensen: and I can always say I forgot to send in your papers. If they
+come down upon me afterwards I should say I meant to register you but
+had to discharge you suddenly ... for drink!"
+
+"But how can I get away from here?" I objected.
+
+"I guess we can fix that too," she replied. "My car is coming for me at
+two--it must be that now--I have been at a dance downstairs--one of the
+Radolin girls is getting married to-morrow--it was so deadly dull I ran
+up here and woke up Mary Prendergast to talk. You shall be my chauffeur!
+I know you drive a car! You ought to be able to manage mine ... it's a
+Mercedes."
+
+"I can drive any old car," I said, "but I'm blessed ..."
+
+"Wait there!" cried this remarkable girl, and ran out of the room.
+
+For twenty minutes I stood and made small talk with Miss Prendergast.
+They were the longest twenty minutes I have ever spent. I was dead tired
+in any case, but my desperate position kept my thoughts so busy that,
+for all my endeavours to be polite, I fear my conversation was extremely
+distraught.
+
+"You poor boy!" suddenly said Miss Mary Prendergast, totally ignoring a
+profound remark I was making regarding Mr. Wilson's policy, "don't you
+go on talking to me! Sit down on that chair and go to sleep! You look
+just beat!"
+
+I sat down and nodded in the arm-chair.
+
+Suddenly I was awake. Monica stood before me. She drew from under her
+cape a livery cap and uniform.
+
+"Put these things on," she said, "and listen carefully. When you leave
+here, turn to the right and take the little staircase you will find on
+the right. Go down to the bottom, go through the glass doors, and across
+the room you will find there, to a door in a corner which leads to the
+ballroom entrance of the hotel. I will give you my ermine wrap to carry.
+I shall be waiting there. You will help me on with my cloak and escort
+me to the car. Is that clear?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Now, pay attention once more, for I shall not be able to speak to you
+again. I shall have to give you your directions for finding the way to
+the Bendler-Strasse."
+
+She did so and added:
+
+"Drive carefully, whatever you do. If we had a smash and the police
+intervened, it might be most awkward for you."
+
+"But your chauffeur," I said, "what will he do?"
+
+"Oh, Carter," she answered carelessly, "he's tickled to death ... he's
+American, you see ... he drove me out into the Tiergarten just now and
+took off his livery, then drove me back here, hopped off and went home."
+
+"But can you trust him?" I asked anxiously.
+
+"Like myself," she said. "Besides, Carter's been to Belgium ... he drove
+Count Rachwitz, my husband, while he was on duty there. And Carter
+hasn't forgotten what he saw in Belgium!"
+
+She gave me the key of the garage and further instructions how to put
+the car up. Carter would give me a bed at the garage and would bring me
+round to the house early in the morning as if I were applying for the
+job of male attendant for Gerry.
+
+"I will go down first," Monica said, "so as not to keep you waiting. My,
+but they're rattled downstairs--all the crowd at Olga von Radolin's
+dance have got hold of the story and the place is full of policemen. But
+there'll be no danger if you walk straight up to me in the hall and
+keep your face turned away from the crowd as much as possible."
+
+She kissed Miss Prendergast and slipped away. What a splendid pair of
+women they were: so admirably cool and resourceful: they seemed to have
+thought of everything.
+
+"Good night, Miss Prendergast," I said. "You have done me a good turn. I
+shall never forget it!" And as the only means at my disposal for showing
+my gratitude, I kissed her hand.
+
+She coloured up like a girl.
+
+"It's a long time since any one did that to a silly old woman like me,"
+she said musingly. "Was it you or your brother," she asked abruptly,
+"who nearly broke my poor girl's heart?"
+
+"I shouldn't like to say," I answered; "but I don't think, speaking
+personally, that Monica ever cared enough about me for me to plead
+guilty."
+
+She sniffed contemptuously.
+
+"If that is so," she said, "all I can say is that you seem to have all
+the brains of your family!"
+
+With that I took my leave.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I reached the ballroom vestibule without meeting a soul. The place was
+crowded with people, officers in uniform, glittering with decorations,
+women in evening dress, coachmen, footmen, chauffeurs, waiters.
+Everybody was talking sixteen to the dozen, and there were such dense
+knots of people that at first I couldn't see Monica. Two policemen were
+standing at the swing-doors leading into the street, and with them a
+civilian who looked like a detective. I caught sight of Monica, almost
+at the detective's elbow, talking to two very elegant-looking officers.
+I pushed my way across the vestibule, turned my back on the detective
+and stood impassively beside her.
+
+"Ah! there you are, Carter!" she said. "Gute Nacht, Herr Baron! Auf
+wiedersehen, Durchlaucht!"
+
+The two officers kissed her hand whilst I helped her into her wrap. Then
+I marched straight out of the swing-doors in front of her, looking
+neither to right nor to left, past the detective and the two policemen.
+The detective may have looked at me: if so, I didn't perceive it. I had
+made up my mind not to see him.
+
+Outside Monica took the lead and brought me over to a chocolate-coloured
+limousine drawn up at the pavement. I noted with dismay that the engine
+was stopped. That might mean further delay whilst I cranked up. But a
+friendly chauffeur standing by seized the handle and started the engine
+whilst I assisted Monica into the car, and the next moment we were
+gliding smoothly over the asphalt under the twinkling arc-lamps.
+
+The Bendler-Strasse is off the Tiergarten, not far from the Esplanade,
+and I found my way there without much difficulty. I flatter myself that
+both Monica and I played our parts well, and I am sure nothing could
+have been more professional than the way I helped her to alight. It was
+an apartment house and she had the key of the front door, so, after
+seeing her safely within doors, I returned to the car and drove it round
+to the garage by a carriage-way leading to the rear of the premises.
+
+As I unlocked the double doors of the garage, a man came down a ladder
+outside the place leading to the upper room.
+
+"Did it work all right, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Is that Carter?" I said.
+
+"Sure that's me," came the cheery response. "Stand by now and we'll run
+her in. Then I'll show you where you are to sleep!"
+
+We stowed the car away and he took me upstairs to his quarters, a bright
+little room with electric light, a table with a red cloth, a cheerful
+open fire and two beds. The walls were ornamented with pictures cut from
+the American Sunday supplements, mostly feminine and horsy studies.
+
+"It's a bit rough, mister," said Carter, "but it's the best I can do.
+Gee! but you look that dawg-gorn tired I guess you could sleep
+anywheres!"
+
+He was a friendly fellow, pleasant-looking in an ugly way, with a button
+nose and honest eyes.
+
+"Say, but I like to think of the way we fooled them Deutschers," he
+chuckled. He kept on chuckling to himself whilst I took off my boots and
+began to undress.
+
+"That there is your bed," he said, pointing; "the footman used to sleep
+there but they grabbed him for the army. There's a pair of Mr. Gerry's
+pyjamas for you and you'll find a cup of cocoa down warming by the fire.
+It's all a bit rough, but it's the best we can do. I guess you want to
+go to sleep mortal bad, so I'll be going down. The bed's clean... there
+are clean sheets on it...."
+
+"But I won't turn you out of your room," I said. "There are two beds.
+You must take yours."
+
+"Don't you fret yourself about me," he answered. "I'll make myself
+comfortable down in the garage. I don't often see a gentleman in this
+dawg-gorn country, and when I do I know how to treat him."
+
+He wouldn't listen to me, but stumped off down the stairs. As he went I
+heard him murmuring to himself:
+
+"Gee! but we surely fooled those Deutschers some!"
+
+I drank this admirable fellow's cocoa; I warmed myself at his fire.
+Then with a thankful heart I crawled into bed and sank into a deep and
+dreamless sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIS EXCELLENCY THE GENERAL IS WORRIED
+
+
+I sat with Monica in her boudoir, which, unlike the usual run of German
+rooms, had an open fireplace in which a cheerful fire was burning.
+Monica, in a ravishing kimono, was perched on the leather railed seat
+running round the fireplace, one little foot in a satin slipper held out
+to the blaze. In that pretty room she made a charming picture, which for
+a moment almost made me forget the manifold dangers besetting me.
+
+The doughty Carter had acquitted himself nobly of his task. When I
+awoke, feeling like a giant refreshed, he had the fire blazing merrily
+in the fireplace, while on the table a delicious breakfast of tea and
+fried eggs and biscuits was spread.
+
+"There ain't no call to mess yourself up inside with that dam' war bread
+of theirs," he chirped. "Miss Monica, she lets me have biscuits, same
+like she has herself. I always calls her Miss Monica," he explained,
+"like what they did over at her uncle's place in Long Island, where I
+used to work."
+
+After breakfast he produced hot water, a safety razor and other toilet
+requisites, a clean shirt and collar, an overcoat and a Stetson hat--all
+from Gerry's wardrobe, I presumed. My boots, too, were beautifully
+polished, and it was as a new man altogether, fresh in mind and clean in
+body, that I presented myself, about ten o'clock in the morning, at the
+front door and demanded the "Frau Graefin." By Carter's advice I had
+removed my moustache, and my clean-shaven countenance, together with my
+black felt hat and dark overcoat, gave me, I think, that appearance of
+rather dour respectability which one looks for in a male attendant.
+
+Now Monica and I sat and reviewed the situation together.
+
+"German servants spend their lives in prying into their masters'
+affairs," she said, "but we shan't be interrupted here. That door leads
+into Gerry's room: he was asleep when I went in just now. I'll take you
+into him presently. Now tell me about yourself ... and Francis!"
+
+I told her again, but at greater length, all I knew about Francis, his
+mission into Germany, his long silence.
+
+"I acted on impulse," I said, "but, believe me, I acted for the best.
+Only, everything seems to have conspired against me. I appear to have
+walked straight into a mesh of the most appalling complications which
+reach right up to the Throne."
+
+"Never mind, Des," she said, leaning over and putting a little hand on
+my arm, "it was for Francis; you and I would do anything to help him,
+wouldn't we? ... if he is still alive. Impulse is not such a bad thing,
+after all. If I had acted on impulse once, maybe poor Francis would not
+now be in the fix he is...."
+
+And she sighed.
+
+"Things look black enough, Des," she went on. "Maybe you and I won't get
+the chance of another chat like this again and that's why I'm going to
+tell you something I have never told anybody else. I am only telling you
+so as you will know that, whatever happens, you will always find in me
+an ally in your search ... though, tied as I am, I scarcely think I can
+ever help you much.
+
+"Your brother wanted me to marry him. I liked him better than
+anybody else I had ever met ... or have ever met since, for that
+matter.... Daddy was dead, I was absolutely free to please myself, so no
+difficulties stood in the way. But your brother was proud ... his pride
+was greater than his love for me, I told him when we parted ... and he
+wouldn't hear of marriage until he had made himself independent, though
+I had enough for both of us. He wanted me to wait a year or two until
+he had got his business started properly, but his pride angered me and
+I wouldn't.
+
+"So we quarrelled and I went abroad with Mrs. Rushwood. Francis never
+wrote: all I heard about him was an occasional scrap in your letters.
+Mrs. Rushwood was crazy about titles, and she ran me round from court to
+court, always looking for what she called a suitable _pari_ for me. At
+Vienna we met Rachwitz ... he was very good looking and very well
+mannered and seemed to be really fond of me.
+
+"Well, I gave Francis another chance. I wrote him a friendly letter and
+told him about Rachwitz wanting to marry me and asked his advice. He
+wrote me back a beastly letter, a wicked letter, Des. 'Any girl who is
+fool enough to sell herself for a title,' he said, 'richly deserves a
+German husband.' What do you think of that?"
+
+"Poor old Francis," I said. "He was terribly fond of you, Monica!"
+
+"Well, his letter did it. I married Rachwitz ... and have been miserable
+ever since. I'm not going to bore you with a long story about my
+matrimonial troubles. No! I'm not going to cry either! I'm not crying!
+Karl is not a bad man, as German men go, and he's a gentleman, but his
+love affairs and his drunken parties and his attitude of mind towards
+me ... it was so utterly different to everything I had been used to.
+Then you know, I left him...."
+
+"But, Monica," I exclaimed, "what are you doing here then?"
+
+She sighed wearily.
+
+"I'm a German by marriage, Des," she said, "you can't get away from
+that. My husband's country ... my country ... is at war and the wives
+must play their part, wherever their heart is. Karl never asked me to
+come back, I'll give him the credit for that. I came of my own accord
+because I felt my place was here. So I go round to needlework parties
+and sewing bees and Red Cross matinees and try to be civil to the German
+women and listen to their boasting and bragging about their army, their
+hypocrisy about Belgium, their vilification of the best friends Daddy
+and I ever had, you English! But doing my duty by my husband does not
+forbid me to help my friends when they are in danger. That's why you can
+count on me, Des."
+
+And she gave me her hand.
+
+"I want to be frank with you, too," I said, "so, whatever happens to me,
+you won't feel I have deceived you about things. I can't say much
+because my secret is not healthy for anyone to share, and, should they
+trace any connection between you and me, if they get me, it will be
+better for you not to have known anything compromising. But I want to
+tell you this. There is a consideration at stake which is higher than
+my own safety, higher even than Francis'. I don't believe I am afraid to
+die: if I escape here, I shall probably get killed at the front sooner
+or later: it is because of this consideration I speak of that I want to
+get away with my life back to England."
+
+Monica laughed happily.
+
+"Why do men always take us women to be fools?" she said. "You're a
+dangerous man to have around, Des, I know that, without worrying my head
+about any old secret. But you are my friend and Francis' brother and I'm
+going to help you.
+
+"Now, listen! Old von Boden was at that party last night: he came in
+late. Rudi von Boden, he told me, is going to take despatches to
+Rumania, to Mackensen's head-quarters. Well, I telephoned the old man
+this morning and asked him if Rudi would take a parcel for me to Karl.
+He said he would and the General is coming here to lunch to-day to fetch
+it.
+
+"Von Boden is an old beast and runs after every woman he meets. He is by
+way of being partial to me, if you please, sir. I think I should be able
+to find out from him what are the latest developments in your case.
+There's nothing in the paper this morning about the affair at the
+Esplanade. But then, these things are always hushed up."
+
+"He'll hardly say much in the circumstances," I objected "After all,
+the Kaiser is involved...."
+
+"My dear Des, opinion of feminine intelligence in military circles in
+this country is so low that the women in the army set at Court are very
+often far better informed than the General Staff. Von Boden will tell me
+all I want to know."
+
+What a girl she was!
+
+"About your friend, the clubfooted man," she went on, "I'm rather
+puzzled. He must be a person of considerable importance to be fetched by
+special train straight into the Emperor's private apartments, where very
+few people ever penetrate, I assure you. But I've never heard of him.
+He's certainly not a Court official. Nor is he the head of the Political
+Police ... that's Henninger, a friend of Karl's. Still, there are people
+of great importance working in dark places in this country and I guess
+Clubfoot must be one of them.
+
+"Now, I think I ought to take you into Gerry. I want to speak to you
+about him, Des. I daren't tell him who you are. Gerry's not himself.
+He's been a nervous wreck ever since his accident and I can't trust him.
+He's a very conventional man and his principles would never hear of me
+harbouring a ... a ..."
+
+"Spy?" I suggested.
+
+"No, a friend," she corrected. "So you'll just have to be a male nurse,
+I guess. A German-American would be best, I think, as you'll have to
+read the German papers to Gerry--he doesn't know a word of German. Then,
+you must have a name of some kind...."
+
+"Frederick Meyer," I suggested promptly, "from Pittsburg. It'll have to
+be Pittsburg: Francis went there for a bit, you know: he wrote me a lot
+about the place and I've seen pictures of it, too. It's the only
+American city I know anything about."
+
+"Let it be Meyer from Pittsburg, then," smiled Monica, "but you've got a
+terrible English accent, Des. I guess we'll have to tell Gerry you were
+years nursing in London before the war."
+
+She hesitated a moment, then added:
+
+"Des, I'm afraid you'll find Gerry very trying. He's awfully irritable
+and ... and very spiteful. So you must be careful not to give yourself
+away."
+
+I had only met the brother once and my recollection of him was of a good
+looking, rather spoilt young man. He had been brought up entirely in the
+States by the Long Island uncle whose great fortune he had inherited.
+
+"You'll be quite safe up here for the present," Monica went on. "You'll
+sleep in the little room off Gerry's and I'll have your meals served
+there too. After I have found out from the General how things stand,
+we'll decide what's to be done next."
+
+"I'll be very wary with Master Gerry," I said. "But, Monica, though he
+has only seen me once, he knows Francis pretty well and we are rather
+alike. Do you think he'll recognize me?"
+
+"Why, Desmond, it's years since he saw you. And you're not much like
+Francis with your moustache off. If you're careful, it'll be all right!
+It isn't for long, either. Now we'll go in. Come along."
+
+As we entered, a petulant voice cried:
+
+"Is that you, Monica? Say, am I to be left alone all the morning?"
+
+"Gerry dear," answered Monica very sweetly, "I've been engaging someone
+to look after you a bit. Come here, Meyer! This is Frederick Meyer,
+Gerry!"
+
+I should never have recognized the handsome, rather indolent youth I had
+met in London in the pale man with features drawn with pain who gazed
+frowningly at me from the bed.
+
+"Who is he? Where did you get him from? Does he know German?"
+
+He shot a string of questions at Monica, who answered them in her sweet,
+patient way.
+
+He was apparently satisfied, for, when Monica presently got up to leave
+us, he threw me an armful of German papers and bade me read to him.
+
+I had not sat with him for ten minutes before I realized what an
+impossible creature the man was. Nothing I could do was right. Now he
+didn't want to hear the war news, then it was the report of the
+Reichstag debate that bored him, now I didn't read loud enough, then my
+voice jarred on him. Finally, he snatched the paper out of my hand.
+
+"I can't understand half you say," he cried in accents shrill with
+irritability; "you mouth and mumble like an Englishman. You say you are
+an American?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I answered meekly, "but I resided for many years in
+England."
+
+"Well, it's a good thing you're not there now. Those English are just
+plumb crazy. They'll never whip Germany, not if they try for a century.
+Why, look what this country has done in this war? Nothing can stand
+against her! It's organization, that's what it is! The Germans lead the
+world. Take their doctors! I have been to every specialist in America
+about my back and paid them thousands of dollars. And what good did they
+do me? Not a thing. I come to Germany, they charge me a quarter of the
+fees, and I feel a different man already. Before tackling the Germans,
+the English ..."
+
+Thus he ran on. I knew the type well, the American who is hypnotized by
+German efficiency and thoroughness so completely that he does not see
+the reverse side of the medal.
+
+He exhausted himself on the topic at last and bade me read to him again.
+
+"Read about the affair at the Hotel Esplanade last night," he commanded.
+
+I had kept an eye open for this very item but, as Monica had said, the
+papers contained no hint of it. I wondered how Gerry knew about it.
+Monica would not have told him.
+
+"What affair do you mean?" I said. "There is nothing about it in the
+papers."
+
+"Of course there is, you fool. What is the use of my hiring you to read
+the papers to me if you can't find news that's spread all over the
+place? It's no use giving me the paper ... you know I can't read it!
+Here, Josef will know!"
+
+A man-servant had come noiselessly into the room with some clothes.
+
+Gerry turned to him.
+
+"Josef, where did you see that story you were telling me about an
+English spy assaulting a man at the Esplanade last night?"
+
+"Dot ain't in de paper, sir. I haf heard dis from de chauffeur of de
+Biedermanns next door. He wass at de hotel himself wid hiss shentleman
+lars' night at de dance. Dey won't put dat in no paper, sir."
+
+And the man chuckled.
+
+I felt none too comfortable during all this and was glad to be told to
+read on and be damned.
+
+I read to the young American all the morning. He went on exactly like a
+very badly brought up child. He was fretful and quarrelsome and
+sometimes abusive, and I had some difficulty in keeping my temper. He
+continually recurred to my English accent and jeered so offensively and
+so pointedly at what he called "your English friends" that I began to
+believe there was some purpose behind his attitude. But it was only part
+of his invalid's fractiousness, for when the valet, Josef, appeared with
+the luncheon tray, the American seemed anxious to make amends for his
+behaviour.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm a bit trying at times, Meyer," he said with a pleasant
+smile. "But you're a good fellow. Go and have your lunch. You needn't
+come back till four: I always sleep after luncheon. Here, have a cigar!"
+
+I took the cigar with all humility as beseemed my role and followed the
+valet into an adjoining room, where the table was laid for me. I am
+keenly sensitive to outside influences, and I felt instinctively
+distrustful of the man Josef. I expect he resented my intrusion into a
+sphere where his influence had probably been supreme and where he had
+doubtless managed to secure a good harvest of pickings.
+
+He left me to my luncheon and went away. After an excellent lunch,
+washed down by some first-rate claret, I was enjoying my cigar over a
+book when Josef reappeared again.
+
+"The Frau Graefin will see you downstairs!" he said.
+
+Monica received me in a morning-room (the apartment was on two floors).
+She was very much agitated and had lost all her habitual calm.
+
+"Des," she said, "von Boden has been here!"
+
+"Well!" I replied eagerly.
+
+"I wasn't very successful," she went on "I'm in deep water, Des, and
+that's the truth. I have never seen the old General as he was to-day.
+He's a frightful bully and tyrant, but even his worst enemy never
+accused him of cowardice. But, Des, to-day the man was cowed. He seemed
+to be in terror of his life and I had the greatest difficulty in making
+him say anything at all about your affair.
+
+"I made a joking allusion to the escapade at the hotel last night and he
+said:
+
+"'Yesterday may prove the ruin of not only my career but that of my
+son's also. Yesterday gained for me as an enemy, Madam, a man whom it
+spells ruin, perhaps death, to offend.'
+
+"'You mean the Emperor?' I asked.
+
+"'The Emperor!' he said. 'Oh! of course, he's furious. No, I was not
+speaking of the Emperor!'
+
+"Then he changed the subject and it took me all my tact to get back to
+it. I asked him if they had caught the author of the attack at the
+Esplanade. He said, no, but it was only a question of time: the fellow
+couldn't escape. I said I supposed they would offer a reward and publish
+a description of the assailant all over the country. He told me they
+would do nothing of the sort.
+
+"'The public will hear nothing about the affair,' he said, 'and if you
+will take my advice, Countess, you will forget all about it. In any
+case, the Princess Radolin is writing to all her guests at the ball last
+night to urge them strongly to say nothing about the incident. The
+employees of the hotel will keep their mouths shut. The interests at
+stake forbid that there should be any attempt whatsoever made in public
+to throw light on the affair.'
+
+"That is all I could get out of him. But I have something further to
+tell you. The General went away immediately after lunch. Almost as soon
+as he had gone I was called to the telephone. Dr. Henninger was there:
+he is the head of the Political Police, you know. He gave me the same
+advice as the General, namely, to forget all about what occurred at the
+Esplanade last night. And then the Princess Radolin rang me up to say
+the same thing. She seemed very frightened: she was quite tearful.
+Someone evidently had scared her badly."
+
+"Monica," I said, "it's quite clear I can't stay here. My dear girl, if
+I am discovered in your house, there is no knowing what trouble may not
+come upon you."
+
+"If there is any risk," she answered, "it's a risk I am ready to take.
+You have nowhere to go to in Berlin, and if you are caught outside they
+might find out where you had been hiding and then we should be as badly
+off as before. No, you stay right on here, and maybe in a day or two I
+can get you away. I've been thinking something out.
+
+"Karl has a place near the Dutch frontier, Schloss Bellevue, it is
+called, close to Cleves. It's an old place and has been in the family
+for generations. Karl, however, only uses it as a shooting-box: we had
+big shoots up there every autumn before the war.
+
+"There has been no shooting there for two years now and the place is
+overstocked with game. The Government has been appealing to people with
+shooting preserves to kill their game and put it on the market, so I had
+arranged to go up to Bellevue this month and see the agent about this. I
+thought if I could prevail on Gerry to come with me, you could accompany
+him and you might get across the Dutch frontier from there. It's only
+about fifteen miles away from the Castle. If I can get a move on Gerry,
+there is no reason why we shouldn't go away in a day or two. In the
+meantime you'll be quite safe here."
+
+I told her I must think it over: she seemed to be risking too much. But
+I think my mind was already made up. I could not bring destruction on
+this faithful friend.
+
+Then I went upstairs again to Gerry, who was in as vile a temper as
+before. His lunch had disagreed with him: he hadn't slept: the room was
+not hot enough ... these were a few of the complaints he showered at me
+as soon as I appeared. He was in his most impish and malicious mood. He
+sent me running hither and thither: he gave me an order and withdrew it
+in the same breath: my complacency seemed to irritate him, to encourage
+him to provoke me.
+
+At last he came back to his old sore subject, my English accent.
+
+"I guess our good American is too homely for a fine English gentleman
+like you," he said, "but I believe you'll as lief speak as you were
+taught before you're through with this city. An English accent is not
+healthy in Berlin at present, Mister Meyer, sir, and you'd best learn to
+talk like the rest of us if you want to keep on staying in this house.
+
+"I'm in no state to be worried just now and I've no notion of having
+the police in here because some of their dam' plain-clothes men have
+heard my attendant saying 'charnce' and 'darnce' like any
+Britisher--especially with this English spy running round loose. By the
+way, you'll have to be registered? Has my sister seen about it yet?"
+
+I said she was attending to it.
+
+"I want to know if she's done it. I'm a helpless cripple and I can't get
+a thing done for me. Have you given her your papers? Yes, or no?"
+
+This was a bad fix. With all the persistence of the invalid, the man was
+harping on his latest whim.
+
+So I lied. The Countess had my papers, I said.
+
+Instantly he rang the bell and demanded Monica and had fretted himself
+into a fine state by the time she appeared.
+
+"What's this I hear, Monica?" he cried in his high-pitched, querulous
+voice. "Hasn't Meyer been registered with the police yet?"
+
+"I'm going to see to it myself in the morning, Gerry," she said.
+
+"In the morning. In the morning!" he cried, throwing up his hands. "Good
+God, how can you be so shiftless? A law is a law. The man's papers must
+be sent in to-day ... this instant."
+
+Monica looked appealingly at me.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm to blame, sir," I said. "The fact is, my passport is
+not quite in order and I shall have to take it to the embassy before I
+send it to the police."
+
+Then I saw Josef standing by the bed, a salver in his hand.
+
+"Zom letters, sir," he said to Gerry. I wondered how long he had been in
+the room.
+
+Gerry waved the letters aside and burst into a regular screaming fit.
+He wouldn't have things done that way in the house; he wouldn't
+have unknown foreigners brought in, with the city thick with
+spies--especially people with an English accent--his nerves wouldn't
+stand it: Monica ought to know better, and so on and so forth. The long
+and the short of it was that I was ordered to produce my passport
+immediately. Monica was to ring up the embassy to ask them to stretch a
+point and see to it out of office hours, then Josef should take me round
+to the police.
+
+I don't know how we got out of that room. It was Monica, with her sweet
+womanly tact, who managed it. I believe the madman even demanded to see
+my passport, but Monica scraped me through that trap as well.
+
+I had left my hat and coat in the entrance hall downstairs. I put on my
+coat, then went to Monica in the morning-room.
+
+There was much she wanted to say--I could see it in her eyes--but I
+think she gathered from my face what I was going to do, so she said
+nothing.
+
+At the door I said aloud, for the benefit of Josef, who was on the
+stairs:
+
+"Very good, my lady. I will come straight back from the embassy and then
+go with Josef to the police."
+
+The next moment I was adrift in Berlin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+I FIND ACHILLES IN HIS TENT
+
+
+Outside darkness had fallen. I had a vague suspicion that the
+house might be watched, but I found the Bendler-Strasse quite
+undisturbed. It ran its quiet, aristocratic length to the tangle of
+bare branches marking the Tiergarten-Strasse with not so much as
+a dog to strike terror into the heart of the amateur spy. Even in the
+Tiergarten-Strasse, where the Jewish millionaires live, there was little
+traffic and few people about, and I felt singularly unromantic as I
+walked briskly along the clean pavements towards Unter den Linden.
+
+Once more the original object of my journey into Germany stood clearly
+before me. An extraordinary series of adventures had deflected me from
+my course, but never from my purpose. I realized that I should never
+feel happy in my mind again if I left Germany without being assured as
+to my brother's fate. And now I was on the threshold either of a great
+discovery or of an overwhelming disappointment.
+
+For the street called In den Zelten was my next objective. I knew I
+might be on the wrong track altogether in my interpretation of what I
+was pleased to term in my mind the message from Francis. If I had read
+it falsely--if, perhaps, it were not from him at all--then all the hopes
+I had built on this mad dash into the enemy's country would collapse
+like a house of cards. Then, indeed, I should be in a sorry pass.
+
+But my luck was in, I felt. Hitherto, I had triumphed over all
+difficulties. I would trust in my destiny to the last.
+
+I had taken the precaution of turning up my overcoat collar and of
+pulling my hat well down over my eyes, but no one troubled me. I
+reflected that only Clubfoot and Schmalz were in a position to recognize
+me and that, if I steered clear of places like hotels and restaurants
+and railway stations, where criminals always seem to be caught, I might
+continue to enjoy comparative immunity. But the trouble was the passport
+question. That reminded me.
+
+I must get rid of Semlin's passport. As I walked along I tore it into
+tiny pieces, dropping each fragment at a good interval from the other.
+It cost me something to do it, for a passport is always useful to flash
+in the eyes of the ignorant. But this passport was dangerous. It might
+denounce me to a man who would not otherwise recognize me.
+
+I had some difficulty in finding In den Zelten. I had to ask the way,
+once of a postman and once of a wounded soldier who was limping along
+with crutches. Finally, I found it, a narrowish street running off a
+corner of the great square in front of the Reichstag. No. 2 was the
+second house on the right.
+
+I had no plan. Nevertheless, I walked boldly upstairs. There was but one
+flat on each floor. At the third story I halted, rather out of breath,
+in front of a door with a small brass plate inscribed with the name
+"Eugen Kore." I rang the bell boldly.
+
+An elderly man-servant opened the door.
+
+"Is Herr Eugen Kore at home?" I asked.
+
+The man looked at me suspiciously.
+
+"Has the gentleman an appointment?" he said.
+
+"No," I replied.
+
+"Then the Herr will not receive the gentleman," came the answer, and the
+man made as though to close the door.
+
+I had an inspiration.
+
+"A moment!" I cried, and I added the word "Achilles" in a low voice.
+
+The servant opened the door wide to me.
+
+"Why didn't you say that at once?" he said. "Please step in. I will see
+if the Herr can receive you."
+
+He led the way through a hall into a sitting-room and left me there. The
+place was a perfect museum of art treasures, old Dutch and Italian
+masters on the walls, some splendid Florentine chests, a fine old
+dresser loaded with ancient pewter. On a mantelshelf was an
+extraordinary collection of old keys, each with its label. "Key of the
+fortress of Spandau, 1715." "Key of the Postern Gate of the Pasha's
+Palace at Belgrade, 1810," "House Key from Nuremberg, 1567," were some
+of the descriptions I read.
+
+Then a voice behind me said:
+
+"Ah! you admire my little treasures!"
+
+Turning, I saw a short, stout man, of a marked Jewish appearance, with a
+bald head, a fat nose, little beady eyes and a large waist.
+
+"Eugen Kore!" he introduced himself with a bow.
+
+"Meyer!" I replied, in the German fashion.
+
+"And what can we do for Herr ... Meyer?" he asked in oily tones, pausing
+just long enough before he pronounced the name I gave to let me see that
+he believed it to be a pseudonym.
+
+"I believe you know a friend of mine, whose address I am anxious to
+find," I said.
+
+"Ah!" sighed the little Jew, "a man of affairs like myself meets so many
+people that he may be pardoned.... What did you say his name was, this
+friend of yours?"
+
+I thought I would try the effect of the name "Eichenholz" upon this
+enigmatic creature.
+
+"Eichenholz? Eichenholz?" Kore repeated.
+
+"I seem to know the name ... it seems familiar ... now let me see
+again.... Eichenholz, Eichenholz. ..."
+
+While he was speaking he unlocked one of the oak cabinets and a safe
+came to view. Opening this, he brought out a ledger and ran his finger
+down the names. Then he shut the book, replaced it, locked the safe and
+the cabinet, and turned to me again.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I know the name."
+
+His reticence was disconcerting.
+
+"Can you tell me where I can find him?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," was the reply.
+
+I was getting a trifle nettled.
+
+"Well, where?" I queried.
+
+"This is all very well, young Sir," said the Jew. "You come in here from
+nowhere, you introduce yourself as Meyer; you ask me 'Who?' and 'What?'
+and 'Where?'--questions that, mark you, in my business, may have
+valuable answers. We private enquiry agents must live, my dear sir, we
+must eat and drink like other men, and these are hard times, very hard
+times. I will ask you a question if I may. Meyer? Who is Meyer?
+Everybody in this country is called Meyer!"
+
+I smiled at this bizarre speech.
+
+"This Eichenholz, now," I said, "... supposing he were my brother."
+
+"He might congratulate himself," Kore said, blinking his little lizard
+eyes.
+
+"And he sent me word to call and see you to find out his whereabouts.
+You seem to like riddles, Herr Kore.... I will read you one!"
+
+And I read him the message from Francis ... all but the first two lines.
+
+The little Jew beamed with delight.
+
+"Ach! that is bright!" he cried, "oi, oi, oi, but he is smart, this Herr
+Eichenholz! Who'd have thought of that? Brilliant, brilliant!"
+
+"As you say, Herr Kore, enquiry agents must live, and I am quite
+prepared to pay for the information I require...."
+
+I pulled out my portfolio as I spoke.
+
+"The matter is quite simple," Kore replied. "It is already arranged. The
+charge is five hundred marks. My client said to me the last time I saw
+him, 'Kore,' he said, 'if one should come asking news of me you will
+give him the word and he will pay you five hundred marks.'"
+
+"The word?" I said.
+
+"The word," he repeated.
+
+"You must take Dutch money," I said. "Here you are ... work it out in
+gulden ... and I'll pay!"
+
+He manipulated a stump of pencil on a writing block and I paid him his
+money.
+
+Then he said:
+
+"Boonekamp!"
+
+"Boonekamp?" I echoed stupidly.
+
+"That's the word," the little Jew chuckled, laughing at my dumbfounded
+expression, "and, if you want to know, I understand it as little as you
+do."
+
+"But ... Boonekamp," I repeated. "Is it a man's name, a place? It sounds
+Dutch. Have you no idea? ... come, I'm ready to pay."
+
+"Perhaps ..." the Jew began.
+
+"What? Perhaps what?" I exclaimed impatiently.
+
+"Possibly...."
+
+"Out with it, man!" I cried, "and say what you mean."
+
+"Perhaps, if I could render to the gentleman the service I rendered to
+his brother, I might be able to throw light...."
+
+"What service did you render to my brother?" I demanded hastily. "I'm in
+the dark."
+
+"Has the gentleman no little difficulty perhaps? ... about his military
+service, about his papers? The gentleman is young and strong ... has he
+been to the front? Was life irksome there? Did he ever long for the
+sweets of home life? Did he never envy those who have been medically
+rejected? The rich men's sons, perhaps, with clever fathers who know how
+to get what they want?"
+
+His little eyes bored into mine like gimlets.
+
+I began to understand.
+
+"And if I had?"
+
+"Then all old Kore can say is that the gentleman has come to the right
+shop, as his gracious brother did. How can we serve the gentleman now?
+What are his requirements? It is a difficult, a dangerous business. It
+costs money, much money, but it can be arranged ... it can be arranged."
+
+"But if you do for me what you did for my brother," I said, "I don't see
+how that helps to explain this word, this clue to his address!"
+
+"My dear sir, I am as much in the dark as you are yourself about the
+significance of this word. But I can tell you this, your brother, thanks
+to my intervention, found himself placed in a situation in which he
+might well have come across this word...."
+
+"Well?" I said impatiently.
+
+"Well, if we obliged the gentleman as we obliged his brother, the
+gentleman might be taken where his brother was taken, the gentleman is
+young and smart, he might perhaps find a clue ..."
+
+"Stop talking riddles, for Heaven's sake!" I cried in exasperation, "and
+answer my questions plainly. First, what did you do for my brother?"
+
+"Your brother had deserted from the front--that is the most difficult
+class of business we have to deal with--we procured him a _permis de
+sejour_ for fifteen days and a post in a safe place where no enquiries
+would be made after him."
+
+"And then?" I cried, trembling with curiosity.
+
+The Jew shrugged his shoulders, waving his hands to and fro in the air.
+
+"Then he disappeared. I saw him a few days before he went, and he gave
+me the instructions I have repeated to you for anybody who should come
+asking for him."
+
+"But didn't he tell you where he was going?"
+
+"He didn't even tell me he was going, Herr. He just vanished."
+
+"When was this?"
+
+"Somewhere about the first week in July ... it was the week of the bad
+news from France."
+
+The message was dated July 1st, I remembered.
+
+"I have a good set of Swedish papers," the Jew continued, "very
+respectable timber merchant ... with those one could live in the best
+hotels and no one say a word. Or Hungarian papers, a party rejected
+medically ... very safe those, but perhaps the gentleman doesn't speak
+Hungarian. That would be essential."
+
+"I am in the same case as my brother," I said, "I must disappear."
+
+"Not a deserter, Herr?" The Jew cringed at the word.
+
+"Yes," I said. "After all, why not?"
+
+"I daren't do this kind of business any more, my dear sir, I really
+daren't! They are making it too dangerous."
+
+"Come, come!" I said, "you were boasting just now that you could smooth
+out any difficulties. You can produce me a very satisfactory passport
+from somewhere, I am sure!"
+
+"Passport! Out of the question, my dear sir! Let once one of my
+passports go wrong and I am ruined. Oh, no! no passports where deserters
+are concerned! I don't like the business ... it's not safe! At the
+beginning of the war ... ah! that was different! Oi, oi, but they ran
+from the Yser and from Ypres! Oi, oi, and from Verdun! But now the
+police are more watchful. No! It is not worth it! It would cost you too
+much money, besides."
+
+I thought the miserable cur was trying to raise the price on me, but I
+was mistaken. He was frightened: the business was genuinely distasteful
+to him.
+
+I tried, as a final attempt to persuade him, an old trick: I showed him
+my money. He wavered at once, and, after many objections, protesting to
+the last, he left the room. He returned with a handful of filthy papers.
+
+"I oughtn't to do it; I know I shall rue it; but you have overpersuaded
+me and I liked Herr Eichenholz, a noble gentleman and free with his
+money--see here, the papers of a waiter, Julius Zimmermann, called up
+with the Landwehr but discharged medically unfit, military pay-book and
+_permis de sejour_ for fifteen days. These papers are only a guarantee
+in case you come across the police: no questions will be asked where I
+shall send you."
+
+"But a fifteen days' permit!" I said. "What am I to do at the end of
+that time?"
+
+"Leave it to me," Kore said craftily. "I will get it renewed for you. It
+will be all right!"
+
+"But in the meantime...." I objected.
+
+"I place you as waiter with a friend of mine who is kind to poor fellows
+like yourself. Your brother was with him."
+
+"But I want to be free to move around."
+
+"Impossible," the Jew answered firmly. "You must get into your part and
+live quietly in seclusion until the enquiries after you have abated.
+Then we may see as to what is next to be done. There you are, a fine set
+of papers and a safe, comfortable life far away from the trenches--all
+snug and secure--cheap (in spite of the danger to me), because you are a
+lad of spirit and I liked your brother ... ten thousand marks!"
+
+I breathed again. Once we had reached the haggling stage, I knew the
+papers would be mine all right. With Semlin's money and my own I found I
+had about L550, but I had no intention of paying out L500 straight away.
+So I beat the fellow down unmercifully and finally secured the lot for
+3600 marks--L180.
+
+But, even after I had paid the fellow his money, I was not done with
+him. He had his eye on his perquisites.
+
+"Your clothes will never do," he said; "such richness of apparel, such
+fine stuff--we must give you others." He rang the bell.
+
+The old man-servant appeared.
+
+"A waiter's suit--for the Linien-Strasse!" he said.
+
+Then he led me into a bedroom where a worn suit of German shoddy was
+spread out on a sofa. He made me change into it, and then handed me a
+threadbare green overcoat and a greasy green felt hat.
+
+"So!" he said. "Now, if you don't shave for a day or two, you will look
+the part to the life!"--a remark which, while encouraging, was hardly
+complimentary.
+
+He gave me a muffler to tie round my neck and lower part of my face and,
+with that greasy hat pulled down over my eyes and in those worn and
+shrunken clothes, I must say I looked a pretty villainous person, the
+very antithesis of the sleek, well-dressed young fellow that had entered
+the flat half an hour before.
+
+"Now, Julius," said Kore humorously, "come, my lad, and we will seek out
+together the good situation I have found for you."
+
+A horse-cab was at the door and we entered it together. The Jew chatted
+pleasantly as we rattled through the darkness. He complimented me on my
+ready wit in deciphering Francis' message.
+
+"How do you like my idea?" he said, "'Achilles in his Tent'... that is
+the device of the hidden part of my business--you observe the parallel,
+do you not?' Achilles holding himself aloof from the army and young men
+like yourself who prefer the gentle pursuits of peace to the sterner
+profession of war! Clients of mine who have enjoyed a classical
+education have thought very highly of the humour of my device."
+
+The cab dropped us at the corner of the Friedrich-Strasse, which was
+ablaze with light from end to end, and the Linien-Strasse, a narrow,
+squalid thoroughfare of dirty houses and mean shops. The street was all
+but deserted at that hour save for an occasional policeman, but from
+cellars with steps leading down from the streets came the jingle of
+automatic pianos and bursts of merriment to show that the Linien-Strasse
+was by no means asleep.
+
+Before one of these cellar entrances the Jew stopped. At the foot of the
+steep staircase leading down from the street was a glazed door, its
+panels all glistening with moisture from the heated atmosphere within.
+Kore led the way down, I following.
+
+A nauseous wave of hot air, mingled with rank tobacco smoke, smote us
+full as we opened the door. At first I could see nothing except a very
+fat man, against a dense curtain of smoke, sitting at a table before an
+enormous glass goblet of beer. Then, as the haze drifted before the
+draught, I distinguished the outline of a long, low-ceilinged room,
+with small tables set along either side and a little bar, presided over
+by a tawdry female with chemically tinted hair, at the end. Most of the
+tables were occupied, and there was almost as much noise as smoke in the
+place.
+
+A woman's voice screamed: "Shut the door, can't you, I'm freezing!" I
+obeyed and, following Kore to a table, sat down. A man in his
+shirt-sleeves, who was pulling beer at the bar, left his beer-engine
+and, coming across the room to Kore, greeted him cordially, and asked
+him what we would take.
+
+Kore nudged me with his elbow.
+
+"We'll take a Boonekamp each, Haase," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CLUBFOOT COMES TO HAASE'S
+
+
+Kore presently retired to an inner room with the man in shirt-sleeves,
+whom I judged to be the landlord, and in a little the flaxen-haired lady
+at the bar beckoned me over and bade me join them.
+
+"This is Julius Zimmermann, the young man I have spoken of," said the
+Jew; then turning to me:
+
+"Herr Haase is willing to take you on as waiter here on my
+recommendation, Julius, See that you do not make me repent of my
+kindness!"
+
+Here the man in shirt-sleeves, a great, fat fellow with a bullet head
+and a huge double chin, chuckled loudly.
+
+"Kolossal!" he cried. "Herr Kore loves his joke! Ausgezeichnet!" And he
+wagged his head roguishly at me.
+
+On that Kore took his leave, promising to look in and see how I was
+faring in a few days' time. The landlord opened a low door in the corner
+and revealed a kind of large cupboard, windowless and horribly stale and
+stuffy, where there were two unsavoury-looking beds.
+
+"You will sleep here with Otto," said the landlord. Pointing to a dirty
+white apron lying on one of the beds, he bade me take off my overcoat
+and jacket and put it on.
+
+"It was Johann's," he said, "but Johann won't want it any more. A good
+lad, Johann, but rash. I always said he would come to a bad end." And he
+laughed noisily.
+
+"You can go and help with the waiting now," he went on. "Otto will show
+you what to do!"
+
+And so I found myself, within twenty-four hours, spy, male nurse and
+waiter in turn.
+
+I am loth to dwell on the degradation of the days that followed. That
+cellar tavern was a foul sink of iniquity, and in serving the dregs of
+humanity that gathered nightly there I felt I had indeed sunk to the
+lowest depths. The place was a regular thieves' kitchen ... what is
+called in the hideous Yiddish jargon that is the criminal slang of
+modern Germany a "Kaschemme." Never in my life have I seen such brutish
+faces as those that leered at me nightly through the smoke haze as I
+shuffled from table to table in my mean German clothes. Gallows' birds,
+sneak thieves, receivers, bullies, prostitutes and harpies of every
+description came together every evening in Herr Haase's beer-cellar.
+Many of the men wore the soiled and faded field-grey of the soldier back
+from the front, and in looking at their sordid, vulpine faces, inflamed
+with drink, I felt I could fathom the very soul of Belgium's misery.
+
+The conversation was all of crime and deeds of violence. The men back
+from the front told gloatingly of rapine and feastings in lonely Belgian
+villages or dwelt ghoulishly on the horrors of the battlefield, the
+mounds of decaying corpses, the ghastly mutilations they had seen in the
+dead. There were tales, too, of "vengeance" wreaked on "the treacherous
+English." One story, in particular, of the fate of a Scottish
+Sergeant ... "der Hochlaender" they called him in this oft-told
+tale ... still makes me quiver with impotent rage when I think of it.
+
+One evening the name of the Hotel Esplanade caught my ear. I approached
+the table and found two flashily dressed bullies and a bedraggled drab
+from the streets talking in admiration of my exploit.
+
+"Clubfoot met his match that time," the woman cried. "The dirty dog! But
+why didn't this English spy make a job of it and kill the scum? Pah!"
+
+And she spat elegantly into the sawdust on the floor.
+
+"I wouldn't be in that fellow's shoes for something," muttered one of
+the men. "No one ever had the better of Clubfoot yet. Do you remember
+Meinhardt, Franz? He tried to cheat Clubfoot, and we know what happened
+to him!"
+
+"They're raking the whole city for this Englishman," answered the other
+man. "Vogel, who works for Section Seven, you know the man I mean, was
+telling me. They've done every hotel in Berlin and the suburbs, but they
+haven't found him. They raided Bauer's in the Favoriten-Strasse last
+night. The Englishman wasn't there, but they got three or four others
+they were looking for--Fritz and another deserter included. I was nearly
+there myself!"
+
+I was always hearing references of this kind to my exploit. I was never
+spoken of except in terms of admiration, but the name of Clubfoot--der
+Stelze--excited only execration and terror.
+
+I lived in daily fear of a raid at Haase's. Why the place had escaped so
+long, with all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I couldn't
+imagine. It was one of those defects in German organization which puzzle
+the best of us at times. In the meantime, I was powerless to escape. The
+first thing Haase had done was to take away my papers--to send them to
+the police, as he explained--but he never gave them back, and when I
+asked for them he put me off with an excuse.
+
+I was a virtual prisoner in the place. On my feet from morning till
+night, I had indeed few opportunities for going out; but once, during
+a slack time in the afternoon, when I broached the subject to the
+landlord, he refused harshly to let me out of his sight.
+
+"The street is not healthy for you just now. You would be a danger to
+yourself and to all of us!" he said.
+
+My life in that foul den was a burden to me. The living conditions were
+unspeakable. Otto, a pale and ill-tempered consumptive, compelled, like
+me, to rise in the darkness of the dawn, never washed, and his
+companionship in the stuffy hole where we slept was offensive beyond
+belief. He openly jeered at my early morning journeys out to a narrow,
+stinking court, where I exulted in the ice-cold water from the pump. And
+the food! It was only when I saw the mean victuals--the coarse and often
+tainted horseflesh, the unappetizing war-bread, the coffee substitute,
+and the rest--that I realized how Germany was suffering, though only
+through her poor as yet, from the British blockade. That thought used to
+help to overcome the nausea with which I sat down to eat.
+
+Domestic life at Haase's was a hell upon earth. Haase himself was a
+drunken bully, who made advances to every woman he met, and whose
+complicated intrigues with the feminine portion of his clientele led to
+frequent scenes with the fair-haired Hebe who presided at the bar and
+over his household. It was she and Otto who fared daily forth to take
+their places in the long queues that waited for hours with food cards
+outside the provision shops.
+
+These trips seemed to tell upon her temper, which would flash out
+wrathfully at meal-times, when Haase began his inevitable grumbling
+about the food. As Otto took a malicious delight in these family scenes,
+I was frequently called upon to assume the role of peace-maker. More
+than once I intervened to save Madame from the violence she had called
+down upon herself by the sharpness of her tongue. She was a poor, faded
+creature, and the tragedy of it all was that she was in love with this
+degraded bully. She was grateful to me for my good offices, I think,
+for, though she hardly ever addressed me, her manner was always
+friendly.
+
+These days of dreary squalor would have been unbearable if it had not
+been for my elucidation of the word Boonekamp, which was said to hold
+the clue to my brother's address. On the wall in the cubby-hole where I
+slept was a tattered advertisement card of this _aperitif_--for such is
+the preparation--proclaiming it to be "Germany's Best Cordial." As I
+undressed at night, I often used to stare at this placard, wondering
+what connection Boonekamp could possibly have with my brother. I
+determined to take the first opportunity of examining the card itself.
+One morning, while Otto was out in the queue at the butcher's, I slipped
+away from the cellar to our sleeping-place and, lighting my candle, took
+down the card and examined it closely. It was perfectly plain, red
+letters on a green background in front, white at the back.
+
+As I was replacing the card on the nail I saw some writing in pencil on
+the wall where the card had hung. My heart seemed to stand still with
+the joy of my discovery. For the writing was in my brother's neat,
+artistic hand, the words were English, and, best of all, my brother's
+initials were attached. This is what I read:
+
+(Facsimile.) 5.7.16.
+
+"You will find me at the Cafe Regina, Duesseldorf--F.O."
+
+After that I felt I could bear with everything. The message awakened
+hope that was fast dying in my heart. At least on July 5th, Francis was
+alive. To that fact I clung as to a sheet-anchor. It gave me courage for
+the hardest part of all my experiences in Germany, those long days of
+waiting in that den of thieves. For I knew I must be patient. Presently,
+I hoped, I might extract my papers from Haase or persuade Kore, when he
+came back, to see me, to give me a permit that would enable me to get to
+Duesseldorf. But the term of my permit was fast running out and the Jew
+never came.
+
+There were often moments when I longed to ask Haase or one of the others
+about the time my brother had served in that place. But I feared to draw
+attention to myself. No one asked any questions of me (questions as to
+personal antecedents were discouraged at Haase's), and, as long as I
+remained the unpaid, useful drudge I felt that my desire for obscurity
+would be respected. Desultory questions about my predecessors elicited
+no information about Francis. The Haase establishment seemed to have had
+a succession of vague and shadowy retainers.
+
+Only about Johann, whose apron I wore, did Otto become communicative.
+
+"A stupid fellow!" he declared. "He was well off here. Haase liked him,
+the customers liked him, especially the ladies. But he must fall in love
+with Frau Hedwig (the lady at the bar), then he quarrelled with Haase
+and threatened him--you know, about customers who haven't got their
+papers in order. The next time Johann went out, they arrested him. And
+he was shot at Spandau!"
+
+"Shot?" I exclaimed. "Why?"
+
+"As a deserter."
+
+"But was he a deserter?"
+
+"Ach! was! But he had a deserter's papers in his pockets ... his own had
+vanished. Ach! it's a bad thing to quarrel with Haase!"
+
+I made a point of keeping on the right side of the landlord after that.
+By my unfailing diligence I even managed to secure his grudging
+approval, though he was always ready to fly into a passion at the least
+opportunity.
+
+One evening about six o'clock a young man, whom I had never seen among
+our regular customers, came down the stairs from the street and asked
+for Haase, who was asleep on the sofa in the inner room. At the sight of
+the youth, Frau Hedwig jumped off her perch behind the bar and vanished.
+She came back directly and, ignoring me, conducted the young man into
+the inner room, where he remained for about half an hour. Then he
+reappeared again, accompanied by Frau Hedwig, and went off.
+
+I was shocked by the change in the appearance of the woman. Her face was
+pale, her eyes red with weeping, and her eyes kept wandering towards the
+door. It was a slack time of the day within and the cellar was free of
+customers.
+
+"You look poorly, Frau Hedwig," I said. "Trouble with Haase again?"
+
+She looked up at me and shook her head, her eyes brimming over. A tear
+ran down the rouge on her cheek.
+
+"I must speak," she said. "I can't bear this suspense alone. You are a
+kind young man. You are discreet. Julius, there is trouble brewing for
+us!"
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked. A foreboding of evil rose within me.
+
+"Kore!" she whispered.
+
+"Kore?" I echoed. "What of him?"
+
+She looked fearfully about her.
+
+"He was taken yesterday morning," she said.
+
+"Do you mean arrested?" I exclaimed, unwilling to believe the staggering
+news.
+
+"They entered his apartment early in the morning and seized him in bed.
+Ach! it is dreadful!" And she buried her face in her hands.
+
+"But surely," I added soothingly, though with an icy fear at my heart,
+"there is no need to despair. What is an arrest to-day with all these
+regulations...."
+
+The woman raised her face, pallid beneath its paint, to mine.
+
+"Kore was shot at Moabit Prison this morning," she said in a low voice.
+"That young man brought the news just now." Then she added breathlessly,
+her words pouring out in a torrent:
+
+"You don't know what this means to us. Haase had dealings with this Jew.
+If they have shot him, it is because they have found out from him all
+they want to know. That means our ruin, that means that Haase will go
+the same way as the Jew.
+
+"But Haase is stubborn, foolhardy. The messenger warned him that a raid
+might be expected here at any moment. I have pleaded with him in vain.
+He believes that Kore has split; he believes the police may come, but he
+says they daren't touch him: he has been too useful to them: he knows
+too much. Ach, I am afraid! I am afraid!"
+
+Haase's voice sounded from the inner room.
+
+"Hedwig!" he called.
+
+The woman hastily dried her eyes and disappeared through the door.
+
+The coast was clear, if I wanted to escape, but where could I go,
+without a paper or passport, a hunted man?
+
+The news of Kore's arrest and execution haunted me. Of course, the man
+was in a most perilous trade, and had probably been playing the game for
+years. But suppose they had tracked me to the house in the street called
+In den Zelten.
+
+I crossed the room and opened the door to the street. I had never set
+foot outside since I had come, and, hopeless as it would be for me to
+attempt to escape, I thought I might reconnoitre the surroundings of the
+beer-cellar for the event of flight.
+
+I lightly ran up the stairs to the street and nearly cannoned into a man
+who was lounging in the entrance. We both apologized, but he stared at
+me hard before he strolled on. Then I saw another man sauntering along
+on the opposite side of the street. Further away, at the corner, two men
+were loitering.
+
+Every one of them had his eyes fixed on the cellar entrance at which I
+was standing.
+
+I knew they could not see my face, for the street was but dimly lit, and
+behind me was the dark background of the cellar stairway. I took a grip
+on my nerves and very deliberately lit a cigarette and smoked it, as if
+I had come up from below to get a breath of fresh air. I waited a
+little while and then went down.
+
+I was scarcely back in the cellar when Haase appeared from the inner
+room, followed by the woman. He carried himself erect, and his eyes were
+shining. I didn't like the man, but I must say he looked game. In his
+hand he carried my papers.
+
+"Here you are, my lad," he said in quite a friendly tone, "put 'em in
+your pocket--you may want 'em to-night."
+
+I glanced at the papers before I followed his advice.
+
+He noted my action and laughed.
+
+"They have told you about Johann," he said. "Never fear, Julius, you and
+I are good friends."
+
+The papers were those of Julius Zimmermann all right.
+
+We were having supper at one of the tables in the front room--there were
+only a couple of customers, as it was so early--when a man, a regular
+visitor of ours, came down the stairs hurriedly. He went straight over
+to Haase and spoke into his ear.
+
+"Mind yourself, Haase," I heard him say. "Do you know who had Kore
+arrested and shot? It was Clubfoot. There is more in this than we know.
+Mind yourself and get out! In an hour or so it may be too late."
+
+Then he scurried away, leaving me dazed.
+
+"By God!" said the landlord, bringing a great fist down on the table so
+that the glasses rang, "they won't touch me. Not the devil himself will
+make me leave this house before they come, if coming they are!"
+
+The woman burst into tears, while Otto blinked his watery eyes in
+terror. I sat and looked at my plate, my heart too full for words. It
+was bitter to have dared so much to get this far and then find the path
+blocked, as it seemed, by an insuperable barrier. They were after me all
+right: the mention of Clubfoot's name, the swift, stern retribution that
+had befallen Kore, made that certain--and I could do nothing. That
+cellar was a cul-de-sac, a regular trap, and I knew that if I stirred a
+foot from the house I should fall into the hands of those men keeping
+their silent vigil in the street.
+
+Therefore, I must wait, as calmly as I might, and see what the evening
+would bring forth. Gradually the cellar filled up as people drifted in,
+but many familiar faces, I noticed, were missing. Evidently the ill
+tidings had spread. Once a man looked in for a glass of beer and drifted
+out again, leaving the door open. As I was closing it, I heard a muffled
+exclamation and the sound of a scuffle at the head of the stairs. It was
+so quietly done that nobody below, save myself, knew what had happened.
+The incident showed me that the watch was well kept.
+
+The evening wore on--interminably, as it seemed to me. I darted to and
+fro from the bar, laden with mugs of beer and glasses of schnaps,
+incessantly, up and down. But I never failed, whenever there came a
+pause in the orders, to see that my journey finished somewhere in the
+neighbourhood of the door. A faint hope was glimmering in my brain.
+
+Until the end of my life, that interminable evening in the beer-cellar
+will remain stamped in my memory. I can still see the scene in its every
+detail, and I know I shall carry the picture with me to the grave; the
+long, low room with its blackened ceiling, the garish yellow gaslight,
+the smoke haze, the crowded tables, Otto, shuffling hither and hither
+with his mean and sulky air, Frau Hedwig, preoccupied at her desk,
+red-eyed, a graven image of woe, and Haase, presiding over the
+beer-engine, silent, defiant, calm, but watchful every time the door
+opened.
+
+When at last the blow fell, it came suddenly. A trampling of feet on the
+stairs, a great blowing of whistles ... then the door was burst open
+just as everybody in the cellar sprang to their feet amid exclamations
+and oaths from the men and shrill screams from the women. Outlined in
+the doorway stood Clubfoot, majestic, authoritative, wearing some kind
+of little skull-cap, such as duelling students wear, over a black silk
+handkerchief bound about his head. At the sight of the man the hubbub
+ceased on the instant. All were still save Haase, whose bull-like voice
+roaring for silence broke on the quiet of the room with the force of an
+explosion.
+
+I was in my corner by the door, pressed back against the coats and hats
+hanging on the wall. In front of me a frieze of frightened faces
+screened me from observation. Quickly, I slipped off my apron.
+
+Clubfoot, after casting a cursory glance round the room, strode its
+length towards the bar where Haase stood, a crowd of plain-clothes men
+and policemen at his heels. Then quite suddenly the light went out,
+plunging the place into darkness. Instantly the room was in confusion;
+women screamed; a voice, which I recognized as Clubfoot's, bawled
+stentorianly for lights ... the moment had come to act.
+
+I grabbed a hat and coat from the hall, got into them somehow, and
+darted to the door. In the dim light shining down the stairs from a
+street lamp outside, I saw a man at the door. Apparently he was guarding
+it.
+
+"Back!" he cried, as I stepped up to him.
+
+I flashed in his eyes the silver star I held in my hand.
+
+"The Chief wants lanterns!" I said low in his ear.
+
+He grabbed my hand holding the badge and lowered it to the light.
+
+"All right, comrade," he replied. "Drechsler has a lantern, I think!
+You'll find him outside!"
+
+I rushed up the stairs right into a group of three policemen.
+
+"The Chief wants Drechsler at once with the lantern," I shouted, and
+showed my star. The three dispersed in different directions calling for
+Drechsler.
+
+I walked quickly away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE WAITER AT THE CAFE REGINA
+
+
+I calculated that I had at least two hours, at most three, in which to
+get clear of Berlin. However swiftly Clubfoot might act, it would take
+him certainly an hour and a half, I reckoned, from the discovery of my
+flight from Haase's to warn the police at the railway stations to detain
+me. If I could lay a false trail I might at the worst prolong this
+period of grace; at the best I might mislead him altogether as to my
+ultimate destination, which was, of course, Duesseldorf. The unknown
+quantity in my reckonings was the time it would take Clubfoot to send
+out a warning all over Germany to detain Julius Zimmermann, waiter and
+deserter, wherever and whenever apprehended.
+
+At the first turning I came to after leaving Haase's, tram-lines ran
+across the street. A tram was waiting, bound in a southerly direction,
+where the centre of the city lay. I jumped on to the front platform
+beside the woman driver. It is fairly dark in front and the conductor
+cannot see your face as you pay your fare through a trap in the door
+leading to the interior of the tram. I left the tram at Unter den Linden
+and walked down some side streets until I came across a quiet-looking
+cafe. There I got a railway guide and set about reviewing my plans.
+
+It was ten minutes to twelve. A man in my position would in all
+probability make for the frontier. So, I judged, Clubfoot must
+calculate, though, I fancied, he must have wondered why I had not long
+since attempted to escape back to England. Duesseldorf was on the main
+road to Holland, and it would certainly be the more prudent course, say,
+to make for the Rhine and travel on to my destination by a Rhine
+steamer. But time was the paramount factor in my case. By leaving
+immediately--that very night--for Duesseldorf I might possibly reach
+there before the local authorities had had time to receive the warning
+to be on the look-out for a man answering to my description. If I could
+leave behind in Berlin a really good false clue, it was just possible
+that Clubfoot might follow it up _before_ taking general dispositions to
+secure my arrest if that clue failed. I decided I must gamble on this
+hypothesis.
+
+The railway guide showed that a train left for Duesseldorf from the
+Potsdamer Bahnhof--the great railway terminus in the very centre of
+Berlin--at 12.45 a.m. That left me roughly three-quarters of an hour to
+lay my false trail and catch my train. My false trail should lead
+Clubfoot in a totally unexpected direction, I determined, for it is the
+unexpected that first engages the notice of the alert, detective type of
+mind. I would also have to select another terminus.
+
+Why not Munich? A large city on the high road to a foreign
+frontier--Switzerland--with authorities whose easy-going ways are
+proverbial in Germany. You leave Berlin for Munich from the Anhalter
+Bahnhof, a terminus which was well suited for my purpose, as it is only
+a few minutes' drive from the Potsdamer station.
+
+The railway guide showed there was a train leaving for Munich at 12.30
+a.m.--an express. That would do admirably. Munich it should be then.
+
+Fortunately I had plenty of money. I had taken the precaution of
+getting Kore to change my money into German notes before we left In den
+Zelten ... at a preposterous rate of exchange, be it said. How lost I
+should have been without Semlin's wad of notes!
+
+I paid for my coffee and set forth again. It was 12.15 as I walked into
+the hall of the Anhalt station.
+
+Remembering the ruse which the friendly guide at Rotterdam had taught
+me, I began by purchasing a platform ticket. Then I looked about for an
+official upon whom I could suitably impress my identity. Presently I
+espied a pompous-looking fellow in a bright blue uniform and scarlet
+cap, some kind of junior stationmaster, I thought.
+
+I approached him and, raising my hat, politely asked him if he could
+tell me when there was a train leaving for Munich.
+
+"The express goes at 12.30," he said, "but only first and second class,
+and you'll have to pay the supplementary charge. The slow train is not
+till 5.49."
+
+I assumed an expression of vexation.
+
+"I suppose I must go by the express," I said. "Can you tell me where the
+booking-office is?"
+
+The official pointed to a pigeon-hole and I took care to speak loud
+enough for him to hear me ask for a second-class ticket, single, to
+Munich.
+
+I walked upstairs and presented my Munich ticket to the collector at the
+barrier. Then I hurried past the main-line platforms over the suburban
+side, where I gave up my platform ticket and descended again to the
+street.
+
+It was just on the half-hour as I came out of the station. Not a cab to
+be seen! I hastened as fast as my legs would carry me until, breathless
+and panting, I reached the Potsdam terminus. The clock over the station
+pointed to 12.39.
+
+A long queue, composed mostly of soldiers returning to Belgium and the
+front, stood in front of the booking-office. The military were getting
+their warrants changed for tickets. I chafed at the delay, but it was
+actually this circumstance which afforded me the chance of getting my
+ticket for Duesseldorf without leaving any clue behind.
+
+A big, bearded Landsturm man with a kind face was at the pigeon-hole.
+
+"I am very late for my train, my friend," I said, "would you get me a
+third-class single for Duesseldorf?" I handed him a twenty-mark note.
+
+"Right you are," he answered readily.
+
+"There," he said, handing me my ticket and a handful of change, "and
+lucky you are to be going to the Rhine. I'm from the Rhine myself and
+now I'm going back to guarding the bridges in Belgium!"
+
+I thanked him and wished him luck. Here at least was a witness who was
+not likely to trouble me. And with a thankful heart I bolted on to the
+platform and caught the train.
+
+Third-class travel in Germany is not a hobby to be cultivated if your
+means allow the luxury of better accommodation. The travelling German
+has a habit of taking off his boots when he journeys in the train by
+night--and a carriageful of lower middle-class Huns, thus unshod, in
+the temperature at which railway compartments are habitually kept in
+Germany, is an environment which makes neither for comfort nor for
+sleep.
+
+The atmosphere, indeed, was so unbearable that I spent most of the night
+in the corridor. Here I was able to destroy the papers of Julius
+Zimmermann, waiter ... I felt I was in greater danger whilst I had them
+on me ... and to assure myself that my precious document was in its
+usual place--in my portfolio. It was then I made the discovery,
+annihilating at the first shock, that my silver badge had disappeared. I
+could not remember what I had done with it in the excitement of my
+escape from Haase's. I remembered having it in my hand and showing it to
+the police at the top of the stairs, but after that my mind was a blank.
+I could only imagine I must have carried it unconsciously in my hand and
+then dropped it unwittingly. I looked at the place where it had been
+clasped on my braces: it was not there and I searched all my pockets for
+it in vain.
+
+I had relied upon it as a stand-by in case there were trouble at the
+station in Duesseldorf. Now I found myself defenceless if I were
+challenged. It was a hard knock, but I consoled myself by the reflection
+that, by now, Clubfoot knew I had this badge ... it would doubtless
+figure in any description circulated about me.
+
+It was a most unpleasant journey. There was some kind of choral society
+on the train, occupying seven or eight compartments of the third-class
+coach in which I was travelling. For the first few hours they made night
+hideous with part-songs, catches and glees chanted with a volume of
+sound that in that confined place was simply deafening. Then the noise
+abated as one by one the singers dropped off to sleep. Presently silence
+fell, while the train rushed forward in the darkness bearing me towards
+fresh perils, fresh adventures.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A gust of fresh air in my face, the trample of feet, loud greetings in
+guttural German, awoke me with a start. It was broad daylight and
+through my compartment, to which I had crept in the night, weary with
+standing, filed the jovial members of the choral society, with bags in
+their hands and huge cockades in their buttonholes. There was a band on
+the platform and a huge choir of men who bawled a stentorian-voiced hymn
+of greeting. "Duesseldorf" was the name printed on the station lamps.
+
+All the passengers, save the members of the choral society, had left the
+train, apparently, for every carriage door stood open. I sprang to my
+feet and let myself go with the stream of men. Thus I swept out of the
+train and right into the midst of the jostling crowd of bandsmen,
+singers and spectators on the platform. I stood with the new arrivals
+until the hymn was ended and thus solidly _encadres_ by the
+Duesseldorfers, we drifted out through the barrier into the station
+courtyard. There brakes were waiting into which the jolly choristers,
+guests and hosts, clambered noisily. But I walked straight on into the
+streets, scarcely able to realize that no one had questioned me, that at
+last, unhindered, I stood before my goal.
+
+Duesseldorf is a bright, clean town with a touch of good taste in its
+public buildings to remind one that this busy, industrial city has found
+time even while making money to have called into being a school of art
+of its own. It was a delightful morning with dazzling sunshine and an
+eager nip in the air that spoke of the swift, deep river that bathes the
+city walls. I revelled in the clear, cold atmosphere after the foulness
+of the drinking-den and the stifling heat of the journey. I exulted in
+the sense of liberty I experienced at having once more eluded the grim
+clutches of Clubfoot. Above all, my heart sang within me at the thought
+of an early meeting with Francis. In the mood I was in, I would admit no
+possibility of disappointment now. Francis and I would come together at
+last.
+
+I came upon a public square presently and there facing me was a great,
+big cafe, white and new and dazzling, with large plate-glass windows
+and rows of tables on a covered verandah outside. It was undoubtedly a
+"_kolossal_" establishment after the best Berlin style. So that there
+might be no mistake about the name it was placarded all over the front
+of the place in gilt letters three feet high on glass panels--Cafe
+Regina.
+
+It was about nine o'clock in the morning and at that early hour I had
+the place to myself. I felt very small, sitting at a tiny table, with
+tables on every side of me, stretching away as it were into the
+_Ewigkeit_, in a vast white room with mural paintings of the crassest
+school of impressionism.
+
+I ordered a good, substantial breakfast and whiled away the time while
+it was coming by glancing at the morning paper which the waiter brought
+me.
+
+My eyes ran down the columns without my heeding what I read, for my
+thoughts were busy with Francis. When did he come to the cafe? How was
+he living at Duesseldorf?
+
+Suddenly, I found myself looking at a name I knew ... it was in the
+personal paragraphs.
+
+"Lieut.-General Count von Boden," the paragraph ran, "Aide-de-Camp to
+H.M. the Emperor, has been placed on the retired list owing to
+ill-health. General von Boden has left for Abbazia, where he will take
+up his permanent residence." There followed the usual biographical
+notes.
+
+Of a truth, Clubfoot was a power in the land.
+
+I ate my breakfast at a table by the open door, and surveyed the busy
+life of the square where the pigeons circled in the sunshine. A waiter
+stood on the verandah idly watching the birds as they pecked at the
+stones. I was struck with the profound melancholy depicted in his face.
+His cheeks were sunken and he had a pinched look which I had observed in
+the features of most of the customers at Haase's. I set it down to the
+insufficient feeding which is general among the lower classes in Germany
+to-day.
+
+But in addition to this man's wasted appearance, his eyes were hollow,
+there were deep lines about his mouth and he wore a haggard look that
+had something strangely pathetic about it. His air of brooding sadness
+seemed to attract me, and I found my eyes continually wandering back to
+his face.
+
+And then, without warning, through some mysterious whispering of the
+blood, the truth came to me that this was my brother. I don't know
+whether it was a passing mood reflected in his face or the shifting
+lights and shadows in his eyes that lifted the veil. I only know that
+through those features ravaged by care and suffering and in spite of
+them I caught a glimpse of the brother I had come to seek.
+
+I rattled a spoon on the table and called softly out to the verandah.
+
+"_Kellner!_"
+
+The man turned.
+
+I beckoned to him. He came over to my table. He never recognized me, so
+dull was he with disappointment ... me with my unshaven, unkempt
+appearance and in my mean German shoddy ... but stood silently, awaiting
+my bidding.
+
+"Francis," I said softly ... and I spoke in German ... "Francis, don't
+you know me?"
+
+He was magnificent, strong and resourceful in his joy at our meeting as
+he had been in his months of weary waiting.
+
+Only his mouth quivered a little as instantly his hands busied
+themselves with clearing away my breakfast.
+
+"Jawohl!" he answered in a perfectly emotionless voice.
+
+And then he smiled and in a flash the old Francis stood before me.
+
+"Not a word now," he said in German as he cleared away the breakfast.
+"I am off this afternoon. Meet me on the river promenade by the Schiller
+statue at a quarter past two and we'll go for a walk. Don't stay here
+now but come back and lunch in the restaurant ... it's always crowded
+and pretty safe!"
+
+Then he called out into the void:
+
+"Twenty-six wants to pay!"
+
+Such was my meeting with my brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A HAND-CLASP BY THE RHINE
+
+
+That afternoon Francis and I walked out along the banks of the swiftly
+flowing Rhine until we were far beyond the city. Anxious though I was
+that he should reveal to me that part of his life which lay hidden
+beneath those lines of suffering in his face, he made me tell my story
+first. So I unfolded to him the extraordinary series of adventures that
+had befallen me since the night I had blundered upon the trail of a
+great secret in that evil hotel at Rotterdam.
+
+Francis did not once interrupt the flow of my narrative. He listened
+with the most tense interest but with a growing concern which betrayed
+itself clearly on his face. At the end of my story, I silently handed to
+him the half of the stolen letter I had seized from Clubfoot at the
+Hotel Esplanade.
+
+"Keep it, Francis," I said. "It's safer with a respectable waiter like
+you than with a hunted outcast like myself!"
+
+My brother smiled wanly, but his face assumed the look of grave anxiety
+with which he had heard my tale. He scrutinized the slips of paper very
+closely, then tucked them away in a letter-case, which he buttoned up in
+his hip pocket.
+
+"Fortune is a strange goddess, Des," he said, his weary eyes roving out
+over the turgid, yellow stream, "and she has been kind to you, though,
+God knows, you have played a man's part in all this. She has placed in
+your possession something for which at least five men have died in vain,
+something that has filled my thoughts, sleeping and waking, for more
+than half a year. What you have told me throws a good deal of light upon
+the mystery which I came to this cursed country to elucidate, but it
+also deepens the darkness which still envelops many points in the
+affair.
+
+"You know there are issues in this game of ours, old man, that stand
+even higher than the confidence that there has always been between us
+two. That is why I wrote to you so seldom out in France--I could tell
+you nothing about my work: that is one of the rules of our game. But now
+you have broken into the scramble yourself, I feel that we are partners,
+so I will tell you all I know.
+
+"Listen, then. Some time about the beginning of the year a letter
+written by a German interned at one of the camps in England was stopped
+by the Camp Censor. This German went by the name of Schulte: he was
+arrested at a house in Dalston the day after we declared war on
+Germany. There was a good reason for this, for our friend Schulte--we
+don't know his real name--was known to my Chief as one of the most
+daring and successful spies that ever operated in the British Isles.
+
+"Therefore, a sharp eye was kept on his correspondence, and one day this
+letter was seized. It was, I believe, perfectly harmless to the eye, but
+the expert to whom it was eventually submitted soon detected a
+conventional code in the chatty phrases about the daily life of the
+camp. It proved to be a communication from Schulte to a third party
+relating to a certain letter which, apparently, the writer imagined the
+third party had a considerable interest in acquiring. For he offered to
+sell this letter to the third party, mentioning a sum so preposterously
+high that it attracted the earnest attention of our Intelligence people.
+On half the sum mentioned being paid into the writer's account at a
+certain bank in London, the letter went on to say, the writer would
+forward the address at which the object in question would be found."
+
+"It was a simple matter to send Schulte a letter in return, agreeing to
+his terms, and to have the payment made, as desired, into the bank he
+mentioned. His communication in reply to this was duly stopped. The
+address he gave was that of a house situated on the outskirts of
+Cleves.
+
+"We had no idea what this letter was, but its apparent value in the eyes
+of the shrewd Mr. Schulte made it highly desirable that we should obtain
+possession of it without delay. Four of us were selected for this
+dangerous mission of getting into Germany and fetching it, by hook or by
+crook, from the house at Cleves where it was deposited. We four were to
+enter Germany by different routes and different means and to converge on
+Cleves (which is quite close to the Dutch frontier).
+
+"It would take too long to tell you of the very exact organization which
+we worked out to exclude all risk of failure and the various schemes we
+evolved for keeping in touch with one another though working separately
+and in rotation. Nor does it matter very much how I got into Germany.
+The fact is that, at my very first attempt to get across the frontier, I
+realized that some immensely powerful force was working against me.
+
+"I managed it, with half a dozen hairbreadth escapes, and I set down my
+success solely to my knowledge of German and to that old trick of mine
+of German imitations. But I felt everywhere the influence of this unseen
+hand, enforcing a meticulous vigilance which it was almost impossible to
+escape. I was not surprised, therefore, to learn that two of my
+companions came to grief at the very outset."
+
+My brother lowered his voice and looked about him.
+
+"Do you know what happened to those two gallant fellows?" he said. "Jack
+Tracy was found dead on the railway: Herbert Arbuthnot was discovered
+hanging in a wood. 'Suicide of an Unknown Individual' was what the
+German papers called it in each case. But I heard the truth ... never
+mind how. They were ambushed and slaughtered in cold blood."
+
+"And the third man you spoke of?" I asked.
+
+"Philip Brewster? Vanished, Des ... vanished utterly. I fear he, too,
+has gone west, poor chap!
+
+"Of the whole four of us I was the only one to reach our objective.
+There I drew blank. The letter was not in the hiding-place indicated.
+I think it never had been or the Huns would have got it. I felt all the
+time that they didn't know exactly where the letter was but that
+they anticipated our attempt to get it, hence the unceasing vigilance all
+along the frontier and inside it, too.
+
+"They damned nearly got me at Cleves: I escaped as by a miracle, and the
+providential thing for me was that I had never posed as anything but a
+German, only I varied the type I represented almost from day to day.
+Thus I left no traces behind or they would have had me long since."
+
+The sadness in my brother's voice increased and the shadows deepened in
+his face.
+
+"Then I tried to get out," he continued. "But it was hopeless from the
+first. They knew they had one of us left in the net and they closed
+every outlet. I made two separate attempts to cross the line back into
+Holland, but both failed. The second time I literally had to flee for my
+life. I went straight to Berlin, feeling that a big city, as remote from
+the frontier as possible, was the only safe hiding-place for me as long
+as the hue and cry lasted.
+
+"I was in a desperate bad way, too, for I had had to abandon the last
+set of identity papers left to me when I bolted. I landed in Berlin with
+the knowledge that no roof could safely shelter me until I got a fresh
+lot of papers.
+
+"I knew of Kore--I had heard of him and his shirkers' and deserters'
+agency in my travels--and I went straight to him. He sent me to
+Haase's ... this was towards the end of June. It was when I was at
+Haase's that I sent out that message to van Urutius that fell into your
+hands. That happened like this.
+
+"I was rather friendly with a chap that frequented Haase's, a man
+employed in the packing department at the Metal Works at Steglitz. He
+was telling us one night how short-handed they were and what good money
+packers were earning. I was sick of being cooped up in that stinking
+cellar, so, more by way of a joke than anything else, I offered to come
+and lend a hand in the packing department. I thought I might get a
+chance of escape, as I saw none at Haase's. To my surprise, Haase, who
+was sitting at the table, rather fancied the idea and said I could go if
+I paid him half my wages: I was getting nothing at the beer-cellar.
+
+"So I was taken on at Steglitz, sleeping at Haase's and helping in the
+beer-cellar in the evenings. One day a package for old van Urutius came
+to me to be made up and suddenly it occurred to me that here was a
+chance of sending out a message to the outside world. I hoped that old
+van U., if he tumbled to the 'Eichenholz,' would send it to you and that
+you would pass it on to my Chief in London."
+
+"Then you expected me to come after you?" I said.
+
+"No," replied Francis promptly, "I did not. But the arrangement was
+that, if none of us four men had turned up at Head-quarters by May 15th,
+a fifth man should come in and be at a given rendezvous near the
+frontier on June 15th. I went to the place on June 15th, but he never
+showed up and, though I waited about for a couple of days, I saw no
+sign of him. I made my final attempt to get out and it failed, so, when
+I fled to Berlin, I knew that I had cut off all means of communication
+with home. As a last hope, I dashed off that cipher on the spur of the
+moment and tucked it into old van U's invoice."
+
+"But why 'Achilles' with one 'l'?" I asked.
+
+"They knew all about Kore's agency at Head-quarters, but I didn't dare
+mention Kore's name for fear the parcel might be opened. So I purposely
+spelt 'Achilles' with one 'l' to draw attention to the code word, so
+that they should know where news of me was to be found. It was devilish
+smart of you to decipher that, Des!"
+
+Francis smiled at me.
+
+"I meant to stay quietly in Berlin, going daily between Haase's and the
+factory and wait, for a month or two, in case that message got home. But
+Kore began to give trouble. At the beginning of July he came to see me
+and hinted that the renewal of my _permis de sejour_ would cost money. I
+paid him, but I realized then that I was absolutely in his power and I
+had no intention of being blackmailed. So I made use of his cupidity to
+leave a message for the man who, I hoped, would be coming after me,
+wrote that line on the wall under the Boonekamp poster in that filthy
+hovel where we slept and came up here after a job I had heard of at the
+Cafe Regina.
+
+"And now, Des, old man," said my brother, "you know all that I know!"
+
+"And Clubfoot?"
+
+"Ah!" said Francis, shaking his head, "there I think I recognize the
+hand that has been against us from the start, though who the man is, and
+what his power, I, like you, only know from what he told you himself.
+The Germans are clever enough, as we know from their communiques, to
+tell the truth when it suits their book. I believe that Clubfoot was
+telling you the truth in what he said about his mission that night at
+the Esplanade.
+
+"You and I know now that the Kaiser wrote that letter ... we also know
+that it was addressed to an influential English friend of William II.
+You have seen the date ... Berlin, July 31st, 1914 ... the eve of the
+outbreak of the world war. Even from this half in my pocket ... and you
+who have seen both halves of the letter will confirm what I say ... I
+can imagine what an effect on the international situation this letter
+would have had if it had reached the man for whom it was destined. But
+it did not ... why, we don't know. We do know, however, that the Emperor
+is keenly anxious to regain possession of his letter ... you yourself
+were a witness of his anxiety and you know that he put the matter into
+the hands of the man Clubfoot."
+
+"Well," I observed thoughtfully, "Clubfoot, whoever he is, seems to have
+made every effort to keep my escapades dark...."
+
+"Precisely," said Francis, "and lucky for you too. Otherwise Clubfoot
+would have had you stopped at the frontier. But obviously secrecy is an
+essential part of his instructions, and he has shown himself willing to
+risk almost anything rather than call in the aid of the regular police."
+
+"But they can always hush these things up!" I objected.
+
+"From the public, yes, but not from the Court. This letter looks
+uncommonly like one of William's sudden impulses ... and I fancy
+anything of the kind would get very little tolerance in Germany in
+war-time."
+
+"But who is Clubfoot?" I questioned.
+
+My brother furrowed his brows anxiously.
+
+"Des," he said, "I don't know. He is certainly not a regular official of
+the German Intelligence like Steinhauer and the others. But I _have_
+heard of a clubfooted German on two occasions ... both were dark and
+mysterious affairs, in both he played a leading role and both ended in
+the violent death of one of our men."
+
+"Then Tracy and the others...?" I asked.
+
+"Victims of this man, Des, without any doubt," my brother answered. He
+paused a moment reflectively.
+
+"There is a code of honour in our game, old man," he said, "and there
+are lots of men in the German secret service who live up to it. We give
+and take plenty of hard knocks in the rough-and-tumble of the chase, but
+ambush and assassination are barred."
+
+He took a deep breath and added:
+
+"But the man Clubfoot doesn't play the game!"
+
+"Francis," I said, "I wish I'd known something of this that night I had
+him at my mercy at the Esplanade. He would not have got off with a
+cracked skull ... with one blow. There would have been another blow for
+Tracy, one for Arbuthnot, one for the other man ... until the account
+was settled and I'd beaten his brains out on the carpet. But if we meet
+him again, Francis, ... as, please God, we shall! ... there will be no
+code of honour for _him_ ... we'll finish him in cold blood as we'd kill
+a rat!"
+
+My brother thrust out his hand at me and we clasped hands on it.
+
+Evening was falling and lights were beginning to twinkle from the
+further bank of the river.
+
+We stood for a moment in silence with the river rushing at our feet.
+Then we turned and started to tramp back towards the city. Francis
+linked his arm in mine.
+
+"And now, Des," he said in his old affectionate way, "tell me some more
+about Monica!"
+
+Out of that talk germinated in my head the only plan that seemed to
+offer us a chance of escape. I was quite prepared to believe Francis
+when he declared that the frontier was at present impassable: if the
+vigilance had been increased before it would be redoubled now that I had
+again eluded Clubfoot. We should, therefore, have to find some cover
+where we could lie doggo until the excitement passed.
+
+You remember that Monica told me, the last time I had seen her, that she
+was shortly going to Schloss Bellevue, a shooting-box belonging to her
+husband, to arrange some shoots in connection with the Governmental
+scheme for putting game on the market. Monica, you will recollect, had
+offered to take me with her, and I had fully meant to accompany her but
+for Gerry's unfortunate persistence in the matter of my passport.
+
+I now proposed to Francis that we should avail ourselves of Monica's
+offer and make for Castle Bellevue. The place was well suited for our
+purpose as it lies near Cleves, and in its immediate neighbourhood is
+the Reichswald, that great forest which stretches from Germany clear
+across into Holland. All through my wanderings, I had kept this forest
+in the back of my head as a region which must offer facilities for
+slipping unobserved across the frontier. Now I learnt from Francis that
+he had spent months in the vicinity of Cleves, and I was not surprised
+to find, when I outlined this plan to him, that he knew the Reichswald
+pretty well.
+
+"It'll be none too easy to get across through the forest," he said
+doubtfully, "it's very closely patrolled, but I do know of one place
+where we could lie pretty snug for a day or two waiting for a chance to
+make a dash. But we have no earthly chance of getting through at
+present: our clubfooted pal will see to that all right. And I don't much
+like the idea of going to Bellevue either: it will be horribly dangerous
+for Monica!"
+
+"I don't think so," I said. "The whole place will be overrun with
+people, guests, servants, beaters and the like, for these shoots. Both
+you and I know German and we look rough enough: we ought to be able to
+get an emergency job about the place without embarrassing Monica in the
+least. I don't believe they will ever dream of looking for us so close
+to this frontier. The only possible trail they can pick up after me in
+Berlin leads to Munich. Clubfoot is bound to think I am making for the
+Swiss frontier."
+
+Well, the long and the short of it was that my suggestion was carried,
+and we resolved to set out for Bellevue that very night. My brother
+declared he would not return to the cafe: with the present shortage of
+men, such desertions were by no means uncommon, and if he were to give
+notice formally it might only lead to embarrassing explanations.
+
+So we strolled back to the city in the gathering darkness, bought a map
+of the Rhine and a couple of rucksacks and laid in a small stock of
+provisions at a great department store, biscuits, chocolates, some hard
+sausage and two small flasks of rum. Then Francis took me to a little
+restaurant where he was known and introduced me to the friendly
+proprietor, a very jolly old Rheinlander, as his brother just out of
+hospital. I did my country good service, I think, by giving a most
+harrowing account of the terrible efficiency of the British army on the
+Somme!
+
+Then we dined and over our meal consulted the map.
+
+"By the map," I said, "Bellevue should be about fifty miles from here.
+My idea is that we should walk only at night and lie up during the day,
+as a room is out of the question for me without any papers. I think we
+should keep away from the Rhine, don't you? As otherwise we shall pass
+through Wesel, which is a fortress, and, consequently, devilish
+unhealthy for both of us."
+
+Francis nodded with his mouth full.
+
+"At present we can count on about twelve hours of darkness," I
+continued, "so, leaving a margin for the slight detour we shall make,
+for rests and for losing the way, I think we ought to be able to reach
+Castle Bellevue on the third night from this. If the weather holds up,
+it won't be too bad, but if it rains, it will be hellish! Now, have you
+any suggestions?"
+
+My brother acquiesced, as, indeed, he had in everything I had proposed
+since we met. Poor fellow, he had had a roughish time: he seemed glad to
+have the direction of affairs taken out of his hands for a bit.
+
+At half-past seven that evening, our packs on our backs, we stood on the
+outskirts of the town where the road branches off to Crefeld. In the
+pocket of the overcoat I had filched from Haase's I found an automatic
+pistol, fully loaded (most of our customers at the beer-cellar went
+armed).
+
+"You've got the document, Francis," I said. "You'd better have this,
+too!" and I passed him the gun.
+
+Francis waved it aside.
+
+"You keep it," he said grimly, "it may serve you instead of a passport."
+
+So I slipped the weapon back into my pocket.
+
+A cold drop of rain fell upon my face.
+
+"Oh, hell!" I cried, "it's beginning to rain!"
+
+And thus we set out upon our journey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a nightmare tramp. The rain never ceased. By day we lay in icy
+misery, chilled to the bone in our sopping clothes, in some dank ditch
+or wet undergrowth, with aching bones and blistered feet, fearing
+detection, but fearing, even more, the coming of night and the
+resumption of our march. Yet we stuck to our programme like Spartans,
+and about eight o'clock on the third evening, hobbling painfully along
+the road that runs from Cleves to Calcar, we were rewarded by the sight
+of a long massive building, with turrets at the corners, standing back
+from the highway behind a tall brick wall.
+
+"Bellevue!" I said to Francis, with pointing finger.
+
+We left the road and climbing a wooden palisade, struck out across the
+fields with the idea of getting into the park from the back. We passed
+some black and silent farm buildings, went through a gate and into a
+paddock, on the further side of which ran the wall surrounding the
+place. Somewhere beyond the wall a fire was blazing. We could see the
+leaping light of the flames and drifting smoke. At the same moment we
+heard voices, loud voices disputing in German.
+
+We crept across the paddock to the wall, I gave Francis a back and he
+hoisted himself to the top and looked over. In a moment he sprang
+lightly down, a finger to his lips.
+
+"Soldiers round a fire," he whispered. "There must be troops billeted
+here. Come on ... we'll go further round!"
+
+We ran softly along the wall to where it turned to the right and
+followed it round. Presently we came to a small iron gate in the wall.
+It stood open.
+
+We listened. The sound of voices was fainter here. We still saw the
+reflection of the flames in the sky. Otherwise, there was no sign or
+sound of human life.
+
+The gate led into an ornamental garden with the Castle at the further
+end. All the windows were in darkness. We threaded a garden path leading
+to the house. It brought us in front of a glass door. I turned the
+handle and it yielded to my grasp.
+
+I whispered to Francis:
+
+"Stay where you are! And if you hear me shout, fly for your life!"
+
+For, I reflected, the place might be full of troops. If there were any
+risk it would be better for me to take it since Francis, with his
+identity papers, had a better chance than I of bringing the document
+into safety.
+
+I opened the glass door and found myself in a lobby with a door on the
+right.
+
+I listened again. All was still. I cautiously opened the door and
+looked in. As I did so the place was suddenly flooded with light and a
+voice--a voice I had often heard in my dreams--called out imperiously:
+
+"Stay where you are and put your hands above your head!"
+
+Clubfoot stood there, a pistol in his great hand pointed at me.
+
+"Grundt!" I shouted but I did not move.
+
+And Clubfoot laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+FRANCIS TAKES UP THE NARRATIVE
+
+
+I saw the lights flash up in the room. I heard Desmond cry out:
+"Grundt;" Instantly I flung myself flat on my face in the flower bed,
+lest Desmond's shout might have alarmed the soldiers about the fire. But
+no one came; the gardens remained dark and damp and silent, and I heard
+no sound from the room in which I knew my brother to be in the clutches
+of that man.
+
+Desmond's cry pulled me together. It seemed to arouse me from the
+lethargy into which I had sunk during all those months of danger and
+disappointment. It shook me into life. If I was to save him, not a
+moment was to be lost. Clubfoot would act swiftly, I knew. So must I.
+But first I must find out what the situation was, the meaning of
+Clubfoot's presence in Monica's house, of those soldiers in the park.
+And, above all, was Monica herself at the Castle?
+
+I had noticed a little estaminet place on the road, about a hundred
+yards before we reached the Schloss. I might, at least, be able to pick
+up something there. Accordingly, I stole across the garden, scaled the
+wall again and reached the road in safety.
+
+The estaminet was full of people, brutish-looking peasants swilling neat
+spirits, cattle drovers and the like. I stood up at the bar and ordered
+a double noggin of _Korn_--a raw spirit made in these parts from
+potatoes, very potent but at least pure. A man in corduroys and leggings
+was drinking at the bar, a bluff sort of chap, who readily entered into
+conversation. A casual question of mine about the game conditions
+elicited from him the information that he was an under-keeper at the
+Castle. It was a busy time for them, he told me, as four big shoots had
+been arranged. The first was to take place the next day. There were
+plenty of birds, and he thought the Frau Graefin's guests ought to be
+satisfied.
+
+I asked him if there was a big party staying at the Castle. No, he told
+me, only one gentleman besides the officer billeted there, but a lot of
+people were coming over for the shoot the next day, the officers from
+Cleves and Goch, the Chief Magistrate from Cleves, and a number of
+farmers from round about.
+
+"I expect you will find the soldiers billeted at the Castle useful as
+beaters," I enquired with a purpose.
+
+The man assented grudgingly. Gamekeepers are first-class grumblers. But
+the soldiers were not many. For his part he could do without them
+altogether. They were such terrible poachers to have about the place, he
+declared. But what they would do for beaters without them, he didn't
+know ... they were very short of beaters ... that was a fact.
+
+"I am staying at Cleves," I said, "and I'm out of a job. I am not long
+from hospital, and they've discharged me from the army. I wouldn't mind
+earning a few marks as a beater, and I'd like to see the sport. I used
+to do a bit of shooting myself down on the Rhine where I come from."
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "That's none of my
+business, getting the beaters together," he replied. "Besides, I shall
+have the head gamekeeper after me if I go bringing strangers in...."
+
+I ordered another drink for both of us, and won the man round without
+much difficulty. He pouched my five mark note and announced that he
+would manage it ... the Frau Graefin was to see some men who had offered
+their services as beaters after dinner at the Castle that evening. He
+would take me along.
+
+Half an hour later I stood, as one of a group of shaggy and bedraggled
+rustics, in a big stone courtyard outside the main entrance to the
+Castle. The head gamekeeper mustered us with his eye and, bidding us
+follow him, led the way under a vaulted gateway through a massive door
+into a small lobby which had apparently been built into the great hall
+of the Castle, for it opened right into it.
+
+We found ourselves in a splendid old feudal hall, oak-lined and
+oak-raftered, with lines of dusty banners just visible in the twilight
+reigning in the upper part of the vast place. The modern generation had
+forborne to desecrate the fine old room with electric light, and massive
+silver candlesticks shed a soft light on the table set at the far end of
+the hall, where dinner, apparently, was just at an end.
+
+Three people were sitting at the table, a woman at the head, who, even
+before I had taken in the details I have just set down, I knew to be
+Monica, though her back was towards me. On one side of the table was a
+big, heavy man whom I recognized as Clubfoot, on the other side a pale
+slip of a lad in officer's uniform with only one arm ... Schmalz, no
+doubt.
+
+A servant said something to Monica, who, asking permission of her
+companions by a gesture, left the table and came across the hall. To my
+surprise, she was dressed in deepest black with linen cuffs. Her face was
+pale and set, and there was a look of fear and suffering in her eyes
+that wrung my very heart.
+
+I had shuffled into the last place of the row in which the head keeper
+had ranged us. Monica spoke a word or two to each of the men, who
+shambled off in turn with low obeisances. Directly she stopped in front
+of me I knew she had recognized me--I felt it rather, for she made no
+sign--though the time I had had in Germany had altered my appearance, I
+dare say, and I must have looked pretty rough with my three days' beard
+and muddy clothes.
+
+"Ah!" she said with all her languor _de grande dame_, "you are the man
+of whom Heinrich spoke. You have just come out of hospital, I think?"
+
+"Beg the Frau Graefin's pardon," I mumbled out in the thick patois of the
+Rhine which I had learnt at Bonn, "I served with the Herr Graf in
+Galicia, and I thought maybe the Frau Graefin ..."
+
+She stopped me with a gesture.
+
+"Herr Doktor!" she called to the dinner-table.
+
+By Jove! this girl had grit: her pluck was splendid.
+
+Clubfoot came stumping over, all smiles after his food and smoking a
+long cigar that smelt delicious.
+
+"Frau Graefin?" he queried, glancing at me.
+
+"This is a man who served under my husband in Galicia. He is ill and out
+of work, and wishes me to help him. I should wish, therefore, to see him
+in my sitting-room, if you will allow me...."
+
+"But, Frau Graefin, most certainly. There surely was no need ..."
+
+"Johann!" Monica called the servant I had seen before, "take this man
+into the sitting-room!"
+
+The servant led the way across the hall into a snugly furnished library
+with a dainty writing-desk and pretty chintz curtains. Monica followed
+and sat down at the desk.
+
+"Now tell me what you wish to say ..." she began in German as the servant
+left the room, but almost as soon as he had gone she was on her feet,
+clasping my hands.
+
+"Francis!" she whispered in English in a great sob, "oh, Francis! what
+have they done to you to make you look like that?"
+
+I gripped her wrist tightly.
+
+"Frau Graefin," I said in German, still in that hideous patois, "you must
+be calm." And I whispered in English in her ear:
+
+"Monica, be brave! And talk German whatever you do."
+
+She regained her self-possession at once.
+
+"I understand," she answered, sitting down at her desk again; "it is
+more prudent."
+
+And for the rest of the time we spoke in German.
+
+"Desmond?" I asked.
+
+"Locked up in Grundt's bedroom," she replied. "I met them pushing him
+along the corridor--it was horrible! Grundt won't let him out of his
+sight. Oh, it was madness to have come. If only I could have warned
+you!"
+
+"What is Grundt doing here?" I asked. "And those soldiers and that
+officer?"
+
+"My dear," she answered, and her eyes flashed mischief in a sudden
+change of mood, "I'm in preventive arrest!"
+
+"But, Monica...."
+
+"Listen! Gerry and that spying man-servant of his made trouble. When Des
+went off that evening and didn't come back, Gerry insisted that we
+should notify the police. He made an awful scene, then the valet chipped
+in, and from what he said I knew he meant mischief. I didn't dare trust
+Gerry with the truth, so I let him send a note to the police. They came
+round and asked a lot of questions and went away again, so I thought
+we'd heard the last of it and came up here. Gerry wouldn't come. He's
+gone off to Baden-Baden on some new cure.
+
+"About a week ago the Chief Magistrate at Cleves, who is an old friend
+of ours, motored over, and after a lot of talk, blurted out that I was
+to consider myself under arrest, and that an officer and a detachment of
+men from Goch were coming over to guard the house. The magistrate man
+would have told me anything I wanted to know, but he knew nothing: he
+simply carried out his orders. Then the lieutenant and his men arrived,
+and since that time I have been a prisoner in the house and grounds. I
+was terribly scared about Des until Grundt arrived suddenly, two nights
+ago, and I saw at once by his face that Des was still at large. But,
+Francis, that Clubfoot man came here to catch Des ... and he has simply
+walked into the trap."
+
+"And Desmond?" I asked. "What is Clubfoot going to do about him?"
+
+"He was with Des for about an hour in his room, and I heard him tell
+Schmalz he would 'try again' after dinner. Oh, Francis, I am frightened
+of that man ... not a word has he said to me about my knowing
+Desmond--not a word about my harbouring Des in Berlin ... but he knows
+everything, and he watches me the whole time."
+
+I glanced through the open door into the hall. The candles still burnt
+on the dinner-table, where Clubfoot and the officer sat conversing in
+low tones.
+
+"I have been here long enough," I said. "But before I go, I want you to
+answer one or two questions, Monica. Will you?"
+
+"Yes, Francis," she said, raising her eyes to mine.
+
+"What time is the shoot to-morrow?"
+
+"At ten o'clock."
+
+"Are Grundt and Schmalz going?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Could you get away back to the house by 12.30?"
+
+"Not alone. One of them is always with me out of doors."
+
+"Could you meet me alone anywhere outside at that time?"
+
+"There is a quarry outside a village called Quellenburg ... it is on the
+edge of our preserves ... just off the road. We ought to be as far as
+that by twelve. If it is necessary, I will try and give them the slip
+and hide in one of the caves there. Then, when you came, if you whistled
+I could come out."
+
+"Good. That will do excellently. We will arrange it so. Now, another
+question ... how many soldiers have you here?"
+
+"Sixteen."
+
+"Are they all going beating?"
+
+"Oh, no! Only ten of them. The other six and the sergeant remain
+behind."
+
+"Have you a car here?"
+
+"No, but Grundt has one."
+
+"How many servants will there be in the house to-morrow?"
+
+"Only Johann, the butler, and the maids ... a woman cook and two girls."
+
+"Can you contrive to have Johann out of the house between 10 and 12:30
+to-morrow morning?"
+
+"Yes, I can send him to Cleves with a note."
+
+"The maids too?"
+
+"Yes, the maids too."
+
+"Good. Now will you do one thing more--the hardest of all? I want you
+to send a message to Desmond. Can you arrange it?"
+
+"Tell me what your message is, and I may be able to answer you."
+
+"I want you to tell him that he must at all costs contrive to keep
+Grundt from going to that shoot to-morrow ... at any rate between ten
+and twelve. He must manage to let Grundt believe that he is going to
+tell him where Grundt may find what he is after ... but he must keep him
+in suspense during those hours."
+
+"And after?"
+
+"There will be no after," I said.
+
+"I will see that Des gets your message," Monica replied, "for I will
+take it myself."
+
+"No, Monica," I said, "I don't want..."
+
+"Francis," ...she spoke almost in a whisper ... "my life in this country
+is over," ... and she touched her widow's weeds.... "Karl was killed at
+Predeal three weeks ago.... You know as well as I do that I am involved
+in this affair as much as you and Des ... and I will share the risk if
+only you will take me away with you ... that is if you ..." She
+faltered.
+
+I heard the chairs scrape in the corner of the hall where the
+dinner-party was breaking up.
+
+"The Frau Graefin has only to command," I said. "The Frau Graefin knows I
+have been waiting for years...."
+
+Clubfoot was crossing towards the open door.
+
+"... I never expected to find the Frau Graefin so gracious.... I had
+never hoped that the Frau Graefin would be willing to do so much for
+me ... the Frau Graefin has made me very happy."
+
+Clubfoot stood on the threshold and listened to my halting speech.
+
+"You can bring your things in when you come to-morrow ..." Monica said.
+"The keeper will tell you what time you must be here."
+
+Then she dismissed me, but as I went I heard her say:
+
+"Herr Doktor! Can I have a word with you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+I GO ON WITH THE STORY
+
+
+I was in the billiard-room of the Castle, a dusty place, obviously
+little used, for it smelt of damp. A fire was burning in the grate,
+however, and on a table in the corner, which was littered with papers,
+stood a dispatch box.
+
+Clubfoot wore a dinner-coat and, as he laughed, his white expanse of
+shirt-front heaved to the shaking of his deep chest. For a moment,
+however, I had little thought of him or the ugly-looking Browning he
+held in his fist. My ears were strained for any sound that might betray
+Francis' presence in the garden. But all remained silent as the grave.
+
+Clubfoot, still chuckling audibly, walked over to me. I thought he was
+going to shoot me, he came so straight and so fast, but it was only to
+get behind me and shut the door, driving me, as he did so, farther into
+the room.
+
+The door by which he had entered stood open. Without taking his eyes off
+me or deflecting his weapon from its aim, he called out:
+
+"Schmalz!"
+
+A light step resounded, and the one-armed lieutenant tripped into the
+room. When he saw me, he stopped dead. Then he softly began to circle
+round me with a mincing step, murmuring to himself: "So! So!"
+
+"Good evening, Dr. Semlin!" he said in English. "Say, I'm mighty glad to
+see you! Well, Okewood, dear old boy, here we are again. What? Herr
+Julius Zimmermann ..." and he broke into German, "_es freut mich!_"
+
+I could have killed him where he stood, maimed though he was, for his
+fluency in the American and English idiom alone.
+
+"Search him, Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot curtly.
+
+Schmalz ran the fingers of his one arm over my pockets, flinging my
+portfolio on the billiard-table towards Clubfoot, and the other articles
+as they came to light ... my pistol, watch, cigarette-case and so
+forth ... on to a leather lounge against the wall. In his search he
+brushed me with his severed stump ... ugh, it was horrible!
+
+Clubfoot had snatched up the portfolio and hastily examined it. He shook
+the contents out on the billiard-table and examined them carefully.
+
+"Not there!" he said. "Run him upstairs, and we'll strip him," he
+ordered; "and let not our clever young friend forget that I'm behind him
+with my little toy!"
+
+Schmalz gripped me by the collar, spitefully digging his knuckles into
+my neck, and propelled me out of the room ... almost into the arms of
+Monica.
+
+She screamed and, turning, fled away down the passage. Clubfoot laughed
+noisily, but I reflected mournfully that in my present sorry plight,
+unwashed and unshaven, in filthy clothes, haled along like a common
+pickpocket, even my own mother would not have recognized me.
+
+There was a degrading scene in the bedroom to which they dragged me,
+where the two men stripped me to the skin and pawed over every single
+article of clothing I possessed. Physically and mentally, I cowered in
+my nudity before the unwholesome gaze of these two sinister cripples. Of
+all my experiences in Germany, I still look back upon that as almost my
+worst ordeal.
+
+Of course, they found nothing, search as they might, and presently they
+flung my clothes back at me and bade me get dressed again, "for you and
+I, young man," said Clubfoot, with his glinting smile, "have got to have
+a little talk together!"
+
+When I was once more clothed--
+
+"You can leave us, Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot, "and send up the
+sergeant when I ring: he shall look after this tricky Englishman whilst
+we are at dinner with our charming hostess."
+
+Schmalz went out and left us alone. Clubfoot lighted a cigar. He smoked
+in silence for a few minutes. I said nothing, for really there was
+nothing for me to say. They hadn't got their precious document, and it
+was not likely they would ever recover it now. I feared greatly that
+Francis in his loyalty might make an attempt to rescue me, but I hoped,
+whatever he did, he would think first of putting the document in a place
+of safety. I was more or less resigned to my fate. I was in their hands
+properly now, and whether they got the document or not, my doom was
+sealed.
+
+"I will pay you the compliment of saying, my dear Captain Okewood,"
+Clubfoot remarked in that urbane voice of his which always made my
+blood run cold, "that never before in my career have I devoted so much
+thought to any single individual, in the different cases I have handled,
+as I have to you. As an individual, you are a paltry thing: it is rather
+your remarkable good fortune that interests me as a philosopher of
+sorts.... I assure you it will cause me serious concern to be the
+instrument of severing your really extraordinary strain of good luck. I
+don't mind telling you, as man to man, that I have not yet entirely
+decided in my mind what to do with you now that I've got you!"
+
+I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"You've got me, certainly," I replied, "but you would vastly prefer to
+have what I have not got."
+
+"Let us not forget to be always content with small mercies,"
+answered the other, smiling with a gleam of his golden teeth,... "that
+is a favourite maxim of mine. As you truly remark, I would certainly
+prefer the ... the jewel to the infinitely less precious
+and ... interesting ... casket. But what I have, I hold. And I
+have you ... and your accomplice as well."
+
+"I have no accomplice," I denied stoutly.
+
+"Surely you forget our gracious hostess, our most charming Countess? Was
+it not thanks to the interest she deigned to take in your safety that I
+came here? Had it not been for that circumstance, I should scarcely have
+ventured to intrude upon her widowhood...."
+
+"Her widowhood?" I exclaimed.
+
+Clubfoot smiled again.
+
+"You cannot have followed the newspapers in your ... retreat, my dear
+Captain Okewood," he replied, "or surely you would have read the
+afflicting intelligence that Count Rachwitz, A.D.C. to Field-Marshal von
+Mackensen, was killed by a shell that fell into the Brigade Head-quarters
+where he was lunching at Predeal. Ah, yes," he sighed, "our beautiful
+Countess is now a widow, alone ..." he paused, then added, "... and
+unprotected!"
+
+I understood his allusion and went cold with fear. Why, Monica was
+involved in this affair as much as I. Surely they wouldn't dare to touch
+her....
+
+Clubfoot leaned forward and tapped me on the knee.
+
+"You will be sensible, Okewood," he said confidentially. "You've lost.
+You can't save yourself. Your life was forfeit from the moment you
+crossed the threshold of his Majesty's private apartments ... but you
+can save _her_."
+
+I shook his huge hand off my leg.
+
+"You won't bluff me," I answered roughly. "You daren't touch the
+Countess Rachwitz, an American lady, niece of an American ambassador,
+married into one of your leading families ... no, Herr Doktor, you must
+try something else."
+
+"Do you know why Schmalz is here?" he asked patiently, "and those
+soldiers?... You must have passed through the cordon to come here. Your
+little friend is in preventive arrest. She would be in gaol (she doesn't
+know it), but that His Majesty was unwilling to put this affront on the
+Rachwitz family in their great affliction."
+
+"The Countess Rachwitz has nothing whatever to do with me," ... rather a
+foolish lie, I thought to myself too late, as I was in her house.
+
+But Clubfoot remained quite unperturbed.
+
+"I shall take you into my confidence, my dear sir," he said, "to show
+that I know you to be stating an untruth. The Countess, on the contrary,
+is, to use a vulgar phrase, in it up to the neck. Thanks to the amazing
+imbecility of the Berlin police, I was not informed of your brief stay
+at the Bendler-Strasse, even after they were called in by the invalid
+American gentleman in the matter of your hasty flight when asked to have
+your passport put in order. But we are systematic, we Germans; we are
+painstaking; and I set about going through every possible place that
+might afford you shelter.
+
+"In the course of my investigations I came across our mutual friend,
+Herr Kore. A perusal of his very business-like ledgers showed me that on
+the day following your disappearance from the Esplanade he had received
+3,600 marks from a certain E. 2 ... all names in his books were in
+cipher. Under the influence of my winning personality, Herr Kore told me
+all he knew; I pursued my investigations and then discovered what the
+asinine police had omitted to tell me, namely, that on the date in
+question an alleged American had made a hurried flight from the Countess
+Rachwitz's apartment in the Bendler-Strasse. An admirable fellow ... Max
+or Otto, or some name like that ... anyhow, he was valet to Madame's
+invalid brother, was able to fill in all the lacunae, and I was thus
+enabled to draw up a very strong case against your well-meaning but
+singularly ill-advised hostess. By this time the lady had left Berlin
+for this charming old-world seat, and I promptly took measures to have
+her placed in preventive arrest whilst I tracked _you_ down.
+
+"You got away again. Even Jupiter nods, you know, my dear Captain
+Okewood, and I frankly admit I overlooked the silver badge which you had
+in your possession. I must compliment you also on your adroitness in
+leaving us that false trail to Munich. It took me in to the extent that
+I dispatched an emissary to hunt you down in that delightful capital,
+but, for myself, I have a certain _flair_ in these matters, and I
+thought you would sooner or later come to Bellevue. You will admit that
+I showed some perspicacity?"
+
+"You're wasting time with all this talk," I said sullenly.
+
+Clubfoot raised a hand deprecatingly.
+
+"I take a pride in my work," he observed half-apologetically. Then he
+added:
+
+"You must not forget that your pretty Countess is not an American. She
+is a German. She is also a widow. You may not know the relations that
+existed between her and her late husband, but they were not, I assure
+you, of such warmth that the Rachwitz family would unduly mourn her
+loss. Do you suppose we care a fig for all the American ambassadors that
+ever left the States? My dear sir, I observe that you are still
+lamentably ignorant of the revolution that war brings into international
+relations. In war, where the national interest is concerned, the
+individual is nothing. If he or she must be removed, puff! you snuff the
+offender out. Afterwards you can always pay or apologize, or do what is
+required."
+
+I listened in silence; I had no defence to offer in face of this deadly
+logic, the logic of the stronger man.
+
+Clubfoot produced a paper from his pocket.
+
+"Read that!" he said, tossing it over to me. "It is the summons for the
+Countess Rachwitz to appear before a court-martial. Date blank, you see.
+You needn't tear it up ... I've got several spare blank forms ... one
+for you, too!"
+
+I felt my courage ebbing and my heart turning to water. I handed him
+back his paper in silence. The booming of a dinner gong suddenly swelled
+into the stillness of the room. Clubfoot rose and rang the bell.
+
+"Here's my offer, Okewood!" he said. "You shall restore that letter to
+me in its integrity, and the Countess Rachwitz shall go free provided
+she leaves this country and does not return. That's my last word! Take
+the night to sleep on it! I shall come for my answer in the morning."
+
+A sergeant in field-grey with a rifle and fixed bayonet stood in the
+doorway.
+
+"I make you responsible for this man, Sergeant," said Clubfoot, "until I
+return in an hour or so. Food will be sent up for him and you will
+personally assure yourself that no message is conveyed to him by that or
+any other means."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I had washed, I had brushed my clothes, I had dined, and I sat in
+silence by the table, in the most utter dejection of spirit, I think,
+into which it is possible for a man to fall. I was so totally crushed by
+the disappointment of the evening that I don't think I pondered much
+about my own fate at all. But my thoughts were busy with Monica. My life
+was my own, and I knew I had a lien on my brother's if thereby our
+mission might be carried through to the end. But had I the right to
+sacrifice Monica?
+
+And then the unexpected happened. The door opened, and she came in,
+Schmalz behind her. He dismissed the sergeant with a word of caution to
+see that the sentries round the house were vigilant, and followed the
+man out, leaving Monica and me alone.
+
+The girl stopped the torrent of self-reproach that rose to my lips with
+a pretty gesture. She was pale, but she held her head as high as ever.
+
+"Schmalz has given me five minutes alone with you, Des," she said, "to
+plead with you for my life, that you may betray your trust. No, don't
+speak ... there is no time to waste in words. I have a message for you
+from Francis.... Yes, I have seen him here, this very night.... He says
+you must contrive at all costs to keep Grundt from going to the shoot at
+ten o'clock to-morrow, and to detain him with you from ten to twelve.
+That is all I know about it.... But Francis has planned something, and
+you and I have got to trust him. Now, listen ... I shall tell Clubfoot I
+have pleaded with you and that you show signs of weakening. Say nothing
+to-night, temporize with him when he comes for his answer in the
+morning, and then send for him at a quarter to ten, when he will be
+leaving the house with the others. The rest I leave to you. Good night,
+Des, and cheer up!"...
+
+"But, Monica," I cried, "what about you?"
+
+She reddened deliciously under her pallor.
+
+"Des," she replied happily, "we are allies now, we three. If all goes
+well, I'm coming with you and Francis!"
+
+With that she was gone. A few minutes after, a couple of soldiers
+arrived with Schmalz and took me downstairs to a dark cellar in the
+basement, where I was locked in for the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was dreaming of the front ... again I sniffed the old familiar smells,
+the scent of fresh earth, the fetid odour of death; again I heard
+outside the trench the faint rattle of tools, the low whispers of our
+wiring party; again I saw the very lights soaring skyward and revealing
+the desolation of the battlefield in their glare. Someone was shaking me
+by the shoulder. It was my servant come to wake me.... I must have
+fallen asleep. Was it stand-to so soon? I sat up and rubbed my eyes and
+awoke to the anguish of another day.
+
+The sergeant stood at the cellar door, framed in the bright morning
+light.
+
+"You are to come upstairs!" he said.
+
+He took me to the billiard-room, where Clubfoot, sleek and washed and
+shaved, sat at the writing-table in the sunshine, opening letters and
+sipping coffee. A clock on a bracket above his head pointed to eight.
+
+"You wish to speak to me, I believe," he said carelessly, running his
+eye over a letter in his hand.
+
+"You must give me a little more time, Herr Doktor," I said. "I was worn
+out last night and I could not look at things in their proper light. If
+you could spare me a few hours more...."
+
+I put a touch of pleading into my voice, which struck him at once.
+
+"I am not unreasonable, my dear Captain Okewood," he replied, "but you
+will understand that I am not to be trifled with, so I give you fair
+warning. I will give you until...."
+
+"It is eight o'clock now," I interrupted. "I tell you what, give me
+until ten. Will that do?"
+
+Clubfoot nodded assent.
+
+"Take this man upstairs to my bedroom," he ordered the sergeant. "Stay
+with him while he has his breakfast, and bring him back here at ten
+o'clock. And tell Schmidt to leave my car at the door: he needn't wait,
+as he is to beat: I will drive myself to the shoot."
+
+I don't really remember what happened after that. I swallowed some
+breakfast, but I had no idea what I was eating, and the sergeant, who
+was a model of Prussian discipline, declined with a surly frown to enter
+into conversation with me. My morale was very low: when I look back upon
+that morning I think I must have been pretty near the breaking-point.
+
+As I sat and waited I heard the house in a turmoil of preparation for
+the shoot. There was the sound of voices, of heavy boots in the hall, of
+wheels and horses in the yard without. Then the noises died away and all
+was still. Shortly afterwards, the clock pointing to ten, the sergeant
+escorted me downstairs again to the billiard-room.
+
+Grundt was still sitting there. A hot wave of anger drove the blood into
+my cheeks as I looked at him, fat and soft and so triumphant at his
+victory. The sight of him, however, gave me the tonic I needed. My nerve
+was shaken badly, but I was determined it must answer to this last
+strain, to play this uncouth fish for two hours. After that ... if
+nothing happened ...
+
+Clubfoot sent the sergeant away.
+
+"I can look after him myself now," he said, in a blithe tone that
+betrayed his conviction of success. So the sergeant saluted and left the
+room, his footsteps echoing down the passages like the leaden feet of
+Destiny, relentless, inexorable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+WE HAVE A RECKONING WITH CLUBFOOT
+
+
+I looked at Clubfoot.
+
+I must play him with caution, with method, too.
+
+Only by acting on a most exact system could I hope to hold him in that
+room for two hours. I had four points to argue with him and I would
+devote half an hour to each of them by the clock on the bracket above
+his head. If only I could keep him confident in his victory, I might
+hope to prevent him finding out that I was playing with him ... but two
+hours is a long time ... it would be a near thing.
+
+One point in my favour ... my manner gave him the assurance of success
+from the start. There was nothing counterfeit about my tone of humility,
+for in truth I was very near despair. I was making this last effort at
+the bidding of my brother, but I felt it to be a forlorn hope: in my
+heart of hearts I knew I was down and out.
+
+So I went straight to the point and told Clubfoot that I was beaten,
+that he should have his paper. But there were difficulties about the
+execution of both sides of the bargain. We had deceived one another.
+What mutual guarantees could we exchange that would give each of us the
+assurance of fair play?
+
+Clubfoot settled this point in characteristic fashion. He protested his
+good faith elaborately, but the gist of his remarks was that he held the
+cards and that, consequently, it was he who must be trusted, whilst I
+furnished the guarantee.
+
+Whilst we were discussing this point the clock chimed the half-hour.
+
+I switched the conversation to Monica. I was not at all concerned about
+myself, I said, but I must feel sure in my mind that no ill should
+befall her. To this Clubfoot replied that I might set my mind at ease:
+the moment the document was in his hands he would give orders for her
+release: I should be there and might see it done myself.
+
+What guarantee was there, I asked, that she would not be detained before
+she reached the frontier?
+
+Clubfoot was getting a little restless. With his eye on the clock but in
+a placid voice he again protested that his word was the sole guarantee
+he could offer.
+
+We discussed this too. My manner was earnest and nervous, I know, and I
+think he enjoyed playing with me. I told him frankly that his reputation
+belied his protestations of good faith. At this he laughed and
+cynically admitted that this was quite possibly the case.
+
+"Nevertheless, it is I who give the guarantee," he said in a tone that
+brooked no contradiction.
+
+The clock struck eleven.
+
+One hour to go!
+
+"Come, Okewood," he added good-naturedly, "we waste time. Up to this
+you've had all the sport, you know. You wouldn't have me miss the first
+day's shooting I've had this year. Where have you got this letter of
+ours?"
+
+He was an extraordinary man. To hear him address me, you would never
+have supposed that he was sending me to my death. He appeared to have
+forgotten this detail. It meant so little to him that he probably had.
+
+I turned to my third point. He made things very hard for me, I said, but
+I was the vanquished and must give way. The trouble was that the
+document was still in two portions and neither half was here.
+
+"You indicate where the halves are hidden," said Clubfoot promptly. "I
+will accompany you to the hiding-places and you will hand them to me."
+
+"But they are nowhere near here," I replied.
+
+"Then where are they?" answered Clubfoot impatiently. "Come, I am
+waiting and it's getting late!"
+
+"It will take several days to recover both portions," I muttered
+unwillingly.
+
+"That does not matter," retorted the other; "there is no particular
+hurry ... now!"
+
+And he smiled grimly.
+
+I dared not raise my eyes to the clock, for I felt the German's gaze on
+me. An intuitive instinct told me that his suspicions had been awakened
+by my reluctance. I was very nearly at the end of my resources.
+
+Would the clock never strike?
+
+"I tell you frankly, Herr Doktor," I said in a voice that trembled with
+anxiety, "I cannot leave the Countess unprotected whilst we travel
+together to the hiding-places of the document. I only feel sure of her
+safety whilst she is near me...."
+
+Clubfoot bent his brows at me.
+
+"What do you suggest then?" he said very sternly.
+
+"You go and recover the two halves at the places I indicate," I
+stammered out, "and ... and ..."
+
+A faint whirr and the silver chime rang out twice.
+
+Half an hour more!
+
+How still the house was! I could hear the clock ticking--no, that
+thudding must be my heart. My wits failed me, my mind had become a
+blank, my throat was dry with fear.
+
+"I've wasted an hour and a half over you, young man," said Clubfoot
+suddenly, "and it's time that this conversation was brought to a close.
+I warn you again that I am not to be trifled with. The situation is
+perfectly clear: it rests with you whether the Countess Rachwitz goes
+free or is court-martialled this afternoon at Cleves and shot this
+evening. Your suggestion is absurd. I'll be reasonable with you. We will
+both stay here. I will wire for the two portions of the letter to be
+fetched at the places you indicate, and as soon as I hold the entire
+letter in my hands the Countess will be driven to the frontier. I will
+allow her butler here to accompany her and he can return and assure you
+that she is in safety."
+
+He stretched out his hand and pulled a block of telegraph forms towards
+him.
+
+"Where shall we find the two halves?" he said.
+
+"One is in Holland," I murmured.
+
+He looked up quickly.
+
+"If you dare to play me false...."
+
+He broke off when he saw my face.
+
+The room was going round with me. My hands felt cold as ice. I was
+struggling for the mastery over myself, but I felt my body swaying.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Clubfoot musingly, "that would be Semlin's half.... I
+might have known.... Well, never mind, Schmalz can take my car and fetch
+it. He can be back by to-morrow. Where is he to go?"
+
+"The other half is in Berlin," I said desperately. My voice sounded to
+me like a third person speaking.
+
+"That's simpler," replied Clubfoot. "Ten minutes to twelve now ... if I
+wire at once, that half should be here by midnight.... I'll get the
+message off immediately...."
+
+He looked up at me, pencil in hand.
+
+It was the end. I had kept faith with Francis to the limit of my powers,
+but now my resistance was broken. He had failed me ... not me, but
+Monica, rather.... I could not save her now. Like some nightmare film,
+the crowded hours of the past few weeks flashed past my eyes, a jostling
+procession of figures--Semlin with his blue lips and livid face, Schratt
+with her bejewelled hands, the Jew Kore, Haase with his bullet head,
+Francis, sadly musing on the cafe verandah ... and Monica, all in white,
+as I saw her that night at the Esplanade ... my thoughts always came
+back to her, a white and pitiful figure in some dusty courtyard at
+lamplight facing a row of levelled rifles....
+
+"I am waiting!"
+
+Clubfoot's voice broke stridently upon the silence.
+
+Should I tell him the truth now?
+
+It was three minutes to the hour.
+
+"Come! The two addresses!"
+
+I would keep faith to the last.
+
+"Herr Doktor!" I faltered.
+
+He dashed the pencil down on the table and sprang to his feet. He
+caught me by the lapels of my coat and shook me in an iron grip.
+
+"The addresses, you dog!" he said.
+
+The clock whirred faintly. There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in!" roared Clubfoot and resumed his seat.
+
+The clock was chiming twelve.
+
+An officer stepped in briskly and saluted.
+
+It was Francis!... Francis, freshly shaved, his moustache neatly
+trimmed, a monocle in his eye, in a beautifully waisted grey military
+overcoat, one white-gloved hand raised in salute to his helmet.
+
+"Hauptmann von Salzmann!" ... he introduced himself, clicking his heels
+and bowing to Clubfoot, who glared at him, frowning at the interruption.
+He spoke with the clipped, mincing utterance of the typical Prussian
+officer. "I am looking for Herr Leutnant Schmalz," he said.
+
+"He is not in," answered Clubfoot in a surly voice. "He is out and I am
+busy ... I do not wish to be disturbed."
+
+"As Schmalz is out," the officer returned suavely, advancing to the
+desk, "I must trouble you for an instant, I fear. I have been sent over
+from Goch to inspect the guard here. But I find no guard ... there is
+not a man in the place."
+
+Clubfoot angrily heaved his unwieldy bulk from his chair.
+
+"Gott im Himmel!" he cried savagely. "It is incredible that I can never
+be left in peace. What the devil has the guard got to do with me? Will
+you understand that I have nothing to do with the guard! There is a
+sergeant somewhere ... curse him for a lazy scoundrel ... I'll ring ..."
+
+He never finished the sentence. As he turned his back on my brother to
+reach the bell in the wall, Francis sprang on him from behind, seizing
+his bull neck in an iron grip and driving his knee at the same moment
+into that vast expanse of back.
+
+The huge German, taken by surprise, crashed over backwards, my brother
+on top of him.
+
+It was so quickly done that, for the instant, I was dumbfounded.
+
+"Quick, Des, the door!" my brother gasped. "Lock the door!"
+
+The big German was roaring like a bull and plunging wildly under my
+brother's fingers, his clubfoot beating a thunderous tattoo on the
+parquet floor. In his fall Clubfoot's left arm had been bent under him
+and was now pinioned to the ground by his great weight. With his free
+right arm he strove fiercely to force off my brother's fingers as
+Francis fought to get a grip on the man's throat and choke him into
+silence.
+
+I darted to the door. The key was on the inside and I turned it in a
+trice. As I turned to go to my brother's help my eye caught sight of the
+butt of my pistol lying where Schmalz had thrown it the evening before
+under my overcoat on the leather lounge.
+
+I snatched up the weapon and dropped by my brother's side, crushing
+Clubfoot's right arm to the ground. I thrust the pistol in his face.
+
+"Stop that noise!" I commanded.
+
+The German obeyed.
+
+"Better search him, Francis," I said to my brother. "He probably has a
+Browning on him somewhere."
+
+Francis went through the man's pockets, reaching up and putting each
+article as it came to light on the desk above him. From an inner breast
+pocket he extracted the Browning. He glanced at it: the magazine was
+full with a cartridge in the breech.
+
+"Hadn't we better truss him up?" Francis said to me.
+
+"No," I said. I was still kneeling on the German's arm. He seemed
+exhausted. His head had fallen back upon the ground.
+
+"Let me up, curse you!" he choked.
+
+"No!" I said again and Francis turned and looked at me.
+
+Each of us knew what was in the other's mind, my brother and I. We were
+thinking of a hand-clasp we had exchanged on the banks of the Rhine.
+
+I was about to speak but Francis checked me. He was trembling all over.
+I could feel his elbow quiver where it touched mine.
+
+"No, Des, please ..." he pleaded, "let me ... this is my show...."
+
+Then, in a voice that vibrated with suppressed passion, he spoke swiftly
+to Clubfoot.
+
+"Take a good look at me, Grundt," he said sternly. "You don't know me,
+do you? I am Francis Okewood, brother of the man who has brought you to
+your fall. You don't know me, but you knew some of my friends, I think.
+Jack Tracy? Do you remember him? And Herbert Arbuthnot? Ah, you knew
+him, too. And Philip Brewster? You remember him as well, do you? No need
+to ask you what happened to poor Philip!"
+
+The man on the floor answered nothing, but I saw the colour very slowly
+fade from his cheeks.
+
+My brother spoke again.
+
+"There were four of us after that letter, as you knew, Grundt, and three
+of us are dead. But you never got me. I was the fourth man, the unknown
+quantity in all your elaborate calculations ... and it seems to me I
+spoiled your reckoning ... I and this brother of mine ... an amateur at
+the game, Grundt!"
+
+Still Clubfoot was silent, but I noticed a bead of perspiration tremble
+on his forehead, then trickle down his ashen cheeks and drop splashing
+to the floor.
+
+Francis continued in the same deep, relentless voice.
+
+"I never thought I should have to soil my hands by ridding the world of
+a man like you, Grundt, but it has come to it and you have to die. I'd
+have killed you in hot blood when I first came in but for Jack and
+Herbert and the others ... for their sake you had to know who is your
+executioner."
+
+My brother raised the pistol. As he did so the man on the floor, by a
+tremendous effort of strength, rose erect to his knees, flinging me
+headlong. Then there was a hot burst of flame close to my cheek as I lay
+on the floor, a deafening report, a thud and a sickening gurgle.
+
+Something twitched a little on the ground and then lay still.
+
+We rose to our feet together.
+
+"Des," said my brother unsteadily, "it seems rather like murder."
+
+"No, Francis," I whispered back, "it was justice!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CHARLEMAGNE'S RIDE
+
+
+The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past twelve. Funny, how my
+eyes kept coming back to that clock! There was a smell of warm gunpowder
+in the room, and the autumn sunshine, struggling feebly through the
+window, caught the blue edges of a little haze of smoke that hung lazily
+in the air by the desk in the corner. How close the room was! And how
+that clock face seemed to stare at me! I felt very sick....
+
+Lord! What a draught! A gust of icy air was raging in my face. The room
+was still swaying to and fro....
+
+I was in the front seat of a car beside Francis, who was driving. We
+were fairly flying along a broad and empty road, the tall poplars with
+which it was lined scudding away into the vanishing landscape as we
+whizzed by. The surface was terrible, and the car pitched this way and
+that as we tore along. But Francis had her well in hand. He sat at the
+wheel, very cool and deliberate and very grave, still in his officer's
+uniform, and his eyes had a cold glint that told me he was keyed up to
+top pitch.
+
+We slackened speed a fraction to negotiate a turn off to the right down
+a side road. We seemed to take that corner on two wheels. A thin church
+spire protruded from the trees in the centre of the group of houses
+which we were approaching so furiously. The village was all but
+deserted: everybody seemed to be indoors at their midday meal, but
+Francis slowed down and ran along the dirty street at a demure pace. The
+village passed, he jammed down the accelerator and once more the car
+sprang forward.
+
+The country was flat as a pancake, but presently the fields fell away a
+bit from the road with boulders and patches of gorse here and there. The
+next moment we were slackening speed. We drew up by a rough track which
+led off the road and vanished into a tangle of stunted trees and scrub
+growing across the yellow face of a sand-pit.
+
+Francis motioned me to get out, and then sprang to the ground himself,
+leaving the engine throbbing. His face was grey and set.
+
+"Stay here!" he whispered to me. "You've got your pistol? Good. If
+anybody attempts to interfere with you, shoot!" He dashed into the
+tangle and was swallowed up. I heard a whistle, and a whistle in answer,
+and a minute later he appeared again helping Monica through the thick
+undergrowth.
+
+Monica looked as pretty as a picture in her dark green shooting suit
+and her muffler. She was as excited as a child at its first play.
+
+"A car!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Francis, I'll sit beside you!"
+
+My brother glanced at his watch.
+
+"Twenty to one!" he murmured. He had a hunted look on his face. Monica
+saw it and it sobered her.
+
+They got up in front, and I sat in the body of the car.
+
+"Hang on to that!" said Francis, handing me over a leather case. I
+recognized it at a glance. It was Clubfoot's dispatch-box. Francis was
+thorough in everything.
+
+Once more we dashed out along the desolate country roads. We saw hardly
+a soul. Houses were few and far between and, save for an occasional
+greybeard hoeing in the wet fields or an old woman hobbling along the
+road, the countryside seemed dead. In the cold air the engine ran
+splendidly, and Francis got every ounce of horse-power out of it.
+
+On we rushed, the wind in our ears, the cold air in our faces, until we
+found ourselves racing along an avenue of old trees that led straight as
+an arrow right into the heart of the forest. It was as silent as the
+grave: the air was dank and chill and the trees dripped sorrowfully into
+the brimming ruts of the road.
+
+We whizzed past many tracks leading into the depths of the forest, but
+it was not until the car had eaten up some five kilometres of the main
+road that Francis slowed to a halt. He consulted a map he pulled from
+his pocket, then glanced at his watch with puckered brow.
+
+"I had hoped to take the car into the forest," he said, "but the roads
+are so soft we shan't get a yard. Still we can but try."
+
+We went forward again, very slowly, to where a track ran off to the
+left. It was badly ploughed up, and the ruts were fully a foot deep.
+Monica and I got out to lighten the car, and Francis ran her in. But he
+hadn't gone five yards before the car was bogged up to the axles.
+
+"We'll have to leave it," he said, jumping out. "It's ten minutes to
+two ... we haven't a second to lose."
+
+He pulled a cloth cap from the pocket of his military overcoat, then
+stripped off the coat, showing his ordinary clothes underneath, and very
+shiny black field-boots up to his knees. He put his helmet in the
+overcoat and made a roll of it, tucking it under his arm, and then
+donned his cap.
+
+"Now," he said, "We'll have to run for it, Monica, I'm afraid: we must
+reach our cover while the light lasts or I shan't be able to find it and
+it will be dark in these woods in about two hours from now. Are you
+ready?"
+
+We struck off the track into the forest. There was not much undergrowth,
+and the trees were not planted very close, so our way was not impeded.
+We jogged on over a carpet of wet leaves, stumbling over the roots of
+the trees, tearing our clothes on the brambles, bringing down showers of
+raindrops from the branches of pine or fir we brushed on our headlong
+course. Now a squirrel bolted up his tree, now a rabbit frisked back
+into his hole, now a soft-eyed deer crashed away into the bushes on our
+approach. The place was so still that it gave me confidence. There was
+not a trace of man now that we were away from the marks of his carts on
+the tracks, and I began to feel, in the presence of the stately, silent
+trees, that at last I was safe from the menace that had hung over me for
+so long.
+
+We rested frequently, breathless and panting, a hand to the side. Monica
+was a marvel of endurance. Her boots were sopping, her skirt wet to the
+waist, her face was scratched, and her hair was coming down, but she
+never complained. Francis was seemingly tireless and was always the one
+to lead the way when we started afresh.
+
+It was heavy going, for at every step our feet sank deep in the leaves.
+The forest was undulating with deep hollows and steep banks, which tried
+us a good deal. It soon became evident that we could not keep up the
+pace. Monica was tiring visibly, and I had had about enough; Francis,
+too, seemed done up. We slackened to a walk. We were toiling painfully
+up on of these steep banks when Francis, who was leading, held up his
+hand.
+
+"Charlemagne's Ride!" he whispered as we came up. We looked down from
+the top of the bank and saw below us a broad forest glade, canopied by
+the thick branches of the ancient trees that met overhead, and leading
+up a slope, narrowing as it went, to a path that lost itself among the
+shadows that were falling fast upon the forest.
+
+Francis clambered down the bank and we followed. Twilight reigned below
+in the glade under the lofty roof of branches and our feet rustled
+softly as we trod the leaves underfoot. It was a ghostly place, and
+Monica clutched my arm as we went quickly after Francis, who, striding
+rapidly ahead, threatened to be swallowed up in the shadows of the
+autumn evening. He led us up the slope and along the narrow path. A path
+struck off it, and he took it. It led us into a thicker part of the
+forest than we had yet struck, where there were great boulders
+protruding from the dripping bushes, and brambles grew so thick that in
+places they obscured the track.
+
+The forest sloped up again, and in front of us was a steep bank, its
+sides dotted with great rocks and a tangle of brambles and undergrowth.
+Francis stooped between two boulders at the foot of the slope, then
+turning and beckoning us to follow, disappeared. Monica went in after
+him, and I came last. We were in a kind of narrow entrance, scooped out
+of the earth between the rocks, and it led down to a broad chamber,
+which had apparently been dug beneath some of the boulders, for,
+stretching out my hand, I found the roof was rock and damp to the touch.
+
+Francis and Monica were standing in this chamber as I came down.
+Directly I entered I knew why they stood so still. A glimmer of light
+came from the farther end of the cave and a strange sound, a sort of
+strangled sobbing, reached our ears.
+
+I crept forward in the dark in the direction of the light. My
+outstretched hands came upon a low opening. I stooped and, crawling
+round a rock, saw another chamber illuminated by a guttering candle
+stuck by its wax to the earthen wall. On the floor a man was lying,
+sobbing as though his heart would break. He was wearing some kind of
+military great-coat with a yellow stripe running down the back.
+
+"Pst!" I called to him, drawing my pistol from my pocket. As I did so,
+Francis behind me touched my arm to let me know he was there.
+
+"Pst!" I called again louder.
+
+The man swung round on to his knees with a sudden, frightened spring.
+When he saw my pistol, he jerked his hands above his head. Dirty and
+unshaven, with the tears all wet on his face, he looked a woe-begone and
+tragic figure.
+
+"Kamerad! Kamerad!" he muttered stupidly at me. "Napoo! Kaput!
+Englander!"
+
+I gazed at the stranger, hardly able to believe my ears. That trench
+jargon in this place!
+
+"Are you English?" I asked him.
+
+At the sound of my voice he stared about him wildly.
+
+"Ay, I be English, zur," he replied with a strong West Country burr,
+"God help me!" And, heedless of me and my pistol, he covered his face
+with his hands and burst into a wild fit of sobbing again, rocking
+himself to and fro in his grief.
+
+"Go back to Monica!" I whispered to Francis. "I'll see to this fellow!"
+
+I managed to pacify him presently. Habit is a tenacious ruler and,
+grotesque figures though we were, the "zur" he had addressed to me
+brought out the officer in me. I talked to him as I would have done to
+one of my own men, and he quietened down at last and looked up at me.
+
+He was only a lad--I could tell that by the clearness of his skin and
+the brightness of his eyes--but his face was wan and wasted, and at the
+first glance he looked like a man of forty. Under his great-coat, which
+was German, he was clad in filthy rags which once had been a khaki
+uniform, as the cut--and nothing else--revealed.
+
+He told me his simple story in his soft Somersetshire accent, just the
+plain tale of the fate that has overtaken thousands of our
+fellow-countrymen since the war began. His name was Maggs, Sapper
+Ebenezer Maggs, of the Royal Engineers, and he was captured near Mons in
+August, 1914, when out laying a line with a party. With a long train of
+British prisoners--"zum of 'em was terrible bad, zur, dying, as you
+might say"--he had been marched off to a town and paraded to the railway
+station through streets thronged with jeering German soldiery. In cattle
+trucks, the fit, the wounded, the dying and the dead herded together,
+without food or water, they had made their journey into Germany with
+hostile mobs at every station, once the frontier was past, brutal men
+and shrieking women, to whom not even the dying were sacred.
+
+It was a terrible tale, that lost nothing of its horror from the simple,
+unadorned style of this West Country farmer's son. He had been one of
+the ragged, emaciated band of British prisoners of war who had shivered
+through that first long winter in the starvation camp of Friedrichsfeld,
+near Wesel. For two years he had endured the filthy food, the neglect,
+the harsh treatment, then a resourceful Belgian friend, whom he called
+John, in happier days a contraband runner on this very frontier, had
+shown him a means to escape. Five days before they had left the camp and
+separated, agreeing to meet at Charlemagne's Ride in the forest and try
+to force the frontier together. "John" had never come. For twenty-four
+hours Maggs had waited in vain, then his courage had forsaken him, and
+he had crept to that hole in his grief.
+
+I went and fetched Francis and Monica. Maggs shrunk back as they came
+in.
+
+"I bean't fit cumpany for no lady, zur," he whispered to me, "I be that
+durty, fair crawling I be ... We couldn't keep clean nohow in that camp!"
+
+All the good soldier's horror of dirt was in his voice.
+
+"That's all right, Maggs," I answered soothingly, "she'll understand!"
+
+We sat down on the floor in the light of Sapper Maggs' candle, and
+Francis and I reviewed our situation. The cave we were in ... an old
+Smuggler's _cache_ ... was where Francis had spent several days during
+his different attempts to get across the frontier. The border line was
+only about a quarter of a mile distant and ran right through the forest.
+There was no live-wire fencing in the forest, such as the Germans have
+erected along the frontier between Holland and Belgium. The frontier was
+guarded by patrols. These patrols were posted four men to every two
+hundred yards along the line through the forest, so that two men,
+patrolling in pairs, covered a hundred yards apiece.
+
+It was now half-past five in the evening. We both agreed that we should
+certainly make the attempt to cross the frontier that night. Francis
+nudged me, indicating the sapper with his eyes.
+
+"Maggs," I said, "we are all in a bad way, but our case is more
+desperate than yours. I shall not tell you more than this, that, if we
+are caught, any of us three, we shall be shot, and anyone caught with us
+will fare the same. If you will take my advice, you will leave us and
+start off by yourself: the worst that can happen to you is to be sent
+back to your camp. You will be punished for running away, but you won't
+lose your life!"
+
+Sapper Maggs shook his yellow head.
+
+"I'll stay," he answered stolidly; "it's more cumfortable-like for us
+four to 'old together, and it's a better protection for the lady. I
+bean't afear'd of no Gers, I bean't! I'll go along o' yew officers and
+the lady, if yew don't mind, zur!"
+
+So it was settled, and we four agreed to unite forces. Before we set out
+Francis wanted to go and reconnoitre. I thought he had done more than
+his share that day, and said so. But Francis insisted.
+
+"I know my way blindfold about the forest, old man" he said "it'll be
+far safer for me than for you. I'll leave you the map and mark the
+route you are to follow, so that you can find the way if anything
+happens to me. If I'm not back by midnight, you ought certainly not to
+wait any longer, but make the attempt by yourselves."
+
+My brother handed me back the document and went over the route we were
+to follow on the map. Then he deposited his bundle in the cave and
+declared himself ready.
+
+"And don't forget old Clubfoot's box," he said by way of a parting
+injunction.
+
+Monica took him out to the entrance of our refuge. She was dabbing her
+eyes with her handkerchief when she returned. To divert her thoughts, I
+questioned her about the events that had led to my rescue, and she told
+me how, at Francis' request, she had got all the servants out of the
+Castle on different pretexts. It was Francis who had got rid of the
+soldiers remaining as a guard.
+
+"You remember the Captain of Koepenick trick," she said. "Well, Francis
+played it off on the sergeant and those six men. He slept at Cleves, had
+himself trimmed up at the barber's, bought those field-boots he is
+wearing, and stole that helmet and great-coat off the pegs in the
+passage at Schmidt's Cafe, where the officers always go and drink beer
+after morning parade. Then he drove out to the Castle--he knew that the
+place would be deserted once the shoot had started--and told the
+sergeant he had been sent from Goch to inspect the guard. I think he is
+just splendid! He inspected the men and cursed everybody up and down,
+and sent the sergeant out to the paddock with orders to drill them for
+two hours. Francis was telling me all about it as we came along. He says
+that if you can get hold of a uniform and hector a German enough, he
+will never call your bluff. Can you beat it?"
+
+The hours dragged wearily on. We had no food, and Maggs, who had eaten
+the last of his provisions twenty-four hours before--the British soldier
+is a bad hoarder--soon consumed the last of my cigarettes. It was past
+ten o'clock when I heard a step outside. The next moment Francis came
+in, white and breathless.
+
+"They're beating the forest for us," he panted. "The place is full of
+men. I had to crawl the whole way there and back, and I'm soaked to the
+skin."
+
+I pointed to Monica, who was fast asleep, and he lowered his voice.
+
+"Des," he said, "I've hoped as long as I dared, but now I believe the
+game's up. They're beating the forest in a great circle, soldiers and
+police and customs men. If we set out at once we can reach the frontier
+before they get here, but what's the use of that ... every patrol is on
+the look-out for us ... the forest seems ablaze with torches."
+
+"We must try it, Francis," I said. "We haven't a dog's chance if we
+stay here!"
+
+"I think you're right," he answered. "Well, here's the plan. There's a
+deep ravine that runs clear across the frontier. I spent an hour in it.
+They've built a plank bridge across the top just this side of the line,
+and the patrol comes to the ravine about every three minutes. It is
+practically impossible to get out of sight and sound along that ravine
+in three minutes, but ..."
+
+"Unless we could drar the patrol's attention away!" said Sapper Maggs.
+
+But Francis ignored the interruption.
+
+"... We can at least try it. Come on, we must be starting! Thank God,
+there's no moon; it's as dark as the devil outside!"
+
+We roused up Monica and groped our way out of the cave into the black
+and dripping forest. Somewhere in the distance a faint glare reddened
+the sky. From time to time I thought I heard a shout, but it sounded far
+away.
+
+We crawled stealthily forward, Francis in front, then Monica, Maggs and
+I last. In a few minutes we were wet through, and our hands, blue and
+dead with cold, were scratched and torn. Our progress was interminably
+slow. Every few yards Francis raised his hand and we stopped.
+
+At last we reached the gloomy glade where, as Francis had told us,
+according to popular belief, the wraith of Charlemagne was still seen on
+the night of St. Hubert's Day galloping along with his ghostly
+followers of the chase. The rustling of leaves caught our ears;
+instantly we all lay prone behind a bank.
+
+A group of men came swinging along the glade. One of them was singing an
+ancient German soldier song:
+
+"Die Voeglein im Walde
+Sie singen so schoen
+In der Heimat, in der Heimat,
+Da gibt's ein Wiederseh'n."
+
+"The relief patrol!" I whispered to Francis, as soon as they were past.
+
+"The other lot they relieve will be back this way in a minute. We must
+get across quickly." My brother stood erect, and tiptoed swiftly across
+Charlemagne's Ride, and we followed.
+
+We must have crawled for an hour before we came to the ravine. It was a
+deep, narrow ditch with steep sides, full of undergrowth and brambles.
+Now we could hear distinctly the voices of men all around us, as it
+seemed, and to right and to left and in front we caught at intervals
+glimpses of red flames through the trees. We could only proceed at a
+snail's pace lest the continual rustle of our footsteps should betray
+us. So each advanced a few paces in turn; then we all paused, and then
+the next one went forward. We could no longer crawl; the undergrowth was
+too thick for that; we had to go forward bent double.
+
+We had progressed like this for fully half an hour when Francis, who
+was in front as usual, beckoned us to lie down. We all lay motionless
+among the brambles.
+
+Then a voice somewhere above us said in German:
+
+"And I'll have a man at the plank here, sergeant: he can watch the
+ravine."
+
+Another voice answered:
+
+"Very good, Herr Leutnant, but in that case the patrols to right and
+left need not cross the plank each time; they can turn when they come to
+the ravine guard."
+
+The voices died away in a murmur. I craned my neck aloft. It was so
+dark, I could see nothing save the fretwork of branches against the
+night sky. I whispered to Francis, who was just in front of me:
+
+"Unless we make a dash for it now that man will hear us rustling along!"
+
+Francis held up a finger. I heard a heavy footstep along the bank above
+us.
+
+"Too late!" my brother whispered back. "Do you hear the patrols?"
+
+Footsteps crashing through the undergrowth resounded on the right and
+left.
+
+"Cold work!" said a voice.
+
+"Bitter!" came the answer, just above our heads.
+
+"Seen anything?"
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+The rustling began again on the right, and died away.
+
+"They're closing in on the left!" Another voice this time.
+
+"Heard anything, you?" from the voice above us.
+
+"Not a thing!"
+
+The rustling broke out once more on the left, and gradually became lost
+in the distance.
+
+Silence.
+
+I felt a hot breath in my ear. Sapper Maggs stood by my side.
+
+"There be a feller a-watching for us up there?" he whispered.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"If us could drar his 'tention away, yew could slip by, next time the
+patrols is past, couldn't 'ee?"
+
+Again I nodded.
+
+"It'd be worse for yew than for me, supposin' yew'd be ca-art, that's
+what t'other officer said, warn't it?"
+
+And once more I nodded.
+
+The hot whisper came again.
+
+"I'll drar 'un off for ee, zur, nex' time the patrols pass. When I
+holler, yew and the others, yew run. Thirty-one forty-three Sapper
+Maggs, R.E., from Chewton Mendip ... that's me... maybe yew'll let us
+have a bit o' writing to the camp."
+
+I stretched out my hand in the darkness to stop him. He had gone.
+
+I leant forward and whispered to Francis:
+
+"When you hear a shout, we make a dash for it!"
+
+I felt him look at me in surprise--it was too dark to see his face.
+
+"Right!" he whispered back.
+
+Now to the left we heard voices shouting and saw torches gleaming red
+among the trees. To right and rear answering shouts resounded.
+
+Again the patrols met at the plank above our heads, and again their
+departing footsteps rustled in the leaves.
+
+The murmur of voices grew nearer. We could faintly smell the burning
+resin of the torches.
+
+Then a wild yell rent the forest. The voice above us shouted "Halt!" but
+the echo was lost in the deafening report of a rifle.
+
+Francis caught Monica by the wrist and dragged her forward. We went
+plunging and crashing through the tangle of the ravine. We heard a
+second shot and a third, commands were shouted, the red glare deepened
+in the sky....
+
+Monica collapsed quite suddenly at my feet. She never uttered a sound,
+but fell prone, her face as white as paper. Without a word we picked her
+up between us and went on, stumbling, gasping, coughing, our clothes
+rent and torn, the blood oozing from the deep scratches on our faces and
+hands.
+
+At length our strength gave out. We laid Monica down in the ravine and
+drew the under growth over her, then we crawled in under the brambles
+exhausted, beat.
+
+Dawn was streaking the sky with lemon when a dog jumped sniffing down
+into our hiding-place. Francis and Monica were asleep.
+
+A man stood at the top of the ravine looking down on us. He carried a
+gun over his shoulder.
+
+"Have you had an accident?" he said kindly.
+
+He spoke in Dutch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+RED TABS EXPLAINS
+
+
+From the Argyllshire hills winter has stolen down upon us in the night.
+Behind him he has left his white mantle, and it now lies outspread from
+the topmost mountain peaks to the softly lapping tide at the black edges
+of the loch. Yet as I sit adding the last words to this plain account of
+a curious episode in my life, the wintry scene dissolves before my eyes,
+and I see again that dawn in the forest ... Francis and Monica, sleeping
+side by side, like the babes in the wood, half covered with leaves, the
+eager, panting retriever, and myself, poor, ragged scarecrow, staring
+openmouthed at the Dutchman whose kindly enquiry has just revealed to me
+the wondrous truth ... that we are safe across the frontier.
+
+What a disproportionate view one takes of events in which one is the
+principal actor! The great issues vanish away, the little things loom
+out large. When I look back on that morning I encounter in my memory no
+recollection of extravagant demonstrations of joy at our delivery, no
+hysteria, no heroics. But I find a fragrant remembrance of a glorious
+hot bath and an epic breakfast in the house of that kindly Dutchman,
+followed by a whirlwind burst of hospitality on our arrival at the house
+of van Urutius, which was not more than ten miles from the fringe of the
+forest.
+
+Madame van Urutius took charge of Monica, who was promptly sent to bed,
+whilst Francis and I went straight on to Rotterdam, where we had an
+interview at the British Consulate, with the result that we were able to
+catch the steamer for England the next day.
+
+As the result of various telegrams which Francis dispatched from
+Rotterdam, a car was waiting for us on our arrival at Fenchurch Street
+the next evening. In it we drove off for an interview with my brother's
+Chief. Francis insisted that I should hand over personally the portion
+of the document in our possession.
+
+"You got hold of it, Des," he said, "and it's only fair that you should
+get all the credit. I have Clubfoot's dispatch-box to show as the result
+of my trip. It's only a pity we could not have got the other half out of
+the cloak-room at Rotterdam."
+
+We were shown straight in to the Chief. I was rather taken aback by the
+easy calm of his manner in receiving us.
+
+"How are you, Okewood?" he said, nodding to Francis. "This your brother?
+How d'ye do?"
+
+He gave me his hand and was silent. There was a distinct pause. Feeling
+distinctly embarrassed, I lugged out my portfolio, extracted the three
+slips of paper and laid them on the desk before the Chief.
+
+"I've brought you something," I said lamely.
+
+He picked up the slips of paper and looked at them for a moment. Then he
+lifted a cardboard folder from the desk in front of him, opened it and
+displayed the other half of the Kaiser's letter, the fragment I had
+believed to be reposing in a bag at Rotterdam railway station. He placed
+the two fragments side by side. They fitted exactly. Then he closed the
+folder, carried it across the room to a safe and locked it up. Coming
+back, he held out his two hands to us, giving the right to me, the left
+to Francis.
+
+"You have done very well," he said. "Good boys! Good boys!"
+
+"But that other half ..." I began.
+
+"Your friend Ashcroft is by no means such a fool as he looks," the Chief
+chuckled. "He did a wise thing. He brought your two letters to me. I saw
+to the rest. So, when your brother's telegram arrived from Rotterdam, I
+got the other half of the letter out of the safe; I thought I'd be ready
+for you, you see!"
+
+"But how did you know we had the remaining portion of the letter?" I
+asked.
+
+The Chief chuckled again.
+
+"My young men don't wire for cars to meet 'em at the station when they
+have failed," he replied. "Now, tell me all about it!"
+
+So I told him my whole story from the beginning.
+
+When I had finished, he said:
+
+"You appear to have a very fine natural disposition for our game,
+Okewood. It seems a pity to waste it in regimental work ..."
+
+I broke in hastily.
+
+"I've got a few weeks' sick leave left," I said, "and after that I was
+looking forward to going back to the front for a rest. This sort of
+thing is too exciting for me!"
+
+"Well, well," answered the Chief, "we'll see about that afterwards. In
+the meantime, we shall not forget what you have done ... and I shall see
+that it is not forgotten elsewhere."
+
+On that we left him. It was only outside that I remembered that he had
+told me nothing of what I was burning to know about the origin and
+disappearance of the Kaiser's letter.
+
+It was my old friend, Red Tabs, whom I met on one of our many visits to
+mysterious but obviously important officials, that finally cleared up
+for me the many obscure points in this adventure of mine. When he saw me
+he burst out laughing.
+
+"'Pon my soul," he grinned, "you seem to be able to act on a hint, don't
+you?"
+
+Then he told me the story of the Kaiser's letter.
+
+"There is no need to speak of the contents of this amazing letter," he
+began, "for you are probably more familiar with them than I am. The date
+alone will suffice ... July 31st, 1914 ... it explains a great deal. The
+last day of July was the moment when the peace of Europe was literally
+trembling in the balance. You know the Emperor's wayward, capricious
+nature, his eagerness for fame and military glory, his morbid terror of
+the unknown. In that fateful last week of July he was torn between
+opposing forces. On the one side was ranged the whole of the Prussian
+military party, led by the Crown Prince and the Emperor's own immediate
+entourage; on the other, the record of prosperity which years of peace
+had conferred on his realms. He had to choose between his own
+megalomania craving for military laurels, on the one hand, and, on the
+other, that place in history as the Prince of Peace for which, in his
+gentler moments, he has so often hankered.
+
+"The Kaiser is a man of moods. He sat down and penned this letter in a
+fit of despondency and indecision, when the vision of Peace seemed
+fairer to him than the spectre of War. God knows what violent emotion
+impelled him to write this extraordinary appeal to his English friend,
+an appeal which, if published, would convict him of the deepest
+treachery to his ally, but he wrote the letter and forthwith dispatched
+it to London. He did not make use of the regular courier: he sent the
+letter by a man of his own choosing, who had special instructions to
+hand the letter in person to Prince Lichnowski, the German ambassador.
+Lichnowski was to deliver the missive personally to its destined
+recipient.
+
+"Almost as soon as the letter was away, the Kaiser seems to have
+realised what he had done, to have repented of his action. Attempts to
+stop the messenger before he reached the coast appear to have failed. At
+any rate, we know that all through July 31st and August 1st Lichnowski,
+in London, was bombarded with dispatches ordering him to send the
+messenger with the letter back to Berlin as soon as he reached the
+embassy.
+
+"The courier never got as far as Carlton House Terrace. Someone in the
+War party at the Court of Berlin got wind of the fateful letter and sent
+word to someone in the German embassy in London--the Prussian jingoes
+were well represented there by Kuehlmann and others of his ilk--to
+intercept the letter.
+
+"The letter was intercepted. How it was done and by whom we have never
+found out, but Lichnowski never saw that letter. Nor did the courier
+leave London. With the Imperial letter still in possession, apparently,
+he went to a house at Dalston, where he was arrested on the day after we
+declared war on Germany.
+
+"This courier went by the name of Schulte. We did not know him at the
+time to be travelling on the Emperor's business, but we knew him very
+well as one of the most daring and successful spies that Germany had
+ever employed in this country. One of our people picked him up quite by
+chance on his arrival in London, and shadowed him to Dalston, where we
+promptly laid him by the heels when war broke out.
+
+"Schulte was interned. You have heard how one of his letters, stopped by
+the Camp Censor, put us on the track of the intercepted letter, and you
+know the steps we took to obtain possession of the document. But we were
+misled ... not by Schulte, but through the treachery of a man in whom he
+confided, the interpreter at the internment camp.
+
+"To this man Schulte entrusted the famous letter, telling him to send it
+by an underground route to a certain address at Cleves, and promising
+him in return a commission of twenty-five per cent on the price to be
+paid for the letter. The interpreter took the letter, but did not do as
+he was bid. On the contrary, he wrote to the go-between, with whom
+Schulte had been in correspondence (probably Clubfoot), and announced
+that he knew where the letter was and was prepared to sell it, only the
+purchaser would have to come to England and fetch it.
+
+"Well, to make a long story short, the interpreter made a deal with the
+Huns, and this Dr. Semlin was sent to England from Washington, where he
+had been working for Bernstorff, to fetch the letter at the address in
+London indicated by the interpreter. In the meantime, we had got after
+the interpreter, who, like Schulte, had been in the espionage business
+all his life, and he was arrested.
+
+"We know what Semlin found when he reached London. The wily interpreter
+had sliced the letter in two, so as to make sure of his money, meaning,
+no doubt, to hand over the other portion as soon as the price had been
+paid. But by the time Semlin got to London the interpreter was jugged
+and Semlin had to report that he had only got half the letter. The rest
+you know ... how Grundt was sent for, how he came to this country and
+retrieved the other portion. Don't ask me how he set about it: I don't
+know, and we never found out even where the interpreter deposited the
+second half or how Grundt discovered its hiding-place. But he executed
+his mission and got clear away with the goods. The rest of the tale you
+know better than I do!"
+
+"But Clubfoot," I asked, "who is he?"
+
+"There are many who have asked that question," Red Tabs replied gravely,
+"and some have not waited long for their answer. The man was known by
+name and reputation to very few, by sight to even fewer, yet I doubt if
+any man of his time wielded greater power in secret than he.
+Officially, he was nothing, he didn't exist; but in the dark places,
+where his ways were laid, he watched and plotted and spied for his
+master, the tool of the Imperial spite as he was the instrument of the
+Imperial vengeance.
+
+"A man like the Kaiser," my friend continued, "monarch though he is,
+has many enemies naturally, and makes many more. Head of the Army,
+head of the Navy, head of the Church, head of the State--undisputed,
+autocratic head--he is confronted at every turn by personal issues
+woven and intertwined with political questions. It was in this sphere,
+where the personal is grafted on the political, that Clubfoot reigned
+supreme ... here and in another sphere, where German William is not only
+monarch, but also a very ordinary man.
+
+"There are phases in every man's life, Okewood, which hardly bear the
+light of day. In an autocracy, however, such phases are generally
+inextricably entangled with political questions. It was in these dark
+places that Clubfoot flourished ... he and his men ... 'the G gang' we
+called them, from the letter 'G' (signifying _Garde_ or _Guard_) on
+their secret-service badges.
+
+"Clubfoot was answerable to no one save to the Emperor alone. His work
+was of so delicate, so confidential a nature, that he rendered an
+account of his services only to his Imperial master. There was none to
+stay his hand, to check him in his courses, save only this neurotic,
+capricious cripple who is always open to flattery...."
+
+Red Tabs thought for a minute and then went on.
+
+"No one may catalogue," he said, "the crimes that Clubfoot committed,
+the infamies he had to his account. Not even the Kaiser himself, I dare
+say, knows the manner in which his orders to this black-guard were
+executed--orders rapped out often enough, I swear, in a fit of
+petulance, a gust of passion, and forgotten the next moment in the
+excitement of some fresh sensation.
+
+"I know a little of Clubfoot's record, of innocent lives wrecked, of
+careers ruined, of sudden disappearances, of violent deaths. When you
+and your brother put it across der Stelze, Okewood, you settled a long
+outstanding account we had against him, but you also rendered his
+fellow-Huns a signal service."
+
+I thought of the comments I had heard on Clubfoot among the customers at
+Haase's, and I felt that Red Tabs had hit the right nail on the head
+again.
+
+"By the way?" said Red Tabs, as I rose to go, "would you care to see
+Clubfoot's epitaph? I kept it for you." He handed me a German
+newspaper--the _Berliner Tageblatt_, I think it was--with a paragraph
+marked in red pencil. I read:
+
+"We regret to report the sudden death from apoplexy of Dr. Adolf
+Grundt, an inspector of secondary schools. The deceased was closely
+connected for many years with a number of charitable institutions
+enjoying the patronage of the Emperor. His Majesty frequently consulted
+Dr. Grundt regarding the distribution of the sums allocated annually
+from the Privy purse for benevolent objects."
+
+"Pretty fair specimen of Prussian cynicism?" laughed Red Tabs. But I
+held my head ... the game was too deep for me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every week a hamper of good things is dispatched to 3143 Sapper Ebenezer
+Maggs, British Prisoner of War, Gefangenen-Lager, Friedrichsfeld bei
+Wesel. I have been in communication with his people, and since his
+flight from the camp they have not had a line from him. They will let me
+know at once if they hear, but I am restless and anxious about him.
+
+I dare not write lest I compromise him: I dare not make official enquiry
+as to his safety for the same reason. If he survived those shots in the
+dark, he is certainly undergoing punishment, and in that case he would
+be deprived of the privilege of writing or receiving letters....
+
+But the weeks slip by and no message comes to me from Chewton Mendip.
+Almost daily I wonder if the gallant lad survived that night to return
+to the misery of the starvation camp, or whether, out of the darkness of
+the forest, his brave soul soared free, achieving its final release from
+the sufferings of this world.... Poor Sapper Maggs!
+
+Francis and Monica are honeymooning on the Riviera. Gerry, I am sure,
+would have refused to attend the wedding, only he wasn't asked. Francis
+is getting a billet on the Intelligence out in France when his leave is
+up.
+
+I have got my step, antedated back to the day I went into Germany.
+Francis has been told that something is coming to him and me in the New
+Year's Honours.
+
+I don't worry much. I am going back to the front on Christmas Eve.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN OF CLUBFOOT
+
+By Valentine Williams.
+
+Whilst spending a holiday in a small Central American Republic, Desmond
+Okewood, of the Secret Service, learns from a dying beach-comber of a
+hidden treasure.
+
+With the assistance of a millionaire, he sets out for Cock Island, in
+the Pacific. To his astonishment he discovers that the Man with the
+Clubfoot, whom he had regarded as dead, has anticipated him. It is
+obvious to Okewood that his old enemy is also in search of the hidden
+gold, and there ensues a thrilling sequence of adventures, in which the
+millionaire's pretty niece takes a prominent part.
+
+Okewood has the cipher, and the Man with the Clubfoot determines to
+secure it, for without that cipher it is impossible to discover the
+hiding-place of the treasure; but there is something that the Man with
+the Clubfoot does not know, whereas Okewood does.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Man with the Clubfoot, by Valentine Williams
+
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