THE MAN WITH THE CLUBFOOT

 BY VALENTINE WILLIAMS

AUTHOR OF "THE SECRET HAND, " "THE YELLOW STREAK, " "THE RETURN OFCLUBFOOT, " "THE ORANGE DIVAN, " "CLUBFOOT THE AVENGER"

 1918

WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT

"The Man with the Clubfoot" is one of the most ingenious and sinistersecret agents in Europe. It is to him that the task is assigned ofregaining possession of an indiscreet letter written by the Kaiser. 

Desmond Okewood, a young British officer with a genius for secretservice work, sets out to thwart this man and, incidentally, discoverthe whereabouts of his brother. 

He penetrates into Germany disguised, and meets with many thrillingadventures before he finally achieves his mission. 

In "The Man with the Clubfoot, " Valentine Williams has written athrilling romance of mystery, love and intrigue, that in every sense ofthe 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 headfirmly. "Very sorry, saire, " he said, "not a bed in ze house. " And heclosed the book with a snap. 

Outside the rain came down heavens hard. Every one who came into thebrightly lit hotel vestibule entered with a gush of water. I felt Iwould 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 isonly for the night. Come now... "

"Very sorry, saire. We have two gentlemen sleeping in ze bathroomsalready. If you had reserved... " And he shrugged his shoulders and benttowards a visitor who was demanding his key. 

I turned away with rage in my heart. What a cursed fool I had been notto wire from Groningen! I had fully intended to, but the extraordinaryconversation I had had with Dicky Allerton had put everything else outof my head. At every hotel I had tried it had been the samestory--Cooman's, the Maas, the Grand, all were full even to thebathrooms. If I had only wired.... 

As I passed out into the porch I bethought myself of the porter. A hotelporter 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 thenight was concerned. Still... 

I suppose it was my mind dwelling on my experience at Breslau that mademe address the man in German. When one has been familiar with a foreigntongue from one's boyhood, it requires but a very slight mental impulseto drop into it. From such slight beginnings do great enterprisesspring. If I had known the immense ramification of adventure that was tospread its roots from that simple question, I verily believe my heartwould have failed me and I would have run forth into the night and therain and roamed the streets till morning. 

Well, I found myself asking the man in German if he knew where I couldget 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 thatafternoon had simply driven the war out of my mind. When one has livedmuch among foreign peoples, one's mentality slips automatically intotheir skin. I was now thinking in German--at least so it seems to mewhen 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 ofthis infernal rain!"

"The gentleman can have a good, clean bed at the Hotel Sixt in thelittle street they call the Vos in't Tuintje, on the canal behind theBourse. The proprietress is a good German, jawohl ... Frau Anna Schratther name is. The gentleman need only say he comes from Franz at theBopparder Hof. "

I gave the man a gulden and bade him get me a cab. 

It was still pouring. As we rattled away over the glisteningcobble-stones, my mind travelled back over the startling events of theday. My talk with old Dicky had given me such a mental jar that I foundit at first wellnigh impossible to concentrate my thoughts. That's theworst of shell-shock. You think you are cured, you feel fit and well, and then suddenly the machinery of your mind checks and halts andcreaks. Ever since I had left hospital convalescent after being woundedon the Somme ("gunshot wound in head and cerebral concussion" thedoctors called it), I had trained myself, whenever my brain was _enpanne_, to go back to the beginning of things and work slowly up to thepresent 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 Igot the letter from Dicky Allerton, who, before the war, had been inpartnership with my brother Francis in the motor business at Coventry. Dicky had been with the Naval Division at Antwerp and was interned withthe rest of the crowd when they crossed the Dutch frontier in thosedisastrous days of October, 1914. 

Dicky wrote from Groningen, just a line. Now that I was on leave, if Iwere fit to travel, would I come to Groningen and see him? "I have had acurious communication which seems to have to do with poor Francis, " headded. That was all. 

My brain was still halting, so I turned to Francis. Here again I had togo back. Francis, rejected on all sides for active service, owing towhat he scornfully used to call "the shirkers' ailment, varicose veins, "had flatly declined to carry on with his motor business after Dicky hadjoined up, although their firm was doing government work. Finally, hehad vanished into the maw of the War Office and all I knew was that hewas "something on the Intelligence. " More than this not even _he_ wouldtell me, and when he finally disappeared from London, just about thetime 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 aboutnothing at all, then his will, forwarded to me for safe keeping when Iwas home on leave last Christmas, and after that, silence. Not anotherletter, not a word about him, not a shred of information. He had utterlyvanished. 

I remembered my frantic inquiries, my vain visits to the War Office, myperplexity at the imperturbable silence of the various officials Iimportuned for news of my poor brother. Then there was that lunch at theBath Club with Sonny Martin of the Heavies and a friend of his, somekind of staff captain in red tabs. I don't think I heard his name, but Iknow he was at the War Office, and presently over our cigars and coffeeI laid before him the mysterious facts about my brother's case. 

"Perhaps you knew Francis?" I said in conclusion. "Yes, " he replied, "Iknow him well. " "_Know_ him, " I repeated, "_know_ him then ... Then youthink ... You have reason to believe he is still alive... ?"

Red Tabs cocked his eye at the gilded cornice of the ceiling and blew aring from his cigar. But he said nothing. 

I persisted with my questions but it was of no avail. Red Tabs onlylaughed and said: "I know nothing at all except that your brother is amost delightful fellow with all your own love of getting his own way. "

Then Sonny Martin, who is the perfection of tact and diplomacy--probablyon that account he failed for the Diplomatic--chipped in with ananecdote 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 heldmy hand for a minute in his and with that curious look of his, saidslowly and with meaning:

"When a nation is at war, officers on _active service_ must occasionallydisappear, sometimes in their country's interest, sometimes in theirown. "

He emphasised the words "on active service. "

In a flash my eyes were opened. How blind I had been! Francis was inGermany. 

CHAPTER II

THE CIPHER WITH THE INVOICE

Red Tabs' sphinx-like declaration was no riddle to me. I knew at oncethat Francis must be on secret service in the enemy's country and thatcountry Germany. My brother's extraordinary knowledge of the Germans, their customs, life and dialects, rendered him ideally suitable for anysuch perilous mission. Francis always had an extraordinary talent forlanguages: he seemed to acquire them all without any mental effort, butin German he was supreme. During the year that he and I spent atConsistorial-Rat von Mayburg's house at Bonn, he rapidly outdistancedme, and though, at the end of our time, I could speak German like aGerman, Francis was able, in addition, to speak Bonn and Cologne_patois_ like a native of those ancient cities--ay and he could drill asquad 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 Iremember his delight when he was claimed as a fellow Rheinländer by aGerman officer we met, one summer before the war, combining golf with alittle 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 alwaysinterested him, so even after he had gone into the motor trade, he usedto amuse himself on business trips to Germany by acquiring new dialects. 

His German imitations were extraordinarily funny. One of his "starturns", was a noisy sitting of the Reichstag with speeches by PrinceBülow and August Bebel and "interruptions"; another, a patriotic orationby an old Prussian General at a Kaiser's birthday dinner. Francis had amarvellous faculty not only of _seeming_ German, but even of almostlooking like a German, so absolutely was he able to slip into the skinof the part. 

Yet never in my wildest moments had I dreamt that he would try and getinto Germany in war-time, into that land where every citizen iscatalogued and pigeonholed from the cradle. But Red Tabs' oracularutterance had made everything clear to me. Why a mission to Germanywould be the very thing that Francis would give his eyes to be allowedto attempt! Francis with his utter disregard of danger, his love oftaking risks, his impish delight in taking a rise out of the stodgyHun--why, if there were Englishmen brave enough to take chances ofthat kind, Francis would be the first to volunteer. 

Yes, if Francis were on a mission anywhere it would be to Germany. Butwhat prospect had he of ever returning--with the frontiers closed andingress and egress practically barred even to pro-German neutrals? Manya night in the trenches I had a mental vision of Francis, so debonairand so fearless, facing a firing squad of Prussian privates. 

From the day of the luncheon at the Bath Club to this very afternoon Ihad had no further inkling of my brother's whereabouts or fate. Theauthorities at home professed ignorance, as I knew, in duty bound, theywould, and I had nothing to hang any theory on to until Dicky Allerton'sletter came. Ashcroft at the F. O. Fixed up my passports for me and Ilost no time in exchanging the white gulls and red cliffs of Cornwallfor the windmills and trim canals of Holland. 

And now in my breast pocket lay, written on a small piece of cheapforeign notepaper, the tidings I had come to Groningen to seek. Yet sotrivial, so nonsensical, so baffling was the message that I already feltmy trip to Holland to have been a fruitless errand. 

I found Dicky fat and bursting with health in his quarters at theinternment camp. He only knew that Francis had disappeared. When I toldhim of my meeting with Red Tabs at the Bath Club, of the latter's wordsto 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, "thenI'll show you a piece of paper. Whether the two together fit in withyour theory as to poor Francis' disappearance will be for you to judge. Until now I must confess--I had felt inclined to dismiss the onlyreference this document appears to make to your brother as a merecoincidence in names, but what you have told me makes thingsinteresting--by Jove, it does, though. Well, here's the yarn first ofall. 

"Your brother and I have had dealings in the past with a Dutchman in themotor business at Nymwegen, name of Van Urutius. He has often been overto see us at Coventry in the old days and Francis has stayed with him atNymwegen 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 mesince 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 allthis got to do with Francis? The document--"

"Steady, my boy!" was the imperturbable reply, "let me spin my yarn myown way. I'm coming to the piece of paper.... 

"Well, then, old Urutius came to see me ten days ago. All I knew aboutFrancis I had told him, namely, that Francis had entered the army andwas missing. It was no business of the old Mynheer if Francis was in theIntelligence, so I didn't tell him that. Van U. Is a staunch friend ofthe English, but you know the saying that if a man doesn't know he can'tsplit. 

"My old Dutch pal, then, turned up here ten days ago. He was bubblingover with excitement. 'Mr. Allerton' he says, 'I haf a writing, a mostmysterious writing--a I think, from Francis Okewood. '

"I sat tight. If there were any revelations coming they were going to beDutch, not British. On that I was resolved. 

"'I haf received; the old Dutchman went on, from Gairemany a parcel ofmetal shields, plates--what you call 'em--of tin, _hein?_ What I haf toadvertise my business. They arrife las' week--I open the parcel myselfand 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?" Orwhat?'

"Van Urutius ignored my flippancy and resumed. 'I open the envelope andthere 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-sheetof foreign notepaper, of that kind of cheap glazed notepaper you get incafes on the Continent when you ask for writing materials. 

Three lines of German, written in fluent German characters in purple inkbeneath the name and address of Mynheer van Urutius ... That was all. 

My heart sank with disappointment and wretchedness as I read theinscription. 

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 zankenErfreut 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 outThe third party rejoices. 

* * * * *

I stared at this nonsensical document in silence. My thoughts werealmost 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 alist 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, butthen I ask myself, Who shall put robbish in my invoices? And then Iread 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'--inother 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 besimply a coincidence of name and that somebody's idle scribbling hadfound its way into old van U. 's invoice. But now that you have told methat Francis may have actually got into Germany, then, I must say, itlooks 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 hasdealt with them for years. "

"But then what does all the rest of it mean ... All this about Achillesand 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 soundslike a taunt, don't you think, Dicky?" said I. 

"_Or_ a confession of failure from Francis ... To let us know that hehas done nothing, adding that he is accordingly sulking 'like Achillesin 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 avery uneducated person. I know nothing about German, but tell me, isthat the hand of an educated German? Is it Francis' handwriting?"

"Certainly, it is an educated hand, " I replied, "but I'm dashed if I cansay whether it is Francis' German handwriting: it can scarcely bebecause, 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 thefateful paper. 

"There's only one thing for it, Dicky, " I said finally, "I'll take theblooming thing back to London with me and hand it over to theIntelligence. After all, Francis may have a code with them. Possiblythey will see light where we grope in darkness. "

"Desmond, " said Dicky, giving me his hand, "that's the most sensiblesuggestion you've made yet. Go home and good luck to you. But promise meyou'll come back here and tell me if that piece of paper brings thenews that dear old Francis is alive. "

So I left Dicky but I did not go home. I was not destined to see my homefor 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 isfearfully effective--aroused me from my musings. The cab, a small, uncomfortable box with a musty smell, stopped with a jerk that flung meforward. From the outer darkness furious altercation resounded above theplashing of the rain. I peered through the streaming glass of thewindows 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 Iheard the grating of wheels against the kerb, and my cab drew up to thepavement. 

On alighting, I found myself in a narrow, dark street with high houseson either side. A grimy lamp with the word "Hôtel" in half-obliteratedcharacters painted on it hung above my head, announcing that I hadarrived 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 heturned round and shouted abuse into the night. 

My cabman departed, leaving me with my bag on the pavement at my feetgazing at a narrow dirty door, the upper half of which was filled inwith frosted glass. I was at last awake to the fact that I, anEnglishman, was going to spend the night in a German hotel to which Ihad been specially recommended by a German porter on the understandingthat I was a German. I knew that, according to the Dutch neutralityregulations, my passport would have to be handed in for inspection bythe 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 neutralcountry. 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 Ipushed open the door. 

Within, the hotel proved to be rather better than its uninvitingexterior promised. There was a small vestibule with a little glass cageof an office on one side and beyond it an old-fashioned flight ofstairs, with a glass knob on the post at the foot, winding to the upperstories. 

At the sound of my footsteps on the mosaic flooring, a waiter emergedfrom a little cubby-hole under the stairs. He had a blue apron girtabout his waist, but otherwise he wore the short coat and the dicky andwhite tie of the Continental hotel waiter. His hands were grimy withblack marks and so was his apron. He had apparently been cleaningboots. 

He was a big, fat, blonde man with narrow, cruel little eyes. His hairwas cut so short that his head appeared to be shaven. He advancedquickly towards me and asked me in German in a truculent voice what Iwanted. 

I replied in the same language, I wanted a room. 

He shot a glance at me through his little slits of eyes on hearing mygood Bonn accent, but his manner did not change. 

"The hotel is full. The gentleman cannot have a bed here. Theproprietress is out at present. I regret.... " He spat this all out inthe offhand insolent manner of the Prussian official. 

"It was Franz, of the Bopparder Hof, who recommended me to come here, " Isaid. I was not going out again into the rain for a whole army ofPrussian 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 thegentleman to us. He is a good friend of the house, is Franz. Ja, FrauSchratt is unfortunately out just now, but as soon as the lady returns Iwill inform her you are here. In the meantime, I will give the gentlemana 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 tillto-morrow, it is so late. Or perhaps the gentleman will give them to theproprietress. 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 myselfin 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 floorI was able to distinguish by the gas rays a small plaque fastened to thewall 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 seemedwrapped in silence, the only sound the rushing of water in the gutterswithout. Then from the darkness of the narrow corridor that stretchedout 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 meas I passed a succession of yellow doors, each bearing a white porcelainplate inscribed with a number in black. No. 46 was the first room onthe 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 onthe left at the end of the corridor. 

The corridor presently took a sharp turn. As I came round the bend Iheard again the sound of a key and then the rattling of a door knob, butthe corridor bending again, I could not see the author of the noiseuntil I had turned the corner. 

I ran right into a man fumbling at a door on the left-hand side of thepassage, the last door but one. A mirror at the end of the corridorcaught and threw back the reflection of my candle. 

The man looked up as I approached. He was wearing a soft black felt hatand a black overcoat and on his arm hung an umbrella streaming withrain. His candlestick stood on the floor at his feet. It had apparentlyjust been extinguished, for my nostrils sniffed the odour of burningtallow. 

"You have a light?" the stranger said in German in a curiouslybreathless voice. "I have just come upstairs and the wind blew out mycandle and I could not get the door open. Perhaps you could ... " Hebroke off gasping and put his hand to his heart. 

"Allow me, " I said. The lock of the door was inverted and to open thedoor you had to insert the key upside-down. I did so and the dooropened 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 sametime lifting my candle and scanning the stranger's features. 

He was a young man with close-cropped black hair, fine dark eyes and anaquiline nose with a deep furrow between the eyebrows. The crispness ofhis hair and the high cheekbones gave a suggestion of Jewish blood. Hisface was very pale and his lips were blueish. I saw the perspirationglistening on his forehead. 

"Thank you, it is nothing, " the man replied in the same breathlessvoice. "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 cabthat had driven away from the hotel as I drove up. 

"That is so, " he answered, pushing open his door as he spoke. Hedisappeared into the darkness of the room and suddenly the door shutwith a slam that re-echoed through the house. 

As I had calculated, my room was next door to his, the end room of thecorridor. It smelt horribly close and musty and the first thing I didwas to stride across to the windows and fling them back wide. 

I found myself looking across a dark and narrow canal, on whosestagnant water loomed large the black shapes of great barges, into thewindows of gaunt and weather-stained houses over the way. Not a lightshone in any window. Away in the distance the same clock as I had heardbefore 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 mahoganybedstead with a vast _édredon_, like a giant pincushion. My candle, guttering wildly in the unaccustomed breeze blowing dankly through thechamber, was the sole illuminant. There was neither gas nor electriclight laid on. 

The house had relapsed into quiet. The bedroom had an evil look andthis, combined with the dank air from the canal, gave my thoughts asombre tinge. 

"Well, " I said to myself, "you're a nice kind of ass! Here you are, aBritish officer, posing as a brother Hun in a cut-throat Hun hotel, witha waiter who looks like the official Prussian executioner. What's goingto happen to you, young feller my lad, when Madame comes along and findsyou 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 hereto-night and calls your bluff and summons the gentle Hans or Fritz orwhatever that ruffianly waiter's name is to come upstairs and settleyour hash! What sort of a fight are you going to put up in that narrowcorridor out there with a Hun next door and probably on every side ofyou, and no exit this end? You don't know a living soul in Rotterdam andno one will be a penny the wiser if you vanish off the face of theearth ... At any rate no one on this side of the water. "

Starting to undress, I noticed a little door on the left-hand side ofthe bed. I found it opened into a small _cabinet de toilette_, a narrowslip of a room with a wash-hand stand and a very dirty window coveredwith yellow paper. I pulled open this window with great difficulty--itcannot have been opened for years--and found it gave on to a very smalland deep interior court, just an air shaft round which the house wasbuilt. At the bottom was a tiny paved court not more than five footsquare, entirely isolated save on one side where there was a basementwindow with a flight of steps leading down from the court through aniron grating. From this window a faint yellow streak of light wasvisible. The air was damp and chill and horrid odours of a dirty kitchenwere wafted up the shaft. So I closed the window and set about turningin. 

I took off my coat and waistcoat, then bethought me of the mysteriousdocument I had received from Dicky. Once more I looked at thoseenigmatical words:

_O Oak-wood! O Oak-wood_ (for that much wasclear), _How empty are thy leaves. _Like Achiles_ (with one "l") _in the tent. When two people fall outThe 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 thisextraordinary step to announce his victim's fate to the latter'sfriends? "Like Achilles in the tent!" Why not "in _his_ tent"?Surely ... 

A curious choking noise, the sound of a strangled cough, suddenly brokethe 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, leaningover the table in my shirt and trousers. 

The noise continued, a hideous, deep-throated gurgling. Then I heard afaint 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 thathorrid gurgling sound without. It snapped the spell that bound me. 

I moved resolutely towards the door. Even as I stepped forward thegurgling 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 windand 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 tokeep 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 thedark calmly reviewing the extraordinary situation in which I now foundmyself. That's the curious thing about shell-shock: after it a motorback-firing or a tyre bursting will reduce a man to tears, but in faceof danger he will probably find himself in full possession of his witsas long as there is no sudden and violent noise connected with it. 

Brief as the sounds without had been, I was able on reflection toidentify that gasping gurgle, that rapid patter of the hands. Anyone whohas seen a man die quickly knows them. Accordingly I surmised thatsomebody had come to my door at the point of death, probably to seekassistance. 

Then I thought of the man next door, his painful breathlessness, hisblueish lips, when I found him wrestling with his key, and I guessedwho was my nocturnal visitor lying prone in the dark at my feet. 

Shielding the candle with my hand I rekindled it. Then I grappled withthe flapping curtains and got the windows shut. Then only did I raise mycandle until its beams shone down upon the silent figure lying acrossthe threshold of the room. 

It was the man from No. 33. He was quite dead. His face was livid anddistorted, his eyes glassy between the half-closed lids, while hisfingers, still stiffly clutching, showed paint and varnish and dustbeneath 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 swiftlyand suddenly struck him down. 

Now that I knew the worst I acted with decision. I dragged the body bythe 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 thoughtsfrom the moment I crossed the threshold of this sinister hotel came overme strongly again. Indeed, my position was, to say the least, scarcelyenviable. Here was I, a British officer with British papers of identity, about to be discovered in a German hotel, into which I had introducedmyself under false pretences, at dead of night alone with the corpse ofa 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. Inhis crisp black hair and slightly protuberant cheekbones I traced againthe hint of Jewish ancestry I had remarked before. Now that the man'seyes--his big, thoughtful eyes that had stared at me out of the darknessof the corridor--were closed, he looked far less foreign than before: infact he might almost have passed as an Englishman. 

He was a young man--about my own age, I judged--(I shall be twenty-eightnext birthday) and about my own height, which is five feet ten. Therewas something about his appearance and build that struck a chord veryfaintly in my memory. 

Had I seen the fellow before?

I remembered now that I had noticed something oddly familiar about himwhen 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. Ibrought the candle down closer and scanned his features. 

He certainly looked less foreign than he did before. He might not be aGerman after all: more likely a Hungarian or a Pole, perhaps even aDutchman. His German had been too flawless for a Frenchman--for aHungarian, either, for that matter. 

I leant back on my knees to ease my cramped position. As I did so Icaught 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 thewell-chiselled mouth? It was rather a hint of Francis than a resemblanceto him. 

The stranger was fully dressed. The jacket of his blue serge suit hadfallen open and I saw a portfolio in the inner breast pocket. Here, Ithought, might be a clue to the dead man's identity. I fished out theportfolio, then rapidly ran my fingers over the stranger's otherpockets. 

I left the portfolio to the last. 

The jacket pockets contained nothing else except a white silkhandkerchief unmarked. In the right-hand top pocket of the waistcoat wasa neat silver cigarette case, perfectly plain, containing half a dozencigarettes. I took one out and looked at it. It was a Melania, acigarette I happen to know for they stock them at one of my clubs, theDionysus, and it chances to be the only place in London where you canget 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 andcoppers, some Dutch silver and paper money. In the right-hand trouserpocket was a bunch of keys. 

That was all. 

I put the different articles on the floor beside me. Then I got up, putthe candle on the table, drew the chair up to it and opened theportfolio. 

In a little pocket of the inner flap were visiting cards. Some weresimply engraved with the name in small letters:

Dr. Semlin

Others were more detailed:

Dr. Semlin, Brooklyn, N. Y. The Halewright Mfg. Coy. , 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, anexpensive affair on thick, highly glazed millboard, bearing in gothiccharacters 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. AnnaSchratt. )"

In another pocket of the portfolio was an American passport surmountedby a flaming eagle and sealed with a vast red seal, sending greetings toall and sundry on behalf of Henry Semlin, a United States citizen, travelling to Europe. Details in the body of the document set forth thatHenry Semlin was born at Brooklyn on 31st March, 1886, that his hair wasBlack, nose Aquiline, chin Firm, and that of special marks he had None. The description was good enough to show me that it was undoubtedly thebody of Henry Semlin that lay at my feet. 

The passport had been issued at Washington three months earlier. Theonly _visa_ it bore was that of the American Embassy in London, datedtwo days previously. With it was a British permit, issued to HenrySemlin, Manufacturer, granting him authority to leave the United Kingdomfor the purpose of travelling to Rotterdam, further a bill for luncheonserved on board the Dutch Royal mail steamer _Koningin Regentes_ onyesterday's date. 

In the long and anguishing weeks that followed on that anxious night inthe Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often wondered to whatmalicious promptings, to what insane impulse, I owed the idea thatsuddenly germinated in my brain as I sat fingering the dead man'sletter-case in that squalid room. The impulse sprang into my brain likea flash and like a flash I acted on it, though I can hardly believe Imeant to pursue it to its logical conclusion until I stood once moreoutside the door of my room. 

The examination of the dead man's papers had shown me that he was anAmerican business man, who had just come from London, having butrecently proceeded to England from the United States. 

What puzzled me was why an American manufacturer, seemingly of somesubstance and decently dressed, should go to a German hotel on therecommendation of a German, from his name, and the style of his visitingcard, a man of good family. 

Semlin might, of course, have been, like myself, a traveller benightedin Rotterdam, owing his recommendation to the hotel to a Germanacquaintance in the city. Still, Americans are cautious folk and I foundit rather improbable that this American business man should adventurehimself into this evil-looking house with a large sum of money on hisperson--he had several hundred pounds of money in Dutch currency notesin 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 aswell as in England. Knowing the attitude of the British authorities, hemay well have made his arrangements in Holland for getting into Germanylest the British police should get wind of his purpose and stop himcrossing to Rotterdam. 

But his German was so flawless, with no trace of Americanism in voice oraccent. And I knew what good use the German Intelligence had made ofneutral passports in the past. Therefore I determined to go next doorand have a look at Dr. Semlin's luggage. In the back of my mind was everthat harebrain resolve, half-formed as yet but none the less firmlyrooted in my head. 

Taking up my candle again, I stole out of the room. As I stood in thecorridor and turned to lock the bedroom door behind me, the mirror atthe 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 thedead 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 keyof the room; Semlin must have dropped it in his fall, so it behoved meto make haste for fear of any untoward interruption. I had not yet heardeleven strike on the clock. 

The stranger's hat and overcoat lay on a chair. The hat was fromScott's: there was nothing except a pair of leather gloves in theovercoat 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 pairof pyjamas, a clean shirt, a pair of slippers, ... Nothing of importanceand not a scrap of paper of any kind. 

I went through everything again, looked in the sponge bag, opened thesafety razor case, shook out the shirt, and finally took everything outof the bag and stacked the things on the table. 

At the bottom of the bag I made a strange discovery. The interior ofthe bag was fitted with that thin yellow canvas-like material with whichnearly all cheap bags, like this one was, are lined. At the bottom ofthe bag an oblong piece of the lining had apparently been torn cleanout. The leather of the bag showed through the slit. Yet the lininground 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 tablebeside it an oblong of yellow canvas. I picked it up and found the underside stained with paste and the brown of the leather. 

It was the missing piece of lining and it was stiff with something thatcrackled inside it. 

I slit the piece of canvas up one side with my penknife. It containedthree long fragments of paper, a thick, expensive, highly glazed paper. Top, bottom and left-hand side of each was trim and glossy: the fourthside showed a broken edge as though it had been roughly cut with aknife. The three slips of paper were the halves of three quarto sheetsof 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, itwas not possible to determine, for the crest had been in the centre ofthe sheet and the cut had gone right through it. 

The letter was written in English but the name of the recipient as alsothe date was on the missing half. 

Somewhere in the silence of the night I heard a door bang. I thrust theslips of paper in their canvas covering into my trousers pocket. I mustnot be found in that room. With trembling hands I started to put thethings back in the bag. Those slips of paper, I reflected as I worked, at least rent the veil of mystery enveloping the corpse that laystiffening in the next room. This, at any rate, was certain: German orAmerican or hyphenate, Henry Semlin, manufacturer and spy, had voyagedfrom America to England not for the purposes of trade but to get hold ofthat mutilated document now reposing in my pocket. Why he had only gothalf the letter and what had happened to the other half was more than Icould say ... It sufficed for me to know that its importance to somebodywas sufficient to warrant a journey on its behalf from one side to theother of the Atlantic. 

As I opened the bag my fingers encountered a hard substance, as ofmetal, 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 orfastening behind it and it seemed to be a brooch. Out came my pocketknife again and there lay a small silver star, about as big as aregimental cap badge, embedded in the thin canvas. It bore aninscription. In stencilled letters I read:

O2 GAbt. 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 comingacross the traces of Section Seven of the Berlin Police Presidency, thesection that is known euphemistically as that of the Political Police. Ostensibly it attends to the safety of the monarch, and of distinguishedpersonages generally, and the numerous suite that used to accompany theKaiser on his visits to England invariably included two or threetop-hatted representatives of the section. 

The ramifications of _Abteilung Sieben_ are, in reality, much wider. Itdoes such work in connection with the newspapers as is even too dirtyfor the German Foreign Office to touch, comprising everything from thelaunching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets againstinconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthfulforeign correspondents to the frontier. It is the obedient handmaiden ofthe Intelligence Department of both War Office and Admiralty in Germany, and renders faithful service to the espionage which is constantlymaintained on officials, politicians, the clergy and the general publicin that land of careful organisation. 

Section Seven is a vast subterranean department. Always working in thedark, its political complexion is a handy cloak for blacker and moresinister activities. It is frequently entrusted with commissions ofwhich it would be inexpedient for official Germany to have cognizanceand of which, accordingly, official Germany can always safely repudiatewhen 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 hatupon my head and threw his overcoat on my arm, picked up his bag andcrept away. In another minute I was back in my room, my brain aflamewith the fire of a great enterprise. 

Here, to my hand, lay the key of that locked land which held the secretof my lost brother. The question I had been asking myself, ever since Ihad first discovered the dead man's American papers of identity, wasthis. Had I the nerve to avail myself of Semlin's American passport toget into Germany? The answer to that question lay in the little silverbadge. I knew that no German official, whatever his standing, whateverhis orders, would refuse passage to the silver star of Section Seven. Itneed only be used, too, as a last resource, for I had my papers as aneutral. Could I but once set foot in Germany, I was quite ready todepend on my wits to see me through. One advantage, I knew, I mustforgo. That was the half-letter in its canvas case. 

If that document was of importance to Section Seven of the GermanPolice, 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 wasdetermined. 

"Never before, since the war began, " I told myself, "can any Englishmanhave had such an opportunity vouchsafed to him for getting easily andsafely into that jealously guarded land as you have now! You have plentyof money, what with your own and this ... " and I fingered Semlin's wadof notes, "and provided you can keep your head sufficiently to rememberalways that you are a German, once over the frontier you should be ableto give the Huns the slip and try and follow up the trail of poorFrancis. 

"And maybe, " I argued further (so easily is one's better judgmentdefeated when one is young and set on a thing), "maybe in Germansurroundings, you may get some sense into that mysterious jingle you gotfrom Dicky Allerton as the sole existing clue to the disappearance ofFrancis. "

Nevertheless, I wavered. The risks were awful. I had to get out of thatevil hotel in the guise of Dr. Semlin, with, as the sole safeguardagainst exposure, should I fall in with the dead man's employers orfriends, that slight and possibly imaginative resemblance between himand me: I had to take such measures as would prevent the fraud frombeing detected when the body was discovered in the hotel: above all, Ihad to ascertain, before I could definitely resolve to push on intoGermany, whether Semlin was already known to the people at the hotel orwhether--as I surmised to be the case--this was also his first visit tothe house in the Vos in't Tuintje. 

In any case, I was quite determined in my own mind that the only way toget out of the place with Semlin's document without considerableunpleasantness, if not grave danger, would be to transfer his identityand effects to myself and vice versa. When I saw the way a littleclearer I could decide whether to take the supreme risk and adventuremyself into the enemy's country. 

Whatever I was going to do, there were not many hours of the night leftin which to act, and I was determined to be out of that house of illomen before day dawned. If I could get clear of the hotel and at thesame 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 ofthe streets of Rotterdam. One thing was certain: the waiter had let thequestion of Semlin's papers stand over until the morning, as he had donein my case, for Semlin still had his passport in his possession. 

After all, if Semlin was unknown at the hotel, the waiter had only seenhim for the same brief moment as he had seen me. 

Thus I reasoned and argued with myself, but in the meantime I acted. Ihad nothing compromising in my suit-case, so that caused no difficulty. My British passport and permit and anything bearing any relation to mypersonality, such as my watch and cigarette case, both of which wereengraved with my initials, I transferred to the dead man's pockets. As Ibent over the stiff, cold figure with its livid face and clutchingfingers, I felt a difficulty which I had hitherto resolutely shirkedforcing 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 lockthe door. 

CHAPTER V

THE LADY OF THE VOS IN'T TUINTJE

Here was Destiny knocking at the door. In that instant my mind was madeup. For the moment, at any rate, I had every card in my hands. I wouldbluff these stodgy Huns: I would brazen it out: I would be Semlin and gothrough with it to the bitter end, aye, and if it took me to the verygates 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 anegg-shaped face, fat and white and puffy, and pale, crafty eyes. She wasin her outdoor clothes, with an enormous vulgar-looking hat and anold-fashioned sealskin cape with a high collar. The cape which wasglistening with rain was half open, and displayed a vast bosom tightlycompressed into a white silk blouse. In one hand she carried an oillamp. 

"Frau Schratt, " she said by way of introduction, and raised the lamp tolook more closely at me. 

Then I saw her face change. She was looking past me into the room, and Iknew that the lamplight was falling full upon the ghastly thing that layupon 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 herwrist. "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 theroom. 

She stood motionless with her lamp, at the head of the corpse. Sheseemed to have regained her self-possession. The woman was no longerfrightened. I felt instinctively that her fears had been all forherself, not for that livid horror sprawling on the floor. When shespoke her manner was almost business-like. 

"I was told nothing of this, " she said. "Who is it? What do you want meto do?"

Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasantodour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber ofdeath. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seekingin mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation thatmakes my blood run cold whenever I think of her. 

Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed. She becamepolite. She was obsequious. Of the two, the first manner became hervastly better. She looked at me with a curious air, almost withreverence, 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. Ifollowed 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 knewhow the land lay. If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all Iwanted to know. 

In fact, she began to speak again. 

"I expected _you_, " she said, "but not... _this_. Who is it this time? AFrenchman, 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 withpleasure--"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 wehave 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 senthim. "

"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 ofadmiration that a German woman feels for brute man.... "The HerrEnglander came into your room and he died. So, so! But one must speak toFranz. 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 spokeGerman well: Karl will tell you. "

"As the gentleman wishes, " was the woman's reply in a voice so silky andso servile that I felt my gorge rise. 

"She looks like a slug!" I said to myself, as she stood there, fat andsleek and horrible. 

"Here are his passport and other papers, " I said, bending down andtaking them from the dead man's pocket. "He was an English officer, yousee?" 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 thepatchouli with which her faded body was drenched. 

Then, making a sheaf of passport and permit, I held them in the flame ofthe candle. 

"But we always keep them!" expostulated the hotel-keeper. 

"This passport must die with the man, " I replied firmly. "He must not betraced. 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. "Therewas a telephone message for you, " she added, "to say that der Stelzewill 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 sayingsomething. 

"Jawohl!" replied Frau Schratt. "He was here already this morning. Hewas nervous, oh! very, and expected you to be here. Already two days heis waiting here to go on. "

"So, " I said, "he is going to take ... _it_ on with him, is he?" (Iknew where he was "going on" to, well enough: he was going to see thatdocument safe into Germany. )

There was a malicious ring in the woman's voice when she spoke ofStelze. 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 hasauthority; he can make and unmake men. But I ... I in my time havebroken a dozen better men than he and yet he dares to tell Anna Schrattthat ... That ... "

She raised her voice hysterically, but broke off before she could finishthe sentence. I saw she thought she had said too much. 

"He won't play that game with me, " I said. Strength is the quality thatevery German, man, woman and child, respects, and strength alone. Mysafety depended on my showing this ignoble creature that I receivedorders from no one. "You know what he is. One runs the risk, one takestrouble, 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 theshadow of a great fear. 

"You wouldn't dare!" she said. 

"I would, " I retorted. "I've done my work and I'll report tohead-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 willbe all right with die Schratt! 'It must not be found here'" (shemimicked 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. "Whenthey are in a difficulty, when there are complications, when there isany unpleasantness.. Like _this_ ... They remember die Schratt, 'diefesche 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 Iwill do the little conjuring trick that will smooth everything over. Butwhen all goes well, then I am 'old Schratt, ' 'old hag, ' 'old woman, ' andI must take my orders and beg nicely and ... Bah!"

Her words ended in a gulp, which in any other woman would have been asob. 

Then she added in her hard harlot's voice:

"You needn't worry your head about _him, _ there! Leave him to me! It'smy trade!"

At those words, which covered God only knows what horrors of midnightdisappearances, of ghoulish rites with packing-case and sack, in thedark cellars of that evil house, I felt that, could I but draw back fromthe enterprise to which I had so rashly committed myself, I would do sogladly. Only then did I begin to realize something of the utterruthlessness, the cold, calculating ferocity, of the most bitter andmost powerful enemy which the British Empire has ever had. 

But it was too late to withdraw now. The die was cast. Destiny, knockingat my door, had found me ready to follow, and I was committed towhatever 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 thegentleman 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 noaccount, " 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 rattledin the lock and I realized that I was a prisoner. I heard the woman'sfootfalls die away down the corridor. 

That distant clock cleaved the silence of the night with twelveponderous strokes. Then the chimes played a pretty jingling little tunethat 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 ofmystery and might, arrived to unmask me and hand me over to the tendermercies of Madame and of Karl. Before eight o'clock arrived I must--so Isummed up my position--be clear of the hotel and in the train for theGerman frontier--if I could get a train--else I must be out ofRotterdam, by that hour. 

But I must _act_ and act without delay. There was no knowing when thatdead man lying on the floor might procure me another visit from Madameand her myrmidons. The sooner I was out of that house of death thebetter. 

The door was solid; the lock was strong. That I discovered without anytrouble. In any case, I reflected, the front-door of the hotel would bebarred and bolted at this hour of the night, and I could scarcely darehope to escape by the front without detection, even if Karl were notactually in the entrance hall. There must be a back entrance to thehotel, I thought, for I had seen that the windows of my room opened onto the narrow street lining the canal which ran at the back of thehouse. 

Escape by the windows was impossible. The front of the house droppedsheer down and there was nothing to give one a foothold. But Iremembered the window in the _cabinet de toilette_ giving on to thelittle air-shaft. That seemed to offer a slender chance of escape. 

For the second time that night I opened the casement and inhaled thefetid odours arising from the narrow court. All the windows looking, like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a lightstill burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair tothe 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 ofthe house, cased in stained and dirty stucco, fell sheer away. Measuredwith 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, bemanaged.... 

From that on, things moved swiftly. First with my penknife I ripped thetailor's tab with my name from the inside pocket of my coat and burnt itin the candle; nothing else I had on was marked, for I had had to buy alot of new garments when I came out of hospital. I took Semlin'sovercoat, hat and bag into the _cabinet de toilette_ and stood them inreadiness by the window. As a precaution against surprise I pushed themassive mahogany bedstead right across the doorway and thus barricadedthe entrance to the room. 

From either side of the fireplace hung two bell-ropes, twisted silkcords of faded crimson with dusty tassels. Mounting on the mantelpiece Icut the bell-ropes off short where they joined the wire. Testing them Ifound them apparently solid--at any rate they must serve. I knotted themtogether. 

Back to the _cabinet de toilette_ I went to find a suitable object towhich to fasten my rope. There was nothing in the little room save thewashstand, and that was fragile and quite unsuited for the purpose. Inoticed that the window was fitted with shutters on the outsidefastened back against the wall. They had not been touched for years, Ishould say, for the iron peg holding them back was heavy with rust andthe shutters were covered with dust. I closed the left-hand shutter andfound that it fastened solidly to the window-frame by means of massiveiron bolts, top and bottom. 

Here was the required support for my rope. The poker thrust though thewooden slips of the shutter held the rope quite solidly. I attached myrope to the poker with an expert knot that I had picked up at a coursein tying knots during a preposterously dull week I had spent at the basein France. Then I dragged from the bed the gigantic eiderdown pincushionand the two massive pillows, stripping off the pillow-slips lest theirwhiteness might attract attention whilst they were fulfilling theunusual mission for which I destined them. 

At the window of the _cabinet de toilette_ I listened a moment. All wassilent as the grave. Resolutely I pitched out the eiderdown into thedark and dirty air shaft. It sailed gracefully earthwards and settledwith 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 massof 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 pillowscovered practically the whole of the flags of the yard. 

I went back once more to the room and blew out the candle. Then, takinga short hold on my silken rope, I clambered out over the window ledgeand started to let myself down, hand over hand, into the depths. 

My two bell-ropes, knotted together, were about twenty feet long, so Ihad to reckon on a clear drop of something over thirty feet. The pokerand shutter held splendidly firm, and I found little difficulty inlowering myself, though I barked my knuckles most unpleasantly on therough stucco of the wall. As I reached the extremity of my rope Iglanced downward. The red splash of the eiderdown, just visible in thelight from the adjoining window, seemed to be a horrible distance belowme. My spirit failed me. My determination began to ebb. I could neverrisk it. 

The rope settled the question for me. It snapped without warning--how ithad 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 andpillows certainly helped to break my fall. I dropped square on top ofthe eiderdown with one knee on a pillow and, though shaken and jarred, Ifound I had broken no bones. 

Nor did my sense leave me. In a minute I was up on my feet again. Ilistened. All was still silent. I cast a glance upwards. The window fromwhich I had descended was still dark. I could see the broken bell-ropesdangling from the shutter, and I noted, with a glow of professionalpride, that my expert join between the two ropes had not given. Thelower rope had parted in the middle .... 

I crammed Semlin's hat on my head, retrieved his bag and overcoat fromthe corner of the court where they had fallen and the next moment wastiptoeing down the ladder. 

The iron stair ran down beside the window in which I had seen the lightburning. The lower part of the window was screened off by a dirty muslincurtain. Through the upper part I caught a glimpse of a sort of scullerywith 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. Itwas my last chance of escape. It stood a dozen yards from the bottom ofthe ladder across a dank, little paved area where tins of refuse werestanding--a small door with a brass handle. 

I ducked low as I clambered down the iron ladder so as not to be seenfrom the window should anyone enter the scullery as I passed. Treadingvery 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 hadcome and the only egress was closed to me. The area door and window werethe only means of escape from the little court. The one was locked, theother barred. I was fairly trapped. All I had to do now was to waituntil my absence was discovered and the broken rope found to show themwhere I was. Then they would come down to the area, I should beconfronted with the man, Stelze, and my goose would be fairly cooked. 

As quietly as I could I made a complete, thorough, rapid examination ofthe area. It was a dank, dark place, only lit where the yellow lightstreamed forth from the scullery. It had a couple of low bays hollowedout of the masonry under the little courtyard, the one filled with woodblocks, the other with broken packingcases, old bottles and likerubbish. I explored these until my hands came in contact with the dampbricks at the back, but in vain. Door and window remained the onlymeans of escape. 

Four tall tin refuse tins stood in line in front of these two bays, afifth was stowed away under the iron stair. They were all nearly full ofrefuse, so were useless as hiding places. In any case it accordedneither with the part I was playing nor with my sense of the ludicrousto 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 hadgone so surprisingly well, that it was heartbreaking to be foiled withliberty almost within my grasp. A great wave of disappointment sweptover me until I felt my very heart sicken. Then I heard footsteps andhope revived within me. 

I shrunk back into the darkness of the area behind the refuse binsstanding in front of the bay nearest the door. 

Within the house footsteps were approaching the scullery. I heard a dooropen, then a man's voice singing. He was warbling in a fine mellowbaritone that popular German ballad:

"Das haben die Mädchen so gerneDie 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 staveover again. A bumping and a rattle as of loose objects in an empty boxformed the accompaniment to his song. 

"A cheery fellow!" I said to myself. If only I could see who it was! ButI dare not move into that patch of yellow light from which the only viewinto 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, stillin 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 tofour; when very angry, swear. " I was not angry but scared, terriblyscared, scared so that I could hear my heart pulsating in great thuds inmy ears. Nevertheless, I followed the advice of the sage of Dawson'sLanding and counted to myself: one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four; while my heart hammered out: Keep cool, keep cool, keep cool! Andall the time I remained crouching behind the first two refuse binsnearest the door. 

The waiter hummed to himself the melody of his little ditty in a deepbourdon as he paused a moment at the door. Then he advanced slowlyacross 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 thestairs. 

I muttered a blessing inwardly on the careful habits of the German whoorganizes 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 ontip-toe and stepped softly into the house. As I did so I heard the clankof tin as Karl replaced the lid of the tub. 

A dark passage stretched out in front of me. Immediately to my right wasthe scullery door wide open. I must avoid the scullery at all costs. Theman might remain there and I could not risk him driving me before himback to the entrance hall of the hotel. 

I crept down the dark passage with hands outstretched. Presently theyfell upon the latch of a door. I pressed it, the door opened inwardsinto the darkness and I passed through. As I softly closed the doorbehind me I heard Karl's heavy step and the grinding of the key as helocked the area door. 

I stood in a kind of cupboard in pitch darkness, hardly daring tobreathe. 

Once more I heard the man singing his idiotic song. I did not dare lookout from my hiding-place, for his voice sounded so near that I feared hemight be still in the passage. 

So I stood and waited. 

 * * * * *

I must have stayed there for an hour in the dark. I heard the waitercoming and going in the scullery, listened to his heavy tramp, to hiseverlasting snatch of song, to the rattle of utensils, as he went abouthis work. Every minute of the time I was tortured by the apprehensionthat he would come to the cupboard in the passage. 

It was cold in that damp subterranean place. The cupboard was roomyenough, so I thought I would put on the overcoat I was carrying. As Istretched out my arm, my hand struck hard against some kind ofprojecting hook in the wall behind me. 

"Damn!" I swore savagely under my breath, but I put out my hand again tofind out what had hurt me. My fingers encountered the cold iron of alatch. I pressed it and it gave. 

A door swung open and I found myself in another little area with aflight of stone steps leading to the street. 

 * * * * *

I was in a narrow lane driven between the tall sides of the houses. Itwas a cul-de-sac. At the open end I could see the glimmer of streetlamps. It had stopped raining and the air was fresh and pleasant. Carrying my bag I walked briskly down the lane and presently emerged ina quiet thoroughfare traversed by a canal--probably the street, Ithought, that I had seen from the windows of my bedroom. The Hotel Sixtlay to the right of the lane: I struck out to the left and in a fewminutes found myself in an open square behind the Bourse. 

There I found a cab-rank with three or four cabs drawn up in line, thehorses somnolent, the drivers snoring inside their vehicles. I stirredup 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 awayamong palms under a vast glazed roof. Day or night it never closes: thewaiters succeed each other in shifts: day and night the great hallresounds to the cry of orders, the patter of the waiters' feet, theclick of dominoes on the marble tables. 

Delicious Dutch café au lait, a beefsteak and fried potatoes, mostsucculent of all Dutch dishes, crisp white bread, hot from the midnightbaking, and appetizing Dutch butter, largely compensated for the thrillsof the night. Then I sent for some more coffee, black this time, and arailway guide, and lighting a cigarette began to frame my plan ofcampaign. 

The train for Berlin left Rotterdam at seven in the morning. It was nowten minutes past two, so I had plenty of time. From that night onward, Itold myself, I was a German, and from that moment I set myselfassiduously 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, Ishould not be content to shave my head and wear a bowler hat with amorning coat and get my nails manicured pink. I should begin bypersuading myself that I was the Lord of creation, that bad manners is asign of manly strength and that dishonesty is the highest form ofdiplomacy. 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 nationalsentiment. I had not spoken to a German, save to a few terrified Germanrats, prisoners of war in France, since the beginning of the war and Iknew that my knowledge of German thought must be rusty. So I sent thewilling waiter for all the German papers and periodicals he could layhis 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, _LeipzigerIllustrirte Zeitung, Der Weltkrieg im Bild, _ and the rest: thatremarkable 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 asexpressed in the German press. I deliberately laid my mind open toconviction; I repeated to myself over and over again: "We Germans arefighting a defensive war: the scoundrelly Grey made the world-war: Gottstrafe England!" Absurd as this proceeding seems to me when I look backupon it, I would not laugh at myself at the time. I must be German, Imust feel German, I must think German: on that would my safety in theimmediate future depend. 

I laid aside my reading in the end with a feeling of utter amazement. Inevery one of these publications, in peace-time so widely dissimilar inconviction and trend, I found the same mentality, the same outlook, thesame parrot-like cries. What the _Cologne Gazette_ shrieked from itseditorial columns, the comic (God save the mark) press echoed in fouland hideous caricature. Here was organization with a vengeance, themobilization of national thought, a series of gramophone records fedinto a thousand different machines so that each might play the selfsametune. 

"You needn't worry about your German mentality, " I told myself, "you'vegot it all here! You've only got to be a parrot like the rest and you'llbe as good a Hun as Hindenburg!"

A Continental waiter, they say, can get one anything one chooses to askfor at any hour of the day or night. I was about to put this theory tothe test. 

"Waiter, " I said (of course, in German), "I want a bag, a handbag. Doyou 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: Iam not particular. "

"I will see what can be done. "

In ten minutes the man was back with a brown leather bag about a sizesmaller 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 andtipped him generously to boot, for I wanted a bag and could not waittill the shops opened without missing the train for Germany. 

I paid my bill and drove off to the Central Station through the darkstreets with my two bags. The clocks were striking six as I enteredunder 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 severalthings to do before the train went. 

The bookstall was just opening. I purchased a sovereign's worth of booksand magazines, English, French and German, and crammed them into the bagI had procured at the café. Thus laden I adjourned to the stationbuffet. 

There I set about executing a scheme I had evolved for leaving thedocument which Semlin had brought from England in a place of safety, whence it could be recovered without difficulty, should anything happento me. I knew no one in Holland save Dicky, and I could not send him thedocument, for I did not trust the post. For the same reason I would notpost the document home to my bank in England: besides, I knew one couldnot register letters until eight o'clock, by which hour I hoped to bewell on my way into Germany. 

No, my bag, conveniently weighted with books and deposited at thestation cloak-room, should be my safe. The comparative security ofstation cloak-rooms as safe deposits has long been recognized by jewelthieves and the like and this means of leaving my document behind insafety 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 containedpicked up a book at random. It was a German brochure: _Gott strafeEngland!_ by Prof. Dr. Hugo Bischoff, of the University of Göttingen. The irony of the thing appealed to my sense of humour. "So be it!" Isaid. "The worthy Professor's fulminations against my country shall havethe honour of harbouring the document which is, apparently, of suchvalue to _his_ country!" And I tucked the little canvas case away insidethe pages of the pamphlet, stuck the pamphlet deep down among the booksand shut the bag. 

Seeing its harmless appearance the cloak-room receipt--Icalculated--would, unlike Semlin's document, attract no attention if, byany mischance, it fell into wrong hands _en route. _ I therefore did notscruple to commit it to the post. Before taking my bag of books to thecloak-room I wrote two letters. Both were to Ashcroft--Ashcroft of theForeign Office, who got me my passport and permit to come to Rotterdam. Herbert Ashcroft and I were old friends. I addressed the envelopes tohis private house in London. The Postal Censor, I knew, keen though healways is after letters from neutral countries, would leave oldHerbert's correspondence alone. 

The first letter was brief. "Dear Herbert, " I wrote, "would you mindlooking after the enclosed until you hear from me again? Filthy weatherhere. Yours, D. O. " This letter was destined to contain the cloak-roomreceipt. To conceal the importance of an enclosure, it is always a gooddodge to send the covering letter under separate cover. 

"Dear Herbert, " I said in my second letter, "If you don't hear from mewithin two months of this date regarding the enclosure you will havealready received, please send someone, or, preferably, go yourself andcollect my luggage at the cloak-room of the Rotterdam Central Station. Iknow how busy you always are. Therefore you will understand my reasonsfor making this inordinate claim upon your time. Yours, D. O. " And, byway of a clue, I added, inconsequently enough: _"Gott strafe England!"_

I chuckled inwardly at the thought of Herbert's face on receiving thispreposterous demand that he should abandon his dusty desk in DowningStreet and betake himself across the North Sea to fetch my luggage. Buthe'd go all right. I knew my Herbert, dull and dry and conventional, buta most faithful friend. 

I called a porter at the entrance of the buffet and handing him Semlin'sbag and overcoat, bade him find me a first-class carriage in the Berlintrain when it arrived. I would meet him on the platform. Then, at thecloak-room opposite, I gave in my bag of books, put the receipt in thefirst letter and posted it in the letter-box within the station. I wentout into the streets with the second letter and posted it in aletter-box let into the wall of a tobacconist's shop in a quiet street afew turnings away. By this arrangement I reckoned Herbert would get theletter with the receipt before the covering letter arrived. 

Returning to the railway station I noticed a kind of slop shop whichdespite the early hour was already open. A fat Jew in his shirt-sleeves, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, stood at the entrance framed inhanging overcoats and bats and boots. I had no umbrella and it struck methat a waterproof of some kind might not be a bad addition to myextremely scanty wardrobe. Moreover, I reflected that with the rubbershortage rain-coats must be at a premium in Germany. 

So I followed the bowing son of Shem into his dark and dirty shop andemerged presently wearing an appallingly ugly green mackintosh reekinghideously of rubber. It was a shocking garment but I reflected that Iwas a German and must choose my garb accordingly. 

Outside the shop I nearly ran into a little man who was loafing in thedoorway. He was a wizened, scrubby old fellow wearing a dirty peaked capwith a band of tarnished gold. I knew him at once for one of thoseguides, half tout, half bully, that infest the railway termini of allgreat 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 heldout 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 rightand left. 

Then he said in a calm English voice, utterly different from his whiningaccents of a moment before:

"You must be a dam' cool hand!"

But he didn't bluff me, staggered though I was. I said quickly inGerman:

"What do you want with me? I don't understand you. If you annoy me anymore I shall call the police!"

Again he spoke in English and it was the voice of a well-bred Englishmanthat spoke:

"You're either a past master at the game or raving mad. Why! the wholestation is humming after you! Yet you walked out of the buffet andthrough the whole lot of them without turning a hair. No wonder theynever 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 cursedamateur I was, after all! I had entirely forgotten that I was wearing myregimental colours. I was crimson with vexation but also with a sense ofrelief. I felt I might trust this man. It would be a sharp German agentwho 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 workmenapproaching. When they had passed, he said, this time in English:

"You're quite right to be cautious with a stranger like me, but I wantto warn you. Why, I've been following you round all the morning. Luckyfor 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. Howyou managed to escape them I don't know except that none of them seemsto have a very clear idea of your appearance. You don't look veryBritish, I grant you; but I spotted your tie and then I recognized theBritish officer all right. 

"No, don't worry to tell me anything about yourself--it is none of mybusiness to know, any more than you will find out anything about me. Iknow where you are going, for I heard you take your ticket; but you mayas well understand that you have as much chance of getting into yourtrain if you walk into the railway hall and up the stairs in theordinary 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 analtercation, a false charge, and you will miss your train! _They_ willattend to the rest!

"Damn it, man, " he went on, "I know what I'm talking about. Here, comewith me and I'll show you. You have twenty minutes before the traingoes. Now start the German again!"

We went down the street together for all the world like a "mug" in towof one of those black-guard guides. As we approached the station theguide said in his whining German:

"Pay attention to me now. I shall leave you here. Go to the suburbanbooking-office--the entrance is in the street to the left of thestation hall. Go into the first-class waiting-room and look out ofthe window that gives on to the station hall. There you will see someof the forces mobilized against you. There is a regular cordon ofguides--like me--drawn across the entrances to the main-lineplatforms--unostentatiously, of course. If you look you will see plentyof plain-clothes Huns, too.... "

"Guides?" I said. 

He nodded cheerfully. 

"Looks bad for me, doesn't it? But one gets better results by being oneof 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 Isay, take a platform ticket and walk upstairs to platform No. 5. On thatplatform you will find a train. Go to the end where the metals run outof the station, where the engine would be coupled on, and get into thelast first-class carriage. On no account move from there until you seeme. Now then, I'll have that gulden!"

I gave him the coin. The old fellow looked at it and wagged his head, soI gave him another, whereupon he took off his cap, bowed low and hurriedoff. 

In the suburban side waiting-room I peered out of the window on to thestation hall. True enough, I saw one, two, four, six guides loafingabout the barriers leading to the main-line platforms. There seemed tobe a lot of people in the hall and certainly a number of the menpossessed 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 theletter. Platform No. 5 was completely deserted as I emerged breathlessfrom the long staircase and I had no difficulty in getting into the lastfirst-class carriage unobserved. I sat down by the window on the farside of the carriage. 

Alongside it ran the brown panels and gold lettering of a Germanrestaurant car. 

I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to seven. There was no sign ofmy mysterious friend. I wondered vaguely, too, what had become of myporter. True, there was nothing of importance in Semlin's bag, but atraveller with luggage always commands more confidence than one without. 

Five minutes to seven! Still no word from the guide. The minutes tickedaway. By Jove! I was going to miss the train. But I sat resolutely in mycorner. 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 flungopen. 

"Quick!" he whispered in my ear, "follow me. "

"My things ... " I gasped with one foot on the foot-board of the othertrain. 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 notunderstood me. 

The guide pointed towards the carriage again, then tapped himself on thechest 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. Peeringcautiously out of the carriage, I caught a glimpse of the waiter, Karl, hurrying down the platform. With him was a swarthy, massively built manwho leaned heavily on a stick and limped painfully as he ran. One of hisfeet, I could see, was misshapen and the sweat was pouring down hisface. 

I would have liked to wave my hand to the pair, but I prudently drewback 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 benevolentdeity seems to be guiding one's every action. On such days, do what youwill, you cannot go wrong. As the Berlin train bumped thunderously overthe culverts spanning the canals between the tall, grey houses ofRotterdam and rushed out imperiously into the plain of windmills andpollards beyond, I reflected that this must be my good day, so kindlyhad some fairy godmother shepherded my footsteps since I had left thecafé. 

So engrossed had I been, indeed, in the great enterprise on which I wasembarked, that my actions throughout the morning had been mainlyautomatic. Yet how uniformly had they tended to protect me! I had boughtmy ticket in advance; I had given my overcoat and bag to a porter that Inow knew to have been my saviour in disguise; I had sallied forth fromthe 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, greatlycomforted, I began to look about me. 

I found myself, the only occupant, in a first-class carriage. On thewindow was plastered a notice, in Dutch and German, to the effect thatthe carriage was reserved. Suddenly I thought of my bag and overcoat. They were nowhere to be seen. After a little search I found them beneaththe seat. In the overcoat pocket was a black tie. 

I lost no time in taking the hint. If any of you who read this taleshould one day notice a ganger on the railway between Rotterdam andDordrecht wearing the famous colours of a famous regiment round his neckyou will understand how they got there. Then, wearied out with thefatigues of my sleepless night, I fell into a deep slumber, my verdantwaterproof swathed round me, Semlin's overcoat about my knees. 

 * * * * *

I was dreaming fitfully of a mad escape from hordes of wildly clutchingguides, led by Karl the waiter, when the screaming of brakes brought meto my senses. The train was sensibly slackening speed. Outside theautumn sun was shining over pleasant brown stretches of moorland brightwith heather. The next moment and before I was fully awake we had glidedto a standstill at a very spick and span station and the familiar cryof "Alles aussteigen!" rang in my ears. 

We were in Germany. 

The realization fell upon me like a thunderclap. I was in the enemy'scountry, sailing under false colours, with only the most meagreinformation 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 therigorous scrutiny of the frontier police. 

What was my firm? The Halewright Manufacturing Company. What did wemanufacture? I had not the faintest idea. Why was I coming to Germany atall? Again I was at a loss. 

The clink of iron-shod heels in the corridor and an officer, followedclosely by two privates, the white cross of the Landwehr in theirhelmets, 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, thepassport should have been stamped at the German Consulate at Rotterdam. 

"I had no time, " I said boldly. "I am travelling on most importantbusiness to Berlin. I only reached Rotterdam last night, after theConsulate was closed. "

The lieutenant turned to one of his guards. 

"Take the gentleman to the Customs Hall, " he said and went on to thenext carriage. 

The soldier appropriated my overcoat and bag and beckoned me to followhim. Outside the platform was railed off. Everyone, I noticed, wasshepherded into a long narrow pen made with iron hurdles leading to alocked door over which was written: Zoll-Revision. I was going to takemy place in the queue when the soldier prodded me with his elbow. He ledme to a side door which opened in the gaunt, bare Customs Hall with itslong row of trestles for the examination of the passengers' luggage. Ina corner behind a desk was a large group of officers and subordinateofficials, all in the grey-green uniform I knew so well from the life inthe trenches. The principal seemed to be an immense man, inordinatelygross and fat, with a bloated face and great gold spectacles. He wasroaring in a loud, angry voice:

"He's not come! There you are! Again we shall have all the trouble fornothing!"

I thought he looked an extraordinarily bad-tempered individual and Ifervently prayed that I should not be brought before him. 

The doors were flung open. With a rush the hall was invaded with aheterogeneous mob of people huddled pellmell together and driven alongbefore a line of soldiers. For an hour or more babel reigned. Officialsbawled at the public: the place rang with the sounds of angryaltercation. After a furious dispute one man, wildly gesticulating, wasdragged away by two soldiers. 

I never saw such a thorough examination in my life. People's bags wereliterally turned upside down and every single object pried into andbesnuffled. After the customs' examination passengers were passed on tothe searching-rooms, the men to one side, the women to the other. Icaught sight of a female searcher lolling at a door ... A monstrous andgrim female who reminded me of those dreadful bathing women at theseaside in our early youth. 

The fat official had vanished into an office leading off the CustomsHall. He was, I surmised, the last instance, for several passengers, including a very respectably dressed old lady, were driven into the sideoffice and were seen no more. 

During all this scene of confusion no one had taken any notice of me. Myguard looked straight in front of him and said never a word. When thehall was all but cleared, a man came to the office door and made a signto my sentinel. 

At a table in the office which, despite the sunshine outside, was heatedlike a greenhouse, I found the fat official. Something had evidentlyupset him, for his brows were clouded with anger and his mastiff-likecheeks were trembling with irritation. He thrust a hand out as Ientered. 

"Your papers!" he grunted. 

I handed over my passport. 

Directly he had examined it, a red flush spread over his cheeks andforehead and he brought his hand down on the table with a crash. Thesentry beside me winced perceptibly. 

"It's not viséd, " the fat official screamed in a voice shrill withanger. "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 inGermany? You've been to London, I see by this passport. "

"I had no time to get my passport stamped at the Consulate atRotterdam, " I said. "I arrived there too late in the evening. I couldnot wait. I am going to Berlin on most important business. "

"That's nothing to do with it, " the man shouted. He was working himselfup into a fine frenzy. "Your passport is not in order. You're not aGerman. You're an American. We Germans know what to think of ourAmerican friends, especially those who come from London. "

A voice outside shouted: "Nach Berlin alles einsteigen. " I said aspolitely as I could, despite my growing annoyance:

"I don't wish to miss my train. My journey to Berlin is of the utmostimportance. I trust the train can be held back until I have satisfiedyou 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 bugof 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 besidehim:

"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 beingdelayed on the frontier lest Stelze and his friends should catch up withme. I was surprised to find that apparently they had not telegraphed tohave 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 canconvince you of that, too. Only ... " and I looked round the office. "Allthese must go. "

To my amazement the fat man's anger vanished utterly. He stared hard atme, then took off his spectacles and polished them with hishandkerchief. After this he said nonchalantly: "Everybody get outsideexcept this gentleman!" The sentry, who had spun round on his heelagain, seemed about to speak: his voice expired before it came out ofhis mouth: he saluted, spun round again and followed the rest out of theroom. 

When the place was cleared I pulled my left brace out of the armhole ofmy waistcoat and displayed the silver star. 

The fat man sprang up. 

"The Herr Doktor must excuse me: I am overwhelmed: I had no idea thatthe Herr Doktor was not one of these tiresome American spies that areoverrunning our country. The Herr Doktor will understand.... If the HerrDoktor had but said ... "

"Herr Major, " I said, endeavouring to put as much insolence as I couldinto my voice (that is what a German understands), "I am not in thehabit of bleating my business to every fool I meet. Now I must go backto the train. "

"The Berlin train has gone, Herr Doktor, but... "

"The Berlin train gone?" I said. "But my business brooks no delay. Itell 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 hadready for you has been countermanded. I thought you were not comingagain. "

A special? By Jove! I was evidently a personage of note. But a specialwould never do! Where the deuce was it going to take me?

"The Berlin train was to have been held back until your special wasclear, " the Major went on, "but we must stop her at Wesel until you havepassed. I will attend to that at once!"

He gave some order down the telephone and after a brisk conversationturned to me with a beaming face:

"They will stop her at Wesel and the special will be ready intwenty-five minutes. But there is no hurry. You have an hour or more tospare. Might I offer the Herr Doktor a glass of beer and a sandwich atour officers' casino here?"

Well, I was in for it this time. A special bearing me Heaven knowswhither on unknown business... ! Perhaps I might be able to extract alittle information out of my fat friend if I went with him, so Iaccepted his invitation with suitable condescension. 

The Major excused himself for an instant and returned with my overcoatand bag. 

"So!" he cried, "we can leave these here until we come back!" Behind himthrough the open door I saw a group of officials peering curiously intothe room. As we walked through their midst, they fell back withprecipitation. There was a positive reverence about their manner which Ifound extremely puzzling. 

A waggonette, driven by an orderly, stood in the station yard, one ofthe Customs officials, hat in hand, at the door. We drove rapidlythrough very spick-and-span streets to a little square where the sentryat an iron gate denoted the Officers' Club. In the anteroom four or fiveofficers in field-grey uniform were lounging. As we entered they sprangto their feet and remained stiffly standing while the Major presentedthem, Hauptmann Pfahl, Oberleutnant Meyer ... A string of names. One ofthe officers had lost an arm, another was very lame, the remainder wereobvious dug-outs. 

"An American gentleman, a good friend of ours, " was the form in whichthe Major introduced me to the company. Again I found myself mystifiedby the extraordinary demonstrations of respect with which I wasreceived. Germans don't like Americans, especially since they took toselling shells to the Allies, and I began to think that all theseofficers must know more about me and my mission than I did myself. Astolid orderly, wearing white gloves, brought beer and someextraordinary nasty-looking sardine sandwiches which, on sampling, Irealized to be made of "war bread. "

While the beer was being poured out I glanced round the room, bare andvery simply furnished. Terrible chromo-lithographs of the Kaiser and theCrown Prince hung on the walls above a glass filled with war trophies. With a horrible sickness at heart I recognized amongst other emblems aglengarry with a silver badge and a British steel helmet with a gapinghole through the crown. Then I remembered I was in the region of theVIIth Corps, which supplies some of our toughest opponents on theWestern front. 

Conversation was polite and perfunctory. 

"It is on occasions such as these, " said the lame officer, "that onerecognizes how our brothers overseas are helping the German cause. "

"Your work must be extraordinarily interesting, " observed one of thedug-outs. 

"All your difficulties are now over, " said the Major, much in the mannerof the chorus of a Greek play. "You will be in Berlin to-night, whereyour labours will be doubtless rewarded. American friends of Germany arenot popular in London, I should imagine!"

I murmured: "Hardly. "

"You must possess infinite tact to have aroused no suspicion, " said theMajor. 

"That depends, " I said. 

"Pardon me, " replied the Major, in whom I began to recognize all thesigns of an unmitigated gossip, "I know something of the importance ofyour mission. I speak amongst ourselves, is it not so, gentlemen? Therewere special orders about you from the Corps Command at Münster. Yourspecial has been waiting for you here for four days. The gentleman whocame to meet you has been in a fever of expectation. He had already leftthe station this morning when ... When I met you, I sent word for him topick 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 inperfect English from the corner. The one-armed officer was speaking. 

"From Brooklyn, " I said stoutly, though my heart seemed turned to icewith the shock of hearing my own tongue. 

"You have no accent, " the other replied suavely. 

"Some Americans, " I retorted sententiously, "would regard that as acompliment. Not all Americans talk through their noses any more than weall 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 speakEnglish was evidently regarded as a bit of a wag by his comrades. Iseized the opportunity to give them in German a humorous description ofmy simplicity in explaining to a man brought up in the United Statesthat all Americans were not the caricatures depicted in the Europeancomic 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 andsaid it was "incredible how humorous Schmalz could be. "

I had hoped that the conversation might now be carried on again inGerman. Nothing of the kind. The room leant back in its chairs, as ifexpecting 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, withflaxen hair and a bright, bold blue eye--the eye of a fighter. His leftsleeve was empty and was fastened across his tunic, in a button-hole ofwhich was twisted the black and white ribbon of the Iron Cross. 

"Generally, " I answered shortly, "when I go to England. Clothes arecheaper in London. "

"You must have a good ear for languages, " Schmalz continued; "you speakGerman like a German and English ... " he paused appreciably, "... Likean Englishman. "

I felt horribly nervous. This young man never took his eyes off me: hehad been staring at me ever since I had entered the room. His mannerwas perfectly calm and suave. 

Still I kept my end up very creditably, I think. 

"And not a bad accomplishment, either, " I said, smiling brightly, "ifone has to visit London in war-time. "

Schmalz smiled back with perfect courtesy. But he continued to starerelentlessly at me. I felt scared. 

"What is Schmalz jabbering about now?" said one of the dug-outs. Itranslated for the benefit of the company. My résumé gave the dug-outwho had spoken the opportunity for launching out on an interminableanecdote about an ulster he had bought on a holiday at Brighton. Thestory lasted until the white-gloved orderly came and announced that "agentleman" was there, asking for the Herr Major. 

"That'll be your man, " exclaimed the Major, starting up--I noticed hemade 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 anteroomwith 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, andperhaps we may meet again. I should much like to talk more with youabout America ... And London. We must have mutual acquaintances. "

I murmured something about being only too glad, at the same time makinga 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 notintroduce 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 theUhlans of the Guard: his father, the General, is one of the Emperor'saides-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 militarygreat-coat and a flat cap with a pink band round it. He sprang out as weappeared. His manner was most _empressé_. He completely ignored mycompanion. 

"I am extremely glad to see you, Herr Doktor, " he said. "You aremost anxiously expected. I must present my apologies for not beingat the station to welcome you, but, apparently, there was somemisunderstanding. The arrangements at the station for your receptionseem to have broken down completely ... " and he stared through hismonocle at the old Major, who flushed with vexation. 

"If you will step into my car, " the young man added, "I will drive youto the station. We need not detain this gentleman any longer. "

I felt sorry for the old Major, who had remained silent under thewithering insolence of this young lieutenant, so I shook hands with himcordially and thanked him for his hospitality. He was a jovial oldfellow after all. 

The young Count drove himself and chatted amiably as we whirled throughthe streets. "I must introduce myself, " he said: "Lieutenant Count vonBoden of the 2nd Uhlans of the Guard. I did not wish to say anythingbefore that old chatterbox. I trust you have had a pleasant journey. VonSteinhardt, of our Legation at the Hague, was instructed to make allarrangements for your comfort on this side. But I was forgetting, youand 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 portfolioin my pocket. 

At the station we found two orderlies, one with my things, the otherwith von Boden's luggage and fur _pélisse_. The platforms were nowdeserted save for sentries: all life at this dreary frontier stationseemed to die with the passing of the mail train. 

I could not help noticing, after we had left the car and were strollingup and down the platform waiting for the special, that my companion keptcasting furtive glances at my feet. I looked down at my boots: theywanted brushing, certainly, but otherwise I could see nothing wrong withthem. They were brown, it is true, and I reflected that the German manabout town has a way of regulating his tastes in footgear by thecalendar, and that brown boots are seldom worn in Germany afterSeptember 1st. 

Our special came in, an engine and tender, a brakesman's van, a singlecarriage and a guard's van. The stationmaster bid us a most ceremoniousadieu, and the guard, cap in hand, helped me into the train. 

It was a Pullman car in which I found myself, with comfortablearm-chairs and small tables. One of the orderlies was laying the tablefor luncheon, and here, presently, the young Count and I ate a meal, which, save for the inevitable "_Kriegsbrod_, " showed few signs of thestringency of the British blockade. But by this time I had fullyrealized that, for some unknown reason, no pains were spared to do mehonour, so probably the fare was something out of the common. 

My companion was a bright, amusing fellow and delightfully typical ofhis class. He had seen a year's service with the cavalry on the Easternfront, had been seriously wounded and was now attached to the GeneralStaff in Berlin in what I judged to be a decorative rather than a usefulcapacity, for, apart from what he had learnt in his own campaigning heseemed singularly ignorant of the development of the military situation. Particularly, his ignorance of conditions on the Western front wassupreme. He was full to the brim with the most extraordinary fablesabout the British. He solemnly assured me, for example--on the faith ofa friend of his who had seen them--that Japanese were fighting with theEnglish in France, dressed as Highlanders--his friend had heard theseAsiatic Scotsmen talking Japanese, he declared. I thought of theGaelic-speaking battalions of the Camerons and could hardly suppress asmile. 

Young von Boden was superbly contemptuous of the officers of the obscureand much reduced infantry battalion doing garrison duty at Goch, thefrontier station we had just left, where--as he was careful to explainto 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 observedunsophistically, "but none of these fellows at Goch was a fit companionfor a dashing cavalry officer. They were a dull lot. I wouldn't go nearthe Casino. I met some of them at the hotel one evening. That wasenough 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 thecavalry.... "

But I had ceased to listen. In his irresponsible chatter the boy used aword that struck a harsh note which went jarring through my brain. Hehad mentioned "the lame fellow, " using a German word "der Stelze. " In aflash I saw before me again that scene in the squalid bedroom in the Vosin't Tuintje--the candle guttering in the draught, the livid corpse onthe floor and that sinister woman crying out: "Der Stelze has power, hehas authority, he can make and unmake men!"

The mind has unaccountable lapses. The phrase had slipped out of myGerman vocabulary. I had not even recognized it until the boy had rappedit 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 alsoanother--a picture of a vast and massive man, swarthy and sinister, witha clubfoot, limping heavily after Karl, the waiter, on the platform atRotterdam. 

That, then, was why the young lieutenant had glanced down at my feet atthe station at Goch, The messenger he had come to meet, the bearer ofthe document, the man of power and authority, was clubfooted, and I washe!

But seeing I was free of any physical deformity, to say nothing of thefact that I in no way resembled the clubfooted man I had seen on theplatform at Rotterdam, why had the young lieutenant accepted me soreadily? I hazarded the reason to be that he had orders to meet a personwho had not been further designated to him except that he would arriveby a certain train. The Major at the station would be responsible forestablishing my _bona fides_. Once that officer had turned me over tothe emissary, the latter's sole responsibility consisted in conductingme to the unknown goal to which the special train was rapidly bearingus. Such are the marvels of discipline!

My companion was, indeed, the model of discretion in everything touchingmyself and my business. Curiosity about your neighhour's affairs is acardinal German failing, yet the Count manifested not the slightestdesire to learn anything about me or my mission to Berlin. You may besure 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 markedthat I was convinced he had his orders to avoid the topic. 

As the train rushed through Westphalia, through busy stations withglimpses of sidings full of trucks loaded to the brim, past towns whosevery outlines were blurred by the mirk of smoke from a hundred factorychimneys, my thoughts were busy with that swarthy cripple. I had brokenaway from him with one portion of a highly prized document, yet he hadmade no attempt to have me arrested at the frontier. Clearly, then, hemust still look upon me as an ally and must therefore be yet inignorance of the identity of the dead man lying in my chamber at theHotel 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 lookedlike. 

_Was it possible, then, that Clubfoot did not know Semlin by sight?_

The fact that Semlin had only recently crossed the Atlantic seemed toconfirm this supposition. 

Then the document. Semlin had half. Who had the other half? SurelyClubfoot.... Clubfoot who was to have called at the hotel that morningto receive what I had brought from England. Perhaps, after all, myrandom declaration to the hotel-keeper had not been so far wrong;Clubfoot wanted to take the whole document to Berlin and reap all thelaurels at the cost of half the danger and labour. That would explainhis present silence. He suspected Semlin of treachery, not to the commoncause, but to him!

It looked as if I might have a free run until Clubfoot could reachBerlin. That, unless he also took a special, could not be until thenext evening at earliest. But, more redoubtable than a meeting withthe man of power and authority, hung over me, an ever-present nightmare, the interview which I felt awaited me at the end of my presentjourney ... The interview at which I must render an account of mymission. 

Evening was falling as we ran through the inhospitable region of sandand water and pine that engirdles Berlin. We glided at diminished speedthrough the trim suburbs, skirted the city, on whose tall buildings theelectric sky-signs were already beginning to twinkle, crashed heavilyover a vast network of metals at some great terminus, then tore offagain into the gathering darkness. In a little, we slowed down again. Wewere running through wooded country. From the darkness ahead a lanternwaved at us and the train stopped with a jerk at a little waysidestation, a tiny box of an affair. A tall, solid figure, wearing a spikedhelmet and grey military great-coat, stood in solitary grandeur in thecentre of the little platform, the wavering rays of a flickering gaslamp 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 theplatform. 

I heard the end of a sentence as I alighted "... The gentleman I was tomeet, Excellency!"

The other looked at me. He was a big man with a crimson face. He made noattempt at greeting, but said in a hoarse voice: "Have the goodness tocome with me. The orderlies will attend to your things. " And, withclinking spurs, he strode out through some big kind of anteroom, swathedin wrappings, into a yard beyond, where a big limousine was throbbinggently. 

He stood aside to let me get in, then mounted himself, followed, ratherto my surprise, by the young Count, whose responsibility for myself hadended, I imagined, on "delivering the goods. " My surprise was of shortduration, for once in the car the young Uhlan dropped all the formalityhe had displayed on the platform and addressed the elder officer as"papa. " This, then, was old General von Boden, of whom the Major hadspoken, Aide-de-Camp to the Kaiser and formerly tutor to the CrownPrince. 

Father and son chatted in a desultory fashion across the car, and I tookthe opportunity of studying the old gentleman. His face was of the mostprodigious purple hue, and so highly polished that it continually caughtthe reflection of the small electric lamp in the roof. Huge goldspectacles with glasses so thick that they distorted his eyes, straddled a great beak-like nose. He had doffed his helmet and wasmopping his brow, and I saw a high perfectly bald dome-like head, brilliantly polished and almost as red as his face. He was clean shavenand by no means young, for the flesh hung in bags about his face. Longyears of the habit of command had left their mark in an imperiousness ofmanner which might easily yield to ruthlessness I judged. 

"I thought I should have had orders before I left the Villa, " theGeneral said to his son, "then you could have gone straight there. Isuppose he means to see him here: that is why he wanted him brought tothe Villa. But he's always the same: he never can make up his mind. " Andhe grunted. 

"Perhaps there will be something waiting at home, " he added in hishoarse barrack-yard voice. 

We drove through a white gate into a little drive which brought us up infront of a long, low villa. Neither father nor son had opened their lipsto me during the drive from the station and I had not ventured to put aquestion to either of them, but I knew we were in Potsdam. The littlestation in the woods was Wild-Park, I suspected, the private stationused by the Emperor on his frequent journeys and situated in the groundsof the New Palace. All the officials of the Prussian Court have villasat Potsdam, though why I had been brought there in connection with anaffair that must surely rather interest the Wilhelm-Strasse or thePolice Presidency was more than I could fathom. 

There was a frightful scene in the hall. Without any warning the Generalturned on the orderly who had opened the door and screamed abuse at him. "Camel! Ox! Sheep's-head!" he roared, his face and shining patedeepening their vermilion hue. "Do I give orders that they shall beforgotten? What do you mean? You ass.... " He put his white-gloved handson the man's shoulders and shook him until the fellow's teeth must haverattled in his head. The orderly, white to the lips, hung limp in theold man's grasp, muttering apologies: "Ach! Exzellenz! Exzellenz willexcuse me.... "

It was a revolting spectacle, but it did not make the least impressionon the son, who, putting down his cap and great-coat and unhooking hissword, led me into a kind of study. "These orderlies are suchthickheads!" he said. 

"Rudi! Rudi!" a hoarse, strident voice screamed from the hall. Thelieutenant ran out. 

"You've got to take the fellow to Berlin to-night. The message was hereall the time--that numskull Heinrich forgot it. And we've got to keepthe fellow here till then! An outrage, having the house used as abarrack for a rascally detective!" Thus much I heard, as the door hadbeen left open. Then it closed and I heard no more. 

As I had heard this much, there was a certain irony in the invitation todinner subsequently conveyed to me by the young Uhlan. There was nothingfor it but to accept. I knew I was caught deep in the meshes of Prussiandiscipline, every one had his orders and blindly carried them out, fromthe garrulous Major on the frontier to this preposterous _Exzellenz_, this Imperial aide-de-camp of Potsdam. I was already a tiny cog in agreat machine. I should have to revolve or be crushed. 

His Excellency left me in no doubt on this point. When I was usheredinto his study, after a much-needed wash and a shave, he received mestanding and said point-blank: "Your orders are to stay here until teno'clock to-night, when you will be taken to Berlin by Lieutenant Countvon Boden. I don't know you, I don't know your business, but I havereceived certain orders concerning you which I intend to carry out. Forthat reason you will dine with us here. After you have seen the personto whom you are to be taken to-night, Lieutenant Count von Boden willaccompany you to the railway station at Spandau, where a special trainwill be in readiness in which he will conduct you back to the frontier. I wish you clearly to understand that the Lieutenant is responsible forseeing these orders carried out and will use all means to that end. HaveI made myself clear?"

The old man's manner was indescribably threatening. "This is the machinewe are out to smash, " I had said to myself when I saw him savaging hisservant in the hall and I repeated the phrase to myself now. But to theGeneral 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 notintroduced--some kind of relative who kept house for the General, Isupposed--was the only other person present. She never opened her lipssave, with eyes glazed with terror, to give some whispered instructionto the orderly anent the General's food or wine. We dined in adepressing room with dark brown wallpaper decorated with dusty stags'antlers, an enormous green-tiled stove dominating everything. TheGeneral and his son ate solidly through the courses while the ladypecked furtively at her plate. As for myself I could not eat for sheerfright. Every nerve in my body was vibrating at the thought of theevening before me. If I could not avoid the interview, I was resolutelydetermined to give Master von Boden the slip rather than return to thefrontier empty-handed. I had not braved all these perils to be packedoff 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. Sodid the General, with the result that, when the veins starting purplefrom his temples proclaimed that he had eaten to repletion, his temperseemed to have improved. He unbent sufficiently to present me with quitethe worst cigar I have ever smoked. 

I smoked it in silence whilst father and son talked shop. The female hadfaded away. Both men, I found to my surprise, were furious and bitteropponents of Hindenburg, as I have since learnt most of the old schoolof the Prussian Army are. They spoke little of England: their thoughtsseemed to be centred on Russia as the arch-enemy. They pinned theirfaith on Falkenhayn and Mackensen. They had no words strong enough intheir denunciation of Hindenburg, whom they always referred to as "theDrunkard" ... "der Säufer. " Nor were they sparing of criticism of whatthey called the Kaiser's "weakness" in letting him rise to power. 

The humming of a car outside broke up our gathering. Remembering that Iwas but a humble servant before this great military luminary, I thankedthe General with due servility for his hospitality. Then the Count and Iwent 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 offin a southerly direction and were soon in the commercial quarter of thecity, all but deserted at that hour, save for the trams. Then I caught aglimpse of lamps reflected in water, and the next moment the car hadstopped on a bridge over a canal or river. My companion sprang out andhurried me to a small gate in an iron railing enclosing a vast edificelooming 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 towerwith a pointed roof jutting out from the corner of the building. In thetower was a door which yielded easily to my companion's vigorous push asa clock somewhere within the building beat a double stroke--half-pastten. 

The door led into a little vestibule brilliantly lit with electriclight. There a man was waiting, a fine, upstanding bearded fellow in akind of green hunting costume. 

"So, Payer!" said the young Uhlan. "Here is the gentleman. I shall be atthe west entrance afterwards. You will bring him down yourself to thecar. "

"Jawohl, Herr Graf!" answered the man in green, and the lieutenantvanished through the door into the night. 

A terrifying, an incredible suspicion that had overwhelmed me directly Istepped 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 deepenedwith every step. In a little, they became certainty. Up a shallow andwinding stair, along a long and broad corridor, hung with richtapestries, the polished parquet glistening faintly in the dim light, through splendid suites of gilded apartments with old pictures andsplendid furniture... Here a lackey with powdered hair yawning on alanding, there a sentry in field-grey immobile before a door... I was inthe Berlin Schloss. 

The Castle seemed to sleep. A hushed silence lay over all. Everywherelights were dim, staircases wound down into emptiness, corridorsstretched away into dusky solitude. Now and then an attendant in eveningdress tiptoed past us or an officer vanished round a corner, noiselesslysave 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 dryas I thought of the ordeal that stood before me. To whom was I thusbidden, secretly, in the night?

We were in a broad and pleasant passage now, panelled in cheerful lightbrown oak with red hangings. After the desolation of the Stateapartments, this comfortable corridor had at least the appearance ofleading to the habitation of man. A giant trooper in field-grey with acurious silver gorget suspended round his neck by a chain paced up anddown the passage, his jackboots making no sound upon the soft, thickcarpet 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 ingreen knocked softly and was admitted, leaving me outside. 

A moment later, the door swung open again. A tall, elegant man with greyhair and that indefinite air of good breeding that you find in every manwho has spent a life at court, came out hurriedly. He looked pale andharassed. 

On seeing me, he stopped short. 

"Dr. Grundt? Where is Dr. Grundt?" he asked and his eyes dropped to myfeet. He started and raised them to my face. 

The trooper had drifted out of earshot. I could see him, immobile as astatue, standing at the end of the corridor. Except for him and us, thepassage 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 withGrundt? 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 wroteabout you--but Grundt was to have come.... "

"Listen, " I said, "Grundt could not come. We had to separate and he sentme on ahead.... "

"But ... But ... "--the man was stammering now in his anxiety--"... Yousucceeded?"

I nodded. 

He heaved a sigh of relief. 

"It will be awkward, very awkward, this change in the arrangements, " hesaid. "You will have to explain everything to him, everything. Waitthere an instant. "

He darted back into the room. 

Once more I stood and waited in that silent place, so restful and sostill that one felt oneself in a world far removed from the angry strifeof nations. And I wondered if my interview--the meeting I had so muchdreaded--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 leatherfurniture, to a door. He opened it, revealing across a narrow thresholdanother 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 theroom. 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, straddledapart, planted firmly on the ground, one hand behind his back, theother, withered and useless like the rest of the arm, thrust into theside pocket of his tunic. He wore a perfectly plain undress uniform offield-grey, and the unusual simplicity of his dress, coupled with thefact that he was bare-headed, rendered him so unlike his conventionalportraits in the full panoply of war that I doubt if I should haverecognized him--paradoxical as it may seem--but for the havoc depictedin every lineament of those once so familiar features. 

Only one man in the world to-day could look like that. Only one man inthe world to-day could show, by the ravage in his face, the appallingweight of responsibility slowly crushing one of the most vigorous andresilient personalities in Europe. His figure, erstwhile erect andwell-knit, seemed to have shrunk, and his withered arm, unnaturallylooped away into his pocket, assumed a prominence that lent somethingsinister to that forbidding grey and harassed face. 

His head was sunk forward on his breast. His face, always intenselysallow, almost Italian in its olive tint, was livid. All its alertnesswas gone; the features seemed to have collapsed, and the flesh hungflabbily, bulging in deep pouches under the eyes and in loose folds atthe corners of the mouth. His head was grizzled an iron-grey but thehair at the temples was white as driven snow. Only his eyes wereunchanged. 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. Inthe brief instant in which I gazed at him I thought of a phrase a friendhad 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 Iforgot my part and remained staring in stupefaction at the apparition. The other was seemingly too busy with his thoughts to notice myforgetfulness, for he spoke at once, imperiously, in the harsh staccatoof a command. 

"What is this I hear?" he said. "Why has not Grundt come? What are youdoing here?"

By this time I had elaborated the fable I had begun to tell in thecorridor 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 wasrocking himself to and fro, in nervous irritability, on his feet. Hiseyes were never steady for an instant: now they searched my face, nowthey fell to the floor, now they scanned the ceiling. 

"Dr. Grundt and I succeeded in our quest, dangerous though it was. Asyour Majesty is aware, the ... The ... The object had been divided.... "

"Yes, yes, I know! Go on!" the other said, pausing for a moment in hisrocking. 

"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 ascheme 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 aperfectly harmless letter addressed to an English shipping agent inRotterdam. I then pasted the fragment of the lining back in its place inthe bottom of the bag. Grundt gave the bag to one of our number as anexperiment to see if it would elude the vigilance of the Englishpolice. "

A light of interest was growing in the Emperor's manner, banishing hisill-temper. Anything novel always appealed to him. 

"Well?" he said. 

"The ruse was detected, the letter was found and our man was finedtwenty pounds at the police court. It was then that Dr. Grundt decidedto 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 myfoot. 

The Emperor stared at me and the furrow reappeared between his eyes. Then a smile broke out on his face, a warm, attractive smile, likesunshine after rain, and he burst into a regular guffaw. I knew HisMajesty's weakness for jokes at the expense of the physical deformitiesof others, but I had scarcely dared to hope that my subtle reference toGrundt's clubfoot as a hiding-place for compromising papers would havehad such a success. For the Kaiser fairly revelled in the idea andlaughed loud and long, his sides fairly shaking. 

"Ach, der Stelze! Excellent! Excellent!" he cried. "Plessen, come andhear how we've diddled the Englander again!"

We were in a long room, lofty, with a great window at the far end, wherethe room seemed to run to the right and left in the shape of a T. Fromthe big writing-desk with its litter of photographs in heavy silverframes, the little bronze busts of the Empress, the water-coloursea-scapes and other little touches, I judged this to be the Emperor'sstudy. 

At the monarch's call, a white-haired officer emerged from the furtherend 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 Icould of Dr. Grundt, fat and massive and podgy, hobbling on board thesteamer at Tilbury, under the noses of the British police, with thedocument stowed away in his boot. 

The Kaiser punctuated my story with gusty guffaws, and emphasized thefun of the _dénouement_ by poking the General in the ribs. 

Plessen laughed very heartily, as indeed he was expected to. Then hesaid 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. Inthat case, why is he not here?"

My heart sank within me. Above all things, I knew I must keep mycountenance. The least sign of embarrassment and I was lost. Yet I feltthe 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 outsideappeared. 

"Your Majesty will excuse me ... General Baron von Fischer is there toreport.... "

"Presently, presently, " was the answer in an irritable tone. "I amengaged 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 askedme 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 allmirth 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 hisdesk and sat down. Plessen and the other followed him. I remained whereI was. They seemed to have forgotten all about me. 

A murmur rose from the desk. The officer was delivering his report. Thenthe Kaiser seemed to question him, for I heard his hard, metallicvoice:

"Contalmaison ... Trones Wood ... Heavy losses ... Forcedback ... Terrific artillery fire ... " were words that reached me. The Kaiser's voice rose on a high note of irritability. Suddenly hedashed the papers on the desk from him and exclaimed:

"It is outrageous! I'll break him! Not another man shall he have if Imust go myself and teach his men their duty!"

Plessen hurriedly left the desk and came to me. His old face was whiteand his hands were shaking. 

"Get out of here!" he said to me in a fierce undertone. "Wait outsideand I will see you later!" Still, from the desk, resounded that harsh, strident voice, running on in an ascending scale, pouring forth afoaming torrent of menace. 

I had often heard of the sudden paroxysms of fury from which the Kaiserwas said to suffer of recent years, but never in my wildest daydreamsdid I ever imagine I should assist at one. 

Gladly enough did I exchange the highly charged electrical atmosphere ofthe Imperial study for the repose of the quiet corridor. Its perfecttranquillity was as balm to my quivering nerves. Of the man in greennothing was to be seen. Only the trooper continued his silent vigil. 

Again I acted on impulse. I was wearing my grass-green raincoat, my hatI carried in my hand. I might therefore easily pass for one just leavingthe Castle. Without hesitation, I turned to the left, the way I hadcome, and plunged once more into the labyrinth of galleries andcorridors and landings by which the man in green had led me. I very soonlost myself, so I decided to descend the next staircase I should cometo. I followed this plan and went down a broad flight of stairs, at thefoot of which I found a night porter, clad in a vast overcoat bedizenedwith eagles and seated on a stool, reading a newspaper. 

He stopped me and asked me my business. I told him I was coming from theEmperor's private apartments, whereupon he demanded my pass. I showedhim my badge which entirely satisfied him, though he muttered somethingabout "new faces" and not having seen me before. I asked him for the wayout. He said that at the end of the gallery I should come to the westentrance. I felt I had had a narrow squeak of running into my mentoroutside. I told the man I wanted the other entrance ... I had my carthere. 

"You mean the south entrance?" he asked, and proceeded to give medirections which brought me, without further difficulty, out upon theopen space in front of the great equestrian statue of the EmperorWilliam I. 

It was a clear, starry night and I heaved a sigh of relief as I saw theSchloss-Platz glittering in the cold light of the arc lamps. So pressinghad been the danger threatening me that the atmosphere of the Castleseemed stifling in comparison with the keen night air. A new confidencefilled my veins as I strode along, though the perils to which I wasadvancing were not a whit less than those I had just escaped. For I hadburnt my boats. My disappearance from the Castle must surely arousesuspicion and it was only a matter of hours for the hue and cry to beraised after me. At best it might be delayed until Clubfoot presentedhimself at the Castle. 

I could not remain in Berlin, that was clear. My American passport wasnot in order, and if I were to fall back upon my silver badge, I shouldinstantly come into contact with the police with all kinds of unwelcomeconsequences. No, I must get out of Berlin at all costs. Well away fromthe capital, I might possibly utilize my silver badge or by its helpprocure 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. Itwas dated from Berlin, and I felt that the solution of the riddle, ifriddle it were, must be found here. 

I had reached Unter den Linden. I entered a café and ordered a glass ofbeer. The place was a blaze of light and dense with a blue cloud oftobacco smoke. A noisy band was crashing out popular tunes and there wasa loud buzz of conversation rising from every table. It was all verycheerful and the noise and the bustle did me good after the strain ofthe night. 

I drew from my pocket the slip of paper I had had from Dicky and fell toscanning it again. I had not been twelve hours in Germany, but already Iwas conscious that, for anyone acting a part, let anything go wrong withhis identity papers and he could never leave the country. If he werelucky, he might lie doggo; but there was no other course. 

Supposing, then, that this had happened to Francis (as, indeed, Red Tabshad hinted to me was the case) what course would he adopt? He would tryand smuggle out a message announcing his plight. Yes, I think that iswhat I myself would do in similar circumstances. 

Well, I would accept this as a message from Francis. Now to study itonce more. 

_O Eichenholz! O Eichenholz!Wie leer sind deine Blätter. Wie Achiles in dem Zelte. Wo zweie sich zankenErfreut sich der Dritte. _

The message fell into three parts, each consisting of a phrase. Thefirst phrase might certainly be a warning that Francis had failed inhis 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 notbe a lengthy one. Nor was it likely that they contained a report ofFrancis' mission to Germany, whatever it had been. Indeed, it was notconceivable that my brother would send any such report to a Dutchmanlike van Urutius, a friendly enough fellow, yet a mere acquaintance andan alien at that. 

The message carried in those two phrases must be, I felt sure, apersonal one, relating to my brother's welfare. What would he desire tosay? That he was arrested, that he was going to be shot? Possibly, butmore probably his idea in sending out word was to explain his silenceand also to obtain assistance. 

My eye recurred continually to the final phrase: "When _two_ people fallout, the _third_ party rejoices. "

Might not these numerals refer to the number of a street? Might not inthese 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 andeagerly ran my eye down the columns of the "A's. " I did not find what Iwas 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 Berlinsuburb 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 onlyother 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 denZelten. "

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 anumber of open-air beer-gardens and booths had occupied the site whichfaces the northern side of the Tiergarten. It was not a long street. Thedirectory showed but fifty-six houses, several of which, I noticed, werestill beer-gardens. It appeared to be a fashionable thoroughfare, formost of the occupants were titled people. No. 3, I was interested tosee, was still noted as the Berlin office of _The Times_. 

The last phrase in the message decidedly gave the number. _Two_ mustrefer to the number of the house: _third_ to the number of the floor, since practically all dwelling-houses in Berlin are divided off intoflats. 

As for the "Achiles, " I gave it up. 

I looked at my watch. It was twenty past eleven: too late to begin mysearch 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 deckcrossing over to Holland, and the succession of adventures that hadbefallen me since I left London had driven all thought of weariness frommy mind. But now came the reaction and I felt myself yearning for a hotbath and for a nice comfortable bed. To go to an hotel at that hour ofnight, without luggage and with an American passport not in order, wouldbe to court disaster. It looked as though I should have to hang aboutthe cafés and night restaurants until morning, investigate the clue ofthe street called In den Zelten, and then get away from Berlin as fastas ever I could. 

But my head was nodding with drowsiness. I must pull myself together. Idecided I would have some black coffee, and I raised my eyes to find thewaiter. They fell upon the pale face and elegant figure of the one-armedofficer I had met at the Casino at Goch ... The young lieutenant theyhad called Schmalz. 

He had just entered the café and was standing at the door, looking abouthim. I felt a sudden pang of uneasiness at the sight of him, for Iremembered his cross-examination of me at Goch. But I could not escapewithout 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 poorGermans are amusing ourselves in war-time. You must admit that we do nottake our pleasures sadly. You permit me?"

Without waiting for my reply, he sat down at my table and ordered aglass of beer. 

"I wish you had appeared sooner, " I exclaimed in as friendly a tone as Icould muster, "for I am just going. I have had a long and tiring journeyand 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! Norhave I? As you are a stranger in Berlin, you must allow me to appointmyself 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 feltmy 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 Americansare spoilt in the matter of luxurious hotels, I know. Still, I tell youwe have not much to learn in that line in Berlin. Suppose we go to theEsplanade. It's a fine hotel ... The Hamburg American line run it, youknow. I am very well known there, quite the _Hauskind_ ... My uncle wasa captain of one of their liners. They will make us very comfortable:they always give me a little suite, bedroom, sitting-room and bath, veryreasonably: I'll make them do the same for you. "

If I had been less weary--I have often thought since--I would have gotup and fled from the café rather than have countenanced any such madproposal. But I was drunk with sleep heaviness and I snatched at thischance of getting a good night's rest, for I felt that, under the aegisof this young officer, I could count on any passport difficulties at thehotel being postponed until morning. By that time, I meant to be out ofthe 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 atthe 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 inthe American fashion. By the by, " he added, lowering his voice, "Ithought it better to speak German. English is not heard gladly inBerlin just now. "

"I quite understand, " I said. Then, to change the subject, which I didnot like particularly, I added:

"Surely, you have been very quick in coming down from the frontier. Didyou come by train?"

"Oh, no!" he answered. "I found that the car in which you drove to thestation ... It belonged to the gentleman who came to meet you, youknow ... Was being sent back to Berlin by road, so I got the driver togive me a lift. "

He said this quite airily, with his usual tone of candour. But for amoment I regretted my decision to go to the Esplanade with him. What ifhe 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 lateto turn back now!"

We had a friendly wrangle as to who should pay for the drinks, and itended in my paying. Then, after a long wait, we managed to get a cab, anantique-looking "growler" driven by an octogenarian in a coat of manycapes, and drove to the Esplanade. 

It was a regular palace of a place, with a splendid vestibule with wallsand pavement of different-hued marbles, with palm trees over-shadowinga little fountain tinkling in a jade basin, with servants in gaudyliveries. The reception clerk overwhelmed me with the cordiality of hiswelcome to my companion and "the American gentleman, " and after acertain amount of coquettish protestations about the difficulty ofproviding 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 hotelclerks, that man. The luggage of the American gentleman should befetched in the morning. The gentleman's papers? There was no hurry: theHerr Leutnant would explain to his friend the forms that had to befilled in: they could be given to the waiter in the morning. Would thegentlemen take anything before retiring? A whisky-soda--ah! whisky wasgetting scarce. No? Nothing? He had the honour to wish the gentlemenpleasant repose. 

We went to the lift in procession, Beau Brummell in front, then awaiter, then ourselves and the gold-braided hall porter bringing up therear. One or two people were sitting in the lounge, attended by aplatoon of waiters. The whole place gave an impression of wealth andluxury altogether out of keeping with British ideas of the stringency oflife in Germany under the British blockade. I could not help reflectingto myself mournfully that Germany did not seem to feel the pinch verymuch. 

At the lift the procession bowed itself away and we went up in charge ofthe liftman, a gorgeous individual who looked like one of the Pope'sSwiss Guards. We reached the centresol in an instant. The Lieutenant ledthe 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 yourroom!"

He stood aside to let me pass. The lights in the room were full on. Inan 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 waveof anger that swept over me, anger with myself for letting myself betrapped, 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 notthoughtful to have prepared this little surprise for you? See, I havebrought you to the one man you have crossed so many hundreds of miles ofocean 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 voixblanche_, as the French say, "this is an unexpected pleasure. I neverthought we should meet in Berlin. I had believed our rendezvous to havebeen fixed for Rotterdam. Still, better late than never!" And heextended to me a white, fat hand. 

"Our friend, the Herr Leutnant, " I answered carelessly, "omitted toinform me that he was acquainted with you, as, indeed, he failed to warnme that I should have the pleasure of seeing you here to-night. "

"We owe that pleasure, " Clubfoot replied with a smile that displayed aglitter of gold in his teeth, "to a purely fortuitous encounter at theCasino at Goch, as, indeed, it would appear, I am similarly indebted tochance for the unlooked-for boon of making your personal acquaintancehere this evening. "

He bowed to Schmalz as he said this. 

"But come, " he went on, "if I may make bold to offer you the hospitalityof your own room, sit down and try a glass of this excellentBrauneberger. Rhine wine must be scarce where you come from. We havemuch 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 hisbed. Doubtless, you have no secrets from him, but you will agree, HerrDoktor, that our conversation should best be tête-à-tète. "

"Schmalz, dear friend, " Clubfoot exclaimed with a sigh of regret, "muchas I should like ... I am indeed truly sorry that we should be deprivedof your company, but I cannot contest the profound accuracy of ourfriend's remark. If you could go to the sitting-room for a fewminutes.... "

The young lieutenant flushed angrily. 

"If you prefer my room to my company ... By all means, " he retortedgruffly, "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 doorwith rather more force than was necessary, I thought. 

Clubfoot sighed. 

"Ach! youth! youth!" he cried, "the same impetuous youth that is atthis very moment hacking out for Germany a world empire amidst thenations in arms. A wonderful race, a race of giants, our German youth, Herr Doktor ... The mainspring of our great German machine--as they findwho resist it. A glass of wine!"

The man's speech and manner boded ill for me, I felt. I would haveinfinitely preferred violent language and open threats to the subtlemenace that lay concealed beneath all this suavity. 

"You smoke?" queried Clubfoot. "No!"--he held up his hand to stop me asI was reaching for my cigarette case, "you shall have a cigar--not oneof our poor German Hamburgers, but a fine Havana cigar given me by amember of the English Privy Council. You stare! Aha! I repeat, by amember 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 belame, Clubfoot may be past his work, but when he travels _en mission_, he travels _en prince_, the man of wealth and substance. There is nonetoo high to do him honour, to listen to his views on poor, misguidedGermany, the land of thinkers sold into bondage to the militarists! Bah!the fools!"

He snarled venomously. This man was beginning to interest me. His rapidchange of moods was fascinating, now the kindly philosopher, now theTeuton braggart, now the Hun incorporate. As he limped across the roomto 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 belowthe medium, but his bulk, which was enormous. The span of his shoulderswas immense, and, though a heavy paunch and a white flabbiness of facespoke of a gross, sedentary life, he was obviously a man of quiteunusual strength. His arms particularly were out of all proportion tohis stature, being so long that his hands hung down on either side ofhim when he stood erect, like the paws of some giant ape. Altogether, there was something decidedly simian about his appearance his squat nosewith hairy, open nostrils, and the general hirsuteness of the man, hisbushy eyebrows, the tufts of black hair on his cheekbones and on thebacks of his big, spade like hands. And there was that in his eyes, darkand courageous beneath the shaggy brows, that hinted at accesses ofape-like fury, uncontrollable and ferocious. 

He gave me his cigar which, as he had said, was a good one, and, after apreliminary 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 becameapparent to that person whom it is not necessary to name further greatlydesired 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 theperson concerned, would have been entrusted with the mission. It was Iwho discovered the author of the theft in an English internment camp; itwas I who prevailed upon him to acquiesce in our terms; it was I whofinally 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 canvascover, the divided crest, the big, sprawling, upright handwriting. Ishould have known that hand. I had seen it often enough on certainphotographs which were accorded the place of honour in the drawing roomat Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's at Bonn. 

"I therefore had the prior claim, " Clubfoot continued, "to be entrustedwith the important task of fetching the document and of handing it backto the writer. But the gentleman was in a hurry; the gentleman alwaysis; he could not wait for that old slowcoach of a Clubfoot to mature hisplans for getting into England, securing the document, and getting outagain. 

"So Bernstorff is called into consultation, the head of an embassy thathas made the German secret service the laughing-stock of the world, anambassador that has his private papers filched by a common sneak-thiefin the underground railway and is fool enough to send home the mostvaluable documents by a jackass of a military attaché who lets the wholelot be taken from him by a dunderheaded British customs officer atFalmouth! _This_ was the man who was to replace _me!_

"Bernstorff is accordingly bidden to despatch one of his trusty servantsto England, with all suitable precautions, to do _my_ work. You arechosen, and I will pay you the compliment of saying that you fulfilledyour mission in a manner that is singularly out of keeping with theusual method of procedure of that gentleman's emissaries. 

"But, my dear Doktor ... Pray fill your glass. That cigar is good, is itnot? I thought you would appreciate a good cigar.... As I was saying, you were handicapped from the first. When you reach the place indicatedto you in your instructions, you find only half the document. The wilythief has sliced it in two so as to make sure of his money beforeparting with the goods. They didn't know, of course, that Clubfoot, theold slowcoach, who is past his work, was aware of this already, and hadmade 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 ofit--would run across to England and secure the other half, while CountBernstorff's smart young man from America would wait in Rotterdam untilHerr Dr. Grundt arrived and handed him the other portion. 

"But Count Bernstorff's young man does nothing of the kind. He isone too many for the old fox. He does not wait for him. He runs away, after displaying unusual determination in dealing with a pryingEnglander--whose fate should be a lesson to all who interfere in otherpeople's business--and goes to Germany, leaving poor old Clubfoot in thelurch. You must admit, Herr Doktor, that I have been hardly used--byyourself as well as by another person?"

My throat was dry with anxiety. What did the man mean by his veiledallusions 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 perfectlyunconcerned and friendly), "let me have my say. When I found out thatyou had left Rotterdam--by the way, you must let me congratulate you onthe remarkable fertility of resource you displayed in quitting FrauSchratt's hospitable house--when I found you were gone, I sat down andthought things out. 

"I reflected that an astute American like yourself (believe me, you arevery astute) would probably be accustomed to look at everything from thebusiness standpoint. 'I will also consider the matter from the businessstandpoint, ' I said to myself, and I decided that, in your place, I toowould not be content to accept, as sole payment for the danger of mymission, the scarcely generous compensation that Count Bernstorff allotsto his collaborators. No, I should wish to secure a little renown formyself, or, were that not possible, then some monetary gainproportionate with the risks I had run. You see, I have been at pains toput myself wholly in your place. I hope I have not said anythingtactless. 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 tactand 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 headachein a bottle of it. Well, Herr Doktor, since you have followed me sopatiently thus far, I will go further. I told you, when I first saw youthis evening, that I was delighted at our meeting. That was no merebanality, but the sober truth. For, you see, I am the very person withwhom, in the circumstances, you would wish to get in touch. Deprived ofthe honour, rightly belonging to me, of undertaking this missionsingle-handed and of fulfilling it alone, I find that you can enable meto carry out the mission to a successful conclusion, whilst I, for mypart, am able and willing to recompense your services as they deserveand 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 wastaken aback. The man was watching me intently for all his apparentnonchalance, and I felt more than ever the necessity for being on myguard. If I could only fathom how much he knew. Of two things I feltfairly sure: the fellow believed me to be Semlin and was under theimpression that I still retained my portion of the document. I shouldhave to gain time. The bargain he proposed over my half of the lettermight give me an opportunity of doing that. Moreover, I must find outwhether 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? Youneedn't be afraid. I am generous. "

I leant forward earnestly in my chair. 

"You have spoken with admirable frankness, Herr Doktor, " I said, "and Iwill be equally plain, but I will be brief. In the first place, I wishto know that you are the man you profess to be: so far, you mustremember, I have only the assurance of our excitable young friend. "

"Your caution is most praiseworthy, " said the other, "but I shouldimagine I carry my name written on my boot. " And he lifted his hideousand deformed foot. 

"That is scarcely sufficient guarantee, " I answered, "in a matter ofthis importance. A detail like that could easily be counterfeited, orotherwise provided for. "

"My badge, " and the man produced from his waistcoat pocket a silver staridentical with the one I carried on my braces, but bearing only theletter "G" above the inscription "Abt. VII. "

"That, even, " I retorted, "is not conclusive. "

Clubfoot's mind was extraordinarily alert, however gross and heavy hisbody might be. 

He paused for a moment in reflection, his hands crossed upon his greatpaunch. 

"Why not?" he said suddenly, reached out for his cigar-case, beside himon the table, and produced three slips of paper highly glazed andcovered with that unforgettable, sprawling hand, a portion of a gildedcrest at the top--in short, the missing half of the document I had foundin Semlin's bag. Clubfoot held them out fanwise for me to see, but wellout of my reach, and he kept a great, spatulate thumb over the top ofthe first sheet where the name of the addressee should have been. 

"I trust you are now convinced, Herr Doktor, " he said, with a smile thatbared his teeth, and, putting the pieces together, he folded themacross, tucked them away in the cigar-case again, and thrust it into hispocket. 

I must test the ground further. 

"Has it occurred to you, Herr Doktor, " I asked, "that we have verylittle time at our disposal? The person whom we serve must be anxiouslywaiting.... "

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 thecase, for it has no commercial value. The person you speak of is not inBerlin. "

I had heard something of the Kaiser's sudden appearances anddisappearances during the war, but I had not thought they could be sowell managed as to be kept from the knowledge of one of his own trustedservants, for such I judged Clubfoot to be. Evidently, he knew nothingof my visit to the Castle that evening, and I was for a momentunpatriotic enough to wish I had kept my half of the letter that I mightgive it to Clubfoot now to save the coming exposure. "A thousanddollars!" Clubfoot said. 

I remained silent. 

"Two? Three? Four thousand? Man, you are greedy. Well, I will make itfive thousand--twenty thousand marks.... "

"Herr Doktor, " I said, "I don't want your money. I want to be fair withyou. When the ... The person we know of sends for you, we will gotogether. 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 thoserousing, splendidly accented Viennese waltzes. There seemed to be a ballon, for through the open door of the room, I heard, mingled with thestrains 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 thetelegram. So as not to seem to observe him, I got up and walked acrossto 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 isquite unacceptable. I have told you with great frankness why it isnecessary that I should have your portion of the document and the sum Iam prepared to pay for it. I set its value at five thousand dollars. Iwill pay you the money over in cash, here and now, in good Germanbank-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 beenless agitated, I should have noted this, as a portent of the comingstorm, also his great ape's hands picking nervously at the telegram inhis 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. Wewaste 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. Itook a good grip with my hands of the marble slab covering the radiatorbehind me to give me confidence. The slab yielded: mechanically I notedthat 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 wordswell. Do you know what happened to the man that stole that document? TheEnglish took him out and shot him on account of what was found in hishouse when they raided it. Do you know what happened to the interpreterat the internment camp, who was our go-between, who played us false bycutting the document in half? The English shot _him_ too, on account ofwhat was found in letters that came to him openly through the post? Andwho settled Schulte? And who settled the other man? Who contrived thetraps that sent them to their doom? It was _I_, Grundt, _I_, thecripple, _I_, the Clubfoot, that had these traitors despatched as anexample to the six thousand of us who serve our Emperor and empire indarkness! 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 withhis Berserker frenzy. 

But he kept away from me, and I saw that he was still fighting topreserve his self-control. 

I maintained a bold front. 

"This may do for your own people, " I said contemptuously, "but itdoesn'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 atme:

"You fool! Blind, besotted fool! Do you think you can trifle with themight of the German Empire? Ah! I've played a pretty game with you, youdirty English dog! I've watched you squirming and writhing whilst thestupid German told you his pretty little tale and plied you with hiswine and his cigars. You're in our power now, you miserable Englishhound! Do you understand that? Now call on your fleet to come and saveyou!

"Listen! I'll be frank with you to the last. I've had my suspicions ofyou from the first, when they telephoned me that you had escaped fromthe hotel, but I wanted to make _sure_. Ever since you have been in thisroom it has been in my power to push that bell there and send you toSpandau, where they rid us of such dirty dogs as you. 

"But the game amused me. I liked to see the Herr Englander playing thespy against _me_, the master of them all. Do you know, you fool, thatold Schratt knows English, that she spent years of her harlot's life inLondon, and that when you allowed her a glimpse of that passport, yourown 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 wasfrom Schratt, our faithful Schratt, who shall have a bangle for thisnight's work, to say that the corpse at the hotel has a chain round itsneck with an identity disc in the name of Semlin. Ha! you didn't knowthat either, did you?

"And _you_ would bargain and chaffer with me! _You_ would dictate yourterms, you scum! _You_ with your head in a noose, a spy that has failedin his mission, a miserable wretch that I can send to his death with aflip of my little finger! You impudent hound! Well, you'll get yourdeserts this time, Captain Desmond Okewood ... But I'll have that paperfirst!"

Roaring "Give it to me!" he rushed at me like some frenzied beast of thejungle. The veins stood out at his temples, his hairy nostrils openedand closed as his breath came faster, his long arms shot out and hisgreat paws clutched at my throat. 

But I was waiting for him. As he came at me, I heard his clubfoot stumponce on the polished floor, then, from the radiator behind me, I raisedhigh in my arms the heavy marble slab, and with every ounce of strengthin my body brought it crashing down on his head. 

He fell like a log, the blood oozing sluggishly from his head on to theparquet. I stopped an instant, snatched the cigar-case from the pocketwhere 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 passfrom one to the other without going into the corridor at all. Schmalzhad retired this way, going from my room through the bathroom to his ownroom. In the excitement of the moment I forgot all about this, else Ishould not have omitted such an elementary precaution as slipping thebolt of the door communicating between my room and the bathroom. 

As I stepped out into the corridor, with the crash of that heavy bodystill ringing in my ears, I thought I caught the sound of a light stepin the bathroom; the next moment I heard a door open and then a loudexclamation of horror in the room I had just left. 

The corridor was dim and deserted. The place seemed uninhabited. Noboots stood outside the rooms, and open doors, one after the other, weresufficient indication that the apartments they led to were untenanted. 

I didn't pause to reason or to plan. On hearing that long drawn out cryof horror, I dashed blindly down the corridor at top speed, followed itround to the right and then, catching sight of a small staircase, rushedup it three steps at a time. As I reached the top I heard a loud crysomewhere on the floor below. Then a door banged, there was the sound ofrunning feet and ... Silence. 

I found myself on the next floor in a corridor similar to the one I hadjust left. Like it, it was desolate and dimly lit. Like it, it showedroom after room silent and empty. Agitated as I was, the contrast withthe bright and busy vestibule and the throng of uniformed servants belowwas so marked that it struck me with convincing force. Even the hotels, it seemed, were part and parcel of the great German publicity bluffwhich 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 aspossible between me and that ape-man in the room below. So, afterpausing a moment to listen and draw breath, I started off again. Suddenly a door down the corridor, not ten paces away from me, openedand a woman came out. I stopped dead in my headlong course, but it wastoo late and I found myself confronting her. 

She was young and very beautiful with masses of thick brown hairclustering round a very white forehead. She was in evening dress, allin 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 werebanging, there was the sound of feet. 

The girl was speaking, saying in her low and pleasant voice phrases thatwere vague to me about her surprise, her delight at seeing me. But I didnot listen to her. I was straining my ears towards that volume ofchaotic noises which came swelling up from below. 

"Monica!" I interrupted swiftly, "have you any place to hide me? Thisplace 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 afterme 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. Shebeckoned to me, then knocked and went in. I followed her. It was a big, pleasant bedroom, elegantly furnished with a soft carpet and silkhangings, and I know not what, with shaded lights and flowers inprofusion. Sitting up in bed was a stout, placid-looking woman in a pinksilk kimono with her hair coquettishly braided in two short pigtailswhich 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 theUnited 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 helplaughing. She had dragged the bed-clothes up till only her eyes could beseen. Her pigtails bobbed about in her emotion. 

"Now, Mary dear, listen here. You're a friend of mine. This is DesmondOkewood, another, a very old and dear friend of mine too. Well, youknow, Mary, this isn't a healthy country these times for an Englishofficer. That's what Desmond here is. I didn't know he was in Germany. Idon't know a thing about him except what he's told me and that's thathe's in danger and wants me to help him. I met him outside and broughthim 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 besomewhat mollified. 

"I can't say I approve of your way of doing things, Monica, " sheobserved, but less severely than before, "and I can't think what anEnglish officer wants in my bedroom at ten minutes of two in themorning, but if those Deutschers want to find him, perhaps I canunderstand!"

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 ittoo 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 friendtoo... She looked a white woman all right. And if she was a friend ofMonica's, her heart would be in the right place. Francis and I had knownMonica all our lives almost. Her father had lived for years ... Indeedto the day of his death ... In London as the principal Europeanrepresentative of a big American financial house. They had lived nextdoor to us in London and Francis and I had known Monica from the dayswhen she was a pretty kid in short skirts until she had made her debutand the American ambassadress had presented her at Buckingham Palace. Atvarious stages of our lives, both Francis and I had been in love withher, I believe, but my life in the army had kept me much abroad, soFrancis 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 Americanchaperon and a retinue of retainers. I never knew the rights of the casebetween her and Francis, but at one of the German embassies abroad--Ithink in Vienna--she met the young Count Rachwitz, head of one of thegreat Silesian noble houses, and married him. 

It was not on the usual rock--money--that this German-American marriagewas wrecked, for the Count was very wealthy himself. I had supposed thatthe German man's habitual attitude of mind towards women had not suitedthe girl's independent spirit on hearing that Monica, a few years afterher marriage, had left her husband and gone to live in America. I hadnot seen her since she left London, and, though we wrote to one anotherat intervals, I had not heard from her since the war started and had noidea that she had returned to Germany. Monica Rachwitz was, in fact, thelast person I should ever have expected to meet in Berlin in war-time. 

So, as briefly as I could and listening intently throughout for anysounds from the corridor, I gave the two women the story of thedisappearance of Francis and my journey into Germany to look for him. Atthe mention of my brother's name, I noticed that the girl stiffened andher face grew rigid, but when I told her of my fears for his safety herblue eyes seemed to me to grow dim. I described to them my adventure inthe hotel at Rotterdam, my reception in the house of General von Boden, and my interview at the Castle, ending with the experiences of thatnight, the trap laid for me at the hotel and my encounter with Clubfootin the room below. Two things only I kept back: the message from Francisand the document. I decided within myself that the fewer people in thosesecrets the safer they would be. I am afraid, therefore, that my accountof my interview with the Emperor was a trifle garbled, for I made outthat I did not know why I was bidden to the presence and that ourconversation was interrupted before I could discover the reason. 

The two women listened with grave faces. Only once did Monica interruptme. It was when I mentioned General von Boden. 

"I know the beast, " she said. "But, oh, Des!" she exclaimed, "you seemto have fallen right among the top set in this country. They're a badlot to cross. I fear you are in terrible danger. "

"I believe you, Monica, " I answered, dolefully enough. "And that's justwhere I feel such a beast for throwing myself upon your mercy in thisway. But I was pretty desperate when I met you just now and I didn'tknow where to turn. Still, I want you to understand that if you can onlyget me out of this place I shall not trouble you further. I came to thiscountry on my own responsibility and I'm going through with it alone. Ihave no intention of implicating anybody else along with me. But Iconfess 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. Footstepswere approaching along the corridor. I heard doors open and shut. Theywere hunting for me, floor by floor, room by room. 

"Open that wardrobe, " said a voice from the bed: a firm, business-likevoice that was good to hear. "Open it and get right in, young man; butdon'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 goto the door and ask them what they mean by making this noise at thistime of night with me ill and all!"

I got into the wardrobe and Monica shut me in. I heard the bedroom dooropen, then voices. I waited patiently for five minutes, then thewardrobe door opened again. 

"Come out, Des, " said Monica, "and thank Mary Prendergast for hercleverness. "

"What did they say?" I asked. 

"That reception clerk was along. He was most apologetic--they know mehere, you see. He told me how a fellow had made a desperate attack upona gentleman on the floor below and had got away. They thought he must behiding somewhere in the hotel. I told him I'd been sitting here for anhour 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 thejovial 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 theBendler-Strasse, " she said. "You remember Gerry, Des--he got all smashedup flying, you know, and is practically a cripple. He's been so muchbetter 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 scarcenowadays! You could come home with me, Des, and take this man's placefor a day or two ... I'm afraid it couldn't be longer, for one wouldhave 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 Ican't accept. "

"It's no risk for a day or two, " she said. "I am a person of consequencein official Germany, you know, with my husband A. D. C. To Marshal vonMackensen: and I can always say I forgot to send in your papers. If theycome down upon me afterwards I should say I meant to register you buthad 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 attwo--it must be that now--I have been at a dance downstairs--one of theRadolin girls is getting married to-morrow--it was so deadly dull I ranup 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 aMercédès. "

"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 tiredin any case, but my desperate position kept my thoughts so busy that, for all my endeavours to be polite, I fear my conversation was extremelydistraught. 

"You poor boy!" suddenly said Miss Mary Prendergast, totally ignoring aprofound remark I was making regarding Mr. Wilson's policy, "don't yougo on talking to me! Sit down on that chair and go to sleep! You lookjust beat!"

I sat down and nodded in the arm-chair. 

Suddenly I was awake. Monica stood before me. She drew from under hercape a livery cap and uniform. 

"Put these things on, " she said, "and listen carefully. When you leavehere, turn to the right and take the little staircase you will find onthe right. Go down to the bottom, go through the glass doors, and acrossthe room you will find there, to a door in a corner which leads to theballroom 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 escortme to the car. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly. "

"Now, pay attention once more, for I shall not be able to speak to youagain. I shall have to give you your directions for finding the way tothe Bendler-Strasse. "

She did so and added:

"Drive carefully, whatever you do. If we had a smash and the policeintervened, 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'sAmerican, you see ... He drove me out into the Tiergarten just now andtook 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 droveCount Rachwitz, my husband, while he was on duty there. And Carterhasn't forgotten what he saw in Belgium!"

She gave me the key of the garage and further instructions how to putthe car up. Carter would give me a bed at the garage and would bring meround to the house early in the morning as if I were applying for thejob 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'sdance have got hold of the story and the place is full of policemen. Butthere'll be no danger if you walk straight up to me in the hall andkeep your face turned away from the crowd as much as possible. "

She kissed Miss Prendergast and slipped away. What a splendid pair ofwomen they were: so admirably cool and resourceful: they seemed to havethought of everything. 

"Good night, Miss Prendergast, " I said. "You have done me a good turn. Ishall never forget it!" And as the only means at my disposal for showingmy 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, speakingpersonally, that Monica ever cared enough about me for me to pleadguilty. "

She sniffed contemptuously. 

"If that is so, " she said, "all I can say is that you seem to have allthe brains of your family!"

With that I took my leave. 

 * * * * *

I reached the ballroom vestibule without meeting a soul. The place wascrowded 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 denseknots of people that at first I couldn't see Monica. Two policemen werestanding at the swing-doors leading into the street, and with them acivilian who looked like a detective. I caught sight of Monica, almostat the detective's elbow, talking to two very elegant-looking officers. I pushed my way across the vestibule, turned my back on the detectiveand stood impassively beside her. 

"Ah! there you are, Carter!" she said. "Gute Nacht, Herr Baron! Aufwiedersehen, Durchlaucht!"

The two officers kissed her hand whilst I helped her into her wrap. ThenI marched straight out of the swing-doors in front of her, lookingneither 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 hadmade up my mind not to see him. 

Outside Monica took the lead and brought me over to a chocolate-colouredlimousine drawn up at the pavement. I noted with dismay that the enginewas stopped. That might mean further delay whilst I cranked up. But afriendly chauffeur standing by seized the handle and started the enginewhilst I assisted Monica into the car, and the next moment we weregliding 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 thatboth Monica and I played our parts well, and I am sure nothing couldhave been more professional than the way I helped her to alight. It wasan apartment house and she had the key of the front door, so, afterseeing her safely within doors, I returned to the car and drove it roundto 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 ladderoutside 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 runher 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 brightlittle room with electric light, a table with a red cloth, a cheerfulopen fire and two beds. The walls were ornamented with pictures cut fromthe 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 sleepanywheres!"

He was a friendly fellow, pleasant-looking in an ugly way, with a buttonnose and honest eyes. 

"Say, but I like to think of the way we fooled them Deutschers, " hechuckled. He kept on chuckling to himself whilst I took off my boots andbegan to undress. 

"That there is your bed, " he said, pointing; "the footman used to sleepthere but they grabbed him for the army. There's a pair of Mr. Gerry'spyjamas 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 togo to sleep mortal bad, so I'll be going down. The bed's clean... Thereare 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 myselfcomfortable down in the garage. I don't often see a gentleman in thisdawg-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 Iheard 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 anddreamless sleep. 

CHAPTER XII

HIS EXCELLENCY THE GENERAL IS WORRIED

I sat with Monica in her boudoir, which, unlike the usual run of Germanrooms, had an open fireplace in which a cheerful fire was burning. Monica, in a ravishing kimono, was perched on the leather railed seatrunning round the fireplace, one little foot in a satin slipper held outto the blaze. In that pretty room she made a charming picture, which fora moment almost made me forget the manifold dangers besetting me. 

The doughty Carter had acquitted himself nobly of his task. When Iawoke, feeling like a giant refreshed, he had the fire blazing merrilyin the fireplace, while on the table a delicious breakfast of tea andfried eggs and biscuits was spread. 

"There ain't no call to mess yourself up inside with that dam' war breadof theirs, " he chirped. "Miss Monica, she lets me have biscuits, samelike 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 Iused to work. "

After breakfast he produced hot water, a safety razor and other toiletrequisites, a clean shirt and collar, an overcoat and a Stetson hat--allfrom Gerry's wardrobe, I presumed. My boots, too, were beautifullypolished, and it was as a new man altogether, fresh in mind and clean inbody, that I presented myself, about ten o'clock in the morning, at thefront door and demanded the "Frau Gräfin. " By Carter's advice I hadremoved my moustache, and my clean-shaven countenance, together with myblack felt hat and dark overcoat, gave me, I think, that appearance ofrather 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 leadsinto Gerry's room: he was asleep when I went in just now. I'll take youinto him presently. Now tell me about yourself ... And Francis!"

I told her again, but at greater length, all I knew about Francis, hismission 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 havewalked straight into a mesh of the most appalling complications whichreach right up to the Throne. "

"Never mind, Des, " she said, leaning over and putting a little hand onmy 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 notnow be in the fix he is.... "

And she sighed. 

"Things look black enough, Des, " she went on. "Maybe you and I won't getthe chance of another chat like this again and that's why I'm going totell you something I have never told anybody else. I am only telling youso as you will know that, whatever happens, you will always find in mean ally in your search ... Though, tied as I am, I scarcely think I canever help you much. 

"Your brother wanted me to marry him. I liked him better thananybody else I had ever met ... Or have ever met since, for thatmatter.... Daddy was dead, I was absolutely free to please myself, so nodifficulties stood in the way. But your brother was proud ... His pridewas greater than his love for me, I told him when we parted ... And hewouldn't hear of marriage until he had made himself independent, thoughI had enough for both of us. He wanted me to wait a year or two untilhe had got his business started properly, but his pride angered me andI wouldn't. 

"So we quarrelled and I went abroad with Mrs. Rushwood. Francis neverwrote: 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 tocourt, always looking for what she called a suitable _pari_ for me. AtVienna we met Rachwitz ... He was very good looking and very wellmannered and seemed to be really fond of me. 

"Well, I gave Francis another chance. I wrote him a friendly letter andtold him about Rachwitz wanting to marry me and asked his advice. Hewrote me back a beastly letter, a wicked letter, Des. 'Any girl who isfool enough to sell herself for a title, ' he said, 'richly deserves aGerman 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 miserableever since. I'm not going to bore you with a long story about mymatrimonial 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 hislove affairs and his drunken parties and his attitude of mind towardsme ... 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 fromthat. My husband's country ... My country ... Is at war and the wivesmust play their part, wherever their heart is. Karl never asked me tocome back, I'll give him the credit for that. I came of my own accordbecause I felt my place was here. So I go round to needlework partiesand sewing bees and Red Cross matinées and try to be civil to the Germanwomen and listen to their boasting and bragging about their army, theirhypocrisy about Belgium, their vilification of the best friends Daddyand I ever had, you English! But doing my duty by my husband does notforbid me to help my friends when they are in danger. That's why you cancount 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 muchbecause my secret is not healthy for anyone to share, and, should theytrace any connection between you and me, if they get me, it will bebetter for you not to have known anything compromising. But I want totell you this. There is a consideration at stake which is higher thanmy own safety, higher even than Francis'. I don't believe I am afraid todie: if I escape here, I shall probably get killed at the front sooneror later: it is because of this consideration I speak of that I want toget away with my life back to England. "

Monica laughed happily. 

"Why do men always take us women to be fools?" she said. "You're adangerous man to have around, Des, I know that, without worrying my headabout any old secret. But you are my friend and Francis' brother and I'mgoing to help you. 

"Now, listen! Old von Boden was at that party last night: he came inlate. Rudi von Boden, he told me, is going to take despatches toRumania, to Mackensen's head-quarters. Well, I telephoned the old manthis 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 fetchit. 

"Von Boden is an old beast and runs after every woman he meets. He is byway of being partial to me, if you please, sir. I think I should be ableto find out from him what are the latest developments in your case. There's nothing in the paper this morning about the affair at theEsplanade. 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 inthis country is so low that the women in the army set at Court are veryoften far better informed than the General Staff. Von Boden will tell meall I want to know. "

What a girl she was!

"About your friend, the clubfooted man, " she went on, "I'm ratherpuzzled. He must be a person of considerable importance to be fetched byspecial train straight into the Emperor's private apartments, where veryfew 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 PoliticalPolice ... That's Henninger, a friend of Karl's. Still, there are peopleof great importance working in dark places in this country and I guessClubfoot must be one of them. 

"Now, I think I ought to take you into Gerry. I want to speak to youabout 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 meharbouring 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 toread 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 tobe Pittsburg: Francis went there for a bit, you know: he wrote me a lotabout the place and I've seen pictures of it, too. It's the onlyAmerican city I know anything about. "

"Let it be Meyer from Pittsburg, then, " smiled Monica, "but you've got aterrible English accent, Des. I guess we'll have to tell Gerry you wereyears 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 irritableand ... And very spiteful. So you must be careful not to give yourselfaway. "

I had only met the brother once and my recollection of him was of a goodlooking, rather spoilt young man. He had been brought up entirely in theStates 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'llsleep in the little room off Gerry's and I'll have your meals servedthere 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 hehas only seen me once, he knows Francis pretty well and we are ratheralike. Do you think he'll recognize me?"

"Why, Desmond, it's years since he saw you. And you're not much likeFrancis 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 someoneto look after you a bit. Come here, Meyer! This is Frederick Meyer, Gerry!"

I should never have recognized the handsome, rather indolent youth I hadmet in London in the pale man with features drawn with pain who gazedfrowningly 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 leaveus, 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 animpossible creature the man was. Nothing I could do was right. Now hedidn't want to hear the war news, then it was the report of theReichstag debate that bored him, now I didn't read loud enough, then myvoice jarred on him. Finally, he snatched the paper out of my hand. 

"I can't understand half you say, " he cried in accents shrill withirritability; "you mouth and mumble like an Englishman. You say you arean American?"

"Yes, sir, " I answered meekly, "but I resided for many years inEngland. "

"Well, it's a good thing you're not there now. Those English are justplumb 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 standagainst her! It's organization, that's what it is! The Germans lead theworld. Take their doctors! I have been to every specialist in Americaabout my back and paid them thousands of dollars. And what good did theydo me? Not a thing. I come to Germany, they charge me a quarter of thefees, 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 byGerman efficiency and thoroughness so completely that he does not seethe 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, thepapers 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 thepapers. "

"Of course there is, you fool. What is the use of my hiring you to readthe papers to me if you can't find news that's spread all over theplace? 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 anEnglish spy assaulting a man at the Esplanade last night?"

"Dot ain't in de paper, sir. I haf heard dis from de chauffeur of deBiedermanns next door. He wass at de hotel himself wid hiss shentlemanlars' 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 toread on and be damned. 

I read to the young American all the morning. He went on exactly like avery badly brought up child. He was fretful and quarrelsome andsometimes abusive, and I had some difficulty in keeping my temper. Hecontinually recurred to my English accent and jeered so offensively andso pointedly at what he called "your English friends" that I began tobelieve there was some purpose behind his attitude. But it was only partof his invalid's fractiousness, for when the valet, Josef, appeared withthe luncheon tray, the American seemed anxious to make amends for hisbehaviour. 

"I'm afraid I'm a bit trying at times, Meyer, " he said with a pleasantsmile. "But you're a good fellow. Go and have your lunch. You needn'tcome 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 thevalet into an adjoining room, where the table was laid for me. I amkeenly sensitive to outside influences, and I felt instinctivelydistrustful of the man Josef. I expect he resented my intrusion into asphere where his influence had probably been supreme and where he haddoubtless 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 abook 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, andthat'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 neveraccused him of cowardice. But, Des, to-day the man was cowed. He seemedto be in terror of his life and I had the greatest difficulty in makinghim say anything at all about your affair. 

"I made a joking allusion to the escapade at the hotel last night and hesaid:

"'Yesterday may prove the ruin of not only my career but that of myson's also. Yesterday gained for me as an enemy, Madam, a man whom itspells ruin, perhaps death, to offend. '

"'You mean the Emperor?' I asked. 

"'The Emperor!' he said. 'Oh! of course, he's furious. No, I was notspeaking of the Emperor!'

"Then he changed the subject and it took me all my tact to get back toit. I asked him if they had caught the author of the attack at theEsplanade. He said, no, but it was only a question of time: the fellowcouldn't escape. I said I supposed they would offer a reward and publisha description of the assailant all over the country. He told me theywould do nothing of the sort. 

"'The public will hear nothing about the affair, ' he said, 'and if youwill take my advice, Countess, you will forget all about it. In anycase, the Princess Radolin is writing to all her guests at the ball lastnight to urge them strongly to say nothing about the incident. Theemployees of the hotel will keep their mouths shut. The interests atstake forbid that there should be any attempt whatsoever made in publicto throw light on the affair. '

"That is all I could get out of him. But I have something further totell you. The General went away immediately after lunch. Almost as soonas 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 sameadvice as the General, namely, to forget all about what occurred at theEsplanade last night. And then the Princess Radolin rang me up to saythe 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, ifI am discovered in your house, there is no knowing what trouble may notcome 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 theymight find out where you had been hiding and then we should be as badlyoff as before. No, you stay right on here, and maybe in a day or two Ican get you away. I've been thinking something out. 

"Karl has a place near the Dutch frontier, Schloss Bellevue, it iscalled, close to Cleves. It's an old place and has been in the familyfor generations. Karl, however, only uses it as a shooting-box: we hadbig shoots up there every autumn before the war. 

"There has been no shooting there for two years now and the place isoverstocked with game. The Government has been appealing to people withshooting preserves to kill their game and put it on the market, so I hadarranged to go up to Bellevue this month and see the agent about this. Ithought if I could prevail on Gerry to come with me, you could accompanyhim and you might get across the Dutch frontier from there. It's onlyabout 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 themeantime you'll be quite safe here. "

I told her I must think it over: she seemed to be risking too much. ButI think my mind was already made up. I could not bring destruction onthis faithful friend. 

Then I went upstairs again to Gerry, who was in as vile a temper asbefore. His lunch had disagreed with him: he hadn't slept: the room wasnot hot enough ... These were a few of the complaints he showered at meas soon as I appeared. He was in his most impish and malicious mood. Hesent me running hither and thither: he gave me an order and withdrew itin the same breath: my complacency seemed to irritate him, to encouragehim 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 gentlemanlike you, " he said, "but I believe you'll as lief speak as you weretaught before you're through with this city. An English accent is nothealthy in Berlin at present, Mister Meyer, sir, and you'd best learn totalk 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 havingthe police in here because some of their dam' plain-clothes men haveheard my attendant saying 'charnce' and 'darnce' like anyBritisher--especially with this English spy running round loose. By theway, 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 geta 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 washarping 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 himselfinto a fine state by the time she appeared. 

"What's this I hear, Monica?" he cried in his high-pitched, querulousvoice. "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. "GoodGod, how can you be so shiftless? A law is a law. The man's papers mustbe 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 isnot quite in order and I shall have to take it to the embassy before Isend 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 inthe 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'thave unknown foreigners brought in, with the city thick withspies--especially people with an English accent--his nerves wouldn'tstand it: Monica ought to know better, and so on and so forth. The longand the short of it was that I was ordered to produce my passportimmediately. Monica was to ring up the embassy to ask them to stretch apoint and see to it out of office hours, then Josef should take me roundto the police. 

I don't know how we got out of that room. It was Monica, with her sweetwomanly tact, who managed it. I believe the madman even demanded to seemy 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 mycoat, then went to Monica in the morning-room. 

There was much she wanted to say--I could see it in her eyes--but Ithink she gathered from my face what I was going to do, so she saidnothing. 

At the door I said aloud, for the benefit of Josef, who was on thestairs:

"Very good, my lady. I will come straight back from the embassy and thengo 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 thehouse might be watched, but I found the Bendler-Strasse quiteundisturbed. It ran its quiet, aristocratic length to the tangle ofbare branches marking the Tiergarten-Strasse with not so much asa dog to strike terror into the heart of the amateur spy. Even in theTiergarten-Strasse, where the Jewish millionaires live, there was littletraffic and few people about, and I felt singularly unromantic as Iwalked briskly along the clean pavements towards Unter den Linden. 

Once more the original object of my journey into Germany stood clearlybefore me. An extraordinary series of adventures had deflected me frommy course, but never from my purpose. I realized that I should neverfeel happy in my mind again if I left Germany without being assured asto my brother's fate. And now I was on the threshold either of a greatdiscovery or of an overwhelming disappointment. 

For the street called In den Zelten was my next objective. I knew Imight be on the wrong track altogether in my interpretation of what Iwas pleased to term in my mind the message from Francis. If I had readit falsely--if, perhaps, it were not from him at all--then all the hopesI had built on this mad dash into the enemy's country would collapselike 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 alldifficulties. I would trust in my destiny to the last. 

I had taken the precaution of turning up my overcoat collar and ofpulling my hat well down over my eyes, but no one troubled me. Ireflected that only Clubfoot and Schmalz were in a position to recognizeme and that, if I steered clear of places like hotels and restaurantsand railway stations, where criminals always seem to be caught, I mightcontinue to enjoy comparative immunity. But the trouble was the passportquestion. That reminded me. 

I must get rid of Semlin's passport. As I walked along I tore it intotiny 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 flashin the eyes of the ignorant. But this passport was dangerous. It mightdenounce 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 alongwith crutches. Finally, I found it, a narrowish street running off acorner of the great square in front of the Reichstag. No. 2 was thesecond house on the right. 

I had no plan. Nevertheless, I walked boldly upstairs. There was but oneflat 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 theman 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 seeif the Herr can receive you. "

He led the way through a hall into a sitting-room and left me there. Theplace was a perfect museum of art treasures, old Dutch and Italianmasters on the walls, some splendid Florentine chests, a fine olddresser loaded with ancient pewter. On a mantelshelf was anextraordinary collection of old keys, each with its label. "Key of thefortress of Spandau, 1715. " "Key of the Postern Gate of the Pasha'sPalace at Belgrade, 1810, " "House Key from Nuremberg, 1567, " were someof 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 abald 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, pausingjust long enough before he pronounced the name I gave to let me see thathe believed it to be a pseudonym. 

"I believe you know a friend of mine, whose address I am anxious tofind, " I said. 

"Ah!" sighed the little Jew, "a man of affairs like myself meets so manypeople that he may be pardoned.... What did you say his name was, thisfriend of yours?"

I thought I would try the effect of the name "Eichenholz" upon thisenigmatic creature. 

"Eichenholz? Eichenholz?" Kore repeated. 

"I seem to know the name ... It seems familiar ... Now let me seeagain.... Eichenholz, Eichenholz. ... "

While he was speaking he unlocked one of the oak cabinets and a safecame to view. Opening this, he brought out a ledger and ran his fingerdown the names. Then he shut the book, replaced it, locked the safe andthe 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 fromnowhere, you introduce yourself as Meyer; you ask me 'Who?' and 'What?'and 'Where?'--questions that, mark you, in my business, may havevaluable answers. We private enquiry agents must live, my dear sir, wemust eat and drink like other men, and these are hard times, very hardtimes. 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 lizardeyes. 

"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 HerrEichenholz! Who'd have thought of that? Brilliant, brilliant!"

"As you say, Herr Kore, enquiry agents must live, and I am quiteprepared 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. Thecharge is five hundred marks. My client said to me the last time I sawhim, 'Kore, ' he said, 'if one should come asking news of me you willgive 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 ingulden ... And I'll pay!"

He manipulated a stump of pencil on a writing block and I paid him hismoney. 

Then he said:

"Boonekamp!"

"Boonekamp?" I echoed stupidly. 

"That's the word, " the little Jew chuckled, laughing at my dumbfoundedexpression, "and, if you want to know, I understand it as little as youdo. "

"But ... Boonekamp, " I repeated. "Is it a man's name, a place? It soundsDutch. 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 tohis brother, I might be able to throw light.... "

"What service did you render to my brother?" I demanded hastily. "I'm inthe dark. "

"Has the gentleman no little difficulty perhaps? ... About his militaryservice, about his papers? The gentleman is young and strong ... Has hebeen to the front? Was life irksome there? Did he ever long for thesweets of home life? Did he never envy those who have been medicallyrejected? The rich men's sons, perhaps, with clever fathers who know howto 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 rightshop, as his gracious brother did. How can we serve the gentleman now?What are his requirements? It is a difficult, a dangerous business. Itcosts 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 seehow 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 thesignificance of this word. But I can tell you this, your brother, thanksto my intervention, found himself placed in a situation in which hemight well have come across this word.... "

"Well?" I said impatiently. 

"Well, if we obliged the gentleman as we obliged his brother, thegentleman might be taken where his brother was taken, the gentleman isyoung and smart, he might perhaps find a clue ... "

"Stop talking riddles, for Heaven's sake!" I cried in exasperation, "andanswer my questions plainly. First, what did you do for my brother?"

"Your brother had deserted from the front--that is the most difficultclass of business we have to deal with--we procured him a _permis deséjour_ for fifteen days and a post in a safe place where no enquirieswould 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 gaveme the instructions I have repeated to you for anybody who should comeasking 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 badnews from France. "

The message was dated July 1st, I remembered. 

"I have a good set of Swedish papers, " the Jew continued, "veryrespectable timber merchant ... With those one could live in the besthotels and no one say a word. Or Hungarian papers, a party rejectedmedically ... Very safe those, but perhaps the gentleman doesn't speakHungarian. 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 reallydaren't! They are making it too dangerous. "

"Come, come!" I said, "you were boasting just now that you could smoothout any difficulties. You can produce me a very satisfactory passportfrom somewhere, I am sure!"

"Passport! Out of the question, my dear sir! Let once one of mypassports go wrong and I am ruined. Oh, no! no passports where desertersare concerned! I don't like the business ... It's not safe! At thebeginning of the war ... Ah! that was different! Oi, oi, but they ranfrom the Yser and from Ypres! Oi, oi, and from Verdun! But now thepolice are more watchful. No! It is not worth it! It would cost you toomuch money, besides. "

I thought the miserable cur was trying to raise the price on me, but Iwas mistaken. He was frightened: the business was genuinely distastefulto him. 

I tried, as a final attempt to persuade him, an old trick: I showed himmy money. He wavered at once, and, after many objections, protesting tothe 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 overpersuadedme and I liked Herr Eichenholz, a noble gentleman and free with hismoney--see here, the papers of a waiter, Julius Zimmermann, called upwith the Landwehr but discharged medically unfit, military pay-book and_permis de séjour_ for fifteen days. These papers are only a guaranteein case you come across the police: no questions will be asked where Ishall send you. "

"But a fifteen days' permit!" I said. "What am I to do at the end ofthat time?"

"Leave it to me, " Kore said craftily. "I will get it renewed for you. Itwill be all right!"

"But in the meantime.... " I objected. 

"I place you as waiter with a friend of mine who is kind to poor fellowslike 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 andlive 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 setof papers and a safe, comfortable life far away from the trenches--allsnug and secure--cheap (in spite of the danger to me), because you are alad of spirit and I liked your brother ... Ten thousand marks!"

I breathed again. Once we had reached the haggling stage, I knew thepapers would be mine all right. With Semlin's money and my own I found Ihad 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 for3600 marks--£180. 

But, even after I had paid the fellow his money, I was not done withhim. He had his eye on his perquisites. 

"Your clothes will never do, " he said; "such richness of apparel, suchfine 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 wasspread out on a sofa. He made me change into it, and then handed me athreadbare green overcoat and a greasy green felt hat. 

"So!" he said. "Now, if you don't shave for a day or two, you will lookthe part to the life!"--a remark which, while encouraging, was hardlycomplimentary. 

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 andshrunken clothes, I must say I looked a pretty villainous person, thevery antithesis of the sleek, well-dressed young fellow that had enteredthe flat half an hour before. 

"Now, Julius, " said Kore humorously, "come, my lad, and we will seek outtogether the good situation I have found for you. "

A horse-cab was at the door and we entered it together. The Jew chattedpleasantly as we rattled through the darkness. He complimented me on myready wit in deciphering Francis' message. 

"How do you like my idea?" he said, "'Achilles in his Tent'... That isthe device of the hidden part of my business--you observe the parallel, do you not?' Achilles holding himself aloof from the army and young menlike yourself who prefer the gentle pursuits of peace to the sternerprofession of war! Clients of mine who have enjoyed a classicaleducation have thought very highly of the humour of my device. "

The cab dropped us at the corner of the Friedrich-Strasse, which wasablaze with light from end to end, and the Linien-Strasse, a narrow, squalid thoroughfare of dirty houses and mean shops. The street was allbut deserted at that hour save for an occasional policeman, but fromcellars with steps leading down from the streets came the jingle ofautomatic pianos and bursts of merriment to show that the Linien-Strassewas by no means asleep. 

Before one of these cellar entrances the Jew stopped. At the foot of thesteep staircase leading down from the street was a glazed door, itspanels 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 usfull as we opened the door. At first I could see nothing except a veryfat man, against a dense curtain of smoke, sitting at a table before anenormous glass goblet of beer. Then, as the haze drifted before thedraught, I distinguished the outline of a long, low-ceilinged room, with small tables set along either side and a little bar, presided overby a tawdry female with chemically tinted hair, at the end. Most of thetables were occupied, and there was almost as much noise as smoke in theplace. 

A woman's voice screamed: "Shut the door, can't you, I'm freezing!" Iobeyed and, following Kore to a table, sat down. A man in hisshirt-sleeves, who was pulling beer at the bar, left his beer-engineand, coming across the room to Kore, greeted him cordially, and askedhim 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 ladyat the bar beckoned me over and bade me join them. 

"This is Julius Zimmermann, the young man I have spoken of, " said theJew; then turning to me:

"Herr Haase is willing to take you on as waiter here on myrecommendation, Julius, See that you do not make me repent of mykindness!"

Here the man in shirt-sleeves, a great, fat fellow with a bullet headand a huge double chin, chuckled loudly. 

"Kolossal!" he cried. "Herr Kore loves his joke! Ausgezeichnet!" And hewagged his head roguishly at me. 

On that Kore took his leave, promising to look in and see how I wasfaring in a few days' time. The landlord opened a low door in the cornerand revealed a kind of large cupboard, windowless and horribly stale andstuffy, where there were two unsavoury-looking beds. 

"You will sleep here with Otto, " said the landlord. Pointing to a dirtywhite apron lying on one of the beds, he bade me take off my overcoatand jacket and put it on. 

"It was Johann's, " he said, "but Johann won't want it any more. A goodlad, Johann, but rash. I always said he would come to a bad end. " And helaughed noisily. 

"You can go and help with the waiting now, " he went on. "Otto will showyou what to do!"

And so I found myself, within twenty-four hours, spy, male nurse andwaiter in turn. 

I am loth to dwell on the degradation of the days that followed. Thatcellar tavern was a foul sink of iniquity, and in serving the dregs ofhumanity that gathered nightly there I felt I had indeed sunk to thelowest depths. The place was a regular thieves' kitchen ... What iscalled in the hideous Yiddish jargon that is the criminal slang ofmodern Germany a "Kaschemme. " Never in my life have I seen such brutishfaces as those that leered at me nightly through the smoke haze as Ishuffled from table to table in my mean German clothes. Gallows' birds, sneak thieves, receivers, bullies, prostitutes and harpies of everydescription came together every evening in Herr Haase's beer-cellar. Many of the men wore the soiled and faded field-grey of the soldier backfrom the front, and in looking at their sordid, vulpine faces, inflamedwith 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 backfrom the front told gloatingly of rapine and feastings in lonely Belgianvillages or dwelt ghoulishly on the horrors of the battlefield, themounds of decaying corpses, the ghastly mutilations they had seen in thedead. There were tales, too, of "vengeance" wreaked on "the treacherousEnglish. " One story, in particular, of the fate of a ScottishSergeant ... "der Hochländer" they called him in this oft-toldtale ... Still makes me quiver with impotent rage when I think of it. 

One evening the name of the Hotel Esplanade caught my ear. I approachedthe table and found two flashily dressed bullies and a bedraggled drabfrom the streets talking in admiration of my exploit. 

"Clubfoot met his match that time, " the woman cried. "The dirty dog! Butwhy 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 ofthe men. "No one ever had the better of Clubfoot yet. Do you rememberMeinhardt, Franz? He tried to cheat Clubfoot, and we know what happenedto him!"

"They're raking the whole city for this Englishman, " answered the otherman. "Vogel, who works for Section Seven, you know the man I mean, wastelling me. They've done every hotel in Berlin and the suburbs, but theyhaven't found him. They raided Bauer's in the Favoriten-Strasse lastnight. The Englishman wasn't there, but they got three or four othersthey were looking for--Fritz and another deserter included. I was nearlythere myself!"

I was always hearing references of this kind to my exploit. I was neverspoken of except in terms of admiration, but the name of Clubfoot--derStelze--excited only execration and terror. 

I lived in daily fear of a raid at Haase's. Why the place had escaped solong, with all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I couldn'timagine. It was one of those defects in German organization which puzzlethe best of us at times. In the meantime, I was powerless to escape. Thefirst thing Haase had done was to take away my papers--to send them tothe police, as he explained--but he never gave them back, and when Iasked for them he put me off with an excuse. 

I was a virtual prisoner in the place. On my feet from morning tillnight, I had indeed few opportunities for going out; but once, duringa slack time in the afternoon, when I broached the subject to thelandlord, he refused harshly to let me out of his sight. 

"The street is not healthy for you just now. You would be a danger toyourself and to all of us!" he said. 

My life in that foul den was a burden to me. The living conditions wereunspeakable. Otto, a pale and ill-tempered consumptive, compelled, likeme, to rise in the darkness of the dawn, never washed, and hiscompanionship in the stuffy hole where we slept was offensive beyondbelief. 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. Andthe food! It was only when I saw the mean victuals--the coarse and oftentainted horseflesh, the unappetizing war-bread, the coffee substitute, and the rest--that I realized how Germany was suffering, though onlythrough her poor as yet, from the British blockade. That thought used tohelp to overcome the nausea with which I sat down to eat. 

Domestic life at Haase's was a hell upon earth. Haase himself was adrunken bully, who made advances to every woman he met, and whosecomplicated intrigues with the feminine portion of his clientèle led tofrequent scenes with the fair-haired Hebe who presided at the bar andover his household. It was she and Otto who fared daily forth to taketheir places in the long queues that waited for hours with food cardsoutside the provision shops. 

These trips seemed to tell upon her temper, which would flash outwrathfully at meal-times, when Haase began his inevitable grumblingabout the food. As Otto took a malicious delight in these family scenes, I was frequently called upon to assume the role of peace-maker. Morethan once I intervened to save Madame from the violence she had calleddown upon herself by the sharpness of her tongue. She was a poor, fadedcreature, and the tragedy of it all was that she was in love with thisdegraded bully. She was grateful to me for my good offices, I think, for, though she hardly ever addressed me, her manner was alwaysfriendly. 

These days of dreary squalor would have been unbearable if it had notbeen for my elucidation of the word Boonekamp, which was said to holdthe clue to my brother's address. On the wall in the cubby-hole where Islept was a tattered advertisement card of this _apéritif_--for such isthe preparation--proclaiming it to be "Germany's Best Cordial. " As Iundressed at night, I often used to stare at this placard, wonderingwhat connection Boonekamp could possibly have with my brother. Idetermined to take the first opportunity of examining the card itself. One morning, while Otto was out in the queue at the butcher's, I slippedaway from the cellar to our sleeping-place and, lighting my candle, tookdown the card and examined it closely. It was perfectly plain, redletters 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 onthe wall where the card had hung. My heart seemed to stand still withthe 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'sinitials 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 awakenedhope that was fast dying in my heart. At least on July 5th, Francis wasalive. To that fact I clung as to a sheet-anchor. It gave me courage forthe hardest part of all my experiences in Germany, those long days ofwaiting 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 hecame back, to see me, to give me a permit that would enable me to get toDüsseldorf. But the term of my permit was fast running out and the Jewnever came. 

There were often moments when I longed to ask Haase or one of the othersabout the time my brother had served in that place. But I feared to drawattention to myself. No one asked any questions of me (questions as topersonal antecedents were discouraged at Haase's), and, as long as Iremained the unpaid, useful drudge I felt that my desire for obscuritywould be respected. Desultory questions about my predecessors elicitedno information about Francis. The Haase establishment seemed to have hada 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 lovewith Frau Hedwig (the lady at the bar), then he quarrelled with Haaseand threatened him--you know, about customers who haven't got theirpapers in order. The next time Johann went out, they arrested him. Andhe 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 hadvanished. 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 grudgingapproval, though he was always ready to fly into a passion at the leastopportunity. 

One evening about six o'clock a young man, whom I had never seen amongour regular customers, came down the stairs from the street and askedfor Haase, who was asleep on the sofa in the inner room. At the sight ofthe youth, Frau Hedwig jumped off her perch behind the bar and vanished. She came back directly and, ignoring me, conducted the young man intothe inner room, where he remained for about half an hour. Then hereappeared again, accompanied by Frau Hedwig, and went off. 

I was shocked by the change in the appearance of the woman. Her face waspale, her eyes red with weeping, and her eyes kept wandering towards thedoor. It was a slack time of the day within and the cellar was free ofcustomers. 

"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 tearran down the rouge on her cheek. 

"I must speak, " she said. "I can't bear this suspense alone. You are akind young man. You are discreet. Julius, there is trouble brewing forus!"

"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 staggeringnews. 

"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 theseregulations.... "

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 allthey want to know. That means our ruin, that means that Haase will gothe same way as the Jew. 

"But Haase is stubborn, foolhardy. The messenger warned him that a raidmight 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 hesays they daren't touch him: he has been too useful to them: he knowstoo 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 manwas in a most perilous trade, and had probably been playing the game foryears. But suppose they had tracked me to the house in the street calledIn den Zelten. 

I crossed the room and opened the door to the street. I had never setfoot outside since I had come, and, hopeless as it would be for me toattempt to escape, I thought I might reconnoitre the surroundings of thebeer-cellar for the event of flight. 

I lightly ran up the stairs to the street and nearly cannoned into a manwho was lounging in the entrance. We both apologized, but he stared atme hard before he strolled on. Then I saw another man sauntering alongon the opposite side of the street. Further away, at the corner, two menwere loitering. 

Every one of them had his eyes fixed on the cellar entrance at which Iwas standing. 

I knew they could not see my face, for the street was but dimly lit, andbehind me was the dark background of the cellar stairway. I took a gripon my nerves and very deliberately lit a cigarette and smoked it, as ifI had come up from below to get a breath of fresh air. I waited alittle while and then went down. 

I was scarcely back in the cellar when Haase appeared from the innerroom, followed by the woman. He carried himself erect, and his eyes wereshining. I didn't like the man, but I must say he looked game. In hishand he carried my papers. 

"Here you are, my lad, " he said in quite a friendly tone, "put 'em inyour 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 andI 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 wereonly a couple of customers, as it was so early--when a man, a regularvisitor of ours, came down the stairs hurriedly. He went straight overto Haase and spoke into his ear. 

"Mind yourself, Haase, " I heard him say. "Do you know who had Korearrested 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 sothat the glasses rang, "they won't touch me. Not the devil himself willmake me leave this house before they come, if coming they are!"

The woman burst into tears, while Otto blinked his watery eyes interror. I sat and looked at my plate, my heart too full for words. Itwas bitter to have dared so much to get this far and then find the pathblocked, as it seemed, by an insuperable barrier. They were after me allright: the mention of Clubfoot's name, the swift, stern retribution thathad befallen Kore, made that certain--and I could do nothing. Thatcellar was a cul-de-sac, a regular trap, and I knew that if I stirred afoot from the house I should fall into the hands of those men keepingtheir silent vigil in the street. 

Therefore, I must wait, as calmly as I might, and see what the eveningwould bring forth. Gradually the cellar filled up as people drifted in, but many familiar faces, I noticed, were missing. Evidently the illtidings had spread. Once a man looked in for a glass of beer and driftedout again, leaving the door open. As I was closing it, I heard a muffledexclamation and the sound of a scuffle at the head of the stairs. It wasso 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 andfro from the bar, laden with mugs of beer and glasses of schnaps, incessantly, up and down. But I never failed, whenever there came apause in the orders, to see that my journey finished somewhere in theneighbourhood of the door. A faint hope was glimmering in my brain. 

Until the end of my life, that interminable evening in the beer-cellarwill remain stamped in my memory. I can still see the scene in its everydetail, and I know I shall carry the picture with me to the grave; thelong, low room with its blackened ceiling, the garish yellow gaslight, the smoke haze, the crowded tables, Otto, shuffling hither and hitherwith his mean and sulky air, Frau Hedwig, preoccupied at her desk, red-eyed, a graven image of woe, and Haase, presiding over thebeer-engine, silent, defiant, calm, but watchful every time the dooropened. 

When at last the blow fell, it came suddenly. A trampling of feet on thestairs, a great blowing of whistles ... Then the door was burst openjust as everybody in the cellar sprang to their feet amid exclamationsand oaths from the men and shrill screams from the women. Outlined inthe doorway stood Clubfoot, majestic, authoritative, wearing some kindof little skull-cap, such as duelling students wear, over a black silkhandkerchief bound about his head. At the sight of the man the hubbubceased on the instant. All were still save Haase, whose bull-like voiceroaring for silence broke on the quiet of the room with the force of anexplosion. 

I was in my corner by the door, pressed back against the coats and hatshanging on the wall. In front of me a frieze of frightened facesscreened me from observation. Quickly, I slipped off my apron. 

Clubfoot, after casting a cursory glance round the room, strode itslength towards the bar where Haase stood, a crowd of plain-clothes menand 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, bawledstentorianly for lights ... The moment had come to act. 

I grabbed a hat and coat from the hall, got into them somehow, anddarted to the door. In the dim light shining down the stairs from astreet lamp outside, I saw a man at the door. Apparently he was guardingit. 

"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, andshowed my star. The three dispersed in different directions calling forDrechsler. 

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 toget clear of Berlin. However swiftly Clubfoot might act, it would takehim certainly an hour and a half, I reckoned, from the discovery of myflight from Haase's to warn the police at the railway stations to detainme. If I could lay a false trail I might at the worst prolong thisperiod of grace; at the best I might mislead him altogether as to myultimate destination, which was, of course, Düsseldorf. The unknownquantity in my reckonings was the time it would take Clubfoot to sendout a warning all over Germany to detain Julius Zimmermann, waiter anddeserter, wherever and whenever apprehended. 

At the first turning I came to after leaving Haase's, tram-lines ranacross the street. A tram was waiting, bound in a southerly direction, where the centre of the city lay. I jumped on to the front platformbeside the woman driver. It is fairly dark in front and the conductorcannot see your face as you pay your fare through a trap in the doorleading to the interior of the tram. I left the tram at Unter den Lindenand walked down some side streets until I came across a quiet-lookingcafé. 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 allprobability make for the frontier. So, I judged, Clubfoot mustcalculate, though, I fancied, he must have wondered why I had not longsince attempted to escape back to England. Düsseldorf was on the mainroad 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 Rhinesteamer. But time was the paramount factor in my case. By leavingimmediately--that very night--for Düsseldorf I might possibly reachthere before the local authorities had had time to receive the warningto be on the look-out for a man answering to my description. If I couldleave behind in Berlin a really good false clue, it was just possiblethat Clubfoot might follow it up _before_ taking general dispositions tosecure my arrest if that clue failed. I decided I must gamble on thishypothesis. 

The railway guide showed that a train left for Düsseldorf from thePotsdamer Bahnhof--the great railway terminus in the very centre ofBerlin--at 12. 45 a. M. That left me roughly three-quarters of an hour tolay my false trail and catch my train. My false trail should leadClubfoot in a totally unexpected direction, I determined, for it is theunexpected that first engages the notice of the alert, detective type ofmind. I would also have to select another terminus. 

Why not Munich? A large city on the high road to a foreignfrontier--Switzerland--with authorities whose easy-going ways areproverbial in Germany. You leave Berlin for Munich from the AnhalterBahnhof, a terminus which was well suited for my purpose, as it is onlya few minutes' drive from the Potsdamer station. 

The railway guide showed there was a train leaving for Munich at 12. 30a. M. --an express. That would do admirably. Munich it should be then. 

Fortunately I had plenty of money. I had taken the precaution ofgetting Kore to change my money into German notes before we left In denZelten ... At a preposterous rate of exchange, be it said. How lost Ishould have been without Semlin's wad of notes!

I paid for my coffee and set forth again. It was 12. 15 as I walked intothe hall of the Anhalt station. 

Remembering the ruse which the friendly guide at Rotterdam had taughtme, I began by purchasing a platform ticket. Then I looked about for anofficial upon whom I could suitably impress my identity. Presently Iespied a pompous-looking fellow in a bright blue uniform and scarletcap, some kind of junior stationmaster, I thought. 

I approached him and, raising my hat, politely asked him if he couldtell 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 nottill 5. 49. "

I assumed an expression of vexation. 

"I suppose I must go by the express, " I said. "Can you tell me where thebooking-office is?"

The official pointed to a pigeon-hole and I took care to speak loudenough for him to hear me ask for a second-class ticket, single, toMunich. 

I walked upstairs and presented my Munich ticket to the collector at thebarrier. Then I hurried past the main-line platforms over the suburbanside, where I gave up my platform ticket and descended again to thestreet. 

It was just on the half-hour as I came out of the station. Not a cab tobe seen! I hastened as fast as my legs would carry me until, breathlessand panting, I reached the Potsdam terminus. The clock over the stationpointed to 12. 39. 

A long queue, composed mostly of soldiers returning to Belgium and thefront, stood in front of the booking-office. The military were gettingtheir warrants changed for tickets. I chafed at the delay, but it wasactually this circumstance which afforded me the chance of getting myticket 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 athird-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, "andlucky you are to be going to the Rhine. I'm from the Rhine myself andnow I'm going back to guarding the bridges in Belgium!"

I thanked him and wished him luck. Here at least was a witness who wasnot likely to trouble me. And with a thankful heart I bolted on to theplatform and caught the train. 

Third-class travel in Germany is not a hobby to be cultivated if yourmeans allow the luxury of better accommodation. The travelling Germanhas a habit of taking off his boots when he journeys in the train bynight--and a carriageful of lower middle-class Huns, thus unshod, inthe temperature at which railway compartments are habitually kept inGermany, is an environment which makes neither for comfort nor forsleep. 

The atmosphere, indeed, was so unbearable that I spent most of the nightin the corridor. Here I was able to destroy the papers of JuliusZimmermann, waiter ... I felt I was in greater danger whilst I had themon me ... And to assure myself that my precious document was in itsusual place--in my portfolio. It was then I made the discovery, annihilating at the first shock, that my silver badge had disappeared. Icould not remember what I had done with it in the excitement of myescape from Haase's. I remembered having it in my hand and showing it tothe 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 andthen dropped it unwittingly. I looked at the place where it had beenclasped on my braces: it was not there and I searched all my pockets forit in vain. 

I had relied upon it as a stand-by in case there were trouble at thestation in Düsseldorf. Now I found myself defenceless if I werechallenged. It was a hard knock, but I consoled myself by the reflectionthat, by now, Clubfoot knew I had this badge ... It would doubtlessfigure in any description circulated about me. 

It was a most unpleasant journey. There was some kind of choral societyon the train, occupying seven or eight compartments of the third-classcoach in which I was travelling. For the first few hours they made nighthideous with part-songs, catches and glees chanted with a volume ofsound that in that confined place was simply deafening. Then the noiseabated as one by one the singers dropped off to sleep. Presently silencefell, while the train rushed forward in the darkness bearing me towardsfresh perils, fresh adventures. 

 * * * * *

A gust of fresh air in my face, the trample of feet, loud greetings inguttural German, awoke me with a start. It was broad daylight andthrough my compartment, to which I had crept in the night, weary withstanding, filed the jovial members of the choral society, with bags intheir hands and huge cockades in their buttonholes. There was a band onthe platform and a huge choir of men who bawled a stentorian-voiced hymnof greeting. "Düsseldorf" was the name printed on the station lamps. 

All the passengers, save the members of the choral society, had left thetrain, apparently, for every carriage door stood open. I sprang to myfeet and let myself go with the stream of men. Thus I swept out of thetrain and right into the midst of the jostling crowd of bandsmen, singers and spectators on the platform. I stood with the new arrivalsuntil the hymn was ended and thus solidly _encadrés_ by theDüsseldorfers, we drifted out through the barrier into the stationcourtyard. There brakes were waiting into which the jolly choristers, guests and hosts, clambered noisily. But I walked straight on into thestreets, scarcely able to realize that no one had questioned me, that atlast, unhindered, I stood before my goal. 

Düsseldorf is a bright, clean town with a touch of good taste in itspublic buildings to remind one that this busy, industrial city has foundtime even while making money to have called into being a school of artof its own. It was a delightful morning with dazzling sunshine and aneager nip in the air that spoke of the swift, deep river that bathes thecity walls. I revelled in the clear, cold atmosphere after the foulnessof the drinking-den and the stifling heat of the journey. I exulted inthe sense of liberty I experienced at having once more eluded the grimclutches of Clubfoot. Above all, my heart sang within me at the thoughtof an early meeting with Francis. In the mood I was in, I would admit nopossibility of disappointment now. Francis and I would come together atlast. 

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 windowsand rows of tables on a covered verandah outside. It was undoubtedly a"_kolossal_" establishment after the best Berlin style. So that theremight be no mistake about the name it was placarded all over the frontof the place in gilt letters three feet high on glass panels--CaféRegina. 

It was about nine o'clock in the morning and at that early hour I hadthe place to myself. I felt very small, sitting at a tiny table, withtables on every side of me, stretching away as it were into the_Ewigkeit_, in a vast white room with mural paintings of the crassestschool of impressionism. 

I ordered a good, substantial breakfast and whiled away the time whileit was coming by glancing at the morning paper which the waiter broughtme. 

My eyes ran down the columns without my heeding what I read, for mythoughts were busy with Francis. When did he come to the café? How washe living at Düsseldorf?

Suddenly, I found myself looking at a name I knew ... It was in thepersonal paragraphs. 

"Lieut. -General Count von Boden, " the paragraph ran, "Aide-de-Camp toH. M. The Emperor, has been placed on the retired list owing toill-health. General von Boden has left for Abbazia, where he will takeup his permanent residence. " There followed the usual biographicalnotes. 

Of a truth, Clubfoot was a power in the land. 

I ate my breakfast at a table by the open door, and surveyed the busylife of the square where the pigeons circled in the sunshine. A waiterstood on the verandah idly watching the birds as they pecked at thestones. 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 inthe features of most of the customers at Haase's. I set it down to theinsufficient feeding which is general among the lower classes in Germanyto-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 thathad something strangely pathetic about it. His air of brooding sadnessseemed to attract me, and I found my eyes continually wandering back tohis face. 

And then, without warning, through some mysterious whispering of theblood, the truth came to me that this was my brother. I don't knowwhether it was a passing mood reflected in his face or the shiftinglights and shadows in his eyes that lifted the veil. I only know thatthrough those features ravaged by care and suffering and in spite ofthem 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, sodull was he with disappointment ... Me with my unshaven, unkemptappearance and in my mean German shoddy ... But stood silently, awaitingmy bidding. 

"Francis, " I said softly ... And I spoke in German ... "Francis, don'tyou know me?"

He was magnificent, strong and resourceful in his joy at our meeting ashe had been in his months of weary waiting. 

Only his mouth quivered a little as instantly his hands busiedthemselves 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 Schillerstatue at a quarter past two and we'll go for a walk. Don't stay herenow but come back and lunch in the restaurant ... It's always crowdedand 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 swiftlyflowing Rhine until we were far beyond the city. Anxious though I wasthat he should reveal to me that part of his life which lay hiddenbeneath those lines of suffering in his face, he made me tell my storyfirst. So I unfolded to him the extraordinary series of adventures thathad befallen me since the night I had blundered upon the trail of agreat secret in that evil hotel at Rotterdam. 

Francis did not once interrupt the flow of my narrative. He listenedwith the most tense interest but with a growing concern which betrayeditself clearly on his face. At the end of my story, I silently handed tohim the half of the stolen letter I had seized from Clubfoot at theHotel Esplanade. 

"Keep it, Francis, " I said. "It's safer with a respectable waiter likeyou than with a hunted outcast like myself!"

My brother smiled wanly, but his face assumed the look of grave anxietywith which he had heard my tale. He scrutinized the slips of paper veryclosely, then tucked them away in a letter-case, which he buttoned up inhis hip pocket. 

"Fortune is a strange goddess, Des, " he said, his weary eyes roving outover 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 inyour possession something for which at least five men have died in vain, something that has filled my thoughts, sleeping and waking, for morethan half a year. What you have told me throws a good deal of light uponthe mystery which I came to this cursed country to elucidate, but italso deepens the darkness which still envelops many points in theaffair. 

"You know there are issues in this game of ours, old man, that standeven higher than the confidence that there has always been between ustwo. That is why I wrote to you so seldom out in France--I could tellyou nothing about my work: that is one of the rules of our game. But nowyou 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 letterwritten by a German interned at one of the camps in England was stoppedby the Camp Censor. This German went by the name of Schulte: he wasarrested at a house in Dalston the day after we declared war onGermany. There was a good reason for this, for our friend Schulte--wedon't know his real name--was known to my Chief as one of the mostdaring and successful spies that ever operated in the British Isles. 

"Therefore, a sharp eye was kept on his correspondence, and one day thisletter was seized. It was, I believe, perfectly harmless to the eye, butthe expert to whom it was eventually submitted soon detected aconventional code in the chatty phrases about the daily life of thecamp. It proved to be a communication from Schulte to a third partyrelating to a certain letter which, apparently, the writer imagined thethird party had a considerable interest in acquiring. For he offered tosell this letter to the third party, mentioning a sum so preposterouslyhigh that it attracted the earnest attention of our Intelligence people. On half the sum mentioned being paid into the writer's account at acertain bank in London, the letter went on to say, the writer wouldforward the address at which the object in question would be found. "

"It was a simple matter to send Schulte a letter in return, agreeing tohis terms, and to have the payment made, as desired, into the bank hementioned. His communication in reply to this was duly stopped. Theaddress he gave was that of a house situated on the outskirts ofCleves. 

"We had no idea what this letter was, but its apparent value in the eyesof the shrewd Mr. Schulte made it highly desirable that we should obtainpossession of it without delay. Four of us were selected for thisdangerous mission of getting into Germany and fetching it, by hook or bycrook, from the house at Cleves where it was deposited. We four were toenter Germany by different routes and different means and to converge onCleves (which is quite close to the Dutch frontier). 

"It would take too long to tell you of the very exact organization whichwe worked out to exclude all risk of failure and the various schemes weevolved for keeping in touch with one another though working separatelyand 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, Irealized that some immensely powerful force was working against me. 

"I managed it, with half a dozen hairbreadth escapes, and I set down mysuccess solely to my knowledge of German and to that old trick of mineof German imitations. But I felt everywhere the influence of this unseenhand, enforcing a meticulous vigilance which it was almost impossible toescape. I was not surprised, therefore, to learn that two of mycompanions 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. "JackTracy was found dead on the railway: Herbert Arbuthnot was discoveredhanging in a wood. 'Suicide of an Unknown Individual' was what theGerman papers called it in each case. But I heard the truth ... Nevermind 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 thetime that they didn't know exactly where the letter was but thatthey anticipated our attempt to get it, hence the unceasing vigilance allalong the frontier and inside it, too. 

"They damned nearly got me at Cleves: I escaped as by a miracle, and theprovidential thing for me was that I had never posed as anything but aGerman, 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 inhis face. 

"Then I tried to get out, " he continued. "But it was hopeless from thefirst. They knew they had one of us left in the net and they closedevery outlet. I made two separate attempts to cross the line back intoHolland, but both failed. The second time I literally had to flee for mylife. I went straight to Berlin, feeling that a big city, as remote fromthe frontier as possible, was the only safe hiding-place for me as longas the hue and cry lasted. 

"I was in a desperate bad way, too, for I had had to abandon the lastset of identity papers left to me when I bolted. I landed in Berlin withthe knowledge that no roof could safely shelter me until I got a freshlot 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 toHaase's ... This was towards the end of June. It was when I was atHaase's that I sent out that message to van Urutius that fell into yourhands. That happened like this. 

"I was rather friendly with a chap that frequented Haase's, a manemployed in the packing department at the Metal Works at Steglitz. Hewas telling us one night how short-handed they were and what good moneypackers were earning. I was sick of being cooped up in that stinkingcellar, so, more by way of a joke than anything else, I offered to comeand lend a hand in the packing department. I thought I might get achance of escape, as I saw none at Haase's. To my surprise, Haase, whowas sitting at the table, rather fancied the idea and said I could go ifI 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 thebeer-cellar in the evenings. One day a package for old van Urutius cameto me to be made up and suddenly it occurred to me that here was achance of sending out a message to the outside world. I hoped that oldvan U. , if he tumbled to the 'Eichenholz, ' would send it to you and thatyou 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 wasthat, 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 thefrontier on June 15th. I went to the place on June 15th, but he nevershowed up and, though I waited about for a couple of days, I saw nosign of him. I made my final attempt to get out and it failed, so, whenI fled to Berlin, I knew that I had cut off all means of communicationwith home. As a last hope, I dashed off that cipher on the spur of themoment 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 daremention Kore's name for fear the parcel might be opened. So I purposelyspelt 'Achilles' with one 'l' to draw attention to the code word, sothat they should know where news of me was to be found. It was devilishsmart of you to decipher that, Des!"

Francis smiled at me. 

"I meant to stay quietly in Berlin, going daily between Haase's and thefactory and wait, for a month or two, in case that message got home. ButKore began to give trouble. At the beginning of July he came to see meand hinted that the renewal of my _permis de séjour_ would cost money. Ipaid him, but I realized then that I was absolutely in his power and Ihad no intention of being blackmailed. So I made use of his cupidity toleave 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 filthyhovel where we slept and came up here after a job I had heard of at theCafé 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 thehand that has been against us from the start, though who the man is, andwhat his power, I, like you, only know from what he told you himself. The Germans are clever enough, as we know from their communiqués, totell the truth when it suits their book. I believe that Clubfoot wastelling you the truth in what he said about his mission that night atthe Esplanade. 

"You and I know now that the Kaiser wrote that letter ... We also knowthat it was addressed to an influential English friend of William II. You have seen the date ... Berlin, July 31st, 1914 ... The eve of theoutbreak of the world war. Even from this half in my pocket ... And youwho have seen both halves of the letter will confirm what I say ... Ican imagine what an effect on the international situation this letterwould have had if it had reached the man for whom it was destined. Butit did not ... Why, we don't know. We do know, however, that the Emperoris keenly anxious to regain possession of his letter ... You yourselfwere a witness of his anxiety and you know that he put the matter intothe hands of the man Clubfoot. "

"Well, " I observed thoughtfully, "Clubfoot, whoever he is, seems to havemade every effort to keep my escapades dark.... "

"Precisely, " said Francis, "and lucky for you too. Otherwise Clubfootwould have had you stopped at the frontier. But obviously secrecy is anessential part of his instructions, and he has shown himself willing torisk 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 looksuncommonly like one of William's sudden impulses ... And I fancyanything of the kind would get very little tolerance in Germany inwar-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 ofthe German Intelligence like Steinhauer and the others. But I _have_heard of a clubfooted German on two occasions ... Both were dark andmysterious affairs, in both he played a leading role and both ended inthe 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. Hepaused a moment reflectively. 

"There is a code of honour in our game, old man, " he said, "and thereare lots of men in the German secret service who live up to it. We giveand take plenty of hard knocks in the rough-and-tumble of the chase, butambush 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 hadhim at my mercy at the Esplanade. He would not have got off with acracked skull ... With one blow. There would have been another blow forTracy, one for Arbuthnot, one for the other man ... Until the accountwas settled and I'd beaten his brains out on the carpet. But if we meethim again, Francis, ... As, please God, we shall! ... There will be nocode of honour for _him_ ... We'll finish him in cold blood as we'd killa 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 thefurther 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. Francislinked his arm in mine. 

"And now, Des, " he said in his old affectionate way, "tell me some moreabout Monica!"

Out of that talk germinated in my head the only plan that seemed tooffer us a chance of escape. I was quite prepared to believe Franciswhen he declared that the frontier was at present impassable: if thevigilance had been increased before it would be redoubled now that I hadagain eluded Clubfoot. We should, therefore, have to find some coverwhere we could lie doggo until the excitement passed. 

You remember that Monica told me, the last time I had seen her, that shewas shortly going to Schloss Bellevue, a shooting-box belonging to herhusband, to arrange some shoots in connection with the Governmentalscheme for putting game on the market. Monica, you will recollect, hadoffered to take me with her, and I had fully meant to accompany her butfor Gerry's unfortunate persistence in the matter of my passport. 

I now proposed to Francis that we should avail ourselves of Monica'soffer and make for Castle Bellevue. The place was well suited for ourpurpose as it lies near Cleves, and in its immediate neighbourhood isthe Reichswald, that great forest which stretches from Germany clearacross into Holland. All through my wanderings, I had kept this forestin the back of my head as a region which must offer facilities forslipping unobserved across the frontier. Now I learnt from Francis thathe had spent months in the vicinity of Cleves, and I was not surprisedto find, when I outlined this plan to him, that he knew the Reichswaldpretty well. 

"It'll be none too easy to get across through the forest, " he saiddoubtfully, "it's very closely patrolled, but I do know of one placewhere we could lie pretty snug for a day or two waiting for a chance tomake a dash. But we have no earthly chance of getting through atpresent: our clubfooted pal will see to that all right. And I don't muchlike the idea of going to Bellevue either: it will be horribly dangerousfor Monica!"

"I don't think so, " I said. "The whole place will be overrun withpeople, guests, servants, beaters and the like, for these shoots. Bothyou and I know German and we look rough enough: we ought to be able toget an emergency job about the place without embarrassing Monica in theleast. I don't believe they will ever dream of looking for us so closeto this frontier. The only possible trail they can pick up after me inBerlin leads to Munich. Clubfoot is bound to think I am making for theSwiss 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 brotherdeclared he would not return to the café: with the present shortage ofmen, such desertions were by no means uncommon, and if he were to givenotice formally it might only lead to embarrassing explanations. 

So we strolled back to the city in the gathering darkness, bought a mapof the Rhine and a couple of rucksacks and laid in a small stock ofprovisions at a great department store, biscuits, chocolates, some hardsausage and two small flasks of rum. Then Francis took me to a littlerestaurant where he was known and introduced me to the friendlyproprietor, a very jolly old Rheinlander, as his brother just out ofhospital. I did my country good service, I think, by giving a mostharrowing account of the terrible efficiency of the British army on theSomme!

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 weshould keep away from the Rhine, don't you? As otherwise we shall passthrough Wesel, which is a fortress, and, consequently, devilishunhealthy for both of us. "

Francis nodded with his mouth full. 

"At present we can count on about twelve hours of darkness, " Icontinued, "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 reachCastle 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 youany suggestions?"

My brother acquiesced, as, indeed, he had in everything I had proposedsince we met. Poor fellow, he had had a roughish time: he seemed glad tohave 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 theoutskirts of the town where the road branches off to Crefeld. In thepocket of the overcoat I had filched from Haase's I found an automaticpistol, fully loaded (most of our customers at the beer-cellar wentarmed). 

"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 icymisery, chilled to the bone in our sopping clothes, in some dank ditchor wet undergrowth, with aching bones and blistered feet, fearingdetection, but fearing, even more, the coming of night and theresumption of our march. Yet we stuck to our programme like Spartans, and about eight o'clock on the third evening, hobbling painfully alongthe road that runs from Cleves to Calcar, we were rewarded by the sightof a long massive building, with turrets at the corners, standing backfrom 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 thefields with the idea of getting into the park from the back. We passedsome black and silent farm buildings, went through a gate and into apaddock, on the further side of which ran the wall surrounding theplace. Somewhere beyond the wall a fire was blazing. We could see theleaping light of the flames and drifting smoke. At the same moment weheard voices, loud voices disputing in German. 

We crept across the paddock to the wall, I gave Francis a back and hehoisted himself to the top and looked over. In a moment he spranglightly down, a finger to his lips. 

"Soldiers round a fire, " he whispered. "There must be troops billetedhere. Come on ... We'll go further round!"

We ran softly along the wall to where it turned to the right andfollowed 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 thereflection of the flames in the sky. Otherwise, there was no sign orsound of human life. 

The gate led into an ornamental garden with the Castle at the furtherend. All the windows were in darkness. We threaded a garden path leadingto the house. It brought us in front of a glass door. I turned thehandle 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 anyrisk it would be better for me to take it since Francis, with hisidentity papers, had a better chance than I of bringing the documentinto safety. 

I opened the glass door and found myself in a lobby with a door on theright. 

I listened again. All was still. I cautiously opened the door andlooked in. As I did so the place was suddenly flooded with light and avoice--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. Butno one came; the gardens remained dark and damp and silent, and I heardno sound from the room in which I knew my brother to be in the clutchesof that man. 

Desmond's cry pulled me together. It seemed to arouse me from thelethargy into which I had sunk during all those months of danger anddisappointment. It shook me into life. If I was to save him, not amoment 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 ofClubfoot'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 hundredyards before we reached the Schloss. I might, at least, be able to pickup something there. Accordingly, I stole across the garden, scaled thewall again and reached the road in safety. 

The estaminet was full of people, brutish-looking peasants swilling neatspirits, cattle drovers and the like. I stood up at the bar and ordereda double noggin of _Korn_--a raw spirit made in these parts frompotatoes, very potent but at least pure. A man in corduroys and leggingswas drinking at the bar, a bluff sort of chap, who readily entered intoconversation. A casual question of mine about the game conditionselicited from him the information that he was an under-keeper at theCastle. It was a busy time for them, he told me, as four big shoots hadbeen arranged. The first was to take place the next day. There wereplenty of birds, and he thought the Frau Gräfin's guests ought to besatisfied. 

I asked him if there was a big party staying at the Castle. No, he toldme, only one gentleman besides the officer billeted there, but a lot ofpeople were coming over for the shoot the next day, the officers fromCleves and Goch, the Chief Magistrate from Cleves, and a number offarmers from round about. 

"I expect you will find the soldiers billeted at the Castle useful asbeaters, " I enquired with a purpose. 

The man assented grudgingly. Gamekeepers are first-class grumblers. Butthe soldiers were not many. For his part he could do without themaltogether. They were such terrible poachers to have about the place, hedeclared. But what they would do for beaters without them, he didn'tknow ... 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 longfrom hospital, and they've discharged me from the army. I wouldn't mindearning a few marks as a beater, and I'd like to see the sport. I usedto 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 mybusiness, getting the beaters together, " he replied. "Besides, I shallhave the head gamekeeper after me if I go bringing strangers in.... "

I ordered another drink for both of us, and won the man round withoutmuch difficulty. He pouched my five mark note and announced that hewould manage it ... The Frau Gräfin was to see some men who had offeredtheir services as beaters after dinner at the Castle that evening. Hewould take me along. 

Half an hour later I stood, as one of a group of shaggy and bedraggledrustics, in a big stone courtyard outside the main entrance to theCastle. The head gamekeeper mustered us with his eye and, bidding usfollow him, led the way under a vaulted gateway through a massive doorinto a small lobby which had apparently been built into the great hallof the Castle, for it opened right into it. 

We found ourselves in a splendid old feudal hall, oak-lined andoak-raftered, with lines of dusty banners just visible in the twilightreigning in the upper part of the vast place. The modern generation hadforborne to desecrate the fine old room with electric light, and massivesilver candlesticks shed a soft light on the table set at the far end ofthe hall, where dinner, apparently, was just at an end. 

Three people were sitting at the table, a woman at the head, who, evenbefore I had taken in the details I have just set down, I knew to beMonica, though her back was towards me. On one side of the table was abig, heavy man whom I recognized as Clubfoot, on the other side a paleslip of a lad in officer's uniform with only one arm ... Schmalz, nodoubt. 

A servant said something to Monica, who, asking permission of hercompanions by a gesture, left the table and came across the hall. To mysurprise, she was dressed in deepest black with linen cuffs. Her face waspale and set, and there was a look of fear and suffering in her eyesthat wrung my very heart. 

I had shuffled into the last place of the row in which the head keeperhad ranged us. Monica spoke a word or two to each of the men, whoshambled off in turn with low obeisances. Directly she stopped in frontof me I knew she had recognized me--I felt it rather, for she made nosign--though the time I had had in Germany had altered my appearance, Idare say, and I must have looked pretty rough with my three days' beardand muddy clothes. 

"Ah!" she said with all her languor _de grande dame_, "you are the manof 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 theRhine which I had learnt at Bonn, "I served with the Herr Graf inGalicia, 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 along 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 outof work, and wishes me to help him. I should wish, therefore, to see himin 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 maninto the sitting-room!"

The servant led the way across the hall into a snugly furnished librarywith a dainty writing-desk and pretty chintz curtains. Monica followedand sat down at the desk. 

"Now tell me what you wish to say ... " she began in German as the servantleft 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! whathave 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 mustbe 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 ismore 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 himalong the corridor--it was horrible! Grundt won't let him out of hissight. Oh, it was madness to have come. If only I could have warnedyou!"

"What is Grundt doing here?" I asked. "And those soldiers and thatofficer?"

"My dear, " she answered, and her eyes flashed mischief in a suddenchange of mood, "I'm in preventive arrest!"

"But, Monica.... "

"Listen! Gerry and that spying man-servant of his made trouble. When Deswent off that evening and didn't come back, Gerry insisted that weshould notify the police. He made an awful scene, then the valet chippedin, and from what he said I knew he meant mischief. I didn't dare trustGerry with the truth, so I let him send a note to the police. They cameround and asked a lot of questions and went away again, so I thoughtwe'd heard the last of it and came up here. Gerry wouldn't come. He'sgone off to Baden-Baden on some new cure. 

"About a week ago the Chief Magistrate at Cleves, who is an old friendof ours, motored over, and after a lot of talk, blurted out that I wasto consider myself under arrest, and that an officer and a detachment ofmen from Goch were coming over to guard the house. The magistrate manwould have told me anything I wanted to know, but he knew nothing: hesimply 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. Iwas terribly scared about Des until Grundt arrived suddenly, two nightsago, 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 simplywalked 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 tellSchmalz he would 'try again' after dinner. Oh, Francis, I am frightenedof that man ... Not a word has he said to me about my knowingDesmond--not a word about my harbouring Des in Berlin ... But he knowseverything, and he watches me the whole time. "

I glanced through the open door into the hall. The candles still burnton the dinner-table, where Clubfoot and the officer sat conversing inlow tones. 

"I have been here long enough, " I said. "But before I go, I want you toanswer 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 theedge of our preserves ... Just off the road. We ought to be as far asthat by twelve. If it is necessary, I will try and give them the slipand hide in one of the caves there. Then, when you came, if you whistledI could come out. "

"Good. That will do excellently. We will arrange it so. Now, anotherquestion ... How many soldiers have you here?"

"Sixteen. "

"Are they all going beating?"

"Oh, no! Only ten of them. The other six and the sergeant remainbehind. "

"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 12:30to-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 youto 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 keepGrundt from going to that shoot to-morrow ... At any rate between tenand twelve. He must manage to let Grundt believe that he is going totell him where Grundt may find what he is after ... But he must keep himin 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 willtake it myself. "

"No, Monica, " I said, "I don't want... "

"Francis, " ... She spoke almost in a whisper ... "my life in this countryis over, " ... And she touched her widow's weeds.... "Karl was killed atPredeal three weeks ago.... You know as well as I do that I am involvedin this affair as much as you and Des ... And I will share the risk ifonly you will take me away with you ... That is if you ... " Shefaltered. 

I heard the chairs scrape in the corner of the hall where thedinner-party was breaking up. 

"The Frau Gräfin has only to command, " I said. "The Frau Gräfin knows Ihave been waiting for years.... "

Clubfoot was crossing towards the open door. 

"... I never expected to find the Frau Gräfin so gracious.... I hadnever hoped that the Frau Gräfin would be willing to do so much forme ... 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, obviouslylittle 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 ofshirt-front heaved to the shaking of his deep chest. For a moment, however, I had little thought of him or the ugly-looking Browning heheld in his fist. My ears were strained for any sound that might betrayFrancis' presence in the garden. But all remained silent as the grave. 

Clubfoot, still chuckling audibly, walked over to me. I thought he wasgoing to shoot me, he came so straight and so fast, but it was only toget behind me and shut the door, driving me, as he did so, farther intothe room. 

The door by which he had entered stood open. Without taking his eyes offme or deflecting his weapon from its aim, he called out:

"Schmalz!"

A light step resounded, and the one-armed lieutenant tripped into theroom. When he saw me, he stopped dead. Then he softly began to circleround me with a mincing step, murmuring to himself: "So! So!"

"Good evening, Dr. Semlin!" he said in English. "Say, I'm mighty glad tosee you! Well, Okewood, dear old boy, here we are again. What? HerrJulius Zimmermann ... " and he broke into German, "_es freut mich!_"

I could have killed him where he stood, maimed though he was, for hisfluency 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 myportfolio on the billiard-table towards Clubfoot, and the other articlesas they came to light ... My pistol, watch, cigarette-case and soforth ... On to a leather lounge against the wall. In his search hebrushed me with his severed stump ... Ugh, it was horrible!

Clubfoot had snatched up the portfolio and hastily examined it. He shookthe contents out on the billiard-table and examined them carefully. 

"Not there!" he said. "Run him upstairs, and we'll strip him, " heordered; "and let not our clever young friend forget that I'm behind himwith my little toy!"

Schmalz gripped me by the collar, spitefully digging his knuckles intomy neck, and propelled me out of the room ... Almost into the arms ofMonica. 

She screamed and, turning, fled away down the passage. Clubfoot laughednoisily, but I reflected mournfully that in my present sorry plight, unwashed and unshaven, in filthy clothes, haled along like a commonpickpocket, 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 singlearticle of clothing I possessed. Physically and mentally, I cowered inmy nudity before the unwholesome gaze of these two sinister cripples. Ofall my experiences in Germany, I still look back upon that as almost myworst ordeal. 

Of course, they found nothing, search as they might, and presently theyflung my clothes back at me and bade me get dressed again, "for you andI, young man, " said Clubfoot, with his glinting smile, "have got to havea little talk together!"

When I was once more clothed--

"You can leave us, Schmalz!" commanded Clubfoot, "and send up thesergeant when I ring: he shall look after this tricky Englishman whilstwe are at dinner with our charming hostess. "

Schmalz went out and left us alone. Clubfoot lighted a cigar. He smokedin silence for a few minutes. I said nothing, for really there wasnothing for me to say. They hadn't got their precious document, and itwas not likely they would ever recover it now. I feared greatly thatFrancis 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 placeof safety. I was more or less resigned to my fate. I was in their handsproperly now, and whether they got the document or not, my doom wassealed. 

"I will pay you the compliment of saying, my dear Captain Okewood, "Clubfoot remarked in that urbane voice of his which always made myblood run cold, "that never before in my career have I devoted so muchthought 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 ratheryour remarkable good fortune that interests me as a philosopher ofsorts.... I assure you it will cause me serious concern to be theinstrument of severing your really extraordinary strain of good luck. Idon't mind telling you, as man to man, that I have not yet entirelydecided 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 tohave 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, ... "thatis a favourite maxim of mine. As you truly remark, I would certainlyprefer the ... The jewel to the infinitely less preciousand ... Interesting ... Casket. But what I have, I hold. And Ihave you ... And your accomplice as well. "

"I have no accomplice, " I denied stoutly. 

"Surely you forget our gracious hostess, our most charming Countess? Wasit not thanks to the interest she deigned to take in your safety that Icame here? Had it not been for that circumstance, I should scarcely haveventured to intrude upon her widowhood.... "

"Her widowhood?" I exclaimed. 

Clubfoot smiled again. 

"You cannot have followed the newspapers in your ... Retreat, my dearCaptain Okewood, " he replied, "or surely you would have read theafflicting intelligence that Count Rachwitz, A. D. C. To Field-Marshal vonMackensen, was killed by a shell that fell into the Brigade Head-quarterswhere he was lunching at Predeal. Ah, yes, " he sighed, "our beautifulCountess is now a widow, alone ... " he paused, then added, "... Andunprotected!"

I understood his allusion and went cold with fear. Why, Monica wasinvolved in this affair as much as I. Surely they wouldn't dare to touchher.... 

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 youcrossed the threshold of his Majesty's private apartments ... But youcan save _her_. "

I shook his huge hand off my leg. 

"You won't bluff me, " I answered roughly. "You daren't touch theCountess Rachwitz, an American lady, niece of an American ambassador, married into one of your leading families ... No, Herr Doktor, you musttry something else. "

"Do you know why Schmalz is here?" he asked patiently, "and thosesoldiers?... You must have passed through the cordon to come here. Yourlittle friend is in preventive arrest. She would be in gaol (she doesn'tknow it), but that His Majesty was unwilling to put this affront on theRachwitz family in their great affliction. "

"The Countess Rachwitz has nothing whatever to do with me, " ... Rather afoolish 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 showthat 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 amazingimbecility of the Berlin police, I was not informed of your brief stayat the Bendler-Strasse, even after they were called in by the invalidAmerican gentleman in the matter of your hasty flight when asked to haveyour passport put in order. But we are systematic, we Germans; we arepainstaking; and I set about going through every possible place thatmight 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 onthe day following your disappearance from the Esplanade he had received3, 600 marks from a certain E. 2 ... All names in his books were incipher. Under the influence of my winning personality, Herr Kore told meall he knew; I pursued my investigations and then discovered what theasinine police had omitted to tell me, namely, that on the date inquestion an alleged American had made a hurried flight from the CountessRachwitz's apartment in the Bendler-Strasse. An admirable fellow ... Maxor Otto, or some name like that ... Anyhow, he was valet to Madame'sinvalid brother, was able to fill in all the lacunae, and I was thusenabled to draw up a very strong case against your well-meaning butsingularly ill-advised hostess. By this time the lady had left Berlinfor this charming old-world seat, and I promptly took measures to haveher placed in preventive arrest whilst I tracked _you_ down. 

"You got away again. Even Jupiter nods, you know, my dear CaptainOkewood, and I frankly admit I overlooked the silver badge which you hadin your possession. I must compliment you also on your adroitness inleaving us that false trail to Munich. It took me in to the extent thatI dispatched an emissary to hunt you down in that delightful capital, but, for myself, I have a certain _flair_ in these matters, and Ithought you would sooner or later come to Bellevue. You will admit thatI 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 headded:

"You must not forget that your pretty Countess is not an American. Sheis a German. She is also a widow. You may not know the relations thatexisted between her and her late husband, but they were not, I assureyou, of such warmth that the Rachwitz family would unduly mourn herloss. Do you suppose we care a fig for all the American ambassadors thatever left the States? My dear sir, I observe that you are stilllamentably ignorant of the revolution that war brings into internationalrelations. In war, where the national interest is concerned, theindividual is nothing. If he or she must be removed, puff! you snuff theoffender out. Afterwards you can always pay or apologize, or do what isrequired. "

I listened in silence; I had no defence to offer in face of this deadlylogic, 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 theCountess Rachwitz to appear before a court-martial. Date blank, you see. You needn't tear it up ... I've got several spare blank forms ... Onefor you, too!"

I felt my courage ebbing and my heart turning to water. I handed himback his paper in silence. The booming of a dinner gong suddenly swelledinto the stillness of the room. Clubfoot rose and rang the bell. 

"Here's my offer, Okewood!" he said. "You shall restore that letter tome in its integrity, and the Countess Rachwitz shall go free providedshe leaves this country and does not return. That's my last word! Takethe 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 thedoorway. 

"I make you responsible for this man, Sergeant, " said Clubfoot, "until Ireturn in an hour or so. Food will be sent up for him and you willpersonally assure yourself that no message is conveyed to him by that orany other means. "

 * * * * *

I had washed, I had brushed my clothes, I had dined, and I sat insilence 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 bythe disappointment of the evening that I don't think I pondered muchabout my own fate at all. But my thoughts were busy with Monica. My lifewas my own, and I knew I had a lien on my brother's if thereby ourmission might be carried through to the end. But had I the right tosacrifice 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 tosee that the sentries round the house were vigilant, and followed theman out, leaving Monica and me alone. 

The girl stopped the torrent of self-reproach that rose to my lips witha 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, "toplead with you for my life, that you may betray your trust. No, don'tspeak ... There is no time to waste in words. I have a message for youfrom Francis.... Yes, I have seen him here, this very night.... He saysyou must contrive at all costs to keep Grundt from going to the shoot atten 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, andyou and I have got to trust him. Now, listen ... I shall tell Clubfoot Ihave pleaded with you and that you show signs of weakening. Say nothingto-night, temporize with him when he comes for his answer in themorning, and then send for him at a quarter to ten, when he will beleaving 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 goeswell, I'm coming with you and Francis!"

With that she was gone. A few minutes after, a couple of soldiersarrived with Schmalz and took me downstairs to a dark cellar in thebasement, 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 heardoutside the trench the faint rattle of tools, the low whispers of ourwiring party; again I saw the very lights soaring skyward and revealingthe desolation of the battlefield in their glare. Someone was shaking meby the shoulder. It was my servant come to wake me.... I must havefallen asleep. Was it stand-to so soon? I sat up and rubbed my eyes andawoke to the anguish of another day. 

The sergeant stood at the cellar door, framed in the bright morninglight. 

"You are to come upstairs!" he said. 

He took me to the billiard-room, where Clubfoot, sleek and washed andshaved, sat at the writing-table in the sunshine, opening letters andsipping coffee. A clock on a bracket above his head pointed to eight. 

"You wish to speak to me, I believe, " he said carelessly, running hiseye over a letter in his hand. 

"You must give me a little more time, Herr Doktor, " I said. "I was wornout last night and I could not look at things in their proper light. Ifyou 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 youwill understand that I am not to be trifled with, so I give you fairwarning. I will give you until.... "

"It is eight o'clock now, " I interrupted. "I tell you what, give meuntil ten. Will that do?"

Clubfoot nodded assent. 

"Take this man upstairs to my bedroom, " he ordered the sergeant. "Staywith him while he has his breakfast, and bring him back here at teno'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 somebreakfast, but I had no idea what I was eating, and the sergeant, whowas a model of Prussian discipline, declined with a surly frown to enterinto conversation with me. My morale was very low: when I look back uponthat 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 forthe shoot. There was the sound of voices, of heavy boots in the hall, ofwheels and horses in the yard without. Then the noises died away and allwas still. Shortly afterwards, the clock pointing to ten, the sergeantescorted me downstairs again to the billiard-room. 

Grundt was still sitting there. A hot wave of anger drove the blood intomy cheeks as I looked at him, fat and soft and so triumphant at hisvictory. The sight of him, however, gave me the tonic I needed. My nervewas shaken badly, but I was determined it must answer to this laststrain, to play this uncouth fish for two hours. After that ... Ifnothing happened ... 

Clubfoot sent the sergeant away. 

"I can look after him myself now, " he said, in a blithe tone thatbetrayed his conviction of success. So the sergeant saluted and left theroom, his footsteps echoing down the passages like the leaden feet ofDestiny, 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 thatroom for two hours. I had four points to argue with him and I woulddevote half an hour to each of them by the clock on the bracket abovehis head. If only I could keep him confident in his victory, I mighthope to prevent him finding out that I was playing with him ... But twohours is a long time ... It would be a near thing. 

One point in my favour ... My manner gave him the assurance of successfrom 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 atthe bidding of my brother, but I felt it to be a forlorn hope: in myheart 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 theexecution of both sides of the bargain. We had deceived one another. What mutual guarantees could we exchange that would give each of us theassurance of fair play?

Clubfoot settled this point in characteristic fashion. He protested hisgood faith elaborately, but the gist of his remarks was that he held thecards and that, consequently, it was he who must be trusted, whilst Ifurnished 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 aboutmyself, I said, but I must feel sure in my mind that no ill shouldbefall 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 herrelease: I should be there and might see it done myself. 

What guarantee was there, I asked, that she would not be detained beforeshe reached the frontier?

Clubfoot was getting a little restless. With his eye on the clock but ina placid voice he again protested that his word was the sole guaranteehe could offer. 

We discussed this too. My manner was earnest and nervous, I know, and Ithink he enjoyed playing with me. I told him frankly that his reputationbelied his protestations of good faith. At this he laughed andcynically admitted that this was quite possibly the case. 

"Nevertheless, it is I who give the guarantee, " he said in a tone thatbrooked no contradiction. 

The clock struck eleven. 

One hour to go!

"Come, Okewood, " he added good-naturedly, "we waste time. Up to thisyou've had all the sport, you know. You wouldn't have me miss the firstday's shooting I've had this year. Where have you got this letter ofours?"

He was an extraordinary man. To hear him address me, you would neverhave supposed that he was sending me to my death. He appeared to haveforgotten 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, butI was the vanquished and must give way. The trouble was that thedocument was still in two portions and neither half was here. 

"You indicate where the halves are hidden, " said Clubfoot promptly. "Iwill 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 amwaiting and it's getting late!"

"It will take several days to recover both portions, " I mutteredunwillingly. 

"That does not matter, " retorted the other; "there is no particularhurry ... Now!"

And he smiled grimly. 

I dared not raise my eyes to the clock, for I felt the German's gaze onme. An intuitive instinct told me that his suspicions had been awakenedby 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 withanxiety, "I cannot leave the Countess unprotected whilst we traveltogether to the hiding-places of the document. I only feel sure of hersafety 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, " Istammered 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, thatthudding must be my heart. My wits failed me, my mind had become ablank, my throat was dry with fear. 

"I've wasted an hour and a half over you, young man, " said Clubfootsuddenly, "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 isperfectly clear: it rests with you whether the Countess Rachwitz goesfree or is court-martialled this afternoon at Cleves and shot thisevening. Your suggestion is absurd. I'll be reasonable with you. We willboth stay here. I will wire for the two portions of the letter to befetched at the places you indicate, and as soon as I hold the entireletter in my hands the Countess will be driven to the frontier. I willallow her butler here to accompany her and he can return and assure youthat she is in safety. "

He stretched out his hand and pulled a block of telegraph forms towardshim. 

"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 wasstruggling for the mastery over myself, but I felt my body swaying. 

"Ah!" exclaimed Clubfoot musingly, "that would be Semlin's half.... Imight have known.... Well, never mind, Schmalz can take my car and fetchit. He can be back by to-morrow. Where is he to go?"

"The other half is in Berlin, " I said desperately. My voice sounded tome like a third person speaking. 

"That's simpler, " replied Clubfoot. "Ten minutes to twelve now ... If Iwire at once, that half should be here by midnight.... I'll get themessage 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, butMonica, rather.... I could not save her now. Like some nightmare film, the crowded hours of the past few weeks flashed past my eyes, a jostlingprocession of figures--Semlin with his blue lips and livid face, Schrattwith 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 cameback to her, a white and pitiful figure in some dusty courtyard atlamplight 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. Hecaught 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 neatlytrimmed, a monocle in his eye, in a beautifully waisted grey militaryovercoat, one white-gloved hand raised in salute to his helmet. 

"Hauptmann von Salzmann!" ... He introduced himself, clicking his heelsand bowing to Clubfoot, who glared at him, frowning at the interruption. He spoke with the clipped, mincing utterance of the typical Prussianofficer. "I am looking for Herr Leutnant Schmalz, " he said. 

"He is not in, " answered Clubfoot in a surly voice. "He is out and I ambusy ... I do not wish to be disturbed. "

"As Schmalz is out, " the officer returned suavely, advancing to thedesk, "I must trouble you for an instant, I fear. I have been sent overfrom Goch to inspect the guard here. But I find no guard ... There isnot 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 neverbe left in peace. What the devil has the guard got to do with me? Willyou understand that I have nothing to do with the guard! There is asergeant somewhere ... Curse him for a lazy scoundrel ... I'll ring ... "

He never finished the sentence. As he turned his back on my brother toreach the bell in the wall, Francis sprang on him from behind, seizinghis bull neck in an iron grip and driving his knee at the same momentinto that vast expanse of back. 

The huge German, taken by surprise, crashed over backwards, my brotheron 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 mybrother's fingers, his clubfoot beating a thunderous tattoo on theparquet floor. In his fall Clubfoot's left arm had been bent under himand was now pinioned to the ground by his great weight. With his freeright arm he strove fiercely to force off my brother's fingers asFrancis fought to get a grip on the man's throat and choke him intosilence. 

I darted to the door. The key was on the inside and I turned it in atrice. As I turned to go to my brother's help my eye caught sight of thebutt of my pistol lying where Schmalz had thrown it the evening beforeunder my overcoat on the leather lounge. 

I snatched up the weapon and dropped by my brother's side, crushingClubfoot'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 aBrowning on him somewhere. "

Francis went through the man's pockets, reaching up and putting eacharticle as it came to light on the desk above him. From an inner breastpocket he extracted the Browning. He glanced at it: the magazine wasfull 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 seemedexhausted. 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 werethinking 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 swiftlyto 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 toyour 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 knewhim, too. And Philip Brewster? You remember him as well, do you? No needto ask you what happened to poor Philip!"

The man on the floor answered nothing, but I saw the colour very slowlyfade from his cheeks. 

My brother spoke again. 

"There were four of us after that letter, as you knew, Grundt, and threeof us are dead. But you never got me. I was the fourth man, the unknownquantity in all your elaborate calculations ... And it seems to me Ispoiled your reckoning ... I and this brother of mine ... An amateur atthe game, Grundt!"

Still Clubfoot was silent, but I noticed a bead of perspiration trembleon his forehead, then trickle down his ashen cheeks and drop splashingto the floor. 

Francis continued in the same deep, relentless voice. 

"I never thought I should have to soil my hands by ridding the world ofa man like you, Grundt, but it has come to it and you have to die. I'dhave killed you in hot blood when I first came in but for Jack andHerbert and the others ... For their sake you had to know who is yourexecutioner. "

My brother raised the pistol. As he did so the man on the floor, by atremendous effort of strength, rose erect to his knees, flinging meheadlong. Then there was a hot burst of flame close to my cheek as I layon 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 myeyes kept coming back to that clock! There was a smell of warm gunpowderin the room, and the autumn sunshine, struggling feebly through thewindow, caught the blue edges of a little haze of smoke that hung lazilyin the air by the desk in the corner. How close the room was! And howthat 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 roomwas still swaying to and fro.... 

I was in the front seat of a car beside Francis, who was driving. Wewere fairly flying along a broad and empty road, the tall poplars withwhich it was lined scudding away into the vanishing landscape as wewhizzed by. The surface was terrible, and the car pitched this way andthat as we tore along. But Francis had her well in hand. He sat at thewheel, very cool and deliberate and very grave, still in his officer'suniform, and his eyes had a cold glint that told me he was keyed up totop pitch. 

We slackened speed a fraction to negotiate a turn off to the right downa side road. We seemed to take that corner on two wheels. A thin churchspire protruded from the trees in the centre of the group of houseswhich we were approaching so furiously. The village was all butdeserted: everybody seemed to be indoors at their midday meal, butFrancis slowed down and ran along the dirty street at a demure pace. Thevillage passed, he jammed down the accelerator and once more the carsprang forward. 

The country was flat as a pancake, but presently the fields fell away abit from the road with boulders and patches of gorse here and there. Thenext moment we were slackening speed. We drew up by a rough track whichled off the road and vanished into a tangle of stunted trees and scrubgrowing 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. Ifanybody attempts to interfere with you, shoot!" He dashed into thetangle and was swallowed up. I heard a whistle, and a whistle in answer, and a minute later he appeared again helping Monica through the thickundergrowth. 

Monica looked as pretty as a picture in her dark green shooting suitand 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. Monicasaw 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. Irecognized it at a glance. It was Clubfoot's dispatch-box. Francis wasthorough in everything. 

Once more we dashed out along the desolate country roads. We saw hardlya soul. Houses were few and far between and, save for an occasionalgreybeard hoeing in the wet fields or an old woman hobbling along theroad, the countryside seemed dead. In the cold air the engine ransplendidly, 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 wefound ourselves racing along an avenue of old trees that led straight asan arrow right into the heart of the forest. It was as silent as thegrave: the air was dank and chill and the trees dripped sorrowfully intothe brimming ruts of the road. 

We whizzed past many tracks leading into the depths of the forest, butit was not until the car had eaten up some five kilometres of the mainroad that Francis slowed to a halt. He consulted a map he pulled fromhis pocket, then glanced at his watch with puckered brow. 

"I had hoped to take the car into the forest, " he said, "but the roadsare 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 theleft. 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 hehadn'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 totwo ... We haven't a second to lose. "

He pulled a cloth cap from the pocket of his military overcoat, thenstripped off the coat, showing his ordinary clothes underneath, and veryshiny black field-boots up to his knees. He put his helmet in theovercoat and made a roll of it, tucking it under his arm, and thendonned his cap. 

"Now, " he said, "We'll have to run for it, Monica, I'm afraid: we mustreach our cover while the light lasts or I shan't be able to find it andit will be dark in these woods in about two hours from now. Are youready?"

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 ofthe trees, tearing our clothes on the brambles, bringing down showers ofraindrops from the branches of pine or fir we brushed on our headlongcourse. Now a squirrel bolted up his tree, now a rabbit frisked backinto his hole, now a soft-eyed deer crashed away into the bushes on ourapproach. The place was so still that it gave me confidence. There wasnot a trace of man now that we were away from the marks of his carts onthe tracks, and I began to feel, in the presence of the stately, silenttrees, that at last I was safe from the menace that had hung over me forso long. 

We rested frequently, breathless and panting, a hand to the side. Monicawas a marvel of endurance. Her boots were sopping, her skirt wet to thewaist, her face was scratched, and her hair was coming down, but shenever complained. Francis was seemingly tireless and was always the oneto 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 triedus a good deal. It soon became evident that we could not keep up thepace. Monica was tiring visibly, and I had had about enough; Francis, too, seemed done up. We slackened to a walk. We were toiling painfullyup on of these steep banks when Francis, who was leading, held up hishand. 

"Charlemagne's Ride!" he whispered as we came up. We looked down fromthe top of the bank and saw below us a broad forest glade, canopied bythe thick branches of the ancient trees that met overhead, and leadingup a slope, narrowing as it went, to a path that lost itself among theshadows that were falling fast upon the forest. 

Francis clambered down the bank and we followed. Twilight reigned belowin the glade under the lofty roof of branches and our feet rustledsoftly as we trod the leaves underfoot. It was a ghostly place, andMonica clutched my arm as we went quickly after Francis, who, stridingrapidly ahead, threatened to be swallowed up in the shadows of theautumn evening. He led us up the slope and along the narrow path. A pathstruck off it, and he took it. It led us into a thicker part of theforest than we had yet struck, where there were great bouldersprotruding from the dripping bushes, and brambles grew so thick that inplaces they obscured the track. 

The forest sloped up again, and in front of us was a steep bank, itssides dotted with great rocks and a tangle of brambles and undergrowth. Francis stooped between two boulders at the foot of the slope, thenturning and beckoning us to follow, disappeared. Monica went in afterhim, and I came last. We were in a kind of narrow entrance, scooped outof 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 lightcame from the farther end of the cave and a strange sound, a sort ofstrangled sobbing, reached our ears. 

I crept forward in the dark in the direction of the light. Myoutstretched hands came upon a low opening. I stooped and, crawlinground a rock, saw another chamber illuminated by a guttering candlestuck 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 ofmilitary 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 andunshaven, with the tears all wet on his face, he looked a woe-begone andtragic figure. 

"Kamerad! Kamerad!" he muttered stupidly at me. "Napoo! Kaput!Englander!"

I gazed at the stranger, hardly able to believe my ears. That trenchjargon 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 facewith his hands and burst into a wild fit of sobbing again, rockinghimself 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 mebrought out the officer in me. I talked to him as I would have done toone 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 andthe brightness of his eyes--but his face was wan and wasted, and at thefirst glance he looked like a man of forty. Under his great-coat, whichwas German, he was clad in filthy rags which once had been a khakiuniform, as the cut--and nothing else--revealed. 

He told me his simple story in his soft Somersetshire accent, just theplain tale of the fate that has overtaken thousands of ourfellow-countrymen since the war began. His name was Maggs, SapperEbenezer Maggs, of the Royal Engineers, and he was captured near Mons inAugust, 1914, when out laying a line with a party. With a long train ofBritish prisoners--"zum of 'em was terrible bad, zur, dying, as youmight say"--he had been marched off to a town and paraded to the railwaystation through streets thronged with jeering German soldiery. In cattletrucks, the fit, the wounded, the dying and the dead herded together, without food or water, they had made their journey into Germany withhostile mobs at every station, once the frontier was past, brutal menand 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 ofthe ragged, emaciated band of British prisoners of war who had shiveredthrough 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 calledJohn, in happier days a contraband runner on this very frontier, hadshown him a means to escape. Five days before they had left the camp andseparated, agreeing to meet at Charlemagne's Ride in the forest and tryto force the frontier together. "John" had never come. For twenty-fourhours Maggs had waited in vain, then his courage had forsaken him, andhe had crept to that hole in his grief. 

I went and fetched Francis and Monica. Maggs shrunk back as they camein. 

"I bean't fit cumpany for no lady, zur, " he whispered to me, "I be thatdurty, 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, andFrancis and I reviewed our situation. The cave we were in ... An oldSmuggler's _cache_ ... Was where Francis had spent several days duringhis different attempts to get across the frontier. The border line wasonly 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 haveerected along the frontier between Holland and Belgium. The frontier wasguarded by patrols. These patrols were posted four men to every twohundred 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 shouldcertainly make the attempt to cross the frontier that night. Francisnudged me, indicating the sapper with his eyes. 

"Maggs, " I said, "we are all in a bad way, but our case is moredesperate than yours. I shall not tell you more than this, that, if weare caught, any of us three, we shall be shot, and anyone caught with uswill fare the same. If you will take my advice, you will leave us andstart off by yourself: the worst that can happen to you is to be sentback to your camp. You will be punished for running away, but you won'tlose your life!"

Sapper Maggs shook his yellow head. 

"I'll stay, " he answered stolidly; "it's more cumfortable-like for usfour to 'old together, and it's a better protection for the lady. Ibean't afear'd of no Gers, I bean't! I'll go along o' yew officers andthe lady, if yew don't mind, zur!"

So it was settled, and we four agreed to unite forces. Before we set outFrancis wanted to go and reconnoitre. I thought he had done more thanhis share that day, and said so. But Francis insisted. 

"I know my way blindfold about the forest, old man" he said "it'll befar safer for me than for you. I'll leave you the map and mark theroute you are to follow, so that you can find the way if anythinghappens to me. If I'm not back by midnight, you ought certainly not towait any longer, but make the attempt by yourselves. "

My brother handed me back the document and went over the route we wereto follow on the map. Then he deposited his bundle in the cave anddeclared himself ready. 

"And don't forget old Clubfoot's box, " he said by way of a partinginjunction. 

Monica took him out to the entrance of our refuge. She was dabbing hereyes with her handkerchief when she returned. To divert her thoughts, Iquestioned her about the events that had led to my rescue, and she toldme how, at Francis' request, she had got all the servants out of theCastle on different pretexts. It was Francis who had got rid of thesoldiers remaining as a guard. 

"You remember the Captain of Köpenick trick, " she said. "Well, Francisplayed it off on the sergeant and those six men. He slept at Cleves, hadhimself trimmed up at the barber's, bought those field-boots he iswearing, and stole that helmet and great-coat off the pegs in thepassage at Schmidt's Café, where the officers always go and drink beerafter morning parade. Then he drove out to the Castle--he knew that theplace would be deserted once the shoot had started--and told thesergeant he had been sent from Goch to inspect the guard. I think he isjust splendid! He inspected the men and cursed everybody up and down, and sent the sergeant out to the paddock with orders to drill them fortwo hours. Francis was telling me all about it as we came along. He saysthat if you can get hold of a uniform and hector a German enough, hewill never call your bluff. Can you beat it?"

The hours dragged wearily on. We had no food, and Maggs, who had eatenthe last of his provisions twenty-four hours before--the British soldieris a bad hoarder--soon consumed the last of my cigarettes. It was pastten o'clock when I heard a step outside. The next moment Francis camein, white and breathless. 

"They're beating the forest for us, " he panted. "The place is full ofmen. I had to crawl the whole way there and back, and I'm soaked to theskin. "

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 thegame's up. They're beating the forest in a great circle, soldiers andpolice and customs men. If we set out at once we can reach the frontierbefore they get here, but what's the use of that ... Every patrol is onthe 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 westay here!"

"I think you're right, " he answered. "Well, here's the plan. There's adeep 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 ispractically impossible to get out of sight and sound along that ravinein 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 blackand dripping forest. Somewhere in the distance a faint glare reddenedthe sky. From time to time I thought I heard a shout, but it sounded faraway. 

We crawled stealthily forward, Francis in front, then Monica, Maggs andI last. In a few minutes we were wet through, and our hands, blue anddead with cold, were scratched and torn. Our progress was interminablyslow. 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 onthe night of St. Hubert's Day galloping along with his ghostlyfollowers 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 anancient German soldier song:

"Die Vöglein im WaldeSie singen so schönIn 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 mustget across quickly. " My brother stood erect, and tiptoed swiftly acrossCharlemagne's Ride, and we followed. 

We must have crawled for an hour before we came to the ravine. It was adeep, narrow ditch with steep sides, full of undergrowth and brambles. Now we could hear distinctly the voices of men all around us, as itseemed, and to right and to left and in front we caught at intervalsglimpses of red flames through the trees. We could only proceed at asnail's pace lest the continual rustle of our footsteps should betrayus. So each advanced a few paces in turn; then we all paused, and thenthe next one went forward. We could no longer crawl; the undergrowth wastoo thick for that; we had to go forward bent double. 

We had progressed like this for fully half an hour when Francis, whowas in front as usual, beckoned us to lie down. We all lay motionlessamong 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 theravine. "

Another voice answered:

"Very good, Herr Leutnant, but in that case the patrols to right andleft need not cross the plank each time; they can turn when they come tothe ravine guard. "

The voices died away in a murmur. I craned my neck aloft. It was sodark, I could see nothing save the fretwork of branches against thenight 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 aboveus. 

"Too late!" my brother whispered back. "Do you hear the patrols?"

Footsteps crashing through the undergrowth resounded on the right andleft. 

"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 lostin 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 thepatrols is past, couldn't 'ee?"

Again I nodded. 

"It'd be worse for yew than for me, supposin' yew'd be ca-art, that'swhat 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 Iholler, yew and the others, yew run. Thirty-one forty-three SapperMaggs, R. E. , from Chewton Mendip ... That's me... Maybe yew'll let ushave 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 redamong the trees. To right and rear answering shouts resounded. 

Again the patrols met at the plank above our heads, and again theirdeparting footsteps rustled in the leaves. 

The murmur of voices grew nearer. We could faintly smell the burningresin of the torches. 

Then a wild yell rent the forest. The voice above us shouted "Halt!" butthe echo was lost in the deafening report of a rifle. 

Francis caught Monica by the wrist and dragged her forward. We wentplunging and crashing through the tangle of the ravine. We heard asecond shot and a third, commands were shouted, the red glare deepenedin 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 herup between us and went on, stumbling, gasping, coughing, our clothesrent and torn, the blood oozing from the deep scratches on our faces andhands. 

At length our strength gave out. We laid Monica down in the ravine anddrew the under growth over her, then we crawled in under the bramblesexhausted, beat. 

Dawn was streaking the sky with lemon when a dog jumped sniffing downinto our hiding-place. Francis and Monica were asleep. 

A man stood at the top of the ravine looking down on us. He carried agun 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 fromthe topmost mountain peaks to the softly lapping tide at the black edgesof the loch. Yet as I sit adding the last words to this plain account ofa curious episode in my life, the wintry scene dissolves before my eyes, and I see again that dawn in the forest ... Francis and Monica, sleepingside by side, like the babes in the wood, half covered with leaves, theeager, panting retriever, and myself, poor, ragged scarecrow, staringopenmouthed at the Dutchman whose kindly enquiry has just revealed to methe wondrous truth ... That we are safe across the frontier. 

What a disproportionate view one takes of events in which one is theprincipal actor! The great issues vanish away, the little things loomout large. When I look back on that morning I encounter in my memory norecollection of extravagant demonstrations of joy at our delivery, nohysteria, no heroics. But I find a fragrant remembrance of a glorioushot bath and an epic breakfast in the house of that kindly Dutchman, followed by a whirlwind burst of hospitality on our arrival at the houseof van Urutius, which was not more than ten miles from the fringe of theforest. 

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 aninterview at the British Consulate, with the result that we were able tocatch the steamer for England the next day. 

As the result of various telegrams which Francis dispatched fromRotterdam, a car was waiting for us on our arrival at Fenchurch Streetthe next evening. In it we drove off for an interview with my brother'sChief. Francis insisted that I should hand over personally the portionof the document in our possession. 

"You got hold of it, Des, " he said, "and it's only fair that you shouldget all the credit. I have Clubfoot's dispatch-box to show as the resultof my trip. It's only a pity we could not have got the other half out ofthe cloak-room at Rotterdam. "

We were shown straight in to the Chief. I was rather taken aback by theeasy 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. Feelingdistinctly embarrassed, I lugged out my portfolio, extracted the threeslips 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 helifted a cardboard folder from the desk in front of him, opened it anddisplayed the other half of the Kaiser's letter, the fragment I hadbelieved to be reposing in a bag at Rotterdam railway station. He placedthe two fragments side by side. They fitted exactly. Then he closed thefolder, carried it across the room to a safe and locked it up. Comingback, he held out his two hands to us, giving the right to me, the leftto 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 Chiefchuckled. "He did a wise thing. He brought your two letters to me. I sawto the rest. So, when your brother's telegram arrived from Rotterdam, Igot the other half of the letter out of the safe; I thought I'd be readyfor you, you see!"

"But how did you know we had the remaining portion of the letter?" Iasked. 

The Chief chuckled again. 

"My young men don't wire for cars to meet 'em at the station when theyhave 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 waslooking forward to going back to the front for a rest. This sort ofthing is too exciting for me!"

"Well, well, " answered the Chief, "we'll see about that afterwards. Inthe meantime, we shall not forget what you have done ... And I shall seethat it is not forgotten elsewhere. "

On that we left him. It was only outside that I remembered that he hadtold me nothing of what I was burning to know about the origin anddisappearance of the Kaiser's letter. 

It was my old friend, Red Tabs, whom I met on one of our many visits tomysterious but obviously important officials, that finally cleared upfor me the many obscure points in this adventure of mine. When he saw mehe burst out laughing. 

"'Pon my soul, " he grinned, "you seem to be able to act on a hint, don'tyou?"

Then he told me the story of the Kaiser's letter. 

"There is no need to speak of the contents of this amazing letter, " hebegan, "for you are probably more familiar with them than I am. The datealone will suffice ... July 31st, 1914 ... It explains a great deal. Thelast day of July was the moment when the peace of Europe was literallytrembling in the balance. You know the Emperor's wayward, capriciousnature, his eagerness for fame and military glory, his morbid terror ofthe unknown. In that fateful last week of July he was torn betweenopposing forces. On the one side was ranged the whole of the Prussianmilitary party, led by the Crown Prince and the Emperor's own immediateentourage; on the other, the record of prosperity which years of peacehad conferred on his realms. He had to choose between his ownmegalomania craving for military laurels, on the one hand, and, on theother, that place in history as the Prince of Peace for which, in hisgentler moments, he has so often hankered. 

"The Kaiser is a man of moods. He sat down and penned this letter in afit of despondency and indecision, when the vision of Peace seemedfairer to him than the spectre of War. God knows what violent emotionimpelled him to write this extraordinary appeal to his English friend, an appeal which, if published, would convict him of the deepesttreachery to his ally, but he wrote the letter and forthwith dispatchedit to London. He did not make use of the regular courier: he sent theletter by a man of his own choosing, who had special instructions tohand the letter in person to Prince Lichnowski, the German ambassador. Lichnowski was to deliver the missive personally to its destinedrecipient. 

"Almost as soon as the letter was away, the Kaiser seems to haverealised what he had done, to have repented of his action. Attempts tostop the messenger before he reached the coast appear to have failed. Atany rate, we know that all through July 31st and August 1st Lichnowski, in London, was bombarded with dispatches ordering him to send themessenger with the letter back to Berlin as soon as he reached theembassy. 

"The courier never got as far as Carlton House Terrace. Someone in theWar party at the Court of Berlin got wind of the fateful letter and sentword to someone in the German embassy in London--the Prussian jingoeswere well represented there by Kühlmann and others of his ilk--tointercept the letter. 

"The letter was intercepted. How it was done and by whom we have neverfound out, but Lichnowski never saw that letter. Nor did the courierleave London. With the Imperial letter still in possession, apparently, he went to a house at Dalston, where he was arrested on the day after wedeclared war on Germany. 

"This courier went by the name of Schulte. We did not know him at thetime to be travelling on the Emperor's business, but we knew him verywell as one of the most daring and successful spies that Germany hadever employed in this country. One of our people picked him up quite bychance on his arrival in London, and shadowed him to Dalston, where wepromptly laid him by the heels when war broke out. 

"Schulte was interned. You have heard how one of his letters, stopped bythe Camp Censor, put us on the track of the intercepted letter, and youknow the steps we took to obtain possession of the document. But we weremisled ... Not by Schulte, but through the treachery of a man in whom heconfided, the interpreter at the internment camp. 

"To this man Schulte entrusted the famous letter, telling him to send itby an underground route to a certain address at Cleves, and promisinghim in return a commission of twenty-five per cent on the price to bepaid for the letter. The interpreter took the letter, but did not do ashe was bid. On the contrary, he wrote to the go-between, with whomSchulte had been in correspondence (probably Clubfoot), and announcedthat he knew where the letter was and was prepared to sell it, only thepurchaser would have to come to England and fetch it. 

"Well, to make a long story short, the interpreter made a deal with theHuns, and this Dr. Semlin was sent to England from Washington, where hehad been working for Bernstorff, to fetch the letter at the address inLondon indicated by the interpreter. In the meantime, we had got afterthe interpreter, who, like Schulte, had been in the espionage businessall his life, and he was arrested. 

"We know what Semlin found when he reached London. The wily interpreterhad 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 beenpaid. But by the time Semlin got to London the interpreter was juggedand Semlin had to report that he had only got half the letter. The restyou know ... How Grundt was sent for, how he came to this country andretrieved the other portion. Don't ask me how he set about it: I don'tknow, and we never found out even where the interpreter deposited thesecond half or how Grundt discovered its hiding-place. But he executedhis mission and got clear away with the goods. The rest of the tale youknow 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 byname and reputation to very few, by sight to even fewer, yet I doubt ifany 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 hismaster, the tool of the Imperial spite as he was the instrument of theImperial 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 issueswoven and intertwined with political questions. It was in this sphere, where the personal is grafted on the political, that Clubfoot reignedsupreme ... Here and in another sphere, where German William is not onlymonarch, but also a very ordinary man. 

"There are phases in every man's life, Okewood, which hardly bear thelight of day. In an autocracy, however, such phases are generallyinextricably entangled with political questions. It was in these darkplaces that Clubfoot flourished ... He and his men ... 'the G gang' wecalled them, from the letter 'G' (signifying _Garde_ or _Guard_) ontheir secret-service badges. 

"Clubfoot was answerable to no one save to the Emperor alone. His workwas of so delicate, so confidential a nature, that he rendered anaccount of his services only to his Imperial master. There was none tostay 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 daresay, knows the manner in which his orders to this black-guard wereexecuted--orders rapped out often enough, I swear, in a fit ofpetulance, a gust of passion, and forgotten the next moment in theexcitement of some fresh sensation. 

"I know a little of Clubfoot's record, of innocent lives wrecked, ofcareers ruined, of sudden disappearances, of violent deaths. When youand your brother put it across der Stelze, Okewood, you settled a longoutstanding account we had against him, but you also rendered hisfellow-Huns a signal service. "

I thought of the comments I had heard on Clubfoot among the customers atHaase's, and I felt that Red Tabs had hit the right nail on the headagain. 

"By the way?" said Red Tabs, as I rose to go, "would you care to seeClubfoot's epitaph? I kept it for you. " He handed me a Germannewspaper--the _Berliner Tageblatt_, I think it was--with a paragraphmarked in red pencil. I read:

"We regret to report the sudden death from apoplexy of Dr. AdolfGrundt, an inspector of secondary schools. The deceased was closelyconnected for many years with a number of charitable institutionsenjoying the patronage of the Emperor. His Majesty frequently consultedDr. Grundt regarding the distribution of the sums allocated annuallyfrom the Privy purse for benevolent objects. "

"Pretty fair specimen of Prussian cynicism?" laughed Red Tabs. But Iheld my head ... The game was too deep for me. 

 * * * * *

Every week a hamper of good things is dispatched to 3143 Sapper EbenezerMaggs, British Prisoner of War, Gefangenen-Lager, Friedrichsfeld beiWesel. I have been in communication with his people, and since hisflight from the camp they have not had a line from him. They will let meknow 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 enquiryas to his safety for the same reason. If he survived those shots in thedark, he is certainly undergoing punishment, and in that case he wouldbe 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 returnto the misery of the starvation camp, or whether, out of the darkness ofthe forest, his brave soul soared free, achieving its final release fromthe 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. Francisis getting a billet on the Intelligence out in France when his leave isup. 

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 NewYear'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, DesmondOkewood, of the Secret Service, learns from a dying beach-comber of ahidden treasure. 

With the assistance of a millionaire, he sets out for Cock Island, inthe Pacific. To his astonishment he discovers that the Man with theClubfoot, whom he had regarded as dead, has anticipated him. It isobvious to Okewood that his old enemy is also in search of the hiddengold, and there ensues a thrilling sequence of adventures, in which themillionaire's pretty niece takes a prominent part. 

Okewood has the cipher, and the Man with the Clubfoot determines tosecure it, for without that cipher it is impossible to discover thehiding-place of the treasure; but there is something that the Man withthe Clubfoot does not know, whereas Okewood does.