Mr. Standfast
ever born could have done that kind of thing. It wasn’t recklessness.
It was sheer calculating courage.
Then Blenkiron took up the tale. The newspaper we found that Christmas
Eve in the Château was of tremendous importance, for Bommaerts had
pricked out in the advertisement the very special second cipher of the
Wild Birds. That proved that Ivery was at the back of the Swiss
business. But Blenkiron made doubly sure.
“I considered the time had come,” he said, “to pay high for valuable
noos, so I sold the enemy a very pretty de-vice. If you ever gave your
mind to ciphers and illicit correspondence, Dick, you would know that
the one kind of document you can’t write on in invisible ink is a
coated paper, the kind they use in the weeklies to print photographs of
leading actresses and the stately homes of England. Anything wet that
touches it corrugates the surface a little, and you can tell with a
microscope if someone’s been playing at it. Well, we had the good
fortune to discover just how to get over that little difficulty—how to
write on glazed paper with a quill so as the cutest analyst couldn’t
spot it, and likewise how to detect the writing. I decided to sacrifice
that invention, casting my bread upon the waters and looking for a
good-sized bakery in return.... I had it sold to the enemy. The job
wanted delicate handling, but the tenth man from me—he was an Austrian
Jew—did the deal and scooped fifty thousand dollars out of it. Then I
lay low to watch how my friend would use the de-vice, and I didn’t wait
long.”
He took from his pocket a folded sheet of _L’Illustration_. Over a
photogravure plate ran some words in a large sprawling hand, as if
written with a brush.
“That page when I got it yesterday,” he said, “was an unassuming
picture of General Pétain presenting military medals. There wasn’t a
scratch or a ripple on its surface. But I got busy with it, and see
there!”
He pointed out two names. The writing was a set of key-words we did not
know, but two names stood out which I knew too well. They were
“Bommaerts” and “Chelius”.
“My God!” I cried, “that’s uncanny. It only shows that if you chew long
enough—-”
“Dick,” said Mary, “you mustn’t say that again. At the best it’s an
ugly metaphor, and you’re making it a platitude.”
“Who is Ivery anyhow?” I asked. “Do you know more about him than we
knew in the summer? Mary, what did Bommaerts pretend to be?”
“An Englishman.” Mary spoke in the most matter-of-fact tone, as if it
were a perfectly usual thing to be made love to by a spy, and that
rather soothed my annoyance. “When he asked me to marry him he proposed
to take me to a country-house in Devonshire. I rather think, too, he
had a place in Scotland. But of course he’s a German.”
“Ye-es,” said Blenkiron slowly, “I’ve got on to his record, and it
isn’t a pretty story. It’s taken some working out, but I’ve got all the
links tested now.... He’s a Boche and a large-sized nobleman in his own
state. Did you ever hear of the Graf von Schwabing?”
I shook my head.
“I think I have heard Uncle Charlie speak of him,” said Mary, wrinkling
her brows. “He used to hunt with the Pytchley.”
“That’s the man. But he hasn’t troubled the Pytchley for the last eight
years. There was a time when he was the last thing in smartness in the
German court—officer in the Guards, ancient family, rich, darned
clever—all the fixings. Kaiser liked him, and it’s easy to see why. I
guess a man who had as many personalities as the Graf was amusing
after-dinner company. Specially among the Germans, who in my experience
don’t excel in the lighter vein. Anyway, he was William’s white-headed
boy, and there wasn’t a mother with a daughter who wasn’t out gunning
for Otto von Schwabing. He was about as popular in London and Noo
York—and in Paris, too. Ask Sir Walter about him, Dick. He says he had
twice the brains of Kuhlmann, and better manners than the Austrian
fellow he used to yarn about.... Well, one day there came an almighty
court scandal, and the bottom dropped out of the Graf’s world. It was a
pretty beastly story, and I don’t gather that Schwabing was as deep in
it as some others. But the trouble was that those others had to be
shielded at all costs, and Schwabing was made the scapegoat. His name
came out in the papers and he had to go .”
“What was the case called?” I asked.
Blenkiron mentioned a name, and I knew why the word Schwabing was
familiar. I had read the story long ago in Rhodesia.
“It was some smash,” Blenkiron went on. “He was drummed out of the
Guards, out of the clubs, out of the country.... Now, how would you
have felt, Dick, if you had been the Graf? Your life and work and
happiness crossed out, and all to save a mangy princeling. ‘Bitter as
hell,’ you say. Hungering for a chance to put it across the lot that
had outed you? You wouldn’t rest till you had William sobbing on his
knees asking your pardon, and you not thinking of granting it? That’s
the way you’d feel, but that wasn’t the Graf’s way, and what’s more it
isn’t the German way. He went into exile hating humanity, and with a
heart all poison and snakes, but itching to get back. And I’ll tell you
why. It’s because his kind of German hasn’t got any other home on this
earth. Oh, yes, I know there’s stacks of good old Teutons come and
squat in our little country and turn into fine Americans. You can do a
lot with them if you catch them young and teach them the Declaration of
Independence and make them study our Sunday papers. But you can’t deny
there’s something comic in the rough about all Germans, before you’ve
civilised them. They’re a pecooliar people, a darned pecooliar people,
else they wouldn’t staff all the menial and indecent occupations on the
globe. But that pecooliarity, which is only skin-deep in the working
Boche, is in the bone of the grandee. Your German aristocracy can’t
consort on terms of equality with any other Upper Ten Thousand. They
swagger and bluff about the world, but they know very well that the
world’s sniggering at them. They’re like a boss from Salt Creek Gully
who’s made his pile and bought a dress suit and dropped into a Newport
evening party. They don’t know where to put their hands or how to keep
their feet still.... Your copper-bottomed English nobleman has got to
keep jogging himself to treat them as equals instead of sending them
down to the servants’ hall. Their fine fixings are just the high light
that reveals the everlasting jay. They can’t be gentlemen, because they
aren’t sure of themselves. The world laughs at them, and they know it
and it riles them like hell.... That’s why when a Graf is booted out of
the Fatherland, he’s got to creep back somehow or be a wandering Jew
for the rest of time.”
Blenkiron lit another cigar and fixed me with his steady, ruminating
eye.
“For eight years the man has slaved, body and soul, for the men who
degraded him. He’s earned his restoration and I daresay he’s got it in
his pocket. If merit was rewarded he should be covered with Iron
Crosses and Red Eagles.... He had a pretty good hand to start out with.
He knew other countries and he was a dandy at languages. More, he had
an uncommon gift for living a part. That is real genius, Dick, however
much it gets up against us. Best of all he had a first-class outfit of
brains. I can’t say I ever struck a better, and I’ve come across some
bright citizens in my time.... And now he’s going to win out, unless we
get mighty busy.”
There was a knock at the door and the solid figure of Andrew Amos
revealed itself.
“It’s time ye was home, Miss Mary. It chappit half-eleven as I came up
the stairs. It’s comin’ on to rain, so I’ve brought an umbrelly.”
“One word,” I said. “How old is the man?”
“Just gone thirty-six,” Blenkiron replied.
I turned to Mary, who nodded. “Younger than you, Dick,” she said
wickedly as she got into her big Jaeger coat.
“I’m going to see you home,” I said.
“Not allowed. You’ve had quite enough of my society for one day.
Andrew’s on escort duty tonight.”
Blenkiron looked after her as the door closed.
“I reckon you’ve got the best girl in the world.”
“Ivery thinks the same,” I said grimly, for my detestation of the man
who had made love to Mary fairly choked me.
“You can see why. Here’s this degenerate coming out of his rotten
class, all pampered and petted and satiated with the easy pleasures of
life. He has seen nothing of women except the bad kind and the overfed
specimens of his own country. I hate being impolite about females, but
I’ve always considered the German variety uncommon like cows. He has
had desperate years of intrigue and danger, and consorting with every
kind of scallawag. Remember, he’s a big man and a poet, with a brain
and an imagination that takes every grade without changing gears.
Suddenly he meets something that is as fresh and lovely as a spring
flower, and has wits too, and the steeliest courage, and yet is all
youth and gaiety. It’s a new experience for him, a kind of revelation,
and he’s big enough to value her as she should be valued.... No, Dick,
I can understand you getting cross, but I reckon it an item to the
man’s credit.”
“It’s his blind spot all the same,” I said.
“His blind spot,” Blenkiron repeated solemnly, “and, please God, we’re
going to remember that.”
Next morning in miserable sloppy weather Blenkiron carted me about
Paris. We climbed five sets of stairs to a flat away up in Montmartre,
where I was talked to by a fat man with spectacles and a slow voice and
told various things that deeply concerned me. Then I went to a room in
the Boulevard St Germain, with a little cabinet opening off it, where I
was shown papers and maps and some figures on a sheet of paper that
made me open my eyes. We lunched in a modest café tucked away behind
the Palais Royal, and our companions were two Alsatians who spoke
German better than a Boche and had no names—only numbers. In the
afternoon I went to a low building beside the Invalides and saw many
generals, including more than one whose features were familiar in two
hemispheres. I told them everything about myself, and I was examined
like a convict, and all particulars about my appearance and manner of
speech written down in a book. That was to prepare the way for me, in
case of need, among the vast army of those who work underground and
know their chief but do not know each other.
The rain cleared before night, and Blenkiron and I walked back to the
hotel through that lemon-coloured dusk that you get in a French winter.
We passed a company of American soldiers, and Blenkiron had to stop and
stare. I could see that he was stiff with pride, though he wouldn’t
show it.
“What d’you think of that bunch?” he asked.
“First-rate stuff,” I said.
“The men are all right,” he drawled critically. “But some of the
officer-boys are a bit puffy. They want fining down.”
“They’ll get it soon enough, honest fellows. You don’t keep your weight
long in this war.”
“Say, Dick,” he said shyly, “what do you truly think of our Americans?
You’ve seen a lot of them, and I’d value your views.” His tone was that
of a bashful author asking for an opinion on his first book.
“I’ll tell you what I think. You’re constructing a great middle-class
army, and that’s the most formidable fighting machine on earth. This
kind of war doesn’t want the Berserker so much as the quiet fellow with
a trained mind and a lot to fight for. The American ranks are filled
with all sorts, from cow-punchers to college boys, but mostly with
decent lads that have good prospects in life before them and are
fighting because they feel they’re bound to, not because they like it.
It was the same stock that pulled through your Civil War. We have a
middle-class division, too—Scottish Territorials, mostly clerks and