The adventures of Heine
lest he mistook my ague for a more ignoble emotion, but presently I
plucked up courage and went out to look for him. He was not at the
corner of the lane nor was he on that pavement at all. I made a
circuit of the Cathedral without meeting him and then I realized that
the Zeppelins had not been near St. Paul’s but had passed westward.
Naturally he would have been informed at the last moment and would
have been on a spot where they would pass.
I did not attempt to join the throngs that gathered about the places
where the bombs had fallen, but made my way homeward. At one o’clock
he had not returned; two, three, and four passed. I still listened and
then the horror of the possibility seized me. This gallant man had
perhaps paid for his temerity with his life and I bought an early
morning paper as soon as one was procurable and searched in vain for
some indication of his fate. Such a man could not be stricken down
without attracting attention, but there was no reference whatever to
such a one as he. In a fever of anxiety I paced my room. I called up
my various agents but they could give me no information and I had
almost abandoned hope when, at half-past eleven, the Baron came,
debonair and calm into my office.
“You had a good view,” were the first words he said.
“Oh, Herr Baron,” I said. I grasped his hand and shook it (a most
presumptuous thing to do); “I am so glad to see you back! If you
missed me, I was on the spot.”
“I didn’t miss you,” he said.
“Where were you?”
“I was at Fishguard, meeting your man but apparently without success,
for he did not come.”
“You were at Fishguard?” I gasped.
“Naturally,” he said, “you don’t suppose I am such a silly fool that I
am going to stand under a bomb to see it burst, do you?”
Such a man was this mean-souled dog, von Treutzer!
Thank heaven! He disappeared in a week. He may have been picked up by
a descending Zeppelin. He may have been taken off by a
near-approaching submarine. I have had no news, but if I hear he got
back to Germany alive, I, Heine, will be sorry.
CHAPTER VI.
THE AFFAIR OF THE ALLIES’ CONFERENCE
By what strange fate, you may ask, did I, Heine, the chief of the
Intelligence Bureau in England, escape the detection which was the
fate of Koos, of Klein, of Posser and in a degree of von Kahn? Had I
not been associated with them? Had I not been identified with them? It
is possible that there would have been little reason to ask this
question, but I had been seen with Koos. The British Intelligence
Department knew that I was associated with Posser and Klein. I had
been seen in circumstances which, I am willing to admit, were
suspicious, in Manchester, and yet I, the head and brain of the
organization might walk at liberty and none question me as to my
comings and goings!
I had this matter thoroughly thrashed out with myself in the seclusion
of my room, for we Germans harbour no illusions. We have that gift of
introspection, of self-weighing, which gift no other nation can claim
with truth. We see the black side and the bright side. We see our own
faults, few though they are, our own national shortcomings, such as
modesty, sentimentality, and transparent honesty, and we are able to
balance delicately the pros and the cons, even though in so doing we
disparage in thought our own acts and thoughts. And after a night of
self-communion I came to this conclusion:
It is true that I had been seen in association with my unfortunate
friends, but then so had other men who were beyond any suspicion. It
was abundantly clear to me that I had escaped any unpleasantness as a
result of the thoroughness of my organization, my foresight, and the
well-devised methods I had adopted for covering my tracks. You might
come into my office any day and demand that my books should be seen.
You might go to my bank and look at my account. You might examine all
the records of my trading and find nothing there to support the
suggestion that I was not carrying on a legitimate business.
I had not been very well after the unhappy ending of Klein and the
disappearance of poor Posser. Who knows in what prison camp he
languishes, far from the sound of Hameln’s bells--he was a Hanoverian,
related to the well-born Graf von Welsich-Heidebrand--or with what
anguished tears he dreams of his beloved Fatherland? But enough of
sentiment! We Germans are a practical people, so practical that we
have aroused the envy and hatred of the whole world.
I think it must have been my association with the spurious journalist,
Haynes, that not only awoke a certain uneasiness in my breast, and
shook my confidence in my judgment as to the existence of a British
secret service, but it also showed me a way to dispel any suspicion
which I might have created in the bosom of the police, and also to
advertize my innocence to the great public. I began systematically to
write letters to the newspapers.
You may remember my long letter in the _Evening Post_ on the necessity
for limiting the supplies to neutrals. You may recall the letter which
was given due prominence in the _Post Telegraph_ on the urgent
necessity for a South American Federation to show a united front
against German “cruelties”--I felt a foul traitor to _Deutschtum_ when
I wrote this!--you may have clipped from numerous papers, both in
London and in the provinces, innumerable epistles, signed Francisco
Cannelli, on the heroism of France, on the splendour of Belgium, on
the necessity for learning Spanish, so that the good English could
come into South America and take away the wicked German’s trade, and
you would certainly have found my name against respectable amounts in
the subscription lists which were opened by various newspapers in the
early days of the war.
It was a scheme of colossal daring and how well I succeeded! No less
than seven newspapers published my photograph. I was interviewed for
the _Times-Herald_. I was referred to in other letters to the editor,
and my frankness and geniality were praised in the highest measure.
For, in the course of these letters, I admitted frankly that, quite
unwittingly--because of my foreign origin--I had been acquainted with
many notorious spies in England and I even suggested methods by which
the spy could be traced and brought to justice (this was in one of the
four letters I wrote on “The Unseen Hand”). I took up “The Unseen
Hand” idea with enthusiasm. It was a popular cry and who was I, that I
should not take advantage of the onrushing wave and ride to popularity
upon its crest?
To the everlasting honour of the illustrious and excellent chiefs of
my Department in Berlin, they recognized the object of my scheme, and
I could show you now, if the codes had not been destroyed, messages of
congratulation couched in the most gracious terms and signed by names
which indicated personages of the most exalted character.
There was living in England (in Kent to be exact) at this time, the
Baron von Hertz-Missenger, who was what was termed a naturalized
German, and as I have remarked on many occasions (and have been
complimented on my delicate wit) a naturalized German is a German in
his natural state.
The Herr Baron had a beautiful house and was in a position to secure
news both from the Fatherland and from certain exclusive circles in
London. From that high flag-staff of his, many a message has leapt
into the night and been caught by our vigilant radio operators at
Wilhelmshaven. From that closed study, with its rows upon rows of
books, its gorgeous Persian carpets and its shaded lamps, many a
British secret has been coded into a few meaningless words.
The Herr Baron and I were good friends, though we seldom met. I think
he was pleased with me because I never forgot the homage which is due
to the greatly-born, and he was certainly popular with me because he
had the ear of Potsdam and the All-Highest Confidence of He Whose Name
we will not mention. My reputation as a writer of letters had been
firmly established when I received a note asking me to meet the Baron
at a certain hotel in a South Coast watering place. Precisely on the
day, at the hour and to the minute of my appointment, I presented
myself in the private suite of his Excellency, who always received me
with the most gracious condescension.
“Heine,” he said, when he had closed the door, “I am very troubled
about you.”
“About me, your Excellency,” I said in surprise.
“Yes, about you,” he repeated. “It is clear to me that you are
suspect. I have heard all about the things which have happened in the
past, and knowing the British Secret Service as I do, I cannot imagine
that you have, as the Americans say, got away with it.”
“Secret service, your Excellency?” I smiled; “surely you do not
believe in a widely organized----?”
“Don’t be a fool, Heine,” said the Herr Baron sharply; even to be
called a fool by a man of his position and rank is a compliment,
implying as it does a friendliness and an intimacy which few of us
attain with our superiors. “Of course there is a Secret Police. The
whole country is overrun with them. It is the most deadly Secret
Police in the world, with the exception of the American, because it
doesn’t boast and it doesn’t talk. Its very silence is its strength.”
For my part, though I was not feeling strong, I was silent. One cannot
argue the point with an amateur, even a distinguished amateur, and
whilst I was always willing to admit that the police of England were
undoubtedly brilliant and extraordinarily lucky, I could not admit the
existence of an organization on the scale which the Herr Baron
outlined.
“You don’t believe this,” he said quickly, and before I could protest
my faith in anything he said, he went on: “I tell you, that this hotel
is filled with English spies. They probably saw you come into this
room, and it is fairly certain they followed you from London and will
go back with you. That is why I asked you in my telegram to come down
and have a friendly argument on the question of trade after the war,
as outlined in your letter to the _Post Herald_. That telegram was
read and re-read before it reached you. Have no doubt of that, Heine.
Here in England they know I am a German. They hope I am loyal. They do
not trust me any more than they trust you.”
“But surely, Herr Baron,” I smiled, “this does not mean that your
Excellency will not be able to serve the Fatherland in moments of
emergency?”
He shook his head.
“If by that you mean wireless, my answer is no,” he said, “my wireless
apparatus is dust and ashes. I have burnt it and destroyed every
single code. I have one more piece of work to do for Deutschland and
if I succeed, or if somebody else succeeds, I am finished, and leave
well alone. I cannot advise you to do the same, because it is your
business to take risks just as it is my business not to take risks.
Now I have called you down partly to warn you, and partly to give you
certain information. Whether you act on that information or not is
also your business. You have heard of Lord Leatham?”
I nodded.
“He has an estate in Shropshire. He is not a rich man, and some years
he used to let his estate to a tenant. He is a friend of a friend of
mine and I have learnt that it is the intention of the Government to
take over his property as a prison camp for German officers. Now, it
may be necessary--this is merely a conjecture, and I am only looking
ahead--to communicate with gentlemen who will be in that camp. Leatham
Priory is a very old house,” he spoke slowly and impressively, “at one
time it was in the possession of a persecuted Catholic family, and
there is a legend that beneath the grounds runs a secret subterranean
passage. That it was something more than a legend Lord Leatham