The adventures of Heine
a similar capacity to a certain Legation which I was not at liberty to
name in Holland; that I was the soul of discretion, that I had no
friends in England, and that I was not liable for military service. I
added that I should be glad if the advertiser could arrange a meeting
in town and that in the circumstances I should like it to be as secret
as possible, because I was already doing confidential work for a
government department and they might not like to lose me.
The next morning came a telegram in reply.
“Meet me to-night at ten o’clock at the corner of Berkeley Street. I
shall be wearing a tall hat and light gloves.”
Ten o’clock that night found me at the rendezvous and punctually to
the minute a taxi-cab drew up and a gentleman alighted answering to
the description contained in the telegram. I walked up to him taking
off my hat.
“You are the advertiser?” he said sharply.
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
He looked at me thoughtfully. The light was very dim but I met his
gaze without faltering.
“Do you speak French?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“Walk along with me,” he said, taking my arm.
The cabman evidently knew his client and did not expostulate at his
departure. Had I been the fare he would have covered me with vile
abuse and would have told me that he had no petrol. Such is the
unscrupulousness of London cabmen!
We walked down Berkeley Street and turned into the deserted Berkeley
Square. He stopped in front of a gloomy house.
“I live here,” he said, “but I am at present staying in the country.”
His voice was sharp. He spoke brusquely and without politeness, and I
realized in a flash that he was noble-born. He asked me several
questions, more or less irrelevant, and then suddenly he turned about
and walked back in the direction of the cab.
“I think you will do,” he said, “you will leave to-morrow evening for
Hebleigh. I will meet you at the station and drive you to my cottage.
I keep no servants in the house when I am at Hebleigh.”
This seemed strange, but I was afterwards to discover that the cottage
had been specially built for my new employer, with vacuum cleaners,
gas and electric stoves, a perfect system of central heating, water on
every floor and a bathroom attached to every bedroom.
What a comfortable place, thought I, what luxury and how providential
for me! Here I could lie quiet for weeks and never be discovered, with
nothing to break the monotony of life but an occasional bath.
I had brought down a small hand-bag containing my worldly belongings,
and I was ushered into a small bedroom simply but expensively
furnished by my host. It was in that room, the first room in which the
lights were all switched on, that I had my first good view of him. He
was a man of about fifty-five, rather thin, very grey, with a pale,
æsthetic face and long, nervous hands. It may seem curious to you
that I had not asked him his name, but if you imagine I neglected that
precaution you do not know your Heine. I had asked him but he had not
responded.
“A woman comes every day to make the beds and to prepare our principal
meal,” he said. “You will not see her because she does her work whilst
I am in my study, and the meals are served on a lift which comes
straight from the kitchen.”
To his study he led the way. It was a large room, one wall of which
was covered by a bookshelf filled with large and imposing volumes. A
handsome table filled the middle of the room. There were two
comfortable arm-chairs and a writing-table. Under the window, across
which a heavy curtain was drawn, was a smaller table, and to this my
unknown employer pointed.
“That will be yours,” he said. “Your duty will be to translate
despatches which I shall write, into such languages as I shall tell
you. Do you speak German?”
I kept a straight face.
“Perfectly,” I replied.
He nodded approvingly.
“You wonder probably,” he said, as he seated himself at the table and
looked at me strangely over the tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses fixed on
his nose, “why I require discretion, why I chose you without knowing
anything about you or without any kind of reference? I chose you in
the first place,” he went on, without waiting for me to explain that I
could produce references, “because in the first place, I think you are
a foreigner. Am I right?”
“In a sense----” I began.
“Very well,” he went on. “Oh, by the way,” he looked at me sharply,
“have you ever heard of Bilbury’s Tablets?”
I had indeed heard of Bilbury’s Tablets, the advertisements of which
covered the hoardings of England and formed the most attractive
reading matter in the stupid British newspapers. I therefore answered
in the affirmative.
“Do you know the man Bilbury?” he asked, still looking at me keenly.
I was at first tempted to say that I did, but on second consideration
I thought it best to tell the truth.
“No, sir. I have never met him.”
“Good,” he said, nodding again.
He leant back in his chair.
“Bilbury,” he said--“and this, you will understand, is
confidential--is one of the biggest and most dangerous forces working
in this country against England. I have reason to believe that, under
one name or other, he is supplying most of the German agents with
their money. I am satisfied also that his advertisements are code
messages to the enemy government--you see, I trust you.”
I nodded, a little bewildered, for I had never known of Bilbury,
though I had heard that there were in England certain persons of whose
identity I was ignorant, who were working with the Fatherland.
“I tell you of Bilbury,” he went on, “because in part he explains a
great deal of the secrecy both of my habitation and my movements. He
also explains why I have chosen, as you might think haphazard, a
confidential secretary. You are under no circumstances to communicate
with any of Bilbury’s agents, and you are at all times to be prepared
to counter the machinations of this extraordinary man.”
There were two or three letters on the table, and one of these he
picked up, slit it open and took out what appeared to me to be a
perfectly blank sheet of paper. He held it up to the light and
frowned, replacing it upon his desk.
“Your presence here is already known evidently,” he said, “but I don’t
think we need bother very much about that. Now,” he went on more
briskly, “you are entitled to know who I am. Do you know Lord
Catherton?”
“I have seen Lord Catherton,” I replied.
He nodded.
“Do you know the Earl of Seabury?”
I shook my head.
“I have never met Lord Seabury.”
“Have you ever seen a photograph of him?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I replied, “I have not.”
Lord Seabury was until recently an English colonial governor, who was
now one of the members of the War Cabinet. He is not a man who has
figured largely in public life, and not at all in English public life,
and as I had never troubled about the colonies he was unfamiliar to
me.
He nodded again.
“I see you don’t know Lord Seabury,” he said with a little smile, “for
I am he.”
My heart gave a great bound. Heine indeed had fallen upon his feet,
thought I! To find myself in the confidence of one who was admittedly
a most powerful member of the War Council--what fortune, what amazing
luck!
“Now you understand why I shall require that you treat everything I
say, and everything you witness here, in the strictest confidence.”
That practically finished the conversation. His lordship led me to a
little dining-room where dinner was already laid, and we ate our meal
almost in silence. He told me I could go to bed, that he was an early
riser and would require my attendance at six o’clock in the morning.
I scarcely slept that night, turning over and over in my mind how I
might use to the best advantage the information which I was certain to
gain.
I had taken the precaution of buying at Paddington Station a little
guide-book of the district, and I carefully studied the roads, the
railway stations, and a time-table, with which I had provided myself
with my usual forethought, and planned out the course I would take if
it became necessary to leave hurriedly. With Kriessler in London, able
to forward my despatches to the Highest Quarters, I had no doubt that
within a week the name of Heine would be ringing along the corridors
of the German Foreign Office.
Punctually at six, I presented myself in the library, and found that
his lordship had prepared coffee with his own hands. From six to eight
we worked strenuously, his lordship writing, sometimes asking me to
translate into Spanish, sometimes into French, occasionally into
German, his brief but vital correspondence. I memorized as best I
could all these letters. Some were to the Minister of Foreign Affairs
in France, one was to a neutral Legation at Berne, this being marked
“Very Confidential and Secret,” and sealed heavily with his lordship’s
own hand. One was to a Spanish Cabinet Minister, and all dealt
intimately and frankly with the conduct of the war. I remembered in a
vague way that I had heard that Lord Seabury was the virtual dictator
of England, but I never realized it until I read those dictatorial,
intolerant messages which he sent forth, one being directed to the
commander-in-chief of a certain British army, telling him that he was
on no account to attack before the fourteenth of the following month.
Breakfast was served in the room where we had taken dinner and once
that was dispatched we returned to our labours. For the whole of that
day I was kept busy. A draft treaty with the Portuguese Government,
dealing with the future of the island of San Thomé, was one of the
documents which occupied the greater part of the afternoon in
translating.
At dinner his lordship was unusually frank, and under my genial
flattery he unbent.
“It is true, Mr. Smith,” he said (Smith had been the name I had given
him), “that I am dictating the policy of the Cabinet, which reminds me
that I must draft a letter to-night to the commander-in-chief of the
battle fleet. I am not at all satisfied with--” he stopped short--“by
the way,” he asked, “have you had any communication from any
mysterious source?”
“No,” I replied.
He shook his head a little despondently.
“It seems absurd that one should be dogged by a pill-maker,” he mused,
half to himself, “but that fellow has got to be dealt with sooner or
later.”
He left the room to go to his study, leaving me to finish a glass of
port, and I was rising from the table when he returned.
“Come this way,” he said in a whisper, “I will show you something.”
He led me down the corridor into the study in which the lights had
been extinguished. We walked across the room and he pulled back the
curtain. A bright moon was shining and at the far end of the garden
near the road was the figure of a thick-set man who was pacing slowly
and restlessly up and down the road. He dropped the fold of the
curtain and we returned to the dining-room which faces the back of the
house.
“That gentleman is M. Tarakanova,” he said, “and Tarakanova is the
chief of Bilbury’s agents.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully, “I shall
have to send that infernal dossier to town.”
“The dossier, my lord?” I repeated, innocently.
“The dossier,” he said.
He made no further explanation until later that night when we were
working in the study, a stealthy reconnaissance having revealed to me
that M. Tarakanova had disappeared. In the wall of the study was a
safe, and just before, or rather immediately after, he had bade me a
curt good night, he stopped my departure with a word, walked over to
the safe, opened it with a bunch of keys which he took from his
pocket, and pulled out a long yellow envelope which was heavily
sealed.
He brought it carefully back to the table, switched on the table light