The adventures of Heine
all was not well, but I sweated as I stood waiting for the answer
which seemed an eternity in coming, though in reality it was only a
second or so.
“No, I assure you, Herr Brown,” said von Kahn, “I came alone.”
“That makes matters simple,” said Brown’s voice, and as he spoke the
light went out. I heard von Kahn shout, but his voice was instantly
muffled.
There was a struggle, a thud that seemed to shake the little building,
a groan, and then silence.
I had my automatic pistol in my hand in a second.
Should I go to his rescue and take the risk of capture or should I
leave him to his fate? It was a terrible decision I was called upon to
make. We Germans do not shrink from our responsibilities, nor are we
governed by the foolish sentimentality which dictates the actions of
the commoner tribes. I made my way down the hill with great rapidity.
You may say that I was leaving a comrade to his fate, but I answer
that when one cog of a wheel breaks off do the other cogs disintegrate
themselves in sympathy. We were part of a great machine, von Kahn and
I, and my action, if it needed such justification, was justified by
the events which followed.
I was within fifty yards of the narrow road which winds along the base
of the hill when I thought I heard a sound before me and I stopped,
flattened myself on the ground between two bushes, and listened. There
was no doubt that I had reason for my suspicions. I heard, not one
stealthy footfall, but a dozen, and, peering up, I saw against the
artificial sky-line which I had created by lowering myself to the
earth, half a dozen shadowy figures. The nearest was ten yards away
and my heart came to my throat when I saw a gleam of light upon the
tunic of a policeman.
They were police, undoubtedly, and they were making their way up the
hill in such a manner as led me to believe that the hill itself was
practically surrounded. I watched, holding my breath. The first of the
figures passed not two yards away, the second on my right less than a
yard. I waited until they were well up the hill before I moved, and
then I wriggled forward with the utmost caution, for I thought it was
possible that they had left a guard on the road. This view proved to
be correct as I had not got far before I saw a man pacing the roadway.
Fortunately his beat was long and I was able to gain the road and
cross it.
I found myself in a field of cabbages. Here again luck was with me,
for running along two sides of the field was a deep ditch. Into this I
sank and with great labour reached the opposite hill, on the top of
which, hidden in a small copse, were the two motor bicycles which had
brought us on our night adventure.
Here again German forethought saved me from what might have been
destruction. Von Kahn had suggested we should have the chauffeur and
the car we had in the morning, but as I pointed out, this would have
aroused suspicion, and so instead we had hired two motor bicycles, not
from the town in which we were staying, but one five miles farther
along the line from whence we had set forth upon our quest.
Near by the copse, as I had seen earlier in the day, was a disused
quarry overgrown with vegetation. Swiftly I wheeled Kahn’s bicycle to
the edge and flung it over. It would remain undiscovered for at least
a few days, and possibly for ever, unless a search was made.
To leap upon the other motor cycle and to go flying down the road was
the work of a few minutes. I confess I was agitated and nervous. Who
was this mysterious man who lived at the top of the hill? How did he
know we were coming that night and was so sure of the hour that he
could surround his house with policemen to trap us? Why had he
assaulted my friend when he and his servant could have overcome him or
have held him at the point of a revolver until the police arrived?
My position was a precarious one. Von Kahn had been seen with me in
Dundee and obviously my business was to make myself scarce. It was
half past eleven that night when I rode up to the cycle dealer’s in
X----, and knocked at the door. The town was asleep and the street
deserted, but the man had been expecting our return and was waiting
up.
He looked surprised at my muddy appearance and more surprised at the
absence of my companion. I apologized to him, and told him that my
friend had been called away to London and had ridden down to a station
on the main line. I think he was most surprised when I offered to buy
the cycle I was using and also to buy that of von Kahn. I told him
that I had taken a liking to the machine and that von Kahn had
similarly expressed a wish to retain his. The price he fixed was a
fairly moderate one--we had already paid a large deposit--and I
concluded the bargain there and then.
I was anxious, of course, to finish this business of the motor-cycles
in order that I should not set on foot independent inquiries as to
their whereabouts, inquiries which would certainly have identified me
with von Kahn.
Taking on a supply of petrol and trimming my lamp, I set out for
Dundee, arriving at my hotel a little after four o’clock in the
morning. After some difficulty I aroused the night porter, a sleepy
old man whose name, I remembered, was Angus, and went to my room,
packed my small valise and, awaiting my opportunity, stole out of the
hotel, strapped my bag to the carrier of the bicycle, and rode through
the drear, menacing streets of Dundee for the last time.
Twenty miles out of Dundee all trace of the mysterious person who had
disappeared from his hotel leaving a £5 note to cover his bill and a
polite request that his letters should be forwarded to the Majestic
Hotel, London, vanished. A cool young Englishman joined an early
morning train to Edinburgh at an intermediate station, and certainly
that cool, young Englishman in his grey tweeds and his eye-glass bore
no resemblance to the muddy cyclist in soiled overalls who had crossed
the river at Perth and had excited the attention of a certain mounted
constable.
That cool young Englishman, perfect in every detail, might have been
seen leaving the Central Station at Glasgow that same afternoon not
only accompanied by his valise but by a large portmanteau which he had
taken from the cloak-room at the station and which with characteristic
German foresight he had caused to be forwarded to Glasgow on the night
he left London for Dundee.
I had communicated with London by telephone. Nothing had been heard of
von Kahn, but the whole of my service in England was now on the _qui
vive_. Posser, one of my assistants, was on his way to Glasgow to
confer with me, and half a dozen agents in that town were busy
investigating the mystery of the man on the hill.
I was sitting at dinner that night in one of the fashionable
restaurants of Glasgow, a restaurant approached through a magnificent
marble vestibule, searching the latest edition of the papers, hoping
for two lines which would give me a clue to von Kahn’s fate, when a
staring headline met my eye and I gasped.
“Swiss Forgers: Sensational Arrests at Glen Macintyre.
“The Sheriff’s Court at Stirling was crowded to-day when Emil
Zimmwald, alias Brown, a Swiss, Louis Swart, Swiss, and Heinrich Kahn,
also described as a Swiss, were remanded on a charge of forging Swiss
bank notes. Inspector Macguire, of the Stirling Constabulary, stated
that the prisoner Zimmwald, who called himself Brown, rented a cottage
at Glen Macintyre, Swart posing as his valet. The two men were
well-known international forgers, and had been engaged in printing a
very large number of Swiss bank notes. The attention of the police had
first been attracted to the house owing to the noise of working of the
small printing machine which the prisoners used for their nefarious
purpose. On raiding the premises the prisoner Kahn was discovered in a
dazed condition. There had evidently been a quarrel and Kahn had been
struck. The prisoner Zimmwald made a rambling statement to the effect
that Kahn was a detective who had been sent to arrest him, but this
highly improbable story will be investigated by the sheriff at a later
sitting. The man Kahn resolutely refuses to make any statement at
all.”
My poor von Kahn! Thou shalt go down in Scottish history as a
confederate of forgers and shall spend many years in that grim
penitentiary at Perth, pleading guilty to a crime abhorrent to thee,
lest the confession of thy true crime lead thee to a firing party in
the chilly dawn!
CHAPTER III.
THE LOVELY MISS HARRYMORE
In America, where the German and Austro-Hungarian population is so
much larger than in any other foreign country, the work of my
department is split up into three sections. There is a naval, a
military, and a commercial branch, each under an expert controlling
and distinct organization which could, however, be co-ordinated in the
event of war. In the United Kingdom there was no separation of
interests, and the root organization, that which I controlled,
covered, after the outbreak of the war, all three departments.
And let me say here for the information of my good friends who may
perhaps imagine I am boasting, that when I describe myself as
“controlling” the organization, I may inadvertently deceive. The exact
position was that I had organized my department, dug the channels
through which would flow the streams or rivulets of information; that
I myself had been in the position of the central reservoir which
collected and refined and transmitted the information so received. It
does not necessarily mean that because I was the architect that I was
necessarily the tenant of the fabric which I had created.
All the time in the first months of war there were great comings and
goings. Men arrived from Germany, from America, from Switzerland,
Sweden, and Holland, with forged passports, each charged with a
distinct and separate mission. Lody, whose name you may have heard,
came in the guise of a tourist agent, having certain definite
discoveries to make and certain propaganda to forward. Other men came
from America on similar missions. Some of these were gentlemen of the
very highest character who were not associated with me in any way, but
nevertheless sought me out in order to secure my assistance for the
development of their plans. Of their adventures I know little. Whether
they returned to Germany or not I am unable to say. Some got away and
some were caught, but in what manner I never knew.
I was loath to believe, and, indeed, did not believe, that a Secret
Service existed in Britain. There were, of course, detectives and
plain clothes policemen, whose task it was to watch railway and
steamship arrivals, but obviously it was impossible in the space of a
few weeks to create such a bureau as exists in the Wilhelmstrasse, or
that over which Captain von Treutchen presides with such distinguished
success in the Admiralty Buildings.
In November, 1914, I received orders direct from Berlin--the first I
had ever received--telling me that I must devote myself entirely to
industrial propaganda. I was informed that the sum of £12,000 had
been placed to my credit in the West London and Birmingham Bank, and I
was told to make my headquarters at Manchester in the capacity of
buyer for a well-known firm of Chilian importers with whom my chiefs
had a working arrangement.
I arrived at Manchester late one misty afternoon and made my way to
the best hotel, where rooms had been reserved for me.
I went to the desk and registered, and upon seeing my name the clerk
informed me that two gentlemen were waiting for me in the palm court.
“I don’t know whether you want to see them, sir,” he said; “I think
they are commercial travellers.”
“I will see them in my room, if you will be good enough to send them