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

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

I sat down and nodded in the arm-chair.

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

"Put these things on," she said, "and listen carefully. When you leave here, turn to the right and take the little staircase you will find on the right. Go down to the bottom, go through the glass doors, and across the room you will find there, to a door in a corner which leads to the ballroom 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 escort me to the car. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly."

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

She did so and added:

"Drive carefully, whatever you do. If we had a smash and the police intervened, 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's American, you see ... he drove me out into the Tiergarten just now and took 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 drove Count Rachwitz, my husband, while he was on duty there. And Carter hasn't forgotten what he saw in Belgium!"

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

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

"Good night, Miss Prendergast," I said. "You have done me a good turn. I shall never forget it!" And as the only means at my disposal for showing my 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, speaking personally, that Monica ever cared enough about me for me to plead guilty."

She sniffed contemptuously.

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

With that I took my leave.

* * * * *

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

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

The two officers kissed her hand whilst I helped her into her wrap. Then I marched straight out of the swing-doors in front of her, looking neither 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 had made up my mind not to see him.

Outside Monica took the lead and brought me over to a chocolate-coloured limousine drawn up at the pavement. I noted with dismay that the engine was stopped. That might mean further delay whilst I cranked up. But a friendly chauffeur standing by seized the handle and started the engine whilst I assisted Monica into the car, and the next moment we were gliding 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 that both Monica and I played our parts well, and I am sure nothing could have been more professional than the way I helped her to alight. It was an apartment house and she had the key of the front door, so, after seeing her safely within doors, I returned to the car and drove it round to 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 ladder outside 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 run her 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 bright little room with electric light, a table with a red cloth, a cheerful open fire and two beds. The walls were ornamented with pictures cut from the 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 sleep anywheres!"

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

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

"That there is your bed," he said, pointing; "the footman used to sleep there but they grabbed him for the army. There's a pair of Mr. Gerry's pyjamas 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 to go to sleep mortal bad, so I'll be going down. The bed's clean... there are 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 myself comfortable down in the garage. I don't often see a gentleman in this dawg-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 I heard 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 and dreamless sleep.



CHAPTER XII

HIS EXCELLENCY THE GENERAL IS WORRIED

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

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

"There ain't no call to mess yourself up inside with that dam' war bread of theirs," he chirped. "Miss Monica, she lets me have biscuits, same like 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 I used to work."

After breakfast he produced hot water, a safety razor and other toilet requisites, a clean shirt and collar, an overcoat and a Stetson hat—all from Gerry's wardrobe, I presumed. My boots, too, were beautifully polished, and it was as a new man altogether, fresh in mind and clean in body, that I presented myself, about ten o'clock in the morning, at the front door and demanded the "Frau Graefin." By Carter's advice I had removed my moustache, and my clean-shaven countenance, together with my black felt hat and dark overcoat, gave me, I think, that appearance of rather 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 leads into Gerry's room: he was asleep when I went in just now. I'll take you into him presently. Now tell me about yourself ... and Francis!"

I told her again, but at greater length, all I knew about Francis, his mission 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 have walked straight into a mesh of the most appalling complications which reach right up to the Throne."

"Never mind, Des," she said, leaning over and putting a little hand on my 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 not now be in the fix he is...."

And she sighed.

"Things look black enough, Des," she went on. "Maybe you and I won't get the chance of another chat like this again and that's why I'm going to tell you something I have never told anybody else. I am only telling you so as you will know that, whatever happens, you will always find in me an ally in your search ... though, tied as I am, I scarcely think I can ever help you much.

"Your brother wanted me to marry him. I liked him better than anybody else I had ever met ... or have ever met since, for that matter.... Daddy was dead, I was absolutely free to please myself, so no difficulties stood in the way. But your brother was proud ... his pride was greater than his love for me, I told him when we parted ... and he wouldn't hear of marriage until he had made himself independent, though I had enough for both of us. He wanted me to wait a year or two until he had got his business started properly, but his pride angered me and I wouldn't.

"So we quarrelled and I went abroad with Mrs. Rushwood. Francis never wrote: 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 to court, always looking for what she called a suitable pari for me. At Vienna we met Rachwitz ... he was very good looking and very well mannered and seemed to be really fond of me.

"Well, I gave Francis another chance. I wrote him a friendly letter and told him about Rachwitz wanting to marry me and asked his advice. He wrote me back a beastly letter, a wicked letter, Des. 'Any girl who is fool enough to sell herself for a title,' he said, 'richly deserves a German 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 miserable ever since. I'm not going to bore you with a long story about my matrimonial 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 his love affairs and his drunken parties and his attitude of mind towards me ... 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 from that. My husband's country ... my country ... is at war and the wives must play their part, wherever their heart is. Karl never asked me to come back, I'll give him the credit for that. I came of my own accord because I felt my place was here. So I go round to needlework parties and sewing bees and Red Cross matinees and try to be civil to the German women and listen to their boasting and bragging about their army, their hypocrisy about Belgium, their vilification of the best friends Daddy and I ever had, you English! But doing my duty by my husband does not forbid me to help my friends when they are in danger. That's why you can count 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 much because my secret is not healthy for anyone to share, and, should they trace any connection between you and me, if they get me, it will be better for you not to have known anything compromising. But I want to tell you this. There is a consideration at stake which is higher than my own safety, higher even than Francis'. I don't believe I am afraid to die: if I escape here, I shall probably get killed at the front sooner or later: it is because of this consideration I speak of that I want to get away with my life back to England."

Monica laughed happily.

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

"Now, listen! Old von Boden was at that party last night: he came in late. Rudi von Boden, he told me, is going to take despatches to Rumania, to Mackensen's head-quarters. Well, I telephoned the old man this 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 fetch it.

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

What a girl she was!

"About your friend, the clubfooted man," she went on, "I'm rather puzzled. He must be a person of considerable importance to be fetched by special train straight into the Emperor's private apartments, where very few 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 Political Police ... that's Henninger, a friend of Karl's. Still, there are people of great importance working in dark places in this country and I guess Clubfoot must be one of them.

"Now, I think I ought to take you into Gerry. I want to speak to you about 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 me harbouring 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 to read 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 to be Pittsburg: Francis went there for a bit, you know: he wrote me a lot about the place and I've seen pictures of it, too. It's the only American city I know anything about."

"Let it be Meyer from Pittsburg, then," smiled Monica, "but you've got a terrible English accent, Des. I guess we'll have to tell Gerry you were years 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 irritable and ... and very spiteful. So you must be careful not to give yourself away."

I had only met the brother once and my recollection of him was of a good looking, rather spoilt young man. He had been brought up entirely in the States 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'll sleep in the little room off Gerry's and I'll have your meals served there 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 he has only seen me once, he knows Francis pretty well and we are rather alike. Do you think he'll recognize me?"

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

I should never have recognized the handsome, rather indolent youth I had met in London in the pale man with features drawn with pain who gazed frowningly 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 leave us, 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 an impossible creature the man was. Nothing I could do was right. Now he didn't want to hear the war news, then it was the report of the Reichstag debate that bored him, now I didn't read loud enough, then my voice jarred on him. Finally, he snatched the paper out of my hand.

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

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

"Well, it's a good thing you're not there now. Those English are just plumb 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 stand against her! It's organization, that's what it is! The Germans lead the world. Take their doctors! I have been to every specialist in America about my back and paid them thousands of dollars. And what good did they do me? Not a thing. I come to Germany, they charge me a quarter of the fees, 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 by German efficiency and thoroughness so completely that he does not see the 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, the papers 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 the papers."

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

"Dot ain't in de paper, sir. I haf heard dis from de chauffeur of de Biedermanns next door. He wass at de hotel himself wid hiss shentleman lars' 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 to read on and be damned.

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

"I'm afraid I'm a bit trying at times, Meyer," he said with a pleasant smile. "But you're a good fellow. Go and have your lunch. You needn't come back till four: I always sleep after luncheon. Here, have a cigar!"

I took the cigar with all humility as beseemed my role and followed the valet into an adjoining room, where the table was laid for me. I am keenly sensitive to outside influences, and I felt instinctively distrustful of the man Josef. I expect he resented my intrusion into a sphere where his influence had probably been supreme and where he had doubtless 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 a book when Josef reappeared again.

"The Frau Graefin 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, and that'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 never accused him of cowardice. But, Des, to-day the man was cowed. He seemed to be in terror of his life and I had the greatest difficulty in making him say anything at all about your affair.

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

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

"'You mean the Emperor?' I asked.

"'The Emperor!' he said. 'Oh! of course, he's furious. No, I was not speaking of the Emperor!'

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

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

"That is all I could get out of him. But I have something further to tell you. The General went away immediately after lunch. Almost as soon as 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 same advice as the General, namely, to forget all about what occurred at the Esplanade last night. And then the Princess Radolin rang me up to say the 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, if I am discovered in your house, there is no knowing what trouble may not come 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 they might find out where you had been hiding and then we should be as badly off as before. No, you stay right on here, and maybe in a day or two I can get you away. I've been thinking something out.

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

"There has been no shooting there for two years now and the place is overstocked with game. The Government has been appealing to people with shooting preserves to kill their game and put it on the market, so I had arranged to go up to Bellevue this month and see the agent about this. I thought if I could prevail on Gerry to come with me, you could accompany him and you might get across the Dutch frontier from there. It's only about 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 the meantime you'll be quite safe here."

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

Then I went upstairs again to Gerry, who was in as vile a temper as before. His lunch had disagreed with him: he hadn't slept: the room was not hot enough ... these were a few of the complaints he showered at me as soon as I appeared. He was in his most impish and malicious mood. He sent me running hither and thither: he gave me an order and withdrew it in the same breath: my complacency seemed to irritate him, to encourage him 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 gentleman like you," he said, "but I believe you'll as lief speak as you were taught before you're through with this city. An English accent is not healthy in Berlin at present, Mister Meyer, sir, and you'd best learn to talk 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 having the police in here because some of their dam' plain-clothes men have heard my attendant saying 'charnce' and 'darnce' like any Britisher—especially with this English spy running round loose. By the way, 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 get a 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 was harping 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 himself into a fine state by the time she appeared.

"What's this I hear, Monica?" he cried in his high-pitched, querulous voice. "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. "Good God, how can you be so shiftless? A law is a law. The man's papers must be 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 is not quite in order and I shall have to take it to the embassy before I send 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 in the 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't have unknown foreigners brought in, with the city thick with spies—especially people with an English accent—his nerves wouldn't stand it: Monica ought to know better, and so on and so forth. The long and the short of it was that I was ordered to produce my passport immediately. Monica was to ring up the embassy to ask them to stretch a point and see to it out of office hours, then Josef should take me round to the police.

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

There was much she wanted to say—I could see it in her eyes—but I think she gathered from my face what I was going to do, so she said nothing.

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

"Very good, my lady. I will come straight back from the embassy and then go 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 the house might be watched, but I found the Bendler-Strasse quite undisturbed. It ran its quiet, aristocratic length to the tangle of bare branches marking the Tiergarten-Strasse with not so much as a dog to strike terror into the heart of the amateur spy. Even in the Tiergarten-Strasse, where the Jewish millionaires live, there was little traffic and few people about, and I felt singularly unromantic as I walked briskly along the clean pavements towards Unter den Linden.

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

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

I had taken the precaution of turning up my overcoat collar and of pulling my hat well down over my eyes, but no one troubled me. I reflected that only Clubfoot and Schmalz were in a position to recognize me and that, if I steered clear of places like hotels and restaurants and railway stations, where criminals always seem to be caught, I might continue to enjoy comparative immunity. But the trouble was the passport question. That reminded me.

I must get rid of Semlin's passport. As I walked along I tore it into tiny 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 flash in the eyes of the ignorant. But this passport was dangerous. It might denounce 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 along with crutches. Finally, I found it, a narrowish street running off a corner of the great square in front of the Reichstag. No. 2 was the second house on the right.

I had no plan. Nevertheless, I walked boldly upstairs. There was but one flat 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 the man 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 see if the Herr can receive you."

He led the way through a hall into a sitting-room and left me there. The place was a perfect museum of art treasures, old Dutch and Italian masters on the walls, some splendid Florentine chests, a fine old dresser loaded with ancient pewter. On a mantelshelf was an extraordinary collection of old keys, each with its label. "Key of the fortress of Spandau, 1715." "Key of the Postern Gate of the Pasha's Palace at Belgrade, 1810," "House Key from Nuremberg, 1567," were some of 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 a bald 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, pausing just long enough before he pronounced the name I gave to let me see that he believed it to be a pseudonym.

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

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

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

"Eichenholz? Eichenholz?" Kore repeated.

"I seem to know the name ... it seems familiar ... now let me see again.... Eichenholz, Eichenholz. ..."

While he was speaking he unlocked one of the oak cabinets and a safe came to view. Opening this, he brought out a ledger and ran his finger down the names. Then he shut the book, replaced it, locked the safe and the 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 from nowhere, you introduce yourself as Meyer; you ask me 'Who?' and 'What?' and 'Where?'—questions that, mark you, in my business, may have valuable answers. We private enquiry agents must live, my dear sir, we must eat and drink like other men, and these are hard times, very hard times. 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 lizard eyes.

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

"As you say, Herr Kore, enquiry agents must live, and I am quite prepared 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. The charge is five hundred marks. My client said to me the last time I saw him, 'Kore,' he said, 'if one should come asking news of me you will give 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 in gulden ... and I'll pay!"

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

Then he said:

"Boonekamp!"

"Boonekamp?" I echoed stupidly.

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

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

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

"Has the gentleman no little difficulty perhaps? ... about his military service, about his papers? The gentleman is young and strong ... has he been to the front? Was life irksome there? Did he ever long for the sweets of home life? Did he never envy those who have been medically rejected? The rich men's sons, perhaps, with clever fathers who know how to 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 right shop, as his gracious brother did. How can we serve the gentleman now? What are his requirements? It is a difficult, a dangerous business. It costs 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 see how 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 the significance of this word. But I can tell you this, your brother, thanks to my intervention, found himself placed in a situation in which he might well have come across this word...."

"Well?" I said impatiently.

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

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

"Your brother had deserted from the front—that is the most difficult class of business we have to deal with—we procured him a permis de sejour for fifteen days and a post in a safe place where no enquiries would 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 gave me the instructions I have repeated to you for anybody who should come asking 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 bad news from France."

The message was dated July 1st, I remembered.

"I have a good set of Swedish papers," the Jew continued, "very respectable timber merchant ... with those one could live in the best hotels and no one say a word. Or Hungarian papers, a party rejected medically ... very safe those, but perhaps the gentleman doesn't speak Hungarian. 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 really daren't! They are making it too dangerous."

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

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

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

I tried, as a final attempt to persuade him, an old trick: I showed him my money. He wavered at once, and, after many objections, protesting to the 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 overpersuaded me and I liked Herr Eichenholz, a noble gentleman and free with his money—see here, the papers of a waiter, Julius Zimmermann, called up with the Landwehr but discharged medically unfit, military pay-book and permis de sejour for fifteen days. These papers are only a guarantee in case you come across the police: no questions will be asked where I shall send you."

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

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

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

"I place you as waiter with a friend of mine who is kind to poor fellows like 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 and live 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 set of papers and a safe, comfortable life far away from the trenches—all snug and secure—cheap (in spite of the danger to me), because you are a lad of spirit and I liked your brother ... ten thousand marks!"

I breathed again. Once we had reached the haggling stage, I knew the papers would be mine all right. With Semlin's money and my own I found I had about L550, but I had no intention of paying out L500 straight away. So I beat the fellow down unmercifully and finally secured the lot for 3600 marks—L180.

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

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

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

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 and shrunken clothes, I must say I looked a pretty villainous person, the very antithesis of the sleek, well-dressed young fellow that had entered the flat half an hour before.

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

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

"How do you like my idea?" he said, "'Achilles in his Tent'... that is the device of the hidden part of my business—you observe the parallel, do you not?' Achilles holding himself aloof from the army and young men like yourself who prefer the gentle pursuits of peace to the sterner profession of war! Clients of mine who have enjoyed a classical education have thought very highly of the humour of my device."

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

Before one of these cellar entrances the Jew stopped. At the foot of the steep staircase leading down from the street was a glazed door, its panels 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 us full as we opened the door. At first I could see nothing except a very fat man, against a dense curtain of smoke, sitting at a table before an enormous glass goblet of beer. Then, as the haze drifted before the draught, I distinguished the outline of a long, low-ceilinged room, with small tables set along either side and a little bar, presided over by a tawdry female with chemically tinted hair, at the end. Most of the tables were occupied, and there was almost as much noise as smoke in the place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am loth to dwell on the degradation of the days that followed. That cellar tavern was a foul sink of iniquity, and in serving the dregs of humanity that gathered nightly there I felt I had indeed sunk to the lowest depths. The place was a regular thieves' kitchen ... what is called in the hideous Yiddish jargon that is the criminal slang of modern Germany a "Kaschemme." Never in my life have I seen such brutish faces as those that leered at me nightly through the smoke haze as I shuffled from table to table in my mean German clothes. Gallows' birds, sneak thieves, receivers, bullies, prostitutes and harpies of every description came together every evening in Herr Haase's beer-cellar. Many of the men wore the soiled and faded field-grey of the soldier back from the front, and in looking at their sordid, vulpine faces, inflamed with 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 back from the front told gloatingly of rapine and feastings in lonely Belgian villages or dwelt ghoulishly on the horrors of the battlefield, the mounds of decaying corpses, the ghastly mutilations they had seen in the dead. There were tales, too, of "vengeance" wreaked on "the treacherous English." One story, in particular, of the fate of a Scottish Sergeant ... "der Hochlaender" they called him in this oft-told tale ... still makes me quiver with impotent rage when I think of it.

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

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

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

I was always hearing references of this kind to my exploit. I was never spoken of except in terms of admiration, but the name of Clubfoot—der Stelze—excited only execration and terror.

I lived in daily fear of a raid at Haase's. Why the place had escaped so long, with all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I couldn't imagine. It was one of those defects in German organization which puzzle the best of us at times. In the meantime, I was powerless to escape. The first thing Haase had done was to take away my papers—to send them to the police, as he explained—but he never gave them back, and when I asked for them he put me off with an excuse.

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

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

My life in that foul den was a burden to me. The living conditions were unspeakable. Otto, a pale and ill-tempered consumptive, compelled, like me, to rise in the darkness of the dawn, never washed, and his companionship in the stuffy hole where we slept was offensive beyond belief. 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. And the food! It was only when I saw the mean victuals—the coarse and often tainted horseflesh, the unappetizing war-bread, the coffee substitute, and the rest—that I realized how Germany was suffering, though only through her poor as yet, from the British blockade. That thought used to help to overcome the nausea with which I sat down to eat.

Domestic life at Haase's was a hell upon earth. Haase himself was a drunken bully, who made advances to every woman he met, and whose complicated intrigues with the feminine portion of his clientele led to frequent scenes with the fair-haired Hebe who presided at the bar and over his household. It was she and Otto who fared daily forth to take their places in the long queues that waited for hours with food cards outside the provision shops.

These trips seemed to tell upon her temper, which would flash out wrathfully at meal-times, when Haase began his inevitable grumbling about the food. As Otto took a malicious delight in these family scenes, I was frequently called upon to assume the role of peace-maker. More than once I intervened to save Madame from the violence she had called down upon herself by the sharpness of her tongue. She was a poor, faded creature, and the tragedy of it all was that she was in love with this degraded bully. She was grateful to me for my good offices, I think, for, though she hardly ever addressed me, her manner was always friendly.

These days of dreary squalor would have been unbearable if it had not been for my elucidation of the word Boonekamp, which was said to hold the clue to my brother's address. On the wall in the cubby-hole where I slept was a tattered advertisement card of this aperitif—for such is the preparation—proclaiming it to be "Germany's Best Cordial." As I undressed at night, I often used to stare at this placard, wondering what connection Boonekamp could possibly have with my brother. I determined to take the first opportunity of examining the card itself. One morning, while Otto was out in the queue at the butcher's, I slipped away from the cellar to our sleeping-place and, lighting my candle, took down the card and examined it closely. It was perfectly plain, red letters 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 on the wall where the card had hung. My heart seemed to stand still with the 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's initials were attached. This is what I read:

(Facsimile.) 5.7.16.

"You will find me at the Cafe Regina, Duesseldorf—F.O."

After that I felt I could bear with everything. The message awakened hope that was fast dying in my heart. At least on July 5th, Francis was alive. To that fact I clung as to a sheet-anchor. It gave me courage for the hardest part of all my experiences in Germany, those long days of waiting 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 he came back, to see me, to give me a permit that would enable me to get to Duesseldorf. But the term of my permit was fast running out and the Jew never came.

There were often moments when I longed to ask Haase or one of the others about the time my brother had served in that place. But I feared to draw attention to myself. No one asked any questions of me (questions as to personal antecedents were discouraged at Haase's), and, as long as I remained the unpaid, useful drudge I felt that my desire for obscurity would be respected. Desultory questions about my predecessors elicited no information about Francis. The Haase establishment seemed to have had a 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 love with Frau Hedwig (the lady at the bar), then he quarrelled with Haase and threatened him—you know, about customers who haven't got their papers in order. The next time Johann went out, they arrested him. And he 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 had vanished. 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 grudging approval, though he was always ready to fly into a passion at the least opportunity.

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

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

"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 tear ran down the rouge on her cheek.

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

"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 staggering news.

"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 these regulations...."

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 all they want to know. That means our ruin, that means that Haase will go the same way as the Jew.

"But Haase is stubborn, foolhardy. The messenger warned him that a raid might 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 he says they daren't touch him: he has been too useful to them: he knows too 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 man was in a most perilous trade, and had probably been playing the game for years. But suppose they had tracked me to the house in the street called In den Zelten.

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

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

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

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

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

"Here you are, my lad," he said in quite a friendly tone, "put 'em in your 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 and I 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 were only a couple of customers, as it was so early—when a man, a regular visitor of ours, came down the stairs hurriedly. He went straight over to Haase and spoke into his ear.

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

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

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

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

When at last the blow fell, it came suddenly. A trampling of feet on the stairs, a great blowing of whistles ... then the door was burst open just as everybody in the cellar sprang to their feet amid exclamations and oaths from the men and shrill screams from the women. Outlined in the doorway stood Clubfoot, majestic, authoritative, wearing some kind of little skull-cap, such as duelling students wear, over a black silk handkerchief bound about his head. At the sight of the man the hubbub ceased on the instant. All were still save Haase, whose bull-like voice roaring for silence broke on the quiet of the room with the force of an explosion.

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

Clubfoot, after casting a cursory glance round the room, strode its length towards the bar where Haase stood, a crowd of plain-clothes men and 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, bawled stentorianly for lights ... the moment had come to act.

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

"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, and showed my star. The three dispersed in different directions calling for Drechsler.

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 to get clear of Berlin. However swiftly Clubfoot might act, it would take him certainly an hour and a half, I reckoned, from the discovery of my flight from Haase's to warn the police at the railway stations to detain me. If I could lay a false trail I might at the worst prolong this period of grace; at the best I might mislead him altogether as to my ultimate destination, which was, of course, Duesseldorf. The unknown quantity in my reckonings was the time it would take Clubfoot to send out a warning all over Germany to detain Julius Zimmermann, waiter and deserter, wherever and whenever apprehended.

At the first turning I came to after leaving Haase's, tram-lines ran across the street. A tram was waiting, bound in a southerly direction, where the centre of the city lay. I jumped on to the front platform beside the woman driver. It is fairly dark in front and the conductor cannot see your face as you pay your fare through a trap in the door leading to the interior of the tram. I left the tram at Unter den Linden and walked down some side streets until I came across a quiet-looking cafe. 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 all probability make for the frontier. So, I judged, Clubfoot must calculate, though, I fancied, he must have wondered why I had not long since attempted to escape back to England. Duesseldorf was on the main road 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 Rhine steamer. But time was the paramount factor in my case. By leaving immediately—that very night—for Duesseldorf I might possibly reach there before the local authorities had had time to receive the warning to be on the look-out for a man answering to my description. If I could leave behind in Berlin a really good false clue, it was just possible that Clubfoot might follow it up before taking general dispositions to secure my arrest if that clue failed. I decided I must gamble on this hypothesis.

The railway guide showed that a train left for Duesseldorf from the Potsdamer Bahnhof—the great railway terminus in the very centre of Berlin—at 12.45 a.m. That left me roughly three-quarters of an hour to lay my false trail and catch my train. My false trail should lead Clubfoot in a totally unexpected direction, I determined, for it is the unexpected that first engages the notice of the alert, detective type of mind. I would also have to select another terminus.

Why not Munich? A large city on the high road to a foreign frontier—Switzerland—with authorities whose easy-going ways are proverbial in Germany. You leave Berlin for Munich from the Anhalter Bahnhof, a terminus which was well suited for my purpose, as it is only a few minutes' drive from the Potsdamer station.

The railway guide showed there was a train leaving for Munich at 12.30 a.m.—an express. That would do admirably. Munich it should be then.

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

I paid for my coffee and set forth again. It was 12.15 as I walked into the hall of the Anhalt station.

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

I approached him and, raising my hat, politely asked him if he could tell 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 not till 5.49."

I assumed an expression of vexation.

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

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

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

It was just on the half-hour as I came out of the station. Not a cab to be seen! I hastened as fast as my legs would carry me until, breathless and panting, I reached the Potsdam terminus. The clock over the station pointed to 12.39.

A long queue, composed mostly of soldiers returning to Belgium and the front, stood in front of the booking-office. The military were getting their warrants changed for tickets. I chafed at the delay, but it was actually this circumstance which afforded me the chance of getting my ticket for Duesseldorf 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 a third-class single for Duesseldorf?" 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, "and lucky you are to be going to the Rhine. I'm from the Rhine myself and now I'm going back to guarding the bridges in Belgium!"

I thanked him and wished him luck. Here at least was a witness who was not likely to trouble me. And with a thankful heart I bolted on to the platform and caught the train.

Third-class travel in Germany is not a hobby to be cultivated if your means allow the luxury of better accommodation. The travelling German has a habit of taking off his boots when he journeys in the train by night—and a carriageful of lower middle-class Huns, thus unshod, in the temperature at which railway compartments are habitually kept in Germany, is an environment which makes neither for comfort nor for sleep.

The atmosphere, indeed, was so unbearable that I spent most of the night in the corridor. Here I was able to destroy the papers of Julius Zimmermann, waiter ... I felt I was in greater danger whilst I had them on me ... and to assure myself that my precious document was in its usual place—in my portfolio. It was then I made the discovery, annihilating at the first shock, that my silver badge had disappeared. I could not remember what I had done with it in the excitement of my escape from Haase's. I remembered having it in my hand and showing it to the 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 and then dropped it unwittingly. I looked at the place where it had been clasped on my braces: it was not there and I searched all my pockets for it in vain.

I had relied upon it as a stand-by in case there were trouble at the station in Duesseldorf. Now I found myself defenceless if I were challenged. It was a hard knock, but I consoled myself by the reflection that, by now, Clubfoot knew I had this badge ... it would doubtless figure in any description circulated about me.

It was a most unpleasant journey. There was some kind of choral society on the train, occupying seven or eight compartments of the third-class coach in which I was travelling. For the first few hours they made night hideous with part-songs, catches and glees chanted with a volume of sound that in that confined place was simply deafening. Then the noise abated as one by one the singers dropped off to sleep. Presently silence fell, while the train rushed forward in the darkness bearing me towards fresh perils, fresh adventures.

* * * * *

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

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

Duesseldorf is a bright, clean town with a touch of good taste in its public buildings to remind one that this busy, industrial city has found time even while making money to have called into being a school of art of its own. It was a delightful morning with dazzling sunshine and an eager nip in the air that spoke of the swift, deep river that bathes the city walls. I revelled in the clear, cold atmosphere after the foulness of the drinking-den and the stifling heat of the journey. I exulted in the sense of liberty I experienced at having once more eluded the grim clutches of Clubfoot. Above all, my heart sang within me at the thought of an early meeting with Francis. In the mood I was in, I would admit no possibility of disappointment now. Francis and I would come together at last.

I came upon a public square presently and there facing me was a great, big cafe, white and new and dazzling, with large plate-glass windows and rows of tables on a covered verandah outside. It was undoubtedly a "kolossal" establishment after the best Berlin style. So that there might be no mistake about the name it was placarded all over the front of the place in gilt letters three feet high on glass panels—Cafe Regina.

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

I ordered a good, substantial breakfast and whiled away the time while it was coming by glancing at the morning paper which the waiter brought me.

My eyes ran down the columns without my heeding what I read, for my thoughts were busy with Francis. When did he come to the cafe? How was he living at Duesseldorf?

Suddenly, I found myself looking at a name I knew ... it was in the personal paragraphs.

"Lieut.-General Count von Boden," the paragraph ran, "Aide-de-Camp to H.M. the Emperor, has been placed on the retired list owing to ill-health. General von Boden has left for Abbazia, where he will take up his permanent residence." There followed the usual biographical notes.

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

I ate my breakfast at a table by the open door, and surveyed the busy life of the square where the pigeons circled in the sunshine. A waiter stood on the verandah idly watching the birds as they pecked at the stones. 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 in the features of most of the customers at Haase's. I set it down to the insufficient feeding which is general among the lower classes in Germany to-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 that had something strangely pathetic about it. His air of brooding sadness seemed to attract me, and I found my eyes continually wandering back to his face.

And then, without warning, through some mysterious whispering of the blood, the truth came to me that this was my brother. I don't know whether it was a passing mood reflected in his face or the shifting lights and shadows in his eyes that lifted the veil. I only know that through those features ravaged by care and suffering and in spite of them 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, so dull was he with disappointment ... me with my unshaven, unkempt appearance and in my mean German shoddy ... but stood silently, awaiting my bidding.

"Francis," I said softly ... and I spoke in German ... "Francis, don't you know me?"

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

Only his mouth quivered a little as instantly his hands busied themselves 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 Schiller statue at a quarter past two and we'll go for a walk. Don't stay here now but come back and lunch in the restaurant ... it's always crowded and 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 swiftly flowing Rhine until we were far beyond the city. Anxious though I was that he should reveal to me that part of his life which lay hidden beneath those lines of suffering in his face, he made me tell my story first. So I unfolded to him the extraordinary series of adventures that had befallen me since the night I had blundered upon the trail of a great secret in that evil hotel at Rotterdam.

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

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

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

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

"You know there are issues in this game of ours, old man, that stand even higher than the confidence that there has always been between us two. That is why I wrote to you so seldom out in France—I could tell you nothing about my work: that is one of the rules of our game. But now you 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 letter written by a German interned at one of the camps in England was stopped by the Camp Censor. This German went by the name of Schulte: he was arrested at a house in Dalston the day after we declared war on Germany. There was a good reason for this, for our friend Schulte—we don't know his real name—was known to my Chief as one of the most daring and successful spies that ever operated in the British Isles.

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

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

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

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

"I managed it, with half a dozen hairbreadth escapes, and I set down my success solely to my knowledge of German and to that old trick of mine of German imitations. But I felt everywhere the influence of this unseen hand, enforcing a meticulous vigilance which it was almost impossible to escape. I was not surprised, therefore, to learn that two of my companions 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. "Jack Tracy was found dead on the railway: Herbert Arbuthnot was discovered hanging in a wood. 'Suicide of an Unknown Individual' was what the German papers called it in each case. But I heard the truth ... never mind 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 the time that they didn't know exactly where the letter was but that they anticipated our attempt to get it, hence the unceasing vigilance all along the frontier and inside it, too.

"They damned nearly got me at Cleves: I escaped as by a miracle, and the providential thing for me was that I had never posed as anything but a German, 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 in his face.

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

"I was in a desperate bad way, too, for I had had to abandon the last set of identity papers left to me when I bolted. I landed in Berlin with the knowledge that no roof could safely shelter me until I got a fresh lot 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 to Haase's ... this was towards the end of June. It was when I was at Haase's that I sent out that message to van Urutius that fell into your hands. That happened like this.

"I was rather friendly with a chap that frequented Haase's, a man employed in the packing department at the Metal Works at Steglitz. He was telling us one night how short-handed they were and what good money packers were earning. I was sick of being cooped up in that stinking cellar, so, more by way of a joke than anything else, I offered to come and lend a hand in the packing department. I thought I might get a chance of escape, as I saw none at Haase's. To my surprise, Haase, who was sitting at the table, rather fancied the idea and said I could go if I 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 the beer-cellar in the evenings. One day a package for old van Urutius came to me to be made up and suddenly it occurred to me that here was a chance of sending out a message to the outside world. I hoped that old van U., if he tumbled to the 'Eichenholz,' would send it to you and that you 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 was that, 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 the frontier on June 15th. I went to the place on June 15th, but he never showed up and, though I waited about for a couple of days, I saw no sign of him. I made my final attempt to get out and it failed, so, when I fled to Berlin, I knew that I had cut off all means of communication with home. As a last hope, I dashed off that cipher on the spur of the moment 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 dare mention Kore's name for fear the parcel might be opened. So I purposely spelt 'Achilles' with one 'l' to draw attention to the code word, so that they should know where news of me was to be found. It was devilish smart of you to decipher that, Des!"

Francis smiled at me.

"I meant to stay quietly in Berlin, going daily between Haase's and the factory and wait, for a month or two, in case that message got home. But Kore began to give trouble. At the beginning of July he came to see me and hinted that the renewal of my permis de sejour would cost money. I paid him, but I realized then that I was absolutely in his power and I had no intention of being blackmailed. So I made use of his cupidity to leave 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 filthy hovel where we slept and came up here after a job I had heard of at the Cafe 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 the hand that has been against us from the start, though who the man is, and what his power, I, like you, only know from what he told you himself. The Germans are clever enough, as we know from their communiques, to tell the truth when it suits their book. I believe that Clubfoot was telling you the truth in what he said about his mission that night at the Esplanade.

"You and I know now that the Kaiser wrote that letter ... we also know that it was addressed to an influential English friend of William II. You have seen the date ... Berlin, July 31st, 1914 ... the eve of the outbreak of the world war. Even from this half in my pocket ... and you who have seen both halves of the letter will confirm what I say ... I can imagine what an effect on the international situation this letter would have had if it had reached the man for whom it was destined. But it did not ... why, we don't know. We do know, however, that the Emperor is keenly anxious to regain possession of his letter ... you yourself were a witness of his anxiety and you know that he put the matter into the hands of the man Clubfoot."