"A Story of Britain's Peril" (continued 3)

“Of course not, my darling. I know full well that you love me, and, as a natural consequence, you are perhaps a little too apprehensive.”

“I have cause to be,” she said in a low voice, and, taking from the breast of her low-cut gown a crumpled letter, she handed it to him, saying: “A week ago I received this! Read it!”

He took it and, opening it, found it to be an ill-scribbled note, upon a sheet of common note-paper such as one would buy in a penny packet, envelopes included.

The note, which was anonymous, and bore the postmark of Willesden, commenced with the words “Dear Miss,” and ran as follows:

“Your lover, Sainsbury, has been warned to keep his nose out of other people’s affairs, and as he continues to inquire about what does not concern him his activity is to be cut short. Tell him that, as he has disregarded the advice given him by letter two months ago, his fate is now sealed. The arm of Germany’s vengeance is long, and reaches far. So beware—both of you!”

For a few seconds Jack held the mysterious missive in his hand, and then suddenly he burst out laughing.

“You surely won’t allow this to worry you?” he exclaimed. “Why, it’s only some crank—somebody we know who is playing a silly practical joke,”—and folding the letter, he gave it back to her with a careless air. “Such a letter as that doesn’t worry me for a single minute.”

“But it contains a distinct assertion—that you are doomed!” cried the girl, pale-faced and very anxious.

“Yes—it certainly is a very cheerful note. Whom do you know at Willesden?”

“Not a soul that I can think of. I’ve been puzzling my brains for days as to anybody I know there, but can think of no one.”

“It was posted out there on purpose, no doubt!” he laughed. “Well, if I were you, Elise, I wouldn’t give it another thought.”

“Ah, that’s all very well. But I can’t get rid of the distinct belief that some mischief is intended,” answered the girl very gravely.

“No, no, darling?” he assured her, placing his arm again round her slim waist, and kissing her fondly upon the lips. “Don’t anticipate any such thing. Somebody’s having a game with us. They think it a huge joke, no doubt.”

“But do look the facts in the face, Jack!” she urged. “These spies of Germany, swarming over the country as they do, will hesitate at nothing in order to gain victory for their barbarous Fatherland. Not only have we to fight the unscrupulous army of the Kaiser, remember, but another army of pro-Germans in our midst,—those pretended Englishmen who have their ‘spiritual homes’ in Berlin.”

“True. But don’t let that letter get on your nerves, darling. Burn it, and then forget it.”

“Did you ever receive a letter warning you?” she asked.

“Yes. I’ve had several. One was, I believe, in the same handwriting as yours,” was his rather careless reply.

“You never told me of them!”

“Because I discarded them,” he said. “I believe I’ve had quite half a dozen at various times, but I pay no attention to people who don’t sign their names.”

Elise Shearman sighed. In her fine blue eyes there was a distinctly troubled look.

She loved Jack very deeply and tenderly. What if these people actually did make an attempt upon his life? Suppose he were killed! That the spies of Germany had every motive to put an end to his activity in ferreting them out, was quite plain. Indeed, her father, knowing nothing of the anonymous letter, had referred to it that evening. He had declared that her lover was running very grave risks. It had been this remark which had set her thinking more deeply and more apprehensively.

Jack saw that she was worrying, therefore he kissed her fondly, and reassured her that no harm would befall him.

“I’ll take every precaution possible, in order to satisfy you, my darling,” he declared, his strong arms again around her as he held her closely to him.

They looked indeed a handsome pair—he tall, good-looking, strong and manly, and she dainty and fair, with a sweet, delightful expression upon her pretty face.

“Then—then you really love me, Jack?” she faltered, looking up into his face as he whispered into her delicate ear, regretting if any ill-considered word he had uttered had pained her.

“Love you, my darling?” he cried passionately—“why, of course I do. How can you doubt me? You surely know that, for me, there is only one good, true woman in all the world—your own dear, sweet self!” She smiled in full content, burying her pretty head upon his shoulder.

“Then—then you really will take care of yourself, Jack—won’t you?” she implored. “When you are absent I’m always thinking—and wondering—”

“And worrying, I fear, little one,” he interrupted. “Now don’t worry. I assure you that I’m quite safe—that—”

His sentence was interrupted by a tap at the door. They sprang apart, and Littlewood, old Dan’s neat, middle-aged manservant—a North-country man, a trusted friend of the family—entered and, addressing Jack, said, with that pleasant burr in his voice:

“There’s a gentleman called, sir—gives the name of Murray, sir. He wants to see you a moment upon some rather urgent business.”

“Murray?” echoed Jack. “I don’t recollect the name. Who is he?”

“He’s a gentleman, sir. He’s down in the hall. He won’t detain you a minute, he says,” was the man’s reply.

“Then excuse me a moment,” he said in apology to Elise, and left the room, descending to the hall with Littlewood.

Below stood a clean-shaven man in a black overcoat who, advancing to meet him, said—“Are you Mr Sainsbury, sir?”

“Yes. That’s my name,” replied the young man.

“I want to speak to you privately, just for a few moments,” the stranger said. “I want to tell you something in confidence,” he added, lowering his voice. “Shall we go outside the door?” and he glanced meaningly at Littlewood.

At first Jack was much puzzled, but, next moment, he said—

“Certainly—if you wish.”

Then both men went forth, descending the steps to the pavement, whereupon a second man, who sprang from nowhere, joined them instantly, while “Mr Murray” said, in a calm and quite determined voice—

“Mr Sainsbury, we are officers of the Criminal Investigation Department, and we arrest you upon a warrant charging you with certain offences under the Defence of the Realm Act.”

“What!” gasped Jack, staring at them absolutely dumbfounded. “Are you mad? What tomfoolery is this?”

“I will read the warrant over to you at Bow Street,” answered the man who had called himself Murray.

And, as he uttered the words, a taxi that had been waiting a few doors away drew up, and almost before Sainsbury could protest, or seek permission to return to his fiancée and explain the farce in progress, he was, in full view of Littlewood, bundled unceremoniously into the conveyance, which, next instant, moved swiftly down the hill in the direction of Swiss Cottage station, on its way to Bow Street Police Station.

Chapter Fourteen.

Held by the Enemy.

“That can hardly be correct—because there are proofs,” remarked the tall, fair, quick-eyed man, who sat in the cold, official-looking room at Bow Street Police Station at half-past three o’clock that same morning.

Jack Sainsbury was standing in defiance before the table, while, in the room, stood the two plain-clothes men who had effected his arrest.

The fair-haired man at the table was Inspector Tennant, of the Special Department at New Scotland Yard, an official whose duty since the outbreak of war was to make inquiry into the thousand-and-one cases of espionage which the public reported weekly to that much-harassed department. Tennant, who had graduated, as all others had graduated, from the rank of police-constable on the streets of London, was a reliable officer as far as patriotism and a sense of duty went. But it was impossible for a man born in a labourer’s cottage on the south side of Dartmoor, and educated at the village school, to possess such a highly trained brain as that possessed by say certain commissaires of the Paris Sûreté.

Thomas Tennant, a highly popular man as far as the staff at “the Yard” went, and trusted implicitly by his superiors from the Assistant-Commissioner downwards, worked with an iron sense of the red-taped duty for which he received his salary.

“I’m sorry,” said Tennant, looking at the young man; “but all these denials will not, I fear, help you in the least. As I warned you, they are being taken down in writing, and may be used in evidence against you,” and he indicated a clerk writing shorthand at a side-table.

Jack Sainsbury grew furious.

“I don’t care a brass button what evidence you can give against me,” he cried. “I only know that my conscience is perfectly clear. I have tried, since the war, to help my friend Dr Jerome Jerrold of Wimpole Street, to inquire into spies and espionage. We acted together, and Jerrold reported much that was unknown to Whitehall. He—”

“Doctor Jerrold is the gentleman who committed suicide—if my memory serves me correctly,” interrupted the police official, speaking very quietly.

“Perhaps he did. I say perhaps—remember,” exclaimed the young man under arrest. “But I don’t agree with the finding of the Coroner’s jury.”

“People often disagree with a Coroner’s jury,” was the dry reply of the hide-bound official, seated at the table. “But now, let us get along,” he added persuasively. “You admit that you are John James Sainsbury; that you were, until lately, clerk in the employ of the Ochrida Copper Corporation, in Gracechurch Street, from the service of which you were recently discharged. Is that so?”

“Most certainly. I have nothing to deny.”

“Good. Then let us advance a step further. You were, I believe, an intimate friend of Dr Jerome Jerrold, who lived in Wimpole Street, and who, for no apparent reason, committed suicide.”

“Yes.”

“You do not know, I presume, that Dr Jerrold was suspected of a very grave offence under the Defence of the Realm Act, and that, rather than face arrest and prosecution by court-martial as a spy—he took his own life!”

“It’s a lie—an infernal lie!” shouted young Sainsbury. “Who alleges such an outrageous lie as that?”

The fair-haired detective smiled, and in that suave manner he usually adopted towards prisoners, with clasped hands he said:

“I fear I cannot tell you that.”

“But it’s a confounded lie! Jerome Jerrold was no spy. He and I were the firmest friends, and I know how he devoted his time and his money to investigating the doings of the enemy in our midst. Did you not read the words of the Lord Chancellor the other day?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t.”

“Well, speaking in the House of Lords, he admitted that we have not only to fight a foe in the open field, but that their spies are in every land and that the webs of their intrigue enmesh and entangle every Government. It was in order to assist the authorities—your own department indeed—that Dr Jerome, two friends of his, and myself devoted our time to watching at nights, and investigating.”

The official’s lips curled slightly.

“I know that, full well. But how do you explain away the fact that your friend, the doctor, committed suicide rather than face a prosecution?”

“He had nothing to fear. Of that I am quite confident. No braver, more loyal, or more patriotic man ever existed than he, poor fellow.”

“I’m afraid the facts hardly bear out your contention.”

“But what are the facts?” demanded the young man fiercely.

“As I have already said, it is not within my province to tell you.”

“But I’ve been arrested to-night upon a false charge—a charge trumped up against me perhaps by certain officials who may be jealous of what I have done, and what I have learnt. I am discredited in the eyes of my friends at the house where I was arrested. Surely I should be told the truth!”

“I, of course, do not know what truths may be forthcoming at your trial. But at present I am not allowed to explain anything to you, save that the charge against you is that you have attempted to communicate with the enemy.”

“What!” shouted Jack, astounded: “am I actually charged, then, with being a German spy?”

“I’m afraid that is so.”

“But I have no knowledge of any other of the enemy’s agents, save those which were discovered by Jerrold and reported to Whitehall by him.”

“Ah! the evidence, I think, goes a little further—documentary evidence which has recently been placed in the hands of the War Office.”

“By whom, pray?”

“You surely don’t think it possible for me to reveal the name of the informant in such a case?” was the cold reply.

Jack Sainsbury stood aghast and silent at the grave charge which had been preferred against him. It meant, he knew, a trial in camera. He saw how entirely he must be discredited in the eyes of the world, who could never know the truth, or even the nature of his defence.

He thought of Elise. What would she think? What did she think when Littlewood told her—as he had told her, no doubt—of how he had been mysteriously hustled into a taxi, and driven off?

For the first time a recollection of that strange anonymous warning which his well-beloved had received crossed his memory. Who had sent that letter? Certainly some friend who had wished his, or her, name to remain unknown.

“The whole thing is a hideous farce,” he cried savagely, at last. “Nobody can prove that I am not what I here allege myself to be—an honest, loyal and patriotic Englishman.”

“You will have full opportunity of proving that, and of disproving the documentary evidence which is in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions.”

“Public Prosecutions! Mine will be in camera,” laughed Jack grimly. “I suppose I shall be tried by a kind of military inquisition. I hope they won’t wear black robes, with slits for the eyes, as they did in the old days in Spain!” he laughed.

“I fail to see much humour in your present position, Mr Sainsbury,” replied Tennant rather frigidly.

“I see a lot—even though I’m annoyed that your men should have called at Fitzjohn’s Avenue, instead of going to my place in Heath Street. If you know so much about me, you surely knew my address.”

“The warrant was issued for immediate arrest, sir,” exclaimed one of the detectives to his superior. “Therefore we went to Fitzjohn’s Avenue.”

“I suppose I shall have an opportunity of knowing the name of my enemy—of the person who laid this false information against me—and also that I can see my counsel?”

“The latter will certainly be allowed to-morrow.”

“May I write to Miss Shearman—my fiancée?”

“No. But if you wish to give her any message—say by telephone—I will see that it is sent to her, if you care to write it down.”

A pencil was handed to him, whereupon he bent and scribbled a couple of lines.

“To Miss Elise Shearman, from the prisoner, John Sainsbury.—Please tell Miss Shearman that I have been arrested as a spy, and am at Bow Street Police Station. Tell her not to worry. I have nothing to fear, and will be at liberty very soon. Some grave official error has evidently been made.” Then, handing the slip to the Detective Inspector, he said—

“If they will kindly ring up Mr Shearman’s in Hampstead”—and he gave the number—“and give that message, I shall be greatly obliged.”

“It shall be done,” replied the police official. “Have you anything else to say?”

“Only one thing, and of this statement I hope you will make a careful note: namely, that on the night when Dr Jerome Jerrold died so mysteriously, I was on my way to give him some most important information that I had gathered in the City only a few hours before—information which, when I reveal it, will startle the Kingdom—but he died before I could tell him. He died in my arms, as a matter of fact.”

Inspector Tennant was silent for a few moments. Then he asked—

“Did you ever reveal this important information to anyone else?”

“No. I did not. Only Jerrold would have understood its true gravity.”

“Then it concerned him—eh?”

“No. It concerned somebody else. I was on my way to consult him—to ask his opinion as to how I should act, when I found I could not get into his room. His man helped me to break in, and we found him dying. In fact, he spoke to me—he said he’d been shot—just before he expired.”

“Yes, I know,” remarked Tennant reflectively. “I happened to be present in court when the inquest was held. I heard your evidence, and I also heard the evidence of Sir Houston Bird, who testified as to suicide.”

“Jerrold did not take his life!” Jack protested.

“Can you put your opinion before that of such a man as Sir Houston?” asked Tennant dubiously.

“He had no motive in committing suicide.”

“Ah! I think your opinion will rather alter, that is, if the prosecution reveals to you the truth. He had, according to my information, every motive for escape from exposure and punishment.”

“Impossible!” declared Jack Sainsbury, standing defiant and rather amused than otherwise at the ridiculous charge brought against him. “Dr Jerrold was not a man to shrink from his duty. He did his best to combat the peril of the enemy alien, and if others had had the courage to act as he did, we should not be faced with the scandalous situation—our enemies moving freely among us—that we have to-day.”

Inspector Tennant—typical of the slow-plodding of police officialdom, and the careful attention to method of those who have risen from “uniformed rank”—listened and smiled.

Upon the warrant was a distinct charge against the young man before him, and upon that charge he centred his hide-bound mind. It is always so easy to convict a suspect by one’s inner intuition. Had Jack Sainsbury been able to glance at the file of papers which had culminated in his conviction, he would have seen that only after Jerome Jerrold’s death had the charge of war-treason been brought against him. There was no charge of espionage, because, according to the Hague Convention, nobody can technically be charged as a spy unless the act of espionage is committed within the war zone. England was not then—because Zeppelin raids had not taken place—within the war zone. Hence nobody could be charged as a spy.

“Mr Sainsbury, I think there is nothing more to say to-night,” Tennant said at last. “It is growing late. I’ll see that your message is sent to Fitzjohn’s Avenue by telephone. They will see you in the morning regarding your defence. But—well, I confess that I’m sorry that you should have said so much as you have.”

“So much!” cried the young man furiously. “Here I am, arrested upon a false charge—accused of being a traitor to my country—and you regret that I dare to defend a man who is in his grave and cannot answer for himself! Are you an Englishman—or are you one of those tainted by the Teuton trail—as so many are in high places?”

“I think you are losing your temper,” said the red-tape-tangled inspector of the Special Branch—a man who held one of the plums of the Scotland Yard service. “I have had an order, and I have executed it. That is as far as I can go.”

“At my expense. You charge me with an offence which is utterly ridiculous, and beyond that you cast scandalous reflections upon the memory of the man who was my dearest friend!”

“I only tell you what is reported.”

“By whom?”

“I have already stated that I am not permitted to answer such a question.”

“Then my enemies—some unknown and secret enemies—have placed me in this invidious position!”

“Well—if you like to put it in that way, you may,” reflected the police official, who, with a cold smile, closed the book upon the table, as a sign that the interview was at an end.

Chapter Fifteen.

The Working of “Number 70.”

Just as it was growing dusk on the following evening, a handsome middle-aged woman, exquisitely dressed in the latest mode, and carrying a big gold chain-purse, attached to which was a quantity of jangling paraphernalia in the shape of cigarette-case, puff-box, and other articles, was lolling in, a big armchair in Lewin Rodwell’s little study in Bruton Street.

From her easy attitude, and the fact that she had taken off her fur coat and was in the full enjoyment of a cigarette with her well-shod feet upon the fender, it was quite apparent that she was no stranger there.

“It certainly was the only thing to be done in the circumstances, I quite agree,” she was saying to Rodwell, who was seated opposite her, on the other side of the fire.

“How did he look at Bow Street this, morning? Tell me!” Rodwell asked her eagerly.

“Pale and worried,” was the woman’s reply. “The case was heard in the extradition court, and there were very few people there. The girl was there, of course. A young barrister named Charles Pelham appeared for him, and reserved his defence. The whole proceedings did not occupy five minutes—just the evidence of arrest, and then the magistrate remanded him for a week.”

“So I heard over the ’phone.”

“I thought perhaps you would be called,” the woman remarked.

“My dear Molly,” laughed the man grimly, “I’m not going to be called as witness. I’ve taken very good care of that! I haven’t any desire to go into the box, I can assure you.”

“I suppose not,” laughed the woman. “The prisoner must never know that you’ve had a hand in the affair.”

She was a well-built, striking-looking woman, with a pair of fine dark eyes sparkling from beneath a black hat, the daring shape of which was most becoming to her. Upon her white hand jewels gleamed in the fitful firelight, for the lights were not switched on, and in her low-cut blouse of cream crêpe-de-chine she wore a small circle of diamonds as a brooch.

“It’s a good job for us all that you’ve closed the young man’s mouth just in time,” she declared. “He knew something, that is evident.”

“And he kept it to himself, intending one day to launch it as a thunderbolt,” Rodwell remarked. “But you’ve been infernally clever over the affair, Molly. Without you, I don’t know what I should have done in this case. There was a distinct danger.”

“It wasn’t very difficult, after all,” his companion replied. “Money does wonders—especially the good money of Germany. Here in England ‘Number Seventy’ happily has much good money, and has a ‘good press.’”

“Yes,” laughed Rodwell. “And yet the fools here think they will win!”

“My dear Lewin, they would win if they were not so hopelessly egotistical, and if we had not long foreseen the coming conflict and Germanised the British political and official life as our first precaution. In consequence, our victory is assured. Already this country is in the grip of our German financiers, our pro-German politicians, labour-leaders, and officials of every class. Our good German money has not been ill-spent, I can assure you!” she laughed.

“I quite agree. But tell me how you really managed to engineer that evidence,” he asked, much interested.

“Well, after you had given me the correspondence four days ago, I took a taxi and went down to the City to see my old friend George Charlesworth,” was her reply. “He and I used to be quite old chums a year ago, when, as you know, he fell into the trap over that other little matter, and became so useful, though he still remains in entire ignorance.”

“Ah! of course, you know the arrangements of the office. I quite forgot that.”

“Yes. I arrived about five o’clock, just as the old boy was leaving, and sat in his room while he finished signing his letters. Already most of the clerks had gone. When he had finished, and all the staff had left, I lit up a cigarette and begged to be allowed to finish it before we went out, I having suggested that he should take me to dinner that night at the Carlton. Suddenly I pretended to grow faint, and asked him to get me some brandy. In alarm the dear old fellow jumped up quickly, and ran out to an hotel for some, leaving me in the office alone. Then, when he’d gone, it didn’t take me long to hurry out into the clerks’ office and put the papers in between the leaves of that big green ledger which I found in the desk at which young Sainsbury had worked—just as you had described where it would be found.”

“Excellent! You are always very ’cute, Molly,” he laughed. “I suppose you quickly recovered when Charlesworth got back with the brandy—eh?”

“Well, I didn’t recover too quickly, or the old bird might have grown suspicious,” was her reply.

Mariechen Pagenkoff, known as Mrs Molly Kirby, was a native of Coblenz, but had been educated in England, and had lived here the greater part of her life until she had lost all trace of her foreign birth. Her husband had been a German shipping-agent in Glasgow, and at the same time a secret agent of the Koeniger-gratzerstrasse. But he had died two years before, leaving her a widow. Her profession of spy had brought her into contact with Lewin Rodwell, and ever since the outbreak of war the pair had acted in conjunction with each other in collecting and transmitting information through the various secret channels open between London and Berlin, and in carrying out many coups of espionage. Mrs Kirby lived very comfortably—as the widow of a rather wealthy shipping-agent might live—in a pretty flat in Cadogan Gardens, and to those around her she was believed to be, like Lewin Rodwell, most patriotic and charitable. Indeed, she had done much voluntary work for the charitable funds, and had interested herself in the relief of Belgian refugees, and in the work of the Red Cross.

“The day after you had been to the office,” Rodwell explained, “I went down there upon one or two matters which required attention, and, after a couple of hours, I told Charlesworth that I wanted to glance at a certain ledger to verify a query. The book was brought, and as I carelessly searched through it in Charlesworth’s presence, I discovered some documents. We opened them, when, to our great surprise, we found letters in German, there being enclosed in one a ten-pound note.”

“What did old Charlesworth say?” asked Mrs Kirby, with a smile upon her red lips.

“Well, as he can read German, I allowed him to digest the letters. The old man was dumbfounded, and exclaimed: ‘Why, young Sainsbury kept this book! Look at this letter! It’s addressed to “Dear Jack”! Is it possible, do you think, that Sainsbury was a German spy?’”

“What did you say?”

“I expressed the gravest surprise and concern, of course, and suggested that he, as manager, should take the documents to Scotland Yard and make a statement as to how they had been discovered. He wanted me to go with him, but I declined, saying that in my position I had no desire to be mixed up with any such unpleasant affair, and that he, as managing-director of the Ochrida Corporation, was the proper person to lodge information. The old fellow grew quite excited over it. He had several of the clerks up, and from them ascertained that the ledger in question had not been used since Sainsbury left. This, in conjunction with the fact that one of the letters was addressed to ‘Jack,’ and in it a mention of meeting at Heath Street, proved most conclusively that the incriminating documents belonged to Sainsbury. Therefore, an hour later, after I had instructed Charlesworth what to tell them at Scotland Yard, I had the satisfaction of seeing him enter a taxi with the documents in his pocket. I continued to do some work in the office when, later on, as I expected, he returned with a detective who inspected the book, the desk in which it was kept, and who listened to the story of young Sainsbury’s career.”

“And I suppose you gave the young man a very good character—eh?” asked the woman who had led such an adventurous life.

“Oh, excellent!” was Rodwell’s grim reply. “The officer went away quite convinced that Sainsbury was a spy.”

“Though you gave me the letters, I quite forgot to read them,” said the woman. “Of what character were they? Pretty damning, I suppose?”

“Damning—I should rather think they were!” answered the man who posed as the great British patriot, and hid his real profession beneath the cloak of finance and platform-speaking. “Two of them were letters which our friend Wentzel, at Aldershot, had received from the Insurance Company at Amsterdam—you know the little institution I mean, in the Kalverstraat. Wentzel is known as ‘Jack,’ and in one of these he is addressed as such. So it came in very useful. The letter enclosed a Bank of England note for ten pounds.”

“The monthly payment of his little annuity—eh?” laughed the woman. “I understand. I had a letter only this morning from the same Insurance Company.”

“Well,” laughed the man, “we all have dealings with the same office. I have had many. The organisation there is perfect—not a soul in the Censor’s department suspects. Truly, one must admire such perfect organisation as that established by ‘Number Seventy.’”

“I do. My husband always declared the arrangements in Holland to be perfect—and they are perfect, even to-day, while we are at war in England—the great Ruler of the Seas, as she calls herself, has already fallen from her height. Britannia’s trident is broken; her rulers know, and quite appreciate the fact. That is why they establish a censorship in order to keep the truth regarding our submarines from what they term the man-in-the-street. As soon as he knows the truth—if he ever will—then Heaven help Great Britain!”

“Meanwhile we are all working towards one end, my dear Molly—victory for our Fatherland!”

“Certainly. We shall conquer. The great Russian steam-roller—as the English journalists once called it—is already rusty at its joints. The rust has eaten into it, and soon its engineers will fail to make it move—except in its reverse-gear,” and the woman laughed. “But tell me,” she added: “of what does the evidence against Sainsbury exactly consist?”

Lewin Rodwell reflected seriously for a few moments. Then he slowly replied:

“Well, there are several things—things which he will have great difficulty in explaining away. I’ve taken good care of that. First, there is the letter from the Dutch Insurance Company sending him a ten-pound note. Secondly, there is a letter from a certain Carl Stefansen, living at Waxholm, on the Baltic, not far from Stockholm, asking for details regarding the movements of certain regiments of Kitchener’s Army, and thanking him for previous reports regarding the camps at Watford, Bramshott and elsewhere. Thirdly, there is an acknowledgment of a report sent to a lock-box address in Sayville, in the United States, on the second of last month, and promising to send, by next post, a remittance of five pounds in payment for it. A letter from Halifax, Nova Scotia, also requests certain information as to whether the line of forts from Guildford to Redhill—part of the ring-defences of London—are yet occupied.”

“Forts? What do you mean?”

“Those forts established years ago along the Surrey hills as part of the scheme for the defence of the Metropolis, but never manned or equipped with guns. They cost very many thousands to construct—but were never fully equipped.”

“And they are still in existence?”

“Certainly. And they could be occupied, and turned to valuable account, at any moment.”

“A fact which I can see they fully appreciated at Whitehall, and which will lend much colour to the charge against this inquisitive young fellow—who—well—who knows just a little too much. Ah! my dear Lewin, I never met a man quite like you. You can see through a brick wall.”

“No further than you can see, my dear Molly,” laughed the crafty man. “We were both of us trained in the same excellent school—that school which is the eyes and ears of the great and invincible Imperial Army of the Fatherland. Where would be that army, with our Kaiser at its head, if it had no eyes and no ears? Every report we send to Berlin is noted; every report, however small and vague, is one step towards our great goal and final victory. The Allies may beat themselves against our steel and concrete ring, but they will never win. We sit tight. Our men sit in their comfortable dug-outs to wait—and to wait on until the Allies beat themselves out in sheer exhaustion. Our great invincible nation must win in this island, for one reason—because the German eagle has already gripped in her talons the very official heart of Great Britain herself. Our Kaiser Wilhelm is only William of Normandy over again. In Berlin we hold no apprehensions. We know we must win. If not to-day—well, we sit safe in our trenches in Flanders, or give the gallant Russians a run just to exercise them—knowing well that victory must be ours when we will it!”

“Then, the correspondence found in Sainsbury’s ledger is entirely conclusive, you think?” asked his companion after a pause.

“Absolutely. There is no question. The letter shows him guilty of espionage.”

“They were actual letters, then?”

“Certainly. One of them was in an envelope addressed to him at the office, and posted at Norwich. I managed to find that envelope in his desk on the day before he was discharged. It came in extremely useful, as I expected it might.”

“So the charge against him cannot fail?” asked the handsome woman, puffing slowly at her cigarette. “Remember, he may suspect you—knowing all that he does!”

“Bah! The charge cannot fail. Of course I’ve had nothing to do with the matter as far as the authorities are concerned. I have simply slipped the noose over his head, and shall let the Intelligence Department do the rest. They will do their work well—never fear.”

“But you told the Intelligence Department about that Dr Jerrold?”

“Boyle did. I was most careful to keep out of it,” replied Rodwell, with a cunning look. “Boyle happens to be a friend of Heaton-Smith, who is in the Intelligence Department, and to him he gave information which cast a very deep suspicion that while Jerrold was pretending to hunt out spies, he was also engaged in collecting information. Indeed, we sent our friend Klost to consult him as a patient in order to further colour the idea that, in the doctor’s consulting-room, he was receiving German spies. Heaton-Smith, who has a perfect mania regarding espionage, took it up at once, and had Jerome watched, while we on our part, manufactured just a little thread of evidence, as we have done in the present case. By it we succeeded in a warrant being issued for his arrest. It would have been executed that night if—well, if he had not committed suicide.”

“Perhaps he knew a warrant was out against him?”

“I think he did,” said Rodwell, with an evil smile.

“What causes you to think so?”

“Well, by the fact that Boyle, to whom he was unknown, rang him up that evening at half-past seven and, posing as an anonymous friend, warned him that there was a warrant out for him and that, as a friend, he gave him an opportunity to escape.”

“What did he reply to Sir Boyle?”

“He hardly replied anything, except to thank the speaker for his timely information, and to ask who it was who spoke. Boyle pretended to be a certain Mr Long, speaking from the National Liberal Club, and added, ‘If you wish to write to me, my name is J.S. Long.’ The doctor said he would write, but could not understand the charge against him. Boyle replied that it was one of war-treason, and added that the authorities had got hold of some documents or other which incriminated him on a charge of spying.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, he declared that it was an infernal lie, of course,” laughed Rodwell.

The woman was again silent for a few moments.

“Its truth was plainly shown by his suicide,” she remarked at last. “By Jove, my dear Lewin, his death was most fortunate for you—wasn’t it?”

“Yes. We had to play a trump card then—just as we now have to play another against young Sainsbury,” replied the man, his eyes narrowing.

“I must congratulate you both,” said Mrs Kirby. “You’ve played your cards well—if you’re certain that he’ll be convicted.”

“My dear Molly, they can’t help convicting him. The acknowledgment and payment for reports, the request for more information, and the vague references to certain matters in which our friends in Holland are so keenly interested, all are there—addressed to him. Besides, he is known to have been an intimate friend and assistant of the man Jerrold—the man who committed suicide rather than face arrest and trial for treason. No,” Rodwell added confidently; “the whole affair is quite plain, and conviction must most certainly follow.”

“And serve him well right!” added the handsome woman. “Serve him right for being too inquisitive. But,” she added in a rather apprehensive voice, “I suppose there’s no chance of him making any allegations against you—is there?”

“What do I care if he did!” asked the man, with a laugh of defiance. Then, lowering his voice, he added: “First, there is no evidence whatsoever to connect me with any matters of espionage, and secondly, nobody would believe a word he said. The world would never credit that Lewin Rodwell was a spy!”

“No,” she laughed; “you are far too clever and cunning for them all. Really your sang-froid is truly marvellous.”

Chapter Sixteen.

The Catspaw.

Some weeks had passed.

Jack Sainsbury had not reappeared at Bow Street, the authorities having decided, so serious was the charge and so important the evidence, that the trial should take place by court-martial and in camera.

Therefore the prisoner spent day after day in his narrow cell at Brixton Prison, full of fierce, angry resentment at the false charge made against him, and full of anxiety as to how Elise was bearing up beneath the tragic blow which had fallen upon them both.

He saw no one save Charles Pelham, his counsel, who now and then visited him. But even his adviser was entirely in the dark as to the exact evidence against his client. In the meantime the truth was that the Intelligence Department at Whitehall had sent an agent over to Holland to inquire into the bona fides of the Insurance Company whose offices were supposed to be in the Kalverstraat, in Amsterdam, and had discovered that though the “office” was run by highly respectable persons, the latter were undoubtedly Germans who had come to Holland just before the war. Every inquiry made by the Department revealed further proof of the accused’s guilt. Indeed, the astute Colonel who was the titular head of the Department had had Mr Charlesworth up at the War Office and thanked him personally for exposing what he had declared to be “a most serious case of espionage.”

Truly the fetters were gradually being forged upon the innocent young fellow languishing within Brixton Prison.

In complete ignorance of either the exact charge, or the identity of those who made it, Jack lived on day by day, full of the gravest apprehensions. The whole affair seemed to be one great, hideous nightmare. What would old Dan Shearman, never very well disposed towards him, think of him now? He recollected that strange anonymous letter which Elise had received. Who could possibly have sent it? A friend, without a doubt. Yet who was that secret friend? When would his identity be revealed?

He wondered if the person who had written that warning to his well-beloved would, when he knew of his arrest, come forward and expose the dastardly plot against him? Would he rescue him, now that he was in deadly peril?

With chagrin, too, he remembered how he had treated Elise’s fears with such silly unconcern. He had never dreamed of the real gravity of the situation until he found himself in the hands of the police, with that scandalous and disgraceful charge hanging over his head. The whole thing was so amazing, and so utterly bewildering, that at times he felt, as he paced that narrow, dispiriting cell, that he must go mad.

The days dragged on, each longer than its predecessor. Once his sister was allowed to see him. But he was anxious and eager to face his judges, to hear what false evidence the prosecution had to offer, and to refute the foul lies that had evidently been uttered against him. The authorities, however, seemed in no hurry to act, and it almost seemed as though they had forgotten all about him.

One day he received a letter—the one welcome gleam of hope—a letter from Elise, who told him to bear up, to take courage, and to look forward to an early freedom.

“You surely know, Jack,” she wrote, “that I do not believe you to be a spy. Surely I know how strenuously you have worked in order to ferret out and expose the horde of spies surrounding us, and how you constantly helped poor Dr Jerrold.”

Those words of hers cheered him, yet he deeply regretted that she should have referred to the dead man’s name. The prison authorities had read that letter, and mention of Jerrold would, in the circumstances, probably be registered as a point against him.

The weeks thus lengthened, until the middle of February.

On the night of the 21st of that month—the night on which the Admiralty issued its notification that a British fleet of battleships and battle cruisers, accompanied by flotillas, and aided by a strong French squadron, the whole under the command of Vice-Admiral Carden, had begun the attack on the forts of the Dardanelles—Charles Trustram dined early with Lewin Rodwell at the Ritz.

Rodwell was due to speak at a big recruiting meeting down at Poplar, and after their meal the pair drove in his car eastwards to the meeting, where he was received with the wildest enthusiasm.

A well-known retired Admiral was in the chair—a man whose name was as a household word, and whose reputation was that of one who always hit straight from the shoulder with the courage of his own convictions. The hall was crowded. The speech by the chairman was a magnificent one, well calculated to stir the blood of any Briton of military age to avenge Germany’s piracy “blockade.” He spoke of the low cunning of the “scrap-of-paper incident,” of the introduction of the red phosphorus poison-shells a month before, and the terrible barbarities committed in Belgium. That East-End audience were held spellbound by the fine patriotic speech of the grey-haired Admiral, who had spent his whole life at sea ever since he had left the Britannia as a midshipman.

Trustram, seated near the front, saw Lewin Rodwell rise deliberately from his chair on the platform, and became electrified by his words—fiery words which showed how deep was the splendid patriotic spirit within his heart.

On rising he was met with a veritable thunder of applause from that huge expectant working-class audience. They knew that Lewin Rodwell, being in the confidence of the Cabinet, would tell them something real and conclusive about the secret war-facts which the hundred-and-one irresponsible censors, in their infinite wisdom, forbade the long-suffering press to publish. Lewin Rodwell always regaled them with some tit-bits of “inside information.” It had been advertised up and down the country that he was on golfing terms with the rulers of Great Britain, and the words of a man possessing such knowledge of state-secrets were always worth listening to.

Glibly, and with that curious, half-amused expression which always fascinated an audience, Lewin Rodwell began by jeering at those who “slacked.”

“I ask you—every man of military age present,” he cried, thrusting forth his clenched fist towards his audience—“I ask you all to get, at any post office, that little pink-covered pamphlet called ‘The Truth about German Atrocities.’ You can get it for nothing—just for asking for it. Take it home and read it for yourselves—read how those devilish hordes of the Kaiser invaded poor little law-abiding Belgium, and what they did when they got there. Murder, rape, arson and pillage began from the first moment when the German army crossed the frontier. Soldiers had their eyes gouged out, men were murdered treacherously and given poisoned food. Those fiends in grey killed civilians upon a scale without any parallel in modern warfare between civilised Powers. We know now that this killing of civilians was deliberately planned by the higher military authorities in Berlin, and carried out methodically. They are a nation of murderers and fire-bugs. A calculated policy of cruelty was displayed that was without parallel in all history. Women were outraged, murdered and mutilated in unspeakable fashion; poor little children were murdered, bayoneted or maimed; the aged, crippled and infirm were treated with a brutality that was appalling; wounded soldiers and prisoners were tortured and afterwards murdered; innocent civilians, women and children of tender age, were placed before the German troops to act as living screens for the inhuman monsters, while there was looting, burning and destruction of property everywhere. Read, I say, that official report for yourselves!” he shouted, with anger burning his eyes, for he was indeed a wonderful actor.

“Read!” he cried again. “Read, all of you, how seven hundred innocent men, women and children were shot in cold blood in the picturesque little town of Dinant, on the Meuse; read of the massacres and mutilations at Louvain, Tamines, Termonde and Malines—and then reflect! Think what would be the fate of your own women and children should the German army land upon these shores! The Germans did not hate the Belgians—they had no reason whatever to do so. But the hatred in Germany against the British race to-day amounts to a religion, and if ever the Germans come, depend upon it that the awful massacres in Belgium will be repeated with tenfold vigour, until the streets of every English town and village run red with the blood of your dearly-loved ones. Young men!” he shouted, “I ask you whether you will still stand by and see these awful outrages done, whether you will be content to witness the mutilation and murder of those dearest to your hearts, or whether, before it is too late, you will come forward, now, and at once, and bear your manly share in the crushing out for ever of this ogre of barbarism which has arisen as a terrible and imminent menace to Europe, and to the thousand years of the building up of our civilisation.”

In conclusion he made a fervent, stirring appeal to his hearers—an appeal in which sounded a true ring of heartfelt patriotism, and in consequence of which many young men came forward and gave in their names for enlistment.

And Lewin Rodwell laughed within himself.

A dozen men congratulated him upon his splendid speech, and as Charles Trustram sat by his side, on their drive back to the West End, he could not refrain from expressing admiration of the speech.

“Ah!” laughed Rodwell. “I merely try to do my little bit when I can. It is what we should all do in these black days. There is a big section of the public that doesn’t yet realise that we are at war; they must be taught, and shown what invasion would really mean. The lesson of poor stricken Belgium cannot be too vividly brought home to such idiots as we have about us.”

As the car dashed past Aldgate, going west, Trustram caught sight of the contents-bill of a late edition of one of the evening papers. In large letters was the bold announcement, “Air Raids on Colchester, Braintree and Coggeshall.”

“The Zeppelins have been over again!” he remarked, telling Rodwell what he had just read.

“When?”

“Last night, I suppose.”

“Didn’t you know anything of it at the Admiralty?” asked Rodwell.

“I heard nothing before I left this evening,” Trustram replied.

The pair smoked together for an hour in Rodwell’s room in Bruton Street; and during that time the conversation turned upon the arrest of Jack Sainsbury, Trustram expressing surprise that he had not yet been brought to trial.

“I suppose the case against him is not yet complete,” remarked Rodwell, with a careless air. “A most unfortunate affair,” he added. “He was a clerk in the office of a company in which I have some interest.”

“So I hear. But I really can’t think it’s true that he’s been guilty of espionage,” remarked the Admiralty official. “He was a great friend of Jerrold’s, you remember.”

“Well, I fear, if the truth were told, there was a charge of a similar character against Jerrold.”

“What!” cried Trustram, starting forward in great surprise. “This is the first I’ve heard of it!”

“Of course I can’t say quite positively—only that is what’s rumoured,” Rodwell said.

“But what kind of charge was there against Jerrold? I can’t credit it. Why, he did so much to unearth spies, and was of the greatest assistance to the Intelligence Department. That I happen to know.”

“That is, I think, admitted,” replied the man who led such a wonderful life of duplicity. “It seems, however, that information which came into the hands of the authorities was of such a grave character that a warrant was issued against him for war-treason, and—”

“A warrant!” cried Trustram. “Surely that’s not true!”

“Quite true,” was Rodwell’s cold reply. “On the evening of his death he somehow learned the truth, and after you had left him that night he apparently committed suicide.”

Trustram was silent and thoughtful for some time. The story had astounded him. Yet, now he reflected, he recollected how, on that fatal night, while they had been dining together, the doctor had spoken rather gloomily upon the outlook, and had remarked that he believed that all his patriotic efforts had been misunderstood by the red-taped officialdom. In face of what his companion had just told him, it was now revealed that Jerome Jerrold, even while they had been dining together, had been contemplating putting an end to his life. He recollected that envelope in his possession, that envelope in which the man now dead had left something—some mysterious message, which was not to be read until one year after his death. What could it be? Was it, after all, a confession that he, the man so long unsuspected, had been guilty of war-treason!

The doctor’s rather strange attitude, and the fierce tirade he had uttered against the Intelligence Department for their lack of initiative and their old-fashioned methods, he had, at the time, put down to irritability consequent upon over-work and the strain of the war, but, in face of what he had now learnt, he was quite able to understand it. It was the key to the tragedy. No doubt that letter left for Jack Sainsbury contained some confession. Curious that suspicion had now also fallen upon Sainsbury, who had so often assisted him in watching night-signals over the hills in the southern counties, and in making inquiries regarding mysterious individuals suspected of espionage.

“Well,” he said at last, “you’ve utterly astounded me. Where did you hear this rumour?”

“My friend Sir Boyle Huntley is very intimate with a man in the War Office—in the Intelligence Department in fact—and it came from him. So I think there’s no doubt about it. A great pity, for Dr Jerrold was a first-class man, and highly respected everywhere.”

“Yes. If true, it is most terrible. But so many idle and ill-natured rumours get afloat nowadays—how, nobody can tell—that one doesn’t know what to believe, if the information does not come from an absolutely reliable source.”

“What I’ve just told you does come from an absolutely reliable source,” Rodwell assured him. “And as regards young Sainsbury, letters which he forgot and left behind him in his desk at the office are clear proof of his dealings with the enemy. In one was enclosed a ten-pound note sent as payment for information from somebody in Holland.”

“Is that really so? And he forgot it?” asked Trustram.

“Well, I’ve had the letter and the banknote in my hand. Our managing-director found the correspondence, and showed it to me before he handed it over to Scotland Yard.”

“Well, I must say that I’ve never suspected either of them as traitors,” declared the Admiralty official. “I liked young Sainsbury very much. He was a smart young fellow, I thought, and I know that Jerrold held him in very high esteem.”

“Ah! my dear Trustram,” remarked Rodwell, with a sigh, “nowadays, with an avalanche of German gold doing its fell work in England, it is, alas! difficult to trust anybody. And yet it is all the fault of the Government, who seem afraid to offend Germany by interning our enemies. If I had my way I’d put the whole lot of them under lock and key, naturalised and unnaturalised alike. It is in that where the peril arises, for, in my opinion, the naturalised Germans in high places are suborning many of our men to become traitors and blackmailing them into the bargain—alas! that I, an Englishman, should be compelled to express such an opinion regarding my compatriots. Here you have two cases in point where apparently honest, well-meaning and patriotic Englishmen are branded as spies, with evidence—in one case certainly, that of Sainsbury—sufficient to convict him.”

“When will his trial be? Have you heard?”

“No. You will be better able to discover that. It will, of course, be a secret court-martial.”

“In that case we shall never know either the nature of the charge—or of his defence.”

“Exactly,” replied Lewin Rodwell, with grim inward satisfaction. “We shall only know the sentence.”

Charles Trustram drew heavily at the fine cigar his host had given him, and sighed. The terrible charges of treason against his dead friend and young Sainsbury were indeed astounding. Yet he, as an official, knew full well that the Director of Intelligence did not take such steps as had been taken without some very firm and sound basis for prosecution. The Department generally erred upon the side of leniency, and always gave the accused the benefit of the doubt. That there was to be a court-martial was, indeed, a very significant fact.

“I suppose you are sending out troops to the Dardanelles?” remarked Lewin Rodwell carelessly, after a short silence. “I saw the announcement in to-day’s papers?”

“Yes. It will be a far tougher proposition than we at first believed. That’s the general opinion at the Admiralty. We have three troop-ships leaving Southampton to-morrow, and four are leaving Plymouth on Friday—all for Gallipoli.”

“Of course they’ll have escorts,” Rodwell remarked, making a mental note of that most important information.

“As far as Gibraltar.”

“Not farther? Aren’t you afraid of German submarines?”

“Not after they have passed the Straits. The drafts we are sending out this week are the most important we have yet despatched. The American liners Ellenborough and Desborough are also taking out troops to Egypt to-morrow.”

“From Plymouth, I suppose?”

“Yes. All the drafts for Egypt and Gallipoli are going via Plymouth in future,” was Trustram’s innocent reply.

Those few unguarded words might cost the British Empire several thousand officers and men, yet it seemed as though Trustram never dreamed the true character of the unscrupulous spy with whom he was seated, or the fact that the woman Kirby—whom he had never seen—was seated in an adjoining room, patiently awaiting his departure.

What, indeed, would Charles Trustram have thought had he known the true import of that vital information which he had imparted to his friend, under the pledge of confidence. The bombardment of Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby had been directly due to what he had divulged, though he was in ignorance of the truth. More than once, however, he had reflected upon it and wondered.

Yet after all he had dismissed such suspicion as utterly absurd. To suspect Lewin Rodwell of any dealings with the enemy was utterly ridiculous. No finer nor truer Englishman had ever breathed. The very thought of such a thing caused him to ridicule himself.

He rose at half-past eleven, and, warmly shaking his friend’s hand, asked:

“Will you dine with me to-morrow at the Club?”

Rodwell hesitated; then, consulting his little pocket diary, replied—

“I’m awfully sorry, my dear fellow, but I am due to speak in Lincoln to-morrow night. Any other night I’ll be delighted.”

“Thursday next, then, at eight o’clock—eh?”

“Good. It’s an appointment,” and he scribbled it down.

Then Trustram strode out and, hailing a passing taxi, drove home to his quiet rooms off Eaton Square.

The moment he had gone Mrs Kirby, wearing a small, close-fitting hat and blue serge walking-gown, quickly joined Rodwell in the hall.

“I’ve learnt something of importance, Molly. I must get away down to old Small’s at once. Gott strafe England!” he added very seriously.

“Gott strafe England!” the woman repeated after him in fervent earnestness, as though it were a prayer. Then she asked in surprise, “Going to-night? It’s a long way. Why, you won’t get there before morning!”

“I must be there as soon as possible. Our submarines can get some troop-ships—if we are slick enough! Every moment’s delay is of the utmost importance,” he exclaimed hurriedly. “Ring up Penney, will you, and tell him to bring round the car at once. Then come into the dining-room and have a snack with me before I go. But to what do I owe a visit at this hour? Have you anything to report?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll tell you when I’ve been on the ’phone,” she answered. “It’s something urgent, and very important. I don’t like the look of things.”

Chapter Seventeen.

The Super-Spy.

Dawn was breaking, chill and stormy, over the grey North Sea.

On the far, misty horizon showed four little puffs of black smoke at regular intervals upon the sky-line—four British destroyers steaming on patrol duty.

Beyond, as Lewin Rodwell approached Tom Small’s cottage, he also distinguished two trawlers moving towards the left, off Sutton-on-Sea, engaged in the perilous work of mine-sweeping.

Rodwell, wearing a thick and somewhat shabby overcoat, and a golf-cap pulled well down, had trudged across from those branch roads where Penney had dropped him after his night run of nearly a hundred and sixty miles. He was tired, yet he plodded forward through the mud, for the little low-built old tarred cottage was at last in sight.

“If we can get those troop-ships it will be a grand coup for us. Molly is quite right,” he exclaimed to himself in German. “From Norddeich they can wireless away to Pola, on the Adriatic, and the Austrian submarines can go out to meet them in the Mediterranean—providing we have no undersea boats there just now.”

Old Tom Small was outside his door mending a net when Rodwell approached.

“Hulloa, Tom!” cried the visitor cheerily. “Didn’t expect me—eh?”

“No, sir,” grinned the bronzed, wrinkle-faced old fellow in the tanned smock—tanned in the same tub as his lines and nets. “This is unusual for you to come ’ere at this ’our—isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’ve just come from London,” he explained, as he entered the little sitting-room, which smelt so strongly of stale fish and rank tobacco. “Where’s Ted?”

“’E’s gone along to Skegness to get me some tackle. ’E only started ’arf an ’our ago.”

“Well,” asked Rodwell, throwing off his coat and cap, and flinging himself upon the old wooden armchair. “Anything happened since I was here last week?”

“Not much—only that there Judd, the coastguard from Chapel Point, seems to be always a passin’ or comin’ in to smoke—as though he suspects summat.”

“Ah! you’re getting nervy again, Tom, I see,” laughed Rodwell. “What the dickens can he suspect if he doesn’t see me, and you and Ted are both discreet and keep still tongues! Why, there’s no more respectable fisherman along the whole coast here than Tom Small,” he added.

“Well, sir,” replied the old fellow, “I’ve tried to keep respectable always, till now. And I wouldn’t ha’ done this dirty work—no, not for a fortune, had I known what was intended.”

“No, I don’t really suppose you would,” remarked Rodwell with quiet sarcasm. “But, having begun, you’ve got to go on—or else be shot, both of you, as traitors to your country. Nevertheless, don’t let’s discuss that: it serves no purpose. I must get to work. Is the line all in order?”

“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “I tested just before six—as soon as I got up. Mr Stendel is on duty on the other side. He asked Ted if we’d seen you lately, and ’e told ’im you ’adn’t been down this week.”

“Did he want to speak to me?”

“Yes, sir. I think ’e did.”

Old Small did not know the Morse code, except the testing signals, but young Ted had, before the war, been sent for a course to a wireless and cable-school in Glasgow, on the pretext that he wanted to act as wireless operator on board a Grimsby trawler. Therefore Ted always transmitted and received messages.

When they wanted to speak urgently from Wangeroog, the German operator rang up Ted and informed him. Then Ted would walk into Huttoft, Alford, Chapel St. Leonard’s, or one or other of the neighbouring villages where there was a telegraph-office, and despatch a perfectly innocent-looking message addressed to either the chauffeur Penney, or to Mrs Kirby, such as “Received your letter—Small,” “My daughter left yesterday—Small,” “Thanks, am writing—Ted,” or “Will send fish to-morrow—T. Small.” The wording of the message did not matter in the least; as long as Rodwell received the name “Tom,” “Ted,” or “Small,” he knew that he was wanted at the end of the secret cable.

The gentleman from London passed into the stuffy little bedroom, drew aside the old damask curtain and took off the top of the big tailors’ sewing-machine displaying the instruments beneath. Through the little window the grey, dispiriting light grew brighter as the dawn spread. The tide was out, and there was very little wind. The sea lay unusually calm in the morning mist. In the air was a salt smell of seaweed, and when he seated himself upon the old rush chair he could hear the low, monotonous lapping of the waves up and down the beach. That February morning was raw and chill upon the bleak, open coast of Lincolnshire, and while old Tom bustled about to get “Muster Rodwell” a slice of cooked bacon, the spy of the “All Highest of Germany” busied himself in looking through the intricate-looking array of cable instruments, the hidden batteries of which he had recharged a week ago, spending a whole night there working in his shirt-sleeves and perspiring freely.

Presently, settling himself down to his work, he touched the ebonite tapping-key and in dot-and-dash he sent under the sea the letters “M.X.Q.Q.,” the German war-code for “Are you ready to receive message?” Thrice he despatched the letters, and then awaited the answering click.

There was no response.

“Stendel is always so slow!” he growled to himself. Already the appetising smell of frying bacon had greeted his nostrils. Old Tom’s daughter was away. Indeed, he kept her away as much as possible, as Mr Rodwell had no desire to have women “poking their noses into things that did not concern them”—as he once remarked.

Thrice again did the man at the end of that unsuspected cable tap out those four code-letters.

At last, however, came the answering sound upon the receiver.

“B.S.Q.—B.S.Q.,” came up rapidly from the depths of the sea. “Who are you?” Wangeroog was asking.

“Rodwell is here,” tapped out the spy. “Is Stendel there?”

In a moment came the answer.

“Yes. Stendel is speaking. I have a message for you.”

“Mine is most urgent. Please put me through at once to J.A.J.70.”

“Your signals are good. Cuxhaven is engaged with Copenhagen. Wait, and I will put you through. While waiting will you take my message?”

“S.S.,” answered Rodwell, which meant, “All right. I understand.” Then he added “O.O.,” by which the German operator on the island of Wangeroog knew that he was to proceed.

After a few seconds’ pause the recorder began to click, and upon its green receiving “tape” there came out the following:

“J. Number 6834115. Berlin, February 21st, 1915.

“Ueber die zustaende 1828, 59361 sind folgende Nachrichten 0083 joasckcumf 2122: 298511, 3826, 3278: 2564: 8392 schmutzig: 6111: sparsam: dannen: schiene: 2568, tbsxic zerreiben. 3286 zeilverlust.”

Slowly it came out accurately registered on the long green paper ribbon, which, when it stopped, Rodwell tore off and carefully rolled up in order to decipher it at his leisure by aid of his little cipher-book.

Then, after a brief pause, he placed his fingers upon the key and, with an expert touch, inquired if he were yet through to Number Seventy Berlin?

The answer came in the affirmative.

A few moments later he tapped out the letters G.S.F.A.—the code pass-word which automatically by the calendar was so often changed. He received the answer G.L.G.S. Then, according to rule, he gave his own registered number—that of “0740.” Every spy of Germany is registered by number in the department presided over by Dr Steinhauer.

Fully five minutes elapsed before he received the permission to proceed.

Then, finding himself in direct communication with the headquarters of the Imperial Secret Service, that argus-eyed bureau known as “Number 70 Berlin,” he began his report with the usual preamble, as follows:

“On Imperial War Service. Most Urgent. Naval. From 0740, to Berlin 70. Transmitted Personally. February 22nd, 1915.

“Source of information G.27, British Admiralty. American liners Ellenborough and Desborough leave Plymouth to-day with drafts for Alexandria. Four troop-ships also leave Plymouth for Dardanelles on Friday next, and three leave Southampton to-day. Names of latter are Cardigan, Lamberhead, and Turleigh. All are escorted to Gibraltar, but not farther. In future all drafts for Mediterranean ports embark at Plymouth. Suggest Pola be informed by wireless, if none of our submarines are in Mediterranean. Are there any? Await reply. Burchardt Number 6503 left for Amsterdam with important information last night. Grossman 3684 was arrested in Hartlepool yesterday. Nothing found upon him. Will probably be released. Expecting visit of B— shortly. Tell him to call in secret upon 0740 in London. End of message.”

Then he sat back and waited for the reply to his inquiry regarding the submarines of the Fatherland. He knew that even at that early hour the great bureau in the Koeniger-gratzerstrasse, the eyes and ears of the German nation, was all agog, and that one of the sub-directors would certainly be on duty. They never failed to answer any question put to them.

Old Small entered with the news that the bacon was ready, therefore he ordered it to be brought in, and as he sat at the table of the old sewing-machine awaiting the response, he ate the homely breakfast with a distinct relish. He did not notice the look of hatred in old Small’s eyes.

Suddenly Stendel, on Wangeroog, asked if he had finished with Berlin, to which message he answered that he was waiting for a reply.

“I have another message,” Stendel tapped out. “Will you take it?—very short.”

“G.G.F.,” replied Rodwell, which in the war-code meant “Am ready to receive message.”

Then came the following from beneath the cold waters which divided the two nations at war, a combination of German words and the numerical code—

“J.S.F.: 26378: Möwe: (sea-gull) J.S.J.J: schimpflich (infamous) Ozstc: 32; Schandfleck (blot) tollkühn (foolhardy).”

And it was followed by the affix of the sender, “10,111, and the word zerren” (pull).

Again Rodwell tore off the piece of pale green “tape” and placed it carefully in his pocket, in order to decode it later on.

Then he leisurely finished his bacon and declared to Tom that he felt the better for it.

“I ’ear as ’ow the pay-pers are a sayin’ that the German submarines are a torpedoin’ our ships ’olesale, sir,” remarked old Tom, when the recorder was silent again. “It’s a great shame, surely. That ain’t war—to kill women an’ children on board ship. Why, the most brutal of all foreigners in the world would go out and rescue women an’ children from a sinkin’ ship!”

“It’s war, my dear man—war?” replied Rodwell. “You people, living on the shores of England, don’t yet know what war means. It means that, at all hazards and at all costs, you must vanquish your enemy. No kid-glove or polite speeches. The silly peace ideas of humanity, and all that rubbish, don’t count nowadays. The German super-man does not understand such silly manoeuvres when he is out to vanquish his enemy. Why, you and your daughter and Ted would be far better off under our own Kaiser than you are to-day, with all this shuttlecock policy of your out-of-date rule-of-thumb Government, and your strangulating taxation consequent upon it. Your English sovereign is only worth fifteen shillings to-day.”

“Yes, but I don’t understand how it is that you German people have put us under your thumbs, as you have done.”

“Merely because you British people are trustful fools,” laughed Rodwell merrily. “You never listened to Lord Roberts, a great soldier and strategist greater than any we have to-day in Germany. You all laughed at his warnings. And now you’ll have to laugh on the other side of your mouths. That’s the real, plain, brutal truth of it all. You can’t conceal it. If you English had taken the advice of your popular hero ‘Bobs,’ there would have been no war to-day. You would have been far too strong for our Fatherland.”

“But why should we sacrifice our lives any further?” asked the toiler of the sea. “I’m sick and tired of the whole affair, as I said to Ted only this morning.”

“I quite appreciate that,” was Rodwell’s reply. “But—”

A click sounded upon the instrument, and Rodwell, breaking off, bent eagerly to read the tape.

The words, in German, which came out upon it were: “Reply to 0740. Eight undersea boats are in Mediterranean. Message will be sent by wireless to Trieste and Pola for re-transmission. Any report from 6839? Await reply.”

Rodwell hesitated. The number quoted was that of his friend Mrs Kirby.

In a few moments he tapped out the reply.

“Number 6839 is in close touch with Minister, as reported by me a week ago. She will make cable report as soon as accurate information can be obtained. Our activity on the Clyde is progressing. The engineers are out and other branches of labour are threatening to strike. Unrest also in South Wales. Good work in progress there.”

Then, for some minutes, the instruments were silent, and he watched the receiver intently.

At last it again clicked, and the green tape once more began to unwind.

“To 0740.—From O. Meiszner—Headquarters Imperial Intelligence Staff. Order 0213 to do utmost possible with Clyde workers. Information will reach him from Holland by Route Number 6 regarding South Wales and dockers. Report all movements of troops to Dardanelles, also movements from Aldershot to Flanders. Nothing from 0802 at Portsmouth. Please inquire reason and reply: urgent. Are you on good terms with G.27 British Admiralty? Reply.”

The number “G.27” meant Charles Trustram, for as such he had been reported by Rodwell, and duly registered in the dossiers of the great spy-bureau in Berlin.

“Yes. On excellent terms with G.27. But he is not yet indebted to us,” he replied, swiftly tapping the instrument.

“He should be. Please see to it. His information is always good, and may be as extremely useful as that regarding the plot to entrap our Navy. I am sending Number 0324 to you as an American citizen. He bears urgent instructions, and is travelling via New York, and due in Liverpool about March 10th. He will report personally on arrival in London. End of message.”

“SS.” were the letters tapped out—three dots, succeeded by three more dots—and by it Dr Otto Meiszner, seated at the headquarters of German espionage in Berlin, knew that his friend had received and understood what he had transmitted from the heart of the Fatherland.

Rodwell, having replaced the cover over the instruments, lay back for a moment to think.

He knew that ere long the unseen rays of wireless would flash in code the news from Hanover away across Europe, to the Austrian station at Pola, on the Adriatic, reporting the departure of those troop-ships, which, after passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, would be at the mercy of the German submarines lurking in readiness in the Mediterranean.

Upon his hard mouth was an evil grin, as he rose, pushed the old chair aside and, striding into the adjoining room, joined the weatherbeaten old fisherman—the man who was held so dumb and powerless in the far-reaching tentacles of that terrible Teuton octopus, that was slowly, but surely, strangling all civilisation.

Chapter Eighteen.

Tom Small Receives Visitors.

The super-spy, having concluded his work, sat with the old fisherman beside the wood-fire in the little low-pitched living-room that smelt so strongly of fish and tar.

Old Tom Small presented a picturesque figure in his long sea-boots, on which the salt stood in grey crystals, and his tanned blouse; for, only an hour ago, he had helped Ted to haul up the boat in which, on the previous night, they had been out baiting their crab-pots. Ruddy and cheery-looking, his grey hair was scanty on top, and his knotty hands, hardened by the sea, were brown and hairy. He was a fine specimen of the North Sea fishermen, and, being one of “nature’s gentlemen,” he was always polite to his visitor, though at heart he entertained the deepest and undying contempt for the man by whose craft and cunning the enemy were being kept informed of the movements of Britain’s defensive forces, both on land and at sea.

Now that it was too late, he had at last awakened to the subtle manner in which he had been inveigled into the net so cleverly-spread to catch both his son and himself. Ted, his son, had been sent to the cable-school at Glasgow and there instructed, while, at the same time, he and his father had fallen into the moneylender’s spider-web, stretched purposely to entrap him.

What could the old fellow do to extricate himself? He and Ted often, in the evening hours, before their fire, while the storm howled and tore about that lonely cottage on the beach, had discussed the situation. They had both, in their half-hearted way, sought to discover a means out of the impasse. Yet with the threat of Rodwell—that they would both be prosecuted and shot as traitors—hanging over them, the result of their deliberation was always the same. They were compelled to remain silent, and to suffer.

They cursed their visitor who came there so constantly and sent his mysterious messages under the sea. Yet they were compelled to accept the ten pounds a week which he paid them so regularly, with a frequent extra sovereign to the younger man. Both father and son hesitated about taking the tainted money. Yet they dared not raise a word of protest. Besides, in the event of an invasion by Germany, had not Rodwell promised that they should be protected, and receive ample reward for their services?

Old Small and Rodwell were talking, the latter stretching forth his white hands towards the welcome warmth of the flaming logs.

“You must continue to still keep your daughter Mary away from here, Tom,” the visitor was saying. “Send her anywhere you like. But I don’t want her prying about here just now. You understand! You’ve got a married daughter at Bristol, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, send her down there for a long stay. I’ll pay all expenses. So book the whole of it down to me. Here’s twenty pounds to go on with;” and, taking his banknote case from his pocket, he drew forth four five-pound notes.

“Yes, sir; but she may think it funny—and—”

“Funny!” cried his visitor. “Remember that you’re paid to see that she doesn’t think it funny. Have her back here, say next Tuesday, for a couple of days, and then send her off on a visit down to Bristol. You and Ted are able to rub along together very well without her.”

“Well—we feels the miss o’ the girl,” replied the old fellow, who, though honest and loyal, had fallen hopelessly into the trap which German double-dealing had prepared for him.

“Of course you do. I should—were I in your place,” was Rodwell’s response. “But the confidential business in which you and I are engaged just now is not one in which a woman has any concern. She’s out of place here; and, moreover, few women can keep a still tongue. Just reflect a moment. Suppose she told some friend of hers what was in progress under your roof? Well, the police would soon be out here to investigate, and you’d both find yourselves under arrest. No,” he added. “Keep your girl away from here—keep her away at all costs. That’s my advice.”

“Very well, sir, I will,” replied the wrinkled old fellow, rubbing the knees of his stained trousers with his hands, and drawing at his rather foul pipe. “I quite see your point. I’ll get the girl away to Bristol this week.”

“Oh! and there’s another thing. I’d better remain in here all day to-day, for I don’t want to be seen wandering about by anybody. They might suspect something. So if anyone happens to come in, mind they have no suspicion of my being here.”

“All right, sir. Leave that to me.”

“To-night, about ten or eleven, I’m expecting a lady down from London. She’s bringing me some important news. So you’d better get something or other for her to eat.”

“A bit o’ nice fish, perhaps?” the old fellow suggested as a luxury.

“Well—something that she can eat, you know.”

“I’ll boil two or three nice fresh crabs. The lady may like ’em, if I dress ’em nice.”

“Excellent!” laughed Rodwell. Truly his was a strange life. One day he ate a perfectly-cooked dinner in Bruton Street, and the next he enjoyed fat bacon cooked by a fisherman in his cottage.

Old Tom, glancing through the window out upon the grey, misty sea, remarked:

“Hulloa! There’s that patrol a-comin’ back. For two days they’ve been up and down from the Spurn to the Wash. Old Fred Turner, on the Seamew, what’s a minesweeper nowadays, hailed me last night when we were baitin’ our pots. He got three mines yesterday. Those devils have sown death haphazard!”

“Devils!” echoed Rodwell, in a reproachful tone. “The Germans are only devils because we are out to win.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” exclaimed the old fellow, biting his lip. “I didn’t think when I spoke.”

“But, Tom, you should never speak before you think. It lands you into trouble always,” his visitor said severely.

“Yes, I—But—I say—look!” cried the old man, starting forward, and craning his neck towards the window. “Why, if there ain’t that there Judd, the coastguard petty-officer from Chapel Point again! An’ he’s a-comin’ across ’ere too.”

“I’ll get into the bedroom,” whispered Rodwell, rising instantly, and bending as he passed the window, so as not to be seen. “Get rid of him—get rid of him as soon as ever you can.”

“’E’s got a gentleman with him,” old Tom added.

“Don’t breathe a word that I’m here,” urged the spy, and then, slipping into the stuffy little bedroom, he closed the door and turned the key. Afterwards he stood listening eagerly for the arrival of the visitors.

In a few moments there was a loud knocking on the tarred door, and, with a grunt, Tom rose to open it.

“Hulloa, Tom!” cried the petty-officer of the coastguard cheerily. “’Morning! How are you?”

“Oh! pretty nicely, Muster Judd—if it warn’t for my confounded rheumatics. An’ now, to cap it all, I’ve got my girl laid up ’ere very bad. She only got ’ome last night.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mr Judd. “But I thought you had a gentleman visitor this morning?”

“Gentleman visitor? Yes. I’ve ’ad the doctor to my girl—a visitor I’ve got to pay—if that’s what you mean. She’s been awful bad all night, an’ Ted’s now gone into Skegness for some med’cine for ’er.”

The man who accompanied the coastguard-officer remarked:

“This is a lonely house of yours, Mr Small. A long way from the doctor—eh?”

“It is, sir, an’ no mistake. We don’t see many people out ’ere, except Mr Judd, or Mr Bennett—or one o’ the men on patrol.”

Then, being compelled to ask the pair inside, for it had started to rain heavily, Tom Small sat with them chatting, yet full of wonder why they had called at that early hour.

The man in the next room stood breathless behind the door, listening to all their conversation. It was quite plain that he had been seen to enter there, whereupon the coastguard’s suspicions had been aroused. He scented considerable danger. Yet his adventurous spirit was such that he smiled amusedly at old Small’s story of his sick daughter, and of the visit of the doctor.

Judd, seated in the chair which Rodwell had occupied until he had vacated it in alarm, suddenly turned to old Tom, and said:

“This gentleman here is my superior officer, Tom, and he wants to ask you something, I think.”

“Yes, sir, what is it?” asked the crafty old fisherman, turning to the man in plain clothes.

“You had a visitor here last Thursday—a gentleman. Who was he?” asked the stranger suddenly.

“Last Thursday,” repeated Small reflectively. “Now let me see. Who came ’ere last Thursday? Weren’t we both out fishin’? No,” he added: “I know! Yes, we did ’ave someone come—Mr Jennings, of course.”

“And who is Mr Jennings?”

“Why, ’e comes regularly from Lincoln for our insurances.”

The petty-officer exchanged meaning glances with his superior, who then asked—

“Aren’t you in the habit of receiving visits from a gentleman—somebody who’s been seen about here in a closed car, painted pale grey?”

“No car ’as ever come ’ere, sir,” declared the old man blankly. “Folk in cars don’t come to visit people like Tom Small.”

“And yet you are not quite so poorly off as you pretend to be, Mr Small,” remarked his questioner. “What about that nice little balance you have in the bank—eh?”

“Well, I’ve earned it, therefore I don’t see why it should concern you,” protested the old fellow angrily.

“Just now it does concern me,” was the other’s rather hard reply—words to which the man in the inner room listened with breathless concern.

Was it possible that the existence of the secret cable was suspected? Had Tom, or his son, been indiscreet? No; he felt sure they had not. They had everything to lose by disclosing anything. And yet those two visitors were bent upon extracting some information from him. Of what nature he was not quite clear.

An awful thought occurred to him that he had left his cap in the sitting-room, but, on glancing round, he was relieved to see that he had carried it into the bedroom when he had sat down at the instruments.

What would those two men say, if they only knew that, within a few yards of them, was the end of a cable which ran direct to Berlin?

While the rain continued pelting down for perhaps a quarter of an hour, the pair sat chatting with Small. It was evident that the naval officer was disappointed with the result of his visit, for the old fisherman answered quite frankly, and had given explanation of his two visitors which could not well be met with disbelief.

“Are you gentlemen a-lookin’ for German spies, then?” asked old Small at last, as though sorely puzzled at the questions that had been put to him.

“We’re always on the look out for those devil’s spawn,” answered Judd. “There was a Dutch trawler off here last night, and she wasn’t up to any good—I’m sure of that.”

“Perhaps it’s the same craft as wor ’ere about a fortnight back. She flew the Dutch flag, but I believe she wor a waitin’ for a German submarine, in order to give ’er petrol. They were a talkin’ about ’er in the Anchor on Saturday night. Bill Chesney was out fishin’ an’ got right near ’er. I think one o’ the patrol boats ought to ha’ boarded ’er.”

“She was seen off the Spurn, and was then flying the British flag,” remarked Judd’s superior officer.

“Ah! There you are!” cried Small. “I was certain she was up to no good! Those Germans are up to every bit o’ craft and cunnin’. Did you gentlemen think that Mr Jennings, from Lincoln, was a German spy?” he asked naïvely.

“No, not particularly,” replied his visitor. “Only when strangers come along here, in the prohibited area, we naturally like to know who and what they are.”

“Quite so, sir. An’ if I see any stranger a-prowlin’ about ’ere in future, I won’t fail to let Mr Judd know of ’im.”

“That’s right, Small,” was the officer’s response. “There are lots of rumours around the coast of our fishermen giving assistance to the enemy by supplying them with petrol and other things, but, as far as I can gather, such reports are disgraceful libels upon a very hardworking and deserving class. We know that some of them put down tackle in Torbay, and elsewhere, when they learn the fleet is coming in, so that they may obtain compensation for damage caused to their nets. But as to their loyalty, I don’t think anyone can challenge that.”

“I ’ope not, sir,” was Small’s fervent reply. “There ain’t a fisherman along the whole coast o’ Lincolnshire who wouldn’t bear his part against the enemy, if he could—an’ bear it well, too.”

The clean-shaven officer reflected for a few moments.

“You’ve never, to your recollection, seen a pale grey closed-up car anywhere about here, have you?” he asked at last.

“Never, sir.”

“Quite sure?”

“Positive, sir. The roads about ’ere are not made for cars,” was the old fellow’s reply. “I certainly did see a car one night, about six weeks ago. The man had lost his way an’ was driving straight down to the sea. He wanted to get to Cleethorpes. They were Navy men from the wireless station, I think.”

The old man’s manner and speech had entirely disarmed suspicion, and presently the pair rose, and bidding him good-bye, and urging him to keep a sharp look-out for strangers, they left.

The moment they were safely away, Rodwell emerged from the bedroom, and in a low, apprehensive voice, asked:

“What does all this mean, Tom—eh?”

“Don’t know, sir. That Judd’s been about here constantly of late. ’E’s up to no good, I’m sure. I’ve told you, weeks ago, that I didn’t like the look o’ things—an’ I don’t!”

Rodwell saw that the old fellow was pale and alarmed. He had preserved an impenetrable mask before his two visitors, but now they had gone he was full of fear.

Rodwell, as he stood in the low-pitched little room, recollected certain misgivings which Molly had uttered on the previous night, just before he had left Bruton Street. His first impulse now was to leave the house and slip away across the fen. Yet if he did somebody must certainly see him.

“Shall you get off now, sir?” asked the old man suddenly.

“Not till to-night,” was the other’s reply. “It would be a bit dangerous, so I must lay doggo here till dusk, and then escape.”

“Do you think they really suspect us, sir?” asked the old fellow, in a voice which betrayed his fear.

“No. So don’t alarm yourself in the least,” replied the gentleman from London. “I suppose I’ve been seen about, and my car has been noticed on the roads. There’s no danger, as long as I’m not seen again here for a bit. I’ll get through to Stendel, and let him know that I shan’t be back again for a fortnight or so.”

“Yes; you must certainly keep away from ’ere,” Tom urged. “They’ll be a-watchin’ of us, no doubt.”

“I’ve got a lady coming here, as I told you—Mrs Kirby, to whom you telegraph sometimes. She won’t get here till night, and I must wait for her. She’ll have some urgent information to send across to the other side. Penney will meet her in Lincoln, where she’ll arrive by train, and he’ll bring her on by car.”

“You’d better keep to the bedroom,” urged the old man. “They might come back later on.”

“Yes: I won’t be seen,” and returning to the stuffy little room, he reopened the cable instruments and soon got into communication with Stendel, in order to pass away the time which he knew must hang heavily upon his hands, for even then it was not yet nine o’clock in the morning.

He sat smoking and gossiping with the old fisherman nearly all the day, impatient for the coming of darkness, for his imprisonment there was already becoming irksome.

It grew dusk early when, about four o’clock, a footstep outside caused them both to start and listen. In answer to the summons at the door Tom went, and was handed a telegram by the boy messenger from Huttoft.

Opening it, he found it had been despatched from London, and read:

“Impossible to leave till to-morrow.—M.”

He gave it to Rodwell, who at once saw that the woman he expected had been delayed. Probably she had not yet been able to gather that important information which was wanted so urgently in Berlin.

The telegram puzzled him. Was it possible that the arrangements which he had made with such cunning and forethought, and had left to Molly to carry out, had broken down after all?

Lewin Rodwell bit his lip, and wondered. He seemed that day beset by misfortune, for when at five o’clock, Ted having returned, he tested the cable as usual, a call came through from Berlin.

Rodwell answered it, whereupon “Number 70” flashed the following message beneath the sea.

“Your information of this morning regarding troop-ships leaving Plymouth for Dardanelles is incorrect. Desborough was torpedoed off Canary Islands on January 18th, and Ellenborough is in dry dock in Belfast. Source of your report evidently unreliable.”

Rodwell read the words upon the long green tape as it slowly unwound, and sat staring at them like a man in a dream.

Chapter Nineteen.

Days of Darkness.

On the same afternoon that Lewin Rodwell was stretching himself, impatient and somewhat nervous, in the lonely little house on the beach, Elise Shearman, pale and apprehensive, was seated in Sir Houston Bird’s consulting-room in Cavendish Square.

The spruce, young-looking pathologist, clean-shaven and grave, with hair streaked with grey, was listening intently to the girl’s words. It was her second visit to him that day. In his waiting-room were half a dozen persons who had come to consult him, but the blue-eyed young lady had been ushered straight into the sanctum of the great Home Office expert.

“Curious! Very curious!” he remarked as he listened to her. “That anonymous letter you brought this morning I have already taken to Whitehall. The whole affair seems a complete mystery, Miss Shearman. No doubt the charge against young Sainsbury is a very serious one, but that you should have been given warning is most strange. Since I saw you this morning I’ve had a visit from Mr Trustram, whom I called up on the ’phone, and we have had a long consultation.”

“What is your opinion?” she asked breathlessly.

“Will you forgive me, Miss Shearman if, for the present, I refrain from answering that question?” asked the great doctor, with a smile. He was sitting at his table with one elbow resting upon it and half turned towards her, as was his habit when diagnosing a case. The room was small, old-fashioned, and depressingly sombre in the gloom of the wintry afternoon.

“But do you think Jack will ever clear himself of these horrible charges?” she asked, pale and anxious.

“I hope so. But at present I can give no definite opinion.”

“But if he can’t, he’ll go to penal servitude!” cried the girl. “Ah! how I have suffered since his arrest! Father will hear no word in his favour. He daily tells me that Jack is a spy of Germany, and as such deserves full punishment.”

“Mr Trustram has found out from the War Office that his trial by court-martial begins at the Old Bailey to-morrow.”

“Yes, I know. Mr Pelham, his counsel, called on me just after lunch, and told me so,” said the girl tearfully. “But oh! he seemed so hopeless of the result. The prosecution, he said, would bring forward the most damning evidence against him. Can it be true, Sir Houston? Do you really think it is true?”

“No, I don’t,” was the prompt, straightforward answer. “Nothing will ever cause me to suspect Sainsbury to be guilty of espionage. He’s far too good an Englishman to accept German gold.”

“Then you believe him to be innocent!” cried the girl, her fair countenance brightening with a ray of hope.

“Yes, I do. He’s the victim of some dastardly plot. That’s my firm belief. And yet it is so strange that his friend Jerrold committed suicide.”

“But was Dr Jerrold a spy? That is the question!”

“It seems quite true that a warrant had been issued for his arrest upon a charge of war-treason,” Sir Houston replied. “Why didn’t he try and face it?”

The girl, pale and agitated, sat in silence, her gloved hands lying idly on her lap before her. Those awful weeks of anxiety had left traces upon her face, now thin and worn. And she felt that her lover’s fate was sealed unless he could clear himself. In desperation she had sought the great doctor, and he had been most thoughtful and sympathetic.

“I think,” he went on in a kindly voice, “I think it would be best, Miss Shearman, if you went home, and remained there in patience. You know that Mr Pelham is a sharp lawyer, and, being quite alive to the seriousness of the situation, he will do his very utmost for his client. Go quietly home, and await the result of our combined efforts,” he urged sympathetically. “I am meeting Mr Trustram again at five o’clock. Believe me, Mr Trustram is not inactive, while I, too, am doing my level best in your lover’s interests.”

“Oh! thank you,” cried the girl, tears standing in her fine blue eyes. “You are both so good! I—I don’t know how to thank you both,” and, unable to further restrain her emotion, she suddenly burst into tears.