CHAPTER XV.

THE WORLD DICTATOR

It has frequently been observed by impartial and neutral observers, as, for example, the learned Professor Heinrich von Stosselkopf, of Zurich, the Italian Professor Emil Zonnernheimer, of Verona, and Captain Albert von Zohm, the brilliant writer of Sweden (you will observe that I have an excellent memory for names, as indeed all true Germans have) that Germany holds all the qualities of world-sufficient kultur save one, namely the inability to tolerate frivolity.

This does not mean that we Germans have no sense of humour. How we laugh at the English and their stupid jokes! How puerile is the American so-called fun spirit! Give a German a true joke, however, and he will “ha, ha!” with the best of them. The story of the little boy who climbed up the church steeple and fell upon some iron railings and was prosecuted by the unimaginative policeman for damaging church property, is one which roused a tempest of laughter from one end of the Fatherland to the other.

Who in the world has not roared with delight at that true German story of the lady who went to a doctor of music and showed him the corn of her knee?

The German spirit is the true spirit of humour. Therefore, I reject with scorn the suggestion which has been made by some who have seen these notes, that I am trying to be funny or comical. The errors into which a man may fall are many, but as I have said before, it is the spirit in which one makes the attempt to serve one’s country which counts, and it is not the performance, whether it be successful or otherwise, which should count to a man’s credit.

I have never asked of my beloved Fatherland for any honour. I have been content to serve humbly and obscurely. I know that the records of my work have been wilfully suppressed by jealous superiors, otherwise to-day there would be blazing on my bosom the Order of the Red Eagle. Yes, I repeat, the Order of the Red Eagle has been stolen by the lies and the misrepresentations of those who have belittled the monumental nature of my labours in England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Wight.

There are moments when I grow cold with rage at the thought of this base treason--but enough of this!

I pass to the strangest adventure of my experience, and I tell this story because not only does it reveal the amazing unscrupulousness of the British government, but I think it will also show the marvellous adaptability of a German agent. I do not suggest that all agents would have acted as I did, but then I do not think there are a great number of German agents who are possessed of my extraordinary capacities.

It will be remembered that after my deportation from England, by a certain Major Haynes, of whom more anon, I was submarined and landed again on these inhospitable shores, and by reason of the sentence of deportation, which had been illegally passed upon me without a trial, I was compelled to lie, as they say in England, doggo.

With most of my friends I dare not communicate, and though I had written to Major Haynes announcing that I was in England, and asking him to give me an opportunity of calling upon him, giving, of course, no address, I did not hear from him immediately. I had, however, inserted an advertisement in the _Daily Megaphone_, stating that I was a clerk with experience in the Argentine, Cuba, Batavia and Holland, saying that I was willing to work for £200 a year, the combination of those words meaning that I was an agent in distress and that I was requiring £200. I had no doubt in my mind that the call would be responded to. I was officially penniless. I had some money of my own, but why should I spend that when there was so much money to be had for the asking?

I called at the office of the newspaper and received a big batch of letters in response to my advertisement. I took them back to my new lodgings, for I had left the old apartments, owing to the fact that the proprietor was a fanatical teetotaler, and in the privacy of my own room I took the letters from my pocket and turned them over rapidly, looking for one which would have an inky finger-mark on the back flap.

I found and opened the envelope, and discovered, as I had expected, four bank-notes for £50 without any reference to the sender. I would have thrown the remaining letters upon the fire, had there been one, but fortunately time was hanging on my hands, I had arranged to meet Kriessler, the only man in London with whom I could safely communicate, and I had two or three hours to fill in before that appointment. So what was more natural than that I should open these offers of a situation and read them through? Thoroughness is the characteristic of our race. We despise no material, however unpromising. Germany was built up upon by-products, and her wealth extracted from the dust-bins of Europe.

They were letters of a conventional type asking me for recommendations or inviting me to make calls upon the writers. It was the fourth letter which interested me most of all. I read it through carefully, put it aside, skimmed through the remainder of the letters and then returned to this extraordinary missive.

The paper was heavy and rich. There was on the top left-hand corner a coat of arms embossed in gold and blue. The address was 182, Berkeley Square, which is one of the most fashionable residential squares in London. This address, however, had been scratched out and there had been substituted “Stoney Cottage, Hebleigh-on-Avon.” The letter was marked “Private and very Confidential,” and ran:

“If the advertiser is a person of discretion, and is willing to act as confidential secretary to a high government personage, and has a knowledge of world politics, a permanent position with a salary of £500 per annum can be offered to him for the duration of the war.”

I pondered this letter for some considerable time and before I went out to my appointment with Kriessler, my mind was made up and I had written offering my services, informing the writer that I had acted in a similar capacity to a certain Legation which I was not at liberty to name in Holland; that I was the soul of discretion, that I had no friends in England, and that I was not liable for military service. I added that I should be glad if the advertiser could arrange a meeting in town and that in the circumstances I should like it to be as secret as possible, because I was already doing confidential work for a government department and they might not like to lose me.

The next morning came a telegram in reply.

“Meet me to-night at ten o’clock at the corner of Berkeley Street. I shall be wearing a tall hat and light gloves.”

Ten o’clock that night found me at the rendezvous and punctually to the minute a taxi-cab drew up and a gentleman alighted answering to the description contained in the telegram. I walked up to him taking off my hat.

“You are the advertiser?” he said sharply.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

He looked at me thoughtfully. The light was very dim but I met his gaze without faltering.

“Do you speak French?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“Walk along with me,” he said, taking my arm.

The cabman evidently knew his client and did not expostulate at his departure. Had I been the fare he would have covered me with vile abuse and would have told me that he had no petrol. Such is the unscrupulousness of London cabmen!

We walked down Berkeley Street and turned into the deserted Berkeley Square. He stopped in front of a gloomy house.

“I live here,” he said, “but I am at present staying in the country.”

His voice was sharp. He spoke brusquely and without politeness, and I realized in a flash that he was noble-born. He asked me several questions, more or less irrelevant, and then suddenly he turned about and walked back in the direction of the cab.

“I think you will do,” he said, “you will leave to-morrow evening for Hebleigh. I will meet you at the station and drive you to my cottage. I keep no servants in the house when I am at Hebleigh.”

This seemed strange, but I was afterwards to discover that the cottage had been specially built for my new employer, with vacuum cleaners, gas and electric stoves, a perfect system of central heating, water on every floor and a bathroom attached to every bedroom.

What a comfortable place, thought I, what luxury and how providential for me! Here I could lie quiet for weeks and never be discovered, with nothing to break the monotony of life but an occasional bath.

I had brought down a small hand-bag containing my worldly belongings, and I was ushered into a small bedroom simply but expensively furnished by my host. It was in that room, the first room in which the lights were all switched on, that I had my first good view of him. He was a man of about fifty-five, rather thin, very grey, with a pale, æsthetic face and long, nervous hands. It may seem curious to you that I had not asked him his name, but if you imagine I neglected that precaution you do not know your Heine. I had asked him but he had not responded.

“A woman comes every day to make the beds and to prepare our principal meal,” he said. “You will not see her because she does her work whilst I am in my study, and the meals are served on a lift which comes straight from the kitchen.”

To his study he led the way. It was a large room, one wall of which was covered by a bookshelf filled with large and imposing volumes. A handsome table filled the middle of the room. There were two comfortable arm-chairs and a writing-table. Under the window, across which a heavy curtain was drawn, was a smaller table, and to this my unknown employer pointed.

“That will be yours,” he said. “Your duty will be to translate despatches which I shall write, into such languages as I shall tell you. Do you speak German?”

I kept a straight face.

“Perfectly,” I replied.

He nodded approvingly.

“You wonder probably,” he said, as he seated himself at the table and looked at me strangely over the tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses fixed on his nose, “why I require discretion, why I chose you without knowing anything about you or without any kind of reference? I chose you in the first place,” he went on, without waiting for me to explain that I could produce references, “because in the first place, I think you are a foreigner. Am I right?”

“In a sense----” I began.

“Very well,” he went on. “Oh, by the way,” he looked at me sharply, “have you ever heard of Bilbury’s Tablets?”

I had indeed heard of Bilbury’s Tablets, the advertisements of which covered the hoardings of England and formed the most attractive reading matter in the stupid British newspapers. I therefore answered in the affirmative.

“Do you know the man Bilbury?” he asked, still looking at me keenly.

I was at first tempted to say that I did, but on second consideration I thought it best to tell the truth.

“No, sir. I have never met him.”

“Good,” he said, nodding again.

He leant back in his chair.

“Bilbury,” he said--“and this, you will understand, is confidential--is one of the biggest and most dangerous forces working in this country against England. I have reason to believe that, under one name or other, he is supplying most of the German agents with their money. I am satisfied also that his advertisements are code messages to the enemy government--you see, I trust you.”

I nodded, a little bewildered, for I had never known of Bilbury, though I had heard that there were in England certain persons of whose identity I was ignorant, who were working with the Fatherland.

“I tell you of Bilbury,” he went on, “because in part he explains a great deal of the secrecy both of my habitation and my movements. He also explains why I have chosen, as you might think haphazard, a confidential secretary. You are under no circumstances to communicate with any of Bilbury’s agents, and you are at all times to be prepared to counter the machinations of this extraordinary man.”

There were two or three letters on the table, and one of these he picked up, slit it open and took out what appeared to me to be a perfectly blank sheet of paper. He held it up to the light and frowned, replacing it upon his desk.

“Your presence here is already known evidently,” he said, “but I don’t think we need bother very much about that. Now,” he went on more briskly, “you are entitled to know who I am. Do you know Lord Catherton?”

“I have seen Lord Catherton,” I replied.

He nodded.

“Do you know the Earl of Seabury?”

I shook my head.

“I have never met Lord Seabury.”

“Have you ever seen a photograph of him?” he asked.

“No, sir,” I replied, “I have not.”

Lord Seabury was until recently an English colonial governor, who was now one of the members of the War Cabinet. He is not a man who has figured largely in public life, and not at all in English public life, and as I had never troubled about the colonies he was unfamiliar to me.

He nodded again.

“I see you don’t know Lord Seabury,” he said with a little smile, “for I am he.”

My heart gave a great bound. Heine indeed had fallen upon his feet, thought I! To find myself in the confidence of one who was admittedly a most powerful member of the War Council--what fortune, what amazing luck!

“Now you understand why I shall require that you treat everything I say, and everything you witness here, in the strictest confidence.”

That practically finished the conversation. His lordship led me to a little dining-room where dinner was already laid, and we ate our meal almost in silence. He told me I could go to bed, that he was an early riser and would require my attendance at six o’clock in the morning.

I scarcely slept that night, turning over and over in my mind how I might use to the best advantage the information which I was certain to gain.

I had taken the precaution of buying at Paddington Station a little guide-book of the district, and I carefully studied the roads, the railway stations, and a time-table, with which I had provided myself with my usual forethought, and planned out the course I would take if it became necessary to leave hurriedly. With Kriessler in London, able to forward my despatches to the Highest Quarters, I had no doubt that within a week the name of Heine would be ringing along the corridors of the German Foreign Office.

Punctually at six, I presented myself in the library, and found that his lordship had prepared coffee with his own hands. From six to eight we worked strenuously, his lordship writing, sometimes asking me to translate into Spanish, sometimes into French, occasionally into German, his brief but vital correspondence. I memorized as best I could all these letters. Some were to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in France, one was to a neutral Legation at Berne, this being marked “Very Confidential and Secret,” and sealed heavily with his lordship’s own hand. One was to a Spanish Cabinet Minister, and all dealt intimately and frankly with the conduct of the war. I remembered in a vague way that I had heard that Lord Seabury was the virtual dictator of England, but I never realized it until I read those dictatorial, intolerant messages which he sent forth, one being directed to the commander-in-chief of a certain British army, telling him that he was on no account to attack before the fourteenth of the following month.

Breakfast was served in the room where we had taken dinner and once that was dispatched we returned to our labours. For the whole of that day I was kept busy. A draft treaty with the Portuguese Government, dealing with the future of the island of San Thomé, was one of the documents which occupied the greater part of the afternoon in translating.

At dinner his lordship was unusually frank, and under my genial flattery he unbent.

“It is true, Mr. Smith,” he said (Smith had been the name I had given him), “that I am dictating the policy of the Cabinet, which reminds me that I must draft a letter to-night to the commander-in-chief of the battle fleet. I am not at all satisfied with--” he stopped short--“by the way,” he asked, “have you had any communication from any mysterious source?”

“No,” I replied.

He shook his head a little despondently.

“It seems absurd that one should be dogged by a pill-maker,” he mused, half to himself, “but that fellow has got to be dealt with sooner or later.”

He left the room to go to his study, leaving me to finish a glass of port, and I was rising from the table when he returned.

“Come this way,” he said in a whisper, “I will show you something.”

He led me down the corridor into the study in which the lights had been extinguished. We walked across the room and he pulled back the curtain. A bright moon was shining and at the far end of the garden near the road was the figure of a thick-set man who was pacing slowly and restlessly up and down the road. He dropped the fold of the curtain and we returned to the dining-room which faces the back of the house.

“That gentleman is M. Tarakanova,” he said, “and Tarakanova is the chief of Bilbury’s agents.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully, “I shall have to send that infernal dossier to town.”

“The dossier, my lord?” I repeated, innocently.

“The dossier,” he said.

He made no further explanation until later that night when we were working in the study, a stealthy reconnaissance having revealed to me that M. Tarakanova had disappeared. In the wall of the study was a safe, and just before, or rather immediately after, he had bade me a curt good night, he stopped my departure with a word, walked over to the safe, opened it with a bunch of keys which he took from his pocket, and pulled out a long yellow envelope which was heavily sealed.

He brought it carefully back to the table, switched on the table light which he had extinguished, and placed the envelope under its rays.

“Look at this,” he said.

I looked. In a firm hand was written on the top of the envelope, with a neat red line ruled beneath:

“(1) Statement signed by William II. Emperor of Germany, on July 5th, 1914, expressing his intention of making war.

“(2) Letter from Emperor William II. of Germany to Emperor Francis Joseph to the same effect.

“(Original documents).”

I did not speak. I was incapable of speech. Within this envelope lay documents in the very writing of the All-Highest Supreme War Lord! Documents of greatest national interest! Historical documents which in the enemy’s hands might damage the beloved Fatherland and our Noble and Glorious Kaiser!

I was clear-headed and cool. Those documents should be restored to their Imperial owner. What reward would await the gallant and enterprising gent. who delivered these papers into the hands of our Supreme and Noble Master! I grew dizzy with the thought of the emoluments and the honours which might be showered upon me. No office was too high for the man who could render that magnificent service to the State!

My hand trembled as I touched the secret dossier.

“I must get rid of this at once,” said Lord Seabury. “It is too risky to keep it here--put it back in the safe, Smith.”

Dare I do it? Half-a-dozen steps separated me from the desk to the steel door in the wall. I half-glanced at his lordship. He was looking at a document which he had half-finished before dinner. Quick as lightning I slipped the envelope under my coat and under my arm, slammed to the door of the safe, locked it and handed the keys back. He thanked me and put them in his pocket.

“You may go now, Smith,” he said.

The perspiration was trickling down my forehead and I walked unsteadily down the passage to my room. I closed and locked the door behind me, took the envelope from my pocket and sat down on the bed. There was a small writing-table in my room which had been placed there at my request, and a supply of stationery. To enclose this large envelope in one larger was the work of a second. I wrote a brief note to Kriessler telling him that it was a matter of life and death that the enclosed should be sent forward by the safest channels and should be placed in the hands of the All Highest himself.

I then began the most important letter I have ever written in my life:

“All Highest Majesty.

“Your humble and obedient servant has the honour to transmit to Your All Highest Majesty a document which I have extracted from the safe of the English Cabinet Minister, Lord Seabury, at great risk and with much labour, though I count no labour too great if I am to serve Your All Highest Majesty. My name, as Your All Highest Majesty’s Minister of Intelligence will tell Your All Highest Majesty, is Heine.”

I added a number of other interesting details about myself, where I could be found, what was my salary, and this paragraph, which I regard as one of my finest efforts:

“Though no decoration blazes upon my humble coat, and no patent of nobility has been granted me, though I am a poor man with no more than my official pay to sustain me, I am nevertheless proud and happy to be of such service to Your All Highest Majesty as will merit Your All Highest Majesty’s approval. I seek no rewards, no decorations, no monetary grants--I do this for the Fatherland, and for Your All Highest Majesty, who is the epitome of Germany’s greatness.”

I placed this and the dossier inside a large envelope, and in the middle of the night I tip-toed back to the study in my stockinged feet and found a larger covering in which to enclose the letter which I had addressed to the Emperor. On the outer envelope I wrote Kriessler’s English name and address, and soon after daylight I let myself out of the house and walked in the direction of the village of Hebleigh which was distant about a mile from Stoney Cottage.

I dropped the big envelope into the village post-box, retraced my steps and reached my room without my absence being detected. I had to risk his lordship discovering the disappearance of the letter, but fortunately throughout the next day he showed no intention of going to the safe, and beyond a reference to Bilbury, he scarcely spoke a word.

All day long we were inditing letters to every part of the world, which his lordship sealed with his own hands, and which he packed away in a leather satchel. How he posted them or whether he sent them to London, I did not know, but I presumed that a Foreign Office messenger attended discreetly and performed this duty.

Half-past eight that night, immediately after dinner, his lordship went to his study and suggested, when I attempted to follow him, that I should have a little fresh air.

“You need it, my friend,” he said, “you have been playing a part to-day in the government of England, in the direction of affairs of the world. Surely that merits a little recreation.” He smiled almost paternally.

I walked through the little panelled hall, opened the front door, and stepped out. A man was standing by the gate. It was Bilbury’s man, Tarakanova. To whom he was talking I did not know, but somebody stood in the shadow and I heard his quiet laughter.

I shrugged my shoulders. I had nothing to fear from Bilbury, indeed I was curious to learn what the agent of this mysterious person had to say to me. So I walked boldly up the garden-path, humming a little tune, and Tarakanova turned to meet me. He was, as I say, a thickset man, clean-shaven, so far as I could see in the dusk, and not the sort of man you might imagine would engage in espionage work.

“Good evening,” he said, as I came up.

“Good evening, sir,” I replied politely, “it is fine weather for this time of the year.”

“You’re a trite devil,” said a voice in the half-darkness.

I turned to face the man who had spoken, and with whom Tarakanova had been in conversation. I did not faint. I pride myself that I retain my self-possession with remarkable sang-froid.

“Good evening, Major Haynes,” I said, not to be outdone in cool-collectedness.

“Having a nice time, Heine?” he asked.

“Yes, indeed, Major Haynes,” I replied; “you got my letter?”

“I am sorry I did not reply, but I have been rather busy, and learning you were down here, I thought I would look you up. How is his lordship?”

“Very well indeed,” I replied with great politeness.

Tarakanova laughed.

“I presume you know,” I said, as the thought struck me, “that this gentleman is an employee of Bilbury.”

“I know that very well,” said Major Haynes, “though he is not exactly employed by Bilbury, but by the gentlemen who are administering Mr. Bilbury’s estate. You see, Heine,” Major Haynes went on in his fearfully monotonous voice--how that man irritates me!--“the plutocratic Mr. Bilbury, who is a very rich gentleman, went off his head about four years ago.”

“Went mad?” I said.

“Went mad,” said Major Haynes, nodding, “not dangerously so, but just enough to be a nuisance. His pet illusion is that he is Lord Seabury.”

“Oh, yes,” I said faintly.

“He spends all his time,” Major Haynes went on, “writing despatches for important personages, and generally in running the war. Mr. Jacobson here, is, if I may put it crudely, his keeper. I suppose he has told you all his secrets?”

“Oh, yes,” I said carelessly.

“I wonder if he showed you that dossier of his about the Kaiser. I hope you haven’t by any chance pinched it and sent it to His Imperial Majesty,” said Major Haynes with coarse brutality, “because it happens that there is nothing more interesting in it than a pamphlet on the remarkable quality of Bilbury’s Pills.”

“Major Haynes,” I said in a husky voice, “I surrender.”

“Not at all,” said Major Haynes, “look me up any time you are in London, and I will see what I can do for you. Now,” said this long, cool devil, with true British wit, “you had better run back to his lordship. He will be wanting you for a new offensive, or maybe to send an ultimatum to Sweden.”

I made no reply. With dignity I returned to the house, walked up to my room, and packed my bag.