Kitabı oku: «Number 70, Berlin: A Story of Britain's Peril», sayfa 8
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!”
