Kitabı oku: «Sant of the Secret Service: Some Revelations of Spies and Spying», sayfa 5
Chapter Seven
The Elusive Van Rosen
Evidently something very serious had happened.
My first impulse was to hasten to the Grosvenor Hotel, engage a room there, and try to discover something of the cause which had brought about Madame Gabrielle’s sudden flight. Perhaps my anxiety for her safety operated more powerfully than I ought to have allowed. In our business personalities are nothing; it is the end that counts.
A moment’s reflection showed me that in taking this course I should simply be playing into the enemy’s hands. I was too well known. I hoped that my presence in England was not suspected by the German agents, and if I ventured to stay at the Grosvenor they would certainly very soon have me under close observation.
By using the official telephone between London and Paris I managed to get into communication with Madame Gabrielle at her flat in the Boulevard Péreire, and soon learnt the reason for her flight. Van Rosen had discovered her, and was watching her closely.
Here, indeed, was an antagonist worthy of my steel! I had long known – and so far as his abilities went, had respected – van Rosen as one of the cleverest agents of the Königgrätzer-strasse. He was able to pose as an Englishman – a rare accomplishment in a German – for he had been educated at Haileybury, and had been in England off and on since his youth. He was now living in a north-western suburb, where he posed as Mr George Huggon-Rose, a solicitor who had retired from practice. Only British apathy made this possible. A moment’s investigation would have shown that the man could not have been what he pretended, for no such retired solicitor as Mr George Huggon-Rose was known to the Law Society.
As a matter of fact, it was through this very slip on his part that I had “spotted” van Rosen. We had suddenly lost sight of him a year or two before, and try as we would – for we knew that wherever he might be he would be dangerous – we could not locate him. The accident which led to his discovery was curious. I had been spending a few days in North London, and one morning stopped at the railway bookstall to buy a paper. As I approached the stall a tall, gentlemanly looking man, who had been chatting with the clerk, turned away and entered the train. Something about him struck me as strangely familiar.
“Who is that gentleman?” I asked the man at the stall.
“Oh,” he replied, “that’s Mr Huggon-Rose. He used to be a solicitor in the City, but he retired and has been living here for a year or two.”
But I was not quite satisfied; some odd memory, in which I felt sure Mr Huggon-Rose was concerned, haunted me all the way to town, and I could not shake it off. I had only seen van Rosen once, though I had had a good deal of experience, and it was not surprising that I failed to recognise him. When I got up to town I consulted the Law List, but could find no trace of Mr Huggon-Rose.
Then I became more suspicious, and before many days were over I had succeeded in definitely identifying Mr Huggon-Rose with one of the Kaiser’s cleverest spies. Thus the mystery of van Rosen’s disappearance was solved by his own slip. If, when I looked up the Law List, I had found Mr Huggon-Rose’s name and address duly set out, I should probably have thought I had been deceived by some chance resemblance and wasted no more time on the matter. How true it is that trifles make the sum of life!
The position now was plainly serious: van Rosen’s presence in London boded no good. The man was as unscrupulous as he was clever. The British contra-espionage department knew him well and had been greatly chagrined at losing sight of him. Afterwards, in consequence of my report to Hecq, he had been kept under close observation; but we had never been able to secure sufficient proof to justify his arrest, strong though our suspicions were. He had evidently been walking very warily since the outbreak of war. Unfortunately he had adopted that easiest of all cloaks of the German spy, and had become a naturalised Englishman just before war broke out. But the adage “Once a German always a German” applied with special force to van Rosen.
After speaking with Madame Gabrielle I had a long chat with Hecq over the private wire, and together we mapped out a pretty comprehensive plan of campaign, in which both Aubert and Madame Gabrielle had very definite parts to play.
Then the mysterious scented wedding card claimed my full attention, for I was determined to sift its secret to the bottom. First, I paid a visit to Somerset House, where I very thoroughly searched the records of recent marriages. These showed me that no marriage had taken place between persons named Wheatley and Easterbrook. A certain Agnes Wheatley had been born in June, 1894, at Mina Road, Old Kent Road, in the parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, and there were records of two James Easterbrooks. One was James Stanley Easterbrook, born in Lord Street, Southport, in 1881; the other, James Henry Charlton Easterbrook, had first seen the light of day in the village of Forteviot, Perthshire, in 1870. The Army List, of course, failed to show any Captain James Easterbrook, of the Royal Fusiliers.
All this did not carry me much farther. The father of the Southport Easterbrook was apparently a prosperous Blackburn tradesman; but that of the man born in Scotland was vaguely set down as of “no occupation,” a curious entry for a Scottish village, where practically everybody would be likely to live by the labour of his hands, and where one would hardly expect to find persons of leisured independence. The fact worried me. But an inquiry at Forteviot showed that there had been no Easterbrooks in the village for many years, and no one seemed to recollect anything about them.
In order to conceal myself from the astute van Rosen, I had taken rooms in a cheap boarding-house, full of old ladies, in Guilford Street, Bloomsbury, and, equipped with a silver discharge badge and a set of “faked” Army papers, posed as an invalided soldier recovering his health before taking up work. I was thus able to disarm the inquisitive prying of my fellow-boarders, and I am afraid I gave them some highly remarkable “information” about the war and my share in it! If one is engaged in spying or contra-espionage work one must be ever ready to combat silly suspicions that give rise to endless gossip and to evade unfriendly and malicious comment.
The enigma of the wedding card worried me incessantly. That the prosperous Jules Cauvin was one of the puppets of Potsdam, and also that he had betrayed France, I felt morally convinced. Hecq, indeed, held documentary evidence of Cauvin’s friendship with the Austrian millionaire spy, Herr Jellinck. I knew, almost with certainty, that the perfumed wedding card was intended to convey a message of some kind, since in every particular it was clearly shown to be a bogus document. Yet without more direct evidence Cauvin, had we ventured to arrest him, must have slipped out of the clutches of the law. For, after all, mere friendship or acquaintance with a spy, however suspicious, does not prove the guilt of espionage.
Inquiries made by the British Special Branch soon showed that none of the Easterbrooks in the British Army could by any possibility be connected with the “Captain Easterbrook” of the wedding card.
Within a week I established the fact that Agnes Wheatley had died before she reached the age of ten years. Therefore, she could not have been the mysterious bride to whose “wedding” Jules Cauvin and his wife had been invited. I was thus thrown back on the two Easterbrooks, and for the next few days, if I may use the term, I breakfasted, lunched, and dined on Easterbrooks! And helping in my quest were some of the smartest men of the British Special Branch.
Six weeks went by – weeks of feverish activity and incessant patient investigation. That mysterious wedding card, with its pungent odour of stag-leaved geranium, hypnotised me, and I could think of nothing else. And everything began to seem so hopeless that even the Scotland Yard men, most unrelenting and unwearying searchers-out of hidden mysteries, began to get depressed and to fancy they were hopelessly beaten.
Van Rosen, of course, was under constant surveillance. Whether he suspected it or not I do not know, but for the time being he seemed to have entirely abandoned his usual business. He went about quite openly, and I often wondered whether he was tacitly defying us. Probably his work was so far advanced that he could afford to wait, and hoped to disarm suspicion by the very openness of everything he did. Had there been any real necessity we could, of course, have arrested him on some charge or another, but we still hoped that by giving him plenty of latitude we should sooner or later stumble on some valuable information.
Chapter Eight
“One of the Naturalised.”
The weeks slipped by.
We seemed no nearer gaining our object, and I found myself wondering at times whether, indeed, I was not engaged on a wild-goose chase. Poring over everything that was known of Jules Cauvin, I sometimes found myself ridiculing my own suspicions. Still, that mysterious card forced itself on my attention. Cauvin’s friendship with Jellinck, his known association with Miassoyedeff, shot as a spy in Russia, his sudden and inexplicable wealth, all convinced me in the long run that there was a deep secret to be fathomed. I had the chain of evidence nearly complete, but one link was missing – the source of Cauvin’s wealth and the identity of the mysterious individual from whom he drew unstinted funds.
Three weeks more passed. The Special Branch at Scotland Yard was becoming disheartened. I myself was losing hope, and Hecq was obviously growing restive. Then the tide turned. One of the Special Branch, apparently by the merest accident, discovered the printer of the bogus card.
This was a discovery indeed! I hastened to interview the printer – the proprietor of a small jobbing business named James in the Uxbridge Road.
“The cards,” he told me, “were ordered by Mr Easterbrook for the wedding of his son, the Captain Easterbrook referred to. Mr Easterbrook lives in Lancaster Gate,” and, referring to his order book, he gave me the address, for which I thanked him.
“Did you perfume the cards before you printed them?” I asked him carelessly. I had kept the most important question till the last.
“Perfume them!” he snorted, glaring at me through his spectacles. “Why, of course not – we don’t scent invitation cards to weddings!”
I knew that well, but I was glad to get the fact verified. And now for Mr Easterbrook and the captain! I was in high spirits, for I felt that at length I was getting near the heart of the mystery.
Going direct to Lancaster Gate, I soon found the Easterbrooks’ house, a large, handsome building overlooking Hyde Park. A few local inquiries soon told me all I wanted to know, and shortly after I was conveying my news to Hecq over the Paris telephone. For once the phlegmatic little man was shaken out of his habitual reserve, and his voice, when he had heard my news, fairly trembled with excitement. At last we were at close grips with our mysterious foe.
Next day, Madame Gabrielle, whom I sent for again, and Aubert were installed in rooms in an obscure house in Bayswater. I spent the evening with them, and together we evolved a plan of operations which, I confess, required considerable “bounce” – I do not like the expression “daring” when it has to be applied to one’s self.
By this time I had cut myself adrift from our excellent colleagues of the Special Branch, fearing lest van Rosen and his friends might get on my track. So far, apparently, he had not located me, for, though I kept the sharpest possible look out, assisted by a clever detective who habitually assumed different disguises for the purpose, I could find no evidence whatever that I was being “shadowed.” Madame Gabrielle, Aubert, and myself were also working apart, though I was directing the general plan of operations.
Following up the trail I had struck in the Uxbridge Road, I soon secured some astounding facts regarding Mr Essendine Easterbrook, of Lancaster Gate. He was actually a native of Frankfort, who, after a brief but amazingly successful career in the City as a promoter of rubber companies, had amassed a big fortune and retired from the game of finance. He had become naturalised in 1909, and, profiting by the Briton’s amazing indulgence to aliens of every kind, had changed his name from Essendine Wilhelm Estbruck to Essendine William Easterbrook. Very few people, I found out, had any idea of his real origin and of his German parentage and nationality.
Now Mr “Easterbrook” had no son. He had, however, an English wife, and his wealth had won for them a position in London Society. They had frequently, before the war, entertained at their handsome house the wily director of propaganda, von Kuhlmann, who was then living in London, and also a certain Max Garlick. But, try as I would, I completely failed to establish any sort of connection between the Easterbrooks and Mr Huggon-Rose.
The name of Garlick, however, told me a lot. Garlick had been the German Secret Police Councillor in France, for the Departments of the Nord, the Pas de Calais, the Somme, and the Ardennes. He was an ex-naval lieutenant, and two years before the war broke out was appointed to the arduous, but lucrative, office of Polizeirath for London, establishing his office nearly opposite the Army and Navy Stores in Victoria Street, Westminster. This mouchard, in order to disguise his true occupation, was in the habit of putting in a few hours’ work daily at a desk in the London offices of the Hamburg-Amerika line in Cockspur Street. That Essendine Easterbrook, the “father” of the non-existent “captain,” had been the friend of Max Garlick was quite sufficient to show his connection with the enemy, for Garlick had been the head of the “actives” in England.
We then set to work to obtain more inside evidence. Aubert, on my instructions, watched carefully, and soon made an opportunity of getting into the confidence of Mrs Easterbrook’s English maid, a young woman named Dean. He found out without much trouble that she was not greatly attached to her mistress, who, in spite of her gushing manners in Society, was harsh and domineering towards those in her employ, and was totally incapable of winning either respect or affection.
Dean had been engaged from a local registry office in the neighbourhood, a fact which materially facilitated our plans.
I had a long interview with the young woman. She had a sweetheart serving in the Army, who had seen a good deal of German methods and had told the girl enough of the sufferings of the conquered French and Belgian populations to fill her with an intense hatred of Germans and Everything German. Directly I informed her that she had been working for a naturalised German her indignation knew no bounds, and she willingly gave me a lot of valuable information. She declared, moreover, that she would not remain in the place another day. This, too, was exactly what was wanted. I impressed upon her the necessity of keeping absolutely silent on the subject of her employers’ real character, and set about the task of getting her place filled with a nominee of my own.
This, of course, could be no other than the resourceful Madame Gabrielle, who, laying aside, as she often did, her wedding ring, registered her name at the registry office as a French maid. A handsome douceur to the excellent registry keeper and some highly satisfactory references, carefully prepared for the occasion, accomplished what we wanted, and in the course of a week I had the satisfaction of knowing that the Easterbrook household was under the close surveillance of one of my smartest assistants, who posed as Mademoiselle Darbour, and was quite certain to miss no opportunity that might present itself to her.
We soon obtained further information about Mr Easterbrook. He was evidently a wealthy man in reality, as well as appearance, owning, in addition to the Lancaster Gate house, a big estate in Derbyshire, a shooting-box in the Highlands, and a Villa at Cabbé Roquebrune, above Cap Martin, not far from Cauvin’s Villa des Fleurs at Mentone. Moreover, he dabbled in yachting after a fashion, more, I suspected, for purposes of social advertisement than from any love of a sport which makes but a slight appeal to Germans.
We were, of course, living on the edge of a powder magazine, and the position of Madame Gabrielle, alone in the very camp of the enemy, was especially perilous. At any moment one or all of us might be recognised by the alert agents of van Rosen, and I was beginning to know enough of the true position of Mr Easterbrook to realise that the desperate men with whom we had to deal would stick at nothing to rid themselves of danger if once they divined our identity and purpose. For Madame Gabrielle I was especially anxious, and more than once I debated seriously whether I was justified in allowing a woman to run so grave a risk. For Aubert and myself, of course, such a question naturally did not arise; risk was a part of our profession, and we accepted it just as we accepted a wet day. However, we were playing for a great stake, and I finally decided to play the game out to a finish.
A month passed. The reports I received from Madame Gabrielle, working inside the house, and from the painstaking Aubert, who let nothing outside escape him, were full of interest.
Mr Easterbrook, formerly Herr Essendine Estbruck, native of Frankfort, remained entirely unsuspicious that he was under the eye of one of the keenest secret agents in Europe. It was important that he should remain in ignorance, and I prepared a little plan which I felt sure would be so completely reassuring to him that it would throw him completely off his guard, and yet put him in such a position that he would find it almost impossible to resist the temptation, carefully arranged by us, to betray the country of his adoption.
It so happened that an important post had become vacant in a certain Government department dealing with a large number of confidential plans. I found out from Madame Gabrielle that, as a matter of fact, Easterbrook had for a long time been working strenuously to secure a Government appointment – honorary, of course, since money was no object to him, except as a means to an end. I have no doubt whatever that his motives were twofold. The first was, by securing official recognition, to remove any suspicion that might cling to him in consequence of his enemy origin; the second, I have just as little doubt, was to secure better opportunities of playing the spy. I made up my mind to oblige him in both particulars, but to arrange the dénouement myself.
I went to the Minister concerned, and revealed my plan. When I had fully explained to him what we knew and how much we suspected he realised the gravity of the situation, and, though my request was entirely irregular, he consented to what I asked.
A week later a paragraph in the London papers announced that Mr Essendine Easterbrook had been appointed a controller in a certain department of the Admiralty. There were a few cavillings in some quarters, on account of Easterbrook’s origin, but to the general public the position did not seem to be one of great importance, and little notice was taken of the appointment. As a matter of fact the position was a bogus one, created for the occasion, and everything connected with it had been arranged by the astute Special Branch with the sole design of entrapping Mr Essendine Easterbrook and the intermediary, whoever it might be, between the German agents in England and Jules Cauvin. For the wedding card had proved beyond doubt that Easterbrook and Cauvin were in close communication.
Chapter Nine
The Secret of the Perfume
Mr Easterbrook soon found himself comfortably ensconced in a large room, and surrounded by a staff, every single member of which, though he little suspected it, was in the direct employ of the Special Branch. Few suspects have ever been subjected to such microscopic scrutiny. He literally could not make a single movement unobserved. He was constantly shadowed in and out of his office by agents who were relieved every few hours; inside his house Madame Gabrielle was incessantly on the watch. And in the meantime we prepared for him the trap which proved his undoing.
One day Mr Easterbrook found awaiting his attention a number of copies of an “urgent” and “strictly confidential” memorandum which gave in elaborate detail the plan of a naval operation which for sheer dare-devilry was enough to take one’s breath away. Needless to say, it was “spoof” from beginning to end. But it was spoof so thoroughly plausible in its conception, and so artistically worked out in its wealth of detail, that it might well have deceived someone far better versed than Herr Estbruck in naval matters. I had the privilege of going over it with the distinguished naval officers who drew it up, and I can hear to-day the roars of laughter with which it was received by the company of experts gathered to listen to the elaborate joke. Of course the men who really knew detected the imposture at once; to the novice the plan looked like the details of a gigantic attack on one of Germany’s strongest naval bases.
Now we calculated deliberately that Easterbrook, getting hold of the bogus plan, would be unable to resist the temptation to communicate it to Germany. To him, we knew, it must appear of stupendous importance. It was too elaborate for him to attempt to memorise the details, and far too long to give him a chance of copying it unobserved. Moreover, we decided to convince him, if possible, that he could purloin a copy without risk.
Now with confidential documents of importance, every single copy must be accounted for. The printing is done under the closest supervision; the exact number of sheets of paper required is issued; every official who receives a copy signs for it and gets a receipt when he parts with it. Mr Easterbrook had been well drilled in the routine. We had made him especially careful by inducing him on one occasion carelessly to sign for four copies of a document when he only received three, and the trouble we raised about the “missing” copy must have made him determined to count his copies in future. We relied on that to catch him and his associates.
Early one morning a messenger laid upon Mr Easterbrook’s desk four copies of the naval plans.
“Please sign for three copies of Number 27162 A.B., Mr Easterbrook,” said the lad, laying the book before him.
A keen-eyed watcher saw Mr Easterbrook glance at the heading of the document which lay before him. Clever though he was, he was unable to repress a start of astonishment as the amazing title, carefully designed for the occasion, caught his eye. A moment later he had recovered himself, counted his copies of the paper, and, glancing at the book, signed for three. The bait was swallowed!
I must now hark back to Madame Gabrielle to make clear the chain of events which followed. The sprightly Frenchwoman soon found out that beneath an unprepossessing exterior her employer concealed an extremely amorous disposition. Exerting the full power of her fascinating personality, she soon began to exercise a considerable influence over the financier, and was able at length to solve the problem of the mysterious perfume.
A few hours after the secret “plans” had been laid before him, Easterbrook made a clandestine arrangement to dine with Madame Gabrielle at a restaurant in Soho the next evening.
“I have to go out of town to-night,” he said. “I don’t want to write, but if you get by to-morrow’s post a plain sheet of paper scented with geranium I shall be there. If it is scented with violet you will know I have been detained and cannot come.”
So the secret was out at last! The wedding card had been a signal to Cauvin that all was well. Had it been scented with violet it would have indicated danger. As will be seen, we had little difficulty in guessing the purpose of Easterbrook’s absence from his house that night!
We calculated that, finding he had been debited with three copies of the “plans,” whereas he actually received four, Easterbrook would calmly pocket one of them and return to the proper department the three for which he had signed. Events proved that we were right. In the afternoon, at the usual time, he left the office. Three minutes later we ascertained that the fourth copy of the “plans” was not in his desk. He had taken it with him, and it was easy to guess his purpose.
From that moment his doom was sealed. We could have arrested him at once, of course, but we wanted to know by what means those plans were to be dispatched to Germany. If we could only find that out one finger of the Hidden Hand would assuredly be lopped off for good.
On leaving the office Easterbrook made for a public telephone office, where, as it happened, three boxes stood side by side. As he entered the one, an agent of the Special Branch entered the one farthest from him. The boxes were of the threepence-in-the-slot pattern, and the trifling delay caused by dropping in the three pennies gave the detective his opportunity. Ringing up the operator at the Exchange, he demanded, in the name of the police, that Easterbrook’s conversation should be “tapped.” The operator promptly “plugged” him on to the line Easterbrook was using, so that he was able to listen, quite unknown to Easterbrook, to the conversation which followed.
“Is that 7257 North?” Easterbrook began. “I want to speak to Mr Huggon-Rose,” he went on. “That you, Rose? This is Easterbrook. Will you come down to Piccadilly and have some dinner with me? I am just arranging a yachting trip, and perhaps you would like to make one of the party. All right. Be at Scott’s at seven o’clock. Good-bye.” And he rang off.
Seven o’clock found Easterbrook and Huggon-Rose dining comfortably at Scott’s. Four men of the Special Branch, immaculately attired and apparently mere men-about-town, were seated at different tables near them. Easterbrook and his guest talked yachting ostentatiously, and many maps and papers were handed backward and forward. One of these, the lynx-eyed watchers noted, passed from Easterbrook to Huggon-Rose and was not returned. It was the confidential paper! Another link in our chain had been forged!
At half-past ten the two conspirators rose to leave. At the door of the restaurant they brushed past a man in seafaring dress, quite obviously a Dutch sailor, and, swiftly though it was done, one of our watchers saw a folded paper slip from Huggon-Rose’s hand into that of the Dutchman. He made off at once, closely shadowed by two of our men, while Easterbrook and Huggon-Rose walked away together, evidently looking for a taxicab, none too numerous at that hour.
Just as a cab drew up to the kerb I arrived on the scene. I had been kept closely informed of what was going on and had been waiting in a neighbouring restaurant in order to be present at the arrest of the two plotters. Incautiously I approached too near, and in the light of a street-lamp van Rosen caught sight of me. He recognised me instantly. With a snarl of rage he turned on me, and his hand shot to his hip-pocket. Then he recovered his self-possession and entered the taxi with Easterbrook. No doubt he reflected that a shot at me would not help him, and, it should be noted, neither man had any incriminating document on him. The “plans” were in possession of the Dutch sailor, and until they were secured we had to hold our hands. But one quarry was safe now.
The taxi soon deposited the two men at Easterbrook’s house, which was immediately closely surrounded. Half an hour later Madame Gabrielle, hatless and showing every sign of a struggle, slipped from a side door.
Breathlessly she explained that van Rosen, catching sight of her as he was going to his room on the first floor, had recognised her at once and had attacked her furiously. Why he did not shoot her I never could understand. Physically Madame Gabrielle was a match for him; she was a superb gymnast and in hard training, whereas van Rosen had been leading a dissipated life and was in thoroughly poor condition. A brief struggle had ended in Madame Gabrielle throwing him heavily by a simple wrestling trick, and, knowing that she must get away at all cost, she had rushed down the back stairway and got into the street.
A moment or two later a servant left the house and posted some letters in the pillar-box a few yards away. The letters were recovered later, and one of them, a postcard, was found to be addressed to Jules Cauvin. It was in a feminine handwriting, and bore neither the date nor the address of the writer. It read:
“My dear Jules, – Henri will return home to-morrow. He has immensely enjoyed his visit, and his health has greatly improved.
“Yours,“Marie.”
Innocent enough, but —the card was perfumed with violets! Clearly enough its purpose was to let Cauvin know that danger was in the air.
We were expecting every moment the news that the Dutch sailor had been arrested with the incriminating documents in his possession. That would have been the signal for the arrest of Easterbrook and van Rosen. But the arrest was not to be made.
Far away to the east we heard the low boom of a gun. Another and another followed; then came the crash of high explosives, and we realised that an air raid was in progress. Nearer and nearer came the sounds of guns and bombs.
Suddenly I picked up the drone of an aerial motor directly overhead, and a few seconds later came an appalling crash that seemed to shake the very earth. I saw a red blaze flash out over Easterbrook’s house, and after that everything was a blank.
I came to my senses to find myself in Charing Cross Hospital. And when I feebly opened my eyes the first object to catch my sight was Armand Hecq, seated at my bedside placidly reading a book. Hearing my gasp of astonishment, he turned to me.
