Kitabı oku: «Spies of the Kaiser: Plotting the Downfall of England», sayfa 16
At eight next morning the telephone rang, and Ray briefly explained that Gessner, who had placed his apparatus upon the high flagstaff in his garden, had been receiving messages all night!
"Have you seen anything of Fowler?"
"No. But Hartmann has spent the night with Gessner, apparently watching his experiments. Couldn't you manage to watch your opportunity and get inside the factory somehow? I'll come north at noon, and we'll see what we can do."
At five o'clock he stepped from the London express, and together we walked down to the Imperial Hotel, to which I had suddenly changed my quarters, feeling that I had been too long in the close vicinity of the spy Dubois.
"It seems that they carry out their experiments at night," I explained. "For in the daytime the wireless apparatus is no longer in position. I see now why they engaged a builder to examine the chimney – in order to place a pulley with a wire rope in position at the top!"
"But Gessner and Dubois are expert electricians, no doubt. Members of the Telegraphen-Abtheilung of the German army, most probably," remarked my friend.
"And who is Fowler?"
"A victim, I should say. He appears to be a most respectable man."
"In any financial difficulty?"
"Not that I can discover."
"But why have they established this secret communication between Hull and London?"
"That's just what we have to discover, my dear fellow," laughed Ray. "But if we are to get a peep inside the place it's evident we can only do so in the daytime. At night they are down there."
"At early morning," I suggested, "after they have left."
"Very well," he said; "we'll watch them to-night, and get in after they leave. I've brought a few necessaries in my bag – the set of housebreaking implements," he added, with a grin.
"Well," I said, "neither of us know much about wireless telegraphy. Couldn't we get hold of an operator from one of the Wilson liners in dock, and take him along with us? A sailor is always an adventurer."
Ray was struck with the idea, and by eight o'clock that evening we had enlisted the services of a smart young fellow, one of the operators in the Wilson American service, to whom, in strictest confidence, we related our suspicions.
That night proved an exciting one. Fortunately for us it was cloudy, with rain, at intervals. Murphy, the wireless operator, listening under the wall declared that we were not mistaken. The men were sending messages in code.
"Most probably," he said, "they have another station across at Borkum, Wilhelmshaven, or somewhere. I wonder what they're at?" he added, much puzzled.
Through those long hours we watched anxiously; but just before the dawn Dubois and Busch lowered their apparatus from the top of the chimney, and a few minutes later emerged, walking together towards the hotel.
As soon as they were out of sight we held a consultation, and it was decided that, while Murphy and I kept watch for the police, Ray should use his jemmy upon the door and break it open. He would admit us and remain himself outside to give us warning.
Those moments were breathless ones.
We parted, the wireless operator walking one way, while I went in the opposite direction. Suddenly we heard the cracking of wood, followed by a low cough.
By that, we knew all was well.
We hurried back, and a few seconds later were in the courtyard of the disused factory. Ray had handed me his jemmy, and with it I broke open the second door of the empty place, flashing a light with the electric torch I carried.
We passed into the small office, but no second glance was needed to show that the place was completely fitted with a wireless installation of the most approved pattern.
"We'll try it," suggested young Murphy, and taking out the apparatus we hauled it up to the top of the chimney. Then re-entering the office, he placed the receiver over his ears, and listened intently, in his hand a pencil he had found ready upon the paper pad.
I stood watching his face. Apparently he heard nothing.
Then he touched the key of the instrument and instantly a great blue spark, causing a crackling noise, flashed across the room.
He was calling.
Suddenly his face brightened, and he was listening. Then he grew greatly puzzled.
Taking the receiver off his head he began to search the table upon which were several books; but at that instant I heard a light footstep behind me, and as I turned I felt a heavy crushing blow upon the top of my skull.
Then the blackness of unconsciousness fell upon me.
I knew no more till, on opening my eyes, I found myself lying in bed with a nurse bending over me.
I gazed around in amazement. There were other beds in the vicinity. I was in a hospital with my head tightly bandaged.
For a whole day and night I lay there, the nurse forbidding me to speak.
Then suddenly there entered Ray, whose arm was in a sling, accompanied by young Murphy.
"The spies came back – unexpectedly, and went for me before I could raise the alarm," Raymond explained. "Dubois hit you over the head with a jemmy, and by Jove! it's a mercy you weren't killed. He's cleared out of the country, however, fearing a charge of attempted murder. I've informed the police, and they are looking for both him and Busch, as well as Gessner, who is missing from Sydenham."
"Yes, but why had they established these two wireless stations?" I asked.
"Yes," replied Murphy, "it's a most ingenious piece of work. By some unknown means both the station here, and at Sydenham, had been tuned with the one which I daresay you've seen stretched across the top of the new Admiralty, in Whitehall, hence they could read all the orders given to the Home and Channel Fleets and the reports received from them, while I have to-day discovered that there is a similar secret station existing somewhere near Borkum also in tune with these, and with our Admiralty. Therefore the Germans are aware of every signal sent to our Fleet! The station at Sydenham was only temporary, but the one here was evidently devised in order that the German admiral in the North Sea, on seizing Hull and establishing a base here, might have constant knowledge of our Admiralty orders and the whereabouts of our ships. When I was listening I was surprised at the code, but the truth was made plain by the discovery of a complete copy of the British naval code lying upon the table. By means of this, the spies could decipher all messages to and from our ships. The Civil Lord of the Admiralty and three officials have arrived in Hull, and I have been with them down at the factory this afternoon. The chief wireless engineer declares that the secret of the exact tuning must have been learnt from somebody in the office of the constructors."
And both Ray and I then remembered the man Fowler, who had, as we afterwards discovered, been on the verge of bankruptcy, and had suddenly gone abroad, a fact which was sufficiently instructive for our purpose.
Next day I was well enough to leave the hospital, and I guided the superintendent of the Hull police and two detectives to Busch's house, where, on searching his room, we discovered a volume of plans and reports of defences of the Humber and its estuary, estimates of food and fodder supplies in the country north of Hull, together with a list of the foreign pilots and their addresses, as well as an annotated chart of the river, showing the position where mines would be sunk at the river's mouth on the alarm of invasion.
But what, perhaps, would have been even more alarming to the general public, had they but known, was the discovery of several great bundles of huge posters ready prepared for posting up on the day of invasion – the Proclamation threatening with death all who dared to oppose the German landing and advance – a copy of which I have given in these pages.
It shows, indeed, what careful preparation our enemies are now making, just as the installation of the secret wireless showed the tactful cunning of the invader.
For our exertions, Raymond, Murphy, and myself received the best thanks of the Lords of the Admiralty, at which, I confess, we were all three much gratified.
CHAPTER XIV
PLAYING A DESPERATE GAME
On the 20th of December, 1908, it rained incessantly in London, and well I recollect it. After lunch I sat in the club-window in St. James's Street, idly watching the drenched passers-by, many of them people who were up from the country to do their Christmas shopping.
The outlook was a gloomy one; particularly so for myself, for I had arranged to spend Christmas with an aunt who had a pretty villa among the olives outside Nice, but that morning I had received a telegram from her saying that she was very unwell and asking me to postpone my visit.
The club was practically deserted save for one or two old cronies. Every one had gone to country houses, Ray was spending Christmas with Vera's father at Portsmouth, and in view of the message I had received I felt dull and alone. It is astonishing how very lonely a man may be at Christmas in our great London, even though at other times he may possess hosts of friends.
I had received fully a dozen invitations to country houses, all of which I had declined, and was now, alas! stranded, without hope of spending "A Merry Christmas," except in the lonely silence of my own bachelor chambers. So I smoked on, looking forth into the darkening gloom.
The waiter switched on the light in the great smoking-room at last, and then drew the heavy curtains at all the long windows, shutting out the dismal scene.
A man I knew, a hard-working member of Parliament, entered, threw himself down wearily and lit a cigar. Then, idler that I was, I began to gossip.
He was going up to Perthshire by the 11.45 from Euston that night, he remarked.
"Where are you spending Christmas?" he asked.
"Don't know," I replied. "Probably at home."
"You seem to have the hump, my dear fellow," he remarked, with a laugh, and then I confided to him the reason.
At last, about six o'clock, I put on my overcoat and left the club. The rain had now stopped, therefore I decided to walk along to my rooms in Guilford Street.
Hardly had I turned the corner into Piccadilly, when I heard a voice at my elbow uttering my name with a foreign accent.
Turning quickly, I saw, to my great surprise, a man named Engler, whom I had known in Bremen. He was a clerk in the Deutsche Bank, opposite the Liebfrauen-Kirche, and popular in a certain circle in that Hanseatic city.
"My dear Meester Jacox!" he exclaimed in broken English in his enthusiastic way. "My dear frendt. Well, well! who would have thought of meeting you. I am so ve-ry glad!" he cried. "I have only been in London since three days."
I shook my friend's hand warmly, for a year ago, when I had spent some time beside the Weser watching two men I had followed from London, we had been extremely friendly.
I told him that I was on my way to my rooms, and invited him in to have a chat.
He gladly accompanied me, and when we were comfortably seated in my cosy sitting-room he began to relate to me all the latest news from Bremen and of several of my friends.
Otto Engler was a well-dressed, rather elegant man of forty, whose fair beard was well trimmed, whose eyes were full of fire, and who rather prided himself upon being something of a lady-killer. He was in London in connection with an important financial scheme in which his brother and a German merchant in London, named Griesbach, were interested. He and his brother Wilhelm were over on a visit to the merchant, who, he told me, had offices in Coleman Street, and who lived in Lonsdale Road, Barnes.
There was a fortune in the business, he declared, which was the discovery of a new alloy, lighter than aluminium, yet with twenty times the rigidity.
That evening we dined together at the "Trocadero," looked in at the Empire, and returned to the club for a smoke.
Indeed, I was delighted to have found an old friend just when I was in deepest despair of the dullness of everything, and of Christmas in particular.
Otto Engler had one failing – his impudent inquisitiveness. After he had left me it occurred to me that all the time we had been together he had been constantly endeavouring to discover my recent movements, where I had visited of late, where I intended spending Christmas, and my subsequent movements.
Why did he desire to know all these particulars? He was a busybody, I knew, and the worst gossip in the whole of that gossip-loving city on the Weser. Therefore I attributed his inquisitiveness to his natural propensity for prying into other people's affairs.
"Ah! my dear friend," he had said as he gripped my hand on leaving me, "they often speak of you in Bremen. How we all wish you were back again with us of an evening at the Wiener Café!"
"I fear I shall never go back," I said briefly. "Business nowadays keeps me in London, as you know."
"I know – I know," he replied. "Remember, you have always had a true friend in Otto Engler – and you always will, I trust."
Then he had entered the taxi which the hall-porter had called for him.
Next afternoon he called upon me at New Stone Buildings, as we had arranged. Ray Raymond was seated with me. I introduced him, and we spent a pleasant hour, chatting and smoking. Ray had also been in Bremen, and the two men had, they found, many mutual friends. Then, when he had left, Ray declared himself charmed by him.
"So different to the usual German," he declared. "There's nothing of the popinjay about him, nothing of the modern military fop of Berlin or Dresden, men who are, in my estimation, the very acme of bad breeding and degenerate idiocy."
"No," I said. "Engler is quite a good fellow. I'm glad he's found me. I expected to be deadly dull this Christmas."
"So do I," replied my friend. "I've got a wire this morning from the Admiral saying he is down with influenza, and the Christmas house-party is postponed. So I shall stay in town."
"In that case we might spend Christmas day together," I suggested.
This was arranged.
My German friend Otto saw me daily. I was introduced to his brother, Wilhelm, a tall, thin, rather narrow-eyed man who, from his atrocious German, I judged was from Dantzig. It was one evening in the Café Royal that I first saw Wilhelm, who was seated playing dominoes with a rather stout, middle-aged man in gold-rimmed spectacles, Heinrich Griesbach.
Both men expressed delight at meeting me, and I invited the trio to my rooms for a smoke and a gossip.
We sat until nearly two o'clock in the morning. Griesbach had been many years in London, and was apparently financing the scheme of the brothers Engler, a scheme which, on the face of it, seemed a very sound undertaking.
All three were thorough-going cosmopolitans, cheery, easy-going men of the world, who told many quaint stories which caused my room to ring with laughter.
Next day was Christmas Eve, and Griesbach suddenly suggested that if I had nothing better to do he would be delighted if I would join their party at dinner on Christmas night at his house over at Barnes.
"I regret very much," I said, "but I've already arranged to dine with my friend Raymond, who shares chambers with me in Lincoln's Inn."
"Oh!" exclaimed Otto Engler, "I'm sure Herr Griesbach would be very pleased if he came also."
"Of course!" cried the German merrily. "The more the merrier. We shall dine at eight, and we'll expect you both. I'll send a note to Mr. Raymond, if you'll give me his address."
I gave it to him, and nothing loath to spend the festival in such jovial company, I accepted.
I entertained a shrewd suspicion that by their hospitality they wished to enlist my aid, because I had one or two friends in the City who might, perhaps, assist them materially in their scheme. And yet, after all, Otto Engler had often been my guest in Bremen.
Next day I heard on the telephone from Ray that he would go down to Barnes with me, and would call for me at six at Guilford Street. Curiously enough, I had become so impressed by the possibilities of the new alloy about to be exploited with British capital, that I had really become anxious to "go in" with them. Ray Raymond, too, was much interested when I showed him the specimen of the new metal which Engler had given me.
"Do you know," said he when he called for me at six o'clock on Christmas evening, "I was about town a lot yesterday and I'm quite certain that I was followed by a foreigner – a rather big man wearing gold spectacles."
"Nonsense!" I laughed. "Why should you be followed by any foreigner?"
"It isn't nonsense, my dear Jacox," he declared. "The fellow kept close observation on me all yesterday afternoon. When I got back to Bruton Street, I looked out half an hour afterwards and there he was, still idling outside."
"Some chap who wants to serve you with a writ, perhaps!" I laughed grimly. "A neglected tailor's bill!"
"No," he said. "He's watching with some evil intent, I'm certain. I expect he's somewhere near, even now," he added.
"Why!" I laughed. "You seem quite nervy over it! Next time you see him, go up to the Johnnie and ask him what the dickens he wants."
Then, half an hour later, I put on my hat and coat, and together we took a taxi past Kensington Church and Olympia, to Hammersmith Bridge, over which we turned off to the right in Castelnau, into a long ill-lit thoroughfare, running parallel with the river. Bare trees lined the road, and each house was a good-sized one, standing in its own grounds.
Before one of these, hidden from the road by a high wall, and standing back a good distance from the road, the cab pulled up, and, alighting, we opened the gate, and passing up a well-kept drive pulled the bell.
Our summons was answered by a thin, rather consumptive-looking German man-servant, who took our coats and ceremoniously ushered us into a big well-furnished drawing-room, where Griesbach and his two friends were already assembled awaiting us. All were smoking cigarettes, which showed that no ladies were to be present.
The instant Ray entered the room I saw that he gave a start, and a few moments later he seized an opportunity to whisper to me that the man who had so persistently followed him on the previous day was none other than our host Griesbach.
"Don't worry over it, my dear old fellow," I urged. "What motive would he have? He didn't even know you!"
And then the gossip became merry in that room so seasonably decorated with holly, while Griesbach assured us of his delight in having us as his guests.
Dinner was served in the adjoining room, and a most excellent and thoroughly English repast it was. Our host had been long enough in England, he told us, to appreciate English fare, hence we had part of a baron of beef with Christmas pudding afterwards, and excellent old port and nuts to follow.
Two young Germans waited at table, and the party was as merry a one as any of us could wish. Only Ray seemed serious and preoccupied. He was suspicious I knew – but of what?
I now openly confess that I pretended a gaiety which I certainly did not feel, for after Raymond had told me that he had recognised Griesbach, a very strange thought had occurred to me. It was this. As we had entered the garden to approach the house, I felt certain that I had caught sight of the figure of a man crouching against one of the bushes in the shadow. At the time I had thought nothing of it, so eager was I to meet my friends. Yet now, in face of Ray's whispered words, I grew very suspicious. Why had that man been lurking there?
When the cloth had been cleared and dessert laid, the elder of the two servants placed upon the table before our host a big box of long crackers covered with dark green gelatine and embellished with gold paper.
"These are German bon-bons," remarked Griesbach, his grey eyes beaming through his spectacles. "I get them each Christmas from my home in Stuttgart."
The conversation had again turned upon the splendid investment about to be offered to the British public, whereupon I half suggested that I was ready to go into the affair myself. Griesbach jumped at the idea, just as I expected, and handed round the box of crackers. Each of us took one, in celebration of Christmas, and on their being pulled we discovered small but really acceptable articles of masculine jewellery within. My "surprise" was a pair of plain gold sleeve-links, worth fully three or four pounds, while Ray, with whom I pulled, received a nice turquoise scarf-pin, an incident which quite reassured him.
Our host refused to take one.
"No," he declared, "they are for you, my dear fellows – all for you."
So again the box was passed round, and four more crackers were taken. That time Ray's bon-bon contained a tiny gold match-box, while within mine I found a small charm in the form of a gold enamelled doll to hang upon one's watch-chain.
As Ray and I pulled my cracker, I had suddenly raised my eyes and caught sight of the expression upon the face of my friend Engler. It struck me as very curious. His sallow cheeks were pale, and his dark eyes seemed starting out of his head with excitement.
"Now, gentlemen," said our genial host, after he had passed the box for the third time, first to his two compatriots, who handed the remaining two bon-bons across the table to us, "you have each a final bon-bon. In one of them there will be found a twenty-mark piece – our German custom. I suggest, in order to mark this festive occasion, that whoever of you four obtains the coin shall receive, free of any obligation, five shares in our new syndicate."
"A most generous proposal!" declared my friend Engler, a sentiment with which we all agreed.
The two Germans pulled their bon-bons, but were unsuccessful. The prize – certainly a prize worth winning – now lay between Ray and myself.
At that instant, however, Griesbach rose from the table suddenly, saying:
"You two gentlemen must settle between yourselves. It lies between you."
And before we were aware of his intention he had passed into the adjoining room, followed by his two friends.
"Well," I laughed to Ray when we were alone, "here goes. Let's decide it!" And we both gripped the long green-and-gold cracker. If the coin were within, then I should receive a very handsome present, worth a little later on, perhaps, several thousand pounds.
At that instant, however, we were both startled by a loud smashing of glass in the next room, curses in German and loud shouts in English, followed by the dull report of a revolver.
We both sprang into the room, and there, to our surprise, found that six men had entered through the broken French window and were struggling fiercely with our host and his friends.
"What in the name of Fate does this mean?" I cried, startled and amazed at that sudden termination to our cosy Christmas dinner.
"All right, Mr. Raymond," answered a big brown-bearded man. "You know me – Pelham of Scotland Yard! Keep an eye on those bon-bons in the next room. Don't touch them at peril of your life!"
"Why?" I asked.
Then, when our host and our two friends had been secured – not, however, before the room had been wrecked in a most desperate struggle – Inspector Pelham came forward to where Ray was standing with me, and said:
"My God, Mr. Raymond! You two have had a very narrow escape, and no mistake! Where are those bon-bons?"
We took him into the dining-room, showed him the remaining two, and told him we had been about to pull them.
"I know. We were watching you through the window. Those men were flying from the house when they ran into our arms!"
"Why?"
"Because they are a dangerous trio whom we want on several charges. In addition, all three, and also the two servants, are ingenious spies in the service of the German General Staff. They've been busy this last two years. They intended to wreak upon both of you a terrible revenge for your recent exposures of the German system of espionage in England and your constant prosecution of their spies."
"Revenge!" I gasped. "What revenge?"
"Well," replied the detective-inspector, "both these bon-bons contain powerful bombs, and had you pulled either of them you'd both have been blown to atoms. That was their dastardly intention. But fortunately we got wind of it, and were in time to watch and prevent it."
"And only just in the nick of time, too!" gasped Ray, pale-faced at thought of our narrow escape. "I somehow felt all along some vague presage that evil was intended."
The three spies were conveyed to Barnes police-station in cabs, and that was the last we ever saw of them. The Government again hushed up the matter in order to avoid international complications, I suppose, but a week later the interesting trio were deported by the police to Hamburg as undesirable aliens.
And to-day, with Ray Raymond, I am wondering what is to be the outcome of all this organised espionage in England.
What will happen? When will Germany strike?
WHO KNOWS?
