CHAPTER XXI
RED TABS EXPLAINS
From the Argyllshire hills winter has stolen down upon us in the night.Behind him he has left his white mantle, and it now lies outspread fromthe topmost mountain peaks to the softly lapping tide at the black edgesof the loch. Yet as I sit adding the last words to this plain account ofa curious episode in my life, the wintry scene dissolves before my eyes,and I see again that dawn in the forest ... Francis and Monica, sleepingside by side, like the babes in the wood, half covered with leaves, theeager, panting retriever, and myself, poor, ragged scarecrow, staringopenmouthed at the Dutchman whose kindly enquiry has just revealed to methe wondrous truth ... that we are safe across the frontier.
What a disproportionate view one takes of events in which one is theprincipal actor! The great issues vanish away, the little things loomout large. When I look back on that morning I encounter in my memory norecollection of extravagant demonstrations of joy at our delivery, nohysteria, no heroics. But I find a fragrant remembrance of a glorioushot bath and an epic breakfast in the house of that kindly Dutchman,followed by a whirlwind burst of hospitality on our arrival at the houseof van Urutius, which was not more than ten miles from the fringe of theforest.
Madame van Urutius took charge of Monica, who was promptly sent to bed,whilst Francis and I went straight on to Rotterdam, where we had aninterview at the British Consulate, with the result that we were able tocatch the steamer for England the next day.
As the result of various telegrams which Francis dispatched fromRotterdam, a car was waiting for us on our arrival at Fenchurch Streetthe next evening. In it we drove off for an interview with my brother'sChief. Francis insisted that I should hand over personally the portionof the document in our possession.
"You got hold of it, Des," he said, "and it's only fair that you shouldget all the credit. I have Clubfoot's dispatch-box to show as the resultof my trip. It's only a pity we could not have got the other half out ofthe cloak-room at Rotterdam."
We were shown straight in to the Chief. I was rather taken aback by theeasy calm of his manner in receiving us.
"How are you, Okewood?" he said, nodding to Francis. "This your brother?How d'ye do?"
He gave me his hand and was silent. There was a distinct pause. Feelingdistinctly embarrassed, I lugged out my portfolio, extracted the threeslips of paper and laid them on the desk before the Chief.
"I've brought you something," I said lamely.
He picked up the slips of paper and looked at them for a moment. Then helifted a cardboard folder from the desk in front of him, opened it anddisplayed the other half of the Kaiser's letter, the fragment I hadbelieved to be reposing in a bag at Rotterdam railway station. He placedthe two fragments side by side. They fitted exactly. Then he closed thefolder, carried it across the room to a safe and locked it up. Comingback, he held out his two hands to us, giving the right to me, the leftto Francis.
"You have done very well," he said. "Good boys! Good boys!"
"But that other half ..." I began.
"Your friend Ashcroft is by no means such a fool as he looks," the Chiefchuckled. "He did a wise thing. He brought your two letters to me. I sawto the rest. So, when your brother's telegram arrived from Rotterdam, Igot the other half of the letter out of the safe; I thought I'd be readyfor you, you see!"
"But how did you know we had the remaining portion of the letter?" Iasked.
The Chief chuckled again.
"My young men don't wire for cars to meet 'em at the station when theyhave failed," he replied. "Now, tell me all about it!"
So I told him my whole story from the beginning.
When I had finished, he said:
"You appear to have a very fine natural disposition for our game,Okewood. It seems a pity to waste it in regimental work ..."
I broke in hastily.
"I've got a few weeks' sick leave left," I said, "and after that I waslooking forward to going back to the front for a rest. This sort ofthing is too exciting for me!"
"Well, well," answered the Chief, "we'll see about that afterwards. Inthe meantime, we shall not forget what you have done ... and I shall seethat it is not forgotten elsewhere."
On that we left him. It was only outside that I remembered that he hadtold me nothing of what I was burning to know about the origin anddisappearance of the Kaiser's letter.
It was my old friend, Red Tabs, whom I met on one of our many visits tomysterious but obviously important officials, that finally cleared upfor me the many obscure points in this adventure of mine. When he saw mehe burst out laughing.
"'Pon my soul," he grinned, "you seem to be able to act on a hint, don'tyou?"
Then he told me the story of the Kaiser's letter.
"There is no need to speak of the contents of this amazing letter," hebegan, "for you are probably more familiar with them than I am. The datealone will suffice ... July 31st, 1914 ... it explains a great deal. Thelast day of July was the moment when the peace of Europe was literallytrembling in the balance. You know the Emperor's wayward, capriciousnature, his eagerness for fame and military glory, his morbid terror ofthe unknown. In that fateful last week of July he was torn betweenopposing forces. On the one side was ranged the whole of the Prussianmilitary party, led by the Crown Prince and the Emperor's own immediateentourage; on the other, the record of prosperity which years of peacehad conferred on his realms. He had to choose between his ownmegalomania craving for military laurels, on the one hand, and, on theother, that place in history as the Prince of Peace for which, in hisgentler moments, he has so often hankered.
"The Kaiser is a man of moods. He sat down and penned this letter in afit of despondency and indecision, when the vision of Peace seemedfairer to him than the spectre of War. God knows what violent emotionimpelled him to write this extraordinary appeal to his English friend,an appeal which, if published, would convict him of the deepesttreachery to his ally, but he wrote the letter and forthwith dispatchedit to London. He did not make use of the regular courier: he sent theletter by a man of his own choosing, who had special instructions tohand the letter in person to Prince Lichnowski, the German ambassador.Lichnowski was to deliver the missive personally to its destinedrecipient.
"Almost as soon as the letter was away, the Kaiser seems to haverealised what he had done, to have repented of his action. Attempts tostop the messenger before he reached the coast appear to have failed. Atany rate, we know that all through July 31st and August 1st Lichnowski,in London, was bombarded with dispatches ordering him to send themessenger with the letter back to Berlin as soon as he reached theembassy.
"The courier never got as far as Carlton House Terrace. Someone in theWar party at the Court of Berlin got wind of the fateful letter and sentword to someone in the German embassy in London--the Prussian jingoeswere well represented there by Kuehlmann and others of his ilk--tointercept the letter.
"The letter was intercepted. How it was done and by whom we have neverfound out, but Lichnowski never saw that letter. Nor did the courierleave London. With the Imperial letter still in possession, apparently,he went to a house at Dalston, where he was arrested on the day after wedeclared war on Germany.
"This courier went by the name of Schulte. We did not know him at thetime to be travelling on the Emperor's business, but we knew him verywell as one of the most daring and successful spies that Germany hadever employed in this country. One of our people picked him up quite bychance on his arrival in London, and shadowed him to Dalston, where wepromptly laid him by the heels when war broke out.
"Schulte was interned. You have heard how one of his letters, stopped bythe Camp Censor, put us on the track of the intercepted letter, and youknow the steps we took to obtain possession of the document. But we weremisled ... not by Schulte, but through the treachery of a man in whom heconfided, the interpreter at the internment camp.
"To this man Schulte entrusted the famous letter, telling him to send itby an underground route to a certain address at Cleves, and pr
omisinghim in return a commission of twenty-five per cent on the price to bepaid for the letter. The interpreter took the letter, but did not do ashe was bid. On the contrary, he wrote to the go-between, with whomSchulte had been in correspondence (probably Clubfoot), and announcedthat he knew where the letter was and was prepared to sell it, only thepurchaser would have to come to England and fetch it.
"Well, to make a long story short, the interpreter made a deal with theHuns, and this Dr. Semlin was sent to England from Washington, where hehad been working for Bernstorff, to fetch the letter at the address inLondon indicated by the interpreter. In the meantime, we had got afterthe interpreter, who, like Schulte, had been in the espionage businessall his life, and he was arrested.
"We know what Semlin found when he reached London. The wily interpreterhad sliced the letter in two, so as to make sure of his money, meaning,no doubt, to hand over the other portion as soon as the price had beenpaid. But by the time Semlin got to London the interpreter was juggedand Semlin had to report that he had only got half the letter. The restyou know ... how Grundt was sent for, how he came to this country andretrieved the other portion. Don't ask me how he set about it: I don'tknow, and we never found out even where the interpreter deposited thesecond half or how Grundt discovered its hiding-place. But he executedhis mission and got clear away with the goods. The rest of the tale youknow better than I do!"
"But Clubfoot," I asked, "who is he?"
"There are many who have asked that question," Red Tabs replied gravely,"and some have not waited long for their answer. The man was known byname and reputation to very few, by sight to even fewer, yet I doubt ifany man of his time wielded greater power in secret than he.Officially, he was nothing, he didn't exist; but in the dark places,where his ways were laid, he watched and plotted and spied for hismaster, the tool of the Imperial spite as he was the instrument of theImperial vengeance.
"A man like the Kaiser," my friend continued, "monarch though he is,has many enemies naturally, and makes many more. Head of the Army,head of the Navy, head of the Church, head of the State--undisputed,autocratic head--he is confronted at every turn by personal issueswoven and intertwined with political questions. It was in this sphere,where the personal is grafted on the political, that Clubfoot reignedsupreme ... here and in another sphere, where German William is not onlymonarch, but also a very ordinary man.
"There are phases in every man's life, Okewood, which hardly bear thelight of day. In an autocracy, however, such phases are generallyinextricably entangled with political questions. It was in these darkplaces that Clubfoot flourished ... he and his men ... 'the G gang' wecalled them, from the letter 'G' (signifying _Garde_ or _Guard_) ontheir secret-service badges.
"Clubfoot was answerable to no one save to the Emperor alone. His workwas of so delicate, so confidential a nature, that he rendered anaccount of his services only to his Imperial master. There was none tostay his hand, to check him in his courses, save only this neurotic,capricious cripple who is always open to flattery...."
Red Tabs thought for a minute and then went on.
"No one may catalogue," he said, "the crimes that Clubfoot committed,the infamies he had to his account. Not even the Kaiser himself, I daresay, knows the manner in which his orders to this black-guard wereexecuted--orders rapped out often enough, I swear, in a fit ofpetulance, a gust of passion, and forgotten the next moment in theexcitement of some fresh sensation.
"I know a little of Clubfoot's record, of innocent lives wrecked, ofcareers ruined, of sudden disappearances, of violent deaths. When youand your brother put it across der Stelze, Okewood, you settled a longoutstanding account we had against him, but you also rendered hisfellow-Huns a signal service."
I thought of the comments I had heard on Clubfoot among the customers atHaase's, and I felt that Red Tabs had hit the right nail on the headagain.
"By the way?" said Red Tabs, as I rose to go, "would you care to seeClubfoot's epitaph? I kept it for you." He handed me a Germannewspaper--the _Berliner Tageblatt_, I think it was--with a paragraphmarked in red pencil. I read:
"We regret to report the sudden death from apoplexy of Dr. AdolfGrundt, an inspector of secondary schools. The deceased was closelyconnected for many years with a number of charitable institutionsenjoying the patronage of the Emperor. His Majesty frequently consultedDr. Grundt regarding the distribution of the sums allocated annuallyfrom the Privy purse for benevolent objects."
"Pretty fair specimen of Prussian cynicism?" laughed Red Tabs. But Iheld my head ... the game was too deep for me.
* * * * *
Every week a hamper of good things is dispatched to 3143 Sapper EbenezerMaggs, British Prisoner of War, Gefangenen-Lager, Friedrichsfeld beiWesel. I have been in communication with his people, and since hisflight from the camp they have not had a line from him. They will let meknow at once if they hear, but I am restless and anxious about him.
I dare not write lest I compromise him: I dare not make official enquiryas to his safety for the same reason. If he survived those shots in thedark, he is certainly undergoing punishment, and in that case he wouldbe deprived of the privilege of writing or receiving letters....
But the weeks slip by and no message comes to me from Chewton Mendip.Almost daily I wonder if the gallant lad survived that night to returnto the misery of the starvation camp, or whether, out of the darkness ofthe forest, his brave soul soared free, achieving its final release fromthe sufferings of this world.... Poor Sapper Maggs!
Francis and Monica are honeymooning on the Riviera. Gerry, I am sure,would have refused to attend the wedding, only he wasn't asked. Francisis getting a billet on the Intelligence out in France when his leave isup.
I have got my step, antedated back to the day I went into Germany.Francis has been told that something is coming to him and me in the NewYear's Honours.
I don't worry much. I am going back to the front on Christmas Eve.
THE END
THE RETURN OF CLUBFOOT
By Valentine Williams.
Whilst spending a holiday in a small Central American Republic, DesmondOkewood, of the Secret Service, learns from a dying beach-comber of ahidden treasure.
With the assistance of a millionaire, he sets out for Cock Island, inthe Pacific. To his astonishment he discovers that the Man with theClubfoot, whom he had regarded as dead, has anticipated him. It isobvious to Okewood that his old enemy is also in search of the hiddengold, and there ensues a thrilling sequence of adventures, in which themillionaire's pretty niece takes a prominent part.
Okewood has the cipher, and the Man with the Clubfoot determines tosecure it, for without that cipher it is impossible to discover thehiding-place of the treasure; but there is something that the Man withthe Clubfoot does not know, whereas Okewood does.
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