CHAPTER I

THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS

By

BENNET COPPLESTONE

1917

CONTENTS

PART I

_WILLIAM DAWSON_

CHAPTER

I A STORY AND A VISIT

II AT CLOSE QUARTERS

III AN INQUISITION

IV SABOTAGE

V BAFFLED

VI GUESSWORK

VII THE MARINE SENTRY

VIII TREHAYNE'S LETTER

PART II

_MADAME GILBERT_

IX THE WOMAN AND THE MAN

X A PROGRESSIVE FRIENDSHIP

XI AT BRIGHTON

PART III

_ SEE IS TO BELIEVE_

XII DAWSON PRESCRIBES

XIII THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN

XIV A COFFIN AND AN OWL

PART IV

_THE CAPTAIN OF MARINES_

XV DAWSON REAPPEARS

XVI DAWSON STRIKES

XVII DAWSON TELEPHONES FOR A SURGEON

PART I

_WILLIAM DAWSON_

CHAPTER I

A STORY AND A VISIT

At the beginning of the month of September, 1916, there appeared in

the _Cornhill Magazine_ a story entitled "The Lost Naval Papers." I

had told this story at second hand, for the incidents had not occurred

within my personal experience. One of the principals--to whom I had

allotted the temporary name of Richard Cary--was an intimate friend,

but I had never met the Scotland Yard officer whom I called William

Dawson, and was not at all anxious to make his official acquaintance.

To me he then seemed an inhuman, icy-blooded "sleuth," a being of

great national importance, but repulsive and dangerous as an

associate. Yet by a turn of Fortune's wheel I came not only to know

William Dawson, but to work with him, and almost to like him. His

penetrative efficiency compelled one's admiration, and his unconcealed

vanity showed that he did not stand wholly outside the human family.

Yet I never felt safe with Dawson. In his presence, and when I knew

that somewhere round the corner he was carrying on his mysterious

investigations, I was perpetually apprehensive of his hand upon my

shoulder and his bracelets upon my wrists. I was unconscious of crime,

but the Defence of the Realm Regulations--which are to Dawson a new

fount of wisdom and power--create so many fresh offences every week

that it is difficult for the most timidly loyal of citizens to keep

his innocency up to date. I have doubtless trespassed many times, for

I have Dawson's assurance that my present freedom is due solely to his

reprehensible softness towards me. Whenever I have showed independence

of spirit--of which, God knows, I have little in these days--Dawson

would pull out his terrible red volumes of ever-expanding Regulations

and make notes of my committed crimes. The Act itself could be printed

on a sheet of notepaper, but it has given birth to a whole library of

Regulations. Thus he bent me to his will as he had my poor friend

Richard Cary.

The mills of Scotland Yard grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding

small. There is nothing showy about them. They work by system, not by

inspiration. Though Dawson was not specially intelligent--in some

respects almost stupid--he was dreadfully, terrifyingly efficient,

because he was part of the slowly grinding Scotland Yard machine.

As this book properly begins with my published story of "The Lost

Naval Papers," I will reprint it here exactly as it was written for

the readers of the _Cornhill Magazine_ in September, 1916.

* * * * *

I. BAITING THE TRAP

This story--which contains a moral for those fearful folk who exalt

everything German--was told to me by Richard Cary, the accomplished

naval correspondent of a big paper in the North of England. I have

known him and his enthusiasm for the White Ensign for twenty years. He

springs from an old naval stock, the Carys of North Devon, and has

devoted his life to the study of the Sea Service. He had for so long

been accustomed to move freely among shipyards and navy men, and was

trusted so completely, that the veil of secrecy which dropped in

August 1914 between the Fleets and the world scarcely existed for him.

Everything which he desired to know for the better understanding of

the real work of the Navy came to him officially or unofficially.

When, therefore, he states that the Naval Notes with which this story

deals would have been of incalculable value to the enemy, I accept his

word without hesitation. I have myself seen some of them, and they

made me tremble--for Cary's neck. I pressed him to write this story

himself, but he refused. "No," said he, "I have told you the yarn just

as it happened; write it yourself. I am a dull dog, quite efficient at

handling hard facts and making scientific deductions from them, but

with no eye for the picturesque details. I give it to you." He rose to

go--Cary had been lunching with me--but paused for an instant upon my

front doorstep. "If you insist upon it," added he, smiling, "I don't

mind sharing in the plunder."

* * * * *

It was in the latter part of May 1916. Cary was hard at work one

morning in his rooms in the Northern City where he had established his

headquarters. His study table was littered with papers--notes,

diagrams, and newspaper cuttings--and he was laboriously reducing the

apparent chaos into an orderly series of chapters upon the Navy's Work

which he proposed to publish after the war was over. It was not

designed to be an exciting book--Cary has no dramatic instinct--but it

would be full of fine sound stuff, close accurate detail, and clear

analysis. Day by day for more than twenty months he had been

collecting details of every phase of the Navy's operations, here a

little and there a little. He had recently returned from a

confidential tour of the shipyards and naval bases, and had exercised

his trained eye upon checking and amplifying what he had previously

learned. While his recollection of this tour was fresh he was actively

writing up his Notes and revising the rough early draft of his book.

More than once it had occurred to him that his accumulations of Notes

were dangerous explosives to store in a private house. They were

becoming so full and so accurate that the enemy would have paid any

sum or have committed any crime to secure possession of them. Cary is

not nervous or imaginative--have I not said that he springs from a

naval stock?--but even he now and then felt anxious. He would, I

believe, have slept peacefully though knowing that a delicately primed

bomb lay beneath his bed, for personal risks troubled him little, but

the thought that hurt to his country might come from his well-meant

labours sometimes rapped against his nerves. A few days before his

patriotic conscience had been stabbed by no less a personage than

Admiral Jellicoe, who, speaking to a group of naval students which

included Cary, had said: "We have concealed nothing from you, for we

trust absolutely to your discretion. Remember what you have seen, but

do not make any notes." Yet here at this moment was Cary disregarding

the orders of a Commander-in-Chief whom he worshipped. He tried to

square his conscience by reflecting that no more than three people

knew of the existence of his Notes or of the book which he was writing

from them, and that each one of those three was as trustworthy as

himself. So he went on collating, comparing, writing, and the heap

upon his table grew bigger under his hands.

The clock had just struck twelve upon that morning when a servant

entered and said, "A gentleman to see you, sir, upon important

business. His name is Mr. Dawson."

Cary jumped up and went to his dining-room, where the visitor was

waiting. The name had meant nothing to him, but the instant his eyes

fell upon Mr. Dawson he remembered that he was the chief Scotland Yard

officer who had come north to teach the local police how to keep track

of the German agents who infested the shipbuilding centres. Cary had

met Dawson more than once, and had assisted him with his intimate

local knowledge. He greeted his visitor with smiling courtesy, but

Dawson did not smile. His first words, indeed, came like shots from an

automatic pistol.

"Mr. Cary," said he, "I want to see your Naval Notes."

Cary was staggered, for the three people whom I have mentioned did not

include Mr. Dawson. "Certainly," said he, "I will show them to you if

you ask officially. But how in the world did you hear anything about

them?"

"I am afraid that a good many people know about them, most undesirable

people too. If you will show them to me--I am asking officially--I

will tell you what I know."

Cary led the way to his study. Dawson glanced round the room, at the

papers heaped upon the table, at the tall windows bare of

curtains--Cary, who loved light and sunshine, hated curtains--and

growled. Then he locked the door, pulled down the thick blue blinds

required by the East Coast lighting orders, and switched on the

electric lights though it was high noon in May. "That's better," said

he. "You are an absolutely trustworthy man, Mr. Cary. I know all about

you. But you are damned careless. That bare window is overlooked from

half a dozen flats. You might as well do your work in the street."

Dawson picked up some of the papers, and their purport was explained

to him by Cary. "I don't know anything of naval details," said he,

"but I don't need any evidence of the value of the stuff here. The

enemy wants it, wants it badly; that is good enough for me."

"But," remonstrated Cary, "no one knows of these papers, or of the use

to which I am putting them, except my son in the Navy, my wife (who

has not read a line of them), and my publisher in London."

"Hum!" commented Dawson. "Then how do you account for this?"

He opened his leather despatch-case and drew forth a parcel carefully

wrapped up in brown paper. Within the wrapping was a large white

envelope of the linen woven paper used for registered letters, and

generously sealed. To Cary's surprise, for the envelope appeared to be

secure, Dawson cautiously opened it so as not to break the seal which

was adhering to the flap and drew out a second smaller envelope, also

sealed. This he opened in the same delicate way and took out a third;

from the third he drew a fourth, and so on until eleven empty

envelopes had been added to the litter piled upon Cary's table, and

the twelfth, a small one, remained in Dawson's hands.

"Did you ever see anything so childish?" observed he, indicating the

envelopes. "A big, registered, sealed Chinese puzzle like that is just

crying out to be opened. We would have seen the inside of that one

even if it had been addressed to the Lord Mayor, and not to--well,

someone in whom we are deeply interested, though he does not know it."

Cary, who had been fascinated by the succession of sealed envelopes,

stretched out his hand towards one of them. "Don't touch," snapped out

Dawson. "Your clumsy hands would break the seals, and then there would

be the devil to pay. Of course all these envelopes were first opened

in my office. It takes a dozen years to train men to open sealed

envelopes so that neither flap nor seal is broken, and both can be

again secured without showing a sign of disturbance. It is a trade

secret."

Dawson's expert fingers then opened the twelfth envelope, and he

produced a letter. "Now, Mr. Cary, if we had not known you and also

known that you were absolutely honest and loyal--though dangerously

simple-minded and careless in the matter of windows--this letter would

have been very awkward indeed for you. It runs: 'Hagan arrives 10.30

p.m. Wednesday to get Cary's Naval Notes. Meet him. Urgent.' Had we

not known you, Mr. Richard Cary might have been asked to explain how

Hagan knew all about his Naval Notes and was so very confident of

being able to get them."

Cary smiled. "I have often felt," said he, "especially in war-time,

that it was most useful to be well known to the police. You may ask me

anything you like, and I will do my best to answer. I confess that I

am aghast at the searchlight of inquiry which has suddenly been turned

upon my humble labours. My son at sea knows nothing of the Notes

except what I have told him in my letters, my wife has not read a line

of them, and my publisher is the last man to talk. I seem to have

suddenly dropped into the middle of a detective story." The poor man

scratched his head and smiled ruefully at the Scotland Yard officer.

"Mr. Cary," said Dawson, "those windows of yours would account for

anything. You have been watched for a long time, and I am perfectly

sure that our friend Hagan and his associates here know precisely in

what drawer of that desk you keep your Naval Papers. Your flat is easy

to enter--I had a look round before coming in to-day--and on Wednesday

night (that is to-morrow) there will be a scientific burglary here and

your Notes will be stolen."

"Oh no they won't," cried Cary. "I will take them down this afternoon

to my office and lock them up in the big safe. It will put me to a lot

of bother, for I shall also have to lock up there the chapters of my

book."

"You newspaper men ought all to be locked up yourselves. You are a

cursed nuisance to honest, hard-worked Scotland Yard men like me. But

you mistake the object of my visit. I want this flat to be entered

to-morrow night, and I want your Naval Papers to be stolen."

For a moment the wild thought came to Cary that this man Dawson--the

chosen of the Yard--was himself a German Secret Service agent, and

must have shown in his eyes some signs of the suspicion, for Dawson

laughed loudly. "No, Mr. Cary, I am not in the Kaiser's pay, nor are

you, though the case against you might be painted pretty black. This

man Hagan is on our string in London, and we want him very badly

indeed. Not to arrest--at least not just yet--but to keep running

round showing us his pals and all their little games. He is an

Irish-American, a very unbenevolent neutral, to whom we want to give a

nice, easy, happy time, so that he can mix himself up thoroughly with

the spy business and wrap a rope many times round his neck. We will

pull on to the end when we have finished with him, but not a minute

too soon. He is too precious to be frightened. Did you ever come

across such an ass"--Dawson contemptuously indicated the pile of

sealed envelopes; "he must have soaked himself in American dime novels

and cinema crime films. He will be of more use to us than a dozen of

our best officers. I feel that I love Hagan, and won't have him

disturbed. When he comes here to-morrow night, he shall be seen, but

not heard. He shall enter this room, lift your Notes, which shall be

in their usual drawer, and shall take them safely away. After that I

rather fancy that we shall enjoy ourselves, and that the salt will

stick very firmly upon Hagan's little tail."

Cary did not at all like this plan; it might offer amusement and

instruction to the police, but seemed to involve himself in an

excessive amount of responsibility. "Will it not be far too risky to

let him take my Notes even if you do shadow him closely afterwards? He

will get them copied and scattered amongst a score of agents, one of

whom may get the information through to Germany. You know your job, of

course, but the risk seems too big for me. After all, they are my

Notes, and I would far sooner burn them now than that the Germans

should see a line of them."

Dawson laughed again. "You are a dear, simple soul, Mr. Cary; it does

one good to meet you. Why on earth do you suppose I came here to-day

if it were not to enlist your help? Hagan is going to take all the

risks; you and I are not looking for any. He is going to steal some

Naval Notes, but they will not be those which lie on this table. I

myself will take charge of those and of the chapters of your most

reprehensible book. You shall prepare, right now, a beautiful new

artistic set of notes calculated to deceive. They must be accurate

where any errors would be spotted, but wickedly false wherever

deception would be good for Fritz's health. I want you to get down to

a real plant. This letter shall be sealed up again in its twelve silly

envelopes and go by registered post to Hagan's correspondent. You

shall have till to-morrow morning to invent all those things which we

want Fritz to believe about the Navy. Make us out to be as rotten as

you plausibly can. Give him some heavy losses to gloat over and to

tempt him out of harbour. Don't overdo it, but mix up your fiction

with enough facts to keep it sweet and make it sound convincing. If

you do your work well--and the Naval authorities here seem to think a

lot of you--Hagan will believe in your Notes, and will try to get them

to his German friends at any cost or risk, which will be exactly what

we want of him. Then, when he has served our purpose, he will find

that we--have--no--more--use--for--him."

Dawson accompanied this slow, harmlessly sounding sentence with a grim

and nasty smile. Cary, before whose eyes flashed for a moment the

vision of a chill dawn, cold grey walls, and a silent firing party,

shuddered. It was a dirty task to lay so subtle a trap even for a

dirty Irish-American spy. His honest English soul revolted at the call

upon his brains and knowledge, but common sense told him that in this

way, Dawson's way, he could do his country a very real service. For a

few minutes he mused over the task set to his hand, and then spoke.

"All right. I think that I can put up exactly what you want. The faked

Notes shall be ready when you come to-morrow. I will give the whole

day to them."

In the morning the new set of Naval Papers was ready, and their

purport was explained in detail to Dawson, who chuckled joyously.

"This is exactly what Admiral ---- wants, and it shall get through to

Germany by Fritz's own channels. I have misjudged you, Mr. Cary; I

thought you little better than a fool, but that story here of a

collision in a fog and the list of damaged Queen Elizabeths in dock

would have taken in even me. Fritz will suck it down like cream. I

like that effort even better than your grave comments on damaged

turbines and worn-out gun tubes. You are a genius, Mr. Cary, and I

must take you to lunch with the Admiral this very day. You can explain

the plant better than I can, and he is dying to hear all about it. Oh,

by the way, he particularly wants a description of the failure to

complete the latest batch of big shell fuses, and the shortage of

lyddite. You might get that done before the evening. Now for the

burglary. Do nothing, nothing at all, outside your usual routine. Come

home at your usual hour, go to bed as usual, and sleep soundly if you

can. Should you hear any noise in the night, put your head under the

bedclothes. Say nothing to Mrs. Cary unless you are obliged, and for

God's sake don't let any woman--wife, daughter, or maid-servant

--disturb my pearl of a burglar while he is at work. He must have

a clear run, with everything exactly as he expects to find it.

Can I depend upon you?"

"I don't pretend to like the business," said Cary, "but you can depend

upon me to the letter of my orders."

"Good," cried Dawson. "That is all I want."

II. THE TRAP CLOSES

Cary heard no noise, though he lay awake for most of the night,

listening intently. The flat seemed to be more quiet even than usual.

There was little traffic in the street below, and hardly a step broke

the long silence of the night. Early in the morning--at six

B.S.T.--Cary slipped out of bed, stole down to his study, and pulled

open the deep drawer in which he had placed the bundle of faked Naval

Notes. They had gone! So the Spy-Burglar had come, and, carefully

shepherded by Dawson's sleuth-hounds, had found the primrose path easy

for his crime. To Cary, the simple, honest gentleman, the whole plot

seemed to be utterly revolting--justified, of course, by the country's

needs in time of war, but none the less revolting. There is nothing of

glamour in the Secret Service, nothing of romance, little even of

excitement. It is a cold-blooded exercise of wits against wits, of

spies against spies. The amateur plays a fish upon a line and gives

him a fair run for his life, but the professional fisherman--to whom a

salmon is a people's food--nets him coldly and expeditiously as he

comes in from the sea.

Shortly after breakfast there came a call from Dawson on the

telephone. "All goes well. Come to my office as soon as possible."

Cary found Dawson bubbling with professional satisfaction. "It was

beautiful," cried he. "Hagan was met at the train, taken to a place we

know of, and shadowed by us tight as wax. We now know all his

associates--the swine have not even the excuse of being German. He

burgled your flat himself while one of his gang watched outside. Never

mind where I was; you would be surprised if I told you; but I saw

everything. He has the faked papers, is busy making copies, and this

afternoon is going down the river in a steamer to get a glimpse of the

shipyards and docks and check your Notes as far as can be done. Will

they stand all right?"

"Quite all right," said Cary. "The obvious things were given

correctly."

"Good. We will be in the steamer."

Cary went that afternoon, quite unchanged in appearance by Dawson's

order. "If you try to disguise yourself," declared that expert, "you

will be spotted at once. Leave the refinements to us." Dawson himself

went as an elderly dug-out officer with the rank marks of a colonel,

and never spoke a word to Cary upon the whole trip down and up the

teeming river. Dawson's men were scattered here and there--one a

passenger of inquiring mind, another a deckhand, yet a third--a pretty

girl in khaki--sold tea and cakes in the vessel's saloon. Hagan--who,

Cary heard afterwards, wore the brass-bound cap and blue kit of a mate

in the American merchant service--was never out of sight for an

instant of Dawson or of one of his troupe. He busied himself with a

strong pair of marine glasses, and now and then asked innocent

questions of the ship's deckhands. He had evidently himself once

served as a sailor. One deckhand, an idle fellow to whom Hagan was

very civil, told his questioner quite a lot of interesting details

about the Navy ships, great and small, which could be seen upon the

building slips. All these details tallied strangely with those

recorded in Cary's Notes. The trip up and down the river was a great

success for Hagan and for Dawson, but for Cary it was rather a bore.

He felt somehow out of the picture. In the evening Dawson called at

Cary's office and broke in upon him. "We had a splendid trip to-day,"

said he. "It exceeded my utmost hopes. Hagan thinks no end of your

Notes, but he is not taking any risks. He leaves in the morning for

Glasgow to do the Clyde and to check some more of your stuff. Would

you like to come?" Cary remarked that he was rather busy, and that

these river excursions, though doubtless great fun for Dawson, were

rather poor sport for himself. Dawson laughed joyously--he was a

cheerful soul when he had a spy upon his string. "Come along," said

he. "See the thing through. I should like you to be in at the death."

Cary observed that he had no stomach for cold, damp dawns and firing

parties.

"I did not quite mean that," replied Dawson. "Those closing ceremonies

are still strictly private. But you should see the chase through to a

finish. You are a newspaper man, and should be eager for new

experiences."

"I will come," said Cary, rather reluctantly. "But I warn you that my

sympathies are steadily going over to Hagan. The poor devil does not

look to have a dog's chance against you."

"He hasn't," said Dawson, with great satisfaction.

Cary, to whom the wonderful Clyde was as familiar as the river near

his own home, found the second trip almost as wearisome as the first.

But not quite. He was now able to recognise Hagan, who again appeared

as a brass-bounder, and did not affect to conceal his deep interest in

the naval panorama offered by the river. Nothing of real importance

can, of course, be learned from a casual steamer trip, but Hagan

seemed to think otherwise, for he was always either watching through

his glasses or asking apparently artless questions of passengers or

passing deckhands. Again a sailor seemed disposed to be communicative;

he pointed out more than one monster in steel, red raw with surface

rust, and gave particulars of a completed power which would have

surprised the Admiralty Superintendent. They would not, however, have

surprised Mr. Cary, in whose ingenious brain they had been conceived.

This second trip, like the first, was declared by Dawson to have been

a great success. "Did you know me?" he asked. "I was a clean-shaven

naval doctor, about as unlike the army colonel of the first trip as a

pigeon is unlike a gamecock. Hagan is off to London to-night by the

North-Western. There are two copies of your Notes. One is going by

Edinburgh and the east coast, and another by the Midland. Hagan has

the original masterpiece. I will look after him and leave the two

other messengers to my men. I have been on to the Yard by 'phone, and

have arranged that all three shall have passports for Holland. The two

copies shall reach the Kaiser, bless him, but I really must have

Hagan's set of Notes for my Museum."

"And what will become of Hagan?" asked Cary.

"Come and see," said Mr. Dawson.

Dawson entertained Cary at dinner in a private room at the Station

Hotel, waited upon by one of his own confidential men. "Nobody ever

sees me," he observed, with much satisfaction, "though I am

everywhere." (I suspect that Dawson is not without his little

vanities.) "Except in my office and with people whom I know well, I

am always some one else. The first time I came to your house I wore a

beard, and the second time looked like a gas inspector. You saw only

the real Dawson. When one has got the passion for the chase in one's

blood, one cannot bide for long in a stuffy office. As I have a jewel

of an assistant, I can always escape and follow up my own victims.

This man Hagan is a black heartless devil. Don't waste your sympathy

on him, Mr. Cary. He took money from us quite lately to betray the

silly asses of Sinn Feiners, and now, thinking us hoodwinked, is after

more money from the Kaiser. He is of the type that would sell his own

mother and buy a mistress with the money. He's not worth your pity. We

use him and his like for just so long as they can be useful, and then

the jaws of the trap close. By letting him take those faked Notes we

have done a fine stroke for the Navy, for the Yard, and for Bill

Dawson. We have got into close touch with four new German agents here

and two more down south. We shan't seize them yet; just keep them

hanging on and use them. That's the game. I am never anxious about an

agent when I know him and can keep him watched. Anxious, bless you; I

love him like a cat loves a mouse. I've had some spies on my string

ever since the war began; I wouldn't have them touched or worried for

the world. Their correspondence tells me everything, and if a letter

to Holland which they haven't written slips in sometimes, it's useful,

very useful, as useful almost as your faked Notes."

Half an hour before the night train was due to leave for the South,

Dawson, very simply but effectively changed in appearance--for Hagan

knew by sight the real Dawson--led Cary to the middle sleeping-coach

on the train. "I have had Hagan put in No. 5," he said, "and you and I

will take Nos. 4 and 6. No. 5 is an observation berth; there is one

fixed up for us on this sleeping-coach. Come in here." He pulled Cary

into No. 4, shut the door, and pointed to a small wooden knob set a

few inches below the luggage rack. "If one unscrews that knob one can

see into the next berth, No. 5. No. 6 is fitted in the same way, so

that we can rake No. 5 from both sides. But, mind you, on no account

touch those knobs until the train is moving fast and until you have

switched out the lights. If No. 5 was dark when you opened the

peep-hole, a ray of light from your side would give the show away. And

unless there was a good deal of vibration and rattle in the train you

might be heard. Now cut away to No. 6, fasten the door, and go to bed.

I shall sit up and watch, but there is nothing for you to do."

Hagan appeared in due course, was shown into No. 5 berth, and the

train started. Cary asked himself whether he should go to bed as

advised or sit up reading. He decided to obey Dawson's orders, but to

take a look in upon Hagan before settling down for the journey. He

switched off his lights, climbed upon the bed, and carefully unscrewed

the little knob which was like the one shown to him by Dawson. A beam

of light stabbed the darkness of his berth, and putting his eye with

some difficulty to the hole--one's nose gets so confoundedly in the

way--he saw Hagan comfortably arranging himself for the night. The spy

had no suspicion of his watchers on both sides, for, after settling

himself in bed, he unwrapped a flat parcel and took out a bundle of

blue papers, which Cary at once recognised as the originals of his

stolen Notes. Hagan went through them--he had put his suit-case across

his knees to form a desk--and carefully made marginal jottings. Cary,

who had often tried to write in trains, could not but admire the man's

laborious patience. He painted his letters and figures over and over

again, in order to secure distinctness, in spite of the swaying of the

train, and frequently stopped to suck the point of his pencil.

"I suppose," thought Cary, "that Dawson yonder is just gloating over

his prey, but for my part I feel an utterly contemptible beast. Never

again will I set a trap for even the worst of my fellow-creatures." He

put back the knob, went to bed, and passed half the night in extreme

mental discomfort and the other half in snatching brief intervals of

sleep. It was not a pleasant journey.

Dawson did not come out of his berth at Euston until after Hagan had

left the station in a taxi-cab, much to Cary's surprise, and then was

quite ready, even anxious, to remain for breakfast at the hotel. He

explained his strange conduct. "Two of my men," said he, as he

wallowed in tea and fried soles--one cannot get Dover soles in the

weary North--"who travelled in ordinary compartments, are after Hagan

in two taxis, so that if one is delayed, the other will keep touch.

Hagan's driver also has had a police warning, so that our spy is in a

barbed-wire net. I shall hear before very long all about him."

Cary and Dawson spent the morning at the hotel with a telephone beside

them; every few minutes the bell would ring, and a whisper of Hagan's

movements steal over the wires into the ears of the spider Dawson. He

reported progress to Cary with ever-increasing satisfaction.

"Hagan has applied for and been granted a passport to Holland, and has

booked a passage in the boat which leaves Harwich to-night for the

Hook. We will go with him. The other two spies, with the copies,

haven't turned up yet, but they are all right. My men will see them

safe across into Dutch territory, and make sure that no blundering

Customs officer interferes with their papers. This time the way of

transgressors shall be very soft. As for Hagan, he is not going to

arrive."

"I don't quite understand why you carry on so long with him," said

Cary, who, though tired, could not but feel intense interest in the

perfection of the police system and in the serene confidence of

Dawson. The Yard could, it appeared, do unto the spies precisely what

Dawson chose to direct.

"Hagan is an American citizen," explained Dawson. "If he had been a

British subject I would have taken him at Euston--we have full

evidence of the burglary, and of the stolen papers in his suit-case.

But as he is a damned unbenevolent neutral we must prove his intention

to sell the papers to Germany. Then we can deal with him by secret

court-martial.[1] The journey to Holland will prove this intention.

Hagan has been most useful to us in Ireland, and now in the North of

England and in Scotland, but he is too enterprising and too daring to

be left any longer on the string. I will draw the ends together at the

Hook."

[Footnote 1: Author's Note: This conversation is dated May, 1916.]

"I did not want to go to Holland," said Cary to me, when telling his

story. "I was utterly sick and disgusted with the whole cold-blooded

game of cat and mouse, but the police needed my evidence about the

Notes and the burglary, and did not intend to let me slip out of their

clutches. Dawson was very civil and pleasant, but I was in fact as

tightly held upon his string as was the wretched Hagan. So I went on

to Holland with that quick-change artist, and watched him come on

board the steamer at Parkeston Quay, dressed as a rather

German-looking commercial traveller, eager for war commissions upon

smuggled goods. This sounds absurd, but his get-up seemed somehow to

suggest the idea. Then I went below. Dawson always kept away from me

whenever Hagan might have seen us together."

The passage across to Holland was free from incident; there was no

sign that we were at war, and Continental traffic was being carried

serenely on, within easy striking distance of the German submarine

base at Zeebrugge. The steamer had drawn in to the Hook beside the

train, and Hagan was approaching the gangway, suit-case in hand. The

man was on the edge of safety; once upon Dutch soil, Dawson could not

have laid hands upon him. He would have been a neutral citizen in a

neutral country, and no English warrant would run against him. But

between Hagan and the gangway suddenly interposed the tall form of the

ship's captain; instantly the man was ringed about by officers, and

before he could say a word or move a hand he was gripped hard and led

across the deck to the steamer's chart-house. Therein sat Dawson, the

real, undisguised Dawson, and beside him sat Richard Cary. Hagan's

face, which two minutes earlier had been glowing with triumph and with

the anticipation of German gold beyond the dreams of avarice, went

white as chalk. He staggered and gasped as one stabbed to the heart,

and dropped into a chair. His suit-case fell from his relaxed fingers

to the floor.

"Give him a stiff brandy-and-soda," directed Dawson, almost kindly,

and when the victim's colour had ebbed back a little from his

overcharged heart, and he had drunk deep of the friendly cordial, the

detective put him out of pain. The game of cat and mouse was over.

"It is all up, Hagan," said the detective gently. "Face the music and

make the best of it, my poor friend. This is Mr. Richard Cary, and you

have not for a moment been out of our sight since you left London for

the North four days ago."

When I had completed the writing of his story I showed the MS. to

Richard Cary, who was pleased to express a general approval. "Not at

all bad, Copplestone," said he, "not at all bad. You have clothed my

dry bones in real flesh and blood. But you have missed what to me is

the outstanding feature of the whole affair, that which justifies to

my mind the whole rather grubby business. Let me give you two dates.

On May 25 two copies of my faked Notes were shepherded through to

Holland and reached the Germans; on May 31 was fought the Battle of

Jutland. Can the brief space between these dates have been merely an

accident? I cannot believe it. No, I prefer to believe that in my

humble way I induced the German Fleet to issue forth and to risk an

action which, under more favourable conditions for us, would have

resulted in their utter destruction. I may be wrong, but I am happy in

retaining my faith."

"What became of Hagan?" I asked, for I wished to bring the narrative

to a clean artistic finish.

"I am not sure," answered Cary, "though I gave evidence as ordered by

the court-martial. But I rather think that I have here Hagan's

epitaph." He took out his pocket-book, and drew forth a slip of paper

upon which was gummed a brief newspaper cutting. This he handed to me,

and I read as follows:

"The War Office announces that a prisoner who was charged

with espionage and recently tried by court-martial at the

Westminster Guildhall was found guilty and sentenced to

death. The sentence was duly confirmed and carried out

yesterday morning."

* * * * *

Two months passed. Summer, what little there was of it, had gone, and

my spirits were oppressed by the wet and fog and dirt of November in

the North. I desired neither to write nor to read. My one overpowering

longing was to go to sleep until the war was over and then to awake in

a new world in which a decent civilised life would once more be

possible.

In this unhappy mood I was seated before my study fire when a servant

brought me a card. "A gentleman," said she, "wishes to see you. I said

that you were engaged, but he insisted. He's a terrible man, sir."

I looked at the card, annoyed at being disturbed; but at the sight of

it my torpor fell from me, for upon it was written the name of that

detective officer whom in my story I had called William Dawson, and in

the corner were the letters "C.I.D." (Criminal Investigation

Department). I had become a criminal, and was about to be

investigated!