AN INQUISITION
Perhaps I ought to have seen it coming, but I didn't. For a moment, as
a washerwoman might say, I was struck all of a heap. Then the
delicious thought that I--by nature a vagabond, though by decree of
the High Gods the father of a family and a Justice of the Peace--had
to face the charge of being a German spy shook my soul with ribald
laughter. I had been dull and torpid before the arrival of Dawson; he
had awakened me into joyous life. I arose, filled and lighted a large
calabash pipe, and passed a box of cigars to the detective. "Throw
that stump away and take another," said I. "I owe you more than a
cigar or two." He stared at me, took what I offered, and his face
relaxed into a grin. "It is pleasant to see that you are a man of
humour, Mr. Dawson," I observed, when we were again seated comfortably
on opposite sides of the fire. "In my day I have played many parts,
but I cannot somehow recall the incident of unsoldering a sardine tin,
inserting a paper packed in a mess of putty, soldering it up, and
despatching the incriminating product within a parcel addressed to a
late lieutenant of Northumberland Fusiliers. I am not denying the
charge; the whole affair is too delightful to be cut short. Let us
spin it out delicately like children over plates of sweet pudding."
"You are a queer customer, Mr. Copplestone. I confess that the whole
business puzzles me, though you and your friends here seem to find it
devilish amusing. When I told the Chief Constable, the manager of the
shipyard, and the Admiral Superintendent of Naval Work that you were
the guilty party, they all roared. For some reason the Admiral and the
shipyard manager kept winking at one another and gurgling till I
thought they would have choked. What _is_ the joke?"
"If you are good, Dawson, I will tell you some day. This is November,
and the _Rampagious_--the ship described on your paper--left for
Portsmouth in August. In July--" I broke off hurriedly, lest I should
tell my visitor too much. "It has taken our friend who put the paper
in the sardine tin three months to find out details of her. I could
have done better than that, Dawson."
"That is just what the Admiral said, though he wouldn't explain why."
"The truth is, Dawson, that the Admiral and I both come from Devon,
the land of pirates, smugglers, and buccaneers. We are law breakers by
instinct and family tradition. When we get an officer of the law on
toast, we like to make the most of him. It is a playful little way of
ours which I am sure you will understand and pardon."
"You know, of course, that I am justified in arresting you. I have a
warrant and handcuffs in my pocket."
"Admirable man!" I cried, with enthusiasm. "You are, Dawson, the
perfect detective. As a criminal I should be mightily afraid of you.
But, as in my buttonhole I always wear the white flower which
proclaims to the world my blameless life, I am thoroughly enjoying
this visit and our cosy chat beside the fire. Shall I telephone to my
office and say that I shall be unavoidably detained from duty for an
indefinite time? 'Detained' would be the strict truth and the _mot
juste_. If you would kindly lock me up, say, for three years or the
duration of the war I should be your debtor. I have often thought that
a prison, provided that one were allowed unlimited paper and the use
of a typewriter, would be the most charming of holidays--a perfect
rest cure. There are three books in my head which I should like to
write. Arrest me, Dawson, I implore you! Put on the handcuffs--I have
never been handcuffed--ring up a taxi, and let us be off to jail. You
will, I hope, do me the honour of lunching with me first and meeting
my wife. She will be immensely gratified to be quit of me. It cannot
often have happened in your lurid career, Dawson, to be welcomed with
genuine enthusiasm."
"Why did that man say that he prepared the description of the ship for
you?"
"That is what we are going to find out, and I will help you all I can.
My reputation is like the bloom upon the peach--touch it, and it is
gone for ever. There is a faint glimmer of the truth at the back of my
mind which may become a clear light. Did he say that he had given it
to me personally, into my own hand?"
"No. He said that he was approached by a man whom he had known off and
on for years, a man who was employed by you in connection with
shipyard inquiries. He was informed that this man was still employed
by you for the same purpose now as in the past."
"Your case against me is thinning out, Dawson. At its best it is
second-hand; at its worst, the mere conjecture of a rather careless
draughtsman. I have two things to do: first to find out the real
seducer, who is probably also the despatcher of the parcels to the
late lieutenant of Northumberland Fusiliers, and second, to save if I
can this poor fool of a shipyard draughtsman from punishment for his
folly. I don't doubt that he honestly thought he was dealing with me."
"He will have to be punished. The Admiral will insist upon that."
"We must make the punishment as light as we can. You shall help me
with all the discretionary authority with which you are equipped. I
can see, Dawson, from the tactful skill with which you have dealt with
me that discretion is among your most distinguished characteristics.
If you had been a stupid, bull-headed policeman, you would have been
up against pretty serious trouble."
"That was quite my own view," replied Dawson drily.
"Who is the man described by our erring draughtsman?"
"He won't say. We have put on every allowable method of pressure, and
some that are not in ordinary times permitted. We have had over this
spy hunt business to shed most of our tender English regard for
suspected persons, and to adopt the French system of fishing
inquiries. In France the police try to make a man incriminate himself;
in England we try our hardest to prevent him. That may be very right
and just in peace time against ordinary law breakers; but war is war,
and spies are too dangerous to be treated tenderly. We have
cross-examined the man, and bully-ragged him, but he won't give up the
name of his accomplice. It may be a relation. One thing seems sure.
The man is, or was, a member of your staff, engaged in shipyard
inquiries. Can you give me a list of the men who are or have been on
this sort of work during the past few years?"
"I will get it for you. But please use it carefully. My present men
are precious jewels, the few left to me by zealous military
authorities. What I must look for is some one over military age who
has left me or been dismissed--probably dismissed. When a British
subject, of decent education and once respectable surroundings, gets
into the hands of German agents, you may be certain of one thing,
Dawson, that he has become a rotter through drink."
"That's it," cried Dawson. "You have hit it. Crime and drink are twin
brothers as no one knows better than the police. Look out for the name
and address of a man dismissed for drunkenness and we shall have our
bird."
"The name I can no doubt give you, but not the address."
"Give us any address where he lived, even if it were ten years ago,
and we will track him down in three days. That is just routine police
work."
"I never presume to teach an expert his business--and you, Dawson, are
a super-expert, a director-general of those of common qualities--but
would it not be well to warn all the Post Offices, so that when
another parcel is brought in addressed to the lieutenant the bearer
may be arrested?"
Dawson sniffed. "Police work; common police work. It was done at once
for this city and fifty miles round. No parcel was put in last week.
The warning has since been extended to the whole of the United
Kingdom. We may get our man this week, or at least a messenger of his,
but no news has yet come to me. I will lunch with you, as you so
kindly suggest, and afterwards I want you to come with me to see the
draughtsman in the lockup. You may be able to shake his confounded
obstinacy. Run the pathetic stunt. Say if he keeps silent that you
will be arrested, your home broken up, your family driven into the
workhouse, and you yourself probably shot. Pitch it strong and rich.
He is a bit of a softy from the look of him. That tender-hearted lot
are always the most obstinate when asked to give away their pals."
"Do you know, Dawson," I said, as he went upstairs with me to have a
lick and a polish, as he put it--"I am inclined to agree with Cary
that you are rather an inhuman beast."
My wife, with whom I could exchange no more than a dozen words and a
wink or two, gripped the situation and played up to it in the fashion
which compels the admiration and terror of mere men. Do they humbug
us, their husbands, as they do the rest of the world on our behalf?
She met Dawson as if he were an old family friend, heaped hospitality
upon him, and chaffed him blandly as if to entertain a police officer
with a warrant and handcuffs in his pocket were the best joke in the
world. "My husband, Mr. Dawson, needs a holiday very badly, but won't
take one. He thinks that the war cannot be pursued successfully unless
he looks after it himself. If you would carry him off and keep him
quiet for a bit, I should be deeply grateful." She then fell into a
discussion with Dawson of the most conveniently situated prisons. Mrs.
Copplestone dismissed Dartmoor and Portland as too bleakly situated,
but was pleased to approve of Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight--which I
rather fancy is a House of Detention for women. She insisted that the
climate of the Island was suited to my health, and wrung a promise
from Dawson that I should, if possible, be interned there. Dawson's
manners and conversation surprised me. His homespun origin was
evident, yet he had developed an easy social style which was neither
familiar nor aggressive. We were in his eyes eccentrics, possibly what
he would call among his friends "a bit off," and he bore himself
towards us accordingly. My small daughter, Jane, to whom he had been
presented as a colonel of police--little Jane is deeply versed in
military ranks--took to him at once, and his manner towards her
confirmed my impression that some vestiges of humanity may still be
discovered in him by the patient searcher. She insisted upon sitting
next to him and in holding his hand when it was not employed in
conveying food to his mouth. She was startled at first by the
discussion upon the prisons most suitable for me, but quickly became
reconciled to the idea of a temporary separation.
"Colonel Dawson," she asked. "When daddy is in prison, may I come and
see him sometimes. Mother and me?" Dawson gripped his hair--we were
the maddest crew!--and replied. "Of course you shall, Miss Jane, as
often as you like."
"Thank you, Colonel Dawson; you are a nice man. I love you. Now show
me the handcuffs in your pocket."
For the second time that day poor Dawson blushed. He must have
regretted many times that he had mentioned to me those unfortunate
darbies. Now amid much laughter he was compelled to draw forth a
pretty shining pair of steel wristlets and permit Jane to put them on.
They were much too large for her; she could slip them on and off
without unlocking; but as toys they were a delight. "I shouldn't mind
being a prisoner," she declared, "if dear Colonel Dawson took me up."
We were sitting upon the fire-guard after luncheon, dallying over our
coffee, when Jane demanded to be shown a real arrest. "Show me how you
take up a great big man like Daddy."
Then came a surprise, which for a moment had so much in it of bitter
realism that it drove the blood from my wife's cheeks. I could not
follow Dawson's movements; his hands flickered like those of a
conjurer, there came a sharp click, and the handcuffs were upon my
wrists! I stared at them speechless, wondering how they got there,
and, looking up, met the coldly triumphant eyes of the detective. I
realised then exactly how the professional manhunter glares at the
prey into whom, after many days, he has set his claws. My wife gasped
and clutched at my elbow, little Jane screamed, and for a few seconds
even I thought that the game had been played and that serious business
was about to begin. Dawson gave us a few seconds of apprehension, and
then laughed grimly. From his waistcoat pocket he drew a key, and the
fetters were removed almost as quickly as they had been clapped on.
"Tit for tat," said he. "You have had your fun with me. Fair play is a
jewel."
Little Jane was the first to recover speech. "I knew that dear Colonel
Dawson was only playing," she cried. "He only did it to please me.
Thank you, Colonel, though you did frighten me just a weeny bit at
first." And pulling him down towards her she kissed him heartily upon
his prickly cheek. It was a queer scene.
The door bell rang loudly, and we were informed that a policeman stood
without who was inquiring for Chief Inspector Dawson. "Show him in
here," said I. The constable entered, and his manner of addressing my
guest--that of a raw second lieutenant towards a general of
division--shed a new light upon Dawson's pre-eminence in his Service.
"A telegram for you, sir." Dawson seized it, was about to tear it
open, remembered suddenly his hostess, and bowed towards her. "Have I
your permission, madam?" he asked. She smiled and nodded; I turned
away to conceal a laugh. "Good," cried Dawson, poring over the
message. "I think, Mr. Copplestone, that you had better telephone to
your office and say that you are unavoidably detained."
"What--what is it?" cried my wife, who had again become white with
sudden fear.
"Something which will occupy the attention of your husband and myself
to the exclusion of all other duties. This telegram informs me that a
parcel has been handed in at Carlisle and the bearer arrested."
"Excellent!" I cried. "My time is at your disposal, Dawson. We shall
now get full light."
He sat down and scribbled a reply wire directing the parcel and its
bearer to be brought to him with all speed. "They should arrive in two
or three hours," said he, "and in the meantime we will tackle the
draughtsman who made that plan of the battleship. Good-bye Mrs.
Copplestone, and thank you very much for your hospitality. Your
husband goes with me." My wife shook hands with Dawson, and politely
saw him off the premises. She has said little to me since about his
visit, but I do not think that she wishes ever to meet with him again.
Little Jane, who kissed him once more at parting, is still attached to
the memory of her colonel.
* * * * *
Dawson led me to the private office at the Central Police Station,
which was his temporary headquarters, and sent for the dossier of the
locked up draughtsman. "I have here full particulars of him," said he,
"and a verbatim note of my examination." I examined the photograph
attached, which represented a bearded citizen of harmless aspect; over
his features had spread a scared, puzzled look, with a suggestion in
it of pathetic appeal. He looked like a human rabbit caught in an
unexpected and uncomprehended trap. It was a police photograph. Then I
began to read the dossier, but got no farther than the first
paragraph. In it was set out the man's name, those of his wife and
children, his employment, record of service, and so on. What arrested
my researches was the maiden name of the wife, which, in accordance
with the northern custom, had been entered as a part of her legal
description. The name awoke in me a recollection of a painful incident
within my experience. I saw before me the puffed, degraded face of one
to whom I had given chance after chance of redeeming himself from
thraldom to the whisky bottle, one who had promised again and again to
amend his ways. At last, wearied, I had cast him out. He had been
looking after an important shipbuilding district, had conspicuous
ability and knowledge, the support of a faithful wife. But nothing
availed to save him from himself. "Give me five minutes alone with
your prisoner," I said to Dawson, "and I will give you the spy you
seek."
I had asked for five minutes, but two were sufficient for my purpose.
The draughtsman had been obstinate with Dawson, seeking loyally to
shield his wretched brother-in-law, but when he found that I had the
missing thread in my hands, he gave in at once. "What relation is ----
to your wife?" I asked. He had risen at my entrance, but the question
went through him like a bullet; his pale face flushed, he staggered
pitifully, and, sitting down, buried his face in his hands. "You may
tell the truth now," I said gently. "We can easily find out what we
must know, but the information will come better from you."
"He is my wife's brother," murmured the man.
"You knew that he was no longer in my service?"
"Yes, I knew."
I might fairly have asked why he had used my name, but refrained. One
can readily pardon the lapses of an honest man, terrified at finding
himself in the coils of the police, clinging to the good name of his
wife and her family, clutching at any device to throw the
sleuth-hounds of the law off the real scent. He had given his
brother-in-law forbidden information from a loyal desire to help him
and with no knowledge of the base use to which it would be put. When
detected, he had sought at any cost to shield him.
"I will do my best to help you," I said.
His head drooped down till it rested upon his bent arms, and he
groaned and panted under the torture of tears. His was not the stuff
of which criminals are made.
I found Dawson's chuckling joy rather repulsive. I felt that, being
successful, he might at least have had the decency to dissemble his
satisfaction. He might also have given me some credit for the rapid
clearing up of the problem in detection. But he took the whole thing
to himself, and gloated like a child over his own cleverness. I
neither obtained from him thanks for my assistance nor apologies for
his suspicions. It was Dawson, Dawson, all the time. Yet I found his
egotism and unrelieved vanity extraordinarily interesting. As we sat
together in his room waiting for the Carlisle train to come in he
discoursed freely to me of his triumphs in detection, his wide-spread
system of spying upon spies, his long delayed "sport" with some, and
his ruthless rapid trapping of others. Men are never so interesting as
when they talk shop, and as a talker of shop Dawson was sublime.
"If," said Dawson, as the time approached for the closing scene, "our
much-wanted friend has himself handed in the parcel at Carlisle--he
would be afraid to trust an accomplice--our job will be done. If not,
I will pull a drag net through this place which will bring him up
within a day or two. What a fool the man is to think that he could
escape the eye of Bill Dawson."
A policeman entered, laid a packet upon the table before us, and
announced that the prisoner had been placed in cell No. 2. Dawson
sprang up. "We will have a look at him through the peephole, and if it
is our man--" One glance was enough. Before me I saw him whom I had
expected to see. He and his cargo of whisky bottles had reached the
last stage of their long journey; at one end had been peace, reasonable
prosperity, and a happy home; at the other was, perhaps, a rope or a
bullet.
Dawson began once more to descant upon his own astuteness, but I was
too sick at heart to listen. I remembered only the visit years before
which that man's wife had paid to me. "Will you not open the parcel?"
I interposed. He fell upon it, exposed its contents of bread,
chocolate, and sardine tins, and called for a can opener. He shook the
tins one by one beside his ear, and then, selecting that which gave
out no "flop" of oil, stripped it open, plunged his fingers inside,
and pulled forth a clammy mess of putty and sawdust. In a moment he
had come upon a paper which after reading he handed to me. It bore the
words in English, "Informant arrested: dare not send more."
"What a fool!" cried Dawson. "As if the evidence against him were not
sufficient already he must give us this."
"You will let that poor devil of a draughtsman down easily?" I
murmured.
"We want him as a witness," replied Dawson. "Tit for tat. If he helps
us, we will help him. And now we will cut along to the Admiral. He is
eager for news."
We broke in upon the Admiral in his office near the shipyards, and he
greeted me with cheerful badinage. "So you are in the hands of the
police at last, Copplestone. I always told you what would be the end
of your naval inquisitiveness."
Dawson told his story, and the naval officer's keen kindly face grew
stern and hard. "Germans I can respect," said he, "even those that
pretend to be our friends. But one of our own folk--to sell us like
this--ugh! Take the vermin away; Dawson, and stamp upon it."
We stood talking for a few moments, and then Dawson broke in with a
question. "I have never understood, Admiral, why you were so very
confident that Mr. Copplestone here had no hand in this business. The
case against him looked pretty ugly, yet you laughed at it all the
time. Why were you so sure?"
The Admiral surveyed Dawson as if he were some strange creature from
an unknown world. "Mr. Copplestone is a friend of mine," said he
drily.
"Very likely," snapped the detective. "But is a man a white angel
because he has the honour to be your friend?"
"A fair retort," commented the Admiral. It happens that I had other
and better reasons. For in July I myself showed Mr. Copplestone over
the new battleship _Rampagious_, and after our inspection we both
lunched with the builders and discussed her design and armament in
every detail. So as Mr. Copplestone knew all about her in July, he was
not likely to suborn a draughtsman in November. See?"
"You should have told me this before. It was your duty."
"My good Dawson," said the Admiral gently, "you are an excellent
officer of police, but even you have a few things yet to learn. I had
in my mind to give you a lesson, especially as I owed you some
punishment for your impertinence in opening my friend Copplestone's
private letters. You have had the lesson; profit by it."
Dawson flushed angrily. "Punishment! Impertinence! This to me!"
"Yes," returned the Admiral stiffly, "beastly impertinence."