John Dare was sitting all alone by the fire one evening in the parlour
of The Red House. The boys were at Mrs MacLean’s that night, and Honor
and Vic were assisting in an entertainment to the Belgian Refugees at a
neighbouring hostel.
Desirous as they all were of being of service to the exiles,
circumstances had not permitted of their taking any of them into their
homes. And so they all subscribed towards one of the many hostels and
assisted in such other ways as their many engagements allowed time for.
And Mr Dare took no exception to it all. It was an unavoidable part of
the general upsetting, and to tell the truth he was so depressed and
uncompanionable these days, that he felt himself better company for
himself than for any of the younger folk.
Honor had got for him from the library the two big volumes of Scott’s
Last Journey to the Pole, and with these and a pipe he was doing his
best to forget for a time business troubles and German delinquencies.
With a tap at the door, the maid announced, “A gentleman to see you,
sir.”
“Who is it, Bertha?” he asked, with a touch of annoyance at the
disturbance of his peace.
“I don’t know, sir. He said you would not know his name, but it’s
important.”
“Oh well, show him in here,” and he closed his book and stood up to
meet the intruder.
“You won’t know me, Mr Dare,” said the newcomer, when the door closed
on Bertha. “I am Inspector Gretton from Scotland Yard. I’ve come to
consult you on a certain matter and I want all the information you can
give me.”
“At your service, Inspector. Won’t you sit down? Have a cigar,”--and he
got out a box from the cupboard under the bookcase. “Now what’s it all
about?”
“It’s this, Mr Dare. For some time past the wireless stations at
Newstead and Crowston have complained of jamming. In other words,
unauthorised messages are passing, and by a process of elimination
and deduction we are satisfied they emanate from somewhere in this
neighbourhood. As an old resident and a Justice of the Peace----”
“A very nominal J.P. of late, I’m afraid,--thanks to the war.”
The Inspector nodded. “We felt sure, however, that any assistance in
your power you would render us.”
“Assuredly. Anything I can do. But I don’t at the moment see what.”
“From the nature of the messages that have been intercepted,--they are
in code of course, but our people have managed to get an inkling of
their meaning,--it is evident that someone is sending out information
of moment to some enemy station, probably nearer the coast. And we’ve
got to get to the bottom of it. Very powerful instruments are being
used and probably from a considerable elevation. Now is there anyone in
this neighbourhood, within your knowledge, likely to be up to anything
of the kind?”
“I should not have thought so.... In fact it is hard to believe it of
any of one’s neighbours....”
“Unfortunately, our experience is that the folks who are in this kind
of business are just the ones one would least expect. What enemy aliens
have you round here?”
“Quite a lot,--or we had. And mostly quite nice people. But a number
have left since the war began,--either they thought it safer to get
back home, or you are taking care of them elsewhere.”
“We’ve got quite a lot on our hands, but evidently not all. Would you
tell me, sir, who there are left about here?”
“Well,--let me see. There are the Jacobsens,--they claim to be Danish,
I believe. He’s a produce-importer in quite a big way.”
“What age of a man, and what family?”
“He’ll be somewhere about fifty, I should say. Family,--wife, two
daughters and a boy of seventeen.”
“Where does he live?”
And so they progressed through such a list as Mr Dare could make out
on the spur of the moment. The Inspector making an occasional note and
asking many pointed questions.
And when Mr Dare’s spring of information had apparently dried up, he
asked suddenly,
“Whose is the tall old-fashioned red-brick house up there on top of the
hill,--the one with the double-peaked roof and the tall old-fashioned
chimney-stacks?”
“That? Oh that’s Dr Rhenius’s. But he’s quite above suspicion. He’s
lived here for over twenty years.”
“What is he? German?”
“It’s the one thing he resents--to be called a German,” said Mr Dare,
with a smile. “His father was a Pole from somewhere near Warsaw. He
himself has been naturalised for twenty years at least----”
“Do you know that?”
“Well,”--with a surprised lift of the brows--“if you put it as a legal
point,--no! I don’t know that anyone has ever questioned it. You see,
he is our medico round here, and is greatly esteemed and liked. He’s an
uncommonly clever doctor and everybody’s very good friend.”
“I see. Quite above suspicion, you would say, Mr. Dare?”
“Oh quite. He hates Prussian Junkerdom as every Pole must.”
The Inspector nodded acquiescingly, and they chatted on about the war
and things in general till his cigar was finished and he got up to go.
“I will ask you to keep all this absolutely to yourself, Mr Dare,” he
said. “Not a word to anyone, if you please, sir.”
“Certainly, Inspector. I’m afraid I’ve not been of much use to you. If
you think of anything else----”
“I’ll let you know, sir,” and Mr Dare saw him out of the front door,
and returned to Scott and the South Pole.
As for Inspector Gretton, he wandered off to have a closer look at the
old-fashioned red-brick house on top of the hill.
Just a week later he called again on Mr Dare, late one night, and, as
before, found him all alone.
The Colonel had suddenly, when apparently getting on well, developed
pneumonia in the other lung and was in a very critical condition. Mrs
Dare spent all her time at Oakdene in unremitting attendance on him,
with every help that Lois and Auntie Mitt and Honor and Vic could
render. The boys were sleeping in town that night as they had to be on
early fatigue next morning.
“Well, Inspector? Any success?” asked Mr Dare, as Gretton was shown in.
“I’ve come to end the matter, Mr Dare. I thought perhaps you’d like to
see the last act.”
“Really? Got him. Who on earth is it?”
“If you care to come with me I’ll show you, sir,” and Mr Dare got into
his hat and coat in record time and went out with him.
At the gate they were met and followed by half-a-dozen stalwarts in
flat caps and overcoats, who in some subtle fashion conveyed the
impression of law and order, armed not only with right but with other
weapons of a more practically coercive nature.
The roads were almost in darkness in accordance with recent orders,
lest undue illumination should offer mark or direction for lurking
menace up above. They turned into the road up the hill and came to the
gate of Dr Rhenius’s old-fashioned red-brick house.
“You don’t mean to say----” jerked Mr Dare in vast amazement.
“Sh-h-h!” whispered the Inspector, pressing his arm. “See that
tree!”--a huge elm towering a hundred feet high just inside the gate.
“I’ve been up there every night since I called on you, with a pair of
the strongest glasses made--Zeisses,” he said with a chuckle. “Your
friend has visitors of a night and later on he gets busy.”
Mr Dare was dumb. He could not take it all in. There was some grotesque
mistake somewhere.
“We’re a bit early yet,” said the Inspector. Then, adjusting his
field-glasses and peering up at the house, “No, it’s all right. He’s at
work in good time to-night.”
He handed the glasses to Mr. Dare, and whispered, “Look at that
chimney-stack. Get it against the Milky Way. See anything?”
“I see the chimney.... Yes, and something like a flag-pole projecting
above it....”
“Exactly,--a wireless pole. We’ll catch them at it.”
He said a word to his men. They had had their instructions. They all
went noiselessly up to the house, some to the back and sides, the
Inspector, Mr Dare and two others to the front door.
“Keep out of sight till I go in,” said the Inspector, as he rang, and
in the distance inside they heard the thrill of the bell. But no one
came. He rang again.
“Good thing no one’s dying in a hurry,” he growled.
It was not till after the third appeal that they heard steps inside
and all braced up for the event. As the door opened Inspector Gretton
quietly inserted his foot.
“Is the Doctor in?” he asked.
“He is oudt,” said a voice, which Mr Dare recognised as Old Jacob’s,
the Doctor’s factotum.
“Then I’ll come in and wait for him. I want him at once,” and the
Inspector pushed his way in.
As he did so Old Jacob dropped his hand against a spot in the wall, and
far away upstairs a tiny bell tinkled briefly.
“Quite so!” said Gretton, and as his men followed him in, with Mr Dare
behind them in no small discomfort of mind,--“Secure the old boy,
Swift,” and to his still greater discomfort Mr Dare heard the click of
handcuffs.
“Now quick,--upstairs!” and they followed him at speed.
He seemed to go by instinct. Up two flights and they came on a door
which evidently led to a higher storey still. A curious door--of stout
oak, without a handle, and for keyhole only the polished disc and tiny
slit of a Yale lock.
The Inspector wasted not a moment. He was up to every trick of his
profession.
“Barnes,” he said quietly, and indicated the lock, and in a trice
Barnes inserted a thin stick of something into the slit, and as the
Inspector waved them all back there came an explosion and the stout oak
about the lock was riven into splinters. Gretton swung open the door
and ran up the narrow stairs.
In the top passage they came on a short ladder leading to a skylight
through which the night air blew chilly. The others climbed quickly up.
Mr Dare stayed below. He regretted having come. He did not quite know
why he had come. He had not of course known where he was going when he
accepted Inspector Gretton’s invitation. Then the matter had developed
too rapidly to permit of him backing out.
Exclamations came down to him through the skylight--the sound of
a brief struggle, and presently Gretton came down again obviously
well-pleased with himself.
“Got him,--red-handed!” he said.
“Not Dr Rhenius?”
“If that’s his proper name. The man you’ve known by that name anyway.
And all his tackle. Two minutes more and his poles would have been out
of sight. He lowers them down the chimneys.”
He kicked open a door in the passage, but the room inside was empty and
unfurnished. Two other rooms yielded the same result.
Then the Inspector, searching about, discovered a trap-door, such
as might lead to cisterns, high up in one corner of the passage,
and shifting the ladder, he ran up, pushed the trap open, and said,
“Right--o!”
“Come up and see for yourself, Mr Dare,” he said, as he crawled out of
sight; and Mr Dare followed him.
It was a long tent-shaped apartment formed by the pitch of the roof,
well-lit by electric lights and littered with electric apparatus--a
number of powerful accumulators, spark coils, condensers, inductances,
a heavily built morse key, and so on,--everything necessary for sending
long-distance wireless messages.
Mr Dare gazed about him in amazement.
“There is no doubt about it then?” he jerked uncomfortably.
“Not a doubt. How many lives all this may have cost us, God only knows.
However, he’s scotched now, and it’s one to me.”
“Rhenius!” jerked Mr Dare again. “I can hardly credit it even yet.
Such a good fellow he always seemed, and we all liked him so! It’s
amazing--and damnable.”
“Damnable it is, sir. And there’s too damned much of it going on. We’re
infants in these matters and altogether too soft and lenient. However,
this one won’t send out any more news.”
“What is the penalty?”
“If it’s as bad as I believe, he’ll be shot. We shall know better when
all these papers and things have been gone into. He’s been a centre for
spy-news, unless I’m very much mistaken, but this ought to end him, as
far as this world’s concerned anyway.”
They went down the ladder again and Gretton replaced it below the
skylight and hailed his men, “Bring him along there.”
And presently, preceded by one stalwart and followed by the other the
prisoner was brought down.
The actual sight of this man who had been on such friendly terms with
him, had been admitted to every house in the neighbourhood on the
most intimate footing, had doctored them all in the most skilful way
possible, who was even then in attendance on their good friend the
Colonel,--and who all the time was playing the spy for Germany, gave
John Dare a most gruesome shock. He felt absolutely sick at heart.
“Rhenius!” he gasped. “Is it possible?”
But Dr Rhenius looked at him without a sign of recognition and spoke no
word.
He was hurried away down the stairs. Inspector Gretton left two of his
men in charge of the house, and with the rest and his prisoners went
off in a taxi which he called up by the Doctor’s telephone.
Mr Dare went back home feeling bruised and sore. Duplicity and
treachery such as this cut at the roots of one’s faith in humanity. If
he had been told this thing he would not have believed it. Nothing less
than what he had seen with his own eyes and heard with his own ears
would have convinced him. But he was convinced and saddened.
He went across to Oakdene first thing in the morning. His wife had
to be told. The Colonel’s welfare had to be seen to--another medical
attendant provided,--explanations concocted.
“What is it, John?” asked Mrs Dare, as soon as she set eyes on his
face. “Bad news?”
“Yes, Meg,--bad news. But not touching any of ours,”--at which the
anxious strain in her face relaxed somewhat.
“Dr Rhenius is in prison as a spy----”
“John!”--and she sank aghast into the nearest chair.
“It is true, Meg. I was there. His house is just one big wireless
station. They caught him in the act. It is horrible to think of such
treachery. I’ve hardly slept a wink all night.”
“No wonder! But--is it possible? Is there no mistake?... Dr Rhenius?...
I would have trusted him with my life.”
“Yes. It is beyond me. But there is no possible doubt about it. They
have taken him and Old Jacob away, and the police are in charge of the
house. They say he will be shot.”
“How terrible! Not the shooting. If he has done this he deserves to be
shot. But ... our Dr Rhenius! Oh, I cannot take it in yet.”
But in time she had to accept it, and they fell to discussion of ways
and means.
The Colonel was to be told that Rhenius had been suddenly summoned
from home,--which was grimly true, and Mr Dare was to call at once on
Dr Sinclair in the village, give him the same explanation, and beg his
attendance on their patient.
As he expected, Dr Sinclair received him with a certain amount of
professional surprise at the irregularity of his procedure. He hummed
and hawed for a time, and put such very pointed questions that Mr
Dare was inclined to believe that he must have had suspicions of his
own--provoked possibly, he thought, by professional jealousy and
Rhenius’s German-sounding name; all of which was natural enough.
All he permitted himself was that Dr Rhenius had been suddenly called
away, and his return was so very doubtful that they felt it necessary
to call in another doctor at once. And Dr Sinclair went. The Colonel
was much put out and not easily reconciled to this transfer in which he
had had no voice. It was so unlike Rhenius to go off like that without
so much as a good-bye. He fumed weakly and fretted over it, and was
barely civil to Dr Sinclair, who shook his head doubtfully when he went
downstairs with Mrs Dare.
“He is very weak,” he said. “Keep on as you are and above all things
keep him quiet and free from disturbance of mind.”
“It is not easy.”
“I see that. But it is absolutely essential. The fever has pulled him
down terribly and his heart is in a very ticklish state.”
The following day the papers had the matter with bold
head-lines--“WELL-KNOWN WILLSTEAD DOCTOR ARRESTED AS SPY, HOUSE FULL OF
WIRELESS APPARATUS,” and so on.
They did their best to keep the paper from the Colonel. But the very
attempt aroused his suspicions and sent his temperature up again.
In despair he was allowed to glance at it--and the mischief was done.
He insisted on Lois reading every word, and all the time he lay looking
at her with a dazed look on his white face.
“Rhenius!” was all he said, in a strange shocked whisper, when she had
finished, and then he lay back among his pillows and turned his face as
far away from them as he could.
And--“Rhenius!”--they heard him murmur more than once during the day,
as though he were groping painfully among his shadows after some
understanding of it all.
About tea-time, when Lois was sitting with him,--just sitting quietly
by his bed-side so that he should not feel lonely, for he had declined
to be read to, he turned quietly to her and feebly extended his hand.
She took it in her two warm ones throbbing with life and sudden fear.
It felt very thin and cold, and, with a great dread at her heart, it
seemed to her that his face was changed. It was gray, and very weary.
“I am so glad, dear,--so very glad,” he whispered,--“about you and
Ray.... Good lad! ... he will come back to you ... and Con--good lad
too!... God bless you all!--all!”
Lois had slipped on to her knees beside the bed, and the tears were
running down her face in spite of herself.
“No!” he said. “Don’t cry!... Very tired.... I shall be glad ... to
rest.”
Then he suddenly raised himself in the bed, and looked beyond her.
“Last Post!” he said, quite clearly. “Thank God, I have done my duty!”
and then he sank back. And Lois released one hand, from the thin cold
hand which had no longer any response in it, and beat upon the floor
with it to call the others.