MY DEAR CHARLES,--Let me remind you that the Bolshevist conspirator has
to stir up conflagrations in other countries without leaving his own.
Passports and things are put in to make it more difficult when he comes
to getting his inflammable material and directions for use over the
frontier. So he has to invent a way over the obstacles.
The first prize is awarded to the following: Secret instructions are
printed in Arabic and the pages containing them are bound up in a five
hundred page book in that language. The courier, an Oriental, carries
this book openly in his hand when he presents himself at the frontier.
It is ten to one that an innocent-looking book, thus carried, will not
be suspected; a hundred to one against there being an official capable
of reading it; five hundred to three against that official trying one of
the guilty pages, if he is there and duly suspicious. Yet, with a
hundred and sixty-six thousand chances against it, our Little Man got
hold of those instructions.
The Sherlock Holmes of fiction is a gaunt figure, with a hatchet face,
spare of flesh. Our Little Man is a chubby lad, standing about four foot
ten in his stockinged feet, rubicund and corpulent, and he wears a
mackintosh with a very mackintoshy smell in all weathers. He never did a
day's work, and he never means to try, but he is a genius at getting it
out of others. Some say he is of Swiss origin, some say he is American,
and some say that surely he must be Chinese; he was never certain
himself until Czecho-Slovak was invented, and he plumped for that. He
has the degree of Master of Arts; what arts I don't know; probably the
black ones. His inner knowledge of the human species seems to give him
plenty to laugh at. He notices everything, forgets nothing, and there is
never a weakness in a man but he is on to it. He made up his mind that
those secret instructions were passing and set about to find how they
passed and what they were. He was too lazy to begin at the beginning, so
he began at the end. He called in person, as a commercial traveller, at
the suspected office of destination, and in the short time available
ascertained that the door-keeper who turned him out was a patriotic and
fervent admirer of the wine of the country.
Our Little Man had no vulgar idea of getting the secret out of him by
making him drunk. If there was a secret it wouldn't be in the
door-keeper. But he and that door-keeper got to drinking together and
the door-keeper did all the paying; the drinking and the paying went on
by progressive degrees till the door-keeper had no money and only a
still almighty thirst left. The Little Man left him with his thirst for
a few days, until it became intolerable, and the door-keeper insisted
that something simply must be done about it. The Little Man regretted
that he could not give the necessary money to finance further orgies,
but he would gladly advance it. Four nights got the door-keeper well in
his debt, and our Little Man then began to talk about repayment. The
door-keeper said he had no money; the Little Man said he must get it.
Off whom? His employer.
How was the door-keeper to get his employer's money off him? By selling
him a safe. Our Little Man then divulged that he was in reality a
commercial traveller in safes; if the door-keeper would get his employer
to buy one of his safes the Little Man would forgive him his debt by way
of commission. He felt sure that the Head of the Office had a weakness
for precautions. The door-keeper, now enthusiastic, said he should just
think he had! The Little Man felt he was getting warm. The door-keeper
put the deal through and prevailed upon his master to instal a really
safe safe in the office, instead of the old one. You had only to look at
it to see it was impregnable by fire, water or the King's Enemies. But
one set of keys stayed with the Little Man.
The drinking (by both) and the paying (by the door-keeper) were resumed.
When the debt was again large enough the Little Man imposed new terms.
This time he wanted to see the Head of the Office himself, to put
further deals through. The door-keeper thought deeply, but could see no
harm in this. The Little Man was thus introduced into the presence, and
startled it by pointing to the safe and offering to do burglar on it any
night of the week. The Head was manifestly concerned.
"We have here," said the Little Man, producing two formidable slabs of
steel hinged together and leaving room between them when locked for a
wad of papers only--"we have here a special strong box exactly suited
for the storage of your bank-notes. Put them in this box, and the box in
the safe, and then you really are ahead of your enemies."
The Head bought. He gave the Little Man less money than he had spent on
the strong box, and the Little Man gave him less keys than he was
entitled to. The drinking and the debt were resumed, and, when it came
to a question of settlement for the third time, the Little Man pointed
out to the door-keeper that, if he hadn't the money to repay, then he
must steal it. He now divulged that he was not really a broker, but a
breaker of safes and strong boxes. He handed the door-keeper a key of
his employer's safe. In the safe would be found the strong box. In the
strong box would be found some notes of high value, unless he was very
much mistaken.
So the door-keeper went and opened the safe and returned. And the Little
Man opened the strong box, and he _was_ very much mistaken. There was
never a note there; just half-a-dozen pages torn out of a book printed
in Arabic.
He was so angry that he gave the strong box one on the lid for itself,
with the result that he couldn't lock it again. However, he said he had
a friend who could lock or unlock anything, and he left the door-keeper
drinking, for the first time at the Little Man's expense, while he took
off the box to be repaired by his friend. The latter happened to be in
the next room with a camera. The pages were photographed; the Little Man
returned to the door-keeper with the strong box, now capable of being
re-locked; the door-keeper returned to the office and put back the
strong box, locked, into the safe, which he also locked, and was wiping
the sweat off his forehead and congratulating himself that no one was
the worse, when he was startled to find a policeman had been watching
him all the time.
But he proved to be a very amenable policeman. He said he would take no
action before he and the door-keeper had had time to talk it over next
day. By the time that talk came the photographs had been developed,
printed and translated. But the policeman did not wish to bore the
door-keeper with the tiresome details. To put it quite shortly the
policeman thought it was a most excellent crime, worthy of repetition at
intervals.
Yours ever, HENRY.
(_To be continued._)
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[Illustration: CONCENTRATION.]
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