"But there's a condition," Slingsby continued sharply. "You must
not leave Gibraltar without coming personally to me and giving me
twenty-four hours' notice."
Peiffer was all smiles and agreement.
"But of course. We shall have matters to talk over--terms to arrange.
I must see you."
"Exactly. Cross by the nine-fifty steamer tomorrow morning. Is that
understood?"
"Yes, sir." And suddenly Peiffer stood up and actually saluted, as
though he had now taken service under Slingsby's command.
The unexpected movement almost made me vomit. Slingsby himself moved
quickly away, and his face lost for a second the mask of impassivity.
He stood at the window and looked across the water to the city of
Gibraltar.
Slingsby had been wounded in the early days of the war, and ever since
he had been greatly troubled because he was not still in the trenches
in Flanders. The casualty lists filled him with shame and discontent.
So many of his friends, the men who had trained and marched with him,
were laying down their gallant lives. He should have been with them.
But during the last few days a new knowledge and inspiration had come
to him. Gibraltar! A tedious, little, unlovely town of yellow houses
and coal sheds, with an undesirable climate. Yes. But above it was the
rock, the heart of a thousand memories and traditions which made it
beautiful. He looked at it now with its steep wooded slopes, scarred
by roads and catchments and the emplacements of guns. How much of
England was recorded there! To how many British sailing on great ships
from far dominions this huge buttress towering to its needle-ridge was
the first outpost of the homeland! And for the moment he seemed to be
its particular guardian, the ear which must listen night and day lest
harm come to it. Harm the Rock, and all the Empire, built with such
proud and arduous labour, would stagger under the blow, from St. Kilda
to distant Lyttelton. He looked across the water and imagined
Gibraltar as it looked at night, its houselights twinkling like a
crowded zone of stars, and its great search-beams turning the ships in
the harbour and the stone of the moles into gleaming silver, and
travelling far over the dark waters. No harm must come to Gibraltar.
His honour was all bound up in that. This was his service, and as he
thought upon it he was filled with a cold fury against the traitor who
thought it so easy to make him fail. But every hint of his anger had
passed from his face as he turned back into the room.
"If you bring me good information, why, we can do business," he said;
and Peiffer went away.
I was extremely irritated by the whole interview, and could hardly
wait for the door to close.
"What knocks me over," I cried, "is the impertinence of the man. Does
he really think that any old yarn like the fifty thousand rifles is
going to deceive you?"
Slingsby lit a cigarette.
"Peiffer's true to type, that's all," he answered imperturbably. "They
are vain, and vanity makes them think that you will at once believe
what they want you to believe. So their deceits are a little crude."
Then a smile broke over his face, and to some tune with which I was
unfamiliar he sang softly: "But he's coming to Gibraltar in the
morning."
"You think he will?"
"I am sure of it."
"And," I added doubtfully--it was not my business to criticise--"on
conditions he can walk out again?"
Slingsby's smile became a broad grin.
"His business in Gibraltar, my friend, is not with me. He will not
want to meet us any more; as soon as he has done what he came for he
will go--or try to go. He thinks we are fools, you see."
And in the end it seemed almost as though Peiffer was justified of his
belief. He crossed the next morning. He went to a hotel of the second
class; he slept in the hotel, and next morning he vanished. Suddenly
there was no more Peiffer. Peiffer was not. For six hours Peiffer was
not; and then at half-past five in the afternoon the telephone bell
rang in an office where Slingsby was waiting. He rushed to the
instrument.
"Who is it?" he cried, and I saw a wave of relief surge into his face.
Peiffer had been caught outside the gates and within a hundred yards
of the neutral zone. He had strolled out in the thick of the dockyard
workmen going home to Linea in Spain.
"Search him and bring him up here at once," said Slingsby, and he
dropped into his chair and wiped his forehead. "Phew! Thirty seconds
more and he might have snapped his fingers at us." He turned to me. "I
shall want a prisoner's escort here in half an hour."
I went about that business and returned in time to see Slingsby giving
an admirable imitation of a Prussian police official.
"So, Peiffer," he cried sternly, "you broke your word. Do not deny it.
It will be useless."
The habit of a lifetime asserted itself in Peiffer. He quailed before
authority when authority began to bully.
"I did not know I was outside the walls," he faltered. "I was taking a
walk. No one stopped me."
"So!" Slingsby snorted. "And these, Peiffer--what have you to say of
these?"
There were four separate passports which had been found in Peiffer's
pockets. He could be a Dane of Esbjerg, a Swede of Stockholm, a
Norwegian of Christiania, or a Dutchman from Amsterdam. All four
nationalities were open to Peiffer to select from.
"They provide you with these, no doubt, in your school at Hamburg,"
and Slingsby paused to collect his best German. "You are a prisoner of
war. _Das ist genug_," he cried, and Peiffer climbed to the internment
camp.
So far so good. Slingsby had annexed Peiffer, but more important than
Peiffer was Peiffer's little plot, and that he had not got. Nor did
the most careful inquiry disclose what Peiffer had done and where he
had been during the time when he was not. For six hours Peiffer had
been loose in Gibraltar, and Slingsby began to get troubled. He tried
to assume the mentality of Peiffer, and so reach his intention, but
that did not help. He got out all the reports in which Peiffer's name
was mentioned and read them over again.
I saw him sit back in his chair and remain looking straight in front
of him.
"Yes," he said thoughtfully, and he turned over the report to me,
pointing to a passage. It was written some months before, at Melilla,
on the African side of the Mediterranean, and it ran like this:
"Peiffer frequents the low houses and cafes, where he spends a good
deal of money and sometimes gets drunk. When drunk he gets very
arrogant, and has been known to boast that he has been three times in
Bordeaux since the war began, and, thanks to his passports, can travel
as easily as if the world were at peace. On such occasions he
expresses the utmost contempt for neutral nations. I myself have heard
him burst out: 'Wait until we have settled with our enemies. Then we
will deal properly with the neutral nations. They shall explain to us
on their knees. Meanwhile,' and he thumped the table, making the
glasses rattle, 'let them keep quiet and hold their tongues. We shall
do what we like in neutral countries.'"