ABOUT SPIES
Nessa's treatment of me both offended and distressed the Countess, and
Rosa tried to draw her attention away from it by engaging her in a
discussion about the afternoon's arrangements. It appeared that the
Countess always spent an hour or two on that particular day with a very
old friend, an invalid; Rosa herself had an engagement; Hans had to
attend some lecture or other in connection with his military studies;
and Nessa generally took Lottchen for a drive.
I would not hear of the arrangements being altered on my account,
declaring that I should be glad of the opportunity to get some decent
clothes.
"Then there will be an empty house," declared Rosa as we rose from the
table.
There were two servants--an elderly woman, named Gretchen, and Marie, a
younger one--in the room during the discussion; an important fact in
the light of after events.
Some letters arrived for the Countess and Rosa; and when the former
took hers away to the drawing-room, Rosa detained me in the library to
speak about Nessa's conduct. "I can't understand it, Johann," she said
irritably.
"Does it matter much?" I asked with a shrug.
"Of course it does. How are you going to help her if she keeps up this
ridiculous attitude? I've no patience with her."
"Oh, I have. She knows about our engagement, of course, and being
staunch to you looks on me as an enemy."
"But she knew you were coming and was most anxious to see you, and even
promised to try and bring you to reason."
"Have you told her that I'm willing to help her; if I can, that is?"
"No, but I'll go and tell her now, and tell her also that if she
doesn't wish to make mother furious, she'd better take things
differently."
"Perhaps if I could have a quiet chat with her, it might do the trick,"
I suggested casually.
"Then you mustn't lose any time about it. Why not this afternoon? I can
take Lottchen with me, and if you stop in, it could be managed easily.
And when I come back the three of us can talk the thing over together."
I agreed to this like a shot, and we went into the drawing-room, where
her mother was still reading her letters. Rosa glanced hurriedly at
hers, locked them in a little bureau, and hurried off to tackle Nessa.
The Countess was standing by a very handsome cabinet, a drawer of which
she had opened, and called me up to her. "Come here, Johann, I want you
to see me put these letters away," she said to my astonishment, and,
drawing my attention to the neatness with which her letters and papers
were arranged, asked me to remember precisely where she put those which
had just arrived, and to make sure that the drawer was locked. "I want
to have a witness," she added.
Then she spoke of Nessa's behaviour to me, saying how it had grieved
and surprised her.
"It is really not of the least consequence," I assured her.
"But I'm sorely afraid it is, Johann, and I'm very troubled. That's one
reason why I wished you to do that just now. I was always against her
coming to the house, but Rosa would have her;" and then by degrees the
reason came out.
She was afraid that von Erstein's story was true, that Nessa was really
a spy. Some one had a key to her drawer in the cabinet; she had found
her papers disturbed more than once; she kept money in the same place,
but none of it had ever been taken, so that it could not be the work of
a thief; she believed that Rosa's bureau had also been tampered with;
and as the servants were above suspicion, there seemed to be only one
conclusion.
The dear little lady was more grieved than angry about it. "I'm very
sorry for Nessa really, Johann, but we can't have a spy in the house;
yet I don't know how to get rid of her. But I won't open that drawer
again until you are with me, and then we shall both know that I'm not
making a mistake. Meanwhile, don't say anything to Rosa or any one."
We went upstairs together, and she was telling me the address of Hans'
tailor and how I was to find it, when the old servant, Gretchen, passed
us. Rosa was waiting dressed to go out, and told me she had spoken to
Nessa, who would come down to me in the drawing-room after the rest had
left the house.
"She baffles me, Johann. She just jumped at your offer to help her get
away--after her conduct just now, too! But she seems to have taken a
violent dislike to you, and even declared she wouldn't stop in the same
house with you," she said in a tone of consternation.
I passed it off with a smile and some banal remark about feminine
inconsistency, and went downstairs to wait for Nessa. There was a
lounge at the end of the drawing-room, a big comfortable sort of winter
garden, with lots of big plants, and rugs and easy chairs and so on,
and I sat down there to think over the position. I didn't smoke; a
lucky fact in view of things.
It worried me excessively that Nessa should be regarded as a spy, and I
was puzzling over the explanation of what the Countess had told me when
I heard the front door shut. That meant they had left the house and
that Nessa would soon be down.
But she did not come for some time, and presently I heard a movement in
the big room, the faint click of a key being turned and then of a
drawer being cautiously opened.
The conclusion was obvious. The spy was at work, believing that I had
gone to the tailor's and meaning to fix the thing on Nessa, should her
little operation be discovered. So I got up noiselessly and, from the
safe shelter of some plants, did a little spy work on my own account.
It was one of the servants, of course; but I could not at first catch
sight of her face. She was at Rosa's bureau, reading a letter, probably
one of those which had come just before. That did not occupy more than
a minute, and she next opened the Countess's cabinet drawer, picked out
a couple of letters, glanced at them rapidly, just tossed them back
carelessly, relocked the drawer, and turned to leave the room.
I saw her clearly then, for she went out by a door which stood at my
end of the room, near the big stove in the corner. It was Gretchen.
It would never do to have a possible eavesdropper when Nessa and I were
together, and, being unwilling to let the woman know she had been seen,
I crept over to the door we all used, opened it noisily, shut it with a
bang, and began to whistle.
This had immediate results. I heard the door of the stove opened at the
back, some logs were thrown in, and directly afterwards Gretchen came
out, with an apology for disturbing me.
"It's my work to see to the stoves, sir," she explained with a smirk.
"And the door to our quarters is locked."
"All right, Gretchen. It's getting chilly, isn't it?"
"It gets cold in the evenings, sir, and my orders are to see that the
stoves are kept going well." She was a little uneasy; and after she had
been gone a while, I had a look at the hiding-place.
It was a passage with cupboards on each side, and as the door at the
other end was fastened, she had been compelled to return through the
room when she had heard me. There was a bolt on my side of that door,
and I shot it to prevent her coming back to listen while Nessa and I
were together.
I was only a minute or two in the place, but when I left it I found
Nessa already in the drawing-room. She had caught me apparently in the
act of playing the spy, and her look left no doubt about her opinion.
I laughed. I really could not help it. It was such a preposterous
misreading of the situation that the ludicrous absurdity of it appealed
to me. Of course my laughter added to her indignation and also to the
awkwardness of the meeting.
"You are practising your new profession, I see. It appears to rouse
your sense of humour," she said icily.
"It would probably rouse yours also if you understood everything," I
retorted, not at all relishing her prompt condemnation.
"I don't see anything particularly humorous in your sneaking into the
house of my friends and spying in its holes and corners."
"Perhaps not, but I had a good reason," I said shortly, a bit rattled
by her sneer.
"No doubt; but I have no curiosity on such a subject. Rosa has induced
me to see you, so I----" She got so far in the same level, cutting
tone, evidently putting a great restraint upon herself; but she could
not keep it up. Her eyes blazed suddenly, her cheeks flushed, and
raising her voice in her indignation she exclaimed: "How dare you
come----"
I had to stop that, however, as the old eavesdropper might have
followed her to the room and be on keyhole drill. "I am very glad to
meet you, Miss Caldicott," I broke in in German loudly enough to be
heard outside, and added in a low tone in English: "It is not safe to
speak so loudly as you did. Come away from the door;" and I led the way
into the conservatory.
She stared at me as if I were a dangerous lunatic, but after a moment's
pause followed me. "Say what you like now, but lower your voice," I
said, lowering my own tone.
She hesitated, but acted on the warning and returned to her former icy
tone. "What I want to know is why you dare to come here in a false
name, as the sham lover of my friend, and humiliate me in this way. If
you must be a spy, haven't you enough decency to avoid blackening me by
making me a partner in such treacherous baseness?"
I met her angry look for a second, realizing that this was the reason
for her conduct to me; and it was all I could do to prevent myself
smiling at her injustice, although it riled me considerably.
"Rather a rough judgment," I replied with a shrug, "and your manner
doesn't smooth it out much; but as no one else can hear you now, I
don't mind so much. I can explain----"
"Explain!" she broke in scornfully.
"Yes, explain. That's what I said. If you understood----"
"I do understand as it is--too well," she fired in again.
I really could not help smiling again, both at her words and flashing
anger. "I must either smile or lose my temper as you have done; and
it's better to smile."
This was like petrol on the fire. "Just what I should expect of you--to
see nothing but a joke in my indignation."
"I'm not laughing at your indignation, but at your mistake. You always
have been ready to make the worst of anything I do."
"What have you ever done that was worth doing?"
"Nothing much, I admit."
"If you were like other men you'd be doing what they are
doing--fighting."
"Perhaps I should; but we can't all be soldiers."
Her lip curled. "Men can; but even you needn't have sunk so low as to
be a spy!"
"Go on. I'm not ashamed of what I'm doing; and if you'll let me
explain----"
She stopped me again with an impatient gesture. "I need no explanation,
thank you. Aren't you here as Johann Lassen?"
"Yes."
"Pretending to be engaged to Rosa von Rebling?"
"Yes."
"And pretending to have lost your memory?"
"Yes."
"Haven't you both spoken and acted lies to gain admission to this
house?"
"I had to, of course."
"You convict yourself out of your own mouth, then?"
"Apparently."
"Aren't you trying to get employed in the Secret Service here?"
"Looks black, doesn't it?"
"Looks!" and she drew a long deep breath and repeated the word. "But
you don't imagine for one instant that I will be a party to it!"
"You are already, for that matter."
"You shall leave this house at once and never set foot in it again, and
I shall find the means to let Rosa know the disgraceful trick you have
played."
"And if I refuse?"
"I'll expose you as surely as my name is Nessa Caldicott."
"You know what the result would be to me?"
"I neither know nor care."
"Then I'll tell you. I should certainly be imprisoned and most probably
shot."
She wavered somewhat at that. "It is easy for you to avoid it by doing
what I say--leave the house."
"That's out of the question."
"Do you expect me to allow you to go on imposing on the girl who has
been my friend at a time when I was absolutely helpless? Wouldn't you
be ashamed of me if I were to consent to such treachery? Can't you see
what a vile degradation it would be, and that I should hate myself as
well as you if I consented?"
"No. Yes. Yes. I wish you'd ask one question at a time."
"Do you expect me to smile at such insufferable flippancy as that?"
"No. But it wasn't flippancy at all. I was answering your questions in
order. You appear to think that I like being compelled to deceive Miss
von Rebling."
"How can you talk about having been compelled to do it?"
"Because it happens to be the truth."
"Your version of the truth, you mean?"
"Exactly. My version of the truth, although you won't believe it. I was
forced into the thing against my will by a series of coincidences which
I found it impossible to avoid; and, as a matter of fact, I am not
harming Miss von Rebling in the least."
"Haven't you led her to believe you may break off the engagement?"
"I've been considering it."
"Don't you call that harming her?"
"No."
"How can you say that? What will happen when the real man arrives?"
"Not even then."
She gestured incredulously. "It's impossible," she cried. "In any case
I insist upon her being told."
I stopped to think a bit. I knew Nessa so well that I could quite
understand her mood. Her first fierce rush of anger had spent itself,
checked, I was sure, by my statement of the consequences to me if the
truth were told. She had not a suspicion of the reason for my being in
Berlin, evidently believing that I had come as a spy, and knew even
better than I what my end would be if I were denounced; and her words
had cut me too deeply to let me tell her the truth then--that I had
only come on her account.
At the same time I could quite appreciate how she would shrink from
being made a partner, as she had said, and her impatience for me to
leave the house. It was an awkward corner, but I thought I could see a
way round it.
"I'll do what you suggest," I said at length.
"Go away?"
"No. Tell Miss von Rebling."
This alarmed her at once. "But you? What you said about the risk?" she
protested.
"Oh, never mind about me. You said you couldn't endure it; and, of
course, nothing matters compared with that. I should have taken care to
let her know everything as soon as I'd done what I came to do."
"What is that?"
"Your mother is very anxious about you, and when she knew I was coming
here, naturally wanted me to find out things."
"But they've had my letters, surely?"
"Not a line since some time after Christmas."
"Do you mean that, Jack? Oh, poor mother! I've written regularly every
week. When Julia Wassermann died, her father, who hates the English and
hated me because I'm English, turned me out of the house. I should have
gone to one of these dreadful concentration camps, if it hadn't been
for Rosa. That's why I can't bear the thought of deceiving her;
but--I--I don't want to get you into any trouble. We--we can't tell
her. We--we mustn't. You can go away, can't you?" and she bit her lip
in desperate perplexity and distress.
"I'm going to tell her, Nessa," I said.
"But I don't wish it, Jack. I really don't. I didn't mean all the
horrid things I said just now; I--I'm sorry. I've been just distracted."
"Don't worry. Nothing very terrible is likely to come to me; and I
quite agree that she ought to know the truth."
She looked at me wonderingly. "How different you are, Jack. What has
changed you so? You're so quiet and so--so firm. You don't look the
same. Not a bit like you used to be in any way, manner, bearing,
everything. I saw it the moment I came into the room."
"You didn't show it. You went for me in much the same old style, you
know," I said with a smile. "You always did think me a rotter."
"Do you mean that you've risked coming here merely because of--of what
mother told you about me."
"Not very likely, is it?"
"It wouldn't have been at one time, but---- You mustn't say anything to
Rosa. You mustn't, really. You won't, Jack, will you?" and she laid her
hand on my arm appealingly.
"I must, Nessa."
"No, no. I won't be the cause----"
And then, just as she was clinging to my arm and urging me, she broke
away with a sudden cry of consternation.
I turned to find Rosa standing in the doorway, staring at us wide-eyed
in amazement.