THE "WAITERS' UNION"
Guest and I had taken small rooms not a hundred yards from the Café
Suisse, as the restaurant was called. We made our way there immediately
after we had settled with our friend Karl, and Guest locked the door of
our tiny sitting-room behind us. He first of all walked round the room
and felt the wall carefully. Then he seated himself in front of the table
and motioned me to draw my chair up almost to his side.
"My young friend," he said, "we have now reached the most difficult part
of our enterprise. For several days we have not spoken together
confidentially. I have not even told you the little I was able to
discover in Hamburg. Shall I go on?"
"Of course," I answered.
"Take off your gloves," Guest said. "You cannot wear them in the
restaurant. Good! Now, first of all, have you seen the morning papers?"
"No!" I answered.
He produced one from his pocket, and, placing it before me, pointed to a
paragraph.
"Read," he said, "your obituary notice."
This is what I read:
"TRAGIC DEATH OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN IN THE ROCKIES
"Yesterday, whilst Mr. Charles Urnans and a party of friends from New
York were returning to their camp near Mount Phoenix, they came across
the body of a man in a deserted gorge half-way down the mountain. He had
apparently been shot through the heart by a rifle bullet, and must have
been dead for some weeks. From papers and other belongings found in his
possesion, the deceased gentleman appears to have been a Mr. Hardross
Courage of England."
_LATER_
"The body found this morning by Mr. Charles Urnans of New York has been
identified as that of Mr. Hardross Courage, the famous English cricketer
and well-known sportsman. Mr. Courage is known to have left New York some
months ago, for a hunting trip in the Rockies, and nothing has been heard
of him for some time. No trace has been discovered of his guides,
although his camp and outfit were found close at hand. As no money or
valuables were discovered on the body of the deceased, it is feared that
he has met with foul play."
I think that no man can read his own obituary notice without a shiver.
For a moment I lost my nerve. I cursed the moment when I had met Guest, I
felt an intense, sick hatred of my present occupation and everything
connected with it. I felt myself guilty of this man's death. Guest
listened to my incoherent words gravely. When I had finished he laid his
hand upon nine.
"Gently, Courage," he said. "I knew that this must be a shock to you, but
you must not lose your sense of proportion. Think of the men who have
sacrificed their lives for just causes, remember that you and I to-day,
and from to-day onward, can never be sure that each moment is not our
last. Remember that we are working to save our country from ruin, to save
Europe from a war in which not one life, but a hundred thousand might
perish. Remember that you and I alone are struggling to frustrate the
greatest, the most subtle, the most far-reaching plot which the mind of
man ever conceived. That poor fellow who lies out on the Rockies with a
bullet in his heart, is only a tiny link in the great chain: you or I may
share his fate at any moment. Be a man, Courage. We have no time for
sentiment."
"You are right," I answered. "Go on."
"We are now," Guest declared, "in this position. In Hamburg I discovered
the meeting-place of the No. 1 Branch of the Waiters' Union, and the
place itself is now under our control. In that room at the Café Suisse
will be woven the final threads of the great scheme. How are we to get
there? How are we to penetrate its secrets?"
"We must see the room first," I remarked.
"And then there is the question of ourselves," Guest continued. "We are
both nominally dead men. But none the less, our friends leave little to
chance. You may not have noticed it, but I knew very well that we were
followed home to-day from the café. Every moment of ours will be spied
upon. Is the change in our appearance sufficient?"
I looked at myself in the little gilt mirror over the mantel-piece.
Perhaps because I looked, thinking of myself as I had been in the days
before these strange happenings had come into my life, I answered his
question promptly.
"I cannot believe," I said, "that any one would know me for Hardross
Courage. I am perfectly certain, too, that I should not recognize in you
to-day the Leslie Guest who--died at Saxby."
"I believe that you are right," Guest admitted. "At any rate, it is one
of those matters which we must leave no chance. Only keep your identity
always before you. At the Café Suisse we shall be watched every moment of
the day. Remember that you are a German-American of humble birth.
Remember that always."
I nodded.
"I am not an impulsive person," I answered. "I am used to think before I
speak. I shall remember. But there is one thing I am afraid of, Guest. It
must also have occurred to you. Now that the Café Suisse is in the hands
of strangers, will not your friends change their meeting-place?"
"I think not," Guest answered slowly. "I know a little already about that
room. It has a hidden exit, by way of the cellar, into a court, every
house of which is occupied by foreigners. A surprise on either side would
be exceedingly difficult. I do not think that our friends will be anxious
to give up the place, unless their suspicions are aroused concerning us.
You see their time is very close at hand now. This, at any rate, is
another of the risks which we must run."
"Very well," I answered, "You see the time?"
Guest nodded.
"I am going to explain to you exactly," he said, "what you have to do."
"Right," I answered.
"The parcel on the sofa there," he said, "contains a second-hand suit of
dress clothes. You will put them on, over them your old black overcoat
which we bought at Hamburg, and your bowler hat. At four o'clock
precisely you will call at the offices of the German Waiters' Union, at
No. 13, Old Compton Street, and ask for Mr. Hirsch. Your name is Paul
Schmidt. You were born in Offenbach, but went to America at the age of
four. You were back in Germany for two years at the age of nineteen,
and you have served your time at Mayence. You have come to England
with an uncle, who has taken a small restaurant in Soho, and who
proposes to engage you as head-waiter. You will be enrolled as a member
of the Waiters' Union, as a matter of course; but when that has been
arranged you write on a slip of paper these words, and pass them to Mr.
Hirsch--'I, too, have a rifle'!"
I was beginning to get interested.
"'I, too, have a rifle,'" I repeated. "Yes! I can remember that; but I
shall be talking like a poll-parrot for I shan't have the least idea what
it means."
"You need not know much," Guest answered. "Those words are your passport
into the No. 1 Branch of the Waiters' Union, whose committee, by the bye
meet at the Café Suisse. If you are asked why you wish to join, you need
only say because you are a German!"
"Right," I answered. "I'll get into the clothes."
Guest gave me a few more instructions while I was changing, and by four
o'clock punctually I opened the swing door of No. 13, Old Compton Street.
The place consisted of a waiting-room, very bare and very dirty; a
counter, behind which two or three clerks were very busy writing in
ponderous, well-worn ledgers, and an inner door. I made my way towards
one of the clerks, and inquired in my best German if I could see Mr.
Hirsch.
The clerk--he was as weedy a looking youth as ever I had seen--pointed
with ink-stained finger to the benches which lined the room.
"You wait your turn," he said, and waved me away.
I took my place behind at least a dozen boys and young men, whose
avocation was unmistakable. Most of them were smoking either cigarettes
or a pipe, and most of them were untidy and unhealthy looking. They took
no notice of me, but sat watching the door to the inner room, which
opened and shut with wonderful rapidity. Every time one of their number
came out, another took his place. It came to my turn sooner than I could
have believed possible.
I found myself in a small office, untidy, barely furnished, and thick
with tobacco smoke. Its only occupant was a stout man, with flaxen hair
and beard, and mild blue eyes. He was sitting in his shirt-sleeves, and
smoking a very black cigar.
"Well?" he exclaimed, almost before I had crossed the threshold.
"My name is Paul Schmidt," I said, "and I should like to join the
Waiters' Union."
"Born?"
"Offenbach!"
"Age?"
"Thirty!"
"Working?"
"Café Suisse!"
"Come from?"
"America!"
He tossed me a small handbook.
"Half-a-crown," he said; holding out his hand.
I gave it him. I was beginning to understand why I had not been kept very
long waiting.
"Clear out!" he said. "No questions, please. The book tells you
everything!"
I looked him in the face.
"I, too, have a rifle," I said boldly.
I found, then, that those blue eyes were not so mild as they seemed. His
glance seemed to cut me through and through.
"You understand what you are saying?" he asked.
"Yes!" I answered. "I want to join the No. 1 Branch."
"Why?"
"Because I am a German," I answered.
"Who told you about it?"
"A waiter named Hans in the Manhattan Hotel, New York."
I lied with commendable promptitude.
"Have you served?" he asked.
"At Mayence, eleven years ago," I answered.
"Where did you say that you were working?" he asked.
"Café Suisse!" I said.
It seemed to me that he had been on the point of entering my name in a
small ledger, which he had produced from one of the drawers by his side,
but my answer apparently electrified him. His eyes literally held mine.
He stared at me steadily for several moments.
"How long have you been there?" he asked. "I do not recognize you."
"I commence to-day," I said. "My uncle has just taken the café. He will
make me his head-waiter."
"Has your uncle been in the business before?" he asked.
"He kept a saloon in Brooklyn," I answered.
"Made money at it?"
"Yes!"
"Were you with him?"
"No! I was at the Manhattan Hotel."
"Your uncle will not make a fortune at the Café Suisse," he remarked.
"I do not think," I answered, "that he will lose one."
"Does he know what you propose?"
I shook my head.
"The fatherland means little to him," I answered. "He has lived in
America too long."
"You are willing to buy your own rifle?" he asked.
"I would rather not," I answered.
"We sell them for a trifle," he continued. "You would not mind ten
shillings."
"I would rather pay nothing," I answered, "but I will pay ten shillings
if I must."
He nodded.
"I cannot accept you myself," he said. "We know too little about you. You
must attend before the committee to-night."
"Where?" I asked.
"At the Café Suisse," he answered. "We shall send for you! Till then!"
"Till then," I echoed, backing out of the room.