THE AFFAIR OF THE ALLIES’ CONFERENCE
By what strange fate, you may ask, did I, Heine, the chief of the
Intelligence Bureau in England, escape the detection which was the
fate of Koos, of Klein, of Posser and in a degree of von Kahn? Had I
not been associated with them? Had I not been identified with them? It
is possible that there would have been little reason to ask this
question, but I had been seen with Koos. The British Intelligence
Department knew that I was associated with Posser and Klein. I had
been seen in circumstances which, I am willing to admit, were
suspicious, in Manchester, and yet I, the head and brain of the
organization might walk at liberty and none question me as to my
comings and goings!
I had this matter thoroughly thrashed out with myself in the seclusion
of my room, for we Germans harbour no illusions. We have that gift of
introspection, of self-weighing, which gift no other nation can claim
with truth. We see the black side and the bright side. We see our own
faults, few though they are, our own national shortcomings, such as
modesty, sentimentality, and transparent honesty, and we are able to
balance delicately the pros and the cons, even though in so doing we
disparage in thought our own acts and thoughts. And after a night of
self-communion I came to this conclusion:
It is true that I had been seen in association with my unfortunate
friends, but then so had other men who were beyond any suspicion. It
was abundantly clear to me that I had escaped any unpleasantness as a
result of the thoroughness of my organization, my foresight, and the
well-devised methods I had adopted for covering my tracks. You might
come into my office any day and demand that my books should be seen.
You might go to my bank and look at my account. You might examine all
the records of my trading and find nothing there to support the
suggestion that I was not carrying on a legitimate business.
I had not been very well after the unhappy ending of Klein and the
disappearance of poor Posser. Who knows in what prison camp he
languishes, far from the sound of Hameln’s bells--he was a Hanoverian,
related to the well-born Graf von Welsich-Heidebrand--or with what
anguished tears he dreams of his beloved Fatherland? But enough of
sentiment! We Germans are a practical people, so practical that we
have aroused the envy and hatred of the whole world.
I think it must have been my association with the spurious journalist,
Haynes, that not only awoke a certain uneasiness in my breast, and
shook my confidence in my judgment as to the existence of a British
secret service, but it also showed me a way to dispel any suspicion
which I might have created in the bosom of the police, and also to
advertize my innocence to the great public. I began systematically to
write letters to the newspapers.
You may remember my long letter in the _Evening Post_ on the necessity
for limiting the supplies to neutrals. You may recall the letter which
was given due prominence in the _Post Telegraph_ on the urgent
necessity for a South American Federation to show a united front
against German “cruelties”--I felt a foul traitor to _Deutschtum_ when
I wrote this!--you may have clipped from numerous papers, both in
London and in the provinces, innumerable epistles, signed Francisco
Cannelli, on the heroism of France, on the splendour of Belgium, on
the necessity for learning Spanish, so that the good English could
come into South America and take away the wicked German’s trade, and
you would certainly have found my name against respectable amounts in
the subscription lists which were opened by various newspapers in the
early days of the war.
It was a scheme of colossal daring and how well I succeeded! No less
than seven newspapers published my photograph. I was interviewed for
the _Times-Herald_. I was referred to in other letters to the editor,
and my frankness and geniality were praised in the highest measure.
For, in the course of these letters, I admitted frankly that, quite
unwittingly--because of my foreign origin--I had been acquainted with
many notorious spies in England and I even suggested methods by which
the spy could be traced and brought to justice (this was in one of the
four letters I wrote on “The Unseen Hand”). I took up “The Unseen
Hand” idea with enthusiasm. It was a popular cry and who was I, that I
should not take advantage of the onrushing wave and ride to popularity
upon its crest?
To the everlasting honour of the illustrious and excellent chiefs of
my Department in Berlin, they recognized the object of my scheme, and
I could show you now, if the codes had not been destroyed, messages of
congratulation couched in the most gracious terms and signed by names
which indicated personages of the most exalted character.
There was living in England (in Kent to be exact) at this time, the
Baron von Hertz-Missenger, who was what was termed a naturalized
German, and as I have remarked on many occasions (and have been
complimented on my delicate wit) a naturalized German is a German in
his natural state.
The Herr Baron had a beautiful house and was in a position to secure
news both from the Fatherland and from certain exclusive circles in
London. From that high flag-staff of his, many a message has leapt
into the night and been caught by our vigilant radio operators at
Wilhelmshaven. From that closed study, with its rows upon rows of
books, its gorgeous Persian carpets and its shaded lamps, many a
British secret has been coded into a few meaningless words.
The Herr Baron and I were good friends, though we seldom met. I think
he was pleased with me because I never forgot the homage which is due
to the greatly-born, and he was certainly popular with me because he
had the ear of Potsdam and the All-Highest Confidence of He Whose Name
we will not mention. My reputation as a writer of letters had been
firmly established when I received a note asking me to meet the Baron
at a certain hotel in a South Coast watering place. Precisely on the
day, at the hour and to the minute of my appointment, I presented
myself in the private suite of his Excellency, who always received me
with the most gracious condescension.
“Heine,” he said, when he had closed the door, “I am very troubled
about you.”
“About me, your Excellency,” I said in surprise.
“Yes, about you,” he repeated. “It is clear to me that you are
suspect. I have heard all about the things which have happened in the
past, and knowing the British Secret Service as I do, I cannot imagine
that you have, as the Americans say, got away with it.”
“Secret service, your Excellency?” I smiled; “surely you do not
believe in a widely organized----?”
“Don’t be a fool, Heine,” said the Herr Baron sharply; even to be
called a fool by a man of his position and rank is a compliment,
implying as it does a friendliness and an intimacy which few of us
attain with our superiors. “Of course there is a Secret Police. The
whole country is overrun with them. It is the most deadly Secret
Police in the world, with the exception of the American, because it
doesn’t boast and it doesn’t talk. Its very silence is its strength.”
For my part, though I was not feeling strong, I was silent. One cannot
argue the point with an amateur, even a distinguished amateur, and
whilst I was always willing to admit that the police of England were
undoubtedly brilliant and extraordinarily lucky, I could not admit the
existence of an organization on the scale which the Herr Baron
outlined.
“You don’t believe this,” he said quickly, and before I could protest
my faith in anything he said, he went on: “I tell you, that this hotel
is filled with English spies. They probably saw you come into this
room, and it is fairly certain they followed you from London and will
go back with you. That is why I asked you in my telegram to come down
and have a friendly argument on the question of trade after the war,
as outlined in your letter to the _Post Herald_. That telegram was
read and re-read before it reached you. Have no doubt of that, Heine.
Here in England they know I am a German. They hope I am loyal. They do
not trust me any more than they trust you.”
“But surely, Herr Baron,” I smiled, “this does not mean that your
Excellency will not be able to serve the Fatherland in moments of
emergency?”
He shook his head.
“If by that you mean wireless, my answer is no,” he said, “my wireless
apparatus is dust and ashes. I have burnt it and destroyed every
single code. I have one more piece of work to do for Deutschland and
if I succeed, or if somebody else succeeds, I am finished, and leave
well alone. I cannot advise you to do the same, because it is your
business to take risks just as it is my business not to take risks.
Now I have called you down partly to warn you, and partly to give you
certain information. Whether you act on that information or not is
also your business. You have heard of Lord Leatham?”
I nodded.
“He has an estate in Shropshire. He is not a rich man, and some years
he used to let his estate to a tenant. He is a friend of a friend of
mine and I have learnt that it is the intention of the Government to
take over his property as a prison camp for German officers. Now, it
may be necessary--this is merely a conjecture, and I am only looking
ahead--to communicate with gentlemen who will be in that camp. Leatham
Priory is a very old house,” he spoke slowly and impressively, “at one
time it was in the possession of a persecuted Catholic family, and
there is a legend that beneath the grounds runs a secret subterranean
passage. That it was something more than a legend Lord Leatham
discovered twenty years ago, for a portion of this tunnel was
unearthed, but it seemed to lead to nowhere. What his Lordship does
_not_ know, is that that tunnel is virtually intact and that the
passage which was discovered was not the real one but was merely a
branch which was never completed and which was intended to lead to the
crypt of the village church. Remember that this is all I can tell you.
I know no more, and I merely pass on the information to you for what
it is worth.”
I went back to London that night, a little puzzled as to why the good
Baron had brought me all the way to Brighton to give me information of
this kind. It was not a certainty that any well-placed person would be
accommodated on Lord Leatham’s property, and it was less certain that
I could be of any assistance to such a prisoner, unless I was prepared
to take down a gang of workmen (which was obviously impossible) to
open up the hidden passage.
The whole scheme was impracticable and I could only put it down as an
excess of zeal for the Fatherland on the part of his Excellency.
At parting the Baron had given me a little plan showing the direction
of the tunnel, the entrance of which he said would be found in a tiny
ravine through which flowed a small river, and had also advised me to
look up particulars of Leatham Priory.
The first discovery I made when I began my investigations was that
Leatham Priory was not in Shropshire at all. It was in fact in
Buckinghamshire, midway between Maidenhead and the small town of
Beaconsfield. It was a remarkable mistake for the good Baron who, as a
sporting man, was well acquainted with England, to have made, or
rather it would have been remarkable, but for my knowledge of our
German characteristics. Naturally his Excellency was as vague as
possible. It was not his business to take risks, and if it should ever
come out that he had told me of Leatham Priory, or if he had been
overheard, how could anyone believe that this sport-racer, who had
dined and slept in almost all the country houses in England, could
make so great a mistake as to place Lord Leatham’s estate in
Shropshire, when it was in Buckinghamshire?
Oh, yes, Heine was alert and wide-awake!
I sent a good friend down into Buckingham (or Bucks as they call it)
to discover what was happening and he brought back the news that Lord
Leatham’s house, the Priory, was being extensively decorated and
refurnished.
Now, I know that the English, because of their fear of Germany, treat
German officer prisoners with the greatest kindness, but I could not
believe, in view of certain outcries in the public press to which I
contributed my share, that they would spend large sums of money to
furnish magnificently a country house for Germans, and I saw that even
as the Herr Baron had been inaccurate in one particular, so was it
likely that he had been wilfully “misinformed” in another.
I bided my time, for I knew that the significance of the Baron’s
communication would be revealed. In the meanwhile, I myself had paid a
visit to the ground and had discovered, not without a great deal of
difficulty, the end of the subterranean passage. It needed some
furtive digging, for the end had fallen in and was entirely covered
up, before I could make sure that I had discovered the entrance.
The day, or rather the very early morning, I wriggled through the
débris and found myself in a small paved tunnel, smelling terribly
musty, was the day on which I understood the purport of the Baron’s
communication. On that day the papers announced that there was to be a
great War Council in London. There had arrived military
representatives of all the Powers, and I, standing in Whitehall, had
seen these officers enter the War Office, where they remained for two
or three hours, when they were escorted by British officers to Downing
Street, where again they remained some time.
At half-past four in the afternoon six great motor-cars drew up in
Whitehall and the members of the Council entered the cars and were
driven off. From the end of Downing Street I saw they turned into St.
James’s Park and, hiring a taxi, I followed, giving the driver
instruction to keep the cars in sight as long as he could. They passed
through the park, up St. James’s Street, and I thought they were going
to their hotel, but instead of this they went straight along
Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner, where they turned into the park.
Realizing that I could not follow with my taxi, I put my head out of
the window and ordered my driver to go up Park Lane. At the Marble
Arch I picked them up again. They passed along the Bayswater Road and
in a flash their destination was revealed to me. It was in order to
entertain this Council that Lord Leatham’s house had been decorated!
It was here that the real conference was to be held!
It was a breathless, tremendous problem which the Herr Baron had set
me, but I am not a man easily baffled. There is something in our
German nature which rises superior to difficulties and which enables
us to meet the most tremendous problems in a calm spirit of
transcendent perception.
I flew back to my office as fast as the taxi could carry me, and for
an hour my telephone was busy. Understand that whatever risk I ran was
more than justified. For there were men in that Council whose names
were household words, whose faces were familiar even to the child of
the cottager; there were names to conjure with, reputations and
records that would have dazzled and frightened a man of a smaller
calibre than myself.
By twelve o’clock that night two desperate and well-armed men were
exploring the tunnel. They were men who were prepared at the call of
the Fatherland to lay down their lives, yea, even on an enemy’s soil.
I was not one of them.
I was sorely tempted to go, but common prudence dictated that the
brain of the movement should be far removed from the scene of danger.
Apparently the party met with no opposition and traversed the tunnel
which had collapsed in places until they reached the ruins of a flight
of circular stone stairs, which led up to a sort of shaft and
terminated abruptly at a circular stone flag.
In preparation for such an emergency they had brought collapsible
ladders and one of our friends mounted to the top. He could hear
footsteps above him, and I judge that he was in the old baronial
banqueting hall which is celebrated throughout England as the most
perfect type of Norman architecture extant in the country. Its
stone-flagged floor, its vaulted roof, its grim stone fire-place, its
great mullion windows, have been so often described in guide-books
that it is not necessary for me to attempt to rival our good friend
Karl Baedeker.
But every attempt which was made to raise the flagged trap-door, which
undoubtedly existed, was frustrated. I employed in this task one
Hermann Swartz, or, to give him his English name, Herbert Black, a
very skilled member of my staff who was also, curiously enough, a
stone mason. Finding their efforts unavailing, the party made their
way back to London and reported to me.
“I can tell you this, Herr Heine,” said Swartz, with that profound
earnestness which is the charm of the German working man who has no
peer in the world, “that if you let me bring my tools I will guarantee
to open that trap to-night, but I feel in this that I cannot assume
responsibility unless I am directed by a superior officer, and I
suggest that you should come with us.”
“My dear good Swartz,” said I testily, “why should I go with you? You
must understand that it is very necessary that I should not be
identified with any such enterprise as this, that I am the brains of a
great movement and that upon my safety depends, perhaps, the
ever-to-be desired security of the Fatherland.”
Whereupon Swartz (and I regret to have to report this, and have
already notified Berlin of the occurrence) refused to go except under
my leadership.
Having made a most exhaustive inquiry of all the circumstances, and
having discovered that there was very little danger of my detection, I
agreed, and at three o’clock in the morning, behold me crawling
stealthily through a square hole in the banqueting hall of Leatham
Priory. One dim electric light burned in the roof, giving the gaunt
apartment an air of size and mystery. Save along the centre, it was
uncarpeted. The smouldering ashes of a fire still burnt in the big
grate and from somewhere a great clock ticked solemnly. The room was
almost innocent of furniture. There was a long, an interminably long
table set upon the parallelogram of carpet and against this were
pushed about twenty chairs. There were three or four suits of armour,
two big pieces of tapestry covering the principal walls, a black oak
buffet or sideboard, half a dozen easy-chairs about the fire-place
and, so far as I could see, nothing else.
There were four doors leading from the room, two at each end, and I
gathered that those flanking the sideboard would lead to the kitchens
and servants’ apartments, and that the two doors facing them, which
were beautifully carved, and one of which was half hidden by a
portière, would lead to the wing in which Lord Leatham and his guests
were asleep.
I had pulled on felt slippers over my boots and made my quiet way to
the door which was covered by the portière. My objective you may
easily guess. These high nobilities who were visiting Lord Leatham
were members of a Conference, that Conference would be held possibly
in one of the great saloons and the portfolios containing the notes of
the meeting would be found in the high-born lord’s study or office.
I proceeded very stealthily, because I knew that in view of the
presence of such important people, watchers and sentries would be
placed about the house, and in this I was not mistaken, for looking
through one of the long windows--there were half a dozen in the
hall--I could see two policemen walking slowly along a path which ran
parallel with the house.
The only danger was that they would also post watchers inside the
house. As a matter of fact, there were two, but these men were posted
on the next floor, one at each end of a passage leading to the
apartments where the distinguished guests were sleeping. The study I
found after a tiresome search. It was situated in an annex and reached
by another passage which ran at right angles to the main corridor.
The door was fastened by a patent lock which, however, presented no
difficulties to Heinrich Falkenburg, one of my assistants, whose
services I am pleased to acknowledge. I made a very careful
examination of the door with my pocket-lamp and there appeared to be
no wires and no alarm signal.
You may wonder how I came to distinguish the study from the other
rooms. I will tell you. It was the only room that was locked. I opened
the door cautiously and listened for the sound of a bell. We stood for
nearly five minutes before we ventured into the room, and when we did,
we were rewarded. There was only one window and across that heavy
purple velvet curtains had been drawn. There was a large library-table
in the middle on which were several ash-trays filled with cigar ash.
There was no need for me to make this discovery, for the room was
heavy with the scent of cigar smoke and cedar wood.
So, thought I, the excellent plenipotentiaries have met here and not
in the saloon. I looked about and found some scraps of paper in the
waste-paper basket. Some were covered with figures, a few were just
fantastically scrawled designs such as men make when their minds are
occupied and their hands are idle. There were one or two blue books
relating to food supply, but nothing of any great moment, though I
very carefully pocketed all the written matter.
The search was necessarily slow since we depended upon our flash
lamps, though we might have switched on the lights with impunity. In
one corner of the room was a large and an old-fashioned safe. It stood
about two metres high and a metre broad and had two narrow doors. Upon
this Heinrich got to work and in half an hour I had the satisfaction
of seeing the doors swing open.
What a tribute to my perspicacity! What a triumphant vindication of a
“Hun’s” foresight! Call us “Boches,” call us by every vile name that
your kultural deficiencies may suggest, but bear ungrudging witness to
the everything-foreseeing perfections of German organization!
For there, stacked neatly, one on top of the other, were six black
portfolios, bulky and bulging. There was no need to ask whose
properties these were. The golden “R.F.” on one, the arms of Savoy on
another, the crowned eagles on a third, advertized their ownership.
Very carefully I removed them, handing them to my assistants.
The safe contained nothing else except a battered tin cash-box. I
lifted it with difficulty, for it was heavy.
“No,” thought I, “we are not burglars. We do not require this haughty
Lord’s treasure. We Germans are not pot-house thieves, horse-holders
and cut-throat hangdogs, to steal from a house like burglars! Let my
Lordship keep his gold. I have something better!”
I gave the signal and we crept forth along the corridor to the trap.
We had closed it for fear that somebody passing through the hall
should notice the opening and give the alarm.
Hermann knelt down and tried to lift the slab, but without success. He
used his pocket-knife and did no more than break off the blade. I
cursed his bungling stupidity so furiously that he cowered before me.
What undependable swine these German working classes are! What
brainless idiots, with no other thought than eating and beer-drinking!
“Wretched owl,” I hissed in his ear, “if we were in Germany I would
flay you alive!”
“Herr Heine,” he whined, “it is not my fault. I wanted to bring up my
tools, but you refused to let me.”
I could not waste any time arguing with this scum. In half-an-hour the
dawn would be breaking. There was only one way out and that was
through the kitchen. We passed through one of the doors behind the
buffet and found ourselves in another stone corridor lighted by little
stone-framed windows, but heavily barred.
At one end of the corridor was another door and Heinrich, after a vain
attempt to pick the lock, said it had been bolted from the outside.
“Have you no bolt-removing instrument?” I asked.
“No, Herr Heine,” he said apologetically, “that requires an apparatus
of considerable complication. The only thing to do is to cut a hole
through the door, and as the door is sheeted with iron I do not think
it is possible.”
We went down the corridor to the other portal. This door yielded to
the turn of a handle and we found ourselves in what was evidently a
servery. Here there was one window which was also barred and a kitchen
door, which, like the one at the farther end of the corridor, was
bolted on the other side.
“What!” I said bitterly, “have I trusted my safety and the safety of
the Empire to a monkey with the brains of a gnat?”
He was silent under my rebuke, for what could he say?
There remained only one possible egress and that was a skylight in the
servery, and here Fortune was with us, for we found a step-ladder
which enabled us to reach the ceiling.
I insisted upon Heinrich going first because it did not look very
safe, and how my heart bounded when the skylight yielded to his touch
and he was able to hoist himself, with the assistance of Hermann,
through the aperture. I followed immediately afterwards.
We found ourselves on a sloping roof, and edging my way down to the
guttering, I looked down and found that we had a drop of no more than
a dozen feet. In three minutes we were on the ground, moving
stealthily from bush to bush unchallenged by the cordon of policemen,
and reached the outside road without mishap.
We were now on the other side of the house, far away from the ravine
and my waiting motor-car. The first pale light of dawn was in the sky
and I knew that we could not afford to take the risk of searching for
the road by which we had come. Yet without the motor-car I was in a
quandary. How might I get these portfolios of such world-shaking
importance away without detection? I could not carry them myself and I
could not trust my companions, for we Germans trust nobody, and by our
caution-dictated suspicion we have eliminated half of the dangers
which ordinarily threaten a modern state.
We were in a residential road. About Leatham Priory quite a
respectable suburb has grown up and this was one of those better-class
thoroughfares made up of detached houses standing in their own
grounds, or, as the English advertisements put it, “Houses with every
modern convenience.” In a flash I had made my plans. I knew that there
was certain to be in such a road as this an empty house, and sure
enough the third of the houses we passed bore in the garden a board
(or rather two boards) saying it was “To Let.” I beckoned my party to
follow me.
Heinrich opened the door in a trice--it was child’s play to this
mechanic--and we entered the house, our footsteps sounding hollowly.
It was not wholly unfurnished, I discovered to my surprise, for on the
first floor there was a bedroom containing a few articles of
furniture, but apparently the room had not been used for some time.
The shutters were tightly fastened over the window and I guessed that
the room had been used by a caretaker until the owner had got tired of
paying his wages.
This view was fully confirmed later when I looked at the board
outside, for the words “Apply to caretaker” had been painted over and
a new address had been given at which the key might be obtained. In
this room there was a big cupboard, the key of which was in the lock
and into the cupboard I bundled the portfolios, locking the door, and
put the key into my pocket.
“Now,” I said to my comrades, “each will go his own way but avoid
observation as far as possible.”
“What about the car and the tools in the passage?” asked Hermann.
“I have told the car not to wait beyond daybreak,” I said (German
forethought again!) “and as for the tools you may collect them after
dark to-night.”
I got back safely to my apartment and turned up at ten o’clock at my
office, very well pleased with my night’s work. At the office I found
a messenger waiting for me. I recognized the man as the Herr Baron’s
valet, a trustworthy Bavarian who had naturalized himself at the same
time as my well-born patron. I opened the letter. It was from Baron
von Hertz-Missenger.
It read:
“By this time you have probably understood the little riddle I set
you. Don’t forget that it is of the utmost importance that certain
things should be secured. I myself am working night and day _to obtain
results_. _Leave no stone unturned._ If you fail notify me
immediately. The Conference will last two more days. If you fail I am
in a position to make the attempt myself.”
I put the letter down with a smile. With what joy would the good Baron
receive my news. If I failed; if I, Heine failed, the idea was
amazing!
I say here, before I proceed to the end of this incident, and I cannot
give too great emphasis to my words, that it would be well if the
Department in which I have the honour to serve--which is in other
respects conducted with serious cleverness--implicitly trust the
proved genius of their officers and would not allow amateurs, however
distinguished, to interfere with the operations of regular
departmental officers.
I burnt the letter and sent the good baron’s servant on his way
rejoicing with half-a-crown. It is always as well to keep the servants
of the high-born in good temper and favourably inclined.
Then I rang up Messrs. Hedley and Riddle. Yes, I had carefully noted
the name of the house agents. I got them on the ’phone and asked to
speak to the proprietor.
“You have a house to let near the village of Leatham Priory,” I said.
“Yes, sir,” he responded in the servile accent of an English house
agent.
“I would like to see the house. May I call to-day for the key?”
“Which house is it?” he asked.
Here again my forethought served me.
“It is the house called ‘Fairlawn.’”
“Certainly,” said the man, “my assistant has charge of this
department. He is at lunch now, but when he comes in I will tell him
to meet you at the station.”
“Don’t trouble,” said I; “will you have the key ready for me? You will
remember, it is ‘Fairlawn,’ and I want to have the first refusal, so
do not let anybody else see the house until I come.”
“Certainly not, sir,” said the servile hound.
I hung up the receiver and rubbed my hands, and at that moment there
came a knock at my door. I walked over to the door and opened it. An
officer with the green tabs of the British Intelligence Department
stood smiling on the mat and I recognized my treacherous “friend” of
other days, Mister Haynes or rather Major Haynes.
“Good morning, Major,” I said jovially, “have you come to ‘warn’ me
again?”
“Not a bit,” he said, walking inside and shaking hands, “I have just
come to ask you if you know anything about the Baron von
Hertz-Missenger.”
I pricked up my ears.
“I know the good Baron,” I said carelessly, “just a casual
acquaintance.”
“How unfortunate you are,” said Mister Haynes (I should say Major
Haynes) in tones of sadness.
“Why unfortunate, major?” I asked.
“All your friends seem to get into trouble,” sighed the major;
“perhaps you don’t know that a number of important documents were
stolen from Leatham Priory last night.”
“Great heavens, you don’t mean to say that,” I said with
well-simulated astonishment.
“Yes, fortunately, the most important, including secret cases, were
left behind. They were in a steel cash-box and the thief or thieves
did not trouble to examine its contents.”
I did not swoon. Nobody seeing me would imagine what thoughts were
swimming through my brain.
“The robbery was discovered this morning and naturally suspicion
attached to the Baron,” the major went on.
“Why to the Baron?” I asked.
“Well, you see,” said Haynes, “he has been hanging about the
neighbourhood and we discovered some time ago that he had arranged
with the clerk of a house agent to occupy a room in a house which was
ostensibly to let.”
My flesh went cold and like a goose’s.
“From his headquarters,” Mister Haynes went on, “he apparently sallied
forth from time to time making a very careful reconnaissance of the
Priory. He must have known that an important Conference was to be
held. We have established the fact that two of Lord Leatham’s servants
were in his pay, and so, naturally, when the portfolios were missing
we searched his lodging.”
“Oh, naturally,” said I weakly.
“And we discovered the stolen property.”
“How strange!” I said in a hollow voice.
“And you don’t know him,” said Mister Haynes, I mean Major Haynes.
“No, sir, I do not,” I said with firm determination.
“Well, you are unlucky,” said the major; “for if you don’t know him
now you never will know him,” and with those ominous words he left me.