TRICKS OF THE TRADE
"Now!" said Hillyard.
Fairbairn fetched a couple of white porcelain developing dishes to the
table. Hillyard unlocked a drawer in his bureau. They were in the
deck-saloon of the _Dragonfly_, steaming southwards from Valencia.
Outside the open windows the brown hill-sides, the uplands of olive
trees and the sun-flecked waves slipped by in a magical clear light; and
the hiss of the beaded water against the ship's planks filled the cabin
with a rustle as of silk. Hillyard drew a deep breath of excitement as
he took out from the drawer the letters he had carried off from M. de
Cassaud. He had travelled straight through Barcelona to Valencia with
the letters in his pocket, picking up Fairbairn at the Estación de
Francia on the way, and now, in the sunlight and in the secrecy of the
open sea, they were to appraise the value of their catch.
They sat at the table and examined them, opening the envelopes with the
skill and the care which experience had taught them. For, even though
this post-road was henceforth closed it might possibly be worth while to
send forward these letters. One or two were apparently family letters
for German soldiers, interned at Pampluna; one or two were business
communications from firms in Berlin to their agents in Spain; and these
seemed genuine enough.
"They may be of value to the War Trade Board," said Fairbairn; and he
put them aside for dispatch to London. As he turned back Hillyard cried
suddenly:
"Here we are!"
He had come to the last letter of the little heap. He was holding the
envelope in front of him and he read out the address:
_"Mr. Jack Williams,_
_"Alfredo Menandez, 6,_
_"Madrid."_
Fairbairn started up, and tugging at his moustache, stared at the
envelope over Hillyard's shoulder.
"By Jove!" he said. "We may have got something."
"Let us see!" returned Hillyard, and he opened the envelope.
As he spread out the letter both men laughed. The date of the month had
been corrected by the writer--thus:
8
"_July_ 27th, 1916."
[Transcriber's note: The original text has a slash through the 7.]
There was no doubt any longer in either of these two men's minds that
hidden away under the commonplaces of a letter of affection was a
message of grave importance.
"They are full of clever tricks in Berlin," said Hillyard cheerfully. He
could afford to contemplate that cleverness with complacency, for it was
now to serve his ends.
There was a German official of high importance living in the Calle
Alfredo Menandez, although not at number 6 in that street. The street
was a short one with very few numbers in it; and it had occurred to the
German official to point out to the postman in that street that if
letters came to English names in that street of which the owners could
not be discovered, they were probably for the governess of his children,
who had a number of English relations moving about Spain, and was
accustomed to receive their letters for them, and in any case, five
pesetas would be paid for each of them. Shortly after, letters had begun
to arrive addressed to English nonexistent people in the quiet little
Calle Alfredo Menandez, sometimes from Allied countries, sometimes from
Holland, or from Port-Bou over against Cerbère in Spain; and every one
of these found its natural way to the house of the German official. The
choice of English names had a certain small ingenuity in that, when
passing through the censorship of Allied countries, they were a little
more likely to be taken at their face value than letters addressed to
foreigners.
So far so good. But the German high official was a very busy person; and
letters might find their way into his hands which were really intended
for English persons and not for him at all. Accordingly, to make all
clear, to warn him that here indeed was a letter deserving his kind
attention, that little trifling alteration in the date was adopted; as
though a man writing on the 28th had mislaid the calendar or newspaper
and assigned the 27th to the day of writing, and afterwards had
discovered his mistake. It was no wonder accordingly that hope ran high
in both Fairbairn and Hillyard as they read through this letter;
although, upon the face of it, it was nothing but a sentimental effusion
from a sister to a brother.
"We have got to clear all this nonsense away first," said Hillyard.
Fairbairn took the letter, and placing it on one of the developing
dishes, poured over it a liquid from a bottle.
"That won't take very long," he said.
Meanwhile Hillyard busied himself with the second of the two white
porcelain dishes. He brought out a cruet stand from a cupboard at the
side of the stove and filled the dish half full of vinegar. He added
water until the liquid rose within half an inch of the rim, and rocked
the dish that the dilution might be complete. Next he took a new
copying-pencil from the pen-tray on his bureau and stripping the wood
away with his knife, dropped the blue lead into the vinegar and water.
This lead he carefully dissolved with the help of a glass pestle.
"There! It's ready," he said.
"I, too," added Fairbairn.
He lifted out of the developing dish a wet sheet of writing paper which
was absolutely blank. Not one drop of the black ink which had recorded
those sentimental effusions remained. It was just a sheet of notepaper
which had accidentally fallen into a basin of water.
"That's all right," said Hillyard; and Fairbairn gently slid the sheet
into the dish in front of Hillyard. And for a while nothing happened.
"It's a clever trick, isn't it?" Hillyard used the words again, but now
with a note of nervousness. "No unlikely paraphernalia needed. Just a
copying pencil and some vinegar, which you can get anywhere. Yes, it's a
clever trick!"
"If it works," Fairbairn added bluntly.
Both men watched the dish anxiously. The paper remained blank. The
solution did not seem to work. It was the first time they had ever made
use of it. The coast slid by unnoticed.
"Lopez was certain," said Fairbairn, "quite certain that this was the
developing formula."
Hillyard nodded gloomily, but he did not remove his eyes from that
irresponsive sheet.
"There may be some other ingredient, something kept quite
secret--something known only to one man or two."
He sat down, hooking his chair with his foot nearer to the table.
"We must wait."
"That's all there is to be done," said Fairbairn, and they waited; and
they waited. They had no idea, even if the formula should work, whether
the writing would flash up suddenly like an over-exposed photographic
plate, or emerge shyly and reluctantly letter by letter, word by word.
Then, without a word spoken, Fairbairn's finger pointed. A brown stain
showed on the whiteness of the paper--just a stroke. It was followed by
a curve and another stroke. Hillyard swiftly turned the oblong
developing dish so that the side of it, and not the end, was towards him
now.
"The writing is across the sheet," he said, and then with a cry, "Look!"
A word was coming out clear, writing itself unmistakably in the middle
of the line, at the bottom of the sheet--a signature. Zimmermann!
"From the General Staff!" said Hillyard, in a whisper of excitement. "My
word!" He looked at Fairbairn with an eager smile of gratitude. "It's
your doing that we have got this--yours and Lopez Baeza's!"
Miraculously the brown strokes and curves and dots and flourishes
trooped out of nothing, and fell in like sections and platoons and
companies with their due space between them, some quick and trim, some
rather slovenly in their aspect, some loitering; but in the end the
battalion of words stood to attention, dressed for inspection. The brown
had turned black before Hillyard lifted the letter from the solution and
spread it upon a sheet of blotting paper.
"Now let us see!" and they read the letter through.
One thousand pounds in English money were offered for reliable
information as to the number of howitzers and tanks upon the British
front.
A second sum of a thousand pounds for reliable information as to the
manufacture of howitzers and tanks in England.
"So far, it's not very exciting," Hillyard remarked with disappointment,
as he turned the leaf. But the letter progressed in interest.
A third sum of a thousand pounds was offered for a list of the postal
sections on the British front, with the name, initials and rank of a
really good and reliable British soldier in each section who was
prepared to receive and answer correspondence.
Fairbairn chuckled and observed:
"I think Herr Zimmermann might be provided with a number of such good
and reliable soldiers selected by our General Staff," and he added with
a truculent snort, "We could do with that sum of a thousand pounds here.
You must put in a claim for it, Hillyard. Otherwise they'll snaffle it
in London."
Fairbairn, once a mild north-country schoolmaster, of correct
phraseology and respectable demeanour, had, under the pressure of his
service, developed like that white sheet of notepaper. He had suffered
"A sea-change
Into something rich and strange"
and from a schoolmaster had become a buccaneer with a truculent manner
and a mind of violence. London, under which name he classed all
Government officials, offices, departments, and administrations,
particularly roused his ire. London was ignorant, London was stupid,
London was always doing him and the other buccaneers down, was always
snaffling something which he ought to have. Fairbairn, uttering one
snort of satisfaction, would have shot it with his Browning.
"Get it off your chest, old man," said Hillyard soothingly, "and we'll
go on with this letter. It looks to me as if----" He was glancing
onwards and checked himself with an exclamation. His face became grave
and set.
"Listen to this," and he read aloud, translating as he went along.
"_Since the tubes have been successful in France, the device
should be extended to England. B45 is obviously suitable for
the work. A submarine will sink letters for the Embassy in
Madrid and a parcel of the tubes between the twenty-seventh
and the thirtieth of July, within Spanish territorial waters
off the Cabo de Cabron. A green light will be shown in three
short flashes from the sea and it should be answered from
the shore by a red and a white and two reds._"
Hillyard leaned back in his chair.
"B45," he cried in exasperation. "We get no nearer to him."
"Wait a bit!" Fairbairn interposed. "We are a deal nearer to him through
Zimmermann's very letter here. What are these tubes which have been so
successful in France? Once we get hold of them and understand them and
know what end they are to serve, we may get an idea of the kind of man
obviously suitable for handling them."
"Like B45," said Hillyard.
"Yes! The search will be narrowed to one kind of man. Oh, we shall be
much nearer, if only we get the tubes--if only the Germans in Madrid
don't guess this letter's gone astray to us."
Hillyard had reflected already upon that contingency.
"But why should they? The sleeping-car man is held _incomunicado_. There
is no reason why they should know anything about this letter at all, if
we lay our plans carefully."
He folded up the letter and locked it away in the drawer. He looked for
a while out of the window of the saloon. The yacht had rounded the Cabo
San Antonio. It was still the forenoon.
"This is where José Medina has got to come in," he declared. "You must
go to Madrid, Fairbairn, and keep an eye on Mr. Jack Williams.
Meanwhile, here José Medina has got to come in."
Fairbairn reluctantly agreed. He would much rather have stayed upon the
coast and shared in the adventure, but it was obviously necessary that a
keen watch should be kept in Madrid.
"Very well," he said, "unless, of course, you would like to go to Madrid
yourself."
Hillyard laughed.
"I think not, old man."
He mounted the ladder to the bridge and gave the instructions to the
Captain, and early that evening the _Dragonfly_ was piloted into the
harbour of Alicante. Hillyard and Fairbairn went ashore. They had some
hours to get through before they could take the journey they intended.
They sauntered accordingly along the esplanade beneath the palm trees
until they came to the Casino. Both were temporary members of that club,
and they sat down upon the cane chairs on the broad side-walk. A
military band was playing on the esplanade a little to their right, and
in front of them a throng of visitors and townspeople strolled and sat
in the evening air. Hillyard smiled as he watched the kaleidoscopic
grouping and re-grouping of men and children and women. The revolutions
of his life, a subject which in the press of other and urgent matters
had fallen of late into the background of his thoughts, struck him again
as wondrous and admirable. He began to laugh with enjoyment. He looked
at Fairbairn. How dull in comparison the regular sequences of his
career!
"I wandered about here barefoot and penniless," he said, "not so very
long ago. On this very pavement!" He struck it with his foot, commending
to Fairbairn the amazing fact. "I have cleaned boots," and he called to
a boy who was lying in wait with a boot-black's apparatus on his back
for any dusty foot. "Chico, come and clean my shoes." He jested with the
boy with the kindliness of a Spaniard, and gave him a shining peseta.
Hillyard was revelling in the romance of his life under the spur of the
excitement which the affair of the letter had fired in him. "Yes, I
wandered here, passing up and down in front of this very Casino."
And Fairbairn saw his face change and his eyes widen as though he
recognised some one in the throng beneath the trees.
"What is it?" Fairbairn asked, and for a little while Hillyard did not
answer. His eyes were not following any movements under the trees. They
saw no one present in Alicante that day. Slowly he turned to Fairbairn,
and answered in voice of suspense:
"Nothing! I was just remembering--and wondering!"
He remained sunk in abstraction for a long time. "It can't be!" at grips
with "If it could be!" and a rising inspiration that "It was!" A man had
once tried him out with questions about Alicante, a man who was afraid
lest he should have seen too much. But Hillyard had learnt to hold his
tongue when he had only inspirations to go upon, and he disclosed
nothing of this to Fairbairn.
Later on, when darkness had fallen, the two men drove in a motor-car
southwards round the bay and through a shallow valley to the fishing
village of Torrevieja. When you came upon its broad beach of shingle and
sand, with its black-tarred boats hauled up, and its market booths, you
might dream that you had been transported to Broadstairs--except for one
fact. The houses are built in a single story, since the village is
afflicted with earthquakes. Two houses rise higher than the rest, the
hotel and the Casino. In the Casino Hillyard found José Medina's agent
for those parts sitting over his great mug of beer; and they talked
together quietly for a long while.
Thus Martin Hillyard fared in those days. He played with life and death,
enjoying vividly the one and ever on the brink of the other, but the
deep, innermost realities of either had as yet touched him not at all.