One evening early in January three men had assembled and held a serious
conference in Jack Sainsbury's modest little flat in Heath Street,
Hampstead. His sister being out for the day, Jack had personally
admitted his visitors, who were Charles Trustram and Sir Houston Bird,
and the trio had sat by the fire discussing a matter of the greatest
moment.
Briefly, the facts were as follow: Trustram had, ever since the raid on
Scarborough, wondered whether the failure of the British naval plan to
entrap the German Fleet had been directly due to his own indiscretion in
mentioning to Lewin Rodwell what was intended. He deeply regretted
having let out what had been an absolute secret; yet Rodwell was a man
of such tried and sterling patriotism, constantly addressing audiences
in the interests of recruiting, and a man whose battle cry "Britain for
the British" had been taken up everywhere. No one was possessed of a
deeper and more intense hatred of Germany than he, and Trustram felt
certain that no man was a greater enemy of the Kaiser.
The papers wrote fulsome praise of his splendid example and his fine
patriotic efforts, both as regards recruiting and in the raising of
funds for various charitable objects; therefore the Admiralty official
was wont to comfort himself with the reflection that such a man could
never be an agent of Germany.
Only a few days ago, when he had confessed to Sir Houston and the latter
had, on his part, spoken to Sainsbury, the puzzle had become pieced
together; and on that evening, as the trio sat opposite each other, the
young fellow explained how he had been dismissed from the Ochrida
Company at the instigation of Lewin Rodwell and his titled sycophant Sir
Boyle Huntley.
"There is a mystery," Jack went on. "I'm certain there's some great
mystery regarding poor Jerrold's sudden death," he said decisively. "I
was, that night, on my way to him, to tell him what I had accidentally
learnt, and to seek his advice how to act. Yet, poor fellow, he died in
my arms."
"His suicide was certainly quite unaccountable," declared Sir Houston.
"I often reflect and wonder whether he really did commit suicide--and
yet it was all quite plain and straightforward. He must have swallowed
a tablet--coated, no doubt, or the effect must have been far more
rapid."
"But why did he declare that he'd been shot?" asked Trustram, whose
fine, strong face was dark and thoughtful.
"Ah! Who knows? There's the mystery," replied the great pathologist.
"Of course, men sometimes have curious hallucinations immediately prior
to death. It might have been one."
"He was in terrible agony--poor fellow," Jack remarked.
"No doubt, no doubt. But the drug would, of course, account for that."
"Then, in the light of your expert medical knowledge, you don't think
that his death was a mysterious one?" Jack queried.
"No, I don't say that at all," was the reply of the busy man, who was
working night and day among the wounded in the hospitals. "I merely say
that Jerrold was poisoned--and probably by his own hand. That's all."
"You say `probably,'" remarked Trustram. "Could that man, Rodwell, have
had anything to do with it do you think?"
"My dear Mr Trustram, how can we possibly tell?" asked Sir Houston.
"What real evidence have we got? None."
"And so clever are our enemies that we are not likely ever to get any, I
believe," was Trustram's hard reply. "I only know what has happened to
our plans for the defeat of the German Fleet. Is it really possible
that this Lewin Rodwell, one of the most popular men in England, is a
German agent?"
"If you dared to say so, the whole country would rise and kill you with
ridicule," remarked Jack Sainsbury. "Once the British public
establishes a man as a patriot, their belief in him remains unshaken to
the very end. This war is a war where spies and spying, treachery and
double-dealing, play a far bigger part than the world ever dreams.
Jerrold always declared to me that there were German spies in every
department of the State, just as there are in France, in Russia, and in
Italy. No secret of any of the European States is a secret from the
central spy-bureau in Berlin."
"Jerrold knew that. He set out sacrificing body and soul--nay, his very
life--to assist our Intelligence Department," Trustram remarked.
"I know," said Jack. "They were foolishly jealous of his knowledge--
jealous of the facts he had gathered during his wanderings up and down
Germany, and jealous of the sources of information. They pretended a
certain friendliness towards him, of course, but, as you know, the khaki
cult is never in unison with the civilian. Jerrold did his duty--did it
splendidly, as a true Englishman should. His work will live as a
record. Seven years ago he commenced, at a time when the
money-grubbing, ostrich-like section of the public--bamboozled by
politicians who pretended not to know, yet who knew too well, and who
told us there would be no war--not in our time--were content in amassing
wealth. What did they care for the country's future, as long as they
drew big dividends? Jerrold foresaw the great Teutonic plot against
civilisation, and was not afraid to point to it. What did he get for
his pains? Ridicule, derision, and aspersions that his mind was
deranged, and that he was a mere romancer. Well, to-day he's dead, and
we can only judge him by his works."
"There are others--certain others too--whom we may also judge by their
works," remarked Trustram grimly--"their subtle, fiendish works, aimed
at the downfall of our Empire. If the truth had been realised when Lord
Roberts started out to speak--and when the whole Government united to
poke fun and heap ridicule upon the great Field-Marshal, who knew more
of real warfare than the whole tangle of red-tape at Whitehall
combined--then to-day thousands of brave men, the flower of our youth,
who have laid down their lives in the trenches in Flanders, would have
been alive to-day. No!" he cried angrily. "There are traitors in our
midst, and yet if one dares to suspect, if one dares to breathe a word,
even to inquire and bring absolute evidence, the only thing which the
khaki-clad Department will vouchsafe to the informant is a meagre
printed form to acknowledge that one's report has been `received.'
After that, the matter is buried."
"Perhaps burnt," laughed Sir Houston.
"Most probably," Trustram asserted. "To me, an Englishman, the whole
situation is as utterly appalling as it is ludicrous. We must win. And
it is up to us all to see that _we do win_."
"Excellent!" cried Sir Houston. "And so we will--all three of us. I'll
go to the War Office to-morrow and try and see someone in authority.
You, Sainsbury, will come with me, and you'll make your statement--
you'll tell them all that you know. They must take some notice of it!"
"I should be quite ready," was Jack's reply. "But will they believe me?
They didn't believe poor Jerrold, remember--and he actually held proof
positive of certain traitorous acts. The whole idea of the Intelligence
Department is to pooh-pooh any report furnished by a civilian. Indeed,
Jerrold showed me a signed statement by a British officer whom the
authorities had actually threatened to cashier because he had assisted
him to investigate some night-signalling in Surrey!"
"Impossible!" cried Sir Houston.
"It's the absolute truth. I've had the statement in my own hands. He
was an officer stationed in a town in Surrey."
"Well," remarked the great pathologist. "Let us allow the past bygones
to be bygones. Let us work--not in resentment of the past, but for our
protection in the future. What shall we do?"
The two men were silent. On the one hand they saw the fortress-wall
which the War Office placed between the civilian and the man in khaki.
Reports of espionage were extremely unwelcome at Whitehall. And yet how
could men in khaki and assistant-provost-marshals, with their crimson
brassards of special-constable or veteran volunteer conspicuousness,
ever hope to cope with the clever, subtle and wary spies of Germany?
The whole thing was too farcical for words.
The British public, trustful of this cult of khaki and of a Cabinet who
daily bleated forth "All is well!" had no knowledge, for instance, of
the cleverly-laid plan of the enemy in Russia--the plot to blow up
Ochta, the Russian Woolwich. Later, the English, in their ignorance of
German intrigue, asked each other why no forward move was being made--
the move promised us in the spring. They knew nothing of that great
disaster, so cleverly accomplished by Germany's spies, the blowing up of
Ochta, that disaster which entirely crippled Russia, and which resulted,
later on, in her retreat from Warsaw. It was this--alas that I should
pen these lines!--which prevented the British and French from advancing
during the whole spring and summer of 1915.
The Russians, our gallant allies, were producing, at the Putilof works,
great siege guns, bigger than any turned out from Krupp's. Yet, after
Ochta had been blown up by means of a cable laid by spies under the Neva
before the war, so that hardly one brick stood upon another and
Petrograd had been shaken as by an earthquake in consequence, what could
Russia do? She had no munitions; therefore why make guns?
That act of German spies in directly crippling Russia--an act plotted
and prepared ten years previously--had checked the striking power of
France, and quite defeated the splendid intentions of Lord Kitchener and
our own good General French.
Let history speak. As our two armies were holding only a small section
of the line, it was more convenient for the general interests of the
Allies that we should, instead of employing our increased forces,
postpone the entry into action of our national armies, and bend our
chief energies to the task of supplying Russia with the munitions which
had suddenly become to her a matter of life or death.
Was not this, indeed, an object-lesson to England?
The trio were discussing the situation, when Jack Sainsbury exclaimed:
"And yet the public will not believe that there are spies amongst us--
even in face of daily events of incendiary fires, of submarine outrages,
and of spies who, arriving with American passports, are watched,
arrested, and executed at the Tower of London."
"True?" cried Trustram. "I agree entirely with all you say. Shall we
act--or shall we join in the saliva of sweetness and raise the chorus
that the Germans are, after all, dear good people?"
"Never!" exclaimed Sir Houston fiercely. "Jerrold knew, and he died
mysteriously. We, all three of us, know. Let us act; let us raise our
voices, as the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Leith of
Fyvie, Lord Crawford, Lord Portsmouth, Lord Headley, and all the others
have raised theirs. `Britain for the British,' I say, and we must win--
and, at all hazards, _we will win_!"
"Yes, but what shall we do? How are we now to act?" queried Jack,
looking at his visitors.
"That we must decide," Sir Houston responded. "We know many things--
things that are proved as far as Lewin Rodwell is concerned. We must
watch--and watch very closely and carefully--then we shall learn more."
"But while we are watching the Empire is, surely, in gravest peril?"
Trustram protested.
"We have an Intelligence Department which is said to be dealing with
news leaking from our shores."
"Intelligence Department?" laughed Jack Sainsbury. "Read the German
papers, and you'll see that the public in Germany are daily told the
actual truth concerning us, while we are deliberately kept in ignorance
by the superior cult of khaki." Then he added, "The whole of this
system of secrecy, and of playing upon the public mind, must be broken
down, otherwise very soon, I fear, the British will believe nothing that
is told them. We won't be spoon-fed on tit-bits any more. We are not
the pet-dogs of a Hide-the-Truth administration."
"That's a bit stiff," declared Trustram with a frown, as befitted an
official wearing His Majesty's uniform.
"I don't care! I speak exactly what I feel. The British Empire is
to-day greatly menaced, and if we are to win, we must face the facts and
speak out boldly. We don't want these incompetent khaki-clad amateur
detectives telling the matter-of-fact British nation official untruths.
Why, only the other day the Parliamentary mouthpiece of the War Office
told us that every German secret agent was known and under constant
surveillance! Is that the truth, I ask you, or is it a deliberate
official falsehood? Read Hansard's reports. I have quoted from them!"
The two men could not raise a protest. They knew, alas! that the words
the young man had spoken were the actual and ghastly truth.
"Well," he went on, looking at his visitors, "we know what is in
progress--or at least we have the strongest suspicion of it. Now, what
decision have you both arrived at? What, in the interests of the safety
of the Empire, shall we do?"
Trustram shrugged his shoulders blankly, while Sir Houston drew a long
breath.
Neither man replied. What could they do, save to warn the War Office,
who they knew would probably turn a deaf ear to all their suspicions?