They were now in the streets of the cathedral city, and Mrs. Guthrie,
agitated though she was, could see that there was a curious air of
animation and bustle. A great many people were out of doors on this late
March afternoon.
As a matter of fact something of the facts, greatly exaggerated as is
always the way, had leaked out, and the whole city was in a ferment.
Slowly the motor made its way round the Market Place to the Council
House, and as it drew up at the bottom of the steps, a crowd of idlers
surged forward.
There was a minute or two of waiting, then a man whom Mrs. Guthrie knew
to be the head inspector of the local police came forward, with a very
grave face, and helped her out of the car. He wished to hurry her up the
steps out of the way of the people there, but she heard her husband's
voice, "Mary, where are you?" and obediently she turned with an eager,
"Here I am, waiting for you!" She took his arm, and he pressed it
reassuringly. She was glad he could not see the inquisitive faces of the
now swelling crowd which were being but ill kept back by the few local
police.
But her ordeal did not last long; in a very few moments they were safe
in the Council House, and Mr. Reynolds, who already knew his way about
there, had shown them into a stately room where hung the portraits of
certain long dead Witanbury worthies.
"Am I going to see Anna now?" asked Mrs. Guthrie nervously.
"Yes, I must ask you to do that as soon as possible. And, Mrs. Guthrie?
Please remember that all we want to know now are two definite facts. The
first of these is how long she has had these bombs in her possession,
and how she procured them? She may possibly be willing to tell you how
long she has had them, even if she still remains obstinately silent as
to where she got them. The second question, and of course much the more
important from our point of view, is whether she knows of any other
similar stores in Witanbury or elsewhere? That, I need hardly tell you,
is of very vital moment to us, and I appeal to you as an Englishwoman to
help us in the matter."
"I will do as you wish," said Mrs. Guthrie in a low voice. "But, Mr.
Reynolds? Please forgive me for asking you one thing. What will be done
to my poor old Anna? Will the fact that she is a German make it better
for her--or worse? Of course I realise that she has been wicked--very,
very wicked if what you say is true----"
"And most treacherous to you!" interposed the young man quickly. "You
don't seem to realise, Mrs. Guthrie, the danger in which she put you;"
and as she looked at him uncomprehendingly, he went on, "Putting
everything else aside, she ran the most appalling danger of killing
you--you and every member of your household. Of course I don't know what
you mean to say to her----" he hesitated. "I understand that your
relations with her have been much closer and more kindly than are often
those between a servant and her employer," and as she nodded, he went
on: "The Dean was afraid that it would give you a terrible shock--in
fact, he himself seems extremely surprised and distressed; he had
evidently quite a personal feeling of affection and respect for this old
German woman, Anna Bauer!"
"And I am sure that if you had known her you would have had it too, Mr.
Reynolds," she answered naïvely. Somehow the fact that the Dean had
taken this strange and dreadful thing as he had done, made her feel less
miserable.
"Ah! One thing more before I take you to her. Anything incriminating she
may say to you will _not_ be brought as evidence against her. The point
you have to remember is that it is vitally important to us to obtain
information as to this local spy conspiracy or system, to which we
believe we already hold certain clues."
* * * * *
The police cell into which Mrs. Guthrie was introduced was in the
half-basement of the ancient Council House. The walls of the cell were
whitewashed with a peculiar, dusty whitewash that came off upon the
occupant's clothes at the slightest touch. There was a bench fixed to
the wall, and in a corner a bed, also fixed to the ground. A little
light came in from the window high out of reach, and in the middle of
the ceiling hung a disused gas bracket.
Those of Anna Bauer's personal possessions she had been allowed to bring
with her were lying on the bed.
The old woman was sitting on the bench, her head bowed in an abandonment
of stupor, and of misery. She did not even move as the door opened. But
when she heard the kind, familiar voice exclaim, "Anna? My poor old
Anna!--it is terrible to find you here, like this!" she drew a
convulsive breath of relief, and lifted her tear-stained, swollen face.
"I am innocent!" she cried wildly, in German. "Oh, gracious lady, I am
innocent! I have done no wrong. I can accuse myself of no sin."
Mr. Reynolds brought in a chair. Then he went out, and quietly closed
the door.
Anna's mistress came and sat on the bench close to her servant. It was
almost as if an unconscious woman, spent with the extremity of physical
suffering, crouched beside her.
"Anna, listen to me!" she said at last, and there was a touch of
salutary command in her voice--a touch of command that poor Anna knew,
and always responded to, though it was very seldom used towards her. "I
have left Major Guthrie on our marriage day in order to try and help you
in this awful disgrace and trouble you have brought, not only on
yourself, but on me. All I ask you to do is to tell me the truth.
Anna?"--she touched the fat arm close to her--"look up, and talk to me
like a reasonable woman. If you are innocent, if you can accuse yourself
of no sin--then why are you in such a state?"
Anna looked up eagerly. She was feeling much better now.
"Every reason have I in a state to be! A respectable woman to such a
place brought! Roughly by two policemen treated. I nothing did that
ashamed of I am!"
"What is it you _did_ do?" said Mrs. Guthrie patiently. "Try and collect
your thoughts, Anna. Explain to me where you got"--she hesitated
painfully--"where you got the bombs."
"No bombs there were," exclaimed Anna confidently. "Chemicals,
yes--bombs, no."
"You are mistaken, Anna," said Mrs. Guthrie quietly. She rose from the
bench on which she had been sitting, and drew up the chair opposite to
Anna. "There were certainly bombs found in your room. It is a mercy they
did not explode; if they had done, we should all have been killed!"
Anna stared at her in dumb astonishment. "Herr Gott!" she exclaimed. "No
one has told me that, gracious lady. Again and again they have asked me
questions they should not--questions I to answer promised not. To you,
speak I will----"
Anna looked round, as if to satisfy herself that they were indeed alone,
and Mrs. Guthrie suddenly grew afraid. Was poor old Anna going to reveal
something of a very serious self-incriminating kind?
"It was Willi!" exclaimed the old woman at last. She now spoke in a
whisper, and in German. "It was to Willi that I gave my promise to say
nothing. You see, gracious lady, it was a friend of Willi's who was
making a chemical invention. It was he who left these goods with me. I
will now confess"--she began to sob bitterly--"I will now confess that I
did keep it a secret from the gracious lady that these parcels had been
confided to me. But the bedroom was mine. You know, gracious lady, how
often you said to me, 'I should have liked you to have a nicer bedroom,
Anna--but still, it is your room, so I hope you make it as comfortable
as you can.' As it was my room, gracious lady, it concerned no one what
I kept there."
"A friend of Willi's?" repeated Mrs. Guthrie incredulously. "But I don't
understand--Willi is in Berlin. Surely you have not seen Willi since
you went to Germany three years ago?"
"No, indeed not. But he told me about this matter when he took me to the
station. He said that a friend would call on me some time after my
return here, and that to keep these goods would be to my advantage----"
she stopped awkwardly.
"You mean," said Mrs. Guthrie slowly, "that you were paid for keeping
these things, Anna?" Somehow she felt a strange sinking of the heart.
"Yes," Anna spoke in a shamed, embarrassed tone. "Yes, that is quite
true. I was given a little present each year. But it was no one's
business but mine."
"And how long did you have them?" Mrs. Guthrie had remembered suddenly
that that was an important point.
Anna waited a moment, but she was only counting. "Exactly three years,"
she answered. "Three years this month."
Mrs. Guthrie also made a rapid calculation. "You mean that they were
brought to the Trellis House in the March of 1912?"
Anna nodded. "Yes, gracious lady. When you and Miss Rose were in London.
Do you remember?"
The other shook her head.
Anna felt almost cheerful now. She had told the whole truth, and her
gracious lady did not seem so very angry after all.
"They were brought," she went on eagerly, "by a very nice gentleman. He
asked me for a safe place to keep them, and I showed him the cupboard
behind my bed. He helped me to bring them in."
"Was that the man who came for them this morning?" asked Mrs. Guthrie.
Anna shook her head. "Oh no!" she exclaimed. "The other gentleman was a
gentleman. He wrote me a letter first, but when he came he asked me to
give it him back. So of course I did so."
"Did he give you any idea of what he had brought you to keep?" asked
Mrs. Guthrie. "Now, Anna, I beg--I implore you to tell me the truth!"
"The truth will I willingly tell!" Yes, Anna was feeling really better
now. She had confessed the one thing which had always been on her
conscience--her deceit towards her kind mistress. "He said they were
chemicals, a new wonderful invention, which I must take great care of as
they were fragile."
"I suppose he was a German?" said Mrs. Guthrie slowly.
"Yes, he was a German, naturally, being the superior of Willi. But the
man who came to-day was no German."
"And during all that time--three years is a long time, Anna--did you
never hear from him?" asked Mrs. Guthrie slowly.
It had suddenly come over her with a feeling of repugnance and pain,
that old Anna had kept her secret very closely.
"I never heard--no, never, till last night," cried the old woman
eagerly.
"But even now," said Mrs. Guthrie, "I can't understand, Anna, what made
you do it. Was it to please Willi?"
"Yes," said Anna in an embarrassed tone. "It was to please my good
nephew, gracious lady."