"Are you the executioners of the German Government?" I asked abruptly.
"Are you so fond of von Papen that you want to do him a favor? You will
be doing just that if you try and shoot me."
"We are going to prosecute you on this evidence," was the only answer.
"You English pride yourselves on not being taken in," I said. "Von
Papen is a very clever man--are you going to let him take you in? Do
you think he was fool enough not to realize that those papers would
be seized? Do you think"--this part of it was a random shot, and
lucky--"do you think it is an accident that the only papers among them
referring to a live, free, unsentenced man in England refer to me? Just
look! Von Papen has been recalled. The United States can investigate
his doings now without embarrassment. And he, knowing me to be the
connecting link of the chain of his activities, and knowing me to be a
prisoner liable to extradition, would ask nothing better than to get
permanently rid of me. And in the papers he carried he very obligingly
furnished you all the proofs you need before you shoot me. You can
choose for yourselves. Do him this favor if you want to. But I think
I'm worth more to you alive than dead. Especially now that I see how
very willing my own Government is to have me dead."
They got the point and the veiled promise and were willing to give me
immunity in return for a confession and revelation of the workings of
German secret agencies. So much ground was gained. The hardest stretch
still remained to gain--to get some inkling of what I must tell and
what I must keep silent about. That knowledge was very hard to come at.
But from one of them, who had known me all through my fifteen months'
fight for life and liberty, and had sympathized, I managed to get,
without arousing his suspicions, a sketchy notion of what ground the
seized documents covered.
It sufficed to put the bluff through. That night they lodged me in
Brixton Prison, with a supply of stationery, and I wrote down my
"voluntary statement," taking care to incorporate in its closing
paragraphs the promise already made me verbally, "I have made these
statements on the distinct understanding that the statements I have
made, or should make in the future, will not be used against me; that
I am not to be prosecuted for participation in any enterprise directed
against the United Kingdom or her Allies I engaged in at the direction
of Capt. von Papen or other representatives of the German Government,
and that the promise made to me by Capt. William Hall, Chief of the
Intelligence Department of the Admiralty, in the presence of Mr.
Basil Thompson, former Governor of Tonga and Assistant Commissioner
of Police, and in the presence of Supt. Quinn, political branch of
Scotland Yard, that I am not to be extradited or sent to any country
where I am liable to punishment for political offenses, is made on
behalf of His Majesty's Government."
On Feb. 2 I was asked whether I was willing to swear to the truth of my
statements. They were true, as far as they went, and I swore so.
So by sheer bluffing I got out from between the Lion's paws. They sent
me to Lewes Prison then. With its baths and lawns for tennis, it hardly
seemed a prison, and I was content there until last spring, the United
States Department of Justice needed me as a witness in its Grand Jury
proceedings.
I came over, gave my testimony--and now here I am. One volume of my
life's history apparently is written to a _Finis_. What will the next
one be, I wonder?