_I am sent to Geneva and learn of a plot. How there are more
ways of getting rid of a King than by blowing him up with
dynamite._
If at any time in this story of my life, I have given the impression
that accident did not play a very important part in the work of myself
and other secret agents, I have done so unintentionally. “If” has been
a big word in the history of the world; and even in my small share of
the events of the last ten years, chance has oftentimes been a more
able ally than some of the best laid of my plans. If, for instance,
I had not happened to be in Geneva in the winter of 1909-10; or if a
certain official of the Russian secret police—the _Okrana_—had not met
a well-deserved death at the hands of a committee of “Reds”; or if the
German Foreign Office had not been playing a pretty little game of
diplomacy in the Southwestern corner of Europe—why, the world to-day
would be poorer by a King, and possibly richer by another combatant in
the Great War.
And if another King had not kept a diary he might have kept his throne.
And if both he and a certain young diplomat, whose name I think it best
to forget, had not had a common weakness for pretty faces, Germany would
have lost an opportunity to gain some information that was more or less
useful to her, an actress whose name you all know would never have become
internationally famous, and this book would have lost an amusing little
comedy of coincidences.
All of which sounds like romance and is—merely the truth.
I had spent two uneventful years at Gross Lichterfelde at the time the
comedy began; two years of study in which I had acquired some knowledge
and a great weariness of routine, of hard work unpunctuated by any
element of adventure. Of late it had almost seemed as if, after all, it
was planned that I should become merely one of the vast army of officers
that Gross Lichterfelde and similar schools were yearly turning out. For
such a fate, as you can imagine, I had little liking.
Consequently I was far from displeased when one day I received a
characteristically brief note from my old tutor, asking me to call upon
him. Still more was I elated when, the next day, he informed me that I
had enough of books for the time being, and that he thought a little
practical experience would be good for me. A vacation, I might call it,
if I wished—with a trifle of detective work thrown in.
H’m. I was not so delighted with that prospect, and when the details of
the “vacation” were explained to me, I was strongly tempted to say no to
the entire proposition. But one does not say no to my old tutor. And so,
in the course of a week, I found myself spending my evenings in the _Café
de l’Europe_ in Geneva, bound on a still hunt for Russian revolutionists.
Russia, at this time, had not quite recovered from the fright she
received in 1905 and 1906, when, as you will remember, popular discontent
with the government had assumed very serious proportions. “Bloody
Sunday,” and the riots and strikes that followed it, were far in the
past now, it is true, but they were still well remembered. And although
most of the known revolutionary leaders had been disposed of in one way
or another, there were still a few of them, as well as a large number
of their followers, wandering in odd corners of Europe. These it was
thought best to get rid of; and Russian agents promptly began ferreting
them out. And Germany—always less unfriendly to the Romanoffs than has
appeared on the surface—lent a helping hand.
So it happened that on a particular night in December of 1909, I sat in
the _Café de l’Europe_, bitterly detesting the work I had in hand, yet
inconsistently wishing that something would turn up. I had no idea at the
moment of what I should do next. Chance rumor had led me to Geneva, and I
was largely depending upon chance for further developments.
They came. I had been sitting for an hour I suppose, sipping vermouth and
lazily regarding my neighbors, when the sound of a voice came to my ears.
It was the voice of a man speaking French, with the soft accent of the
Spaniard; the tone loud and unsteady and full of the boisterous emphasis
of a man in his cups. But it was the words he spoke that commanded my
attention.
“Our two comrades,” he was saying, “will soon arrive from the center in
Buenos Ayres.”
“Yes,” another voice assented—a harsher voice, this, to whose owner
French was obviously also a foreign tongue. “In the spring, we hope.”
[Illustration: The Brevet promoting Senior Captain von der Goltz to the
rank of Major of Cavalry in the Mexican Constitutionalist Army. It will
be noted that the commission bears the signature of Raul Madero and
General Villa.]
The Spaniard laughed.
“An excellent business! So simple. _Boom!_ And our dear Alfonso....”
Some element of caution must have come over him, for his voice sank so
that I could no longer hear his words. But I had heard enough to make me
assume a good deal.
Some one was to be assassinated! And that some one? It was a guess, of
course, but the name and the accent of the speaker were more than enough
to lead me to believe that the proposed victim must be King Alfonso of
Spain.
I sat there, undecided for the moment. It was really no affair of
mine. I was on another mission, and, after all, my theory was merely
a supposition. On the other hand, the situation presented interesting
possibilities—and as I happened to know, Alfonso’s seemingly pro-German
leanings and made him an object of friendly interest at that time to my
government.
I decided to look into the matter.
It had been difficult to keep from stealing a glance at my talkative
neighbors but I restrained myself. I must not turn around and yet it was
vitally necessary that I see their faces. All I could do was to hope that
they would leave before I finished my vermouth; for I had no mind to
risk my clear-headedness with more than the glass I had already had.
They did leave shortly afterward. As they passed my table I took care to
study their faces, and my intention to keep them in sight was immensely
strengthened. The Spaniard I did not know, but his companion I recognized
as a Russian—_and one of the very men I was after_.
I had been in Geneva long enough to know where I could get information
when I needed it. It was only a day or two, therefore, before I had in
my hands sufficient facts to justify me in reporting the matter to my
government.
Alfonso was in England at the time and presumably safe; for I had
gathered that no attempt would be made upon his life until he returned to
Spain. So I wrote to Berlin reporting what I had learned.
A telegram reached me next day. I was ordered to Brussels to communicate
my information to the Spanish Minister there.
Mark that: I was ordered to Brussels, although there was a Spanish
Minister in Switzerland. But my government knew that there were many
factions in Spain, and it had strong reasons to believe that the Spanish
Minister to Belgium was absolutely loyal to Alfonso. And in a situation
such as this, one takes as few chances as possible.
I followed my instructions. The Spanish Minister thanked me. He was more
than interested; and he begged me, since I had no other direct orders,
to do him the personal favor of staying a few days longer in the Belgian
capital. I did so, of course, and a day or so later received from my
government instructions to hold myself at the Spaniard’s disposal for the
time being.
That night, at the minister’s request, I met him and we discussed the
matter fully. He wished me, he said, to undertake a more thorough
investigation of the plot. I was already involved in it, and would be
working less in the dark than another. Besides, he hinted, he could not
very well employ an agent of his own government. Who knew how far the
conspiracy extended?
I was not displeased to abandon my chase of the Russian revolutionaries,
toward whom I felt some sympathy. So, as a preliminary step, I went up
to Paris, where through the good offices of one Carlos de Silva—a young
Brazilian free-thinker, who was there ostensibly as a student—I succeeded
in gaining admission into one of the fighting organizations of radicals
there. They were not so communicative as I could have wished, but by
judicious pumping I soon learned that there was an organized conspiracy
against the life of Alfonso, and that the details of the plot were in the
hands of a committee in Geneva.
Geneva, then, was my objective point. But what to do if I went there? I
knew very well that conspirators do not confide their plans to strangers.
And I dared not be too inquisitive. Obviously the only course to follow
was to employ an agent.
Now, _Cherchez la femme_ is as excellent a principle to work on when you
are choosing an accomplice, as it is when you are seeking the solution of
a crime. I therefore proceeded to seek a lady—and found her in the person
of a pretty little black-eyed “revolutionist,” who called herself Mira
Descartes, and with whom I had already had some dealings.
It is here that accident crosses the trail again. For if a certain
official of the _Okrana_ had not been murdered in Moscow three years
before, his daughter would never have conceived an intense hatred of all
revolutionary movements and I should have been without her invaluable
assistance in the adventure I am describing.
Mira Descartes! She was the kind of woman of whom people like to say that
she would have made a great actress. Actress? I do not know. But she was
an artist at dissembling. And she had beauty that turned the heads of
more than the “Reds” upon whom she spied; and a genius for hatred: a cold
hatred that cleared the brain and enabled her to give even her body to
men she despised in order the better to betray them.
I was fortunate in securing her aid, I told myself; and I did not
hesitate to use her services. (For in my profession, as must have been
apparent to you, scrupulousness must be reserved for use “in one’s
private capacity as a gentleman.”)
So Mlle. Descartes went to Geneva, and armed with my previously acquired
information and her own charms, she contrived to get into the good graces
of the committee there, and surprised me a week later by writing to Paris
that she had already contracted a liaison with the Spaniard whom I had
overheard speaking that night in the _Café de l’Europe_.
Soon I had full information about the entire plot. It was planned, I
learned, to blow up King Alfonso with a bomb upon the day of his return
to Madrid. The work was in the hands of two South Americans who were then
in Geneva.
But far more important than this was the information which Mlle.
Descartes had obtained that a high official of Spain—a member of the
Cabinet—was cognizant of the plot and had kept silent about it.
Why, I asked myself, should this official—a man who surely had no
sympathy with the aims of the revolutionists—lend his aid to them in
this plot? The reason was not hard to discover. Alfonso’s position at
the time was far from secure. His government was unpopular at home; and
the pro-Teutonic leanings of many government officials had lost him the
moral and political support of the English government and press—a fact of
considerable importance.
So it seemed possible that Alfonso’s reign might not be of long duration.
And the new government? It might be radical or conservative; pro-English
or pro-German. A man with a career did well to keep on friendly terms
with all factions. Thus, I fancied, the Cabinet Minister must have
reasoned. At any rate he said nothing of the plot.
But I went to Brussels and reported all I had learned—and did not forget
to mention the Cabinet Minister’s rumored share in the plot.
There my connection with the affair ceased. But not long after a little
tragi-comedy occurred which was a direct result of my activities. Let me
recall it to you.
On the evening of May 24, 1910, those of the people of Madrid who were
in the neighborhood of that monument which had been raised in memory of
the victims of the attempted assassination of Alfonso, four years before,
were horrified by a tragedy which they witnessed.
There was a sudden commotion in the streets, an explosion, and the
confused sound of a crowd in excitement.
What had happened? Rumor ran wild through the crowd. The King was
expected home that day—he had been assassinated. There had been an
attempted revolution. Nobody knew.
But the next day everybody knew. A bomb had burst opposite the monument—a
bomb that had been intended for the King. One man had been killed; the
man who carried the bomb. But the King had not arrived in Madrid that day
after all.
The police set to work upon the case and presently identified the dead
man as Jose Tasozelli, who recently arrived in Spain from Buenos Ayres.
It was not certain whether he had any accomplices.
And while the police worked, the King, following a secret arrangement
which had been made by the Spanish Minister at Belgium, and of which not
even the Cabinet had been informed—arrived safely and quietly in Madrid;
a day late, but alive.
What became of the Cabinet Minister? There are no autocracies now, and
not even a King may prosecute without proof. So the Minister escaped for
the time being. But it is interesting to remember that this same Minister
was assassinated, not a great while after.
* * * * *
Now there are more ways of getting rid of a king than by blowing him
up with dynamite. Foreign Offices are none too squeamish in their
methods, but they do balk at assassination, even if the proposed
victim is a particularly objectionable opponent of their plans. There
is another method which, if it be correctly followed, is every bit as
efficacious.... Again I must refer you to that excellent French proverb:
_Cherchez la femme_.
It would be difficult to estimate properly the part that women have
played in the game of foreign politics. As spies they are invaluable: for
amourous men are always garrulous. But as Enslavers of Kings they are of
even greater service to men who are interested in effecting a change of
dynasty. Even the most loyal of subjects dislikes seeing his King made
ridiculous; and in countries where the line is not too strictly drawn
between the public exchequer and the private resources of the monarch, a
discontented faction may see some connection between excessive taxes and
the jewels that a demi-mondaine wears. Revolutions have occurred for less
than that—as every Foreign Office knows.
I am not insinuating that all royal scandals are to be laid at the door
of international politics. I merely suggest that, given a king who is to
be made ridiculous in the eyes of his subjects, it is a simple matter for
an interested government to see that he is introduced to a lady who will
produce the desired effect. But no diplomat will admit this, of course.
Not, that is, until after he has “retired.”
This brings me to the second act of my comedy.
If I were drawing a map of Europe—a diplomatic map, that is,—as it was in
the years of 1908 to 1910, I should use only two colors, Germany should
be, let us say, black; England red. But the black of Germany should
extend over the surfaces of Austria, Italy and Turkey; while France and
Russia should be crimson. The rest of the continent would be of various
tints, ranging from a discordant combination of red and black, through a
pinkish gray, to an innocuous and neutral white.
In the race to secure protective alliances against the inevitable
conflict, both Germany and England were diligently attempting to color
these indeterminate territories with their own particular hue. Not least
important among the courted nations were Spain and Portugal. Both were
traditionally English in sympathy; both had shown unmistaken signs,
at least so far as the ruling classes were concerned, of transferring
their friendship to Germany. It was inevitable, therefore, that these
two countries should be the scene of a diplomatic conflict which, if not
apparent to the outsider, was fought with the utmost bitterness by both
sides.
Somehow, by good fortune rather than any other agency—Spain had managed
to avoid a positive alliance with either nation. Alfonso was inclined to
be pro-German at that time; but an adroit juggling of the factions in his
kingdom had prevented him from using his influence to the advantage of
Germany.
Portugal was in a different situation. Poorer in resources than her
neighbor, and hampered by the necessity of keeping up a colonial empire
which in size was second only to England’s, she had greater need of
the protection of one of the Powers. Traditionally—and rightly from a
standpoint of self-interest—that Power should have been England. There
were but three obstacles to the continuance of the friendship that had
existed since the Peninsular War—King Manuel, the Queen Mother and the
Church.
Germany seemed all-powerful in the Peninsula in 1908. Alfonso’s
friendship was secured, and the boy king of Portugal was completely under
the thumb of a pro-German mother and a Church which, as between Germany
and England, disliked Germany the less. England realized the situation
and in approved diplomatic fashion set about regaining her ascendancy.
But diplomacy failed. At the end of two years Berlin was more strongly
intrenched in Portugal than ever; and England knew that only heroic
measures could save her from a serious diplomatic defeat.
Then Manuel did a foolish thing. He kept a diary.
It was a commonplace diary, as you will remember if you read the parts
of it which were published some time after the revolution which
dethroned its author. The outpourings of a very undistinguished young
man—conceited, self-indulgent, petulant—it gained distinction only as the
revelation of an unkingly person’s thoughts on himself in particular and
women in multitudes. But there were portions of it—many of them never
published—which expressed unmistakably Manuel’s anti-English feeling and
his affection for Germany.
_Somehow England came into possession of the diary._
Perhaps it was the diary’s revelation of Manuel’s extreme susceptibility
to feminine charms, which suggested the next step. That I cannot tell.
In any event, not long after the diary became a matter of diplomatic
moment, Manuel paid a visit to England, ostensibly in search of a bride.
His search was unsuccessful; but in London he met and promptly became
infatuated with Mlle. Hedwig Navratil—better known as Gaby Deslys.
They chose well who selected the lovely Bohemian as the instrument of
Manuel’s downfall. Young, charming, she had all the qualities which would
appeal to Manuel’s nature. Added to that, it had been rumored that not
long before King Alfonso had shown some interest in her—and Manuel was
easily influenced by the example of his elders.
You remember the rest of the story. Manuel’s frequent visits to Paris,
where Mlle. Gaby was playing; the jewels—bought, it was said, with money
from the public treasury—which he showered upon her; these were the
subjects of countless rumors at the time. Then came reports that the lady
was domiciled in one of the royal palaces. Finally, in September of 1910,
the scandalized and tax-ridden populace of Portugal, learned that Mlle.
Deslys had been “billed” at the Apollo Theatre in Vienna as the “Mistress
of the King of Portugal.”
On October 5th, this same scandalized and tax-ridden populace joined
forces with the revolutionary party—and Manuel fled to England, where
he attended numerous musical comedies and hoped against hope that the
English Government would live up to that provision of the treaty of 1908
which pledged England to aid the Portuguese throne in the event of a
revolution.
But England—remembering the diary—wisely forgot its pledge. And a
Republican government in Portugal looked with suspicion upon the
diplomatic advances of a nation which had been too friendly towards the
exiled king—and became pro-English, as you know.
There ends my comedy. The lady in the case achieved a sudden
international fame and eventually came to America, where, I believe,
she attracted more interest than commendation. But at best, so far as
we are concerned, she is of importance merely as an illustration of how
diplomacy—or chance, if you prefer—combines politics and the woman for
its own purposes.
But there is an amusing epilogue to the affair, which was not without its
importance to the Wilhelmstrasse, and in which I had a small part. To
tell it, I must pass over several months of work of one sort or another,
until I come to the following winter—that of 1911.
I was on a real vacation this time and had selected Nice as an excellent
place in which to spend a few idle but enlivening weeks. The choice was
not a highly original one, but as it turned out, chance seemed to have
had a hand in it after all. Almost the first person I met there was a man
with whom I had been acquainted for several years, and who was destined
to have his share in the events which followed.
People who have visited Europe many times can hardly have avoided
seeing upon one occasion or another, a famous riding troupe who called
themselves the “Bishops.” They were five in number—Old Bishop, his
daughter and her husband, a man named Merrill, and two others—and their
act, which was variously known as “An Afternoon on the Bois de Boulogne,”
“An Afternoon in the Thiergarten,” etc. (depending upon the city in which
they played), was a feature of many of the famous circuses of seven or
eight years ago. At this time they were helping to pay their expenses
through the winter, by playing in a small circus which was one of the
current attractions of Nice.
I had bought horses from old Bishop in the past and knew him for a
man of unusual shrewdness, who besides being the father of a charming
and beautiful daughter, was in himself excellent company; and I was
consequently pleased to run across him and his family at a time when all
my friends seemed to be in some other quarter of the earth. We talked of
horses together and it was suggested that I might care to inspect an Arab
mare, a recent acquisition, of which the old man was immensely proud.
That evening I heard of the arrival in Nice of a young British diplomat,
an undersecretary of one of the embassies, whom, I remembered I had
once met at a hotel in Vienna. I called upon him the following day—but I
did so, not so much to renew our old acquaintance, as because that very
morning I had received a rambling letter from my chief, commenting upon
the imminent arrival of the Englishman and suggesting that I might find
him a pleasant companion during my stay on the Riviera.
More work, in other words. My chief did not waste time in encouraging
purposeless friendships. As I read the letter, it was a hint that the
Englishman had something which Berlin wanted and I was to get it.
It was not difficult to recall myself to the Undersecretary. We became
friendly, and proceeded to “do” Nice together; and in the course of
our excursions we became occasional visitors at the villa of Maharajah
Holkar, who, with his secretary (and his seraglio) lived—and still lives,
for all I know—at 56 Promenade des Anglais.
The Maharajah was at that time an engaging and eccentric old gentleman,
who had been an uncompromising opponent of the English during his youth
in India, and was now practically an exile, spending most of his time in
planning futile conspiracies against the British Government, which he
hated, and making friends with Englishmen toward whom he had no animosity
whatever. He was especially well disposed toward my diplomatic friend,
and the two spent many a riotous evening together over the chess board,
at which the Maharajah was invariably successful.
Meanwhile I made various plans and cultivated the acquaintance of the
Rajah’s secretary. He was a Bengali, who might well have stepped out of
Kipling, so far as his manner went. In character the resemblance was
not so close. I happened to know that he was paid a comfortable amount
yearly by the British Government, to keep them informed of the Rajah’s
movements; and I also happened to know that the German Government paid
him a more comfortable amount for the privilege of deciding just what the
British Government should learn. (I have often wondered whether he shared
the proceeds with the Maharajah, and whether even he knew for whom he was
really working.) The secretary, I decided, might be of use to me.
As it happened, it was the secretary who unwittingly suggested the method
by which I finally gained my object. It was he who commented upon the
diplomat’s intense interest in the Maharajah’s seraglio, giving me a
clue to the character of the Englishman, which was of distinct service.
And it was he who suggested one evening that the three of us—for the
Maharajah was ill at the time—should attend a performance of the circus
in which my friends, the Bishops, were playing.
You foresee the end, no doubt. The diplomat, with his too susceptible
nature, was infatuated by Mlle. Bishop’s beauty and skill. He wished
to meet her, and I, who obligingly confessed that I had had some
transactions with her father, undertook to secure the lady’s permission
to present him to her.
I did secure it, of course, although not without considerable opposition
on the part of all three of the family; for circus people are very
straight-laced. However, by severely straining my purse and my
imagination, I convinced them that they would be doing both a friendly
and a profitable act, by participating in the little drama that I
had planned. Eventually they consented to aid me in discomfiting the
diplomat, whom I represented as having in his possession some legal
papers that really belonged to me, although I could not prove my claim to
them.
You will pardon me if I pass over the events of the next few days, and
plunge directly into a scene which occurred one night, about a week
later, the very night in fact on which the Bishops were to close their
engagement with the little circus in which they were playing. It was in
the sitting-room of the diplomat’s suite at the hotel that the scene took
place; dinner _a deux_ was in progress—and the diplomat’s guest was Mlle.
Bishop, who had indiscreetly accepted the Englishman’s invitation.
Came a knock at the door. Mademoiselle grew pale.
“My husband,” she exclaimed.
Mademoiselle was right. It was her husband who entered—very cold, very
businesslike, and carrying a riding crop in his hand. He glanced at the
man and woman in the room.
“I suspected something of the sort,” he said, in a quiet voice. “You are
indiscreet, Madame. You do not conceal your infidelities with care.” He
took a step toward her, put paused at an exclamation from the Englishman.
“Do not fear, Monsieur—” elaborate irony was in his voice as he addressed
the diplomat—“I shall not harm you. It is with this—lady—only, that I am
concerned. She has, it appears, an inadequate conception of her wifely
duty. I must, therefore, give her a lesson.” As he spoke he tapped his
boot suggestively with his riding whip.
“My only regret,” he continued politely, “is that I must detain you as
a witness of a painful scene, and possibly cause a disturbance in your
room.”
Again he turned toward his wife, who had sat watching him, with a
terrified face. Now as he approached her she burst into tears, and ran to
where the Englishman stood.
“He is going to beat me,” she sobbed. “Help me, for Heaven’s sake. Stop
him. Give him—give him anything.”
But the Englishman did not need to be coached.
“Look here!” he cried suddenly, interposing himself between the husband
and wife. “I’ll give you fifty pounds to get out of here quietly. Good
God, man, you can’t do a thing like this, you know. It’s horrible. And
you have no cause. I give you my word you have no cause.”
He was a pitiable mixture of shame and apprehension as he spoke. But
Merrill looked at him calmly. He was quite unmoved and still polite when
he replied:
“The word of a gentleman, I suppose. No, Monsieur, it is useless to
try to bribe me. It is a great mistake, in fact. Almost—” he paused for
a moment, as if he found it difficult to continue—“almost it makes me
angry.”
He was silent for a space, but when he spoke again it was as if in
response to an idea that had come to him.
“Yes,” he continued. “It does make me angry. Nevertheless, Monsieur, I
shall accept your suggestion. Madame and I will leave quietly, and in
return you shall give us—O, not money—but something that you value very
much.”
He turned to his wife.
“Madame. You will go to Monsieur’s trunk, which is open in the corner,
and remove every article so that I can see it.”
The Englishman started. For a moment it seemed as if he would attack
Merrill, who was the smaller man, but fear of the noise held him back.
Meantime, the woman was riffling the trunk, holding up each object for
her husband’s inspection. The latter stood at the door, his eyes upon
both of the others.
“We are not interested in Monsieur’s clothing,” he said calmly. “What
else is there in the trunk? Nothing? The desk then. Only some papers?
That is a pity. Let me have them, however—all of them. And you may give
me the portfolio that lies on the bureau.”
As he took the packet, the rider turned to the diplomat, who stood as if
paralyzed, in the corner of the room.
“I do not know what is in these papers, Monsieur, but I judge from
your agitation that they are valuable. I shall take them from you as a
warning—a warning to let married women alone in the future. Also I warn
you not to try to bribe a man whom you have injured. You have made me
very angry to-night by doing so.
“Above all,” he added, “I warn you not to complain to the police about
this matter. This is not a pretty story to tell about a man in your
position—and I prepared to tell it. Good night, Monsieur.”
He did not wait to hear the Englishman’s reply.
* * * * *
That night, while the two younger members of the Bishop family sped away
on the train—to what place I do not know—and old Bishop expressed great
mystification over their disappearance, I made a little bonfire in my
grate of papers which had once been the property of the diplomat, and
which I knew would be of no interest to my government. There were a few
papers which I did not burn—a memorandum or two, and a bulky typewritten
copy of Manuel’s diary, which I found amusing reading before I took it to
Berlin.
I called upon my English friend the next day but I did not see him. He
had been taken ill, and had been obliged to leave Nice immediately. No,
it was impossible to say what the ailment was.
Ah, well, I thought, as I returned to my room, he would get over it. It
was an embarrassing loss, but not a fatal one; and doubtless he could
explain it satisfactorily at home.
I was sorry for him, I confess. But more than once that day I laughed as
I thought of the scene of last night, as Mlle. Bishop had described it to
me. An old game—but it had worked so easily.
But then, wasn’t it Solomon who complained about the lack of original
material on this globe?
The Diary? I took it to Berlin, as I have said, where it was a matter
of considerable interest. Subsequently it was published, after discreet
editing.
But at that time I was engaged upon a matter of considerably more
importance.