She loved Jack very deeply and tenderly. What if these people actually did make an attempt upon his life? Suppose he were killed! That the spies of Germany had every motive to put an end to his activity in ferreting them out, was quite plain. Indeed, her father, knowing nothing of the anonymous letter, had referred to it that evening. He had declared that her lover was running very grave risks. It had been this remark which had set her thinking more deeply and more apprehensively.
Jack saw that she was worrying, therefore he kissed her fondly, and rea.s.sured her that no harm would befall him.
"I"ll take every precaution possible, in order to satisfy you, my darling," he declared, his strong arms again around her as he held her closely to him.
They looked indeed a handsome pair--he tall, good-looking, strong and manly, and she dainty and fair, with a sweet, delightful expression upon her pretty face.
"Then--then you really love me, Jack?" she faltered, looking up into his face as he whispered into her delicate ear, regretting if any ill-considered word he had uttered had pained her.
"Love you, my darling?" he cried pa.s.sionately--"why, of course I do.
How can you doubt me? You surely know that, for me, there is only one good, true woman in all the world--your own dear, sweet self!" She smiled in full content, burying her pretty head upon his shoulder.
"Then--then you really will take care of yourself, Jack--_won"t you_?"
she implored. "When you are absent I"m always thinking--and wondering--"
"And worrying, I fear, little one," he interrupted. "Now don"t worry.
I a.s.sure you that I"m quite safe--that--"
His sentence was interrupted by a tap at the door. They sprang apart, and Littlewood, old Dan"s neat, middle-aged manservant--a North-country man, a trusted friend of the family--entered and, addressing Jack, said, with that pleasant burr in his voice:
"There"s a gentleman called, sir--gives the name of Murray, sir. He wants to see you a moment upon some rather urgent business."
"Murray?" echoed Jack. "I don"t recollect the name. Who is he?"
"He"s a gentleman, sir. He"s down in the hall. He won"t detain you a minute, he says," was the man"s reply.
"Then excuse me a moment," he said in apology to Elise, and left the room, descending to the hall with Littlewood.
Below stood a clean-shaven man in a black overcoat who, advancing to meet him, said--"Are you Mr Sainsbury, sir?"
"Yes. That"s my name," replied the young man.
"I want to speak to you privately, just for a few moments," the stranger said. "I want to tell you something in confidence," he added, lowering his voice. "Shall we go outside the door?" and he glanced meaningly at Littlewood.
At first Jack was much puzzled, but, next moment, he said--
"Certainly--if you wish."
Then both men went forth, descending the steps to the pavement, whereupon a second man, who sprang from nowhere, joined them instantly, while "Mr Murray" said, in a calm and quite determined voice--
"Mr Sainsbury, we are officers of the Criminal Investigation Department, and we arrest you upon a warrant charging you with certain offences under the Defence of the Realm Act."
"What!" gasped Jack, staring at them absolutely dumbfounded. "Are you mad? What tomfoolery is this?"
"I will read the warrant over to you at Bow Street," answered the man who had called himself Murray.
And, as he uttered the words, a taxi that had been waiting a few doors away drew up, and almost before Sainsbury could protest, or seek permission to return to his fiancee and explain the farce in progress, he was, in full view of Littlewood, bundled unceremoniously into the conveyance, which, next instant, moved swiftly down the hill in the direction of Swiss Cottage station, on its way to Bow Street Police Station.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
HELD BY THE ENEMY.
"That can hardly be correct--because there are proofs," remarked the tall, fair, quick-eyed man, who sat in the cold, official-looking room at Bow Street Police Station at half-past three o"clock that same morning.
Jack Sainsbury was standing in defiance before the table, while, in the room, stood the two plain-clothes men who had effected his arrest.
The fair-haired man at the table was Inspector Tennant, of the Special Department at New Scotland Yard, an official whose duty since the outbreak of war was to make inquiry into the thousand-and-one cases of espionage which the public reported weekly to that much-hara.s.sed department. Tennant, who had graduated, as all others had graduated, from the rank of police-constable on the streets of London, was a reliable officer as far as patriotism and a sense of duty went. But it was impossible for a man born in a labourer"s cottage on the south side of Dartmoor, and educated at the village school, to possess such a highly trained brain as that possessed by say certain commissaires of the Paris Surete.
Thomas Tennant, a highly popular man as far as the staff at "the Yard" went, and trusted implicitly by his superiors from the a.s.sistant-Commissioner downwards, worked with an iron sense of the red-taped duty for which he received his salary.
"I"m sorry," said Tennant, looking at the young man; "but all these denials will not, I fear, help you in the least. As I warned you, they are being taken down in writing, and may be used in evidence against you," and he indicated a clerk writing shorthand at a side-table.
Jack Sainsbury grew furious.
"I don"t care a bra.s.s b.u.t.ton what evidence you can give against me," he cried. "I only know that my conscience is perfectly clear. I have tried, since the war, to help my friend Dr Jerome Jerrold of Wimpole Street, to inquire into spies and espionage. We acted together, and Jerrold reported much that was unknown to Whitehall. He--"
"Doctor Jerrold is the gentleman who committed suicide--if my memory serves me correctly," interrupted the police official, speaking very quietly.
"Perhaps he did. I say perhaps--remember," exclaimed the young man under arrest. "But I don"t agree with the finding of the Coroner"s jury."
"People often disagree with a Coroner"s jury," was the dry reply of the hide-bound official, seated at the table. "But now, let us get along,"
he added persuasively. "You admit that you are John James Sainsbury; that you were, until lately, clerk in the employ of the Ochrida Copper Corporation, in Gracechurch Street, from the service of which you were recently discharged. Is that so?"
"Most certainly. I have nothing to deny."
"Good. Then let us advance a step further. You were, I believe, an intimate friend of Dr Jerome Jerrold, who lived in Wimpole Street, and who, for no apparent reason, committed suicide."
"Yes."
"You do not know, I presume, that Dr Jerrold was suspected of a very grave offence under the Defence of the Realm Act, and that, rather than face arrest and prosecution by court-martial as a spy--he took his own life!"
"It"s a lie--_an infernal lie_!" shouted young Sainsbury. "Who alleges such an outrageous lie as that?"
The fair-haired detective smiled, and in that suave manner he usually adopted towards prisoners, with clasped hands he said:
"I fear I cannot tell you that."
"But it"s a confounded lie! Jerome Jerrold was no spy. He and I were the firmest friends, and I know how he devoted his time and his money to investigating the doings of the enemy in our midst. Did you not read the words of the Lord Chancellor the other day?"
"I"m afraid I didn"t."
"Well, speaking in the House of Lords, he admitted that we have not only to fight a foe in the open field, but that their spies are in every land and that the webs of their intrigue enmesh and entangle every Government. It was in order to a.s.sist the authorities--your own department indeed--that Dr Jerome, two friends of his, and myself devoted our time to watching at nights, and investigating."
The official"s lips curled slightly.
"I know that, full well. But how do you explain away the fact that your friend, the doctor, committed suicide rather than face a prosecution?"
"He had nothing to fear. Of that I am quite confident. No braver, more loyal, or more patriotic man ever existed than he, poor fellow."