The Tyne and Tees have long ago been surveyed by Germany, and no doubt the accurate and detailed information pigeon-holed in the Intelligence Bureau at Berlin would, if seen by the good people of Newcastle, cause them a _mauvais quart d"heure_, as well as considerable alarm.
Yet there are one or two secrets of the Tyne and its defences which are fortunately not yet the property of our friends the enemy.
Vera was in Switzerland with her father.
But from our quarters at the Station Hotel in Newcastle we made many careful and confidential inquiries. We discovered, among other things, the existence of a secret German club in a back street off Grainger Street, and the members of this inst.i.tution we watched narrowly.
Now no British workman will willingly give away any secret to a foreign Power, and we did not suspect that any one employed at the great Elswick Works would be guilty of treachery. In these days of socialistic, fire-brand oratory there is always, however, the danger of a discharged workman making revelations with objects of private vengeance, never realising that it is a nation"s secrets that he may be betraying. Yet in the course of a fortnight"s inquiry we learned nothing to lead us to suspect that our enemies would obtain the information they sought.
Among the members of the secret German club--which, by the way, included in its membership several Swiss and Belgians--was a middle-aged man who went by the name of John Barker, but who was either a German or a Swede, and whose real name most probably ended in "burger."
He was, we found, employed as foreign-correspondence clerk in the offices of a well-known shipping firm, and amateur photography seemed his chief hobby. He had a number of friends, one of whom was a man named Charles Rosser, a highly respectable, hardworking man, who was a foreman fitter at Elswick.
We watched the pair closely, for our suspicions were at last aroused.
Rosser often spent the evening with his friend Barker at theatres and music-halls, and it was evident that the shipping clerk paid for everything. Once or twice Barker went out to Rosser"s house in Dilston Road, close to the Nun"s Moor Recreation Ground, and there spent the evening with his wife and family.
We took turns at keeping observation, but one night Ray, who had been out following the pair, entered my room at the hotel, saying:
"Barker is persuading his friend to buy a new house in the Bentinck Road. It"s a small, neat little red-brick villa, just completed, and the price is three hundred and fifty pounds."
"Well?" I asked.
"Well, to-night I overheard part of their conversation. Barker actually offers to lend his friend half the money."
"Ah!" I cried. "On certain conditions, I suppose?"
"No conditions were mentioned, but, no doubt, he intends to get poor Rosser into his toils, that he"ll be compelled to supply some information in order to save himself and his family from ruin. The spies of Germany are quite unscrupulous, remember!"
"Yes," I remarked. "The truth is quite clear. We must protect Rosser from this. He"s no doubt tempting the unsuspecting fellow, and posing as a man of means. Rosser doesn"t know that his generous friend is a spy."
For the next few days it fell to my lot to watch Barker. I followed him on Sat.u.r.day afternoon to Tynemouth, where it seemed his hobby was to snap-shot incoming and outgoing ships at the estuary, at the same time asking of seafaring men in the vicinity how far the boat would be from the sh.o.r.e where he was standing.
Both part of that afternoon and part of Sunday he was engaged in taking some measurements near the Ridges Reservoir, North Shields, afterwards going on to Tynemouth again, and snap-shotting the castle from various positions, the railway and its tunnels, the various slips, the jetty, the fish quay, the harbour, and the Narrows. Indeed, he seemed to be making a most careful photographic survey of the whole town.
He carried with him a memorandum book, in which he made many notes. All this he did openly, in full presence of pa.s.sers-by, and even of the police, for who suspects German spies in Tynemouth?
About six o"clock on Sunday afternoon he entered the Royal Station Hotel, took off his light overcoat, and, hanging it in the hall, went into the coffee-room to order tea.
I had followed him in order to have tea myself, and I took off my own overcoat and hung it up next to his.
But I did not enter the coffee-room; instead, I went into the smoking-room. There I called for a drink, and, having swallowed it, returned to the pegs where our coats were hanging.
Swiftly I placed my hand in the breast pocket of his coat, and there felt some papers which, in a second, I had seized and transferred to my own pocket. Then I put on my coat leisurely, and strolled across to the station.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF THE NORTH SHIELDS RESERVOIRS, AND HOW TO CUT OFF THE WATER SUPPLY, PREPARED BY THE SPY JOHN BARKER.]
A train was fortunately just about to leave for Newcastle, and I jumped in. Then when we had moved away from the platform I eagerly examined what I had secured.
It consisted of a tipster"s circular, some newspaper cuttings concerning football, a rough sketch of how the water supply of North Shields could be cut off, and a private letter from a business man which may be of interest if I reproduce it. It read as follows:
"Berkeley Chambers, "Cannon Street, "London, E.C., "_May 3rd_, 1908.
"MY DEAR JOHN,
"I herewith enclose the interest in advance--four five-pound notes.
"Continue to act as you have done, and obtain orders wherever possible.
"Business just now, I am glad to say, leaves but little to be desired, and we hope that next year your share of profits may be increased.
"We have every confidence in this, you understand.
"Write to us oftener and give us news of your doings, as we are always interested in your welfare.
"It is unwise of you, I think, to doubt Uncle Charles, for I have always found him to be a man in whom one can repose the utmost confidence. He is, I believe, taking a house near Tynemouth.
"Every one is at present well, but the spring in London is always trying. However, we are hoping for warmer weather.
"My wife and the children, especially little Charlie, Frederick, and Charlotte--who is growing quite a big girl--send their love to you.
"Your affectionate cousin, "HENRY LEWIS."
That letter, innocent enough upon the face of it, contained certain instructions to the spy, besides enclosing his monthly payment of 20.
Read by the alphabetical instructions with which every German secret agent is supplied and which vary in various districts, the message it contained was as follows:
(Phrase I) I send you your monthly payment.
(Phrase 2) Your informations during the past month are satisfactory.
(Phrase 3) Your service in general is giving satisfaction, and if it continues so, we shall at the next inspection augment your monthly payment.
(Phrase 4) We wish you, however, to send us more detailed notes, and report oftener.
(Phrase 5) Cease your observations upon Charles. We have what we require. Turn your attention to defences at Tynemouth.
(Phrase 6) As you know, the chief (spring) is very difficult to please, for at the last inspection we were given increased work.
(Phrase 7) Remain in negotiation with your three correspondents--Charles (meaning the foreman, Rosser), Charlotte, and Frederick--until you hear further. You may make them offers for the information.
Thus it will be seen that any one into whose hands this letter from "Henry Lewis" fell would be unable to ascertain its real meaning.
The fict.i.tious Lewis, we afterwards discovered, occupied a small office in Berkeley Chambers in the guise of a commission agent, but was no doubt the travelling agent whose actions were controllable by Hermann Hartmann, but who in turn controlled the fixed agents of that district lying between the Humber and the Tweed.
Most of these travelling agents visit their fixed agents--the men who do the real work of espionage--in the guise of a commercial traveller if the agent is a shopkeeper, or if he is not, he will represent himself as a client or an insurance agent, an auctioneer or a house agent. This last _metier_ is greatly recommended by the German Secret Police as the best mode of concealing espionage, and is adopted by the most dangerous and ingenious of the spies.