"My first duty, Jack, is to my King and my country," he declared, sitting on the edge of the table in the spies" photographic studio. "I have tried to perform it to-night, and have, fortunately, exposed the German activity in our midst. When the police arrive to view this spies"
nest, we must at once search for her who is always my confidante, and to whose woman"s wits and foresight this success is in no small measure due."
CHAPTER II
THE SECRET OF THE SILENT SUBMARINE
"It"s a most mysterious affair, no doubt," I remarked. "Has anything further been discovered?"
"Yes, Jack," replied my friend Ray Raymond, rolling a fresh cigarette between his fingers. "On investigation, the mystery grows more complicated, more remarkable, and--for us--much more interesting."
We were seated together in our dismal chambers in New Stone Buildings, Lincoln"s Inn, one wet afternoon about six weeks after the Forth Bridge affair. With us, lolling in the shabby old easy chair beside the fire, sat Vera Vallance, in a big black hat, with her m.u.f.f and coat thrown aside. Her disappearance at North Queensferry had been of only brief duration, for we had discovered her hiding at the bottom of the long garden, close to the water"s edge, watching the landing of two small boxes from a boat. It appeared that the two men, Scholtz and Klauber, on receipt of the note purporting to come from their director, Hermann Hartmann, in London, had asked her to wait in an adjoining room while they wrote a reply. But from there she had slipped out, and concealed herself in the garden to wait and watch.
Half an hour ago she had come to my gloomy chambers with her fiance, in order, as he explained, to consult with us. She was at present on a visit to her married sister who lived in Argyll Road, near Kensington High Street, hence they were daily in each other"s company.
"You see, Jack, very little has been allowed to leak out to the papers,"
Ray exclaimed as he lit his cigarette and took up a position with his back to the fire. "As soon as I read of the discovery I ran down to Scotland Yard, saw Evans, and explained my theory. He was inclined to agree with me, and at once gave orders that no facts were to be given to the Press. Upon complete secrecy, our success now depends."
"I only know what I"ve read in the papers," I remarked.
"Tell us the whole facts, Ray," urged the pretty fair-haired girl, who sat with her veil raised and her long white gloves laid across her knees.
"Well, dear, they are briefly as follows," he replied, with an affectionate glance at her. "Last Thursday afternoon, on the arrival at 4.51 of a train from Guildford at Vauxhall, the ticket-collector discovered lying on the floor of a third-cla.s.s compartment a middle-aged, respectably dressed man in an apparently dying condition.
The police were called, and he was conveyed to St. Thomas"s Hospital, where it was found that he was suffering from a severe fracture of the skull, the wound having been inflicted probably with a loaded stick or a life-preserver. There was a severe cut over the right eye and a great gash down the left cheek. The man was unconscious, and still remains so.
The doctors have grave doubts whether, even if he recovers, his mind will not be permanently affected. In all probability he will never regain his right mind."
"Terrible!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Vera.
"Yes. A case of attempted murder, no doubt," he said. "But what first attracted my notice was the statement that the man had been identified as Max Steinheim, a German hairdresser employed in a shop in New Bond Street, who had been missing for nearly two months. He resided in Hargwynne Street, Stockwell, and as he owed a considerable sum to his landlady, she had given notice to the police of his disappearance. It was she who had identified him in the hospital."
"That"s as far as the information conveyed by the newspapers carries the affair," I remarked.
"Exactly. But we are able to proceed a little farther, to a matter which must be closely investigated," continued Raymond. "On the arrival of the train at Waterloo the compartment, which showed signs of a desperate struggle, was searched, and under the seat was discovered a small piece of paper tightly screwed up into a small ball as though somebody wished to get rid of it un.o.bserved. Upon it, in a distinctly foreign hand, and in violet ink--which, by the way, is seldom used by Englishmen--were traced some cryptic memoranda, a copy of which I have here," and he handed for our inspection a piece of paper which presented this appearance:
J 11864! 19505 Kingscliffe 12.15 train St. Pancras M.R. Weldon and Corby 1 mile Royal Pier 18 6.11 248 and 392 Harpur Street 2.30 ? 8.88 M. 88 Elmar 39 X clock.
"You"ve endeavoured to decipher it, of course," I remarked, as both Vera and I gazed at the puzzling array of numerals and words.
"I have. For the past three days I"ve indeed done nothing else.
Unfortunately the result is not very rea.s.suring," he answered.
"Deciphered by one of the little-known codes, the figures 19505 stand for "January 24th," which is four days before the murderous a.s.sault.
Kingscliffe is the name of a village in Northamptonshire, on the North Western line between Peterborough and Rugby. The 12.15 from St. Pancras is a restaurant train for Derby, and takes pa.s.sengers to Weldon and Corby station, by changing at Kettering, and the distance "1 mile" would bring the traveller to the village of Great Weldon."
"Royal Pier sounds like the name of a hotel," I remarked.
"No doubt. But there are a good many Royal Pier hotels in England, so there we are confronted with a difficulty. To what 6.11 refers I cannot conceive, while Harpur Street, which is off Theobalds Road, I visited yesterday, but I find there are no such numbers as 248 or 392. The next line is unintelligible, but if I read the last line aright it is an appointment made beneath the clock at Charing Cross Station at six."
I drew hard at my pipe. That strange doc.u.ment presented to me a very complicated puzzle.
"It seems to refer to some district in Northamptonshire, yet he was attacked coming up from Guildford, on the South Western line!" Vera remarked. "Is your only suspicion based upon the fact of the injured man"s nationality, Ray?"
"That, combined with other circ.u.mstances," he replied. "As soon as I read the first announcement in the papers, I went down to Guildford and there ascertained that the injured man arrived at the Angel Hotel in a motor-car about one o"clock. The chauffeur remarked to the ostler that he had come up from the south coast, and after having a drink he started off on the return journey. Steinheim had luncheon upstairs, took his coffee and cigarette in the little room below, and idled about, telling the lady bookkeeper of the hotel that he was expecting a friend. The friend in question did not, however, arrive, therefore he walked down to the station, and left at 4.13 for London. A porter remembers seeing him alone in the compartment, and it seems quite certain that, on starting from Guildford, he was still alone. The train was an express, and timed not to stop anywhere from Guildford to Vauxhall, but, from the railway officials, I find that it was pulled up by signal about a mile from Esher, in which time he may have been joined by some one from the adjoining compartment."
"Then your theory is that the man who attacked this mysterious German got back again to his carriage, and alighted at Vauxhall," I said.
"I certainly think so, for the driver says that outside Clapham Junction the signals were against him, and he pulled up."
"It"s a pity he has not sufficiently recovered to make any statement."
Ray smiled grimly.
"He would never do that, I think," he said. "It is to his advantage to conceal the facts, if my deductions prove correct."
"Are those all the known circ.u.mstances?" I inquired, much interested.
"There is one other. A week after the man"s disappearance from Stockwell, his landlady received a letter bearing the postmark of Crawley in Suss.e.x, telling her not to trouble on his account. He wrote: "I am engaged upon an important mission, but shall return home within ten days, when I will pay all I owe you. Do not trouble after me. Burn this letter as soon as you have read it.--MAX STEINHEIM." The other fact I learned from the man"s employer, an Englishman in New Bond Street. It appears that to the establishment there often came a stout, well-dressed, prosperous-looking German gentleman who waited for Steinheim to shave him, or cut his hair, and on such occasions it was noticed that they exchanged whispered words in their own tongue."
"Well?" asked Vera, looking up at her lover.
"The stout German"s description tallies exactly with that of Hermann Hartmann."
"Ah! I see," I remarked. "You"ve certainly not been idle, Ray." And with my eyes fixed upon that puzzling array of figures and words, I added, "If we could only decipher the whole of these we might elucidate the truth."
"The injured man"s knowledge of Hartmann, the crafty chief of the German Secret Service in London, is certainly suspicious," Vera remarked. "But cannot some information be gathered from the landlady at Hargwynne Street? He may have had visitors there."
"And if he did, they would speak in German, which the good lady could not understand," her lover replied thoughtfully, contemplating the end of his cigarette.
"There could be no harm in seeing the good lady," the girl remarked.
"I"ll go over to-morrow and have a chat with her."
"And in the meantime Jack and I will pursue another line of inquiry,"
remarked my friend.
Vera rose, a tall, fair-haired, and sweet-faced figure in black, and seating herself at the table, served us our tea. She was no stranger at our chambers, and as an Admiral"s daughter, the question of German spies in England, which her lover had taken up so strongly, interested her most keenly. The Forth Bridge peril had already impressed a great and serious truth upon the Government, but Ray Raymond"s success had only whetted his appet.i.te for further exploration and discovery.
Therefore on the following morning I called at his chambers in Bruton Street--a tastefully furnished bachelor suite, the art green and blues of which were scarcely in keeping with his serious, earnest character--and together we drove in a taxi-cab to St. Thomas"s Hospital, where, in the accident ward, we stood at the bedside of the mysterious Steinheim. His head was enveloped in surgical bandages, but during the night he had regained consciousness. To the questions we put to him, however, we obtained no satisfactory replies. His mind seemed to be a perfect blank as to what had occurred.
Ray read the copy of those cryptic figures upon the sc.r.a.p of paper found in the railway carriage. When my friend p.r.o.nounced the name of the station "Weldon and Corby," the invalid"s big grey eyes started from his head as he exclaimed in German:
"Ah! Yes--yes. At Weldon. She was at Weldon!"
Who was "she"? In vain we tried to wring from him some reply to this question, but, alas! in vain.
Mention of Hermann Hartmann, the ingenious and fearless secret agent who controlled so cleverly the vast army of German spies spread over our smiling land of England, brought no responsive expression to the man"s white, drawn face. It was indeed apparent that his intention was to hold back at all hazards the truth regarding the murderous attack upon him.
Perhaps he himself was guilty of some offence, or perhaps he intended to hold his peace then and to retaliate at a moment when his a.s.sailant thought himself most secure.