"He had orders to stay and keep watch--though he didn"t know I was on board myself. Two pairs of police eyes are better than one pair, and fifty times better than all the Navy eyes in the ship. Of all the simple-minded, unsuspicious beggars in the world, give me a pack of naval ratings! I wouldn"t have one of them for sentries--that is why the fifty emergency Marines were sent for." Dawson"s limitless pride in his old Service, and deep contempt for the mere sailor, had come back in full flood with the uniform of his Corps.
"I started my own sentry duty in the dark corner I told you of as soon as I had seen to the arrangements all over the _Malplaquet_, and I was there, with very few breaks of not more than five minutes each for a bite of food, for twenty-six hours. Two Marine sentries took my place whenever I was away. I had my rifle and bayonet, and stood back in a corner of a bulkhead where I couldn"t be seen. The hours were awful long; I stood without hardly moving. All the pins and needles out of Redditch seemed to dance up and down me, but I stuck it out--and I had my reward, I had my reward. I did my duty, but it"s a sick and sorry man that I am this day."
"There was nothing else to be done," I said. "What you feel now is a nervous reaction."
"That"s about it. I watched and watched, never feeling a bit like sleep though my eyes burned something cruel and my feet--they were lumps of p.r.i.c.kly wood, not feet. Dull lumps with every now and then a stab as if a tin tack had been driven into them. Beyond me in the open alley-way the light was strong, and I could see men pa.s.s frequently, but no one came into my corner till the end, and no one saw me. I heard six bells go in the first watch ("Eleven p.m.," whispered Cary) on Friday evening, though there was a good bit of noise of getting ready to go out in the early morning, and I was beginning to think that all my trouble might go for naught, when a man in a Navy cap and overalls stopped just opposite my dark hole between two bulkheads. His face was turned from me, as he looked carefully up and down the lighted way. He stood there quite still for some seconds, and then stepped backwards towards me. I could see him plain against the light beyond. He listened for another minute or so, and, satisfied that no one was near, spun on his heels, whipped a tool from his dungaree overalls, and reached up to the wires which ran under the deck beams overhead. In spite of my aching joints and sore feet I was out in a flash and had my bayonet up against his chest. He didn"t move till my point was through his clothes and into his flesh. I just shoved till he gave ground, and so, step by step, I pushed him with the point of my bayonet till he was under the lights. His arms had come down, he dropped the big shears with insulated handles which he had drawn from his pocket, but he didn"t speak a word to me and I did not speak to him. I just held him there under the lights, and we looked at one another without a word spoken. There was no sign of surprise or fear in his face, just a queer little smile. Suddenly he moved, made a s.n.a.t.c.h at the front of his overalls, and put something into his mouth.
I guessed what it was, but did not try to stop him; it was the best thing that he could do."
Dawson stopped and pulled savagely at his cigar. He jabbed the end with his knife, though the cigar was drawing perfectly well, and gave forth a deep growl which might have been a curse or a sob.
"Have you ever watched an electric bulb fade away when the current is failing?" he asked. "The film pales down from glowing white to dull red, which gets fainter and fainter, little by little, till nothing but the memory of it lingers on your retina. His eyes went out exactly like that bulb. They faded and faded out of his face, which still kept up that queer, twisted smile. I"ve seen them ever since; wherever I turn. I shall be glad of that bout of influenza, and shall begin it with a stiff dose of veronal.... When the light had nearly gone out of his eyes and he was rocking on his feet, I spoke for the first time. I spoke loud too. "Good-bye," I called out; "I"m Dawson." He heard me, for his eyes answered with a last flash; then they faded right out and he fell flat on the steel deck. He had died on his feet; his will kept him upright to the end; that was a Man. He lived a Man"s life, doing what he thought his duty, and he died a Man"s death.... I blew my whistle twice; up clattered a Sergeant with the Marine Guard and stopped where that figure on the deck barred their way. "Get a stretcher," I said, "and send for the doctor. But it won"t be any use.
The man"s dead." The Sergeant asked sharply for my report, and sent off a couple of men for a stretcher. "Excuse me, Sergeant," I said, in my best detective officer voice, "I will report direct to your Major and the Commander. I am Chief Inspector Dawson." He showed no surprise nor doubt of my word--if you want to understand discipline, gentlemen, get the Marines to teach you--he asked no questions. With one word he called the guard to attention, and himself saluted me--me a private! I handed him my rifle--there was an inch of blood at the point of the bayonet--and hobbled off to the nearest ladder. My word, I could scarcely walk, and as for climbing a ship"s ladder--I could never have done if some one hadn"t given me a boost behind and some one else a hand at the top. The Commander and the Major of Marines were both in the wardroom; I walked in, saluted them as a self-respecting private should do, and told them the whole story."
"It was Petty Officer Trehayne," said I calmly--and waited for a sensation.
"Of course," replied Dawson, greatly to my annoyance. He might have shown some astonishment at my wonderful intuition; but he didn"t, not a sc.r.a.p. Even Cary was at first disappointing, though he warmed up later, and did me full justice. "Trehayne a spy!" cried Cary. "He looked a smart good man."
"I am not saying that he wasn"t," snapped Dawson, whose nerves were very badly on edge. "He was obeying the orders of his superiors as we all have to do. He gave his life, and it was for his country"s service. n.o.body can do more than that. Don"t you go for to slander Trehayne. I watched him die--on his feet."
Cary turned to me. "What made you think it was Trehayne?" he asked.
This was better. I looked at Dawson, who was brooding in his chair with his thoughts far away. He was still seeing those eyes fading out under the glare of the electrics between the steel decks of the _Malplaquet_!
"It was a sheer guess at first," said I, preserving a decent show of modesty. "When I heard how the enemy plotted and Dawson counter-plotted with all those skilled workmen in his detective service, it occurred to me that an enemy with imagination might counter-counterplot by getting men inside Dawson"s defences. I couldn"t see how one would work it, but if German agents, say, could manage to become trusted servants of Dawson himself, they would have the time of their lives. So far I was guessing at a possibility, however improbable it might seem. Then when Dawson told us that he had sent Trehayne into the _Antigone_ and that he was the one factor common to both vessels--the workmen and the maintenance part were all different--I began to feel that my wild theory might have something in it. I didn"t say anything to you, Cary, or to Dawson--he despises theories. Afterwards Trehayne came in and I spoke to him, and he to me, in French. He did not utter a dozen words altogether, but I was absolutely certain that his French had not been learned at an English public school and during short trips on the Continent. I know too much of English school French and of one"s opportunities to learn upon Continental trips. It took me three years of hard work to recover from the sort of French which I learned at school, and I am not well yet.
The French spoken by Trehayne was the French of the nursery. It was almost, if not quite, his mother tongue, just as his English was.
Trehayne"s French accent did not fit into Trehayne"s history as retailed to us by Dawson. From that moment I plumped for Trehayne as the cutter of gun wires."
Dawson had been listening, though he showed no interest in my speech.
When I had quite finished, and was basking in the respectful admiration emanating from dear old Cary, he upset over me a bucket of very cold water.
"Very pretty," said he. "But answer one question. Why did I send Trehayne to the _Antigone_?"
"Why? How can I tell? You said it was to make sure that the sh.o.r.e party were all off the ship."
"I said! What does it matter what I say! What I do matters a heap, but what I say--pouf! I sent Trehayne to the _Antigone_ to test him. I sent him expecting that he would try to cut her wires, and he did.
Then when I was sure, though I had no evidence for a law court, I sent him to the _Malplaquet_, and I set my trap there for him to walk into.
How did I guess? I don"t guess; I watch. The more valuable a man is to me, the more I watch him, for he might be even more valuable to somebody else. Trehayne was an excellent man, but he had not been with me a month before I was watching him as closely as any cat. I hadn"t been a Marine and served ash.o.r.e and afloat without knowing a born gentleman when I see one, and knowing, too, the naval stamp. Trehayne was too much of a gentleman to have become a workman in the _Vernon_ and at Greenock without some very good reason. He said that he was an orphan--yes; he said his parents left him penniless, and he had to earn his living the best way he could--yes. Quite good reasons, but they didn"t convince me. I was certain sure that somewhere, some time, Trehayne had been a naval officer. I had seen too many during my service to make any mistake about that. So when I stood there waiting in that d.a.m.ned cold corner behind that bulkhead, it was for Trehayne that I was waiting. I meant to take him or to kill him. When he killed himself, I was glad. As I watched his eyes fade out, it was as if my own son was dying on his feet in front of me. But it was better so than to die in front of a firing party. For I--I loved him, and I wished him "Good-bye,""
Dawson pitched his cigar into the fire, got up, and walked away to the far side of the room. I had never till that moment completely reverenced the penetrative, infallible judgment of Little Jane.
Dawson came back after a few minutes, picked up another cigar from Cary"s box, and sat down. "You see, I have a letter from him. I found it in his quarters where I went straight from the _Malplaquet_."
"May we read it?" I asked gently. "I was greatly taken with Trehayne myself. He was a clean, beautiful boy. He was an enemy officer on Secret Service; there is no dishonour in that. If he were alive, I could shake his hand as the officer of the firing party shook the hand of Lody before he gave the last order."
Dawson took a paper from his pocket, and handed it to me. "Read it out," said he; "I can"t."
CHAPTER VIII
TREHAYNE"S LETTER
I took the letter from Dawson and glanced through it. The first sheet and the last had been written very recently--just before the boy had left his quarters for the last time to go on board the _Malplaquet_; the remainder had been set down at various times; and the whole had been connected up, put together, and paged after the completion of the last sheet. Trehayne wrote a pretty hand, firm and clear, the writing of an artist who was also a trained engineer. There was no trace in the script of nervousness or of hesitation. He had carried out his Orders, he saw clearly that the path which he had trod was leading him to the end of his journey, but he made no complaint. He was a Latin, and to the last possessed that loftiness of spirit wedded to sombre fatalism which is the heritage of the Latins. He was at war with his kindred of Italy and France, and with the English among whom he had been brought up, and whom he loved. He was their enemy by accident of birth, but though he might and did love his foes better than his German friends of Austria and Prussia, yet he had taken the oath of faithful service, and kept it to the end. I could understand why Dawson--that strange human bloodhound, in whom the ruthless will continually struggled with and kept under the very tender heart--would allow no one to slander Trehayne.
Cary was watching me eagerly, waiting for me to read the letter.
Dawson"s head was resting on one hand, and his face was turned away, so that I could not see it. He could not wholly conceal his emotion, but he would not let us see more of it than he could help. He did not move once during my reading.
_To Chief Inspector William Dawson, C.I.D._
SIR,
Will you be surprised, my friend, when you read this that I have left for you, to learn that I, your right-hand man in the unending spy hunt, I whom you have called your bright jewel of a pupil, Petty Officer John Trehayne, R.N.V.R., am at this moment upon the books of the Austrian Navy as a sub-lieutenant, seconded for Secret Service?
Have you ever been surprised by anything? I don"t know. You have said often in my hearing that you suspect every one. Have you suspected me?
Sometimes when I have caught that sidelong squint of yours, that studied accidental glance which sees so much, I have felt almost sure that you were far from satisfied that Trehayne was the man he gave himself out to be. I have been useful to you. I have eaten your salt, and have served you as faithfully as was consistent with the supreme Orders by which I direct my action. With you I have run down and captured German agents, wretched lumps of dirt, whom I loathe as much as you do. Those who have sworn fidelity to this fair country of England, and have accepted of her citizenship--things which I have never done--and then in fancied security have spied upon their adopted Mother, I loathe and spit upon. I have taken the police oath of obedience to my superiors, and I have kept it, but I have never sworn allegiance to His Majesty your King, whom I pray that G.o.d may preserve though I am his enemy. To your blunt English mind, untrained in logic, my sentiments and actions may lack consistency. But no. Those agents whom we have run down, you and I, were traitors--traitors to England.
Of all traitors for whom h.e.l.l is hungry the German-born traitor is the most devilish. I would not have you think, my friend, that I am at one with them. Never while I have been in your pay and service have I had any communication direct or indirect with any of the naturalised- British Prussian sc.u.m, who have betrayed your n.o.ble generosity. I have taken my Orders from Vienna, I have communicated always direct with Vienna. I am an Austrian naval officer. I am no traitor to England.
I spring from an old Italian family which has long been settled in Trieste. For many generations we have served in the Austrian Navy.
With modern Italy, with the Italy above all which has thrown the Holy Father into captivity and stripped the Holy See of the dominions bestowed upon it by G.o.d, we have no part or lot. Yet when I have met Italian officers, and those too of France, as I have frequently done during my cruises afloat, I have felt with them a harmony of spirit which I have never experienced in a.s.sociation with German-Austrians and with Prussians. I do not wish to speak evil of our Allies, the Prussians, but to one of my blood they are the most detestable people whom G.o.d ever had the ill-judgment to create.
I was born in Trieste, and lived there with my parents until I was eight years old. In our private life we always spoke Italian or French, German was our official language. I know that language well, of course, but it is not my mother tongue. Italian or French, and afterwards English--I speak and write all three equally well; which of the three I shall use when I come to die and one reverts to the speech of the nursery and schoolroom, I cannot say; it will depend upon whom those are that stand about my deathbed.
When I was eight years old, my father, Captain ---- (no, I will not tell you my name; it is not Trehayne though somewhat similar in sound), was appointed Austrian Consul at Plymouth, and we all moved to that great Devonshire seaport. I was young enough to absorb the rich English atmosphere, nowhere so rich as in that county which is the home and breeding-ground of your most splendid Navy. I was born again, a young Elizabethan Englishman. My story to you of my origin was true in one particular--I really was educated at Blundell"s School at Tiverton. Whenever--and it has happened more than once--I have met as Trehayne old schoolfellows of Blundell"s they have accepted without comment or inquiry my tale that I had become an Englishman, and had anglicised my name. Among the peoples which exist on earth to-day, you English are the most n.o.bly generous and unsuspicious. The Prussians laugh at you; I, an Austrian-Italian, love and respect you.
When I was sixteen, after I had spent eight years in Devon, and four of those years at an English public school, I was in speech and almost in the inner fibres of my mind an Englishman. Your naval authorities at Plymouth and Devonport, as serenely trustful and heedless of espionage as the ma.s.s of your kindly people, allowed my father--whom I often accompanied--to see the dockyards, the engine shops, the training schools, and the barracks. They knew that he was an Austrian naval officer, and they took him to their hearts as a brother, of the common universal brotherhood of the sea. I think that your Navy holds those of a foreign naval service as more nearly of kin to themselves than civilians of their own blood. The bond of a common profession is more close than the bond of a common nationality. I do not doubt that my father sent much information to our Emba.s.sy in London--it was what he was employed to do--but I am sure that he did not basely betray the wonderful confidence of his hosts. Our countries were at peace. My father is no Prussian; he is a chivalrous gentleman. I am sure that he did not send more than his English naval friends were content at the time that he should send. For in those years your newspapers and your books upon the Royal Navy of England concealed little from the world.
I have visited Dartmouth; I have dined in the Naval College there with bright sailor boys of my own age. It was then my one dream, had I remained in England, to have become an Englishman, and to have myself served in your Navy. It was a vain dream, but I knew no better. Fate and my birth made me afterwards your enemy. I would have fought you gladly face to face on land or sea, but never, never, would I have stabbed the meanest of Englishmen in the back.
When I was sixteen years old I left England with my parents and returned to Triest. I was a good mathematician with a keen taste for mechanics. I spent two years in the naval engineering shops at Pola, and I was gazetted as a sub-lieutenant in the engineering branch of the Austrian Navy. My next two years were spent afloat. Although I did not know it, I had already been marked out by my superiors for the Secret Service. My perfect acquaintance with English, my education at Blundell"s, my knowledge of your thoughts and your queer ways, and twists of mind, had equipped me conspicuously for Secret Service work in your midst.
As a youth of twenty, in the first flush of manhood, I was seconded for service here, and I returned to England. That was five years ago.
[I paused, for my throat was dry, and looked up. Cary was leaning forward intent upon every word. Dawson"s face was still turned away; he had not moved. It seemed to me that to our party of three had been added a fourth, the spirit of Trehayne, and that he anxiously waited there yonder in the shadows for the deliverance of our judgment. Had he, an English public school boy, played the game according to the immemorial English rules? I went on.]
It was extraordinarily easy for me to obtain employment in the heart of your naval mysteries. Few questions were asked; you admitted me as one of yourselves. I took the broad open path of full acceptance of your conditions. I first obtained employment in a marine engineering shop at Southampton, joined a trade union, attended Socialist meetings--I, a member of one of the oldest families in Trieste. Though a Catholic, I bent my knee in the English Church, and this was not difficult, for I had always attended service in the chapel at Blundell"s. To you, my friend, I can say this, for you are of some strange sect which consigns to the lowest h.e.l.l both Catholics and Anglicans alike. Your Heaven will be a small place. From Southampton I went to the torpedo training-ship _Vernon_. Again I had no difficulty.
I was a workman of skill and intelligence. I was there for more than two years, learning all your secrets, and storing them in my mind for the benefit of my own Service at home.