He leaned back in his chair and sucked at his pipe, and then he began his story with a curious detached air, as though he were surveying his own handiwork from the point of view of an impartial connoisseur.
"The idea was distinctly ingenious," said he, "and I think I may also venture to claim for it a little originality. I won"t trouble you with the machinery by which we learn things. It"s enough to mention that among the little things we did learn was the fact that the minister of this parish had left for another charge, and that the parishioners were choosing his successor after the Scottish custom--by hearing a number of candidates each preach a trial sermon." He broke off and asked, "Do you happen to have heard of Schumann?"
"You don"t mean the great Schumann?"
"I mean a certain gentleman engaged in the same quiet line of business as myself. He is known of course under another name in England, where he is considered a very fine specimen of John Bull at his best--a jovial, talkative, commercial gentleman with nice spectacles like Mr Pickwick, who subscribes to all the war charities and is never tired of telling his friends what he would do with the Kaiser if he caught him."
I laughed aloud at this happy description of a typical John Bull.
"Well," he continued, "I suggested to Schumann the wild idea--as it seemed to us at first--of getting into the islands in the guise of a candidate for the parish of Myredale. Two days later Schumann came to me with his spectacles twinkling with excitement.
""Look at this!" said he.
"He showed me a photograph in an ill.u.s.trated paper. It was the portrait of a certain Mr Alexander Burnett, minister of a parish in the south of Scotland, and I a.s.sure you that if the name "Adolph Tiel" had been printed underneath, none of my friends would have questioned its being my own portrait.
""The stars are fighting for us!" said Schumann.
""They seem ready to enlist," I agreed.
""How shall we encourage them?" said he.
""I shall let you know to-morrow," I said.
"I went home and thought over the problem. From the first I was convinced that the only method which gave us a chance of success was for this man Burnett to enter voluntarily as a candidate, make all the arrangements himself--including the vital matter of a pa.s.sport--and finally start actually upon his journey. Otherwise, no attempt to impersonate him seemed to me to stand any chance of success.
"Next day I saw Schumann and laid down these conditions, and we set about making preliminary inquiries. They were distinctly promising.
Burnett"s parish was a poor one, and from what we could gather, he had already been thinking for some time past of making a change.
"We began by sending him anonymously a paper containing a notice of the vacancy here. That of course was just to set him thinking about it.
The next Sunday Schumann motored down to his parish, saw for himself that the resemblance to me was actually quite remarkable, and then after service made the minister"s acquaintance. Imagine the good Mr Burnett"s surprise and interest when this pleasant stranger proved to be intimately acquainted with the vacant parish of Myredale, and described it as a second Garden of Eden! Before they parted Schumann saw that the fish was hooked.
"The next problem was how to make the real Burnett vanish into s.p.a.ce, and subst.i.tute the false Burnett without raising a trace of suspicion till my visit here was safely over. Again luck was with us. We sent an agent down to make inquiries of his servant a few days before he started, and found that he was going to spend a night with a friend in Edinburgh on his way north."
Tiel paused to knock the ashes out of his pipe, and I remarked--
"At first sight I confess that seems to me to complicate the problem.
You would have to wait till Burnett had left Edinburgh, wouldn"t you?"
Tiel smiled and shook his head.
"That is what we thought ourselves at first," said he, "but our second thoughts were better. What do you think of a wire to Burnett from his friend in Edinburgh telling him that a Mr Taylor would call for him in his motor-car: plus a wire to the friend in Edinburgh from Mr Burnett regretting that his visit must be postponed?"
"Excellent!" I laughed.
"Each wire, I may add, contained careful injunctions not to reply. And I may also add that the late Mr Burnett was simplicity itself."
I started involuntarily.
"The "late" Mr Burnett! Do you mean----"
"What else could one do with him?" asked Tiel calmly. "Both Schumann and I believe in being thorough."
Of course this worthy pair were but doing their duty. Still I was glad to think they had done their dirty work without my a.s.sistance, It was with a conscious effort that I was able to ask calmly--
"How did you manage it?"
"Mr Taylor, with his car and his chauffeur, called at the manse. The chauffeur remained in the car, keeping his face unostentatiously concealed. Mr Taylor enjoyed the minister"s hospitality till the evening had sufficiently fallen. Then we took him to Edinburgh by the coast road."
Tiel paused and looked at me, as though to see how I was enjoying the gruesome tale. I am afraid I made it pretty clear that I was not enjoying it in the least. The idea of first partaking of the wretched man"s hospitality, and then coolly murdering him, was a little too much for my stomach. Tiel, however, seemed rather amused than otherwise with my att.i.tude.
"We knocked him on the head at a quiet part of the road, stripped him of every st.i.tch of clothing, tied a large stone to his feet, and pitched him over the cliff," he said calmly.
"And his clothes----," I began, shrinking back a little in my chair.
"Are these," said Tiel, indicating his respectable-looking suit of black.
Curiously enough this was the only time I heard the man tell a tale of this sort, and in this diabolical, deliberate, almost flippant way. It was in marked contrast to his usually brief, concise manner of speaking. Possibly it was my reception of his story that discouraged him from exhibiting this side of his nature again. I certainly made no effort to conceal my distaste now.
"Thank G.o.d, I am not in the secret service!" I said devoutly.
"I understand you are in the submarine service," said Tiel in a dry voice.
"I am--and I am proud of it!"
"Have you never fired a torpedo at an inoffensive merchant ship?"
"That is very different!" I replied hotly.
"It is certainly more wholesale," said he.
I sprang up.
"Mr Tiel," I said, "kindly understand that a German naval officer is not in the habit of enduring affronts to his service!"
"But you think a German secret-service agent should have no such pride?" he inquired.
"I decline to discuss the question any further," I said stiffly.
For a moment he seemed exceedingly amused. Then he saw that I was in no humour for jesting on the subject, and he ceased to smile.
"Have another cigar?" he said, in a quiet matter-of-fact voice, just as though nothing had happened to ruffle the harmony of the evening.
"You quite understand what I said?" I demanded in an icy voice.
"I thought the subject was closed," he replied with a smile, and then jumping up he laid his hand on my arm in the friendliest fashion. "My dear Belke," said he, "we are going to be shut up together in this house for several days, and if we begin with a quarrel we shall certainly end in murder. Let us respect one another"s point of view, and say no more about it."
"I don"t know what you mean by "one another"s point of view,"" I answered politely but coldly. "So far as I am aware there is only one point of view, and I have just stated it. If we both respect that, there will be no danger of our quarrelling."
He glanced at me for a moment in an odd way, and then said merely--