Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.The Hidden Hand in Britain.“Ah! my dear Hecq—you have now set me a very difficult task—very difficult indeed!” I found myself saying a few weeks later, after I had mastered, with a good deal of trouble, a formidable dossier which had been laid before me by the astute chief of the French Secret Service, now promoted, by the way, to be chief of the International Secret Service Bureau of the Allies.Though the time had been short since my return from Spain, much had happened. At length “unity of command” in contra-espionage work had been realised as an absolute essential for securing a definite mastery over the incessant plottings of the Huns, and, with the cordial goodwill of all, Armand Hecq—whose brilliant abilities had given him a commanding position—had been unanimously chosen for the much coveted post.“I admit it is extremely difficult,” said the short, grey-bearded, alert little man, knocking the ash from his excellent cigar, leaning back in his cane deck-chair, and regarding me with an amused smile. “It is so difficult that I confess I do not see my way at all clearly. For that reason I have put the matter before you.”“There can be no doubt about the seriousness of the affair,” I said. “The French Service have done very well so far, and so have our friends in London. We are quite well aware that during the past few weeks there has been an amazing recrudescence of German espionage, both here and in England, and even Whitehall is seriously alarmed. There is good reason for believing that working drawings of the new British trench-mortars have, by some means, been smuggled over to Germany. How they got out is a complete mystery, for the control at all the ports has been stricter than ever. Yet van Ekker has managed to get through to Holland a message from Berlin which leaves very little doubt as to the fact. It is undeniably serious, for the new mortar is a wonderful production, and I happen to know that it was intended to be one of the grand surprises in the Allies’ spring offensive.”Hecq grunted, and I paused. Then I went on saying:“We have a pretty good idea of the traitor in the department concerned, and he is now safely under lock and key. Unfortunately the mischief was done before he was even suspected, and the closest inquiries have failed to unearth any of his associates who would be regarded as in the slightest degree doubtful. It looks very much like a case of a hitherto thoroughly reliable man yielding to a sudden and overpowering temptation, while the real culprit—the man who pulled the strings—remains undiscovered. No doubt Count Wedell and his precious propaganda department have a first-class man at work, and they have so cleverly covered up the tracks that the method of their latest coup remains a mystery. It is perfectly obvious that the subterranean work of Germany is even now proceeding in France, Italy, and Great Britain.”“Exactly,mon cherSant. And you must take this particular matter in hand at once, and try to discover at least one of the fingers of what your good friends across the Channel call so appropriately ‘the Hidden Hand.’ For myself, I feel quite sure that at last, after much seeking, we have alighted on the source of the whole affair, so far as England and France are concerned.”Our conversation had taken place at Armand Hecq’s house out at St. Germain, beyond Paris. I had come post-haste from Lausanne, where I had been engaged with Poiry—an ex-agent of the Paris Sûreté—upon another matter. An urgent telegram from Hecq had warned me that the new business was most important, hence I had lost no time in answering his summons.It was a warm afternoon, and we were seated out on the terrace overlooking the pretty garden, which was the hobby of the most remarkable and resourceful secret agent in all Europe.To outward seeming Armand Hecq was a prosperous Parisian financial agent, whose offices in the Boulevard des Capucines, opposite the Grand Hôtel, were visited by all sorts of persons of both sexes. None, excepting those “in the know,” suspected that these handsome offices, with the white-headed oldconciergewearing the ribbon of 1870, were in reality no mere financial establishment, but the headquarters of the international espionage of the Allies. None realised that the crowds of “speculators,” who flocked thither in the pursuit of ever-elusive wealth, included among them dozens of men and women who day by day carried their lives in their hands in their never-ending warfare with the unscrupulous and resourceful agents of Germany. None dreamed that to the busy staff finance was a mere side-line; that their real interest was not the daily fluctuations of the Bourse, but the thread of Hun intrigue which ran through all the crowded life of the gay city, and was nowhere stronger than in the department of finance.“Now, Sant,” said Hecq abruptly, after we had sat silent for a few minutes while I ran over in my mind the essential facts of the new and tangled case. “You have seen the photographs and thedossier, and you understand the position. What is your opinion?”“There can be but one,” I answered leisurely. “Before the war, Jules Cauvin, of Issoire in Auvergne, was a struggling corn-merchant. He has since, in some unaccountable way, blossomed out into a man of wealth, and has purchased an important estate with money which has come from some mysterious source. Constant payments appear to reach him from a firm of motor-engineers somewhere in England. In his sudden prosperity he has bought a villa at Mentone, where he lives during the winter with his wife and family, and he is often seen at the tables at Monte Carlo. Among those who have stayed with him at the Villa des Fleurs was the Russian Colonel Miassoyedeff, who was recently hanged as a spy of Germany. There can be only one conclusion from all this.”“Ah! my friend. I see you have mastered the essentials,” said Hecq approvingly. “Now Cauvin and all his friends are under the strictest surveillance; the question is how we are to secure evidence to convict him of the espionage he is undoubtedly concerned in. We can arrest him, of course, at any moment; he has no chance whatever of getting away. Every letter he sends or receives is opened and photographed, yet, up to the present, he has been too clever for us. If he were put on trial for espionage to-morrow, not even his friendship with Miassoyedeff would prevent him from being acquitted. We have no evidence against him whatever, beyond the fact of his sudden wealth, and that, even in these times, is not enough.” And Hecq looked at me with an appeal in those soft, strange eyes of his. I could see that the case of Cauvin presented itself to him as supremely important, and that it must be solved if we were ever to grapple successfully with the mysterious, deadly influence whose workings we could feel and trace all around us, but the real wielder of which appeared constantly to slip through our fingers.“I quite understand you,” I said, sipping the little glass of Cointreau he had offered me. “There is only one thing to be done. We must find that finger of the Hidden Hand in England.”“Exactly, my dear Sant,” exclaimed my chief, with a quick gesture of approval. “We seem to be losing ground day by day. Why? At all costs the position must be retrieved. You will want Madame Soyez to help you. Let me see; she is at present in England. I sent her across only a week ago to make some inquiries. Excuse me a moment while I speak to Guillet,” and he left me to go to the telephone.Monsieur Guillet was his private secretary, who controlled his “financial office” in the Boulevard des Capucines.A few minutes later he returned, saying: “Madame is to-day at the Midland Grand Hotel in Manchester. Presuming that you wish to meet her, I have told Guillet to telegraph, asking her, if possible, to meet you to-morrow night in London.”“No,” I said at once. “That won’t do. We cannot begin to work in England yet. I must learn a lot more about this interesting person Cauvin, who has so mysteriously acquired a fortune. Then we will begin to probe matters across the Channel. Recall Madame Gabrielle here and we will set to work. But it will be extremely difficult. The investigation of the Hidden Hand in England has always met with failure, so far as the principals are concerned. We have caught one or two of the minor tools, but the master-mind has always eluded us, although the British Secret Service is most excellent.”“Ah,mon cherSant, there I agree most cordially with you. The world little dreams of the astuteness and resourcefulness of our colleagues at Whitehall. One day it will know—and it will be greatly surprised. Very well, I will order Madame Gabrielle to come direct to Paris.”Again he rose, and during his absence I once more glanced at the formidable dossier concerning the wealthy Jules Cauvin, who was so well known in the gay night life of Paris, whose smart wife was one of the leaders in the social world, and who had recently established a hospital out at Neuilly, where his wife and daughter worked unceasingly on behalf of the wounded.According to one report, the suspected man was in the habit of entertaining certain high officials of the State at his fine house close to the Étoile, and he had several bosom friends in the Admiralty. Such was the present position of a man who only five years ago was a struggling corn-merchant in rural Auvergne.I lit a cigarette and reflected. By the time Hecq had returned I had hit upon the rough outlines of a plan.“First of all,” I said, “you must call off the surveillance on Cauvin. I must have a free hand in the affair, and the Sûreté must not interfere in any way. If Cauvin gains the slightest suspicion we shall certainly fail. Secondly, I must have a good man to assist me. Aubert did extremely well in the case of Marguerite Zell, the dancing woman who came from The Hague; I will have him. I shall leave Paris this evening. Tell Madame Gabrielle to come home and wait till I return, and to hold herself in readiness with Aubert.”Hecq nodded his assent, but did not ask me a single question. That was what I liked most about him; he never asked one how he intended to proceed. His trust, when it was given, was complete; he expected results, and did not bother about mere details. Yet, when his assistance was asked at a difficult point, he was always completely at the service of his employees. He knew I had no particular affection for the Sûreté, because in one important case they had bungled, and brought me to disaster which nearly cost me my life. So he merely shook hands and wished me good luck.Twenty-four hours later I arrived at the Hôtel de la Poste, in Issoire, a dull, remote little town in Auvergne, and next morning set about making inquiries regarding Jules Cauvin. First of all, I looked up the entry of his birth at the Prefecture, which showed that he was the son of the village postman of Champeix, seven miles from Issoire. I found out also that his father had been imprisoned for seven years for thefts of letters.It was necessary to make many inquiries without arousing suspicion, therefore I was compelled to spend several days at my task. I made some interesting discoveries, for naturally the entire neighbourhood was familiar with Cauvin’s rise to wealth, and he had been put under that microscopic observation and discussion which is so marked a feature of provincial life everywhere, but especially in France.I chanced upon a retired butcher named Demetz, in whose debt Cauvin had been to the extent of nearly two thousand francs. Demetz had been on the point of suing for the money when, to his intense surprise, Cauvin called one day with a bundle of thousand-franc notes in his hand, and threw out three, saying gleefully: “The extra thousand is for interest, my dear friend. I invented an improvement in automobile engines a year ago and patented it. A big firm in England has taken up my invention, and my fortune is made.”Naturally enough, the retired butcher had been keenly interested in Cauvin’s sudden wealth, and had tried to question him about it. But the postman’s son was too wily to be drawn. He declared that the invention was a secret, that it would revolutionise the motor trade, and that the English syndicate which had bought it meant to spring it upon the market as a complete surprise.I soon found out that the man Cauvin was not popular. True, he flung his money about, and there were few local institutions which had not benefited by his largesse. But there is no population in the world so suspicious as the French provincial, and it was evident that the ex-postman’s son had entirely failed in his prosperity to win either the affection or the confidence of those who had known him in his earlier and humbler days.Demetz voiced the prevailing suspicion. “Where does his money come from, monsieur?” he asked me. “From a motor invention—bah! What does Jules Cauvin know about motors? He had hardly ever been in one before he grew so suddenly rich. There is something mysterious about it all.” But it was evident that even Demetz had not the least inkling of the real truth, and, of course, I did not breathe a syllable of it to him.The matter was of extreme urgency, and I did not allow the grass to grow under my feet. I had promised Doris to spend a week with her in Worcestershire, but this was impossible. I knew, however, that she had long wished for a trip to Mentone, so I sent her a wire, asking her to come with her mother and meet me there. A few hours after I got the reply I wished for, and the following afternoon I alighted upon the long platform at Mentone. Two days later I was joined at my hotel by Doris and her mother.In Mentone, of course, my objective was the Villa des Fleurs. I particularly wanted to have a good look round the interior of that interesting house. Cauvin, of course, was away, and the house was shut up, but I learned that it was being looked after by an old woman, the wife of the gardener, and accordingly I hired afiacreand, with Doris as my companion, drove out to the Villa des Fleurs.On the Côte d’Azur the weather was stifling. Driving up the white, winding road of Castellar, we found the olives and aloes dry and dusty, and the land parched and brown. The Riviera is not gay in the dog-days. At last we arrived at the Villa, a great, recently built house of the flamboyant, new art style, its green shutters closed, and the whole place silent and deserted in the burning sun. Roses and geraniums ran riot everywhere, but the gardens were kept spick and span, as became the winterpied-à-terreof a wealthy man.I posed as an Englishman who wished to view the Villa, with the object of becoming its tenant next winter, having heard from a friend of Monsieur Cauvin that he might wish to let it. Doris, I assured the old gardener, a white-bearded man in a big straw hat and blue apron, was my sister. He took the bait readily enough, and handed me over to the care of his wife, by whom we were conducted over the house.The house was most luxuriously furnished, and it was evident that popular rumours, for once, had not exaggerated Cauvin’s wealth. Everything was in splendid taste and bore the unmistakablecachetof a famous Paris firm of experts. Cauvin, evidently, was no fool; he had committed none of the absurdities of the averagenouveau riche, but had wisely given experienced mencarte blanche. The result was a mingling of luxury and good taste which certainly could not have been expected from the son of a village postman.

“Ah! my dear Hecq—you have now set me a very difficult task—very difficult indeed!” I found myself saying a few weeks later, after I had mastered, with a good deal of trouble, a formidable dossier which had been laid before me by the astute chief of the French Secret Service, now promoted, by the way, to be chief of the International Secret Service Bureau of the Allies.

Though the time had been short since my return from Spain, much had happened. At length “unity of command” in contra-espionage work had been realised as an absolute essential for securing a definite mastery over the incessant plottings of the Huns, and, with the cordial goodwill of all, Armand Hecq—whose brilliant abilities had given him a commanding position—had been unanimously chosen for the much coveted post.

“I admit it is extremely difficult,” said the short, grey-bearded, alert little man, knocking the ash from his excellent cigar, leaning back in his cane deck-chair, and regarding me with an amused smile. “It is so difficult that I confess I do not see my way at all clearly. For that reason I have put the matter before you.”

“There can be no doubt about the seriousness of the affair,” I said. “The French Service have done very well so far, and so have our friends in London. We are quite well aware that during the past few weeks there has been an amazing recrudescence of German espionage, both here and in England, and even Whitehall is seriously alarmed. There is good reason for believing that working drawings of the new British trench-mortars have, by some means, been smuggled over to Germany. How they got out is a complete mystery, for the control at all the ports has been stricter than ever. Yet van Ekker has managed to get through to Holland a message from Berlin which leaves very little doubt as to the fact. It is undeniably serious, for the new mortar is a wonderful production, and I happen to know that it was intended to be one of the grand surprises in the Allies’ spring offensive.”

Hecq grunted, and I paused. Then I went on saying:

“We have a pretty good idea of the traitor in the department concerned, and he is now safely under lock and key. Unfortunately the mischief was done before he was even suspected, and the closest inquiries have failed to unearth any of his associates who would be regarded as in the slightest degree doubtful. It looks very much like a case of a hitherto thoroughly reliable man yielding to a sudden and overpowering temptation, while the real culprit—the man who pulled the strings—remains undiscovered. No doubt Count Wedell and his precious propaganda department have a first-class man at work, and they have so cleverly covered up the tracks that the method of their latest coup remains a mystery. It is perfectly obvious that the subterranean work of Germany is even now proceeding in France, Italy, and Great Britain.”

“Exactly,mon cherSant. And you must take this particular matter in hand at once, and try to discover at least one of the fingers of what your good friends across the Channel call so appropriately ‘the Hidden Hand.’ For myself, I feel quite sure that at last, after much seeking, we have alighted on the source of the whole affair, so far as England and France are concerned.”

Our conversation had taken place at Armand Hecq’s house out at St. Germain, beyond Paris. I had come post-haste from Lausanne, where I had been engaged with Poiry—an ex-agent of the Paris Sûreté—upon another matter. An urgent telegram from Hecq had warned me that the new business was most important, hence I had lost no time in answering his summons.

It was a warm afternoon, and we were seated out on the terrace overlooking the pretty garden, which was the hobby of the most remarkable and resourceful secret agent in all Europe.

To outward seeming Armand Hecq was a prosperous Parisian financial agent, whose offices in the Boulevard des Capucines, opposite the Grand Hôtel, were visited by all sorts of persons of both sexes. None, excepting those “in the know,” suspected that these handsome offices, with the white-headed oldconciergewearing the ribbon of 1870, were in reality no mere financial establishment, but the headquarters of the international espionage of the Allies. None realised that the crowds of “speculators,” who flocked thither in the pursuit of ever-elusive wealth, included among them dozens of men and women who day by day carried their lives in their hands in their never-ending warfare with the unscrupulous and resourceful agents of Germany. None dreamed that to the busy staff finance was a mere side-line; that their real interest was not the daily fluctuations of the Bourse, but the thread of Hun intrigue which ran through all the crowded life of the gay city, and was nowhere stronger than in the department of finance.

“Now, Sant,” said Hecq abruptly, after we had sat silent for a few minutes while I ran over in my mind the essential facts of the new and tangled case. “You have seen the photographs and thedossier, and you understand the position. What is your opinion?”

“There can be but one,” I answered leisurely. “Before the war, Jules Cauvin, of Issoire in Auvergne, was a struggling corn-merchant. He has since, in some unaccountable way, blossomed out into a man of wealth, and has purchased an important estate with money which has come from some mysterious source. Constant payments appear to reach him from a firm of motor-engineers somewhere in England. In his sudden prosperity he has bought a villa at Mentone, where he lives during the winter with his wife and family, and he is often seen at the tables at Monte Carlo. Among those who have stayed with him at the Villa des Fleurs was the Russian Colonel Miassoyedeff, who was recently hanged as a spy of Germany. There can be only one conclusion from all this.”

“Ah! my friend. I see you have mastered the essentials,” said Hecq approvingly. “Now Cauvin and all his friends are under the strictest surveillance; the question is how we are to secure evidence to convict him of the espionage he is undoubtedly concerned in. We can arrest him, of course, at any moment; he has no chance whatever of getting away. Every letter he sends or receives is opened and photographed, yet, up to the present, he has been too clever for us. If he were put on trial for espionage to-morrow, not even his friendship with Miassoyedeff would prevent him from being acquitted. We have no evidence against him whatever, beyond the fact of his sudden wealth, and that, even in these times, is not enough.” And Hecq looked at me with an appeal in those soft, strange eyes of his. I could see that the case of Cauvin presented itself to him as supremely important, and that it must be solved if we were ever to grapple successfully with the mysterious, deadly influence whose workings we could feel and trace all around us, but the real wielder of which appeared constantly to slip through our fingers.

“I quite understand you,” I said, sipping the little glass of Cointreau he had offered me. “There is only one thing to be done. We must find that finger of the Hidden Hand in England.”

“Exactly, my dear Sant,” exclaimed my chief, with a quick gesture of approval. “We seem to be losing ground day by day. Why? At all costs the position must be retrieved. You will want Madame Soyez to help you. Let me see; she is at present in England. I sent her across only a week ago to make some inquiries. Excuse me a moment while I speak to Guillet,” and he left me to go to the telephone.

Monsieur Guillet was his private secretary, who controlled his “financial office” in the Boulevard des Capucines.

A few minutes later he returned, saying: “Madame is to-day at the Midland Grand Hotel in Manchester. Presuming that you wish to meet her, I have told Guillet to telegraph, asking her, if possible, to meet you to-morrow night in London.”

“No,” I said at once. “That won’t do. We cannot begin to work in England yet. I must learn a lot more about this interesting person Cauvin, who has so mysteriously acquired a fortune. Then we will begin to probe matters across the Channel. Recall Madame Gabrielle here and we will set to work. But it will be extremely difficult. The investigation of the Hidden Hand in England has always met with failure, so far as the principals are concerned. We have caught one or two of the minor tools, but the master-mind has always eluded us, although the British Secret Service is most excellent.”

“Ah,mon cherSant, there I agree most cordially with you. The world little dreams of the astuteness and resourcefulness of our colleagues at Whitehall. One day it will know—and it will be greatly surprised. Very well, I will order Madame Gabrielle to come direct to Paris.”

Again he rose, and during his absence I once more glanced at the formidable dossier concerning the wealthy Jules Cauvin, who was so well known in the gay night life of Paris, whose smart wife was one of the leaders in the social world, and who had recently established a hospital out at Neuilly, where his wife and daughter worked unceasingly on behalf of the wounded.

According to one report, the suspected man was in the habit of entertaining certain high officials of the State at his fine house close to the Étoile, and he had several bosom friends in the Admiralty. Such was the present position of a man who only five years ago was a struggling corn-merchant in rural Auvergne.

I lit a cigarette and reflected. By the time Hecq had returned I had hit upon the rough outlines of a plan.

“First of all,” I said, “you must call off the surveillance on Cauvin. I must have a free hand in the affair, and the Sûreté must not interfere in any way. If Cauvin gains the slightest suspicion we shall certainly fail. Secondly, I must have a good man to assist me. Aubert did extremely well in the case of Marguerite Zell, the dancing woman who came from The Hague; I will have him. I shall leave Paris this evening. Tell Madame Gabrielle to come home and wait till I return, and to hold herself in readiness with Aubert.”

Hecq nodded his assent, but did not ask me a single question. That was what I liked most about him; he never asked one how he intended to proceed. His trust, when it was given, was complete; he expected results, and did not bother about mere details. Yet, when his assistance was asked at a difficult point, he was always completely at the service of his employees. He knew I had no particular affection for the Sûreté, because in one important case they had bungled, and brought me to disaster which nearly cost me my life. So he merely shook hands and wished me good luck.

Twenty-four hours later I arrived at the Hôtel de la Poste, in Issoire, a dull, remote little town in Auvergne, and next morning set about making inquiries regarding Jules Cauvin. First of all, I looked up the entry of his birth at the Prefecture, which showed that he was the son of the village postman of Champeix, seven miles from Issoire. I found out also that his father had been imprisoned for seven years for thefts of letters.

It was necessary to make many inquiries without arousing suspicion, therefore I was compelled to spend several days at my task. I made some interesting discoveries, for naturally the entire neighbourhood was familiar with Cauvin’s rise to wealth, and he had been put under that microscopic observation and discussion which is so marked a feature of provincial life everywhere, but especially in France.

I chanced upon a retired butcher named Demetz, in whose debt Cauvin had been to the extent of nearly two thousand francs. Demetz had been on the point of suing for the money when, to his intense surprise, Cauvin called one day with a bundle of thousand-franc notes in his hand, and threw out three, saying gleefully: “The extra thousand is for interest, my dear friend. I invented an improvement in automobile engines a year ago and patented it. A big firm in England has taken up my invention, and my fortune is made.”

Naturally enough, the retired butcher had been keenly interested in Cauvin’s sudden wealth, and had tried to question him about it. But the postman’s son was too wily to be drawn. He declared that the invention was a secret, that it would revolutionise the motor trade, and that the English syndicate which had bought it meant to spring it upon the market as a complete surprise.

I soon found out that the man Cauvin was not popular. True, he flung his money about, and there were few local institutions which had not benefited by his largesse. But there is no population in the world so suspicious as the French provincial, and it was evident that the ex-postman’s son had entirely failed in his prosperity to win either the affection or the confidence of those who had known him in his earlier and humbler days.

Demetz voiced the prevailing suspicion. “Where does his money come from, monsieur?” he asked me. “From a motor invention—bah! What does Jules Cauvin know about motors? He had hardly ever been in one before he grew so suddenly rich. There is something mysterious about it all.” But it was evident that even Demetz had not the least inkling of the real truth, and, of course, I did not breathe a syllable of it to him.

The matter was of extreme urgency, and I did not allow the grass to grow under my feet. I had promised Doris to spend a week with her in Worcestershire, but this was impossible. I knew, however, that she had long wished for a trip to Mentone, so I sent her a wire, asking her to come with her mother and meet me there. A few hours after I got the reply I wished for, and the following afternoon I alighted upon the long platform at Mentone. Two days later I was joined at my hotel by Doris and her mother.

In Mentone, of course, my objective was the Villa des Fleurs. I particularly wanted to have a good look round the interior of that interesting house. Cauvin, of course, was away, and the house was shut up, but I learned that it was being looked after by an old woman, the wife of the gardener, and accordingly I hired afiacreand, with Doris as my companion, drove out to the Villa des Fleurs.

On the Côte d’Azur the weather was stifling. Driving up the white, winding road of Castellar, we found the olives and aloes dry and dusty, and the land parched and brown. The Riviera is not gay in the dog-days. At last we arrived at the Villa, a great, recently built house of the flamboyant, new art style, its green shutters closed, and the whole place silent and deserted in the burning sun. Roses and geraniums ran riot everywhere, but the gardens were kept spick and span, as became the winterpied-à-terreof a wealthy man.

I posed as an Englishman who wished to view the Villa, with the object of becoming its tenant next winter, having heard from a friend of Monsieur Cauvin that he might wish to let it. Doris, I assured the old gardener, a white-bearded man in a big straw hat and blue apron, was my sister. He took the bait readily enough, and handed me over to the care of his wife, by whom we were conducted over the house.

The house was most luxuriously furnished, and it was evident that popular rumours, for once, had not exaggerated Cauvin’s wealth. Everything was in splendid taste and bore the unmistakablecachetof a famous Paris firm of experts. Cauvin, evidently, was no fool; he had committed none of the absurdities of the averagenouveau riche, but had wisely given experienced mencarte blanche. The result was a mingling of luxury and good taste which certainly could not have been expected from the son of a village postman.

Chapter Five.The Perfumed Card.We passed from room to room, chatting freely with the old Frenchwoman, who garrulously told me everything I wanted to know, and showed not the least reluctance to discuss her master and his affairs.I had previously warned Doris to be on the look-out for anything of interest, and, pleased with the idea of helping me, she was keenly on the alert. I was soon to have good reason to bless the lucky inspiration which had led me to fetch her to Mentone at a time when most people prefer to give it a wide berth.After visiting a number of rooms, we came at last to the front entrance, and the aged housekeeper seemed to think we were leaving. But I had not yet caught sight of Cauvin’s private room, and I knew that unless I saw that my journey would be fruitless.“It is a very nice house,” I said to our guide, “and the gardens are beautiful. But I have much writing to do, and there does not seem to be any room which would serve well as a study.”She hesitated obviously. “Well,” she said slowly, “there is monsieur’s private room, but it is locked. If monsieur desires it, I will fetch the key.”“I might as well see it,” I said, as carelessly as I could. “I must have some private den of my own,” I went on.The old dame shuffled off for the key, and I gave Doris a special hint to keep her eyes wide open. When the old woman returned she led us directly to Cauvin’s private room, a good-sized apartment, furnished something after the pattern of the library of the ordinary English house. I noticed immediately that it had double doors; evidently Cauvin had good reasons for making sure that there should be no eavesdropping when he was at home. Leading from it was a large salon, upholstered in pale blue silk, and the old woman passed into this in order to open the sun-shutters and admit the light.In the window of the library was a big American roll-top desk, which stood open and was rather dusty. The green blotting-pad remained just as the master of the house had left it, and near it lay a pile of miscellaneous and dusty-looking papers.I was glancing round when I was startled by a faint, gasping sob, and, looking round, saw with alarm that Doris had dropped into a chair, apparently faint. The old woman had rushed to her assistance.“It is nothing—only the heat,” murmured Doris faintly. “Please get me a glass of water.”The old woman hurried away, and, much concerned, I bent over Doris. I had no idea that her illness was anything but real, and I was surprised when she said crisply but quietly, “Now is your chance.”Then I realised her purpose and began a hurried examination of the desk, keeping my ears open for any sound of the old woman’s return. But I could find nothing. Evidently Cauvin left little to chance. The drawers of the desk were not even locked, and I soon concluded that I had drawn a blank, and that the key to the mystery I was bent on solving must be sought elsewhere. Of course I was not surprised. It was not in the least likely that Cauvin would leave incriminating documents in his winter quarters, but in the work upon which I was engaged it would never do to miss the opportunity that might be afforded by the momentary carelessness which is the ever-besetting peril of even the cleverest of rogues. As events proved, we were to learn once again the truth of the old adage that no man can be wise at all times.When the old lady returned with water Doris soon “recovered,” and assured the volubly sympathetic dame that she was quite herself again. As we stood for a moment saying farewell, her quick eye caught something which I had overlooked.“Why,” she said, “here is an invitation to a wedding in England!” And she picked up from a small side table, where it lay in a china bowl, a card printed in silver ink—an invitation, as she said, to a wedding, and printed in English.“Has Monsieur Cauvin many English friends?” I asked the old Frenchwoman, hoping that something useful might slip out.“Non, monsieur,” she replied. “I do not think so; I have never seen English letters come, and you are the first Englishman who has ever been here.”I glanced at the card with an interest I took care to conceal. It had been issued six months before by the brother of the bride, a certain Agnes Wheatley, and invited “Monsieur et Madame Cauvin” to be present at her marriage to Captain James Easterbrook, of the Royal Fusiliers, at St. Mary’s Church, Chester. The address given for the reply was “118, Whitefriars, Chester”—an address which I took early opportunity of scribbling upon my shirt-cuff.Suddenly Doris, who had taken the card from my hand, raised it to her nostrils and sniffed at it. “Why,” she said, “it is scented. I never saw an English wedding card scented before.” And she sniffed again and handed the card to me. I raised it to my nostrils and decided that the odour was either that of lemon-scented verbena or the old-fashioned stag-leaved geranium. The scent was fast disappearing, and it was evident, from the age of the card, that it must have been very pungent when fresh.Small things mean much in our profession, and it struck me at once that Doris’s discovery might be decidedly important. Here we had a perfectly innocent-looking invitation to a wedding in England, printed in quite the ordinary English style, and, judging from the type employed, evidently the work of an English printer. Yet the card, found by chance in the house of a foreign suspect, showed a variation from English social customs which Doris, womanlike, had instantly detected. The fact of the card being scented, had I been alone, would certainly not have struck me as being of any peculiar significance; very few men, I am certain, would have given it a second thought. Yet the trivial circumstance was to be the means of leading us finally towards our goal.“Are you sure they never perfume wedding cards in England?”I asked Doris.“Absolutely,” she replied. “I have never heard of such a thing. The card is of excellent quality, and, judging from the fact that the bridegroom is a military man, the parties must be of fairly good social circles, in which any departure from the accepted custom in such things would be regarded as ‘bad form.’”“Well,” I thought, “it may be important.” At the same time I realised that the card might have lain in contact with a scented handkerchief, and thus absorbed part of the odour. As against this was the fact that the scent was not a common one. I decided in my own mind that the matter might be worth looking into, and, when the old custodian’s back was turned, took the liberty of slipping the card into my pocket.Soon after, having learnt all I could about Cauvin and his abode, we left the Villa des Fleurs, and, giving the old woman a handsome tip, returned to Mentone. The same evening I left for Marseilles, Doris and her mother remaining behind for a day or two before returning to England.Somehow I could not dismiss the subject of the perfume from my mind; why, I cannot exactly tell, for I could not see precisely the bearing of the card on the problem I had to solve. Was the perfume verbena or scented geranium, and had the card any special significance?Next day, in Marseilles, I entered the shop of one of the leading perfumers in the Cannebière, and asked the young lady assistant whether she could identify the perfume for me.“Certainly, monsieur,” she said without hesitation; “that is geranium.”“Are you quite sure,” I asked, “that it is not verbena?”“Monsieur shall decide for himself,” was the ready reply, and the girl at once fetched samples of both perfumes. A single test was enough to show that she was correct. And then, recognising the purpose of the card, though she could not speak English, she practically duplicated Doris’s remark. “Is it not unusual, monsieur, to scent a wedding card?”That set me thinking furiously. It was quite possible that Doris might have made a mistake about a point of social etiquette. But here was a young Frenchwoman corroborating her in quite a dramatic fashion.“It is unusual; I suppose they are peculiar people,” I replied as I left.It is one of the penalties of contra-espionage work that one becomes almost morbidly interested in the seemingly trivial. One of the first lessons to be learnt is that nothing is so small that it can be safely neglected. There were, it was obvious, many ways by which the card might have become accidentally impregnated with the perfume. But my intuitive suspicions grew ever stronger, and at last I found myself convinced that there was “something in it.”In one particular, at any rate, the card was of first-rate importance. Try as we would, we had failed entirely to connect Cauvin with anyone in England. We were morally certain that he must be receiving messages and money in some subterranean way, but it was certainly not through the post, and up to the present we had failed to find, among his big list of acquaintances and friends, anyone whom we could reasonably suspect of being in touch with the Hidden Hand across the Straits of Dover. But there were many possible channels of communication through neutral countries, and obviously we could not stop them all.Now, with the aid of the wedding card, it seemed possible, always assuming the card to be genuine, that I might be able to locate one person at least in England who was upon extremely friendly terms with our wealthy suspect. That chance, at any rate, whether the perfume meant anything or not, I was resolved not to miss.Treachery was rife everywhere. In Russia, in Italy, in Roumania, in Greece, and in other countries, men of apparently impeccable reputation were one after another being unmasked in their true characters of agents of the enemy, and were paying the penalty of their perfidy. In France several first-class scandals of this kind had recently absorbed the attention of the public. That England had hitherto been comparatively free from any of thesecauses célèbreswas due, as I well knew, not to the absence of culprits, but to the lazy British good nature, which, coupled with the apathy of men in high places who had always laughed to scorn the very idea of the German spy in England, refused to look unpleasant facts in the face unless they became unduly obtrusive. And the picked men of the Hun spy bureau could be trusted not to make themselves conspicuous!The great Hun octopus does not advertise its presence. It puts its faith in the powerful god Mammon, always sure of finding willing victims, and his chief disciple, Blackmail. Some day or other I may be able to tell the story in more detail; it will certainly be of absorbing interest. At present, however, it must give way to the exigencies of the war situation. The Germans would be only too glad to learn just how much we know; the British public would probably explode into a blaze of indignation if they once fully realised the supine attitude of their rulers to the ever-present and ever-growing menace of the German spy in their midst.

We passed from room to room, chatting freely with the old Frenchwoman, who garrulously told me everything I wanted to know, and showed not the least reluctance to discuss her master and his affairs.

I had previously warned Doris to be on the look-out for anything of interest, and, pleased with the idea of helping me, she was keenly on the alert. I was soon to have good reason to bless the lucky inspiration which had led me to fetch her to Mentone at a time when most people prefer to give it a wide berth.

After visiting a number of rooms, we came at last to the front entrance, and the aged housekeeper seemed to think we were leaving. But I had not yet caught sight of Cauvin’s private room, and I knew that unless I saw that my journey would be fruitless.

“It is a very nice house,” I said to our guide, “and the gardens are beautiful. But I have much writing to do, and there does not seem to be any room which would serve well as a study.”

She hesitated obviously. “Well,” she said slowly, “there is monsieur’s private room, but it is locked. If monsieur desires it, I will fetch the key.”

“I might as well see it,” I said, as carelessly as I could. “I must have some private den of my own,” I went on.

The old dame shuffled off for the key, and I gave Doris a special hint to keep her eyes wide open. When the old woman returned she led us directly to Cauvin’s private room, a good-sized apartment, furnished something after the pattern of the library of the ordinary English house. I noticed immediately that it had double doors; evidently Cauvin had good reasons for making sure that there should be no eavesdropping when he was at home. Leading from it was a large salon, upholstered in pale blue silk, and the old woman passed into this in order to open the sun-shutters and admit the light.

In the window of the library was a big American roll-top desk, which stood open and was rather dusty. The green blotting-pad remained just as the master of the house had left it, and near it lay a pile of miscellaneous and dusty-looking papers.

I was glancing round when I was startled by a faint, gasping sob, and, looking round, saw with alarm that Doris had dropped into a chair, apparently faint. The old woman had rushed to her assistance.

“It is nothing—only the heat,” murmured Doris faintly. “Please get me a glass of water.”

The old woman hurried away, and, much concerned, I bent over Doris. I had no idea that her illness was anything but real, and I was surprised when she said crisply but quietly, “Now is your chance.”

Then I realised her purpose and began a hurried examination of the desk, keeping my ears open for any sound of the old woman’s return. But I could find nothing. Evidently Cauvin left little to chance. The drawers of the desk were not even locked, and I soon concluded that I had drawn a blank, and that the key to the mystery I was bent on solving must be sought elsewhere. Of course I was not surprised. It was not in the least likely that Cauvin would leave incriminating documents in his winter quarters, but in the work upon which I was engaged it would never do to miss the opportunity that might be afforded by the momentary carelessness which is the ever-besetting peril of even the cleverest of rogues. As events proved, we were to learn once again the truth of the old adage that no man can be wise at all times.

When the old lady returned with water Doris soon “recovered,” and assured the volubly sympathetic dame that she was quite herself again. As we stood for a moment saying farewell, her quick eye caught something which I had overlooked.

“Why,” she said, “here is an invitation to a wedding in England!” And she picked up from a small side table, where it lay in a china bowl, a card printed in silver ink—an invitation, as she said, to a wedding, and printed in English.

“Has Monsieur Cauvin many English friends?” I asked the old Frenchwoman, hoping that something useful might slip out.

“Non, monsieur,” she replied. “I do not think so; I have never seen English letters come, and you are the first Englishman who has ever been here.”

I glanced at the card with an interest I took care to conceal. It had been issued six months before by the brother of the bride, a certain Agnes Wheatley, and invited “Monsieur et Madame Cauvin” to be present at her marriage to Captain James Easterbrook, of the Royal Fusiliers, at St. Mary’s Church, Chester. The address given for the reply was “118, Whitefriars, Chester”—an address which I took early opportunity of scribbling upon my shirt-cuff.

Suddenly Doris, who had taken the card from my hand, raised it to her nostrils and sniffed at it. “Why,” she said, “it is scented. I never saw an English wedding card scented before.” And she sniffed again and handed the card to me. I raised it to my nostrils and decided that the odour was either that of lemon-scented verbena or the old-fashioned stag-leaved geranium. The scent was fast disappearing, and it was evident, from the age of the card, that it must have been very pungent when fresh.

Small things mean much in our profession, and it struck me at once that Doris’s discovery might be decidedly important. Here we had a perfectly innocent-looking invitation to a wedding in England, printed in quite the ordinary English style, and, judging from the type employed, evidently the work of an English printer. Yet the card, found by chance in the house of a foreign suspect, showed a variation from English social customs which Doris, womanlike, had instantly detected. The fact of the card being scented, had I been alone, would certainly not have struck me as being of any peculiar significance; very few men, I am certain, would have given it a second thought. Yet the trivial circumstance was to be the means of leading us finally towards our goal.

“Are you sure they never perfume wedding cards in England?”

I asked Doris.

“Absolutely,” she replied. “I have never heard of such a thing. The card is of excellent quality, and, judging from the fact that the bridegroom is a military man, the parties must be of fairly good social circles, in which any departure from the accepted custom in such things would be regarded as ‘bad form.’”

“Well,” I thought, “it may be important.” At the same time I realised that the card might have lain in contact with a scented handkerchief, and thus absorbed part of the odour. As against this was the fact that the scent was not a common one. I decided in my own mind that the matter might be worth looking into, and, when the old custodian’s back was turned, took the liberty of slipping the card into my pocket.

Soon after, having learnt all I could about Cauvin and his abode, we left the Villa des Fleurs, and, giving the old woman a handsome tip, returned to Mentone. The same evening I left for Marseilles, Doris and her mother remaining behind for a day or two before returning to England.

Somehow I could not dismiss the subject of the perfume from my mind; why, I cannot exactly tell, for I could not see precisely the bearing of the card on the problem I had to solve. Was the perfume verbena or scented geranium, and had the card any special significance?

Next day, in Marseilles, I entered the shop of one of the leading perfumers in the Cannebière, and asked the young lady assistant whether she could identify the perfume for me.

“Certainly, monsieur,” she said without hesitation; “that is geranium.”

“Are you quite sure,” I asked, “that it is not verbena?”

“Monsieur shall decide for himself,” was the ready reply, and the girl at once fetched samples of both perfumes. A single test was enough to show that she was correct. And then, recognising the purpose of the card, though she could not speak English, she practically duplicated Doris’s remark. “Is it not unusual, monsieur, to scent a wedding card?”

That set me thinking furiously. It was quite possible that Doris might have made a mistake about a point of social etiquette. But here was a young Frenchwoman corroborating her in quite a dramatic fashion.

“It is unusual; I suppose they are peculiar people,” I replied as I left.

It is one of the penalties of contra-espionage work that one becomes almost morbidly interested in the seemingly trivial. One of the first lessons to be learnt is that nothing is so small that it can be safely neglected. There were, it was obvious, many ways by which the card might have become accidentally impregnated with the perfume. But my intuitive suspicions grew ever stronger, and at last I found myself convinced that there was “something in it.”

In one particular, at any rate, the card was of first-rate importance. Try as we would, we had failed entirely to connect Cauvin with anyone in England. We were morally certain that he must be receiving messages and money in some subterranean way, but it was certainly not through the post, and up to the present we had failed to find, among his big list of acquaintances and friends, anyone whom we could reasonably suspect of being in touch with the Hidden Hand across the Straits of Dover. But there were many possible channels of communication through neutral countries, and obviously we could not stop them all.

Now, with the aid of the wedding card, it seemed possible, always assuming the card to be genuine, that I might be able to locate one person at least in England who was upon extremely friendly terms with our wealthy suspect. That chance, at any rate, whether the perfume meant anything or not, I was resolved not to miss.

Treachery was rife everywhere. In Russia, in Italy, in Roumania, in Greece, and in other countries, men of apparently impeccable reputation were one after another being unmasked in their true characters of agents of the enemy, and were paying the penalty of their perfidy. In France several first-class scandals of this kind had recently absorbed the attention of the public. That England had hitherto been comparatively free from any of thesecauses célèbreswas due, as I well knew, not to the absence of culprits, but to the lazy British good nature, which, coupled with the apathy of men in high places who had always laughed to scorn the very idea of the German spy in England, refused to look unpleasant facts in the face unless they became unduly obtrusive. And the picked men of the Hun spy bureau could be trusted not to make themselves conspicuous!

The great Hun octopus does not advertise its presence. It puts its faith in the powerful god Mammon, always sure of finding willing victims, and his chief disciple, Blackmail. Some day or other I may be able to tell the story in more detail; it will certainly be of absorbing interest. At present, however, it must give way to the exigencies of the war situation. The Germans would be only too glad to learn just how much we know; the British public would probably explode into a blaze of indignation if they once fully realised the supine attitude of their rulers to the ever-present and ever-growing menace of the German spy in their midst.

Chapter Six.In the “Personal” Column.I had a good deal to do before I could leave for England.From Marseilles I left for St. Étienne and Chartres, in both of which towns Jules Cauvin had been known in pre-war days. But little additional information which was of value could I pick up, though I was specially struck by the fact that all who knew him laughed at the bare idea of his having blossomed out into a motor expert. They all seemed equally convinced on this point. One man even ventured the suggestion that, if Cauvin was indeed making huge sums of money from a motor invention, he must have stolen the idea from someone else.“And, believe me, monsieur,” ejaculated the voluble Frenchman, “he would not be above doing so. Jules Cauvin an inventor! Phew! he is too lazy; he never did any work if he could help it.” However, as I was tolerably sure in my own mind that Cauvin was being handsomely paid for services of quite another kind, this did not help me much.At length, after a journey of a week, during which time I spent only one night in bed, I found myself late one afternoon back in Paris, chatting with my colleagues, Madame Gabrielle Soyez and Henri Aubert, in the former’s cosy little flatau troisième, in the Boulevard Péreire. To both I gave certain very definite instructions. To the elegant little Frenchwoman I added:“You will proceed to the Grosvenor Hotel in London, and from there will keep the surveillance I have indicated. Remain there until you hear from me. Report progress frequently—at least every other day—in the personal column ofThe Times.”I could scarcely refrain from smiling as I turned from the vivacious Frenchwoman—a Parisian in every detail of herchicappearance—to Henri Aubert, who was to be our colleague in the undertaking we had in hand. Aubert was a sad-faced, rather melancholy looking middle-aged man, with a face from which every shred of intelligence seemed to have vanished. He looked, indeed, exactly like one of those middle-class nonentities, colourless and featureless, who, by the mysterious workings of the mind of the great god Democracy, manage to get themselves elected as municipal councillors, or by superhuman endeavour rise to the position of advocate—and never do any good. But behind his unpromising exterior, which, in fact, was one of his chief assets, since it practically freed him from any possibility of suspicion, was a keen intelligence, trained in every detail of our craft, a patience that knew no wearying on the trail, and a judgment which closed like a steel trap on the essential factor in a complicated situation, and, once having secured a hold, never let go. I knew him well and esteemed him highly, and he possessed the entire trust of the astute Armand Hecq, a trust difficult to win, but, once won, fully and freely given.To Aubert I explained the situation as fully as I could, and, though I knew him to be a model of circumspection, I ventured on a hint of the extreme care and discretion necessary in the delicate affair if we were to succeed in tracing the source of Cauvin’s mysterious rise to sudden wealth. He listened to me with a ghost of a smile on his thin lips, but he was evidently piqued.“Perhaps, Monsieur Sant, someone has been telling you I am a confirmed babbler?” he said dryly; and I laughed; the idea of Aubert “babbling” had its humorous aspect.“I think we understand each other, Monsieur Aubert,” I said. “I don’t mean to cast any reflections on your discretion. But you know the people we have to deal with.”“Quite well, monsieur,” replied Aubert, with a real smile this time. “We have a difficult job before us. They have a dangerous gang over in England just now. Pierre Gartin was murdered there only last week—shot in a street row unquestionably got up for the occasion. Of course the assassin escaped in the crowd. I think we had better take our revolvers.” He spoke as coolly as though his revolver were his umbrella.I was startled. Pierre Gartin was one of the most capable men we had, and I knew he had been engaged on a piece of work very similar to that which we had in hand. In my absence I had not heard of his death.“No, I had not heard,” I replied. “But I agree with you that our revolvers might be useful.”Aubert’s news told me that our Hun antagonists must have some very big plan in hand. Even the most desperate of spies draws the line at murder, unless he finds himself in an impasse with no other way out. This is not, of course, from any special reluctance to taking the life of an enemy, but simply as a matter of self-preservation. For we are so peculiarly constituted that we tolerate calmly the work of pestiferous agents whose activities are a greater peril to the community than a dozen murders would be, while the killing of a single man brings a hornets’ nest about the murderer’s ears. I knew therefore, that since the Huns had gone so far as to “remove” Gartin, they must be engaged in work of supreme importance, and must have been quite aware that he was hot on their trail. Truly we had an interesting prospect before us. But we were all tolerably well used to danger, and I do not think it affected any of us.“Only last night,” said Aubert, “Cauvin entertained Bonnier, of the Admiralty, and no doubt he learned something from him. I have found out that he has been lending Bonnier a good deal of money. Bonnier has recently got mixed up with a fast set, and he has been spending a great deal more money than his income warrants. When people of that kind begin to consort with rogues of Cauvin’s stamp it usually means only one thing.”“No doubt that is true enough,” I replied; “but for the present we must take even the risk of leaving Bonnier alone. I want absolute evidence that Cauvin’s money comes from Germany, even though he actually gets it from a secret source in England. It is not enough for me to prove either that Bonnier is selling secrets or that Cauvin is buying them. I want to prove that Cauvin’s money is German, and I am going to do it. Bonnier can wait; if we get Cauvin we are tolerably sure to obtain sufficient evidence to lay Bonnier by the heels at any time. In fact, we can remove him quietly as soon as Cauvin is out of the way. I shall leave for England to-morrow.”This I did, and twenty-four hours later I was in London. I decided first to investigate Cauvin’s supposed motor invention, and made my way to the office of a well-known patent agent in Chancery Lane. He had done some business before for me and greeted me warmly. I knew him so thoroughly that I did not hesitate to tell him exactly what I was after.“But, my dear Sant,” he said, “if this supposed invention is being kept as a secret to stagger the motoring world, it is not likely to have been patented yet by either Cauvin or anyone else. Depend upon it, if there is anything in it, it is being manufactured secretly, and will not be patented until it is absolutely ready for the market. To patent it now would simply be setting every motor expert in the country at work on similar lines. You know the patent lists are watched with the keenest scrutiny. My clerk is looking into the matter, and we shall soon know whether Cauvin has patented anything.”This was a surprise for me. I could not, of course, however much I might suspect him, absolutely rule out of my calculations the possibility that even Cauvin might have hit upon some lucky idea, as so many inventors have done, without knowing much of the technicalities of the subject. I did not forget that the safety-pin was the invention of a lazy workman. And I knew that if I took any active steps against Cauvin and made a mistake—if by some miraculous chance his sudden wealth was honestly acquired—the consequences would be serious.“Well,” I said, when we had been assured that no patent of any kind had been taken out by Cauvin, “what am I to do? I can’t go to every big motor engineer in England and ask him if he is manufacturing a secret device invented by Jules Cauvin.”My friend thought for a few moments. “I think you had better see L—,” he said at last. “If there is anything big in hand some kind of whisper of it is sure to have got about, and he would be the first to hear. I will telephone him at once; we shall catch him in his office on the Viaduct.”A few minutes later we were in Holborn in L—’s office; he was one of the magnates of the motoring world. I explained the position.“You can make your mind easy on that point,” he said emphatically. “There is nothing going in the trade to-day big enough to produce the amount of money your man is evidently receiving. If there were, I must have heard of it; it could not be kept secret. You remember the Marx carburettor? Well, we knew for six months that it was coming, though every effort was made to keep it secret. What we did not know was the exact secret; but you know how it took the market by storm.”This, even though it were only negative evidence, seemed to establish conclusively the fact that Cauvin’s money, whatever might be its source, was not derived from the motor trade. I made up my mind that this much at least was certain.Next day I travelled down to old-world Chester, where I very speedily discovered that there was in Whitefriars no house numbered 118, and no trace of any person named Wheatley, while the aged vicar of St. Mary’s knew nothing of the marriage of “Captain James Easterbrook.”Everything was fictitious—everything, that is, except the silver-printed wedding card and the clinging perfume of stag-leaved geranium.What did the bogus card indicate? Why had Jules Cauvin’s unknown correspondent gone to the trouble of having it printed? And why, in defiance of all social custom, had it been scented with such a perfume as that of the stag-leaved geranium? I felt tolerably sure that here lay the key of the mystery, and that when I laid my hand on the sender of that mysterious card I should be very near indeed to the knowledge of the real source of the strange sequence of events which had raised the good-for-nothing son of an obscure French postman to a dazzling position in the world of society.Such was the problem I had to solve. And the key to it was just one bogus wedding card impregnated with the slowly dying odour of geranium. I cursed my luck as I reflected on the magnitude of the issues at stake and the paucity of the tools with which I had to work. For if “Captain James Easterbrook” was unknown in Chester, the home of his supposed bride, what was my chance of penetrating his disguise? Yet, somehow or other, we must succeed. That Cauvin was receiving money from England I was absolutely convinced, and I was determined to take this chance—the best we had had—of locating the real men behind the Hidden Hand in England.Next day I left Chester by a very early train for London. When we reached Rugby I bought a copy ofThe Times, and the first thing that caught my eye was a cryptically worded message at the head of the personal column. It conveyed to me the startling news that Madame Gabrielle had been recognised by some alien agent of whom she was highly suspicious, had left the Grosvenor Hotel in her alarm, and had returned to Paris!

I had a good deal to do before I could leave for England.

From Marseilles I left for St. Étienne and Chartres, in both of which towns Jules Cauvin had been known in pre-war days. But little additional information which was of value could I pick up, though I was specially struck by the fact that all who knew him laughed at the bare idea of his having blossomed out into a motor expert. They all seemed equally convinced on this point. One man even ventured the suggestion that, if Cauvin was indeed making huge sums of money from a motor invention, he must have stolen the idea from someone else.

“And, believe me, monsieur,” ejaculated the voluble Frenchman, “he would not be above doing so. Jules Cauvin an inventor! Phew! he is too lazy; he never did any work if he could help it.” However, as I was tolerably sure in my own mind that Cauvin was being handsomely paid for services of quite another kind, this did not help me much.

At length, after a journey of a week, during which time I spent only one night in bed, I found myself late one afternoon back in Paris, chatting with my colleagues, Madame Gabrielle Soyez and Henri Aubert, in the former’s cosy little flatau troisième, in the Boulevard Péreire. To both I gave certain very definite instructions. To the elegant little Frenchwoman I added:

“You will proceed to the Grosvenor Hotel in London, and from there will keep the surveillance I have indicated. Remain there until you hear from me. Report progress frequently—at least every other day—in the personal column ofThe Times.”

I could scarcely refrain from smiling as I turned from the vivacious Frenchwoman—a Parisian in every detail of herchicappearance—to Henri Aubert, who was to be our colleague in the undertaking we had in hand. Aubert was a sad-faced, rather melancholy looking middle-aged man, with a face from which every shred of intelligence seemed to have vanished. He looked, indeed, exactly like one of those middle-class nonentities, colourless and featureless, who, by the mysterious workings of the mind of the great god Democracy, manage to get themselves elected as municipal councillors, or by superhuman endeavour rise to the position of advocate—and never do any good. But behind his unpromising exterior, which, in fact, was one of his chief assets, since it practically freed him from any possibility of suspicion, was a keen intelligence, trained in every detail of our craft, a patience that knew no wearying on the trail, and a judgment which closed like a steel trap on the essential factor in a complicated situation, and, once having secured a hold, never let go. I knew him well and esteemed him highly, and he possessed the entire trust of the astute Armand Hecq, a trust difficult to win, but, once won, fully and freely given.

To Aubert I explained the situation as fully as I could, and, though I knew him to be a model of circumspection, I ventured on a hint of the extreme care and discretion necessary in the delicate affair if we were to succeed in tracing the source of Cauvin’s mysterious rise to sudden wealth. He listened to me with a ghost of a smile on his thin lips, but he was evidently piqued.

“Perhaps, Monsieur Sant, someone has been telling you I am a confirmed babbler?” he said dryly; and I laughed; the idea of Aubert “babbling” had its humorous aspect.

“I think we understand each other, Monsieur Aubert,” I said. “I don’t mean to cast any reflections on your discretion. But you know the people we have to deal with.”

“Quite well, monsieur,” replied Aubert, with a real smile this time. “We have a difficult job before us. They have a dangerous gang over in England just now. Pierre Gartin was murdered there only last week—shot in a street row unquestionably got up for the occasion. Of course the assassin escaped in the crowd. I think we had better take our revolvers.” He spoke as coolly as though his revolver were his umbrella.

I was startled. Pierre Gartin was one of the most capable men we had, and I knew he had been engaged on a piece of work very similar to that which we had in hand. In my absence I had not heard of his death.

“No, I had not heard,” I replied. “But I agree with you that our revolvers might be useful.”

Aubert’s news told me that our Hun antagonists must have some very big plan in hand. Even the most desperate of spies draws the line at murder, unless he finds himself in an impasse with no other way out. This is not, of course, from any special reluctance to taking the life of an enemy, but simply as a matter of self-preservation. For we are so peculiarly constituted that we tolerate calmly the work of pestiferous agents whose activities are a greater peril to the community than a dozen murders would be, while the killing of a single man brings a hornets’ nest about the murderer’s ears. I knew therefore, that since the Huns had gone so far as to “remove” Gartin, they must be engaged in work of supreme importance, and must have been quite aware that he was hot on their trail. Truly we had an interesting prospect before us. But we were all tolerably well used to danger, and I do not think it affected any of us.

“Only last night,” said Aubert, “Cauvin entertained Bonnier, of the Admiralty, and no doubt he learned something from him. I have found out that he has been lending Bonnier a good deal of money. Bonnier has recently got mixed up with a fast set, and he has been spending a great deal more money than his income warrants. When people of that kind begin to consort with rogues of Cauvin’s stamp it usually means only one thing.”

“No doubt that is true enough,” I replied; “but for the present we must take even the risk of leaving Bonnier alone. I want absolute evidence that Cauvin’s money comes from Germany, even though he actually gets it from a secret source in England. It is not enough for me to prove either that Bonnier is selling secrets or that Cauvin is buying them. I want to prove that Cauvin’s money is German, and I am going to do it. Bonnier can wait; if we get Cauvin we are tolerably sure to obtain sufficient evidence to lay Bonnier by the heels at any time. In fact, we can remove him quietly as soon as Cauvin is out of the way. I shall leave for England to-morrow.”

This I did, and twenty-four hours later I was in London. I decided first to investigate Cauvin’s supposed motor invention, and made my way to the office of a well-known patent agent in Chancery Lane. He had done some business before for me and greeted me warmly. I knew him so thoroughly that I did not hesitate to tell him exactly what I was after.

“But, my dear Sant,” he said, “if this supposed invention is being kept as a secret to stagger the motoring world, it is not likely to have been patented yet by either Cauvin or anyone else. Depend upon it, if there is anything in it, it is being manufactured secretly, and will not be patented until it is absolutely ready for the market. To patent it now would simply be setting every motor expert in the country at work on similar lines. You know the patent lists are watched with the keenest scrutiny. My clerk is looking into the matter, and we shall soon know whether Cauvin has patented anything.”

This was a surprise for me. I could not, of course, however much I might suspect him, absolutely rule out of my calculations the possibility that even Cauvin might have hit upon some lucky idea, as so many inventors have done, without knowing much of the technicalities of the subject. I did not forget that the safety-pin was the invention of a lazy workman. And I knew that if I took any active steps against Cauvin and made a mistake—if by some miraculous chance his sudden wealth was honestly acquired—the consequences would be serious.

“Well,” I said, when we had been assured that no patent of any kind had been taken out by Cauvin, “what am I to do? I can’t go to every big motor engineer in England and ask him if he is manufacturing a secret device invented by Jules Cauvin.”

My friend thought for a few moments. “I think you had better see L—,” he said at last. “If there is anything big in hand some kind of whisper of it is sure to have got about, and he would be the first to hear. I will telephone him at once; we shall catch him in his office on the Viaduct.”

A few minutes later we were in Holborn in L—’s office; he was one of the magnates of the motoring world. I explained the position.

“You can make your mind easy on that point,” he said emphatically. “There is nothing going in the trade to-day big enough to produce the amount of money your man is evidently receiving. If there were, I must have heard of it; it could not be kept secret. You remember the Marx carburettor? Well, we knew for six months that it was coming, though every effort was made to keep it secret. What we did not know was the exact secret; but you know how it took the market by storm.”

This, even though it were only negative evidence, seemed to establish conclusively the fact that Cauvin’s money, whatever might be its source, was not derived from the motor trade. I made up my mind that this much at least was certain.

Next day I travelled down to old-world Chester, where I very speedily discovered that there was in Whitefriars no house numbered 118, and no trace of any person named Wheatley, while the aged vicar of St. Mary’s knew nothing of the marriage of “Captain James Easterbrook.”

Everything was fictitious—everything, that is, except the silver-printed wedding card and the clinging perfume of stag-leaved geranium.

What did the bogus card indicate? Why had Jules Cauvin’s unknown correspondent gone to the trouble of having it printed? And why, in defiance of all social custom, had it been scented with such a perfume as that of the stag-leaved geranium? I felt tolerably sure that here lay the key of the mystery, and that when I laid my hand on the sender of that mysterious card I should be very near indeed to the knowledge of the real source of the strange sequence of events which had raised the good-for-nothing son of an obscure French postman to a dazzling position in the world of society.

Such was the problem I had to solve. And the key to it was just one bogus wedding card impregnated with the slowly dying odour of geranium. I cursed my luck as I reflected on the magnitude of the issues at stake and the paucity of the tools with which I had to work. For if “Captain James Easterbrook” was unknown in Chester, the home of his supposed bride, what was my chance of penetrating his disguise? Yet, somehow or other, we must succeed. That Cauvin was receiving money from England I was absolutely convinced, and I was determined to take this chance—the best we had had—of locating the real men behind the Hidden Hand in England.

Next day I left Chester by a very early train for London. When we reached Rugby I bought a copy ofThe Times, and the first thing that caught my eye was a cryptically worded message at the head of the personal column. It conveyed to me the startling news that Madame Gabrielle had been recognised by some alien agent of whom she was highly suspicious, had left the Grosvenor Hotel in her alarm, and had returned to Paris!

Chapter Seven.The Elusive Van Rosen.Evidently something very serious had happened.My first impulse was to hasten to the Grosvenor Hotel, engage a room there, and try to discover something of the cause which had brought about Madame Gabrielle’s sudden flight. Perhaps my anxiety for her safety operated more powerfully than I ought to have allowed. In our business personalities are nothing; it is the end that counts.A moment’s reflection showed me that in taking this course I should simply be playing into the enemy’s hands. I was too well known. I hoped that my presence in England was not suspected by the German agents, and if I ventured to stay at the Grosvenor they would certainly very soon have me under close observation.By using the official telephone between London and Paris I managed to get into communication with Madame Gabrielle at her flat in the Boulevard Péreire, and soon learnt the reason for her flight. Van Rosen had discovered her, and was watching her closely.Here, indeed, was an antagonist worthy of my steel! I had long known—and so far as his abilities went, had respected—van Rosen as one of the cleverest agents of the Königgrätzer-strasse. He was able to pose as an Englishman—a rare accomplishment in a German—for he had been educated at Haileybury, and had been in England off and on since his youth. He was now living in a north-western suburb, where he posed as Mr George Huggon-Rose, a solicitor who had retired from practice. Only British apathy made this possible. A moment’s investigation would have shown that the man could not have been what he pretended, for no such retired solicitor as Mr George Huggon-Rose was known to the Law Society.As a matter of fact, it was through this very slip on his part that I had “spotted” van Rosen. We had suddenly lost sight of him a year or two before, and try as we would—for we knew that wherever he might be he would be dangerous—we could not locate him. The accident which led to his discovery was curious. I had been spending a few days in North London, and one morning stopped at the railway bookstall to buy a paper. As I approached the stall a tall, gentlemanly looking man, who had been chatting with the clerk, turned away and entered the train. Something about him struck me as strangely familiar.“Who is that gentleman?” I asked the man at the stall.“Oh,” he replied, “that’s Mr Huggon-Rose. He used to be a solicitor in the City, but he retired and has been living here for a year or two.”But I was not quite satisfied; some odd memory, in which I felt sure Mr Huggon-Rose was concerned, haunted me all the way to town, and I could not shake it off. I had only seen van Rosen once, though I had had a good deal of experience, and it was not surprising that I failed to recognise him. When I got up to town I consulted theLaw List, but could find no trace of Mr Huggon-Rose.Then I became more suspicious, and before many days were over I had succeeded in definitely identifying Mr Huggon-Rose with one of the Kaiser’s cleverest spies. Thus the mystery of van Rosen’s disappearance was solved by his own slip. If, when I looked up theLaw List, I had found Mr Huggon-Rose’s name and address duly set out, I should probably have thought I had been deceived by some chance resemblance and wasted no more time on the matter. How true it is that trifles make the sum of life!The position now was plainly serious: van Rosen’s presence in London boded no good. The man was as unscrupulous as he was clever. The British contra-espionage department knew him well and had been greatly chagrined at losing sight of him. Afterwards, in consequence of my report to Hecq, he had been kept under close observation; but we had never been able to secure sufficient proof to justify his arrest, strong though our suspicions were. He had evidently been walking very warily since the outbreak of war. Unfortunately he had adopted that easiest of all cloaks of the German spy, and had become a naturalised Englishman just before war broke out. But the adage “Once a German always a German” applied with special force to van Rosen.After speaking with Madame Gabrielle I had a long chat with Hecq over the private wire, and together we mapped out a pretty comprehensive plan of campaign, in which both Aubert and Madame Gabrielle had very definite parts to play.Then the mysterious scented wedding card claimed my full attention, for I was determined to sift its secret to the bottom. First, I paid a visit to Somerset House, where I very thoroughly searched the records of recent marriages. These showed me that no marriage had taken place between persons named Wheatley and Easterbrook. A certain Agnes Wheatley had been born in June, 1894, at Mina Road, Old Kent Road, in the parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, and there were records of two James Easterbrooks. One was James Stanley Easterbrook, born in Lord Street, Southport, in 1881; the other, James Henry Charlton Easterbrook, had first seen the light of day in the village of Forteviot, Perthshire, in 1870. TheArmy List, of course, failed to show any Captain James Easterbrook, of the Royal Fusiliers.All this did not carry me much farther. The father of the Southport Easterbrook was apparently a prosperous Blackburn tradesman; but that of the man born in Scotland was vaguely set down as of “no occupation,” a curious entry for a Scottish village, where practically everybody would be likely to live by the labour of his hands, and where one would hardly expect to find persons of leisured independence. The fact worried me. But an inquiry at Forteviot showed that there had been no Easterbrooks in the village for many years, and no one seemed to recollect anything about them.In order to conceal myself from the astute van Rosen, I had taken rooms in a cheap boarding-house, full of old ladies, in Guilford Street, Bloomsbury, and, equipped with a silver discharge badge and a set of “faked” Army papers, posed as an invalided soldier recovering his health before taking up work. I was thus able to disarm the inquisitive prying of my fellow-boarders, and I am afraid I gave them some highly remarkable “information” about the war and my share in it! If one is engaged in spying or contra-espionage work one must be ever ready to combat silly suspicions that give rise to endless gossip and to evade unfriendly and malicious comment.The enigma of the wedding card worried me incessantly. That the prosperous Jules Cauvin was one of the puppets of Potsdam, and also that he had betrayed France, I felt morally convinced. Hecq, indeed, held documentary evidence of Cauvin’s friendship with the Austrian millionaire spy, Herr Jellinck. I knew, almost with certainty, that the perfumed wedding card was intended to convey a message of some kind, since in every particular it was clearly shown to be a bogus document. Yet without more direct evidence Cauvin, had we ventured to arrest him, must have slipped out of the clutches of the law. For, after all, mere friendship or acquaintance with a spy, however suspicious, does not prove the guilt of espionage.Inquiries made by the British Special Branch soon showed that none of the Easterbrooks in the British Army could by any possibility be connected with the “Captain Easterbrook” of the wedding card.Within a week I established the fact that Agnes Wheatley had died before she reached the age of ten years. Therefore, she could not have been the mysterious bride to whose “wedding” Jules Cauvin and his wife had been invited. I was thus thrown back on the two Easterbrooks, and for the next few days, if I may use the term, I breakfasted, lunched, and dined on Easterbrooks! And helping in my quest were some of the smartest men of the British Special Branch.Six weeks went by—weeks of feverish activity and incessant patient investigation. That mysterious wedding card, with its pungent odour of stag-leaved geranium, hypnotised me, and I could think of nothing else. And everything began to seem so hopeless that even the Scotland Yard men, most unrelenting and unwearying searchers-out of hidden mysteries, began to get depressed and to fancy they were hopelessly beaten.Van Rosen, of course, was under constant surveillance. Whether he suspected it or not I do not know, but for the time being he seemed to have entirely abandoned his usual business. He went about quite openly, and I often wondered whether he was tacitly defying us. Probably his work was so far advanced that he could afford to wait, and hoped to disarm suspicion by the very openness of everything he did. Had there been any real necessity we could, of course, have arrested him on some charge or another, but we still hoped that by giving him plenty of latitude we should sooner or later stumble on some valuable information.

Evidently something very serious had happened.

My first impulse was to hasten to the Grosvenor Hotel, engage a room there, and try to discover something of the cause which had brought about Madame Gabrielle’s sudden flight. Perhaps my anxiety for her safety operated more powerfully than I ought to have allowed. In our business personalities are nothing; it is the end that counts.

A moment’s reflection showed me that in taking this course I should simply be playing into the enemy’s hands. I was too well known. I hoped that my presence in England was not suspected by the German agents, and if I ventured to stay at the Grosvenor they would certainly very soon have me under close observation.

By using the official telephone between London and Paris I managed to get into communication with Madame Gabrielle at her flat in the Boulevard Péreire, and soon learnt the reason for her flight. Van Rosen had discovered her, and was watching her closely.

Here, indeed, was an antagonist worthy of my steel! I had long known—and so far as his abilities went, had respected—van Rosen as one of the cleverest agents of the Königgrätzer-strasse. He was able to pose as an Englishman—a rare accomplishment in a German—for he had been educated at Haileybury, and had been in England off and on since his youth. He was now living in a north-western suburb, where he posed as Mr George Huggon-Rose, a solicitor who had retired from practice. Only British apathy made this possible. A moment’s investigation would have shown that the man could not have been what he pretended, for no such retired solicitor as Mr George Huggon-Rose was known to the Law Society.

As a matter of fact, it was through this very slip on his part that I had “spotted” van Rosen. We had suddenly lost sight of him a year or two before, and try as we would—for we knew that wherever he might be he would be dangerous—we could not locate him. The accident which led to his discovery was curious. I had been spending a few days in North London, and one morning stopped at the railway bookstall to buy a paper. As I approached the stall a tall, gentlemanly looking man, who had been chatting with the clerk, turned away and entered the train. Something about him struck me as strangely familiar.

“Who is that gentleman?” I asked the man at the stall.

“Oh,” he replied, “that’s Mr Huggon-Rose. He used to be a solicitor in the City, but he retired and has been living here for a year or two.”

But I was not quite satisfied; some odd memory, in which I felt sure Mr Huggon-Rose was concerned, haunted me all the way to town, and I could not shake it off. I had only seen van Rosen once, though I had had a good deal of experience, and it was not surprising that I failed to recognise him. When I got up to town I consulted theLaw List, but could find no trace of Mr Huggon-Rose.

Then I became more suspicious, and before many days were over I had succeeded in definitely identifying Mr Huggon-Rose with one of the Kaiser’s cleverest spies. Thus the mystery of van Rosen’s disappearance was solved by his own slip. If, when I looked up theLaw List, I had found Mr Huggon-Rose’s name and address duly set out, I should probably have thought I had been deceived by some chance resemblance and wasted no more time on the matter. How true it is that trifles make the sum of life!

The position now was plainly serious: van Rosen’s presence in London boded no good. The man was as unscrupulous as he was clever. The British contra-espionage department knew him well and had been greatly chagrined at losing sight of him. Afterwards, in consequence of my report to Hecq, he had been kept under close observation; but we had never been able to secure sufficient proof to justify his arrest, strong though our suspicions were. He had evidently been walking very warily since the outbreak of war. Unfortunately he had adopted that easiest of all cloaks of the German spy, and had become a naturalised Englishman just before war broke out. But the adage “Once a German always a German” applied with special force to van Rosen.

After speaking with Madame Gabrielle I had a long chat with Hecq over the private wire, and together we mapped out a pretty comprehensive plan of campaign, in which both Aubert and Madame Gabrielle had very definite parts to play.

Then the mysterious scented wedding card claimed my full attention, for I was determined to sift its secret to the bottom. First, I paid a visit to Somerset House, where I very thoroughly searched the records of recent marriages. These showed me that no marriage had taken place between persons named Wheatley and Easterbrook. A certain Agnes Wheatley had been born in June, 1894, at Mina Road, Old Kent Road, in the parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, and there were records of two James Easterbrooks. One was James Stanley Easterbrook, born in Lord Street, Southport, in 1881; the other, James Henry Charlton Easterbrook, had first seen the light of day in the village of Forteviot, Perthshire, in 1870. TheArmy List, of course, failed to show any Captain James Easterbrook, of the Royal Fusiliers.

All this did not carry me much farther. The father of the Southport Easterbrook was apparently a prosperous Blackburn tradesman; but that of the man born in Scotland was vaguely set down as of “no occupation,” a curious entry for a Scottish village, where practically everybody would be likely to live by the labour of his hands, and where one would hardly expect to find persons of leisured independence. The fact worried me. But an inquiry at Forteviot showed that there had been no Easterbrooks in the village for many years, and no one seemed to recollect anything about them.

In order to conceal myself from the astute van Rosen, I had taken rooms in a cheap boarding-house, full of old ladies, in Guilford Street, Bloomsbury, and, equipped with a silver discharge badge and a set of “faked” Army papers, posed as an invalided soldier recovering his health before taking up work. I was thus able to disarm the inquisitive prying of my fellow-boarders, and I am afraid I gave them some highly remarkable “information” about the war and my share in it! If one is engaged in spying or contra-espionage work one must be ever ready to combat silly suspicions that give rise to endless gossip and to evade unfriendly and malicious comment.

The enigma of the wedding card worried me incessantly. That the prosperous Jules Cauvin was one of the puppets of Potsdam, and also that he had betrayed France, I felt morally convinced. Hecq, indeed, held documentary evidence of Cauvin’s friendship with the Austrian millionaire spy, Herr Jellinck. I knew, almost with certainty, that the perfumed wedding card was intended to convey a message of some kind, since in every particular it was clearly shown to be a bogus document. Yet without more direct evidence Cauvin, had we ventured to arrest him, must have slipped out of the clutches of the law. For, after all, mere friendship or acquaintance with a spy, however suspicious, does not prove the guilt of espionage.

Inquiries made by the British Special Branch soon showed that none of the Easterbrooks in the British Army could by any possibility be connected with the “Captain Easterbrook” of the wedding card.

Within a week I established the fact that Agnes Wheatley had died before she reached the age of ten years. Therefore, she could not have been the mysterious bride to whose “wedding” Jules Cauvin and his wife had been invited. I was thus thrown back on the two Easterbrooks, and for the next few days, if I may use the term, I breakfasted, lunched, and dined on Easterbrooks! And helping in my quest were some of the smartest men of the British Special Branch.

Six weeks went by—weeks of feverish activity and incessant patient investigation. That mysterious wedding card, with its pungent odour of stag-leaved geranium, hypnotised me, and I could think of nothing else. And everything began to seem so hopeless that even the Scotland Yard men, most unrelenting and unwearying searchers-out of hidden mysteries, began to get depressed and to fancy they were hopelessly beaten.

Van Rosen, of course, was under constant surveillance. Whether he suspected it or not I do not know, but for the time being he seemed to have entirely abandoned his usual business. He went about quite openly, and I often wondered whether he was tacitly defying us. Probably his work was so far advanced that he could afford to wait, and hoped to disarm suspicion by the very openness of everything he did. Had there been any real necessity we could, of course, have arrested him on some charge or another, but we still hoped that by giving him plenty of latitude we should sooner or later stumble on some valuable information.

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