They ordered dinner and walked afterwards down to the quay. MademoiselleHenriette lingered behind with Norgate.
"Let them go on," she whispered. "They have much to talk about. It is but a short distance, and your steamer will not start before ten. We can walk slowly and listen to the music. You are not in a hurry, monsieur, to depart? Your stay here is too short already."
Norgate's reply, although gallant enough, was a little vague. He was watching Selingman with his companion. They were talking together with undoubted seriousness.
"Who is Mr. Selingman?" he enquired. "I know him only as a travelling companion."
Mademoiselle Henriette extended her hands. She shrugged her little shoulders and looked with wide-open eyes up into her companion's grave face.
"But who, indeed, can answer that question?" she exclaimed. "Twice he has been here for flying visits. Once Alice has been to see him in Berlin. He is, I believe, a very wealthy manufacturer there. He crosses often to England. He has money, and he is always gay."
"And Mademoiselle Alice?"
"Who knows?" was the somewhat pointless reply. "She came from America.She arrived here this season with Monsieur le General."
"What General?" Norgate asked. "A Belgian?"
"But no," his companion corrected. "All the world knows that Alice is the friend of General le Foys, chief of the staff in Paris. He is a very great soldier. He spends eleven months working and one month here."
"And she is also," Norgate observed meditatively, "the friend of Herr Selingman. Tell me, mademoiselle, what do you suppose those two are talking of now? See how close their heads are together. I don't think that Herr Selingman is a Don Juan."
"They speak, perhaps, of serious matters," his companion surmised, "but who can tell? Besides, is it for us to waste our few moments wondering? You will come back to Ostend, monsieur?"
Norgate looked back at the streaming curve of lights flashing across the dark waters.
"One never knows," he answered.
"That is what Monsieur Selingman himself says," she remarked, with a little sigh. "'Enjoy your Ostend to-day, my little ones,' he said, when he first met us this evening. 'One never knows how long these days will last.' So, monsieur, we must indeed part here?"
They had all come to a standstill at the gangway of the steamer. Selingman had apparently finished his conversation with his companion. He hurried Norgate off, and they waved their hands from the deck as a few minutes later the steamer glided away.
"A most delightful interlude," Selingman declared. "I have thoroughly enjoyed these few hours. I trust, that every time this steamer meets with a little accident, it will be at this time of the year and when I am on my way to England."
"You seem to have friends everywhere," Norgate observed, as he lit a cigar.
"Young ladies, yes," Selingman admitted. "It chanced that they were both well-known to me. But who else?"
Norgate made no reply. He felt that his companion was watching him.
"It is something," he remarked, "to find charming young ladies in a strange place to dine with one."
Selingman smiled broadly.
"If we travelled together often, my young friend," he said, "you would discover that I have friends everywhere. If I have nothing else to do, I go out and make a friend. Then, when I revisit that place, it loses its coldness. There is some one there to welcome me, some one who is glad to see me again. Look steadily in that direction, a few points to the left of the bows. In two hours' time you will see the lights of your country. I have friends there, too, who will welcome me. Meantime, I go below to sleep. You have a cabin?"
Norgate shook his head.
"I shall doze on deck for a little time," he said. "It is too wonderful a night to go below."
"It is well for me that it is calm," Selingman acknowledged. "I do not love the sea. Shall we part for a little time? If we meet not at Dover, then in London, my young friend. London is the greatest city in the world, but it is the smallest place in Europe. One cannot move in the places one knows of without meeting one's friends."
"Until we meet in London, then," Norgate observed, as he settled himself down in his chair.
Norgate spent an utterly fruitless morning on the day after his arrival in London. After a lengthy but entirely unsatisfactory visit to the Foreign Office, he presented himself soon after midday at Scotland Yard.
"I should like," he announced, "to see the Chief Commissioner of the Police."
The official to whom he addressed his enquiry eyed him tolerantly.
"Have you, by any chance, an appointment?" he asked.
"None," Norgate admitted. "I only arrived from the Continent this morning."
The policeman shook his head slowly.
"It is quite impossible, sir," he said, "to see Sir Philip without an appointment. Your best course would be to write and state your business, and his secretary will then fix a time for you to call."
"Very much obliged to you, I'm sure," Norgate replied. "However, my business is urgent, and if I can't see Sir Philip Morse, I will see some one else in authority."
Norgate was regaled with a copy ofThe Timesand a seat in a barely-furnished waiting-room. In about twenty minutes he was told that a Mr. Tyritt would see him, and was promptly shown into the presence of that gentleman. Mr. Tyritt was a burly and black-bearded person of something more than middle-age. He glanced down at Norgate's card in a somewhat puzzled manner and motioned him to a seat.
"What can I do for you, sir?" he enquired. "Sir Philip is very much engaged for the next few days, but perhaps you can tell me your business?"
"I have just arrived from Berlin," Norgate explained. "Would you care to possess a complete list of German spies in this country?"
Mr. Tyritt's face was not one capable of showing the most profound emotion. Nevertheless, he seemed a little taken aback.
"A list of German spies?" he repeated. "Dear me, that sounds very interesting!"
He took up Norgate's card and glanced at it. The action was, in its way, significant.
"You probably don't know who I am," Norgate continued. "I have been in the Diplomatic Service for eight years. Until a few days ago, I was attached to the Embassy in Berlin."
Mr. Tyritt was somewhat impressed by the statement.
"Have you any objection to telling me how you became possessed of this information?"
"None whatever," was the prompt reply. "You shall hear the whole story."
Norgate told him, as briefly as possible, of his meeting with Selingman, their conversation, and the subsequent happenings, including the interview which he had overheard on the golf links at Knocke. When he had finished, there was a brief silence.
"Sounds rather like a page out of a novel, doesn't it, Mr. Norgate?" the police official remarked at last.
"It may," Norgate assented drily. "I can't help what it sounds like. It happens to be the exact truth."
"I do not for a moment doubt it," the other declared politely. "I believe, indeed, that there are a large number of Germans working in this country who are continually collecting and forwarding to Berlin commercial and political reports. Speaking on behalf of my department, however, Mr. Norgate," he went on, "this is briefly our position. In the neighbourhood of our naval bases, our dockyards, our military aeroplane sheds, and in other directions which I need not specify, we keep the most scrupulous and exacting watch. We even, as of course you are aware, employ decoy spies ourselves, who work in conjunction with our friends at Whitehall. Our system is a rigorous one and our supervision of it unceasing. But—and this is a big 'but', Mr. Norgate—in other directions—so far as regards the country generally, that is to say—we do not take the subject of German spies seriously. I may almost say that we have no anxiety concerning their capacity for mischief."
"Those are the views of your department?" Norgate asked.
"So far as I may be said to represent it, they are," Mr. Tyritt assented. "I will venture to say that there are many thousands of letters a year which leave this country, addressed to Germany, purporting to contain information of the most important nature, which might just as well be published in the newspapers. We ought to know, because at different times we have opened a good many of them."
"Forgive me if I press this point," Norgate begged. "Do you consider that because a vast amount of useless information is naturally sent, that fact lessens the danger as a whole? If only one letter in a thousand contains vital information, isn't that sufficient to raise the subject to a more serious level?"
Mr. Tyritt crossed his legs. His tone still indicated the slight tolerance of the man convinced beforehand of the soundness of his position.
"For the last twelve years," he announced,—"ever since I came into office, in fact,—this bogey of German spies has been costing the nation something like fifty thousand a year. It is only lately that we have come to take that broader view of the situation which I am endeavouring to—to—may I say enunciate? Germans over in this country, especially those in comparatively menial positions, such as barbers and waiters, are necessary to us industrially. So long as they earn their living reputably, conform to our laws, and pay our taxes, they are welcome here. We do not wish to unnecessarily disturb them. We wish instead to offer them the full protection of the country in which they have chosen to do productive work."
"Very interesting," Norgate remarked. "I have heard this point of view before. Once I thought it common sense. To-day I think it academic piffle. If we leave the Germans engaged in the inland towns alone for a moment, do you realise, I wonder, that there isn't any seaport in England that hasn't its sprinkling of Germans engaged in the occupations of which you speak?"
"And in a general way," Mr. Tyritt assented, smiling, "they are perfectly welcome to write home to their friends and relations each week and tell them everything they see happening about them, everything they know about us."
Norgate rose reluctantly to his feet.
"I won't trouble you any longer," he decided. "I presume that if I make a few investigations on my own account, and bring you absolute proof that any one of these people whose names are upon my list are in traitorous communication with Germany, you will view the matter differently?"
"Without a doubt," Mr. Tyritt promised. "Is that your list? Will you allow me to glance through it?"
"I brought it here to leave in your hands," Norgate replied, passing it over. "Your attitude, however, seems to render that course useless."
Mr. Tyritt adjusted his eyeglasses and glanced benevolently at the document. A sharp ejaculation broke from his lips. As his eyes wandered downwards, his first expression of incredulity gave way to one of suppressed amusement.
"Why, Mr. Norgate," he exclaimed, as he laid it down, "do you mean to seriously accuse these people of being engaged in any sort of league against us?"
"Most certainly I do," Norgate insisted.
"But the thing is ridiculous!" Mr. Tyritt declared. "There are names here of princes, of bankers, of society women, many of them wholly and entirely English, some of them household names. You expect me to believe that these people are all linked together in what amounts to a conspiracy to further the cause of Germany at the expense of the country in which they live, to which they belong?"
Norgate picked up his hat.
"I expect you to believe nothing, Mr. Tyritt," he said drily. "Sorry I troubled you."
"Not at all," Mr. Tyritt protested, the slight irritation passing from his manner. "Such a visit as yours is an agreeable break in my routine work. I feel as though I might be a character in a great modern romance. The names of your amateur criminals are still tingling in my memory."
Norgate turned back from the door.
"Remember them, if you can, Mr. Tyritt," he advised, "You may have cause to, some day."
Norgate sat, the following afternoon, upon the leather-stuffed fender of a fashionable mixed bridge club in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square, exchanging greetings with such of the members as were disposed to find time for social amenities. A smartly-dressed woman of dark complexion and slightly foreign appearance, who had just cut out of a rubber, came over and seated herself by his side. She took a cigarette from her case and accepted a match from Norgate.
"So you are really back again!" she murmured. "It scarcely seems possible."
"I am just beginning to realise it myself," he replied. "You haven't altered, Bertha."
"My dear man," she protested, "you did not expect me to age in a month, did you? It can scarcely be more than that since you left for Berlin. Are you not back again sooner than you expected?"
Norgate nodded.
"Very much sooner," he admitted. "I came in for some unexpected leave, which I haven't the slightest intention of spending abroad, so here I am."
"Not, apparently, in love with Berlin," the lady, whose name was Mrs.Paston Benedek, remarked.
Norgate's air of complete candour was very well assumed.
"I shall never be a success as a diplomatist," he confessed. "When I dislike a place or a person, every one knows it. I hated Berlin. I hate the thought of going back again."
The woman by his side smiled enigmatically.
"Perhaps," she murmured, "you may get an exchange."
"Perhaps," Norgate assented. "Meanwhile, even a month away from London seems to have brought a fresh set of people here. Who is the tall, thin young man with the sunburnt face? He seems familiar, somehow, but I can't place him."
"He is a sailor," she told him. "Captain Baring his name is."
"Friend of yours?"
She looked at him sidewise.
"Why do you ask?"
"Jealousy," Norgate sighed, "makes one observant. You were lunching with him in the Carlton Grill. You came in with him to the club this afternoon."
"Sherlock Holmes!" she murmured. "There are other men in the club with whom I lunch—even dine."
Norgate glanced across the room. Baring was playing bridge at a table close at hand, but his attention seemed to be abstracted. He looked often towards where Mrs. Benedek sat. There was a restlessness about his manner scarcely in keeping with the rest of his appearance.
"One misses a great deal," Norgate regretted, "through being only an occasional visitor here."
"As, for instance?"
"The privilege of being one of those fortunate few."
She laughed at him. Her eyes were full of challenge. She leaned a little closer and whispered in his ear: "There is still a vacant place."
"For to-night or to-morrow?" he asked eagerly.
"For to-morrow," she replied. "You may telephone—3702 Mayfair—at ten o'clock."
He scribbled down the number. Then he put his pocket-book away with a sigh.
"I'm afraid you are treating that poor sailor-man badly," he declared.
"Sometimes," she confided, "he bores me. He is so very much in earnest.Tell me about Berlin and your work there?"
"I didn't take to Germany," Norgate confessed, "and Germany didn't take to me. Between ourselves—I shouldn't like another soul in the club to know it—I think it is very doubtful if I go back there."
"That littlecontretempswith the Prince," she murmured under her breath.
He stiffened at once.
"But how do you know of it?"
She bit her lip. For a moment a frown of annoyance clouded her face. She had said more than she intended.
"I have correspondents in Berlin," she explained. "They tell me of everything. I have a friend, in fact, who was in the restaurant that night."
"What a coincidence!" he exclaimed.
She nodded and selected a fresh cigarette.
"Isn't it! But that table is up. I promised to cut in there. Captain Baring likes me to play at the same table, and he is here for such a short time that one tries to be kind. It is indeed kindness," she added, taking up her gold purse and belongings, "for he plays so badly."
She moved towards the table. It happened to be Baring who cut out, and he and Norgate drifted together. They exchanged a few remarks.
"I met you at Marseilles once," Norgate reminded him. "You were with theMediterranean Squadron, commanding theLeicester, I believe."
"Thought I'd seen you somewhere before," was the prompt acknowledgment."You're in the Diplomatic Service, aren't you?"
Norgate admitted the fact and suggested a drink. The two men settled down to exchange confidences over a whisky and soda. Baring looked around him with some disapprobation.
"I can't really stick this place," he asserted. "If it weren't for—for some of the people here, I'd never come inside the doors. It's a rotten way of spending one's time. You play, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, I play," Norgate admitted, "but I rather agree with you. How wonderfully well Mrs. Benedek is looking, isn't she!"
Baring withdrew his admiring eyes from her vicinity.
"Prettiest and smartest woman in London," he declared.
"By-the-by, is she English?" Norgate asked.
"A mixture of French, Italian, and German, I believe," Baring replied."Her husband is Benedek the painter, you know."
"I've heard of him," Norgate assented. "What are you doing now?"
"I've had a job up in town for a week or so, at the Admiralty," Baring explained. "We are examining the plans of a new—but you wouldn't be interested in that."
"I'm interested in anything naval," Norgate assured him.
"In any case, it isn't my job to talk about it," Baring continued apologetically. "We've just got a lot of fresh regulations out. Any one would think we were going to war to-morrow."
"I suppose war isn't such an impossible event," Norgate remarked. "They all say that the Germans are dying to have a go at you fellows."
Baring grinned.
"They wouldn't have a dog's chance," he declared. "That's the only drawback of having so strong a navy. We don't stand any chance of getting a fight."
"You'll have all you can do to keep up, judging by the way they talk inGermany," Norgate observed.
"Are you just home from there?"
Norgate nodded. "I am at the Embassy in Berlin, or rather I have been," he replied. "I am just home on six months' leave."
"And that's your real impression?" Baring enquired eagerly. "You really think that they mean to have a go at us?"
"I think there'll be a war soon," Norgate confessed. "It probably won't commence at sea, but you'll have to do your little lot, without a doubt."
Baring gazed across the room. There was a hard light in his eyes.
"Sounds beastly, I suppose," he muttered, "but I wish to God it would come! A war would give us all a shaking up—put us in our right places. We all seem to go on drifting any way now. The Services are all right when there's a bit of a scrap going sometimes, but there's a nasty sort of feeling of dry rot about them, when year after year all your preparations end in the smoke of a sham fight. Now I am on this beastly land job—but there, I mustn't bother you with my grumblings."
"I am interested," Norgate assured him. "Did you say you were considering something new?"
Baring nodded.
"Plans of a new submarine," he confided. "There's no harm in telling you as much as that."
Mrs. Benedek, who was dummy for the moment, strolled over to them.
"I am not sure," she murmured, "whether I like the expression you have brought back from Germany with you, Mr. Norgate."
Norgate smiled. "Have I really acquired the correct diplomatic air?" he asked. "I can assure you that it is an accident—or perhaps I am imitative."
"You have acquired," she complained, "an air of unnatural reserve. You seem as though you had found some problem in life so weighty that you could not lose sight of it even for a moment. Ah!"
The glass-topped door had been flung wide open with an unusual flourish. A barely perceptible start escaped Norgate. It was indeed an unexpected appearance, this! Dressed with a perfect regard to the latest London fashion, with his hair smoothly brushed and a pearl pin in his black satin tie, Herr Selingman stood upon the threshold, beaming upon them.
Selingman had the air of a man who returns after a long absence to some familiar spot where he expects to find friends and where his welcome is assured. Mrs. Paston Benedek slipped from her place upon the cushioned fender and held out both her hands.
"Ah, it is really you!" she exclaimed. "Welcome, dear friend! For days I have wondered what it was in this place which one missed all the time. Now I know."
Selingman took the little outstretched hands and raised them to his lips.
"Dear lady," he assured her, "you repay me in one moment for all the weariness of my exile."
She turned towards her companion.
"Captain Baring," she begged, "please ring the bell. Mr. Selingman and I always drink a toast together the moment he first arrives to pay us one of his too rare visits. Thank you! You know Captain Baring, don't you, Mr. Selingman? This is another friend of mine whom I think that you have not met—Mr. Francis Norgate, Mr. Selingman. Mr. Norgate has just arrived from Berlin, too."
For a single moment the newcomer seemed to lose his Cheeryble-like expression. The glance which he flashed upon Norgate contained other elements besides those of polite pleasure. He was himself again, however, almost instantly. He grasped his new acquaintance by the hand.
"Mr. Norgate and I are already old friends," he insisted. "We occupied the same coupe coming from Berlin and drank a bottle of wine together in the buffet."
Mrs. Benedek threw back her head and laughed, a familiar gesture which her enemies declared was in some way associated with the dazzling whiteness of her teeth.
"And now," she exclaimed, "you find that you belong to the same bridge club. What a coincidence!"
"It is rather surprising, I must admit," Norgate assented. "Mr. Selingman and I discussed many things last night, but we did not speak of bridge. In fact, from the tone of our conversation, I should have imagined that cards were an amusement which scarcely entered into Mr. Selingman's scheme of life."
"One must have one's distractions," Selingman protested. "I confess that auction bridge, as it is played over here, is the one game in the world which attracts me."
"But how about the crockery?" Norgate asked. "Doesn't that come first?"
"First, beyond a doubt," Selingman agreed heartily. "Always, though, my plan of campaign is the same. On the day of my arrival here, I take things easily. I spend an hour or so at the office in the morning, and the afternoon I take holiday. After that I settle down for one week's hard work. London—your great London—takes always first place with me. In the mornings I see my agents and my customers. Perhaps I lunch with one of them. At four o'clock I close my desk, and crockery does not exist for me any longer. I get into a taxi, and I come here. My first game of bridge is a treat to which I look forward eagerly. See, there are three of us and several sitting out. Let us make another table. So!"
They found a fourth without difficulty and took possession of a table at the far end of the room. Selingman, with a huge cigar in his mouth, played well and had every appearance of thoroughly enjoying the game. Towards the end of their third rubber, Mrs. Benedek, who was dummy, leaned across towards Norgate.
"After all, perhaps you are better off here," she murmured in German."There is nothing like this in Berlin."
"One is at least nearer the things one cherishes," Norgate quoted in the same language.
Selingman was playing the hand and held between his fingers a card already drawn to play. For a moment, it was suspended in the air. He looked towards Norgate, and there was a new quality in his piercing gaze, an instant return in his expression of the shadow which had swept the broad good-humour from his face on his first appearance. The change came and went like a flash. He finished playing the hand and scored his points before he spoke. Then he turned to Norgate.
"Your gift of acquiring languages in a short space of time is most extraordinary, my young friend! Since yesterday you have become able to speak German, eh? Prodigious!"
Norgate smiled without embarrassment. The moment was a critical one, portentous to an extent which no one at that table could possibly have realised.
"I am afraid," he confessed, "that when I found that I had a fellow traveller in my coupe I felt most ungracious and unsociable. I was in a thoroughly bad temper and indisposed for conversation. The simplest way to escape from it seemed to be to plead ignorance of any language save my own."
Selingman chuckled audibly. The cloud had passed from his face. To all appearance that momentary suspicion had been strangled.
"So you found me a bore!" he observed. "Then I must admit that your manners were good, for when you found that I spoke English and that you could not escape conversation, you allowed me to talk on about my business, and you showed few signs of weariness. You should be a diplomatist, Mr. Norgate."
"Mr. Norgate is, or rather he was," Mrs. Paston Benedek remarked. "He has just left the Embassy at Berlin."
Selingman leaned back in his chair and thrust both hands into his trousers pockets. He indulged in a few German expletives, bombastic and thunderous, which relieved him so much that he was able to conclude his speech in English.
"I am the densest blockhead in all Europe!" he announced emphatically. "If I had realised your identity, I would willingly have left you alone. No wonder you were feeling indisposed for idle conversation! Mr. Francis Norgate, eh? A little affair at the Café de Berlin with a lady and a hot-headed young princeling. Well, well! Young sir, you have become more to me than an ordinary acquaintance. If I had known the cause of your ill-humour, I would certainly have left you alone, but I would have shaken you first by the hand."
The fourth at the table, who was an elderly lady of somewhat austere appearance, produced a small black cigar from what seemed to be a harmless-looking reticule which she was carrying, and lit it. Selingman stared at her with his mouth open.
"Is this a bridge-table or is it not?" she enquired severely. "These little personal reminiscences are very interesting among yourselves, I dare say, but I cut in here with the idea of playing bridge."
Selingman was the first to recover his manners, although his eyes seemed still fascinated by the cigar.
"We owe you apologies, madam," he acknowledged. "Permit me to cut."
The rubber progressed and finished in comparative silence. At its conclusion, Selingman glanced at the clock. It was half-past seven.
"I am hungry," he announced.
Mrs. Benedek laughed at him. "Hungry at half-past seven! Barbarian!"
"I lunched at half-past twelve," he protested. "I ate less than usual, too. I did not even leave my office, I was so anxious to finish what was necessary and to find myself here."
Mrs. Benedek played with the cards a moment and then rose to her feet with a little grimace.
"Well, I suppose I shall have to give in," she sighed. "I am taking it for granted, you see, that you are expecting me to dine with you."
"My dear lady," Selingman declared emphatically, "if you were to break through our time-honoured custom and deny me the joy of your company on my first evening in London, I think that I should send another to look after my business in this country, and retire myself to the seclusion of my little country home near Potsdam. The inducements of managing one's own affairs in this country, Mr. Norgate," he added, "are, as you may imagine, manifold and magnetic."
"We will not grudge them to you so long as you don't come too often,"Norgate remarked, as he bade them good night. "The man who monopolisedMrs. Benedek would soon make himself unpopular here."
Norgate had chosen, for many reasons, to return to London as a visitor. His somewhat luxurious rooms in Albemarle Street were still locked up. He had taken a small flat in the Milan Court, solely for the purpose of avoiding immediate association with his friends and relatives. His whole outlook upon life was confused and disturbed. Until he received a definite pronouncement from the head-quarters of officialdom, he felt himself unable to settle down to any of the ordinary functions of life. And behind all this, another and a more powerful sentiment possessed him. He had left Berlin without seeing or hearing anything further from Anna von Haase. No word had come from her, nor any message. And now that it was too late, he began to feel that he had made a mistake. It seemed to him that he had visited upon her, in some indirect way, the misfortune which had befallen him. It was scarcely her fault that she had been the object of attentions which nearly every one agreed were unwelcome, from this young princeling. Norgate told himself, as he changed his clothes that evening, that his behaviour had been the behaviour of a jealous school-boy. Then an inspiration seized him. Half dressed as he was, he sat down at the writing-table and wrote to her. He wrote rapidly, and when he had finished, he sealed and addressed the envelope without glancing once more at its contents. The letter was stamped and posted within a few minutes, but somehow or other it seemed to have made a difference. His depression was no longer so complete. He looked forward to his lonely dinner, at one of the smaller clubs to which he belonged, with less aversion.
"Do you know where any of my people are. Hardy?" he asked his servant.
"In Scotland, I believe, sir," the man replied. "I called round this afternoon, although I was careful not to mention the fact that you were in town. The house is practically in the hands of caretakers."
"Try to keep out of the way as much as you can. Hardy," Norgate enjoined. "For a few days, at any rate, I should like no one to know that I am in town."
"Very good, sir," the man replied. "Might I venture to enquire, sir, if you are likely to be returning to Berlin?"
"I think it is very doubtful, Hardy," Norgate observed grimly. "We are more likely to remain here for a time."
Hardy brushed his master's hat for a moment or two in silence.
"You will pardon my mentioning it, sir," he said—"I imagine it is of no importance—but one of the German waiters on this floor has been going out of his way to enter into conversation with me this evening. He seemed to know your name and to know that you had just come from Germany. He hinted at some slight trouble there, sir."
"The dickens he did!" Norgate exclaimed. "That's rather quick work, Hardy."
"So I thought, sir," the man continued. "A very inquisitive individual indeed I found him. He wanted to know whether you had had any news yet as to any further appointment. He seemed to know quite well that you had been at the Foreign Office this morning."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him that I knew nothing, sir. I explained that you had not been back to lunch, and that I had not seen you since the morning. He tried to make an appointment with me to give me some dinner and take me to a music-hall to-night."
"What did you say to that?" Norgate enquired.
"I left the matter open, sir," the man replied. "I thought I would enquire what your wishes might be? The person evidently desires to gain some information about your movements. I thought that possibly it might be advantageous for me to tell him just what you desired."
Norgate lit a cigarette. For the moment he was puzzled. It was true that during their journey he had mentioned to Selingman his intention of taking a flat at the Milan Court, but if this espionage were the direct outcome of that information, it was indeed a wonderful organisation which Selingman controlled.
"You have acted very discreetly, Hardy," he said. "I think you had better tell your friend that I am expecting to leave for somewhere at a moment's notice. For your own information," he added, "I rather think that I shall stay here. It seems to me quite possible that we may find London, for a few weeks, just as interesting as any city in the world."
"I am very glad to hear you say so, sir," the man murmured. "Shall I fetch your overcoat?"
The telephone bell suddenly interrupted them. Hardy took up the receiver and listened for a moment.
"Mr. Hebblethwaite would like to speak to you, sir," he announced.
Norgate hurried to the telephone. A cheery voice greeted him.
"Hullo! That you, Norgate? This is Hebblethwaite. I'm just back from a few days in the country—found your note here. I want to hear all about this little matter at once. When can I see you?"
"Any time you like," Norgate replied promptly.
"Let me see," the voice continued, "what are you doing to-night?"
"Nothing!"
"Come straight round to the House of Commons and dine. Or no—wait a moment—we'll go somewhere quieter. Say the club in a quarter of an hour—the Reform Club. How will that suit you?"
"I'll be there, with pleasure," Norgate promised.
"Righto! We'll hear what you've been doing to these peppery Germans. I had a line from Leveson himself this morning. A lady in the case, I hear? Well, well! Never mind explanations now. See you in a few minutes."
Norgate laid down the receiver. His manner, as he accepted his well-brushed hat, had lost all its depression. There was no one in the Cabinet with more influence than Hebblethwaite. He would have his chance, at any rate, and his chance at other things.
"Look here, Hardy," he ordered, as he drew on his gloves, "spend as much time as you like with that fellow and let me know what sort of questions he asks you. Be careful not to mention the fact that I am dining with Mr. Hebblethwaite. For the rest, fence with him. I am not quite sure what it all means. If by any chance he mentions a man named Selingman, let me know. Good night!"
"Good night, sir!" the man replied.
Norgate descended into the Strand and walked briskly towards Pall Mall. The last few minutes seemed to him to be fraught with promise of a new interest in life. Yet it was not of any of these things that he was thinking as he made his way towards his destination. He was occupied most of the time in wondering how long it would be before he could hope to receive a reply from Berlin to his letter.
The Right Honourable John Hebblethwaite, M.P., since he had become a Cabinet Minister and had even been mentioned as the possible candidate for supreme office, had lost a great deal of that breezy, almost boisterous effusion of manner which in his younger days had first endeared him to his constituents. He received Norgate, however, with marked and hearty cordiality, and took his arm as he led him to the little table which he had reserved in a corner of the dining-room. The friendship between the entirely self-made politician and Norgate, who was the nephew of a duke, and whose aristocratic connections were multifarious and far-reaching, was in its way a genuine one. There were times when Hebblethwaite had made use of his younger friend to further his own undoubted social ambitions. On the other hand, since he had become a power in politics, he had always been ready to return in kind such offices. The note which he had received from Norgate that day was, however, the first appeal which had ever been made to him.
"I have been away for a week-end's golf," Hebblethwaite explained, as they took their places at the table. "There comes a time when figures pall, and snapping away in debate seems to stick in one's throat. I telephoned directly I got your note. Fortunately, I wasn't doing anything this evening. We won't play about. I know you don't want to see me to talk about the weather, and I know something's up, or Leveson wouldn't have written to me, and you wouldn't be back from Berlin. Let's have the whole story with the soup and fish, and we'll try and hit upon a way to put things right before we reach the liqueurs."
"I've lots to say to you," Norgate admitted simply. "I'll begin with the personal side of it. Here's just a brief narration of exactly what happened to me in the most fashionable restaurant of Berlin last Thursday night."
Norgate told his story. His friend listened with the absorbed attention of a man who possesses complete powers of concentration.
"Rotten business," he remarked, when it was finished. "I suppose you've told old—I mean you've told them the story at the Foreign Office?"
"Had it all out this morning," Norgate replied.
"I know exactly what our friend told you," Mr. Hebblethwaite continued, with a gleam of humour in his eyes. "He reminded you that the first duty of a diplomat—of a young diplomat especially—is to keep on friendly terms with the governing members of the country to which he is accredited. How's that, eh?"
"Pretty nearly word for word," Norgate admitted. "It's the sort of platitude I could watch framing in his mind before I was half-way through what I had to say. What they don't seem to take sufficient account of in that museum of mummied brains and parchment tongues—forgive me, Hebblethwaite, but it isn't your department—is that the Prince's behaviour to me is such as no Englishman, subscribing to any code of honour, could possibly tolerate. I will admit, if you like, that the Kaiser's attitude may render it advisable for me to be transferred from Berlin. I do not admit that I am not at once eligible for a position of similar importance in another capital."
"No one would doubt it," John Hebblethwaite grumbled, "except those particular fools we have to deal with. I suppose they didn't see it in the same light."
"They did not," Norgate admitted.
"We've a tough proposition to tackle," Hebblethwaite confessed cheerfully, "but I am with you, Norgate, and to my mind one of the pleasures of being possessed of a certain amount of power is to help one's friends when you believe in the justice of their cause. If you leave things with me, I'll tackle them to-morrow morning."
"That's awfully good of you, Hebblethwaite," Norgate declared gratefully, "and just what I expected. We'll leave that matter altogether just now, if we may. My own little grievance is there, and I wanted to explain exactly how it came about. Apart from that altogether, there is something far more important which I have to say to you."
Hebblethwaite knitted his brows. He was clearly puzzled.
"Still personal, eh?" he enquired.
Norgate shook his head.
"It is something of vastly more importance," he said, "than any question affecting my welfare. I am almost afraid to begin for fear I shall miss any chance, for fear I may not seem convincing enough."
"We'll have the champagne opened at once, then," Mr. Hebblethwaite declared. "Perhaps that will loosen your tongue. I can see that this is going to be a busy meal. Charles, if that bottle of Pommery 1904 is iced just to the degree I like it, let it be served, if you please, in the large sized glasses. Now, Norgate."
"What I am going to relate to you," Norgate began, leaning across the table and speaking very earnestly, "is a little incident which happened to me on my way back from Berlin. I had as a fellow passenger a person whom I am convinced is high up in the German Secret Service Intelligence Department."
"All that!" Mr. Hebblethwaite murmured. "Go ahead, Norgate. I like the commencement of your story. I almost feel that I am moving through the pages of a diplomatic romance. All that I am praying is that your fellow passenger was a foreign lady—a princess, if possible—with wonderful eyes, fascinating manners, and of a generous disposition."
"Then I am afraid you will be disappointed," Norgate continued drily. "The personage in question was a man whose name was Selingman. He told me that he was a manufacturer of crockery and that he came often to England to see his customers. He called himself a peace-loving German, and he professed the utmost good-will towards our country and our national policy. At the commencement of our conversation, I managed to impress him with the idea that I spoke no German. At one of the stations on the line he was joined by a Belgian, his agent, as he told me, in Brussels for the sale of his crockery. I overheard this agent, whose name was Meyer, recount to his principal his recent operations. He offered him an exact plan of the forts of Liège. I heard him instructed to procure a list of the wealthy inhabitants of Ghent and the rateable value of the city, and I heard him commissioned to purchase land in the neighbourhood of Antwerp for a secret purpose."
Mr. Hebblethwaite's eyebrows became slowly upraised. The twinkle in his eyes remained, however.
"My!" he exclaimed softly. "We're getting on with the romance all right!"
"During the momentary absence of this fellow and his agent from the carriage," Norgate proceeded, "I possessed myself of a slip of paper which had become detached from the packet of documents they had been examining. It consisted of a list of names mostly of people resident in the United Kingdom, purporting to be Selingman's agents. I venture to believe that this list is a precise record of the principal German spies in this country."
"German spies!" Mr. Hebblethwaite murmured. "Whew!"
He sipped his champagne.
"That list," Norgate went on, "is in my pocket. I may add that although I was careful to keep up the fiction of not understanding German, and although I informed Herr Selingman that I had seen the paper in question blow out of the window, he nevertheless gave me that night a drugged whisky and soda, and during the time I slept he must have been through every one of my possessions. I found my few letters and papers turned upside down, and even my pockets had been ransacked."
"Where was the paper, then?" Mr. Hebblethwaite enquired.
"In an inner pocket of my pyjamas," Norgate explained. "I had them made with a sort of belt inside, at the time I was a king's messenger."
Mr. Hebblethwaite played with his tie for a moment and drank a little more champagne.
"Could I have a look at the list?" he asked, as though with a sudden inspiration.
Norgate passed it across the table to him. Mr. Hebblethwaite adjusted his pince-nez, gave a little start as he read the first name, leaned back in his chair as he came to another, stared at Norgate about half-way down the list, as though to make sure that he was in earnest, and finally finished it in silence. He folded it up and handed it back.
"Well, well!" he exclaimed, a little pointlessly. "Now tell me, Norgate, you showed this list down there?"—jerking his head towards the street.
"I did," Norgate admitted.
"And what did they say?"
"Just what you might expect men whose lives are spent within the four walls of a room in Downing Street to say," Norgate replied. "You are half inclined to make fun of me yourself, Hebblethwaite, but at any rate I know you have a different outlook from theirs. Old Carew was frantically polite. He even declared the list to be most interesting! He rambled on for about a quarter of an hour on the general subject of the spy mania. German espionage, he told me, was one of the shadowy evils from which England had suffered for generations. So far as regards London and the provincial towns, he went on, whether for good or evil, we have a large German population, and if they choose to make reports to any one in Germany as to events happening here which come under their observation, we cannot stop it, and it would not even be worth while to try. As regards matters of military and naval importance, there was a special branch, he assured me, for looking after these, and it was a branch of the Service which was remarkably well-served and remarkably successful. Having said this, he folded the list up and returned it to me, rang the bell, gave me a frozen hand to shake, a mumbled promise about another appointment as soon as there should be a vacancy, and that was the end of it."
"About that other appointment," Mr. Hebblethwaite began, with some animation—
"Damn the other appointment!" Norgate interrupted testily. "I didn't come here to cadge, Hebblethwaite. I am never likely to make use of my friends in that way. I came for a bigger thing. I came to try and make you see a danger, the reality of which I have just begun to appreciate myself for the first time in my life."
Mr. Hebblethwaite's manner slowly changed. He pulled down his waistcoat, finished off a glass of wine, and leaned forward.
"Norgate," he said, "I am sorry that this is the frame of mind in which you have come to me. I tell you frankly that you couldn't have appealed to a man in the Cabinet less in sympathy with your fears than I myself."
"I am sorry to hear that," Norgate replied grimly, "but go on."
"Before I entered the Cabinet," Mr. Hebblethwaite continued, "our relations with Foreign Powers were just the myth to me that they are to most people who read theMorning Postone day and theDaily Mailthe next. However, I made the best part of half a million in business through knowing the top and the bottom and every corner of my job, and I started in to do the same when I began to have a share in the government of the country. Theententewith France is all right in its way, but I came to the conclusion that the greatest and broadest stroke of diplomacy possible to Englishmen to-day was to cultivate more benevolent and more confidential relations with Germany. That same feeling has been spreading through the Cabinet during the last two years. I am ready to take my share of the blame or praise, whichever in the future shall be allotted to the inspirer of that idea. It is our hope that when the present Government goes out of office, one of its chief claims to public approval and to historical praise will be the improvement of our relations with Germany. We certainly do not wish to disturb the growing confidence which exists between the two countries by any maladroit or unnecessary investigations. We believe, in short, that Germany's attitude towards us is friendly, and we intend to treat her in the same spirit."
"Tell me," Norgate asked, "is that the reason why every scheme for the expansion of the army has been shelved? Is that the reason for all the troubles with the Army Council?"
"It is," Hebblethwaite admitted. "I trust you, Norgate, and I look upon you as a friend. I tell you what the whole world of responsible men and women might as well know, but which we naturally don't care about shouting from the housetops. We have come to the conclusion that there is no possible chance of the peace of Europe being disturbed. We have come to the conclusion that civilisation has reached that pitch when the last resource of arms is absolutely unnecessary. I do not mind telling you that the Balkan crisis presented opportunities to any one of the Powers to plunge into warfare, had they been so disposed. No one bade more boldly for peace then than Germany. No one wants war. Germany has nothing to gain by it, no animosity against France, none towards Russia. Neither of these countries has the slightest intention, now or at any time, of invading Germany. Why should they? The matter of Alsace and Lorraine is finished. If these provinces ever come back to France, it will be by political means and not by any mad-headed attempt to wrest them away."
"Incidentally," Norgate asked, "what about the enormous armaments of Germany? What about her navy? What about the military spirit which practically rules the country?"
"I have spent three months in Germany during the last year," Hebblethwaite replied. "It is my firm belief that those armaments and that fleet are necessary to Germany to preserve her place of dignity among the nations. She has Russia on one side and France on the other, allies, watching her all the time, and of late years England has been chipping at her whenever she got a chance, and flirting with France. What can a nation do but make herself strong enough to defend herself against unprovoked attack? Germany, of course, is full of the military spirit, but it is my opinion, Norgate, that it is a great deal fuller of the great commercial spirit. It isn't war with Germany that we have to fear. It's the ruin of our commerce by their great assiduity and more up-to-date methods. Now you've had a statement of policy from me for which the halfpenny Press would give me a thousand guineas if I'd sign it."
"I've had it," Norgate admitted, "and I tell you frankly that I hate it. I am an unfledged young diplomat in disgrace, and I haven't your experience or your brains, but I have a hateful idea that I can see the truth and you can't. You're too big and too broad in this matter, Hebblethwaite. Your head's lifted too high. You see the horrors and the needlessness, the logical side of war, and you brush the thought away from you."
Mr. Hebblethwaite sighed.
"Perhaps so," he admitted. "One can only act according to one's convictions. You must remember, though, Norgate, that we don't carry our pacificism to extremes. Our navy is and always will be an irresistible defence."
"Even with hostile naval and aeroplane bases at—say—Calais, Boulogne,Dieppe, Ostend?"
Mr. Hebblethwaite pushed a box of cigars towards his guest, glanced at the clock, and rose.
"Young fellow," he said, "I have engaged a box at the Empire. Let us move on."
"My position as a Cabinet Minister," Mr. Hebblethwaite declared, with a sigh, "renders my presence in the Promenade undesirable. If you want to stroll around, Norgate, don't bother about me."
Norgate picked up his hat. "Jolly good show," he remarked. "I'll be back before it begins again."
He descended to the lower Promenade and sauntered along towards the refreshment bar. Mrs. Paston Benedek, who was seated in the stalls, leaned over and touched his arm.
"My friend," she exclaimed, "you aredistrait! You walk as though you looked for everything and saw nothing. And behold, you have found me!"
Norgate shook hands and nodded to Baring, who was her escort.
"What have you done with our expansive friend?" he asked. "I thought you were dining with him."
"I compromised," she laughed. "You see what it is to be so popular. I should have dined and have come here with Captain Baring—that was our plan for to-night. Captain Baring, however, was generous when he saw my predicament. He suffered me to dine with Mr. Selingman, and he fetched me afterwards. Even then we could not quite get rid of the dear man. He came on here with us, and he is now, I believe, greeting acquaintances everywhere in the Promenade. I am perfectly convinced that I shall have to look the other way when we go out."
"I think I'll see whether I can rescue him," Norgate remarked. "Good show, isn't it?" he added, turning to her companion.
"Capital," replied Baring, without enthusiasm. "Too many people here, though."
Norgate strolled on, and Mrs. Benedek tapped her companion on the knuckles with her fan.
"How dared you be so rude!" she exclaimed. "You are in a very bad humour this evening. I can see that I shall have to punish you."
"That's all very well," Baring grumbled, "but it gets more difficult to see you alone every day. This evening was to have been mine. Now this fat German turns up and lays claim to you, and then, about the first moment we've had a chance to talk, Norgate comes gassing along. You're not nearly as nice to me, Bertha, as you used to be."
"My dear man," she protested, "in the first place I deny it. In the second, I ask myself whether you are quite as devoted to me as you were when you first came."
"In what way?" he demanded.
She turned her wonderful eyes upon him.
"At first when you came," she declared, "you told me everything. You spoke of your long mornings and afternoons at the Admiralty. You told me of the room in which you worked, the men who worked there with you. You told me of the building of that little model, and how you were all allowed to try your own pet ideas with regard to it. And then, all of a sudden, nothing—not a word about what you have been doing. I am an intelligent woman. I love to have men friends who do things, and if they are really friends of mine, I like to enter into their life, to know of their work, to sympathise, to take an interest in it. It was like that with you at first. Now it has all gone. You have drawn down a curtain. I do not believe that you go to the Admiralty at all. I do not believe that you have any wonderful invention there over which you spend your time."
"Bertha, dear," he remonstrated, "do be reasonable."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"But am I not? See how reasonably I have spoken to you. I have told you the exact truth. I have told you why I do not take quite that same pleasure in your company as when you first came."
"Do consider," he begged. "I spoke to you freely at first because we had not reached the stage in the work when secrecy was absolutely necessary. At present we are all upon our honour. From the moment we pass inside that little room, we are, to all effects and purposes, dead men. Nothing that happens there is to be spoken of or hinted at, even to our wives or our dearest friends. It is the etiquette of my profession, Bertha. Be reasonable."
"Pooh!" she exclaimed. "Fancy asking a woman to be reasonable! Don't you realise, you stupid man, that if you were at liberty to tell everybody what it is that you do there, well, then I should have no more interest in it? It is just because you say that you will not and you may not tell, that, womanlike, I am curious."
"But whatever good could it be to you to know?" he protested. "I should simply addle your head with a mass of technical detail, not a quarter of which you would be able to understand. Besides, I have told you, Bertha, it is a matter of honour."
She looked intently at her programme.
"There are men," she murmured, "who love so much that even honour counts for little by the side of—"
"Of what?" he whispered hoarsely.
"Of success."
For a moment they sat in silence. The place was not particularly hot, yet there were little beads of perspiration upon Baring's forehead. The fingers which held his programme twitched. He rose suddenly to his feet.
"May I go out and have a drink?" he asked. "I won't go if you don't want to be alone."
"My dear friend, I do not mind in the least," she assured him. "If you find Mr. Norgate, send him here."
In one of the smaller refreshment rooms sat Mr. Selingman, a bottle of champagne before him and a wondrously attired lady on either side. The heads of all three were close together. The lady on the left was talking in a low tone but with many gesticulations.
"Dear friend," she exclaimed, "for one single moment you must not think that I am ungrateful! But consider. Success costs money always, and I have been successful—you admit that. My rooms are frequented entirely by the class of young men you have wished me to encourage. Pauline and I here, and Rose, whom you have met, seek our friends in no other direction. We are never alone, and, as you very well know, not a day has passed that I have not sent you some little word of gossip or information—the gossip of the navy and the gossip of the army—and there is always some truth underneath what these young men say. It is what you desire, is it not?"
"Without a doubt," Selingman assented. "Your work, my dear Helda, has been excellent. I commend you. I think with fervour of the day when first we talked together, and the scheme presented itself to me. Continue to play Aspasia in such a fashion to the young soldiers and sailors of this country, and your villa at Monte Carlo next year is assured."
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
"I will not say that you are not generous," she declared, "for that would be untrue, but sometimes you forget that these young men have very little money, and the chief profit from their friendship, therefore, must come to us in other ways."
"You want a larger allowance?" Selingman asked slowly.
"Not at present, but I want to warn you that the time may come when I shall need more. A salon in Pimlico, dear friend, is an expensive thing to maintain. These young men tell their friends of our hospitality, the music, our entertainment. We become almost too much the fashion, and it costs money."
Selingman held up his champagne glass, gazed at the wine for a moment, and slowly drank it.
"I am not of those," he announced, "who expect service for nothing, especially good service such as yours. Watch for the postman, dear lady. Any morning this week there may come for you a pleasant little surprise."
She leaned over and patted his arm.
"You are a prince," she murmured. "But tell me, who is the grave-looking young man?"
Selingman glanced up. Norgate, who had been standing at the bar withBaring, was passing a few feet away.
"The rake's progress," the former quoted solemnly.
Selingman raised his glass.
"Come and join us," he invited.
Norgate shook his head slightly and passed on. Selingman leaned a little forward, watching his departing figure. The buoyant good-nature seemed to have faded out of his face.
"If you could get that young man to talk, now, Helda," he muttered, "it would be an achievement."
She glanced after him, "To me," she declared, "he looks one of the difficult sort."
"He is an Englishman with a grievance," Selingman continued. "If the grievance cuts deep enough, he may—But we gossip."
"The other was a navy man," the girl remarked. "His name is Baring."
Selingman nodded.
"You need not bother about him," he said. "If it is possible for him to be of use, that is arranged for in another quarter. So! Let us finish our wine and separate. That letter shall surely come. Have no fear."
Selingman strolled away, a few minutes later. Baring had returned to Mrs. Paston Benedek, and Norgate had resumed his place in the box. Selingman, with a gold-topped cane under his arm, a fresh cigar between his lips, and a broad smile of good-fellowship upon his face, strolled down one of the wings of the Promenade. Suddenly he came to a standstill. In the box opposite to him, Norgate and Hebblethwaite were seated side by side. Selingman regarded them for a moment steadfastly.
"A friend of Hebblethwaite's!" he muttered. "Hebblethwaite—the one man whom Berlin doubts!"
He withdrew a little into the shadows, his eyes fixed upon the box. A little way off, in the stalls, Mrs. Paston Benedek was whispering to Baring. Further back in the Promenade, Helda was entertaining a little party of friends. Selingman's eyes remained fixed upon Norgate.