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Bernard Treves's Boots: A Novel of the Secret Service

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Title: Bernard Treves's Boots: A Novel of the Secret Service

Creator: Laurence Clarke


        
Release date: April 1, 2013 [eBook #42459]
                Most recently updated: May 14, 2013

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BERNARD TREVES'S BOOTS: A NOVEL OF THE SECRET SERVICE ***




Produced by Al Haines.


                         BERNARD TREVES'S BOOTS

                     A NOVEL OF THE SECRET SERVICE


                                   BY

                            LAURENCE CLARKE

                  AUTHOR OF "A PRINCE OF INDIA," ETC.



                      HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED
                                 LONDON
                                  1920




DEDICATION

To Sir Emsley Carr, who suggested
that I should write this book, and
to whom I am much indebted for
valuable first-hand incidents which
figure in these pages.

_January_, 1920.




                               CHAPTER I


"Are you sure your name is Manton?"

Captain Gilbert looked keenly across the table.  The light in the little
room was not good, and the expression on the Captain's face was one of
intense interest and bewilderment.

"Quite sure, sir--John Manton," answered the man standing at the further
side of the table.

Manton was one of a number of recruits who had that day presented
themselves at the Ryde Recruiting Office--a tall, well-poised man of
twenty-six, dark-haired, blue-eyed, firm-lipped and vigorous-looking,
despite the fact that his countenance was somewhat pale.  He wore a
well-brushed blue serge suit, noticeably the worse for wear.  His bowler
hat, too, had seen long service.

Captain Gilbert, still looking at him, drew forth a sheet of paper, and
took up his pen.

"John Manton," he wrote, then his eyes lifted, and he looked once more
and with a peculiar expression into the tall young recruit's face.  For
a moment he paused. "Manton," he said, "I should like to see you
privately after the office closes."

The young man steadily returned his gaze.

"Very good, sir," he said, with an air of docility.  "At what time shall
I come?"

"At eight o'clock," returned Gilbert.  "Wait for me outside."  His eyes
followed the other as he turned and left the building, but the moment
the door had closed Captain Gilbert plunged once again into his work.

"Next," he called to the line of men seated on the far side of the room;
and the man at the end of the line rose and advanced towards the table.

Manton in the meantime paced the streets until eight o'clock, then
turned his steps towards the recruiting office.

"I wonder what he wants," thought the young man.

Possibly Gilbert guessed he had been in the army before, and wished to
question him upon that point.

"Whatever he wants," thought Manton, somewhat wearily, "does not much
matter.  If he refuses to take me, and manages to find out everything, I
can enlist somewhere else."

As the clock struck eight Captain Gilbert, with an air of haste, closed
his desk, left the office and came striding along the street.

"Ah!" exclaimed the Captain, catching sight of Manton, "we'll come up
here to the left; it's quieter."

He led the way as he spoke towards a deserted side street.  It was
already almost dark, and the dimmed street lamps had been lit.  They had
proceeded some distance together in silence, when Gilbert halted
suddenly, and laid his hand on Manton's shoulder.

"Treves," he said, "so you had the grit to do it, after all?"

Manton turned and stared in wonderment.

"Do what, sir?"  But he suddenly felt his fingers seized in a cordial
grip.

"Gad," went on Gilbert, "that'll make a man of you--eh?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand a word of what you are saying, sir!"

"You don't understand a word!  Why, of course you don't!  I like you for
it--and I'll be frank, I thought I never could like you.  Somehow," he
went on, looking into Manton's face, "you are the same and yet
different, but I'd know you anywhere, despite this shabby old suit and
your battered bowler.  You knew me, too, when you came into the office."

Manton, still bewildered beyond measure, shook his head slowly.

"I have never seen you in my life before, sir!"

"No, of course not," laughed Gilbert, who was jovial and good-natured.
He slipped his arm through Manton's. "Come along now, and we'll talk
about it!"  Something in the situation of the moment seemed to
exhilarate him. "So you've decided to make good after all?  Well, all I
can say is--I'm delighted.  For your own sake, for the old Colonel's
sake, for everybody's sake!"

Again he paused and looked into his companion's face.

"I'll admit, Treves, I didn't think you had it in you. I thought----"

Manton freed his arm from the other's grasp.

"I am sorry, sir," he said, "but you are evidently making a grievous
mistake.  My name is Manton----"

"I don't care what your name is," retorted Gilbert, irritated a little
by what he believed to be the other's unnecessary reserve.  "You can get
rid of your name and call yourself Manton or Jones or Smith or Robinson
or anything you like for all I care!  But I know you to be Bernard
Treves, and----"

But this time a note of firmness appeared in Manton's voice.

"My name is not Treves, sir!"

Gilbert shrugged his shoulders.

"You needn't keep up that note with me," he said. "I'm delighted to find
you have the grit to try to make some sort of reparation."

Manton moistened his lips.

"I still don't understand you," he said slowly.  "But all I can do is to
assure you I am not Treves.  If you know some one who resembles me and
whose name is Treves, perhaps you would look at me again.  To my
knowledge, sir, I have never met you in my life before."

As he spoke he took off his hat and turned his face fully towards the
Captain.

For a moment there was silence.

"In this half-darkness," said Gilbert, "you look absolutely like Bernard
Treves to me.  You looked like him in the office.  I could see that you
had been in the army the minute you stood at my table."  He paused, and
for the first time a slight doubt crept over him. "The only thing that
seems changed to me," he went on, "is your manner.  Come, now, Treves,
you know me well enough to confide in me; that's why I asked you to
speak to me out of the office.  Anything you care to say will go no
further.  I will accept it as unofficial, and if you intend to make good
I'm prepared to be a good friend to you.  But in the first place admit
that you are Treves; it will make matters much easier."

For some moments Manton remained silent.  Gilbert believed that at last
he was about to admit his identity.

"I will tell you my history for the past three months, sir," said the
young man.

"I shall respect your confidence," Gilbert answered.

"I am sorry to disappoint you, sir, but my name is really Manton, and,
as you guessed when I came into the office, I have been in the army
before.  I was at Scarthoe Head, Battery A.  I was a sergeant, and,
being a public school man, was made book-keeper to the acting adjutant."
He fell into silence again, and went on after a pause.  "Something went
wrong in regard to the delivery of stores to the fort.  There was a
hundred and forty-five pounds deficit in the accounts.  I was held
responsible, sir."

There was an intensity and a genuineness in the ring of the stranger's
voice that gripped Gilbert's attention. He listened with the closest
attention, and as Manton narrated in detail his life during the past six
months, Gilbert's convictions faded and gradually vanished.  It was
impossible that the man could have invented the story, a story so easy
of verification.  It was some time, however, before he let Manton
perceive his change of view; then he drew in a deep breath.

"Gad!" he exclaimed, "then you are not Treves after all!"

"No, sir."

"Go on with your story."

Manton obediently resumed his discourse, bringing his history down to
that afternoon and his visit to the recruiting office.

"It's amazing!" exclaimed Gilbert.  "I could have sworn----  But, after
all," he went on, as if communing with himself, "there's something in
your eyes that's different."

"My one ambition in life," concluded Manton, "is to repay that hundred
and forty-five pounds.  I wanted to do it for the honour of the battery.
But when three months had passed and I found I couldn't manage it, I
decided to enlist again."

Gilbert, when his first surprise had departed, began to feel an unusual
interest in the young man, and as the two strolled back towards the
Captain's hotel, he dropped his slight tone of authority, but was quite
uncommunicative as to the mysterious and evidently delinquent Treves.

"If you could come to the office in the morning," he said at parting, "I
think we can get round any difficulties there may be in regard to your
re-enlistment.  Do you mind if I make inquiries about you, merely as a
matter of form?"

"Not in the least, sir."

A few minutes later Captain Gilbert put through a trunk call to Scarthoe
Fort.  The commandant of Battery A, who was known to Gilbert by name,
happened to be on duty.  Gilbert explained that a man giving the name of
John Manton, lately of his battery, had that day attempted to re-enlist
at Ryde.

"I'd like all the information you can give me about him," Gilbert asked.

"One of the best," came back the prompt answer from Scarthoe Fort.
"Manton was a favourite here, and quite unofficially, although matters
got a bit muddled, and the case went against him, none of us believed
him guilty.  A first-rate gunner and white clear through.  I shall be
glad to know that he's back in the army again."

Gilbert rang off, and all that night the amazing resemblance between his
friend Treves and Manton occupied his thoughts.  As a result of this
preoccupation, and some time during the small hours, a startling idea
came to him, first as a nebulous, vague possibility, then as an entirely
practicable and simple solution of a difficulty.  The thought was this:
why should not the singular resemblance between Treves and Manton be
turned to good account?  Manton had said he wanted more than anything in
the world to repay the money due to the battery.  Treves, on his part,
wanted----  Gilbert broke off here, but his thoughts continued to pursue
the new, startling idea that had come to him.

"Gad!" he exclaimed, as the morning broke, "I believe the plan would
achieve miracles.  If Treves got away under another name he might rouse
himself.  He might become a man again." ...

In the morning Manton came into the office looking bright, vigorous and
full of vitality.  Gilbert rose and examined him.  Yes, there was a
difference, a slight, almost undetectable difference.  Something in the
eyes--nothing more than that.

"Are you convinced now, sir?" asked the young man, smiling and standing
at attention.

"I am quite convinced, Manton, and I have a proposition to make to you."

He took his visitor into an inner room, and, seated there, he unfolded a
little of the plan that had come to him during the watches of the night.

"Manton," he said, "I must get authority before I can accept you as a
recruit, but in the meantime," he went on, "I have been thinking of our
talk of last night. I like you for trying to earn that hundred and
forty-five pounds, and they gave a good account of you at Scarthoe."

"I don't know who had the money, sir, but I'd do anything in the world
to pay it back for the honour of the battery."

Captain Gilbert paused, then took a letter from the pocket of his tunic.
The envelope was addressed: "Lieutenant Bernard Treves, 15, Sade Road,
Lymington."

Gilbert had written this letter earlier that morning. With a certain air
of formality he handed it to John Manton and instructed him to deliver
it to Lieutenant Treves that evening after dark.

"I have a plan in regard to you, Manton, that I think will work out to
your entire satisfaction.  I won't tell you what it is until you have
seen my friend Treves. But when Treves has read this letter he may, or
may not, think it worth his while to pay you the money you need.  If he
doesn't, please come back to me to-morrow, and we will go on with the
matter of your re-enlistment."

"In case Lieutenant Treves decides favourably, sir, what must I do to
earn the money?"

"You will learn that from him," answered the Captain. "Go to-night, as
unobtrusively as you can," he said. He rose, held out his hand and
gripped Manton's fingers cordially in his.




                               CHAPTER II


That evening, when John Manton stepped off the boat at Lymington, a
heavy summer rain was falling.  In the town itself the streets appeared
to be deserted, and it was some minutes before he encountered a workman
hurrying home, with upturned collar.  He inquired the way to Sade Road,
and five minutes later came upon a row of small workmen's cottages with
little gardens in front.  Counting the houses until he came to number
fifteen, he entered the garden gate, and, striking a match, discovered
that he had halted at the right address.  A woman came to the door in
answer to his knock, and stood in the dark, looking out at him, opening
the door only a few cautious inches.

"What do you want?"

Manton, with collar turned up and hat drawn over his brows, answered
that he brought a letter for Lieutenant Treves.

"You'd better go up to him, then," said the woman, drawing open the
door.  "It's the front room at the top of the stairs."

There was a candle at the stair-head, and Manton passed her, ascended
the single flight of steps and halted at the door.  The smallness of the
house, the shabbiness of the woman who had admitted him, depressed his
spirits. He liked Captain Gilbert, with his sleek and buoyant
confidence.  This plan of his suddenly struck Manton as the wildest
piece of quixotism.

He lifted his hand and knocked quietly upon the door. A voice from
within instantly invited him to enter.  A moment later he stood in a
small lamp-lit bedroom. The room was littered with trunks, suit-cases,
boxes and a general confusion of other articles.  The close air reeked
with the smell of Turkish cigarettes, and at a table near the window,
with a lamp before him, sat a young man, busily occupied scribbling
figures on a sheet of paper.

Bernard Treves, whose back was towards the door, wore mufti, and Manton,
in the moment of entering, noticed that he was well dressed and that his
hair was smooth and dark.

"If that's my supper, Mrs. Dodge," said Treves, "put it on the bed."  He
spoke without looking round, took a drink of whisky from a glass at his
side, then went on with his figures.

Manton, standing near the door, coughed to attract his attention.

"Hallo!" exclaimed Treves, and turned swiftly.  In an instant at sight
of Manton his expression changed. He sprang to his feet in what appeared
to be a state of terror, and stood staring at his visitor without
uttering a word.  With brows drawn together, he passed a hand over his
eyes, then he turned, and, lifting his lamp from the table, held it
aloft.

"Who are you?" he demanded savagely, "and what the devil do you want?"

John Manton took the letter from his pocket.

"I have come with a letter from your friend, Captain Gilbert," he
answered quietly.

With his eyes still fixed on Manton, Treves lowered the lamp and
replaced it on the table.

"A letter," he repeated, "from Gilbert?  Give it to me."  He held out
his hand.  "God!" he exclaimed, as he snatched the envelope, "coming in
like that, you gave me a devil of a start.  I thought that I was looking
into my own face!  Come nearer; come into the light."

Manton advanced farther into the room.

"I suppose these figures I've been poring over," went on Treves, "have
made my eyes a bit wrong, but I've never seen anything like it."  His
nerve was gradually returning, and his astonishment was turning to
amusement at the intensity of the resemblance between them.

"Look into the mirror there," he said.  "Don't you think the likeness is
amazing?"

Manton looked into the mirror, and then again at the young man, who had
replaced the lamp on the table, and was tearing open Gilbert's envelope.
As he scrutinised Treves's face and figure he, too, was astonished. He
began to understand now something of Captain Gilbert's strange behaviour
of the day before.  But Manton had never been occupied over much with
his own appearance; he took himself for granted, and after the first
momentary flash of curiosity he thought no more of the resemblance.
Besides, there was, after all, a difference.  Treves wore a black
moustache; his complexion was flushed, whereas Manton, as a result of
gas poisoning at the Front, was still pale.  Treves's eyes, moreover,
were evasive and furtive in expression. Nevertheless, it would have been
difficult to tell the two men apart.

"Sit down, Sergeant," Treves said.  "Help yourself to a drink."  He
waved towards the whisky bottle and a siphon on the table.  Upon Manton
refusing the drink, Treves pushed towards him a box of cigarettes.  Then
read Captain Gilbert's missive through a second and a third time, and
seemed to be considering it deeply with brows drawn together.  "Do you
know what is in this letter?" he questioned at last.

"No."

"Captain Gilbert told you nothing?"

"Nothing whatever, beyond saying that you might be willing to make some
sort of offer."

"Well, he makes an extraordinary suggestion," went on Treves, leaning
back in his chair.  "It's all brought about by your resemblance to me."
His eyes sought the letter again.  "He tells me you are a public school
boy and all that, and gives me here an outline of your little trouble at
Scarthoe Head.  Well, for certain reasons known to himself and to me, he
thinks you may be able to make yourself useful to me.  That is," he
added, "if you are willing to undertake a somewhat delicate piece of
work."

Manton looked inquiringly at Treves; he was not sure of the young man.

"Perhaps you will let me know the nature of the work."

"The fact of the matter is, Manton," Treves resumed, dropping his voice
confidentially, "I am in want of help. Owing to certain peculiar
circumstances, I want somebody to make use of my name and my personality
for a short time."

He took up his whisky and Manton observed an almost imperceptible tremor
of his fingers as they closed about the glass.

"Now, your extraordinary likeness to me, and the fact that you are in
need of cash--well, do you see the point?"

"I'm afraid not," remarked Manton quietly.

Treves made a gesture of impatience.

"It's pretty plain, I should think.  You need cash, I need some one to
step into my shoes; somebody who must take the name of Bernard Treves.
Now, do you understand?"

"Your suggestion is that I should pass myself off as you?"

"That's it exactly!"

His visitor stared at him in amazement.

"But I don't see," said he, "any advantage in that for either of us."

"Perhaps not.  How much money are you in need of?" Treves inquired
pointedly.

"Nearly one hundred and fifty pounds."

Treves whistled.

"Lot of money," he said.

John Manton agreed with him, and for a space there was silence.  John's
hopes that had risen fell to zero.

Then Treves poured himself another glass of whisky, and drank it down.
He wiped his lips with a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket.

"All right," he said at length; "carry out my wishes and you shall have
it."

"Then you are serious?"

"I was never more serious in my life.  You are to take everything that
is mine, and in return you shall have the money you need."

A vague doubt stirred in Manton's mind; then he thought of Gilbert.  The
Captain was most obviously a man of honour.

"If I accept, can I still enlist?"

"Enlist by all means."

"It seems to me to be an easy way of earning the money, but what about
your rank in the army?"

Treves flashed a suspicious glance at him; there was a questioning
expression in his eyes.

"If you accept my offer we can go into details later, and as regards my
rank, I--I happen to be leaving the army."

"In that case," said Manton, "I am much obliged to you; the money will
be a great boon to me."

"You accept?"

"Like a bird!" smiled Manton.  "But there is one thing I would like to
ask."

"Well?"

"The terms are generous enough," he said, "but what is to happen to my
name; is that to disappear too?"

Bernard Treves lit a cigarette, and looked at him with the expression of
one from whose mind has been lifted a heavy burden.  He made an
expressive gesture with his hand.

"For the time being," he answered, "the name of Sergeant Manton will
vanish into thin air."




                              CHAPTER III


Six days later Manton found himself once more in Lymington, alone in
Treves's lodgings, in the crowded room, littered with that young man's
desirable possessions.  Those possessions were, for the time being, his
own; even Treves's name was his, for, carrying out his bargain, Treves
had vanished from the scene.  Again Manton fell to wondering why the
other had been so anxious to dispossess himself of name and identity.
There was nothing criminal in the matter, he was assured of that,
otherwise Captain Gilbert would not have had a hand in it.  The idea
that the Lieutenant had suffered from shell-shock, and desired to hide
himself from all who knew him for a time until he had recovered, came to
Manton, and struck him as feasible.  He had himself known quite a number
of peculiar manifestations of this particularly mysterious disease.  In
any case, whatever Treves's reasons, it mattered little to Manton at
that moment.

"I have simply got to make myself act as Treves, and to do the best I
can in Treves's shoes for the time being."

A few days earlier the young man had written him a letter in which he
had said: "Use everything of mine as if it were your own.  It is only
fair if you get the kicks meant for me, you should get the ha'pence as
well.  I have few relations, and none of them are likely to bother you.
When we shall meet again I do not know, but, in the meantime, _au
revoir_.  I wonder what you will feel like this time next year?"

Manton, in the quiet of the room, took some considerable time trying to
realise his new circumstances, and gradually the sense of strangeness
and mystery that enveloped him began to fade away.  In all his life
Manton had been used to the buffets and hard knocks of Fate; he began to
wonder what his immediate future in Treves's shoes held for him.  Both
parents having died in India, he had been educated from a small fund in
the hands of a guardian, first in Germany, and later at Rugby. After
that he spent two years at Bonn.  His resources were at an end, and the
guardian, feeling that he had done his duty, left him to fend for
himself.  A period of hard going had followed, until the war broke out,
whereupon he precipitately enlisted in the first hundred thousand. If he
had waited a little longer a commission would have been thrust upon him
as it was upon all public school men in any way eligible.  Treves's
past, Manton surmised, had not been of that nature, for despite the
poorness of the young man's lodgings, all his belongings were of the
costliest order.  And all these belongings were now his, Manton's, to do
with as he liked.  The idea came to him to write to Captain Gilbert,
thanking him for the amicable intervention that had wrought this change
in his circumstances.  He sat down, drew forth a sheet of Treves's
notepaper, and had taken up a pen when a knock came at the door, and the
landlady appeared.

"You'd like some tea, sir, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, thank you," answered the young man.

"I've dusted the room every day, sir, since you've been away," said the
landlady.

"It's exactly as I left it," responded he truthfully. She was looking at
him across the width of the little room, but there was no doubt or
curiosity in her gaze; she had accepted him instantly on his arrival
that day as Bernard Treves, and even now, looking at him full and
closely, no thought of deception entered her mind.  "I wonder what she'd
think," he pondered inwardly, "if Treves were to come in behind her
now."

But no such dramatic event occurred; the landlady brought up his tea,
and later furnished him with a bottle of whisky, a siphon of soda, and a
glass.

Next morning, when she cleared these things away, she was surprised to
find that no more than one peg of whisky had been taken.

"Wasn't you feeling well, sir, last night?" she asked.

"Quite," answered Manton, who was busy with an excellent breakfast.

She went away wondering.  Until that day she had never known Mr. Treves
to drink less than half a bottle of whisky in the course of an evening.

During the morning John went for a stroll in the town, and on his return
the landlady handed him a letter which had arrived by the post in his
absence.  Manton took it up to his room, and noticed that the
handwriting was sprawling and shaky.  Twice he read the superscription,
"Bernard Treves, Esq., 15, Sade Road, Lymington."  He hesitated several
minutes before breaking open the envelope.  He felt as though he were
stepping beyond the pale of decency in opening the letter addressed to
another man, then he recalled Treves's admonition, "Everything that is
mine is yours."  He tore open the envelope.  Within was a single sheet
of paper headed, "Heatherfield Grange, Freshwater."  Manton quickly
scanned the contents.


"_Dear Bernard,--They tell me you are in hiding, as well you may be, but
if you have a spark of decency left in you, you will come here to me at
the first opportunity.  There are things I have to say to you_.

"_You have dishonoured and disgraced the family name, but I have still a
faint hope that you will retrieve yourself at the last moment.--Your
affectionate father,_

"R.T."


For many minutes John Manton sat staring at this letter, staring from
the stiff, sprawling writing out into the little street and back again.

All that day he pondered upon the missive he had received from Treves's
father.  He wondered what it was Treves had done, and why he should have
been skulking in hiding at that address?  A sense of uneasiness swept
over him, and was succeeded by a violent curiosity.  For the first time
he felt vividly interested in Treves and Treves's history, and at the
same time doubtful and uneasy.  Unpleasant and difficult situations
presented themselves to his mind.

Next morning, as a result of a decision he had taken, he was on his way
to Freshwater by midday.  At three o'clock in the afternoon he walked
through the town and out to Heatherfield Grange, which he discovered to
be a large, many-chimneyed, many-windowed Elizabethan mansion, standing
in a spacious, heavily-wooded park. The mansion itself was approached by
a long carriage drive, too much overshadowed by trees, and when Manton
reached the lodge gates a bent old man, who was sweeping leaves from the
path, hurried forward and drew open the gate for him to enter.  The man
drew himself up and saluted.

"Good day, Master Bernard."

Manton nodded and smiled.  As he walked along the drive towards the
grand old house, his pulse-beat quickened.  After all, had he a right to
act the part; was it honourable and fair that he should thus step into
another man's shoes?  The under-gardener had taken him for Bernard
Treves; the whole world evidently was prepared to believe in the
deception.  But there was Treves's father to face.  Naturally Treves's
father would detect an impostor in a moment.  But was he an impostor;
was it not probable that the elder Treves also was aware of what had
occurred?

The broad front door of the mansion was opened to him.  A white-haired
butler, with pouches under his eyes, and a general air of
world-weariness, looked at him from the threshold, and slowly lifted his
eyes in surprise.

"Good afternoon, sir," said the butler.  He took Manton's hat and stick,
and deferentially stood aside. "Your father will indeed be pleased and
surprised to see you, sir," he said, as he closed the door.  His manner
was studiously civil, and yet somehow Manton felt a lack of cordiality
towards himself in the butler's tone.

"Possibly he's a privileged servant," he thought, "and does not like Mr.
Bernard."

"Where is--is the Colonel?" he asked after a moment's hesitation.

"In the library, sir, as usual.  Will you go up at once?"

"Yes."  He wondered consumedly where the Colonel's room might be, and
experienced a pleasant thrill of impending event.  He attempted a little
harmless finesse to discover the way.  "Perhaps you will go first and
tell him I am here."

"Very good, sir."  The butler looked at him meditatively for a moment,
then went to a side-table and took up a silver salver containing three
letters and a telegram. Manton seized the moment to survey the heavy
splendour of the dark antique furniture, the wide spaces of the hall and
the richness of the rugs scattered over the polished floor.  High above
the mantelshelf hung a portrait in oils of a personage in eighteenth
century costume.  Descending to the middle of the hall was a wide oak
balustraded staircase, carpeted in scarlet, a single flight ascended to
the first floor, then branched to right and left.

"Your letters, sir."  The butler was standing at Manton's elbow with the
silver salver extended.  John took up the three letters and the
telegram.  A renewed and intensified disinclination to pry into Bernard
Treves's affairs seized him.  He was about to put letters and telegram
into his pocket when the butler spoke in his firm, polite voice.  There
was a note of reproach in his tone, however, "The telegram came two days
ago, sir."

"Oh!" exclaimed Manton.  And under the bleak eye of the butler he
disinterred it from his pocket, tore open the envelope, and read the
contents.  The telegram had been dispatched from Camden Town, and ran:


"_Wire when you can come.  Of course I will forgive you._--ELAINE."


He was conscious, as he read the words, that the butler's eyes were
fixed steadily upon him.

Then the old servant turned and preceded him towards the broad
staircase.  They ascended to the first landing, and here the butler
wheeled to the right and halted before a double green baize door.  The
elderly man knocked, paused for a moment, then pushed open the door, and
stepped into a room lined with books, a spacious, luxuriously furnished
apartment, with two mullioned windows overlooking the park.  John,
following him, saw him cross to a deep, high-backed arm-chair near the
hearth.

"Mr. Bernard's here, sir," he announced, standing before this chair.

There was a movement in the chair, then a tall, soldierly, grey-haired
man revealed himself, leaning on a stick, and looked across at Manton.
He looked at him with a cold, inimical gaze, and until the butler had
closed the door and departed, did not utter a word, Then he spoke:

"So you've come, you dog, have you!"  The almost savage intensity of
dislike and contempt in his tone struck the young man like a blow in the
face.

"I got your letter----" he began.

"Oh, yes, I found out where you were.  Well," he went on, harshly,
"there is no need for us to waste compliments on each other.  We will
settle the business that is to be settled at once."

He moved shakily towards a desk in the middle of the room, using his
stick as a support.  Manton, seeing his frailty, hurried forward to
assist him, but the old man drew himself erect, raised his stick, and
flashed a look at him of utter repulsion.

"Do not dare to lay a hand on me," he said violently.

When he reached his desk he seated himself in a big swivel-chair, drew
out a drawer, and flung certain documents on the table.  From under his
eyebrows he glowered at Manton.

"Sit down," he commanded.

John moved to the table side and occupied a chair near his elbow.  Among
a pile of documents Colonel Treves searched for a certain typewritten
sheet.  He found it at length, a long, yellow piece of official paper.

"Listen to this," he commanded.  From the table beside him he took up a
square reading glass, and deciphered the typewritten paper with faded
grey eyes. "This," he vouchsafed, raising his eyes, "is from my old,
good friend, General Whiston."  He paused a moment, and John seized the
opportunity to intervene, "May I say a word, sir?"

"No," thundered Treves.  Then he read aloud in a voice vibrant with
emotion:


"_My dear Treves,--Your boy had every chance....  It was the merest
fluke in the world that he escaped as easily as he did.  He is not of
the right stuff, and my condolences are with you.  I wish I could
suggest something, but I cannot.  I know, old friend, what a tragedy
this must be to you----_"


The Colonel stopped abruptly, flung down his reading glass, and looked
into Manton's face.  "Well?" he demanded.  "What do you think of that?"

Manton said nothing.

"Can you read between the lines?" questioned the elder man.

"It suggests," said John, after a moment's hesitation, "that the
punishment meted out to--to me, was a light one."

"I see you are as evasive as ever," retorted Colonel Treves.  He turned
and smote the open letter twice with the back of his hand.  "In this
letter, General Whiston," he measured his words slowly, "tells me, by
implication, that you are guilty of cowardice in the face of the
enemy--you, a Treves!" Then in a moment the anger that had vivified him
seemed to fade; he appeared to Manton to become suddenly old, bowed, and
pitiful, the expression on his face was one of anguish.  The dishonour
that had befallen his name was no less than torture to him, but once
again he recovered himself, and gripped the arms of his chair with both
white-knuckled hands.

"You know the just punishment for cowardice in the face of the enemy?"
He was leaning towards Manton now; his mouth twitched, but there was a
blaze in the old grey eyes.

"I know it, sir," said John quietly.

The Colonel drew in his breath slowly and sat erect.

"Ah, you know.  And, having escaped that punishment, and knowing
yourself to be guilty, you skulk in hiding!  You fail to seize the one
chance that is open to you to redeem the past!"

"What is the chance?" inquired Manton, forgetting himself for a moment.

The Colonel stared at him in astonishment.

"The chance of re-enlistment, of course.  Instead of doing that," he
went on, "you write me a whining letter, saying you can't stand the
trenches, you can't face it, your nerves--bah! nerves, my God, and you a
Treves!"  He hurled these words forth with a contempt and loathing that
was like a blow in the face.  But Manton noticed that he was breathing
heavily.  The emotional intensity of his feelings was wearing on him,
and the younger man felt a sudden tenderness towards this old, stricken,
bitterly disappointed father.

"Is it too late now, sir?" he asked quietly.

"Eh?"

"Is it too late for me to make good?"

"Talk!" exclaimed the Colonel, in bitter derision; "always talk with
you.  You don't mean that any more than you meant any of the lying
promises you made to me in the past.  You have always been a liar!  A
liar, a spendthrift, and a fool--and now, added to all these things, to
your gambling and your profligacy, you've finished as a----"

He paused, and Manton ventured:

"In regard to a way out, sir?"

The Colonel looked at him with renewed ferocity, then his expression
slowly changed.  For some seconds he was silent, and, without a glance
at Manton, he began to fumble at a drawer.  He drew it open at length,
and groped in its interior.  His hand shook visibly, but there was
something in his attitude, some strange intensity of purpose, that
riveted Manton's attention.  Presently the Colonel discovered the object
he sought, and revealed from the depths of the drawer an automatic
pistol.

"If you have a shred of honour left you will know what to do," he said
grimly.  He reached out, and laid the weapon on the corner of the desk
at the young man's side.




                               CHAPTER IV


Then Colonel Treves rose slowly to his feet, took up his stick, and
moved towards the door of the room.  With his hand on the door knob, he
pointed his stick at the weapon on the table.  Manton had remained
motionless; utterly at a loss.  Now the old soldier's meaning gradually
revealed itself.

"You want me to take this and----?"

"And," broke in Colonel Treves, "use it to recover such shreds of honour
as are left to you."

He drew open the door.

"Thanks," said Manton, taking the pistol from the desk.  He slipped the
weapon into his hip pocket.  The Colonel halted, looking back at him in
surprise.

"What are you going to do?"

"I am going to use it," answered John, "if occasion arises."

He saw the Colonel hesitate.  Some deep emotion seemed to stir within
him.  Then with an effort he turned swiftly, and was about to hurry from
the room.  Manton strode towards him.

"There was another way out?" he questioned, rapidly.

"There was, and you failed to take it.  You whined that you couldn't
face the army again--you, a Treves! In the past, before my time and
yours," went on the Colonel, suddenly violent again, "there have been
Treves who have been fools and spendthrifts; there may have been Treves
who kept their honour none too clean--but never in our long line has
there been a coward until you came, until you grew up to be a curse to
my existence, and made my life a shame to me!"  His lip trembled, the
old, proud head was held aloft, but a world of desolation dwelt in the
faded eyes.  On a sudden impulse, John gripped him by the hand; he could
feel the old man resisting him, seeking to free himself.

"I want to make you a promise, sir," he said.  "I am going to Ryde the
first thing in the morning.  I have a friend there who will help me to
get back into the army."

The Colonel narrowed his eyes and tried to read the expression on his
face.

"There is a new ring in your voice, Bernard," he said, after a moment's
pause, "but I cannot trust you."

He turned and walked away.  John saw him go, using his stick for
support, and felt a renewed pity for the old, broken father.  He spent
that night at an inn in Freshwater, and took the first train next
morning for Ryde. Here at the recruiting office he presented himself
before Captain Gilbert.  This plump and comfortable officer was busy at
his work when John stepped into the office. His shadow fell upon Captain
Gilbert's desk, and the elder man looked up quickly.

"Great Scott!" he exclaimed.  He stared wide-eyed at Manton for a
moment, and John broke into a smile.

"I see you mistook me for Treves."

"I did," said Gilbert, leaning forward and looking into his face.  "The
resemblance is really closer than I thought at first.  Well," he said,
"you've done your part of the bargain splendidly.  You earned the money
you needed, and you've lifted a great load off the minds of several
deserving persons, including myself."

"I should like to know how I've done that," said Manton.  "It seems to
me the only service I have rendered has been to myself."

"You forget the battery at Scarthoe Head.  You made up the deficiency,
and the Colonel's delighted with you, Manton."

"Thanks to you--and young Treves--I was able to put matters straight
there."

"You have probably saved young Treves from going utterly to the devil,"
said Gilbert.  "I'll tell you about that later; I'm busy till one
o'clock, but come to my hotel then and we'll have lunch together."

"But I am here on business myself!" protested Manton.  He was feeling
cheerful and particularly satisfied with the course of events so far.

"What is your particular business?" inquired Gilbert.

"I want to get back into the army."

Gilbert looked at him for a moment.

"Of course--of course," he said hastily.  "I'd forgotten that; we will
discuss the subject at lunch time."

Until lunch time Manton was free to stroll upon the pier and consider
his situation.  He felt a deep curiosity to know what had happened to
the man whose clothes he was wearing; to Treves, whose money he was
jingling in his pocket, whose excellent cigarettes he had smoked.

At a quarter to one he threw his cigarette end over the rail into the
water, and turning, made his way to the hotel where Gilbert was staying.
He found the Captain already there, busy mixing a salad at a table in
the corner of a small dining-room.  There were half a dozen tables in
the room, none of which were as yet occupied.

"Sit down, Manton," invited Captain Gilbert, as John entered.  "I always
mix my own salads.  What will you have?  There's the menu."

John chose a dish and accepted his host's invitation to divide with him
a bottle of Chablis.  During the meal Captain Gilbert talked on general
matters.  But at length the conversation appeared to drift round to the
subject of Treves.

"Old Treves took you for granted, eh?" asked the Captain.

"His eyesight isn't good," answered John, "but he suspected nothing."

"And Gates, the butler?"

"He called me 'Mr. Bernard' the moment he saw me. Also, he gave me
Treves's letters and a telegram.  I didn't read the letters, but the
telegram----"  Manton put his hand in his inner pocket.  "Perhaps I'd
better hand them all over to you now."

"Not so fast," Gilbert said, pushing the letters and the telegram back
across the table towards Manton.  "As a matter of fact, I can't hand
them to Treves just now, as I have persuaded him to go to a nursing home
for a time. A very good friend of his father's, General Whiston,
recommended that something of the sort should be done with him months
ago."

"Treves did not give me the impression of being actually ill," Manton
observed.

"He wasn't, but his nerves were all to rags.  He was in such a state of
acute neurasthenia that I expected him to lay hands on himself any
minute.  Anyway, where he is he will be safe for a while; he will be out
of his father's way and the discipline of this particular nursing home
may pull him together."

John lit a cigarette and smoked thoughtfully.  There was evidently
something on Gilbert's mind, something of which he wished to unburden
himself.  John waited, and at last the elder man broke the silence
again:

"Manton," he said earnestly, "I want you to do me a particular favour."

John inquired the nature of the favour.

"I want you," went on the Captain, "to sustain Treves's personality for
a little longer.  He is in good hands in the nursing home, and for the
time being has vanished from the public gaze."  Gilbert paused, and
again appeared to hesitate.  What he had to say was very difficult to
frame in words.  He wished to hint at something that was the merest
suspicion in his own mind. Two or three times he was on the verge of
putting his thoughts into words, and each time the effort appeared too
much for his gift of expression.  Finally he leaned back in his chair.
"Manton," he said, "I cannot tell you all I think and suspect, but I
will give you such confidences as I can."

He paused for a moment, then went on: "Since Treves came back from
France, he appears to have got into the hands of undesirable company.
One of his rooted ideas, possibly the result of his drug habit, is that
some one is watching him, and that, for some reason or other, his life
is in danger."

John listened quietly; then, when the other had finished, he observed
seriously: "So far as I see it, you want me to continue my impersonation
of Treves until he is cured and comes out of the nursing home."

"That is it, exactly," said Gilbert.

"You are putting a good deal of trust in me," answered John.

At that Gilbert stretched out his hand and gripped John's fingers
heartily.

"Manton," he said, "you and I are in this together for the good of the
Cause.  Not only for Treves and the old Colonel, but perhaps for bigger
issues."

"I don't get your meaning," said John.

"Don't ask it, trust me as I trust you.  And now to get back to the
matter in hand," he said, resuming his ordinary tone.  "Perhaps it would
be worth your while to open those two letters."

As John obediently tore open the envelopes and read the contents of the
letters, Gilbert called the waiter and paid for the two lunches.  One of
the letters was a typewritten screed from a quack doctor in which he
claimed to cure any victim of the drug habit within the space of three
months.  John experienced a real feeling of pity for Treves as he read
the quack's fraudulent promises.  The second letter contained two lines
only on a single sheet of paper with the printed heading: "208, St.
George's Square, S.W."  The letter ran:


"_Dear Treves,--I must see you at once.  You understand; it is essential
that you should come to me without delay.  To-morrow night at nine
o'clock I shall expect you.--Yours,_ G. MANNERS."


Manton handed both letters to Gilbert, who studied them carefully.

"I haven't a notion who G. Manners is," mused the Captain when he had
read the letter through a second time, "but he may be one of the friends
Treves ought to get rid of, and for that reason I should advise you to
call on him to-morrow."

Manton was thoughtful for a moment.

"What if he discusses matters I know nothing about? Treves's past life
is a blank to me:"

"Come," said Gilbert, touching him lightly on the arm, "you are playing
a part; you are not such a fool as not to play it well.  I admit there
are certain little precautions you may find it wise to take.  In the
first place, you might have a go at copying Treves's degenerate
handwriting.  You might also keep in mind that Treves is over-strung,
lacking in will-power, and so much a victim of the cocaine habit that he
would do anything, short of murder, to get the drug when the craving is
upon him. As to Treves's past life, it seems to me that a victim of the
drug habit can be afflicted with convenient lapses of memory when
occasion arises."

Manton glanced at the Captain's pleasant, fat face, and the thought
crossed his mind that there was a good deal more cleverness behind
Gilbert's amiable exterior than he had at first realised.  He forthwith
decided to go to town that night.  London always held a vivid attraction
for him, and he had not had the pleasure of visiting it since his
journey through its streets in an ambulance on his return from France.
Some weeks in hospital had followed that visit, then had come his
transference to the R.G.A. at Scarthoe Head.  And now, with returned
health and in new, strange and portentous circumstances, he was to visit
London again.

Mr. Manners, the mysterious, imperative writer of the letter, had
demanded to see Treves at nine o'clock.  The hour of John's arrival was
eight, and he was in a hurry. He was impatient to plunge into whatever
adventure awaited him.  Without bothering to engage a room for the
night, he deposited his bag in the cloak-room at Waterloo Station, and
set out to find St. George's Square. He arrived at the corner of the
square, the Embankment corner, at precisely eight-thirty.  The square's
decorous, solemn-looking houses with heavy pillared porticoes struck him
as gloomy in the extreme.  The only individual upon the long strip of
pavement which ran the length of the west side of the square was
himself.  His footfalls appeared to echo with inordinate resonance in
the areas as he made his way towards Number 208.

It was not his intention to ring the bell immediately. In the first
place he wanted to reconnoitre the house, to see if it were possible to
judge of the house's occupants by its exterior.  This thought occupied
his mind, when a taxi sped into the square and drew to a halt within
half a dozen yards of him.  The taxi had stopped behind him, and its
occupant had alighted.

"That's all right; half an hour," said a curt voice in a cultured
accent.

The chauffeur nodded, and slammed the taxi door. The young man who had
alighted hurried forward, passed John, and continued down the square.
Without paying over especial attention, John noticed that he was tall,
that he wore a morning coat of distinguished cut, that his light grey
felt hat was of expensive quality, and that the pearl in his tie-pin was
also, if genuine, of exceptional value.  He was of John's height and
age, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and with a slight tooth-brush moustache.
His features were large and heavy-boned, without being harsh.  Two
things John noticed as he hurried past; one was that he carried a
silk-lined light overcoat over his arm, and the other that he wore a
"service rendered" badge on the lapel of his coat.

"Invalided from the army," thought John.  "All the same, he doesn't look
as if there was much the matter with him."

John continued to walk until he reached the corner of the square, then
he turned, and as he did so he saw the tall young man flit up the steps
of a house a considerable distance away.  John fixed his eyes on the
portico of this particular house and walked towards it.  And as he
neared the door he realised that the young man had entered the very
house at which he also had an appointment--Number 208.  For a moment
Manton paused, hesitated, then passed on.  Before making the plunge into
whatever adventure awaited him, he wanted still further to consider the
situation.

In the meantime the stranger, who had alighted from the taxi, was now
within the hall of Mr. Manners's residence.  He had opened the door with
a Yale key and had admitted himself.  The hall was narrow and somewhat
dark, and the young man laid his gold-headed cane noisily on a little
table, and began to draw off his grey gloves.  A door at the back of the
house opened noiselessly, and a sombre-faced, sallow-complexioned butler
advanced.

"Mr. Manners is in, of course?" demanded the young man in a voice that
rasped a little.

"Yes, Herr Baron, in the library."

The visitor nodded curtly, ran swiftly up the stairs, turned to the
left, and opened a door on the first landing. He entered a room where
the curtains had already been drawn.  Two electric chandeliers, one on
either side of the hearth, illuminated the apartment.  A large bookcase
occupied one wall of the room, and in the middle of the floor was a
business-like table, scattered with papers. On the table was a
green-shaded reading lamp, and by its illumination a man sat at work
busily writing.  He looked up as the stranger entered, then sprang
quickly to his feet.  He was a tall man of fifty, uncomfortably stout,
with a fleshy neck that protruded over his collar at the back.  The big
man's iron-grey hair was short, his nose broad and short, and his lips
thick and pouting. Despite his inelegance of figure, he was dressed,
with an attempt at smartness, in a well-cut frock coat and newly-creased
trousers.  His heavy eyebrows shielded his eyes, hiding his expression
from any but the closest scrutiny. For a man of his excessive bulk he
showed extreme activity on his feet.

"I didn't expect you to-night," he said.  He placed a chair near the
desk for the younger man to seat himself.

His visitor, however, stood still and fixed him with a direct, cold
stare.

"Well, Manners," he demanded, "what have you to say for yourself?"

Manners shrugged his heavy shoulders, and displayed the palms of his
hands.

"Nothing, Herr Baron," he said, "except that I have done my best.  Won't
you sit down?"

The young man took a cigarette from his case, and lit it.

"Your best is damned bad!" he said.

"I exercised such judgment as I have," returned the other, in a tone of
abasement.

"Judgment alone is of no avail," retorted the other. "What we want is
aggressive action.  We don't get that from you--you talk, and think, and
scheme----"

The other ventured a faint note of protest.

"I was chosen, Herr Baron----"

"I don't want to hear your history," returned the younger man, coldly.
"I want to know about this expedition that is being prepared by the
Eastern Command, that has been under preparation for the past six
weeks."

"I gave you such figures, Herr Baron, as I was able to collect."

The young man crossed to the hearth and stood leaning with his back
against the mantelshelf.

"Doesn't it occur to you," he demanded, after a moment's silence, "that
figures are only a detail? Figures are something any fool could gather.
What Berlin wants to know is, what is this expedition's objective, where
is it bound for, also what port it sails from, and when?"

The elder German--Gottfried Manwitz by name, though he figured in the
London directory as Godfrey Manners--turned nervously towards his desk
and began to search among the papers.  An expression of relief crossed
his face as he took up a particular sheet of paper.

"That is the date, Herr Baron," he said, "when the expedition will sail,
and also the place of departure."

The young man took the sheet, scrutinised it with frowning brows for a
moment, then lifted his eyes and looked into Manwitz's fat face with
cold, contemptuous gaze.

"Excellent!" he said, cuttingly; "wonderful and utterly useless!  You
provide Headquarters with all this detail, and fail to give the one
vital, useful piece of information--the sole item that Headquarters
requires."

"It is very difficult, Herr Baron," apologised Manners.

"You and I, Manwitz," retorted the younger man, "are retained in London
for the sole purpose of overcoming difficulties."  He paused a moment,
and looked complacently for the first time in the elder man's face.
"For instance, I myself have overcome quite a number of difficulties."

"Indeed, that is true, Herr Baron," conceded Manners.

"I expect you to do the same.  Since you let the _Inflexible_ and the
_Invincible_ vanish to the Falkland Islands without any one of us being
aware of the fact, Berlin doesn't think so highly of your attainments as
before the war.  For my part," he went on, "I find you too much of a
dreamer."  He paused; some one had knocked lightly on the door of the
room.  "Open it, Manwitz!" he commanded.

The big man crossed lightly to the door and drew it open.  Upon the
threshold stood the sombre-countenanced butler.  The tall young man from
the hearth called aloud to him:

"Well, Conrad, what is it?"

"Mr. Treves, Herr Baron, to see Herr Manners."

"Thank you, Conrad," said Manners.  He closed the door and turned to his
superior.

"This is one of my instruments, Herr Baron, arrived to-night from the
Isle of Wight.  You approved of him when I gave you his _dossier_ a
month ago."

"He is the British officer who was cashiered," returned the other,
swiftly.  "Takes drugs, and generally gone to pieces?"

"The same, Herr Baron."

"Is he quite"--he paused--"er, quite amenable to your orders?"

"I flatter myself that I can do a good deal with him," Manwitz answered,
with pride.  "He comes here for cocaine, but he is of good English
stock, and there are moments when he tries to shake himself free of me.
For the last three weeks, as a matter of fact, he has disappeared
entirely.  I had great difficulty, Herr Baron, rediscovering his hiding
place."

"I don't like that!" returned the Baron.  "How do you know what he has
been up to in the meantime?"

He was silent for a minute; then he looked with his cold, pale eyes into
his elder's face.  "Manwitz!" he exclaimed suddenly, "this may be the
man for our business!"

For the first time a flicker of triumph lit in Manners's eyes.  He went
to his desk, unlocked a drawer, and produced a single sheet of
notepaper.  "This is a letter in his own writing, Herr Baron, signed by
himself.  I think it is satisfactory, eh?"

The younger man took the sheet and fixed his keen eyes upon it.


"_My dear Friend,_" ran the note, "_the s.s. 'Polidor' is due to leave
H---- at four o'clock to-morrow, Tuesday afternoon.  I had this on
absolute authority; you can rely on it._"


The tall, fair-haired man came to the end of the brief note, and his
hard mouth tightened; then he read the postscript: "_Don't forget the
tabloids!_"

He looked up slowly, and fixed his keen gaze upon Manwitz's apoplectic
countenance.  Baron Rathenau, who had taken his degree at Oxford, who
spoke English like an English gentleman, and possessed, on the surface,
the manners of an English gentleman, was quite five years older than he
looked.  His brain was subtle and keen, and in the service of the
Fatherland he was hard and ruthless as steel.

"You have done not so badly here, Manwitz," conceded the Baron.  "This
letter alone"--he folded Treves's note carefully--"this letter alone
would bring our young friend, Lieutenant Treves, into the presence of a
firing party within forty-eight hours."  He paused a moment.  "Our
English enemies," he went on, "are unpleasantly hasty in regard to
spies.  But when it comes to traitors, the celerity with which they put
a man face to the wall in their Tower of London, it is marvellous!"

He had folded the note carefully, and lifting his light fawn coat, he
slipped Treves's note into the inner pocket, then he flung the coat back
again on the chair.

"I'll see our young neurasthenic friend at once," he said.  "You will
leave him to me, Manwitz."  He turned and pressed the bell twice.  When
the footman presently appeared at the door, Baron Rathenau was standing
with his back to the mantelshelf, toying with a cigarette.

"Bring up Mr. Treves, Conrad," he said, briefly.




                               CHAPTER V


"Do I introduce you as Captain Cherriton, Herr Baron?" asked Manwitz,
when Conrad had closed the door and departed.

"Yes," said the Baron.  "I find the name of the poor, dead Captain
Cherriton an excellent recommendation in even the best of homes."  He
smiled his somewhat derisive smile.

A moment later the door opened and John Manton stepped into the room.
Manners rose and held out his hand.

"My dear Treves," he said, "you have been away from me a very long
time."  He was thinking to himself that Treves carried himself a little
better than usual; his gaze was more direct, his handgrip firmer.
However, there was no suspicion in his eyes as he turned towards the
younger man at the hearth.

"Captain Cherriton," he said, "this is a young friend of mine, Mr.
Treves."

For a moment Rathenau's light blue eyes widened, and then narrowed.

"We've met before, Mr. Treves?"

"In the square, half an hour ago.  I saw you come in."

"Oh, yes, yes," returned the Baron.  "My good friend, Mr. Manners, has
been telling me about you."

"I hope he had something complimentary to say," smiled John Manton.  He
was thinking to himself: "There is no doubt at all in my mind that this
big, fat man, Mr. Manners, is a German.  His finger nails are cut neatly
to a point."  John recalled the habit of the Germans he had met at
Feldkirch, of the masters of his school, who had trimmed their nails in
that particular fashion.  Rather a Chinese fashion, John thought. His
eyes travelled from the fat man's face and took in the younger man's
hard countenance.  He was recalling something he had read of Captain
Cherriton.

"I think I remember reading something about you, Captain Cherriton," he
ventured.

"You mean my escape from the British officers' prison camp at Celle,"
replied the German, easily.

"Yes," returned John, "that was it.  You had rather an adventurous time
getting across the frontier."

"I had a pretty hot time," laughed Cherriton.

The conversation between the three became general after this, and
presently Cherriton invited John to accompany him to his hotel in the
Strand.

"Come along and have a drink and a smoke with me. I should much like to
have a chat with you, Treves."

John considered the proposal for a moment, and then decided to go.  He
bade good night to Manners, and as he shook hands with the big man, a
little phial of white tabloids passed from Manners's palm to his own.
For a minute John felt inclined to ask a question, but caution saved
him.  He slipped the little cocaine tablets into his waistcoat pocket,
thanked Manners under his breath, and followed Cherriton, who had taken
up his light overcoat, and was moving towards the door.

It was quite dark in the square when they emerged, and in the distance,
near the river, a taxi was moving slowly.

"That is my vehicle," remarked Cherriton, standing under the light of a
shaded lamp, so that the distant taxi-man could observe them.  A minute
later the taxi drew to a halt.  John stepped inside, and Cherriton
followed him.

As the taxi door closed, a man, who had been standing in the darkness
against the rails of the square opposite stepped out into the road and
signalled with his arm. At that moment John was leaning back in the
taxi, giving himself up to thoughts of the swift events of the last
half-hour.  Who was this Captain Cherriton, who appeared to have taken
such a fancy to him?  Was it possible----?  His thoughts received a
jolt.

"Hey, stop!" a loud voice from the road echoed in his ears.  John was
projected forward almost upon his face.  The vehicle came to a sudden
halt; the door of the taxi was flung open; two men appeared in the
aperture, and a heavy hand fell upon John's shoulder. He glanced at his
companion, and saw that, from the other side, intruders were also laying
heavy hands upon him.  With a mighty wrench of his shoulder John
snatched himself free.  Scarcely knowing what had happened, he attempted
to dash after his companion, who had been dragged out into the road.  He
was ignominiously pulled back by the leg.  He heard a voice shouting:

"Don't bother about the other one--this is our man!"

Then, in a confusion of gripping hands, John was flung back on the seat
of the taxi; a voice spoke firmly in his ear:

"You'll keep quiet, young man, or it will be the worse for you!"

John saw Captain Cherriton flitting like a shadow along the road and out
of the square.  He looked at the person who was seated beside him in the
taxi, and was surprised to find a big, typical police officer in plain
clothes.  Opposite John two other officers, who had crowded into the
vehicle, were seated, looking at him with steady, interested gaze.

"Your name's Treves?" demanded one of the men.

"What of it?" returned John.

"It's all I want to know," answered the man, coldly.

As the taxi glided along John strove to gather his scattered wits, but
it was not until a plain, quietly-furnished room had been achieved in
Scotland Yard, that any light broke in upon his senses.  He found
himself confronted by a tall, grey-moustached man in civilian clothes.
The man was standing beside a table, and beside him stood a
distinguished-looking staff officer.

As John entered the room, in charge of two detectives, his senses were
still in a whirl from the swiftness of his adventure.  The
grey-moustached man, whom the detectives addressed as "Sir Robert," rose
from his chair and looked at him with stern, brooding eyes; then his
gaze turned to one of John's captors, who had entered the room and was
holding Baron Rathenau's overcoat on his arm.

"Have you his papers?" he demanded.

"That is not my overcoat," intervened John.

"Silence," commanded Sir Robert.

The detective went through the pockets of the overcoat. He found a small
time-table, two or three paid restaurant bills, and finally the letter
Treves had written to Manners.  The grey-moustached police commissioner
took these articles, and laid them on the blotting-pad before him.
Then, at a brief command, a second detective stepped forward and
searched John's pockets, taking out the two letters that had been
addressed to Treves and the telegram signed "Elaine."  These also were
laid upon the desk.  The staff officer and Sir Robert read them
carefully.  When the officer, whom John observed to be a general of
staff, read Treves's incriminating letter to Manners, he drew in his
breath and whistled.

"My God!" he exclaimed.

The grey-moustached man took the letter from his fingers, read it, then
held it forth towards John.  His tone was utterly aloof, cold, and
forbidding.

"It was unfortunate, Treves," he said, "that you should carry this
letter in your pocket.  For this, added to the information we have
gathered about you during the past three months, condemns you
absolutely."  He paused a moment, then went on.  "I can only say," he
added ruthlessly, "that I thank God we have been able to lay our hands
on you."

It was only in that moment that John for the first time realised the
appalling danger that was sweeping upon him.

"I would like to make some explanation, sir."

"Your correspondence," retorted Sir Robert, with sinister meaning, "has
made all the explanation we require!  General Whiston here is quite
satisfied, and so am I."

General Whiston, who had been looking fixedly at John, now passed round
the table and walked towards him.  He was a tall, bronzed man, with a
clipped moustache, and a wide, strong mouth.  John had recognised his
name in a moment.  He was Colonel Treves's old friend.

"Bernard Treves," said General Whiston, "you have broken your father's
heart already; you must now make your peace with God.  There is only one
thing left for me to do for my old and dear friend, and I intend to do
it--he shall never learn that his son died as a traitor to his country.
Even now," he went on, "though I have had you watched for three months,
I can still scarcely credit it, you--a Treves!"

He glanced towards the door.  John felt a heavy hand fall upon his
shoulder from behind.

"This way, please," said a polite voice in his ear.

As the detective's voice sounded in his ear and the detective's hand
fell on his shoulder, John's scurrying senses seemed to gather
themselves together.  He became calm in presence of the greatest danger
his life had ever known.  When next he spoke his voice was steady, and
his manner, despite its deep gravity, portrayed not the slightest trace
of nervousness.

"Sir," he said, "may I speak merely one or two words before I am
removed?"  He looked into the bronzed countenance of Colonel Treves's
old friend. There was no pity for him on that strong, handsome face. In
General Whiston's eyes he had been guilty of the blackest of all crimes.
The General answered in his deep-toned voice of authority.

"You will be permitted to make a statement, but not now."

"I have a very important declaration to make, sir."

Sir Robert, who was still scrutinising the incriminating letter that had
been taken from Rathenau's overcoat, looked up now, then rapidly
pencilled a few words on a slip of paper which he handed to Whiston.
The General read the slip.

"Yes, perhaps so," he said; "I agree with you, time is everything."

Sir Robert looked into John's face.

"Are you prepared," he went on, "to give us the name of the person to
whom this letter was written?"  He lifted Treves's incriminating missive
and held it for John's inspection.  John had already been permitted to
read the letter, though not to hold it in his hand.

"Certainly," answered Manton.

A slight flicker of surprise lit in Sir Robert's eyes.

"His name," answered John, "is either Manners, or Cherriton."

Sir Robert laid down the letter with an impatient gesture.

"That is no answer to my question.  You wrote the letter yourself.  To
whom did you write it?"

"I didn't write it!"

"You suggest that it is a forgery?"

"Either you wrote the letter or you didn't write it," pursued Sir
Robert.  "Your statements contradict each other.  You say, in the first
place, that you did not write it.  In the second place, you say it is
not a forgery."

General Whiston now spoke, his stern gaze on John's face.

"This letter," he said, glancing towards the sheet, "is in your own
writing, which I happen to know very well.  Your attempt at
mystification," he went on, "will be of no avail, either now or later."

John felt in his tones intense antagonism.

"If I might be permitted to speak to you gentlemen alone," he said, "I
will in three minutes explain the mystery."

General Whiston glanced at the Commissioner of Police.

"It is for you to say, Sir Robert," he said.  "To-night the affair is in
your hands."

Sir Robert pondered the subject for a moment, then glanced at the
detectives who stood behind John; with his hand he made a slow,
significant gesture.  John, who was standing at attention before the
table, heard the detectives move away, and a moment later the door
softly closed behind them.

He was alone with the Commissioner of Police and the General.

On his accusers' faces John read a stern and determined intention that
the law should take its course, not the tortuous, long-drawn old law of
pre-war days, but the swift justice which is meted out to traitors.

"You shall have three minutes in which to speak!"  Sir Robert's voice
smote John's ears.

Manton knew that if he held his peace and the law moved with its
inexorable swiftness, he would by to-morrow have expiated the crime of
another man.  He was in another man's shoes.  Innocently, he had taken
up that other man's identity.

But he had not shouldered everything, he had not rendered himself liable
for that other man's treachery. And yet, at the back of his mind, there
was pity, even for Treves.  He thought of the man's weakness, of his
shattered nerves, of Manners's obvious power over him. Perhaps, even in
uttering the truth to these two stern judges, he might put in a good
word for Treves.

"The statement I have to make, gentlemen, is an amazing one."

"It will also have to be a brief one," retorted Sir Robert coldly.

"Well, out with it," interposed General Whiston.

John turned towards him.

"I wish to say, sir, that I am not Bernard Treves!"

A flash of anger lit in General Whiston's eyes.

"You say that, despite the fact that I am prepared to identify you as
Bernard Treves."

"My statement," returned John, "is, I admit, an amazing one.
Nevertheless, it is a fact, gentlemen.  My name is Manton."

The Commissioner of Police pulled at his moustache.

"A statement of this kind," he said, "is ridiculous in presence of
General Whiston, who knows you and recognises your handwriting in this
letter."  He leaned back in his chair and struck the letters that had
been taken from John's pocket with the back of his hand. "These letters,
taken from your person, this telegram addressed to you, and this letter
conveying information to the enemy, are sufficient in themselves to
identify you."

"There is nothing you wish to say, General?" asked Sir Robert of
Whiston.

The General shook his head, and Sir Robert put his thumb on the
bell-push at the corner of his desk.

John heard the whirr of a bell in the room beyond.

"I am prepared, sir," he said hurriedly, "to prove every word I say.  My
name is Manton, and I undertook to assume Treves's identity merely to
please a friend who wished to help him."

"You are ready to give us the name of your friend, of course?"
interposed General Whiston.  He had been utterly unmoved by this
statement of John's.

"His name is Gilbert, sir; Captain Gilbert, of Ryde, Isle of Wight."

General Whiston answered nothing; there was no softening in the
harshness of his expression.  For a moment he was silent.  Then, with a
glance at Sir Robert, he moved towards the door.

"Just a few minutes, Sir Robert," he said.  "This is a matter easy of
proof."

He passed out of the room.  At the door, as he drew it open, John heard
him speaking to two men outside.

"Sir Robert will be ready for you in five minutes," he was saying.

The door closed.

Sir Robert tapped his fingers upon the surface of his desk.

"You wish to affirm that Captain Gilbert is prepared to prove the truth
of your statement?"

"I am sure he will be prepared to prove that my name is Manton,"
answered John.

In his long experience Sir Robert had come across many singular and
dramatic events.  The great police force of which he was the chief was
dealing always in drama.  In his experience he had interviewed every
quality and degree of criminal, from affluent company promoters
downward.

John's bearing and manner struck him as nothing unusual.  John's
statement that his was a case of mistaken identity, that Scotland Yard
had for once made a mistake, meant nothing to the Police Commissioner.
Such a statement was one of the commonest in his experience.

He felt no sympathy for John, and believing explicitly in his guilt, was
determined to listen no further.  He leaned forward and began to make
rapid notes upon the writing pad.

Manton, in the meantime, stood motionless beyond the desk.  Save for the
movement of Sir Robert's pen, and the tick of a small travelling clock
on Sir Robert's desk, no sound disturbed the heavy silence.  Despite his
calmness, John felt the tension grow upon him; the waiting seemed to
draw itself out.  He glanced at the clock, and observed that it was only
a little after ten.

The whirl of events that night sped through his mind in rapid panorama,
but of one thing he was certain--Manners and Captain Cherriton were
either spies or traitors, and Scotland Yard in laying hands upon him,
and allowing Cherriton to go, had made a mistake.

He had already guessed that General Whiston had gone to telephone
Captain Gilbert.  He recalled now the letter General Whiston had written
to old Colonel Treves. The letter which said that he had done for
Bernard Treves everything that was possible.

His mind then turned again to Gilbert.  He wondered what the Captain
would do when he heard of the extraordinary outcome of his visit to St.
George's Square. He had gone there at Gilbert's own suggestion.  He felt
that the situation for himself at that moment was delicate in the
extreme.  But it was not yet fatal.  A miscarriage of justice was
impossible if Gilbert spoke up, as no doubt he would do.  He knew that
all Gilbert's sympathy for Bernard Treves would vanish the moment he
heard to what depths that young man had descended.  He recalled what
Gilbert had said:

"Treves is afraid.  He imagines that some one is watching him."

Then it suddenly occurred to John that at the back of Treves's mind
there had been a subtle idea against himself.  Treves had desired that
he, John, should step into his guilty shoes and should not only wear
those shoes, but should suffer for his crime.

"I stepped into far deeper water than I knew," mused John, and as the
thought passed through his mind, the door opened and General Whiston
re-entered.

The General walked behind John, then turned and looked keenly into his
face.

"Treves," he said, "you will be examined again in the morning."

Sir Robert's finger was suspended over the bell upon his desk.  In
answer to his inquiring glance, General Whiston nodded.

Again John felt a man's hand laid on his shoulder, and for the second
time a voice uttering polite words:

"This way, please!"

This time, however, there was no pause; he was led out into the
corridor, with a tall, heavily-built man at his side and another walking
behind him.

The door of Sir Robert's room closed with a soft click.




                               CHAPTER VI


The moment the door closed upon John, General Whiston flung himself into
a chair beside Sir Robert's table. There was an expression on his face
that puzzled the Police Commissioner.

"Well, Sir Robert," began the General, "it is an amazing thing, but
Captain Gilbert corroborates our prisoner's statements entirely."

Sir Robert flashed a glance at the incriminating letters on the table.

"That's impossible!"

"Nevertheless, Gilbert, who is a very sound officer, corroborates every
word this young man has said.  I have ordered Gilbert to present himself
here first thing in the morning."

Sir Robert was staring in utter bewilderment.

"You mean we have got the wrong man?"

"I don't know," answered the General, impatiently; "the thing is beyond
my capacity.  I've known this young blackguard for years.  Only
slightly, of course, but I would have sworn to him anywhere.  Gilbert,
however, tells me an extraordinary story.  He says our prisoner is a
thoroughly honest fellow, by the name of Manton.  He gave me a minute
history of the man, who was formerly at Scarthoe Head.  I have ordered
the adjutant from Scarthoe to report himself here to-morrow. We can then
get to the bottom of this extraordinary tangle."

"But," protested Sir Robert, "these letters must be explained; and you
have had this man watched for months."

"Precisely; that complicates matters enormously."

"Was Treves guilty of the crimes laid against him, or was this man
guilty?" inquired Sir Robert.

The General shook his head in bewilderment.

"Don't ask me; I don't know," he said, "to-morrow will settle
everything."

The night that followed was the longest that John had ever spent.  What
if by some awful mischance Captain Gilbert disowned him entirely?
However, he could not think that of Gilbert.  He was prepared to swear
by the Captain's honesty.

A police officer called him early next morning.  He dressed and was
served with a satisfactory breakfast. A morning newspaper was brought to
him, but at ten o'clock he was peremptorily summoned to present himself
in Sir Robert's room.  Under escort he made his way along various
passages.  The door was opened and he stepped into the room and stood at
attention.

Sir Robert was not present.  General Whiston stood at the window, and
near him was a sleek-looking, smooth-haired, clean shaven man in a
morning coat, well cut trousers and patent leather boots.  John could
feel the stranger's eyes steadily upon him.

Then Whiston turned from the window.

"Captain Gilbert," he said, "has been here.  He has made certain
statements on your behalf which are so far satisfactory."

A silence fell; the stranger moved to Sir Robert's desk, seated himself
in Sir Robert's chair, and beckoned John to a chair opposite.

Dacent Smith was the head of a great branch of the Secret Intelligence
Department, but there was no air of authority in his manner.

"Sit down, please," he said.  His voice was smooth and agreeable.  He
glanced at the window, then again at John.

"Will you kindly tell me the name of your officer in command at Scarthoe
Fort?"

John promptly gave him the name.

"How many men were in the fort?"  The quiet gentleman, who possessed one
of the subtlest brains in England, glanced at a slip of paper on his
desk.  He was putting John through an examination such as many a
suspected person had failed to survive.

"One hundred and fifty, sir--eighty at the lower fort and seventy at the
upper, exclusive of officers."

"Can you recollect the calibre of the guns?"

John gave the exact dimensions of the guns at both the lower and upper
fort.

"Can you possibly recollect," inquired the other, "from your books, what
store of six-inch ammunition there was?"

Fortunately John recollected the number of shells exactly.

"I see," commented the cross-examiner.  "But your statement doesn't
tally with my present knowledge."

"I am speaking of six weeks ago, sir; since then there would have been a
heavy gun practice," John added promptly.

The elder gentleman leaned back in his chair.

"These are all details which a spy would make a great point of
observing."  He looked steadily into John's face, until John became
conscious of nothing but his keen, grey eyes.  They were kindly eyes,
but the intensity of his glance was something that John had never before
experienced.  He looked back frankly into the elder man's face.

"I suppose they are, sir," he answered, "but they came to me in my
ordinary course of work."

"How many fort candles were there in the storeroom?" asked the other,
casually.

"Eight dozen, sir."

Dacent Smith nodded, as though satisfied.

"We will now come to another matter," he said. "You were educated in
Germany?"

John admitted the fact.

"Have you been in Germany since your boyhood?"

"Never, sir."

"What is your opinion of Captain Gilbert?"

"I took a great liking to him."

"You trusted him when he asked you to assume another man's identity?"

"Absolutely, sir."

"So do I," said Dacent Smith, suddenly changing his tone.  "I trust him
absolutely.  I will only try your patience just one moment longer."  He
pushed a clean slip of paper towards John.  "Would you mind writing on
that these three words, 'Deceive,' 'parallel,' and 'nursery.'  Just
scribble them quickly, without care."

John wrote the words and handed them across the table.  The elder man
took the sheet and immediately compared it with Treves's incriminating
letter, and a pile of other letters in Treves's handwriting, which lay
beside him.

He glanced up at the General, who stood near the window.

"The handwriting is totally unlike, General.  Moreover, our young friend
here can spell the words, whereas, from letters supplied us by Gilbert,
Treves could not."  He turned again and looked at John.  Then he broke
into a smile that John found charming.

"Well, Manton," he said, "you have come through the ordeal excellently.
But as a matter of formality you must be identified both by Captain
Gilbert and your adjutant from Scarthoe Head."

"Thank you, sir," answered John.  "I am sorry to have caused so much
trouble."

"No, not at all," protested the elder man.  "Your desire for adventure
placed you in a very nasty position. But such trouble as you have caused
us may yet be turned to good account."

John hesitated a moment, then ventured:

"If I may, sir, I would like to make a statement in regard to the man
Manners, at 208, St. George's Square, I am certain he is a spy, sir--a
German spy."

"My dear Manton," said Dacent Smith, laying his hands on the desk, "we
know that already."

"And the other man," continued John, "Cherriton. I don't believe he is
all he pretends to be."

At the mention of Cherriton the lightness of mood vanished from the
elder man.

"What name?" he inquired.

"Captain Cherriton, the man with the fair hair, who was in the taxi with
me.  The police officers allowed him to escape."

Beyond the table the great man of the Secret Service who had been
cross-examining him, eased his spectacles. For, without knowing it, John
had made a statement which aroused all his interest.

"This afternoon, Manton," he said, "you must come to my room.  It seems
to me," he continued, "you can be of very great use to my department."

"What is your department, sir?" asked John politely.

The elder man smiled.

"I think we need not give it a name, Manton.  But perhaps you can guess.
Perhaps, indeed, you are destined to make further acquaintance with my
department and with your friend, Mr. Manners."  He paused a moment.

"Captain Gilbert tells me that you wish to rejoin the army?"

"That is so, sir," answered John.

"An excellent intention," continued Dacent Smith. "But it has occurred
to me that there is other work of national importance which may suit you
better."  He glanced at Whiston.  "With General Whiston's aid I think we
can arrange that you do not appear in uniform for some time.  Another
thing Captain Gilbert reported to me," he went on, quietly, "is that you
are a young man with a taste for adventure."

John smiled.

Dacent Smith extended his hand in farewell.  "You are a free man,
Manton.  But I shall expect you to come to my rooms at 286, Jermyn
Street at three o'clock this afternoon."  He gave John a card.  "You
will give this to my servant at the door."

The card read: "Mr. Dacent Smith, Savile Club"--that and nothing more.

                     *      *      *      *      *

At the time when John was undergoing his cross-examination at the hands
of the great Dacent Smith, Manners and Captain Cherriton were seated in
a back room at a house in Hampstead.  Cherriton, who had read half a
dozen morning papers, glanced at his companion.

"There is no word in any of them about our friend Treves."

"There was scarcely time for an announcement," Manners answered.
"Perhaps it will be in the evening papers."

The two men waited till evening, but still the papers contained no line
about Treves's capture.  Cherriton was still not sure on what charge
Treves had been arrested. If the charge had been an ordinary one, other
than treason, there would already have been an account of some kind.

"We must find out some other way than through the papers."

"I have an excellent way of finding out," observed Manners.

"Well, put it into execution at once," returned his superior.

Manners looked at his watch.

"That way won't do until after six o'clock.  After six o'clock, Herr
Baron, I will take you into the presence of the most beautiful girl in
England."

"I do not admire English beauty," answered Rathenau, caustically.

Manners lifted his hands.

"Ah, but this one, she is wonderful!"

"How will she know about Treves, any more than we do?"

Manners looked across at him.

"Leave that to me," he said, "I can assure you she will know."  He took
out his pocket-book and looked up an address.  "If we go now," he said,
"we shall get there a little after six, in time to interview the lady on
her return from business."

Half an hour later a taxi sped along Kentish Town Road and turned into
Bowles Avenue, Camden Town. The street was a particularly respectable
one, with windows and doors freshly painted.  Judging from the
cleanliness of the curtains and the brightness of the door handles, the
inhabitants of this thoroughfare each took a pride in his residence.

The taxi containing Manners and Cherriton drew to a halt before the door
of No. 65.  Cherriton paid the driver and dismissed him.  The two men
crossed the pavement, and Manners lifted the bright brass knocker. Three
times Manners knocked.

He was that day attired with particular smartness in a grey, soft felt
hat, a grey frock-coat, and light fawn linen gaiters.  The Baron was
wearing a navy-blue suit, made for him at the Army and Navy Stores.  He
also wore a grey felt hat, set well back on his head.  In his hip pocket
he carried a Mauser pistol, but this was always part of his apparel, as
it were.  Manners carried other little aids to his personal safety.  But
upon that evening their mission was pacific.  They had only a desire to
ask a certain lady if she had news of Treves.

Three times Manners applied the knocker; then footsteps came rapidly
along the passage.  The door was opened by a tall, brown-haired girl,
wearing a white blouse and blue skirt, both of which Cherriton noticed
were well cut.  The girl's complexion was not pale, yet tended towards
pallor.  Her cheeks were softly rounded, her chin small, yet firm.  Her
eyes were grey, frank and steady in gaze.  Cherriton, noticing her long,
curved lashes and finely-arched brows, conceded that here, for once, he
was looking upon a truly beautiful English woman.

"Good evening," Manners was saying.  He had lifted his hat with extreme
politeness.

"Good evening," responded the girl, looking with puzzled eyes from one
man to the other.

"You have no doubt forgotten me," Manners spoke again, and then a faint
recognition came to the girl's eyes.

"Oh, not at all," she said.  "Will you come in?"  She led the way to a
little parlour, a bright little apartment, where she lived alone.  She
had made it as pretty and comfortable as possible with her small means.

The two Germans entered the room, and Manners closed the door.  After
some preliminary conversation he broached the subject of his visit, but
artfully and cunningly hiding it in a veil of words.

"I have some business, madam," he said, "with"--he paused a
moment--"with Mr. Treves.  I have lost his address; I wonder if you
could give it me?"

The girl looked at him a moment; an expression of reserve came into her
face.

"I am afraid I cannot oblige you," she said.

"You have heard from him lately?"

The girl hesitated a moment, and pushed back the fine brown hair from
her brow.

"Not lately," she answered.

"You will be seeing him again shortly, no doubt?" pursued Manners,
smiling amicably.

"I don't know," said the girl.  "I am afraid," she said, "I cannot give
you his address, and if that is all you wish to see me about----"  She
rose quite politely, but firmly.  And as she did so some one lifted the
knocker of the front door and smote it thrice.

Manners started visibly.

"You have visitors?" he asked quickly.

"I don't know who it can be," said the girl.  "I am expecting no one."

Manners sprang up and stood between her and the door.  He looked into
her face as she came towards him, then moved politely away.  He felt
that her candid eyes held no secrets.

When the door had closed he turned to Cherriton.

"She has heard nothing of him; she knows no more than we do."

"She is a beautiful woman, I'll admit," said Cherriton, who had been
deep in thought.  He raised his strong, supple hand and pointed towards
the door.  "Just open that," he said quietly, "and see who it is who is
coming to visit her."

Manners, with his usual swiftness of step and dexterity of movement,
approached the door and noiselessly drew it open.  Quietly he put his
head out and looked along the passage.  Then he drew back and gently
closed the door.  His face, when he turned towards Cherriton, was
deathly white.

"Who is it?" demanded Cherriton, who had come swiftly to his feet.

"Bernard Treves!" answered Manners, moistening his lips with his tongue.
The thought that Treves had betrayed them blazed through his mind.

In an instant Cherriton sprang to the window and peered furtively up and
down the street.

"He's alone," he said, with a note of relief in his voice.

"Gott in Himmel!" exclaimed Manners under his breath.  "How did he get
here?"

"Either escaped or acquitted," answered Cherriton, curtly.  "Our
business," he went on swiftly, under his breath, "is to express great
delight when we see him. In the meantime I'll compose myself with a
cigarette."

"I don't know why his coming back like this should make me feel so
nervous," mused Manners.  "I am more psychic than you are, Herr Baron."

Cherriton looked at the big, fat figure in the chair opposite him.  He
curled his lip in faint contempt.

Meanwhile John Manton, having knocked at the door of 65, Bowles Avenue,
found, to his astonishment, that that door was opened by a girl of most
extreme beauty. He had come there under orders from Dacent Smith to
discover the identity of the sender of the telegram signed "Elaine."  He
had been given many instructions during that afternoon, but as he stood
upon the threshold of No. 65 a swift admiration leapt into his eyes for
the girl who confronted him on the doorstep.

"May I come in?" asked John.

"Of course," answered the girl.  To his amazement, she seized his hand
as she spoke.  "Oh, how long you have been!" she said.  She drew him
into the hall and closed the door.  Silence and caution were the parts
John had been ordered to play.  He did not withdraw his hand from her
warm grasp.  "You never came, you never wrote," continued the girl.

"I wasn't able to," John answered, truthfully.

"And yet I told you, Bernard," she went on, looking up into his face--he
was glad that the light in the hall was not intense--" and yet I told
you, Bernard, that if you confessed everything to your father he would
forgive."

"He has forgiven a great deal," answered Manton, vaguely.  He looked
down at her--a little colour had come into her cheeks, and, as for her
eyes, he had never seen eyes which evoked in him so much admiration. At
that moment Manners put his face out at the door of the inner room; then
swiftly withdrew it.

"Who's that?" John asked, quickly.

"It's a man who has come to see you, Bernard; but before you go in I
want to say"--she laid her hand softly on the lapel of John's coat--"I
want to say, Bernard, that I forgive you--everything."  She was smiling
at him, a smile of wonderful beauty.  "After all, Bernard," she
whispered, "I am your wife, and it is a wife's privilege to forgive."

"Yes," answered John.  He could think of nothing else to say.  Here was
the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, holding his hand warmly in
hers, and telling him she forgave him everything.  The situation would
have been delightful if he had only been the other man!

"Bernard, for my sake, you will try, won't you?"  She paused, and this
time he was obliged to frame some sort of answer.

"I'll do the best I can," he said, lamely, then added, to turn the
subject, "Who is your visitor?"

"It's Mr. Manners, the big, stout man you brought here a long while ago.
He has a friend with him, a younger man."

"Captain Cherriton?" asked John, lowering his voice.

The girl nodded.

"They came to ask where you were, and wanted your address, but I
remembered what you told me and would not give it."

Then for the first time John looked keenly into her face.  He had never
seen her in his life before, and at any moment she might recognise him.
But even with that danger hovering over him he could not help wondering
if she loved Treves.

"Come, Bernard"; she took his hand in hers.  "You must see your friends
and get rid of them."

John walked with her along the narrow passage.  At the door of the
parlour the girl halted.

"When they are gone," she whispered, "I have whole heaps of things to
tell you."

She pushed open the door and followed John into the room.

Manners, who was seated at the hearth, sprang up and rushed towards
Manton.

"Come in!  Come in!" he cried, drawing John forward.  "It does my eyes
good to see you again, eh, Captain Cherriton?"

Baron Rathenau, who had also risen, enclosed Manton's fingers in his
hard, cold grip.  "I, too, am glad to see you," he said, fixing his eyes
steadily on John's.




                              CHAPTER VII


Things were not as they seemed.  The situation in the little parlour was
delicate in the extreme, and as John's gaze passed from the fat
countenance of Manners to the cold forcefulness of Cherriton, whose
strong hand but a moment ago gripped his own in greeting, he told
himself that if he could creep from that situation with credit he could
escape from anything.  Both Cherriton's and Manners's welcome rang
false.  They were not pleased to see him.  They were startled and
puzzled, and Cherriton, at least, was more than puzzled.  John knew that
whatever occurred between himself and these two men must occur
privately.  Moreover, there was a second danger, which he knew to be
ever present.  The light in the bright little parlour was quite strong.
The fact that he had dexterously placed his back to the window might not
serve him for more than a few minutes. What if Elaine Treves suddenly
discovered her mistake?

Somehow the teeming possibilities of the moment gave steadiness to
John's nerves.  He thought of a plan, and put it into execution on the
instant.

"Elaine," he said--he used her name for the first time, and as he spoke
he took her slender hand in his grasp--"I have business to discuss with
Captain Cherriton and Mr. Manners."

"I promise we shall not keep your husband more than a few minutes,"
intervened Cherriton.  "Yes, old Manwitz for once is right," he thought;
"here is an Englishwoman possessed of beauty."

He made across the room, intending politely to hold open the door for
Elaine to pass out.  John, however, was quicker, and as he held the door
wide Elaine lifted her grey-blue, beautiful eyes and searched his.  Her
expression, John thought, was one of surprise--surprise at what?

He closed the door, and instantly Cherriton laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Well," he demanded, "what happened to you last night."

"You were present at the beginning of the happening," returned John.

"The four men were police officers, were they not?"

"Detectives from Scotland Yard.  They took me there, cross-examined me,
and discovered that a mistake had been made."

Manners drew in a deep breath of relief.

"Ah--a--mistake!" he exclaimed.

Cherriton, who was busy with a cigarette, looked at John under his
brows.  He had retreated to the hearth, and-was leaning with his back
against the mantelshelf. "A very unpleasant incident for you, eh,
Treves?" he inquired.

"Very," responded John.

"And my overcoat--my very excellent summer overcoat--what happened to
that?"

From the moment of John's appearance in the room he had been leading up
to this question--had his overcoat been searched, had Treves's
incriminating letter been discovered?  It occurred to him that if John,
immediately after his arrest, had established his identity no search of
his overcoat was probable.  And yet caution was bred in him.  His deeply
subtle mind prompted him to probe the matter to its depths, and at the
same time to convey no suspicion of his anxiety to John.

"Cherriton, your overcoat is quite safe," John said quietly.  "I left it
on your behalf in the cloak-room at Charing Cross Station."  He put his
hand into his pocket and drew out the ticket.  Cherriton took it from
his extended fingers.

"I am particularly obliged to you, Treves," he said. "I have a special
fondness for that overcoat?  So the Scotland Yard people were for once
mistaken."

"Entirely," said John, with truth; "they mistook me for another man."

"Were you made acquainted with the charges against the real person?"
probed Cherriton.

"He was wanted for misappropriation of military funds."

Both Manners and Cherriton exhibited increasing interest in the unknown
culprit.

"You heard the person's name?"

"His name was John Manton.  He was a sergeant at Scarthoe Fort."

"That is in the Isle of Wight?"

"Yes," John answered; "that accounts for them seizing me--they traced me
from the Isle of Wight."

Cherriton and Manners exchanged glances; neither man felt at all
comfortable.  But Cherriton felt that he had pressed the matter enough.
He suddenly assumed his air of bland amiability, but it sat ill on him.

"Well, Manners," he exclaimed, looking at his confrere, "you were
mistaken--you assumed that our dear friend Treves had escaped, and were
in a great fluster of anxiety on his behalf; whereas the little
misfortune that occurred to him was all a mistake."

"All a mistake," repeated John.

"And now, I think," Cherriton remarked, taking up his grey felt hat and
denting it carefully with his hand, "I think we will not keep you from
your wife any longer."

For the second time that day he gripped John's hand in his, and John,
looking back into his cold blue eyes, felt the steady, penetrating power
of Cherriton's gaze.

"Here was a man," thought John, "used to command--a man possessed of
exceptional powers of mind and physique.  You are a daring fellow,"
thought John; "a subtle and cunning worker of evil, but for once in your
life you are mistaken.  I am not the man you think, either in name or in
character."

Then a singular thing happened to John.  On the very instant when his
fingers slid away from the other's touch a flaming instinct ran through
him--a passionate impulse to leap upon the other's throat and squeeze
the life out of him came upon him as a definite and conscious wish.
Though he had known Cherriton only for two days, he felt a great hate
swirl up in him against this serenely poised, potent enemy.  Against
Manners, whom he knew, and whom Dacent Smith knew to be a spy, he felt
nothing of this.  That afternoon he had been instructed well and
thoroughly by Dacent Smith.  Dacent Smith had talked much with him,
drawing him out, subtly examining him as to his aspirations and his
powers.  And gradually, during the talk of that afternoon, Smith had
come to realise that in John Manton he possessed a keen and
highly-wrought weapon.  Here was a young man who had fought for his
country, who was willing to fight for it again in any circumstances.
And long before the end of that interview the chief of a great branch of
the Secret Service had laid his hand on John's arm.

"Manton," he had explained, "you were wasted as a sergeant at Scarthoe
Head.  There are big things awaiting you.  You have fought the enemy in
the open; from to-day you shall fight him in the dark.  You will find
him more tricky and subtle and dangerous than he was in France"--then he
had paused a moment, looking at John.  "Accidents sometimes happen,
Manton, my boy!"

"One must be prepared for accidents," John had answered, quietly.

"I have lost two or three splendid fellows during the past year.  I am
telling you this," the chief resumed, "that you may remain always on
your guard.  Fate or Providence has placed you in a wonderful position
with the aid of your acquaintance, Manwitz.  I have the complete dossier
in that cupboard over there."  He pointed to a cabinet against the wall.
"Your acquaintance with Manwitz gives you a splendid start.  You will
use it to acquire such information as will be useful to the Department,
but in the first place you must discover all there is to know about the
amiable and unexpected Cherriton. We shall at the same time be working
to discover things from our end."

John thought of this conversation as Manners and Cherriton took their
departure.

"You will come and see me again soon, will you not?"  Manners had
remarked at the moment of departure. He looked cunningly and meaningly
into John's eyes. In effect he had been saying: "You will come and see
me again immediately those cocaine tabloids have been consumed."
Bernard Treves's craving for cocaine, both Manners and Cherriton knew,
held that young man as by bonds of steel.

"I'll come again soon," John had answered, slipping the new address
Manners had given him into his waistcoat pocket.  He watched the two men
pass into the street, then closed the door, and re-entered the empty
parlour. The daintiness, the cleanliness, and the perfect taste of the
little apartment had already won his appreciation. He wondered when
Elaine Treves would descend from above, and what would happen then.
Until now only a few fleeting words had passed between himself and the
beautiful girl who was Treves's wife.  What was to happen now in the
intimacy that would ensue when she re-entered the room?

John was smoking one of Treves's cigarettes, with his back against the
mantelshelf, when the door opened and Elaine quietly entered.

"So you have got rid of them, Bernard?"

She looked at him, he thought, a little shyly, with something of reserve
in her glance.  He watched her as she crossed to a chintz-covered wicker
arm-chair, with its back to the window.  At her side was a small
work-table. She took out a needle, a thread, and various bits of
coloured silk.  A silence drew itself out that became awkward.  John
moved from one foot to another; then he made an effort to pick up the
thread of what he believed to be Treves's life in relation to the girl
who was so industriously sewing, with bowed head.

"I am sorry I wasn't able to come in answer to your wire."

"I think, Bernard, you might have answered it," returned Elaine,
quietly, without raising her head.

"Well, you know, I was not able to.  Circumstances did not permit me to
answer it."

"I was afraid of that."

She suddenly looked up at him with an expression of hopelessness in her
fine eyes.

"Bernard," she said, "sometimes I think you will never, never be able to
keep your promise to me!"

"Why not?" John asked, feeling his way cautiously. He could see that she
was stirred, that something had moved her deeply.  He was more than ever
assured of this when she rose, stood before him, and looked steadily
into his face.

"Oh!  Bernard, if you could only, only fight!"

Under the close scrutiny of her eyes John felt extraordinarily
uncomfortable.

"Other people have fought and have conquered," went on the girl.  "Why
should not you?  Sometimes," she went on, "you are quite as you should
be, just as you are now--the man who once won my love.  And then,
again----"  She broke off.

Accidentally John had put his fingers in his waistcoat pocket.  He felt
the contact of the little bottle of cocaine tabloids Manners had forced
upon him.  He had guessed that Elaine was referring to Treves's
enslavement to this drug, and he drew out the bottle, holding it in the
palm of his hand.  He saw the girl look at the tabloids with an
expression of loathing; then something seemed to pass through her that
drew her rigid and erect.

"I wonder," she said, "in our very short months together, how often you
have promised, have sworn, to give it up!"  Her manner suddenly changed
again, and she held out her hand imploringly.  "I wonder, Bernard, if
you have the courage to give them to me?"

"Certainly," John said, "I will give them to you!"

He unscrewed the top of the little bottle, and poured the white tabloids
one after another into the palm of her hand.  She looked at them for a
moment, then into his face.  John was still standing with his back
towards the small fire.  He felt the girl's hand on his arm; she was
thrusting him aside.  A moment later she had flung the tabloids into the
red embers, and before John knew it she was holding his hand in hers,
looking up into his face.

"Bernard," she said, in a low voice, "I believe--I believe you have
changed!  I think strength is coming to you--you will win yet!"

"Yes," John answered, "I swear I'll win."

The words came from him almost without volition, and at the same moment
an instinct came to him that matters were drifting too far.  He turned
the conversation with a laugh, and for some minutes they were discussing
general topics.  He helped her to prepare the supper, going into the
little kitchen and bringing out plates and dishes, under her direction.

Daylight faded, much to John's relief.  They took supper together in the
little parlour; John noticed how deft and womanly she was.

"Our friend Treves is a lucky man, if he only knew it," thought he.

"I am afraid there is nothing to drink, Bernard."

"That doesn't trouble me," John answered; then saw her pause with the
teapot uplifted in frank surprise. "I mean," said John, striving to
recover the situation, "if you haven't got it, I don't mind."

The meal passed off in an air of general cheerfulness. Elaine's little
clock struck nine, and when the meal was at an end John took the seat
opposite Elaine and her little work-basket.  She busied herself with her
fancy-work, and occasionally John caught her eyes resting upon him with
a thoughtful and somewhat puzzled expression. He strove to gather from
her manner what her feelings really were towards her husband.  "She
can't love him," thought John; "he's too much of a brute and a waster
for that.  And yet women are strange creatures."

Elaine had been silent for some minutes, but presently she spoke,
uttering something that appeared to have dwelt for long in her mind.

"Bernard," she said, "I am not so hard as you think, but I am sure the
way I am acting is the only right way."  She paused.

"I am sure it is the right way," answered John, looking into her candid,
girlish face.

He noticed again the flicker of surprise.  He was always making false
steps.  The situation was difficult beyond everything he had
experienced.  Dacent Smith had impressed upon him the importance of tact
and finesse.  Here was a situation thrust upon him requiring abundance
of both.

"You seem to have changed your point of view?"

"Well----" John began, cautiously.

"You were so violent with me," interposed Elaine.

"There was no intention on my part to be anything of the sort towards
you," John answered.

He wondered what Treves had done, what Treves had said.  He began to
experience pleasure in the situation; he began to wonder what was to
happen next.  But very soon after that the clock struck ten.

Elaine put away her needlework and rose somewhat abruptly.

"You must go now, Bernard."

John looked at her for a moment in surprise.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I see--of course."

Then Elaine crossed the hearthrug and laid her slender hands on the
lapels of his coat.

"To-night, Bernard," she said, "I have almost felt as if you were your
old self again."

"Thanks," answered John, awkwardly; his position at that moment was
awkward and utterly false; he was like a man who walks blindly on the
edge of a precipice. He wondered if she was about to kiss him, or if she
expected him to salute her in that way.  This doubt was still upon him
when Elaine reached up and touched his cheeks lightly with her lips.
There was no passion, no love--nothing but a sort of sisterly affection
in the embrace, but John was glad when it was over.  If she had been a
less beautiful woman the situation would have been so very much easier.

Elaine accompanied him along the passage, handing him his hat and stick
as they went.  In the darkness at the door, as they shook hands, John
felt that the impression of her fingers was warmer and infinitely more
cordial that the greeting she had given him upon his arrival.  He could
see her face only dimly.  She had seemed surprised that he had departed
so easily; he felt that he must say something, utter some remark that
possibly might have been uttered by Bernard Treves.

"I am sorry to have to go," he said.

Then Elaine's voice came to him quietly in the darkness. There was a new
note in her words.

"You must come again--soon, Bernard."

The door closed softly, and she was gone.




                              CHAPTER VIII


Dacent Smith, busy in his luxurious bachelor apartments in Jermyn
Street, was going through a pile of documents, all relating directly or
indirectly to the multitudinous activities of his department.  He had
continued his work for, perhaps, half an hour after his brief luncheon
interval when the man-servant entered and announced a visitor.  Dacent
Smith's man-servant was discretion itself.  He looked like a walking
secret, and was a big, pallid man, with high cheek-bones and a grim,
hard mouth.  He was devoted body and soul to Dacent Smith, and no
tortures ever devised could have ever wormed a word from him of his
master's activities.

"Well, Grew?"

"Mr. Treves, sir."

"I'll see Mr. Treves at once."

Grew, the man-servant, departed, and a minute later John was ushered
into the apartment.

Dacent Smith greeted him with brief cordiality, then indicated a chair.

"Well, Treves," he said, with a smile, "what is your news?"

"There is very little to tell you, sir, so far.  The person who wrote
that telegram signed 'Elaine,' is Bernard Treves's wife!"

Dacent Smith lifted his eyebrows; a twinkle of humour was detectable in
his expression.

"What happened?"

"She was quite deceived, sir!"

"A piquant situation," smiled Dacent Smith.

"Very!" answered John, seriously.

"You see how quickly you find yourself in deep waters, my friend."
Dacent Smith was looking at him with an expression of raillery in his
keen eyes. Nevertheless he was saying inwardly: "I like you, Manton; you
are a man after my own heart.  There is a good deal of humour, as well
as courage and intelligence, hidden behind that good-looking face of
yours."

"Now, Manton," he said, "tell me about Manwitz. Are you in touch with
him again?"

"I have his address, sir, and an invitation to go to him whenever I
wish--that is, whenever the cocaine habit seizes me violently."

"I see," remarked the elder man.  "Whenever the craving is violently
upon you, you go to Manwitz and he supplies your want?"

John nodded.

"It is amazing," went on the chief, "the way these fellows manage to
secure these drugs.  Perhaps, later, Manton, you will be able to
enlighten us upon that little matter; but in the meantime Cherriton is
your chief responsibility."

"Cherriton showed a particular anxiety about his overcoat, sir,
containing Treves's letter."

John gave a brief report of the events of the previous evening, and
Dacent Smith made one or two notes on a slip of paper marked M. 15.

When John had finished, the elder man leaned back in his chair.

"It will take you some days--perhaps weeks," he said, "to get the hang
of things with us.  At present you are to play a lone hand.  There is a
chain of German emissaries working against us--some traitors and some
spies--who pass information from all our dockyards to London, and thence
to Germany.  I want you to get into contact with one of the links of
this chain--any link will serve our purpose.  You must do all you can to
keep the confidence of Cherriton and Manwitz.  If they set you upon any
task, carry it through absolutely.  If papers or documents are given to
you to be delivered elsewhere, don't fail to act absolutely according to
their instructions.  If you can get a sight of the documents, and
memorise them during transit, do so, of course. This applies to letters
or documents which may be handed to you by strangers--other German
spies.  Do you understand the importance of all this?"

John assured him that he did.

"It appears to me, sir," he added, "that by doing this I shall myself
become a sort of link in their chain."

The great man looked at him with eyes of approbation.

"Exactly," he responded; "that is what you will be. Information is
leaking out of England day by day, hour by hour--rippling along these
chains of which I speak."

Half an hour later, John took his departure from the chief's sumptuous
bachelor apartments.  He had learned many things that amazed him, and
one of these things, which filled him with fury and loathing, was that
there were indeed traitors in unexpected places, that there were
British-born people, few, but active, who were willing to sell their
country into the power of the enemy.

"I hope it won't be my destiny to run across one of these gentry,"
thought John; "for even the chief himself would find it hard to make me
keep my hands off him."

And yet that night, in a few brief hours, he was to find himself in
contact with just such a traitor.

Reaching the corner of Jermyn Street, after his departure from Dacent
Smith's rooms, John hailed a taxi and drove to Hampstead Tube at
Tottenham Court Road. Here he took train to Hampstead, and made his way
towards the address Manwitz had given him.  The address was Cherriton's,
and when John arrived there he found that the unamiable captain occupied
a suite of rooms in a large, old-fashioned house near the Heath. The
house was maintained by a retired butler, who received John at the door.
The butler ascended to a handsomely furnished, spacious drawing-room on
the first floor.  Here Manners was seated at a grand piano, and
Cherriton, deep in an arm-chair, was reading an English Pacifist
pamphlet.

"Is that a telegram?" asked Cherriton, as the door opened.

"No, sir," answered the man; "it is a Mr. Bernard Treves called in to
see Mr. Manners."

Two minutes later John stepped into the room.

"Did you get your overcoat?" he asked, shaking hands with Cherriton.

The fair man nodded.

"Many thanks," he said.

He had spent the earlier part of that day inquiring into the existence,
status, and habits of John Manton.  He was still not quite satisfied as
to his visitor's release from Scotland Yard, and at that very moment he
was awaiting a telegram from the Isle of Wight which would either
increase his suspicions or remove them altogether.  In the meantime, he
preferred to trust John to a certain extent.

"You have come at an opportune time, Treves," he said.

John was seated now, and this time accepted a cigarette from the Baron's
case.  Suddenly, Rathenau looked him full in the face.

"You and I, Treves," he said, "have both been treated damnably!"

"Damnably!" answered John, wondering what was coming.  The other
continued:

"But there comes a time, Treves, eh, when the worm turns?  You turned
and I turned!  You cast in your lot with our friend Manners, who knows
how to appreciate loyalty!  Manners," he continued, in the ironical tone
that was his general habit, "fat and stupid and lazy as he is, is always
willing to pay for loyalty!"

John looked into the Baron's thick-skinned, pallid face, into the
steel-like eyes, and smiled inwardly.  A pause came.  John leaned
forward.

"Cherriton," he said, "what are you leading up to?"

Manners, from the piano-stool, spoke up.

"Ah, you see, Cherriton--he is sharp, our friend Treves. Tell him what
you want, Cherriton, straight out!"

He rose, came, for all his great bulk, softly across the room.  He laid
a fat hand on John's shoulder and looked down at him.

"Bernard," he half whispered, "you shall have all you want of
everything.  Money--and the other thing. I want you to throw in your lot
with me as the good Captain has done.  That note," he continued, still
in the half whisper, "you gave me in regard to the sailing of the
_Polydor_ was well appreciated in certain circles."

"I am glad to hear that," John answered.

"That was good service," continued Manners, "but there are bigger things
afoot."  He paused a moment, then walked round John, and seated himself
on a sofa quite near.  "You have heard, no doubt," he continued, "of the
_Imperator_----"

"You mean the new Grey Star liner?"

Manners nodded.

"A monster ship--a wonder ship!  Forty-eight thousand tons."

He uttered the words slowly, rolling them unctuously over his tongue.

"Nearly as big as the _Vaterland_," John said, and for the life of him
he could not help looking across at Cherriton's face.

But Cherriton was quick as lightning.

"The _Vaterland_?" he repeated.  "You mean the German ship?"

John returned his attention to Manners.  He could feel the web closing
about him--the web in which Dacent Smith had ordered him to entangle
himself.

"The _Imperator_," said Manners, "is to sail one day quite soon, but
your Admiralty has grown doubly cunning of late.  As yet we know not
either her port of departure or the hour of departure!"

John noticed that the fat man's tones deepened as he spoke; excitement
gleamed in his eyes.  He leaned forward and laid a fat hand on Bernard's
knee.

"Treves, my boy, I trust you--eh?"

"Certainly!" answered John, truthfully.  "I want you to trust me."

"Good!" exclaimed Manners, uttering the word thickly in his throat.
"Now, you will understand Cherriton and I cannot appear in certain
places, but with you--it is different with you--eh?"

"Quite," said John.  "I can appear anywhere without suspicion."

Cherriton, who had remained silent, again took control of the situation.

"What Manners and I want you to do," he said, "is to stay a few days at
the Savoy Hotel.  A Dutch gentleman is giving up Room 104C.  You are to
take that room, and stay at the hotel at Manners's expense."

"Thank you," said John.

"There will be no need for you to stint yourself. What is more, you will
have no duties whatever to perform!"

John lifted his eyebrows in genuine surprise.

"I don't quite see what help I can be in that case!"

"We are hoping that the matter will resolve itself," said Cherriton.

"Yes--yes!" intervened Manners, "everything will resolve itself
beautifully.  All you have to do now, my dear boy, is to say that you
accept the----"

"The invitation," intercepted Cherriton.

John thought there was nothing easier in the world than to accept an
invitation to stay, free of expense, at a first-class hotel, and with no
duties to perform.  He said as much to Manners, and two nights later
found him the occupant of the room 1046, a delightful Louis Seize
bedroom overlooking the Embankment.  He had spent a day and a night at
the hotel, and no incident whatever had occurred.  On the evening of the
second night, however, after dinner, John seated himself in the foyer
and ordered coffee and cigarettes.

Presently, in the great crowd moving, laughing and talking near him,
John observed a politician who at various periods in the past had loomed
importantly in the public eye.

"He is even more ugly than his photographs," thought John, watching the
important personage move among his friends.  John did not like Beecher
Monmouth's smile; altogether he disliked the man on the instant, and was
the more astonished to notice that a strikingly beautiful woman of
thirty, wearing a glittering diamond necklace and diamond ear-rings,
moved towards him and slipped her arm through his.  The woman wore a
deeply decollete evening dress of a shimmering silk that looked to John
now green and now blue.  He noticed her flash a smile into Beecher
Monmouth's face.  He saw the politician put her hand into his.  Then
recollection came to John.  The woman was Beecher Monmouth's wife, a
beautiful woman thirty years his junior, who had appeared from nowhere
and married him.

"She certainly is a beautiful woman," thought John. "A case of Beauty
and the Beast!"

Then, to his utter amazement, Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's eyes met his.  She
slid her arm from her husband's, and made her way quickly through the
crowd to John.  He felt his heart-beat quicken.  A moment later Mrs.
Beecher Monmouth was holding out her hand towards him.  She flashed a
smile into his face.

"My dear Mr. Treves," she said, in a voice that was low and intimate, "I
have been looking for you all the evening!"

A moment later she was shaking hands with John.

"I must fly now," she added, "but you must come and see me
to-morrow--six o'clock."

A moment later she was hurrying back towards her husband, her gown
shimmering and gleaming as she went. There was something in the palm of
John's hand--something that had passed from Mrs. Beecher Monmouth to
himself.

Holding his hand below the table and free from observation, John saw
that the something Mrs. Beecher Monmouth had passed into his hand was a
slip of paper on which was pencilled: "_Imperator_--three o'clock
to-morrow.  Route 28."

John was conscious of a quite definite thrill.  His nerve was of the
best; he had accepted the momentous slip of paper without any outward
sign of disturbance. Indeed, he had smiled back into Mrs. Beecher
Monmouth's eyes in a manner that had won that lady's sincerest
approbation.  Nevertheless, he was not inwardly calm. He felt that fate,
or destiny, had seized him suddenly in its relentless grip.  The slip of
paper was still in his right hand, concealed beneath the level of the
table.  For some minutes he drew at his cigarette, then, carefully
taking out the pocket-book, laid the slip in its leaves, and replaced
the book in the inner breast pocket of his coat.  For some minutes
longer he retained his seat, leaning back in the delicate gilt chair.
His gaze wandered among the brilliant and fashionable crowd moving about
him.  The gentle murmur of music mingled still with the chatter of
voices, and twenty feet away he caught the gleam of Mrs. Beecher
Monmouth's ear-rings, the scintillation of her superb diamond necklace.
She was talking to her yellow-skinned and unprepossessing husband, but
her attention was entirely and solely fixed upon John.

Their eyes met, and John was obliged to concede, for the second time,
that she was a woman of exceptional beauty.  The art of her coiffeur,
and, possibly, the art of her complexion expert, had wrought its best
for her. Nevertheless, she would have stood out among any assemblage of
young and prepossessing women.  Her husband quite visibly adored her,
and every word she condescended to transmit to him was received with a
quick, responsive smile on his part.

John was thinking rapidly, wondering and speculating. Was it possible
that Beecher Monmouth knew of the existence of the little slip of paper
that reposed in his pocket-book?  Beecher Monmouth, who had sat on
numerous committees, who had more than once stood in the running for an
under-secretaryship?  The thing seemed utterly incredible!

As these things flashed through John's mind, realisation slowly came to
him that Mrs. Beecher Monmouth was observing him with close intensity,
under slightly lowered lids.

John rose, and as he did so the lady flashed a brilliant smile towards
him--an intimate, understanding smile, full of meaning.

"I wish I knew what you meant," thought John, as he made his way through
the throng out towards the cloak-room.

The circulating door received him, and he passed out into the dim light
of the Strand.  There was a crowd, as always at that hour, and a young
man who followed closely at his heels found difficulty in keeping him in
sight.

John was burning once more to look at the information Mrs. Beecher
Monmouth had conveyed to him.  But caution forbade anything of the sort.
He was determined that this, his first swim in deep waters, should
achieve a successful issue.  His chief desire in life was to make good
in Dacent Smith's eyes, and, moreover, obeying his chief's instructions,
he had already indelibly impressed upon his memory the portentous
sentence: "_Imperator_--three o'clock to-morrow.  Route 28."

The word "treachery" floated into his mind, and filled him with rage.
Until now he had been outside--one of the public.  But to-night the
curtain had been drawn aside.  He felt himself engaged in the secret
fight which is for ever taking place beneath the surface--the fight
between our own secret service and the spies and traitors in the pay of
the other nations.

At Hampstead, John emerged from the Tube and made his way through the
darkness of Well Walk. Presently he turned to the left, through an
alley, crossed a square of shabby-looking houses, and ascended a further
closely-built, narrow street, leading towards Cherriton's residence.

The young man who had followed him from the Savoy was still in his wake.
At this point, however, he apparently ceased his pursuit, and vanished
up a side alley.

John, who had been aware of footsteps for some minutes, halted and
looked behind him.  The road was empty, and the suspicion that had been
growing on him vanished.  Nevertheless, he laid a hand on his hip
pocket, assured himself that he was prepared for eventualities and moved
forward again.

"I'll give this nefarious bit of news to Cherriton, then hop down to
Dacent Smith and report the fact as quickly as I can," thought John.

He reached the top of Christ Church Road and paused to recollect which
turning was the right one. At that moment some one moved in the shadow
of the church railings near him, and before John could turn his head a
doubled fist smote him heavily.  The attack was so sudden, unexpected
and swift that before he could in any way retaliate a second blow had
been delivered.

His assailant leaped through the air, clasped two strong hands round his
neck, and fell into the road, still gripping for all he was worth.

The two struggled ignominiously, and John became aware that the
stranger, who had released one hand grip, was groping for the precious
pocket-book.  For the first time John was able to aim a blow, then, with
a violent twist, he drew himself uppermost, and plunged his knee heavily
into the other's chest.  In the dim light he observed that his opponent
was young.  John was already aware that he had met no mean antagonist,
and he was taking no chances.

The downward blow he now delivered on the other man's countenance
staggered him for a moment.  He wrenched himself free and stood upright
on his feet.

His enemy was prone, but only for a moment.

"You've got a good deal of spirit, my young friend," said John, through
his teeth, "but you'll get nothing from me, except another punch like
the last!  Now, get up!"

"Thanks," returned the other.

He rose and began to dust his clothes carefully.  John did not like the
man's attitude.  He was quite obviously preparing to make another
attack.

"Now," commanded John, moving back a pace, "don't try that with me!"

He stepped back and reached for the Colt weapon that reposed in his
pocket.

"I should hate to do anything drastic," he continued; "but if you make
it a habit to leap at people in the dark, and to aim half-arm jolts at
strangers, you must take the consequences."

"I am prepared to take anything that is coming to me!" responded the
young man.

He spoke almost jauntily, and John admired his spirit.

"I evidently did not hit you quite as hard as I thought," John remarked.

"Quite hard enough," responded the other, "but please don't shoot,
because----"

Then, to John's amazement, and with the utmost daring, he leapt forward
like a flash and seized John's pistol.  There was a swift, fierce
struggle.  The moment was one for quick decisions.  The stranger held
the weapon by the wrong end, and John knew it. Unexpectedly he let go,
and simultaneously landed a heavy left on the young man's downbent jaw.
He followed with a right, and then another left.  He was as busy as he
had ever been, and he knew he was fighting for his entire future,
possibly for his life.

"I've had enough," gasped the stranger.

He reeled away, and seated himself on the farther side of the narrow
street.

John searched about, picked up the weapon from the middle of the road
and pocketed it.  Then he buttoned his coat, after carefully satisfying
himself that the pocket-book was still in its place, and prepared to go.

"Good night," called the other, seated on the edge of the pavement, as
he went.

Manton, however, was in no mood for persiflage.  He took himself off,
walking as swiftly as he could.

"He certainly doesn't lack pluck," mused John.

Five minutes later he reached the large house wherein Cherriton had his
abode.

"I want to see Captain Cherriton at once," he said, when the door was
opened to him.

He found Cherriton alone in the big drawing-room. He was in evening
clothes, and was wearing comfortable house slippers.

"So it's you, Treves?" exclaimed the German as the door closed.  "Come
in, and I'll give you a drink of whisky; that is always acceptable, eh?"

"Always," answered John.

Cherriton was looking at him intently.

"There is a slight cut on your forehead."

"Is there?  It must be a scratch."

John applied his handkerchief to the slight abrasion, then slipped off
his overcoat and took a drink of whisky and soda.

"I have some news for you, Cherriton."

"News?"

The other flashed a swift glance at him.

John slowly drew out the pocket-book and produced the slip of paper.

"You wanted to know when the _Imperator_ sailed out, and by what route."

Cherriton was suddenly and unfeignedly impatient.

"What is it you know?" he demanded.

"At the Savoy to-night," John said quietly, "this was handed to me."

He passed the slip of paper into the German's eager fingers.

"Gott!" exclaimed Cherriton, utterly absorbed. "You got this from----"

"Mrs. Beecher Monmouth."

"Three o'clock to-morrow," mused Cherriton.  "There is not much time for
us to act!"

He looked suddenly into John's face.

"What a woman she is!" he exclaimed.  "Invaluable--invaluable!"

"Invaluable!" echoed John.

Cherriton laid a hand on John's arm.

"Keep your hold on her, my dear Treves.  Your work to-night has been
excellent!"

Excitement had brought an unusual gleam into his hard eyes.

"We will do great things for you yet!"

He crossed the room and rang the bell imperiously.

"My coat and hat," he commanded of the butler when the man appeared.
"When Mr. Manners returns, ask him to wait up for me."




                               CHAPTER IX


The hour was eleven o'clock.  Dacent Smith was, as usual, up to his ears
in work.  Very little of the real work, conducted by him on behalf of
the Department, was dispatched at the office.  If he possessed a
weakness at all, it was a weakness for the luxury of his own suite of
rooms and for the benign, competent aid of Grew. Servant and master were
each equally devoted to the other, and yet even Grew was only vaguely
aware of the greatness, of the importance of the stoutish, bland,
keen-eyed gentleman who was his master.

At Dacent Smith's elbow a green-shaded electric lamp cast a bright light
on the papers beneath his hand. The chief wrote neatly and carefully,
and when the door opened and Grew came softly in he did not lift his
head.

"Mr. Treves to report, sir."

"I'll see Mr. Treves immediately."

"Very good, sir."

Dacent Smith raised his head.

"Oh, Grew, please ask the gentleman who is in the other room to wait a
little longer."

"Very good, sir."

Two minutes later John found himself alone with the chief.

Dacent Smith motioned him into one of the deep, leathered-covered
arm-chairs, opened a silver box of Egyptian cigarettes, and pushed it
towards him.

"Well," he questioned, wheeling his chair and looking at John much as an
astute physician might look at a patient; "I can see by your
expression," he went on quickly, "that you have something of importance
to report."

"I think so," said John.

"Well, what is it?"

"In the foyer of the Savoy to-night, sir, Mrs. Beecher Monmouth"--an
almost imperceptible change of expression occurred on Dacent Smith's
smooth features--"Mrs. Beecher Monmouth," continued John, "passed a slip
of paper into my hand.  I assumed at once that the paper was meant for
either Manners or Cherriton, and, obeying your instructions, I delivered
it at once."

"You memorised it first?"

Dacent Smith's tone was almost sharp.

"It was very short, sir.  I can remember it exactly."

Dacent Smith pushed a pencil and block of paper towards him.

"Perhaps you had better write it down immediately," he said.  "If you
visualise it in writing you will be less likely to have forgotten or
misplaced a word."

John rose, and bending over the desk wrote the exact words of the
message Mrs. Beecher Monmouth had conveyed to him.  When he came to the
word _Imperator_, Dacent Smith whistled softly.

"You have done very well, Treves," he said.  He suddenly looked into
John's face.  "You must better your acquaintance with Mrs. Beecher
Monmouth."

"I have an appointment with her for to-morrow night," answered John.

Dacent Smith glanced at a little gilt clock on the mantelshelf.

"I think we shall be in time!"

"That is exactly what Cherriton said," John answered.

Dacent Smith was silent for a moment.

"Treves," he said, "if the _Imperator_ sails to-morrow at three o'clock
by Route 28, which is their code for the North Ireland route, there will
be another disaster for us."

He was silent a moment and John put a question that had troubled him
somewhat.

"But if she doesn't sail at that hour," he said; "if she is suddenly
delayed or dispatched by another route, won't that arouse their
suspicions?"

Dacent Smith looked at him for a moment, then smiled quietly.

"Oh," he said, "we shall not be quite so obvious as that, Treves,
otherwise they would come to suspect a leakage.  What will occur is
this: I shall communicate with the Admiralty at once, and some time
to-morrow morning an accident will happen--quite a small accident--to
the _Imperator's_ boilers.  The news of the accident will be well spread
throughout the crew and the deck hands.  Thus the _Imperator_ will be
unavoidably delayed and will not sail at three o'clock to-morrow."

He rose as he finished speaking and went quickly out of the room.  When
he returned he was obviously much easier in his mind.  With slow
deliberation he replaced himself in his chair at the desk.

"Now give me details of your interview with Cherriton."

John stated what had occurred.

"Anything else to report?" asked Dacent Smith, looking at him with a
penetrating glance.  "I see you have a scratch on your forehead."

"Yes," answered John.  "It occurred in Hampstead; a young man attacked
me and endeavoured to get my pocket-book!"

"Oh, that is rather alarming!"

"It was rather sudden," John confessed, "and he was a particularly
energetic person."

"Would you know him again if you saw him?" asked Dacent Smith.

"I think I should," answered John.  "He was about my own height, but
more slenderly built.  Rather a good-looking fellow, well dressed.  He
was a most energetic and audacious opponent," he continued, becoming
unexpectedly expansive.

"Audacity is sometimes a fault!" observed Dacent Smith.  "Just sit where
you are a minute, Treves; I want to introduce you to some one."

He crossed the room and opened the door.  John noticed him beckon to
some one, and a moment later a young man in evening clothes stepped into
the room.

Dacent Smith led the new-comer towards the hearth.

"Captain," he said, speaking to the young man, "this is Mr. Treves, who
is now a member of our service."

John rose to shake hands, and found himself looking into the smiling
face of a young man of twenty-eight, a young man with dark brown,
daring-looking eyes, a sun-browned skin, and a dark moustache.  The
stranger's face was humorous, and on the lower part of his left cheek
was a contused redness.

As John and he shook hands, John uttered an exclamation of astonishment.

"Why, you're the man who attacked me!"

"Well, I don't know about that!" smiled the Captain, cheerily; "it looks
to me as if the attacking was mostly on your side."

"I must say," John continued, "you put up quite a good fight, but I
don't quite see the point.  If you were acting on behalf of the
Department, why did you attack me?"

He glanced at Dacent Smith, and the great man undertook an explanation.
"The whole thing was a slight mistake.  Your new acquaintance, known to
us as Captain X., was under my orders, his avocation to-night. He saw
Mrs. Beecher Monmouth shake hands with you. He also observed you--and he
says, very neatly--put something in your inner breast pocket.  He had
never seen you before, but he naturally jumped to the conclusion that
you were in league with this particular fashionable lady, whom he had
been sent to watch, hence his mistaken attack on you."

John turned again to his late antagonist.

"I am sorry if I hurt you!" he said.

"You did hurt me abominably," retorted Captain X. "I am not much of a
pugilist and that half-arm jolt, or whatever you call it, has my
sincerest admiration."

"The luck was on my side," returned John politely.

"And the misdirected energy on mine," smiled the Captain.

Dacent Smith moved to the table, took up a sheet of paper, folded it,
and handed it to Captain X.

"Now," said he, "we will return to business."


At nine o'clock the following evening John found himself in a lady's
boudoir, a room heavy with the odour of Russian cigarettes.  The neat,
capped foreign maid who had ushered him into the apartment had removed
herself, closing the door softly behind her.

The room was not large, and every effort of a somewhat exotic taste had
been put forth to create an atmosphere of intimacy.  It was a room, as
it were, planned and arranged for secret meetings.  The carpet was
thick; a while polar bear rug extended itself from the hearth, and
beyond the hearth, running along the wall, was a divan covered in heavy
silk of Chinese blue.  A Chinese _kakemono_ of brilliant colours--red,
orange, azure, green, and gold--covered the wall behind the divan.  The
general air of the place was one that did not appeal to John in the
least.  He did not care a button about exotic boudoirs. Neither did he
care for Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, who to-night was wearing a Chinese
overgown as brilliant and sumptuous in hue as the _kakemono_ that
covered the wall.

She had been seated on the divan when John entered. She rose now and
came towards him, with the pink light softening the cold splendour of
her beauty.  There was no doubt about her beauty--John was prepared to
admit that even at this second meeting.

"You bad boy to be so late!" breathed Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, squeezing
his fingers in hers.  She drew him towards her.

The moment was a delicate one for Manton.  What Treves's relations had
been with this woman he could not guess.  But it was his business to
find out.  It was indeed his business to find out many things about her.
For months the Intelligence Department had held her in suspicion, but
Dacent Smith's most brilliant assistants had failed to make headway in
her case.  She was slippery as an eel--quick-witted, cunning, daring and
resourceful.  In that moment, as she drew John towards her, she
suspected a ruse.  But there was no ruse.  She looked up, her brilliant
eyes searching him.

"Have you nothing for me?" she whispered.

There was only one thing to do, only one safe course to take, and John
took it.  He, as it were, plunged, and risked the consequences.  He put
his arms about her shapely shoulders and pressed a kiss upon the
upturned lips.

"No, no!  I didn't tell you you could kiss me!"

"You said something very like it!" laughed John.

"You are a bad, daring boy."

"Faint heart never won anything worth having," returned John.

Mrs. Beecher Monmouth returned to her divan and disposed herself
comfortably.  "You bad Bernard, you must sit in that low chair at once,
and tell me all you have been doing lately!"

She lifted a cigarette case from a low, ivory-topped table.  John took
one, noticing that they were the excellent cigarettes Treves had been in
the habit of smoking.

"Tell me what you have been doing."

John mused, and the woman went on:

"Do you know, you looked rather handsome last night at the Savoy."  She
paused and became coyly and softly wistful.  "I dislike handsome boys;
they are so conceited as a rule."

"If I can keep her talking like this for a while," thought John, "I
shall not get into deep water!"

There was a silence, during which the lady luxuriantly smoked her
Russian cigarette.  Then she looked at John with her slow, low-lidded
smile.

"Talk," she commanded.

"I prefer to hear you talk," said John.  "Tell me what you have been
doing lately--to-day, for instance."

The lady pondered.

"Oh, to-day the Ogre gave a luncheon party."

John guessed that the Ogre was her unprepossessing husband.

"The Ogre gave a luncheon party, and among others we had Lady Rachel
Marlin, a delightful chatterbox. Her husband's in the Navy, you know.  I
could listen to her talk for hours."

"I don't doubt it," thought John.

"After tea," resumed she, "I went to my Red Cross work."

John was wary.  The fact that she did Red Cross work surprised him, but
possibly Treves had been aware of the fact, and it would be unsafe for
him to express his surprise.

There was silence for a moment until John hit on a safe question.

"Do you go to the same place?" he inquired.

"Oh, yes, the Officers' Hospital, you know.  They are such dear,
delightful fellows."

She told him no more about the Officers' Hospital, and he put another
question.

"What have you done this evening?"

"I have been boring myself to death until you came. And now you make
poor me talk and don't entertain me in the least!"

Suddenly she lifted her head.

"I hope you aren't in one of your moods?"

"Oh, no," said John, quickly.  "What makes you think that?"

She looked at him long and steadily.  He sustained her gaze; her
brilliant, hard beauty smote his consciousness again.

"Do you remember how awful you were at first, Bernard?"

"I suppose I was pretty awful," answered John, wondering what Treves had
done to earn himself that character.

Suddenly Mrs. Beecher Monmouth ceased her scrutiny and broke into a
laugh, a long tinkle of laughter that showed all her fine teeth.

"What a boy you are," she said.  "Do you remember that night when you
swore and tore about this room like a madman?"  She laughed again, as
though in memory of a scene that had been grotesquely ridiculous.
Somehow, in that moment John felt his instinctive dislike of her
intensify.  He saw her as an utterly cold-blooded traitor to her
country.  Only forty-eight hours earlier she had slipped into his hand
information that had been intended to doom a great ship to disaster. The
slip of paper that had so astoundingly come into his possession had in
itself constituted a vile blow at the safety of England.  And here was
the woman who had safely engineered that atrocity, who had acted as an
intermediary in Germany's pay.  And this same woman was smiling at him
in her Grosvenor Place boudoir, surrounded by all the luxuries of life,
the wife of a politician of some eminence, who had only recently been in
the running for an under-secretaryship.

The thought flashed into John's mind--was Beecher Monmouth, M.P., also a
traitor?  He did not know. But he was prepared to risk a good deal to
find out.

Once more he turned his attention to the woman before him.

"It was rather weak of me," he said, "to act the way I did."

"It was as good as a melodrama," replied she.  "You said you were
ruined, and swore you'd end everything! I forget whether it was to be
the river or in some less pleasant manner.  Called yourself a
traitor----"

"Traitor!" repeated John--he wanted to know more of this.

"Melodrama again," responded Mrs. Beecher Monmouth. "However, you calmed
yourself in the end. You became your own delightful, foolish self
again."

"Thanks," said John, and for the life of him he could not help saying
aloud, "and you were able to twist me round your pretty fingers!"

She looked at him with one of her quick looks.

"Now, that is delightful of you to say pretty things to me.  Do you
know," she continued, leaning towards him, "you have improved
immensely--you are quite changed!  Before you really came to us," she
adopted a note of seriousness, "you were really too dreadful for words.
You raved against the army, that had treated you so abominably, and yet
would not throw in your lot with us.  Oh, you were very difficult, _mon
ami_!"

"And now?" inquired John.

"Oh, now, you are quite another man."

"I'm glad you think that," said John aloud, and to himself he added, "my
clever lady, you never spoke a truer word in your iniquitous life."

"The change in you is so marked," went on Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, "that
Captain Cherriton actually doubted your loyalty to us.  He regarded your
escape from Scotland Yard authorities as so sudden."

"Ah," protested John, "but I was mistaken for another man."

"Of course, I know that, you silly boy!  But Cherriton could not rest
satisfied until he had discovered that there actually existed a person
called John Manton, and that you had really been mistaken for this
personage."

John made a mental note that in Cherriton he had an adversary of no mean
order.

"I hope," said he, "now that Captain Cherriton has discovered my story
to be true, he won't suspect me again."

"As for that," responded the lady, "he suspects his own shadow.  But you
are very high in favour just at the moment."

"His favour is worth having?" probed John.

"We shall discover that," said Mrs. Beecher Monmouth.  Her tone suddenly
became fervent, almost exalted.  "After the war there will be great
things for us all.  Now is the time to sow; then will be the time to
reap the harvest!"

The expression of her face had changed.  A dark, fierce light seemed to
illumine her features.

"We shall win yet!  We are winning now, but the end will be swift!"

"The end of some people," thought John, "will be devilishly swift!"  He
was thinking of Manners, of Cherriton, and of the lady before him.

"What do you think will happen?" he inquired.

"They will come here, of course," she retorted, suddenly standing erect
beside the divan and speaking with fiery and passionate intensity, "they
will come here--my people!"

"Your people?" interjected John, quickly.

"My people," droned she, with a lift of her head. "You didn't know that
before?  But you are one of us, and I can trust you now."

"But everybody thinks you are an American," observed John, recalling
what Dacent Smith had told him.

"Quite true--they do think that, and for convenience sake I am an
American--a rich American who married"--she lifted a scornful lip and
pointed towards the door--"who married the Ogre."

"Were you working for the--the cause when you married him?" inquired
John.

But the sudden flame that had animated her appeared to die away; she
became once more her beautiful exotic self.

"I have worked for the cause since----" she stopped.

She, as it were, returned to earth.

"Bernard," she said, when she had smoked a few minutes in silence, "I
have something to show you."

She rose, crossed the room, and unlocked a buhl cabinet.  A moment later
she returned to John, and handed him an envelope.  Within was a closely
written letter beginning: "Dearest Alice."

As John glanced at the writing Mrs. Beecher Monmouth came behind him,
and laid her manicured finger-nail on the bottom four lines of the first
sheet.

"That is all you need read," she said.

The four lines at which she pointed ran:

"If you think Treves has the courage for the task I will take your word
for it--he shall be the man!"




                               CHAPTER X


John looked up quickly.

"Is this from Captain Cherriton?" he asked.

Mrs. Beecher Monmouth shook her head.

"From a far greater one than he," she answered slowly.

John pricked up his ears, then flashed a glance at the contents of the
letter.  But Mrs. Beecher Monmouth was very quick; he caught only the
words, "secret session," and "ready by the twenty-eighth," when Mrs.
Monmouth dexterously laid her white hand over the writing and drew it
from his fingers.  She folded it and placed it carefully in the bosom of
her dress.  She wore evening dress beneath her gorgeous Japanese rest
gown, and John noticed the coquetry with which she concealed the letter
from his view.  He was young enough to be affected by her beauty, and
was yet old enough to suspect she was playing a part--was, in fact,
seeking to entangle him for the benefit of the cause.  He put her down
in that moment as a passionate, unscrupulous, dangerous woman, to whom
adventure was the very breath of life.  Moreover, he doubted her
statement that she was German.  She was certainly not his idea of a
woman of Teutonic nationality.

Her arm that had been resting upon his shoulder still remained there.
The lady's handsome face was very close to his; he could see deep into
her smiling eyes, and was not comfortable under the closeness of her
scrutiny.  His resemblance to Bernard Treves was striking, but it was
not perfect enough, he feared, to deceive the watchfulness of a woman
who had evidently been closely intimate with that young man.  He
endeavoured to break the intensity of her gaze by leading her back to
her chair.

"Well," she whispered tenderly, "have you nothing to say to me?"

"There are a thousand things I would like to say," returned John,
promptly.  "Let me light you a cigarette."  He struck a match and placed
one of her buff-coloured Russian cigarettes in her fingers.  As he held
the light, Mrs. Beecher Monmouth spoke on a new note of seriousness.

"Bernard, I have been kindness itself to you."

John assured her that she had.

"When the others doubted you I clung to my belief in you."

"You have been wonderful!" said John.

"You are changed, Bernard."

"That's impossible," answered John, "where you are concerned."  He again
experienced the sensation--a common one with him these days--that he
walked upon the edge of a precipice.

"I have shown my confidence in you."

"You mean," proceeded John, "you have spoken up for me to the great
personage who wrote the letter."

"Yes.  Are you grateful?" inquired she, looking at him quizzically.  She
had disposed herself upon the divan in a graceful, languid poise.

"I am more than grateful," said John.  "But, tell me, who is this great
personage?"

The lady's laughter sounded musically in the little pink lighted room.

"Oh, my dear Bernard," she protested; "that comes much later."

"I suppose," John said, feeling that a bold plunge was worth while, "the
personage is the head of the German secret agents in England?"

"What makes you think that?"

"My dear Alice, you would not stand in such awe of anyone less important
than that."  For some minutes--since the time he had caught sight of the
letter, in fact--he had resolved to call her "Alice" at the earliest
opportunity.  He was playing a part.  He had taken up another man's love
affair at an unknown state of development--a dangerous thing to do.
However, the duel between them, he believed, was to his advantage. Mrs.
Beecher Monmouth had made a false step.  She had already revealed to him
the existence of a high secret power--a power far above and beyond
Cherriton and Manwitz.

"Alice," he said, suddenly, drawing his chair a little nearer and laying
a hand on her arm, "tell me who is the Great Unknown?"

"Patience, patience, Bernard.  You will hear, all in good time."  She
lifted his hand from her arm and pushed him gently away.  At the same
moment there came a low knock at the door.  A discreet pause followed
before Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's foreign maid, in cap and white apron,
entered.

"The master's returned, ma'am."

The girl spoke in a low tone, intended for her mistress's ear alone, and
immediately went out, closing the door behind her.

"Sit over there," commanded Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, waving John towards a
chair at the hearth. "Sit over there, and be very good."

John moved to the hearth.  He wondered if Bernard Treves had known the
Ogre, or if an introduction was to take place.  The awkwardness of the
situation was solved for him a moment later, when the door behind him
opened.  In a slender strip of mirror on the opposite wall John saw the
reflected figure of Beecher Monmouth, M.P.  The pink light softened a
little the bilious yellow of his skin.  But he was still an
unprepossessing object, with his bald head, his long, pointed nose, and
his thin-lipped mouth.

Mrs. Monmouth rose as her husband entered, and went towards him with
hands outstretched.

"William, darling," she exclaimed, "how nice of you to come home so
early.  I must introduce you to Mr. Treves."

John rose and bowed.  Beecher Monmouth put a large bony hand in his.  He
had just returned from the House of Commons, and looked weary and old;
he looked every one of his sixty-four years.  John wondered whether he
ought to stay or not, but Mrs. Beecher Monmouth solved the situation by
holding out her hand.

"You must come and see me again, Mr. Treves."  Her tone was almost
motherly.  He shook hands with her, and saw her move towards her husband
and slip her arm through his.

Husband and wife were standing together as the maid conducted John
downstairs.

"What a monument of treachery and deceit she is," thought John, as he
stepped out into the starlit night.

In the meantime Mrs. Beecher Monmouth had pressed her ungainly husband
into a deep arm-chair, had commanded that whisky and soda should be
brought, and was already holding the match that lit his cigar.  Beecher
Monmouth watched her with admiration in his tired eyes. He was prepared
to sell his soul for her, and was never weary of telling her that he was
the luckiest man in the world to have won her love.

"And what did my William do to-night?" she inquired, softly, when the
whisky and soda had been placed at his side, and he had helped himself
to a somewhat liberal dose.

"A most boring evening," said Beecher Monmouth. "Irish question!"

"And you saw no one interesting?" asked she.

"I saw Brackston Neeve in the lobby," answered her husband.  "There is
some talk of a military expedition to ----.  I don't know whether it
will come off or not. The Cabinet, I believe, discussed it yesterday."

"What did Brackston Neeve say?"

Beecher Monmouth took a sip of whisky.

"Why should I bore you with stupid politics?"

"They aren't stupid to me," she said.  "You know every tiny bit of your
political life interests me intensely."  She settled herself in a low
chair beside him.  "Now you must tell me everything Brackston Neeve
said.  He is in the confidence of the Cabinet, is he not?"

Her husband nodded.

"He has the confidence of several members of the Cabinet."

"Tell me everything, William...."

Half an hour later, when Monmouth had finished his cigar and whisky, he
rose wearily, kissed her, and went to his room.  Mrs. Beecher Monmouth
waited until he was safely out of the way, then, going to the telephone
on the buhl writing-desk, rang up a number.

"Is that Doctor Voules?" she inquired.

At the other end of the telephone a deep voice answered in the
affirmative.

"May I call upon you at eleven o'clock to-morrow?" inquired Mrs.
Monmouth.

"Is it important?" asked the voice.

Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, in the solitude of her room, smiled slightly.

"I shall leave you to judge of that," she replied.

"Very good," answered the voice.  "I shall expect you at eleven
precisely."

On the following morning Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, quietly, but
expensively, dressed, presented herself at the hotel bureau.

Three minutes later the lift door closed upon her and she was wafted
swiftly upward to the third floor.  A page boy conducted her along a
corridor, opened a door, and departed.

The apartment into which she had been shown overlooked the Haymarket.
Decorations of white and gold caught Mrs. Monmouth's vision.  Seated at
a desk from whence he could look down upon the busy life of the street
below was a broad-shouldered, elderly man, who laid down his pen as his
visitor entered.

Mrs. Beecher Monmouth hurried towards him.

"It is so good of you to see me, doctor," she exclaimed, effusively.

"Oh, not at all.  I am charmed to see you," he answered.  He moved a
little farther into the room, so that prying eyes from the building
opposite could not observe him; then, with an air of great gallantry, he
bent over Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's hand and laid his lips upon it.

"You will sit down and tell me your news," said the doctor.

Mrs. Monmouth accepted the offered chair.

Doctor "Voules" was of middle height, sturdily, but not heavily, built.
He carried himself well, holding his head high and looking squarely and
masterfully before him.  His head was round, his strong, heavy-jawed
face was clean shaven, and his wide mouth drooped at the corners.  Both
physically and intellectually the doctor was a formidable figure, but
the harshness of his countenance was belied by a surface air of
politeness--a politeness which appeared to be assumed, and which sat ill
upon him.  His air, despite his efforts of concealment, was one of lofty
authority.

"You will tell me your important news," he said quietly.

"I don't know that it is important," admitted Mrs. Monmouth, "but my
husband heard accidentally in the House of Commons last night that there
is talk of an expedition to ----."

Voules's eyebrows moved very slightly.

"I shall be grateful to know everything your husband heard."

Then Mrs. Beecher Monmouth told him exactly, word for word, all she had
managed to worm from her husband.

"He considers, then," inquired Voules, "that the expedition is to become
an accomplished fact?"

Mrs. Beecher Monmouth nodded.

"Did your husband learn anything else in regard to this most interesting
little adventure?"

Mrs. Monmouth shook her head.

"Ah," exclaimed Voules, "it would be most useful to us if you could
learn the name of the officer who is in command of the expedition.  You
will keep that in mind?"

Mrs. Beecher Monmouth assured him upon that point.

"Now, in regard to your protege, Mr. Treves," observed the doctor.
"This young man, I understand, is very well connected, and is the son of
Colonel Treves?"

Mrs. Monmouth nodded.

"My information is that his disappearance from the British Army was
somewhat rapid, and that fact, together with his propensity for drugs,
gradually brought him into our service.  I should like to see him," went
on the doctor, "to judge for myself; but in the meantime I can make much
use of him.  I shall take you at your word and give him important duties
to perform."

"Thank you," observed Mrs. Monmouth.  "That is extremely kind of you,
doctor."

Voules, who had seated himself, rose now and held out his hand.

"My compliments to you upon your excellent work."

Two minutes later, with much politeness, he accompanied her out of the
room, along the corridor, and saw her into the lift.

When he returned to his own room, he opened the door of an inner
apartment and summoned a thin young man, wearing tortoise-shell-rimmed
spectacles.  The young man was clean shaven and was possessed of a
somewhat small and receding chin, which gave him a foolish aspect.  He
was not foolish in the least, however; he was, on the contrary,
extremely fox-like and alert. The doctor's politeness vanished as he
confronted the young man.

"Baumer," he commanded, "come into the other room, please."  He crossed
to his desk near the window overlooking the street, and seated himself.
The young man entered and stood at his side, awaiting instructions. "You
will make a note," said the doctor, "that a Mr. Bernard Treves is to
come to my house to-day week."

"Very good, Excellenz," answered the young man deferentially.  He began
to write a note in pencil on a small writing block he had produced.

"You will also," went on the doctor, "inform Hauptman Rathenau that I
wish to see Mr. Treves's dossier again."

"Yes, Excellenz; but if I might be permitted to suggest so much,
Lieutenant Treves, whose family is well known, would be a safer person
to use for purposes of association with the officers at Fort
Heatherpoint."

"But our excellent Cherriton was educated at Oxford," said the elder
man.  "He is to all outward seeming an Englishman."

"Nevertheless, Excellenz," Baumer insisted, "I feel we should be safer
to employ an Englishman.  There is much freemasonry among the English,
and there is always danger, Excellenz, that some one who knew the real
Captain Cherriton may meet Herr Rathenau."

"But Heatherpoint," said Voules, "is one of our key positions.  You
forget that, Baumer."

"No, Excellenz, I remember it perfectly."

His superior was silent for a moment, then said, quietly, "I have
decided that Cherriton shall do this work; he has greater experience.
This time our movements must be all perfect.  Our staff work here,
Baumer, must be even superior to the staff work in France.  We must in
no degree underrate our enemies."  He was silent a moment, pondering the
great scheme that had grown in his brain months earlier--the scheme that
was to strike a blow at the very heart of England.  His orders were to
restore new confidence throughout Germany in the failing U-boat
campaign.  Minutely, piece by piece, he had worked out his daring and
masterful plan.  The success of his country in discovering the sailing
of British ships; the strength and equipment of our distant expeditions;
the amount of munitions and arms being manufactured--these things were
in the daily routine of espionage.  But General von Kuhne was no
believer in defensive operations.  He, like his friend Bernhardi, was a
disciple of Clausewitz--a believer in offensive warfare.  To strike, to
strike hard and unerringly, after minute preparation, was his ideal of
strategy.  Already, for many weeks, he had been placing his pawns ready
for the great coup.  Cunningly and with infinite patience he had
prepared for the great blow that was intended to send a shudder through
the British Isles.




                               CHAPTER XI


The little clock on Dacent Smith's mantelshelf chimed the hour of seven.

"I am as empty as a drum," exclaimed Captain X. His slender figure
occupied one of the Chief's deep armchairs.  He was smoking one of
Smith's cigarettes, and his handsome face and audacious-looking eyes
were upturned as he watched the smoke ascend.  "How long have we been
here, Treves?" he inquired.

"Three hours," answered John.  He too occupied one of Dacent Smith's
deep chairs and smoked his Chief's cigarettes.

"What about asking old Grew if he knows anything," continued Captain
X----.  He leaned over and pressed his thumb upon the electric bell
push.  Almost immediately, and quite noiselessly, the door opened and
Dacent Smith's big-boned manservant came into the room.

"Look here, Grew," said the Captain, twisting his head to get a view of
the tall servant.  "When do you think the War Council will break up?"

"I couldn't say, sir," answered Grew, looking at him with a wooden
expression.

"You mean if you could, you wouldn't," returned the Captain.  "But I
would like to tell you, Grew, that both of us are most devilish hungry.
Can you tell us anything about food?"

"I have orders to serve dinner at 7.30," answered Grew.

For three hours John and his companion, acting upon orders, had been
waiting in Dacent Smith's room.  The Chief had been called suddenly to a
meeting of the War Council, and had not returned.

"I expect there are big things afoot," observed John, glancing at the
other.

"It's a bit unusual," answered the Captain, "for him to stay so long.
Perhaps he has ferreted out something new, and is communicating what he
knows to the mighty ones."

He suddenly turned and looked close at John.

"How do you like our sort of work, Treves?"

"There is nothing to beat it," John answered.  "My only trouble is that
I am apt to lose my temper. Somehow I cannot stomach spies, but traitors
always make me see red."

The Captain looked at him with smiling eyes.

"Mrs. Beecher Monmouth.  The Chief would never trust me there.  She is
too beautiful by far, eh, Treves?"

John agreed that Mrs. Monmouth's beauty was undeniable.

"In my opinion," went on John's companion, "the Department ought to put
her out of harm's way.  But the Chief knows better.  He has ordered
supervision of all the letters she posts, and she posts a good many."

The door opened at that moment and Dacent Smith himself came hurriedly
in.  He apologised politely for his absence.  The fact that he was head
of a great department, that he was indeed a great man, never weighed
with him in regard to his subordinates.  Socially he treated them all as
his equals; only in matters of discipline was he superior.  He laughed
as he looked at his depleted cigarette-box, and then seated himself at
his desk.

With a brisk movement he switched on the light.

"I have had three hours of the War Council," he said, speaking to both
Treves and the Captain.  "Now, Treves, what is the news?"

John told him that Mrs. Beecher Monmouth was in communication with a
person whose name was unknown to him; this person was evidently of great
importance to the German secret service, and was considering the
employment of John in a great undertaking.

"Who is the great unknown?" inquired Dacent Smith.

"I don't know, sir," John admitted.

The elder man tightened his lips.

"Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's acquaintances are becoming increasingly
interesting to us, eh, Treves?"

"I believe so, sir," said John.

"We have been a little late in supervising her letters," said Dacent
Smith, looking across at Captain X.  "However," he said suddenly,
turning the conversation, "that is a matter outside Treves's duties.  I
have other and more important work for both of you.  This afternoon," he
went on, "I have submitted a number of reports to the War Council,
showing that certain of our defences are in a sensitive condition.
Something is occurring, and news is leaking out at a serious rate."  He
was speaking particularly to John.  But it was evident that he wished
Captain X. to listen to the conversation.  "There is a leakage of news
from certain fortified zones on the South Coast.  In the case of some of
the lesser forts it matters not a brass farthing what the enemy
discovers, but at other places--well," he continued, "it has been
decided this afternoon that a department is to direct its special
attention to the South Coast.  Both of you gentlemen will resume uniform
almost at once.  You will like that, eh, Treves?"

"Very much indeed, sir."

"The War Council," went on Dacent Smith, "was inclined to treat my fears
a little lightly, but I am sure I am right.  There are secret operations
preparing against us on the South Coast, which are of a greater
magnitude than anything that has yet been attempted by German espionage.
I want you"--he suddenly rose and took John's hand in his--"I want you,
Treves, to put everything into this--all your shrewdness and all your
tact. You will need every quality of nerve and mind in the work I am
going to entrust to you.  And believe me," he said, lowering his voice a
little, "matters are very serious indeed.  We are out against a secret
enemy, who has of late increased his power amazingly.  There is some
one--a new power--directing German espionage in this country, which is a
real menace to us.  Up to now we have done very well, but at present, I
will quite frankly admit to you, our position is delicate in the
extreme.  I dislike preaching," he concluded in a lighter tone, "but I
think you know what I mean."

John, who had gripped his hand cordially, answered simply, "Yes, sir; I
think I appreciate the danger."

The clock on the little mantelshelf chimed the half-hour. Grew knocked
at the door.

"Dinner's ready," exclaimed Dacent Smith.  "Come this way, and I'll show
you how a miserable old bachelor lives."




                              CHAPTER XII


On the Saturday following John's first experience of his Chief's
excellent bachelor cuisine, two men sat in a little, barely furnished
room, four hundred feet above the sea. There was no view from the single
window of the little apartment, the one-story building of which it
formed a part was deeply embedded and concealed between high
grass-covered mounds.  Both men were beyond middle age, one of them, in
fact, wearing the gold stripes of a naval commander, was over sixty
years of age, a trim-bearded, well-preserved officer, drawn for war
service from the reserve.

Lieutenant-Commander Grieves was chief naval officer attached to the
fort.  His companion, Colonel Hobin, was ten years his junior--a sharp,
nervous, over-strung little man.  Hobin held the reputation of a
first-class officer; he knew every yard of Heatherpoint Fort, which was
his present charge.  His big guns were as children to him, and in regard
to his subordinates he was a strict disciplinarian, with a reputation
for fairness both to officers and to men.

At the present moment he was consuming marmalade, which he took from its
jar with a dessert-spoon and spread on thick bread and butter.  There
were none of the refinements of home in the mess-room at Heatherpoint. A
tablecloth existed, and a limited number of knives, forks, and spoons.
The chef of the fort was a gloomy looking individual who had joined up
at Liverpool and plain and good was his motto.

"I don't like it," exclaimed Hobin, suddenly.  He was pouring the
Commander another cup of black-looking tea. "I don't like the look of
things at all."

"Nor do I," said the Commander, "but the responsibility is yours, and I
think you did well to communicate with the powers that be."

"The powers that be will do nothing," complained Colonel Hobin; "they
never do."

"If things are wrong at all," said the old naval lieutenant, "somebody
in the fort's wrong, for I'll bet my hat nobody can get in and out
without us knowing it."

"That's what is really troubling me," said the Colonel, the frown
deepening on his brow.  "It's damnable, Grieves, to think that we are
being outwitted.  I have turned every man in the fort inside out, and
they all seem to me honest as the day."

"Wasn't one of the men in the lower fort reported to have a foreign
accent?"

"He was," answered the Colonel, with a bitter laugh, "and I had him up
and put him through a third degree examination, with the result that his
accent turned out to be nothing more dangerous than an Irish brogue.
He's as loyal as I am, and when I mentioned the fact of the signal book
I believe if I hadn't been in uniform he would have hit me."

"If we were one of those tin-pot forts over there," returned the
Lieutenant-Commander, jerking his thumb contemptuously in a certain
direction, "I wouldn't mind, but we really count in the defences."

"We are the heart of this system of defence," returned Hobin tartly,
"and yet we go and lose a signal book. If it was only that," he went on,
"I might have thought there was carelessness in it, but there are other
things, queer things, Grieves, that I cannot formulate into words even
to you.  I put it all before the authorities.  Whiston listened as
politely as he always does, and said he'd speak to the Intelligence
Department about it, but nothing will be done."

"They'll have to do something."

"They won't," said Hobin.  Colonel Hobin was constitutionally inclined
to pessimism, despite his ability. "They won't," he said.  And at that
moment the door opened, and a young lieutenant, who had that day joined
the battery, entered the room.

"Good evening, sir," said the young man to Colonel Hobin.

Hobin nodded grumpily.  The young man drew out a chair, seated himself,
and reached for the bread and butter.  Hobin, from the head of the
table, handled the teapot.

"Weak or strong?" he demanded of the new-comer.

"Weak," answered John Manton, who had been at Heatherpoint a matter of
four hours, and was taking his first meal in the fort.

The Lieutenant-Commander pushed the marmalade pot towards him, and John
began to spread it upon his bread and butter, not quite so thickly as
his Colonel had spread it a minute or two before.

Everything was in order in regard to John's presence at Heatherpoint.
Dacent Smith had arranged the whole matter, and for the first time in
his life John Manton, who had once before been on the way to an
officer's uniform, found himself of commissioned rank.

And for once, Colonel Hobin was mistaken in thinking that the War Office
and Intelligence Department had left him entirely neglected.

"Well, how do you like Heatherpoint, Mr. Treves?" inquired the old
Lieutenant-Commander genially.

"So far as I have got," answered John, "I am delighted with the chance
to be here."  He spoke truthfully.

"When you've had six months of it, and been through the winter," said
the Colonel grimly, "with your wind-gauge showing seventy miles an hour
for weeks on end, and the lighthouse siren never stopping booming, I am
afraid you won't be in quite the same cheerful mood."

"I am cheerful by nature, sir," said the young man, tucking into the
marmalade.  He ate heartily, and by the time he had finished the Colonel
was smoking a cigar.

Lieutenant-Commander Grieves filled his pipe, lit it, and, with a nod at
the Colonel, sauntered out to his quarters.  For the first time John was
alone with Hobin. For some minutes there was silence, then the Colonel
spoke.

"You will take the leave book to-night, Treves.  Ask Parkson about it."

"Very good, sir," John answered.

"You can go now, if you like," said the Colonel.  "Get Parkson to show
you the run of the place before parade in the morning."

At this point John rose mysteriously, opened the door into the corridor
and looked out.  Then, to the Colonel's surprise, he closed it again,
and came quietly back into the room.  From the inner pocket of his coat
he took a long, narrow, yellow envelope, which he handed to Hobin.

"What's this?" demanded the Colonel.  He tore open the envelope and
began to read with furrowed brows.

When Colonel Hobin had perused the official-looking letter a second and
a third time, his brow cleared; he lifted his eyes and looked at John
with a new and keen interest.

"So you are from the Intelligence Department?"

"Yes, sir."

"I had no idea of that."

"My transfer was effected as quietly as possible, sir, with a view to
arousing no suspicion.  The letter is merely my credentials from General
Whiston."

The Colonel nodded.

"Judging from this," said the Colonel, "General Whiston has an extremely
high opinion of your gifts."

John tried to look as modest as possible.

"I am a great believer in luck, sir," he said, "and up to now I have had
plenty of it."  He was thinking of the saving of the _Imperator_, which
had brought him so many laurels from Dacent Smith.

"I hope you'll bring luck to me," said the Colonel. "I can promise you I
need it."  He was delighted that the powers that be had really sent
help, despite his disbelief in them.  His eyes were still upon John.  He
liked the young man's frank expression, his cheerful and easy manners
and the bold poise of his head.

"A good-looking, heftily-built youngster," thought he.  "I only hope he
is as shrewd as he looks active."

"Now, I suppose," he said aloud, "you want me to tell you all the
trouble?"

"I should like to hear of anything, sir, that has aroused your
suspicions," said John.

"That's a tall order," answered Hobin.  "Everything has aroused my
suspicions, and yet, if I put it into words, it may look like nothing to
you.  Have you ever had the sensation, Treves," he said, "that things
were going wrong around you, and yet you could not lay your finger on a
thing that is definitely wrong?"

"I have felt that way sometimes," admitted John.

"That's the way I feel now," returned the Colonel. Then, quite briefly,
he gave John particulars of the loss of a signal book, which, however,
might have been due to carelessness.  Other things he told John were
also mere surmises and sensations.  "I must explain," he said, "that
this fort, and Scoles Head opposite, are key positions in our South
Coast defences.  If we were incapacitated, the enemy would sneak in to
---- and wreak the devil knows what damage.  Given a big enough
concentration of submarines, he could probably get fifty to a hundred
ships----"

"It's hardly likely," John answered, "that he will ever be able to sneak
in."

Hobin was silent for a minute, looking John over carefully.

"Would it surprise you to hear that we have already been incapacitated?"
demanded the Colonel suddenly.

He thrust out his chin truculently as though challenging John to doubt
him.

"How was that, sir?"

"For an hour one morning last week the whole eastern side of Upper Fort
was out of action.  I've been a gunner for thirty years, Treves, and
until now such a thing has never occurred in my experience."

"Could it have been an accident, sir?"

"In normal times," answered the Colonel, impressively, "I would have
said yes; now I say, no!  Three of the guns, numbers one, six and eight,
in this battery"--he jerked his head towards the south--"went wrong
suddenly.  A cleaning squad was at work on number one, and discovered
that the gun could not be handled at all. It was just after daylight in
the morning.  You know how perfectly these six- and nine-inch guns are
swung?"

John nodded.

"A child can swing them like a toy cannon.  My own boy's often done it,"
went on the Colonel.  "Well, on this particular morning the guns would
not elevate. Just lay inert, like dead masses of metal.  Everything was
in order, both in the gun-chamber and engine house. But the guns
wouldn't budge, and for an hour this whole upper fort was out of action.
If the enemy had tried to rush us at that time, we could have done
nothing!  I was not quite so jumpy as now.  Not quite so many things had
happened to arouse my suspicions, and I blamed Ewins."

"Who is Ewins, sir?"

"Our chief gunner."

"Did Ewins discover what was wrong?" John asked.

"Neither Ewins nor any of us," answered the Colonel. "What happened is a
mystery to us all.  Ewins was in bed when the thing occurred, and,
knowing how jealous he is of his gun, one of the cleaning squad called
him. He came out of his hut half dressed.  I hear from Parkson that he
was in a blind rage, and felt his gun all over, as a mother may feel for
a bruise on her baby; but he could make nothing of it."

"I'd rather like to see Ewins," said John, "if it can be managed."

"He is on duty now," responded the Colonel.  "Come along and make his
acquaintance.  But, for Heaven's sake, don't run away with any idea that
Ewins is a wrong 'un.  Ewins is the best gunner on the South Coast, one
of the old rule of thumb school.  He knows nothing of trajectories or
curves, and hardly ever looks at the wind gauge.  But he has made
ninety-eight per cent. at a submarine target doing nine knots."

"What was the range, sir?"

The Colonel told him, and John opened his eyes in surprise.

"Come along," said Hobin.

Together they left the mess-room, crossed a narrow, asphalted pavement,
ascended a short ladder and came upon a gorgeous view of the ocean and
the blue waters of the Solent.  Beyond, to the right, lay England, an
irregular coast-line, with swelling hills, green in the foreground and
blue in the distance.  In the middle of the picture, to the right, rose
the tall tower of Ponsonby Lighthouse.  The tower gleamed white in the
bright sunshine.  Colonel Hobin led the way along the edge of a
grass-covered cliff, and presently, below him, John observed the long
muzzle of a six-inch gun camouflaged scarlet, blue and green.

"That's Ewins's special gun," explained the Colonel. "You'll see he has
the place of honour."

The green cliff-top sloped stiffly here, and beneath him John could see
the big, circular iron gun platform, and below it the ladder leading
into the gun chamber. On a parapet beyond the gun, and on the very edge
of the cliff, a sentry paced back and forth, his outline picked out
sharply against the blue of the sea that murmured faintly four hundred
feet below.  At the open breach of the gun itself another soldier was at
work, a man who was long and thin, and a little grey at the temples.  He
was delicately wiping certain shining parts of the weapon with an oiled
rag.  As the Colonel's feet, followed by John, smote the iron platform,
the soldier drew himself erect and stood at attention.

"This is Ewins," said the Colonel to John.  John greeted Ewins with a
friendly smile.  Until that moment he had doubted him.  Only a few days
earlier he had met one traitor in Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, and as he and
the Colonel approached the gun platform he had been wondering if in
Ewins he was to meet a second.

Ewins was thin-faced, with a weather-reddened skin and clear, brown
eyes.  He was a man in the late forties, a typical old soldier.  John,
looking at him, wondered if it was possible that he could have been
corrupted, but somehow he found it difficult to suspect the man.

Colonel Hobin made an excuse and left the two together.

"You are in a grand position here, Ewins," said John.

"Fine, sir," answered the soldier.  His accent was British through and
through.  John gave him permission to carry on, and Ewins closed his
breech with a heavy click.

"The Colonel has been speaking very highly of your gunnery."

Ewins looked up quickly, with an expression of pleasure in his eyes.

"Has he, sir?"  He paused a moment and hesitated. "It makes a great
difference being under him, sir; he sort of brings it out, if you know
what I mean; puts you on your mettle."

John made a mental note of his admiration for the Colonel.

"I heard about your trouble last week, Ewins."

"You mean Tuesday morning, sir?"

"Yes," John answered.  "What was the trouble after all?"

Ewins looked perplexed.

"It beats me fairly, sir.  There was nothing wrong when they called
me--that is, there was nothing wrong after I'd been here a minute or
two.  You know how she works, sir."  As he spoke he almost with a finger
raised the great muzzle of his weapon, then made a neat sweep to right
and left.  "Well, she just lay here like a dead thing."

"I suppose the explanation would be simple enough if we only knew it,"
answered John.

Ewins shook his head.

"I don't like it, sir.  I was pretty wild that morning, thinking some of
these young recruits had been messing about, but the same thing had
happened to number six and eight."  He pointed to a lower platform,
beyond where the sentry was passing.  "They went wrong that same
morning," he continued.

"And got right again in the same mysterious way?" inquired John.

"Yes, sir."

"You don't think any of your cleaning squad had a hand in it?" inquired
John.

"No, sir; I talked pretty straight to them, but it wasn't them."

"Perhaps you have an enemy in the fort, Ewins?"

The old soldier smiled.

"I don't know about that, sir," he said; "but everybody seems pretty
friendly with me.  I have been here a long time, sir."

"So I hear," said John.

"I don't think anybody in the fort, sir," Ewins went on, "would do a
dirty trick on me like that.  You see, sir," he said, in a voice of
intense seriousness, "it put us out of Action."

John was silent for a moment.  For the first time the full gravity of
what had happened struck his consciousness.

"I'll swear it wasn't an accident," continued Ewins, emphatically.  "Old
'Crumbs' said it was; but he don't know anything about guns."

"Who's 'Crumbs'?"

"I beg pardon, sir; I meant Private Sims, the baker."

"He said it was an accident?" pursued John.

"Yes, sir.  I lost my temper that morning, and when I come here and
found how things were, I gave one of the squad a bit of a push."

"Was 'Crumbs' one of the squad?"

"Oh, no, sir; he come in to bring me a lump of cake." Ewins looked
sheepish a moment.  "You see, sir, I am partial to cake, and he
generally hands me a bit at odd times.  He was in the gun chamber when I
got here, sir, looking for me, with a bit of cake in his hand."

"But it was five o'clock in the morning!"

"It was new cake," said Ewins; "he'd just baked it."

"But you weren't supposed to be on duty."

"No, sir," answered Ewins.

"Wouldn't 'Crumbs'--Private Sims--know you were off duty?" probed John.

Ewins smiled again.

"He don't know much about soldiering, sir; they never do."

John had further talk with the chief gunner, which talk grew more and
more technical as Ewins noticed John's interest in his work.  But after
a good many questions it still seemed to John that "Crumbs" walking
about with cake at five o'clock in the morning showed an excessive
benevolence.  He felt he wanted to make the acquaintance of "Crumbs."
And before going back to the Colonel in the mess-room, he looked in at
the bake-house, a single-storied building next to the kitchen.

"Crumbs" was in a white apron and a white cap when John entered and
found him at work.  The bake-house was dark, the air warm and fragrant
with a scent of freshly-baked loaves.  "Crumbs," with flour on his
eyelashes, and a heavy, drooping moustache, also powdered with flour,
turned as John entered.  In his hands he held a big iron tray of
newly-baked loaves.  John introduced himself.  He felt that every step
he made must be made with infinite caution.

"You've got a fine bakehouse here, Sims."

"Yes, sir; not so bad."

"I hear you are a master hand at cake making."

"Well, not exactly," deprecated "Crumbs."  "I can hardly say that."  He
placed his tray of bread on the table.

"Sergeant Ewins tells me he's very fond of cake," went on John.

"Crumbs's" eyes moved quickly.  The momentary, fleeting glance he cast
at John was unobserved.

"The sergeant has a sweet tooth, sir."

"So have I," answered John, with a smile.  "Perhaps you will make a note
of that, Sims."

Sims smiled.  John noticed that his complexion was sallow, that he was a
loosely built, shambling man of forty.  There was nothing in the least
suspicious about him.  No trace, so far as John could gather, of a
foreign accent.  He went out of the bakehouse in a dissatisfied frame of
mind.

The mystery of the guns was still a mystery.

                     *      *      *      *      *

Next morning, at parade, John ran his eye along the men of the battery
until it rested upon "Crumbs."  The man, with his sallow complexion and
glassy eyes, struck him as looking vacant and somewhat foolish.

"You are either that, my friend," thought John, "or most devilish
cunning.  I wonder which it is?"

He made it his business during that day, and the days which followed, to
acquaint himself with every member of the battery.  Nothing, however,
occurred to arouse his suspicion or to give him the slightest clue to
the untoward things that had happened.  He wrote a letter to Dacent
Smith reporting matters, and on the afternoon of the third day he
decided to go into Newport for an afternoon's recreation.  Colonel Hobin
granted him leave instantly--and then John changed his mind, and decided
not to go.  He had no reason for staying in the fort, other than that he
wanted to be on the spot as much as possible.  He took a book from the
badly-equipped fort library, and went to his room.  Here he flung
himself on the bed, and read for an hour or two.  Save for the
never-ending moan of the wind and the grind of the wind-gauge, the fort
buildings were very quiet.  Colonel Hobin, Parkson, and another officer
were on duty, a subaltern was on leave, and in the four bedrooms that
ran along the corridor John was the only occupant.  He was lying, deeply
absorbed in his book, when something made him turn his gaze towards the
door.  To his amazement, he saw the latch lift without noise.  A moment
later the door moved cautiously open, and "Crumbs," in white cap and
apron, came softly in.  For a minute the intruder did not see John.

"Well, Sims, what is it?"

"Crumbs's" mouth clicked shut.  The start he had received caused his
head to jerk.

"What do you want, Sims?"

"Crumbs" smiled under his black, flour-speckled moustache.

"It was the cake, sir," he said.  "You told me you were fond of cake,
sir, and I just put a cake in the mess-room for you."

John rose from the bed.

"Is there nothing else you want?"

"No, sir, thank you," answered "Crumbs," moving towards the door.  John
noticed, as he went, that his nose had been flattened at the bridge, as
though at some time or other a heavy blow had fallen upon it.

"I only wondered," John went on, "why you came into my room."

"Merely to tell you about the cake, sir."

He went out, closing the door quietly behind him. When the door was shut
between himself and John, he drew himself suddenly erect, and listened
for a moment, then moved quickly away down the passage.




                              CHAPTER XIII


"'Crumbs' is the man," thought John the moment he opened his eyes next
morning.  During the night he had been awake for hours pondering the
situation, and this was the decision he had arrived at.  He decided,
however, to say nothing of his suspicions to Hobin or to anyone else
until "Crumbs" had further committed himself. Possibly, after all, he
was mistaken; only time could tell.  The first thing he did, however,
when breakfast was at an end, was to write a note to Dacent Smith,
asking that Private Sims's history might be discreetly inquired into.

"I think Private Sims is not quite what he seems," said John, concluding
his letter.  Nevertheless, if "Crumbs" was the suspicious character John
believed him to be, he possessed an extraordinary talent for hiding his
guilt.

John had pursued his investigations with such closeness during the past
days, he now felt that the time had come when he might reasonably seek a
certain amount of relaxation.

Therefore the morning of the tenth day saw him briskly descending the
long steps cut in the face of the cliff to the lower fort.  Here,
immediately beyond the fort gates, a hired car awaited him.  Manton
stepped into the car after answering the challenge of the sentry, and
drove down the long, winding road.  A second sentry challenged him at
the foot of the fort road, and thereafter the car bowled merrily along
until it reached the gates of Colonel Treves's house at Freshwater.

John was wondering what he should say to the old gentleman.  During the
past weeks nothing had created a deeper impression on his mind than the
pathetic figure of Bernard Treves's father.  The old man, the soul of
honour, cursed with a worthless son, appealed intensely to the
sympathetic side of John's nature.  John had learnt something of Bernard
Treves's recent life from Dacent Smith.  Following the discovery that
the young man had been associated with Manwitz and Cherriton, he had
been kept in a nursing home in strict confinement. An attempt had been
made to cure him of his drug habit, with the result that he had suffered
an utter physical collapse, and now was lying seriously ill.  John, in
discussing the matter with Dacent Smith, had mentioned the old Colonel,
and the deception that had been practised upon him.

"When the time comes," the Chief had answered, "you can either reveal
your real identity to Colonel Treves, or not, as you wish.  In any case,
I rather doubt if his amiable son will appear on the scene again; that
is a matter entirely for the military authorities.  From what I hear,"
Dacent Smith continued, "the old Colonel hasn't much of this life before
him, and if he learnt the truth about his son I know exactly what would
happen. He would not be able to face it.  Either death would mercifully
carry him off, or----" John nodded, "or," he thought, "he would seek the
death he once offered me."  John saw now that the deception that had
been practised upon the Colonel at the instigation of his friend,
General Whiston, and Dacent Smith, was possibly the kindest thing that
could have happened.

At the door of the house, Gates, the elderly butler, appeared in answer
to John's ring.  For a moment the servant paused wide-eyed, staring at
the erect figure in uniform on the threshold.

"Why, Master Bernard!" he exclaimed, "I didn't recognise you for a
minute.  Come in, sir; I'll get your luggage."

"There isn't any luggage.  Is--is my father in the library?"

"Yes, sir."

"How is he, Gates?"

"Just the same as usual, sir."  Then the old servant forgot himself for
a brief moment.  "He'll be beside himself with delight, sir," he said,
"to see you like that, back again in the Army, an' all."

John moved to cross the wide hall, but Gates followed him instantly.

"Perhaps I'd better break the news to him, sir; it's a little sudden
like."

John followed him, and when the elderly butler knocked at the
baize-covered door of the library a minute later, he heard Colonel
Treves's voice from within.  Gates went into the room and closed the
door behind him. The old Colonel was seated in his deep chair near the
hearth.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Gates, crossing and standing before him,
"but Mr. Bernard has returned."

Colonel Treves, who held a book on his knee, laid down his big reading
glass on its open page, and lifted his head slowly.  There was a stern
light in his old faded eyes.

"I won't see my son, Gates!"

"Pardon me, sir," protested the old servant, "I think you would like to
see him."

Colonel Treves rose to his feet, felt for his stick, and began to move
feebly across the room.

"He is no son of mine, Gates," he said, as he went. "You can tell him
that.  A liar and a humbug," he said.  "Always a liar and a humbug.  No
soul of truth in him, no honour----"

But Gates, the faithful servant of thirty years, knew his master well.
He made no attempt to argue with the Colonel, but moved quietly to the
door behind which John was waiting, and whispered, "Come in, Mr.
Bernard."

John entered, and crossing the soft carpet laid his hand on the old
Colonel's shoulder.  The Colonel turned quickly, flinging up his head in
indignation, then something took place on his face that touched John to
the heart.  The old firm lips quivered a moment.

"Is that you, Bernard?" he asked.  He came nearer, peering at John,
looking at the upright, uniformed figure.  "I can't believe it," he
added.

"It is true, sir," said John.  "I received a commission a month ago."

"Take my arm, boy," said the Colonel, suddenly; "lead me back to the
chair."

John led him across to his deep chair, and Gates softly went out of the
room.  When the Colonel was seated, he fumbled for his strong glasses,
and put them on with fingers that shook visibly.  Once again he looked
John over from head to foot.

"It's the good blood that tells," he said after a long pause.  Suddenly
he broke into a laugh.  "Do you know, Bernard, boy," he said, "a minute
ago I was telling Gates you were no son of mine.  You see, I thought you
had broken your promise; you broke it so often before."

"That may be, sir," answered John quietly, "but this time I managed to
keep it."

He permitted John to help him into his chair at the hearthside, and
John, at his bidding, rang the bell.

"Gates," said the Colonel, when the old servant entered, "serve tea up
here; I and my boy will have it together."

"Very good, sir."

"Now, Bernard, boy, tell me your news!" demanded the old soldier, when
Gates had left the room.

John gave a sketchy, vague account of his doings during the past weeks.

"And so you are with Colonel Hobin.  You must give him my kind
remembrances; we met thirty years ago, when he was a subaltern at
Aldershot.  He had the making of a good soldier, I remember."  He talked
on, on general matters, and all the while John felt that his mind was
solely occupied with his pride and satisfaction at seeing his son in
uniform once again.  In his excitement and pleasure he forgot two
letters that had reposed on his desk for two days, waiting for John.
Finally, he remembered them.  "I must give you your letters, Bernard."

"Thank you, sir," answered John, "I'll get them myself, if you tell me
where they are?"

He found the letters on the Colonel's desk, and excused himself for
reading them.  The first letter began: "Dear Bernard," and the first
sentence ran: "You bad, bad boy."  John knew in a moment that it was
from Mrs. Beecher Monmouth, and skimmed the four closely written pages
casually.


"_Have you seen the Great One yet? ... The Ogre is always in the House
of Commons now ... I am utterly alone ... I wonder if any fine, handsome
young man is thinking of sending me a hundred Russian cigarettes, the
same as the last....  Next time you come, you must not be nearly so
bold...._--Yours, ALICE."


"A very satisfactory letter," thought John, "if I had happened to care
two straws about her."  A vision of Mrs. Beecher Monmouth's brilliant
beauty came before his eyes.  It seemed strange to think that this
woman, in the heart of London society, was a traitor, using her gifts of
fortune and beauty for the nefarious purpose of ruining her own country,
but such was indeed the case. What had been the original cause of Mrs.
Beecher Monmouth's treachery, John did not know; only afterwards was the
full truth made plain to him.

He opened the second letter, which was in a handwriting unknown to him.
The note was from Captain Cherriton, to whom he had given this address
when he left London.


"DEAR TREVES," ran the letter--"_Will you please call at Rollo Meads one
day next week, Tuesday for preference, at five in the afternoon?  I
shall be there, and you will meet a new friend, Doctor Voules, who will
supply you with what you want._"  (He was referring to the tabloids
Manwitz had been in the habit of supplying to Treves.)  "* Our old
friend,*" went on the letter, "_who formerly supplied you, you will
regret to hear, was taken ill, and has gone away to the coast for a
time_.

"_Yours very truly,_
       "JOHN CHERRITON."


John folded this letter carefully and placed it within his pocket-book.
A specimen of Cherriton's handwriting, he inwardly decided, would be
useful to Dacent Smith.  Half an hour later John took his departure, and
the old Colonel accompanied him to the door of the house.

"Good-bye, my boy," said the old man, gripping his hand at parting,
"come again soon"; then he lowered his voice so that Gates, who was
waiting at John's hired car, could not hear, "Bernard, boy," said the
Colonel wistfully, "when you are tempted to go a little wrong, just keep
in mind that I am believing in you."

"Very good, sir," John answered, "I won't forget that."  He stood at
salute a moment, then ran down the steps and sprang into the car.

"Good-bye, sir," said Gates, the old butler.

"Good-bye," cried John as the car whirled out of the avenue.

When John reached the foot of Heatherpoint Hill, and began to ascend the
long slope towards the fort, it was already seven o'clock.  The sun lay
low in the west, and there was no wind.

"Fine visibility if there was any shooting for Ewins," thought John.

The car halted before the first sentry.

"Friend," said John.

"Pass, friend," answered the man.

A minute later, from his seat in the car, John was able to see the south
shore of the island, and obtained a momentary glimpse of a strip of sand
below, which was accessible only to those within the area of the fort
itself. Looking down into the little bay three hundred feet below, John
was caught with admiration by the mirror-like blue of the wa

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