Number 70, Berlin Part 16

Briefly, the facts were as follow: Trustram had, ever since the raid on Scarborough, wondered whether the failure of the British naval plan to entrap the German Fleet had been directly due to his own indiscretion in mentioning to Lewin Rodwell what was intended. He deeply regretted having let out what had been an absolute secret; yet Rodwell was a man of such tried and sterling patriotism, constantly addressing audiences in the interests of recruiting, and a man whose battle cry "Britain for the British" had been taken up everywhere. No one was possessed of a deeper and more intense hatred of Germany than he, and Trustram felt certain that no man was a greater enemy of the Kaiser.

The papers wrote fulsome praise of his splendid example and his fine patriotic efforts, both as regards recruiting and in the raising of funds for various charitable objects; therefore the Admiralty official was wont to comfort himself with the reflection that such a man could never be an agent of Germany.

Only a few days ago, when he had confessed to Sir Houston and the latter had, on his part, spoken to Sainsbury, the puzzle had become pieced together; and on that evening, as the trio sat opposite each other, the young fellow explained how he had been dismissed from the Ochrida Company at the instigation of Lewin Rodwell and his t.i.tled sycophant Sir Boyle Huntley.

"There is a mystery," Jack went on. "I'm certain there's some great mystery regarding poor Jerrold's sudden death," he said decisively. "I was, that night, on my way to him, to tell him what I had accidentally learnt, and to seek his advice how to act. Yet, poor fellow, he died in my arms."

"His suicide was certainly quite unaccountable," declared Sir Houston.

"I often reflect and wonder whether he really did commit suicide--and yet it was all quite plain and straightforward. He must have swallowed a tablet--coated, no doubt, or the effect must have been far more rapid."

"But why did he declare that he'd been shot?" asked Trustram, whose fine, strong face was dark and thoughtful.

"Ah! Who knows? There's the mystery," replied the great pathologist.

"Of course, men sometimes have curious hallucinations immediately prior to death. It might have been one."

"He was in terrible agony--poor fellow," Jack remarked.

"No doubt, no doubt. But the drug would, of course, account for that."

"Then, in the light of your expert medical knowledge, you don't think that his death was a mysterious one?" Jack queried.

"No, I don't say that at all," was the reply of the busy man, who was working night and day among the wounded in the hospitals. "I merely say that Jerrold was poisoned--and probably by his own hand. That's all."

"You say `probably,'" remarked Trustram. "Could that man, Rodwell, have had anything to do with it do you think?"

"My dear Mr Trustram, how can we possibly tell?" asked Sir Houston.

"What real evidence have we got? None."

"And so clever are our enemies that we are not likely ever to get any, I believe," was Trustram's hard reply. "I only know what has happened to our plans for the defeat of the German Fleet. Is it really possible that this Lewin Rodwell, one of the most popular men in England, is a German agent?"

"If you dared to say so, the whole country would rise and kill you with ridicule," remarked Jack Sainsbury. "Once the British public establishes a man as a patriot, their belief in him remains unshaken to the very end. This war is a war where spies and spying, treachery and double-dealing, play a far bigger part than the world ever dreams.

Jerrold always declared to me that there were German spies in every department of the State, just as there are in France, in Russia, and in Italy. No secret of any of the European States is a secret from the central spy-bureau in Berlin."

"Jerrold knew that. He set out sacrificing body and soul--nay, his very life--to a.s.sist our Intelligence Department," Trustram remarked.

"I know," said Jack. "They were foolishly jealous of his knowledge-- jealous of the facts he had gathered during his wanderings up and down Germany, and jealous of the sources of information. They pretended a certain friendliness towards him, of course, but, as you know, the khaki cult is never in unison with the civilian. Jerrold did his duty--did it splendidly, as a true Englishman should. His work will live as a record. Seven years ago he commenced, at a time when the money-grubbing, ostrich-like section of the public--bamboozled by politicians who pretended not to know, yet who knew too well, and who told us there would be no war--not in our time--were content in ama.s.sing wealth. What did they care for the country's future, as long as they drew big dividends? Jerrold foresaw the great Teutonic plot against civilisation, and was not afraid to point to it. What did he get for his pains? Ridicule, derision, and aspersions that his mind was deranged, and that he was a mere romancer. Well, to-day he's dead, and we can only judge him by his works."

"There are others--certain others too--whom we may also judge by their works," remarked Trustram grimly--"their subtle, fiendish works, aimed at the downfall of our Empire. If the truth had been realised when Lord Roberts started out to speak--and when the whole Government united to poke fun and heap ridicule upon the great Field-Marshal, who knew more of real warfare than the whole tangle of red-tape at Whitehall combined--then to-day thousands of brave men, the flower of our youth, who have laid down their lives in the trenches in Flanders, would have been alive to-day. No!" he cried angrily. "There are traitors in our midst, and yet if one dares to suspect, if one dares to breathe a word, even to inquire and bring absolute evidence, the only thing which the khaki-clad Department will vouchsafe to the informant is a meagre printed form to acknowledge that one's report has been `received.'

After that, the matter is buried."

"Perhaps burnt," laughed Sir Houston.

"Most probably," Trustram a.s.serted. "To me, an Englishman, the whole situation is as utterly appalling as it is ludicrous. We must win. And it is up to us all to see that _we do win_."

"Excellent!" cried Sir Houston. "And so we will--all three of us. I'll go to the War Office to-morrow and try and see someone in authority.

You, Sainsbury, will come with me, and you'll make your statement-- you'll tell them all that you know. They must take some notice of it!"

"I should be quite ready," was Jack's reply. "But will they believe me?

They didn't believe poor Jerrold, remember--and he actually held proof positive of certain traitorous acts. The whole idea of the Intelligence Department is to pooh-pooh any report furnished by a civilian. Indeed, Jerrold showed me a signed statement by a British officer whom the authorities had actually threatened to cashier because he had a.s.sisted him to investigate some night-signalling in Surrey!"

"Impossible!" cried Sir Houston.

"It's the absolute truth. I've had the statement in my own hands. He was an officer stationed in a town in Surrey."

"Well," remarked the great pathologist. "Let us allow the past bygones to be bygones. Let us work--not in resentment of the past, but for our protection in the future. What shall we do?"

The two men were silent. On the one hand they saw the fortress-wall which the War Office placed between the civilian and the man in khaki.

Reports of espionage were extremely unwelcome at Whitehall. And yet how could men in khaki and a.s.sistant-provost-marshals, with their crimson bra.s.sards of special-constable or veteran volunteer conspicuousness, ever hope to cope with the clever, subtle and wary spies of Germany?

The whole thing was too farcical for words.

The British public, trustful of this cult of khaki and of a Cabinet who daily bleated forth "All is well!" had no knowledge, for instance, of the cleverly-laid plan of the enemy in Russia--the plot to blow up Ochta, the Russian Woolwich. Later, the English, in their ignorance of German intrigue, asked each other why no forward move was being made-- the move promised us in the spring. They knew nothing of that great disaster, so cleverly accomplished by Germany's spies, the blowing up of Ochta, that disaster which entirely crippled Russia, and which resulted, later on, in her retreat from Warsaw. It was this--alas that I should pen these lines!--which prevented the British and French from advancing during the whole spring and summer of 1915.

The Russians, our gallant allies, were producing, at the Putilof works, great siege guns, bigger than any turned out from Krupp's. Yet, after Ochta had been blown up by means of a cable laid by spies under the Neva before the war, so that hardly one brick stood upon another and Petrograd had been shaken as by an earthquake in consequence, what could Russia do? She had no munitions; therefore why make guns?

That act of German spies in directly crippling Russia--an act plotted and prepared ten years previously--had checked the striking power of France, and quite defeated the splendid intentions of Lord Kitchener and our own good General French.

Let history speak. As our two armies were holding only a small section of the line, it was more convenient for the general interests of the Allies that we should, instead of employing our increased forces, postpone the entry into action of our national armies, and bend our chief energies to the task of supplying Russia with the munitions which had suddenly become to her a matter of life or death.

Was not this, indeed, an object-lesson to England?

The trio were discussing the situation, when Jack Sainsbury exclaimed:

"And yet the public will not believe that there are spies amongst us-- even in face of daily events of incendiary fires, of submarine outrages, and of spies who, arriving with American pa.s.sports, are watched, arrested, and executed at the Tower of London."

"True?" cried Trustram. "I agree entirely with all you say. Shall we act--or shall we join in the saliva of sweetness and raise the chorus that the Germans are, after all, dear good people?"

"Never!" exclaimed Sir Houston fiercely. "Jerrold knew, and he died mysteriously. We, all three of us, know. Let us act; let us raise our voices, as the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Leith of Fyvie, Lord Crawford, Lord Portsmouth, Lord Headley, and all the others have raised theirs. `Britain for the British,' I say, and we must win-- and, at all hazards, _we will win_!"

"Yes, but what shall we do? How are we now to act?" queried Jack, looking at his visitors.

"That we must decide," Sir Houston responded. "We know many things-- things that are proved as far as Lewin Rodwell is concerned. We must watch--and watch very closely and carefully--then we shall learn more."

"But while we are watching the Empire is, surely, in gravest peril?"

Trustram protested.

"We have an Intelligence Department which is said to be dealing with news leaking from our sh.o.r.es."

"Intelligence Department?" laughed Jack Sainsbury. "Read the German papers, and you'll see that the public in Germany are daily told the actual truth concerning us, while we are deliberately kept in ignorance by the superior cult of khaki." Then he added, "The whole of this system of secrecy, and of playing upon the public mind, must be broken down, otherwise very soon, I fear, the British will believe nothing that is told them. We won't be spoon-fed on t.i.t-bits any more. We are not the pet-dogs of a Hide-the-Truth administration."

"That's a bit stiff," declared Trustram with a frown, as befitted an official wearing His Majesty's uniform.

"I don't care! I speak exactly what I feel. The British Empire is to-day greatly menaced, and if we are to win, we must face the facts and speak out boldly. We don't want these incompetent khaki-clad amateur detectives telling the matter-of-fact British nation official untruths.

Why, only the other day the Parliamentary mouthpiece of the War Office told us that every German secret agent was known and under constant surveillance! Is that the truth, I ask you, or is it a deliberate official falsehood? Read Hansard's reports. I have quoted from them!"

The two men could not raise a protest. They knew, alas! that the words the young man had spoken were the actual and ghastly truth.

"Well," he went on, looking at his visitors, "we know what is in progress--or at least we have the strongest suspicion of it. Now, what decision have you both arrived at? What, in the interests of the safety of the Empire, shall we do?"

Trustram shrugged his shoulders blankly, while Sir Houston drew a long breath.