Sant of the Secret Service: Some Revelations of Spies and Spying

“Ah, mon cher Gerald, so you are awake at last,” he said cheerily. “How are you feeling?”

“Very shaky,” I whispered. “What has happened? Ah, yes, I remember now,” I said, as a flood of recollections swept over me. “Is it all right? Have you got van Rosen and Easterbrook?”

“Everything is quite satisfactory, my dear Gerald,” replied Hecq. “I will tell you all about it when you are stronger.”

But, weak though I was, I could not bear the suspense. “Tell me at once. Monsieur Hecq, I beg of you, or I shall never rest.” And Hecq, choosing the lesser of two evils, decided to unburden himself.

“Van Rosen and Easterbrook are both dead,” he said. “The bomb which rendered you unconscious struck Easterbrook’s house and killed them both. Mrs Easterbrook is terribly injured, but is alive, and will probably recover. Madame Gabrielle is quite safe, and Aubert, who was watching near you, was sheltered from the explosion by a projecting wall and was only badly shaken. He telephoned me at once, and I fortunately caught a train which was just leaving, and here I am. You have been unconscious for a day and a half.”

“What about the Dutch sailor?” I managed to gasp out in my astonishment.

“Oh,” replied Hecq, “we got him all right, with the plan in his possession. He has made a clean breast of everything. The plans were to have been photographed down to microscopic size and the films taken over to Cauvin sewn into his clothing. Two of my men are on their way to arrest Cauvin at once.”

But Cauvin proved too quick for us. As the agents of the Sûreté approached his house he must have recognised them and realised that the game was up. Directly they intimated to him that he was under arrest he snatched a revolver from his pocket and shot himself before their eyes. I have no doubt the result would have been the same if he had received the violet-scented card, which now, with the bogus invitation to the Easterbrook wedding, remains one of my cherished mementoes of one of the most fascinating of the many mysteries I have helped to unravel.

Thus by the hands of the Huns themselves the public were spared an astounding scandal, and the Allies were rid of three ingenious scoundrels engaged in a clever and insidious campaign. After Easterbrook’s death we were able to unravel the whole conspiracy. Easterbrook and van Rosen were two of the fingers of the Hidden Hand in England. They operated by means of banking accounts in various names, handling large sums placed freely at their disposal by other wealthy naturalised “Britons,” who proved in their own persons the truth of the adage coined in 1914 by a naturalised Hun – “Once a German, always a German.” Most of them were laid by the heels, and now, behind barricades of barbed wire in remote parts of the country, have leisure to repent the day when they matched their cunning against the skill of the International Secret Service Bureau of the Allies.

Chapter Ten
The Mystery of Blind Heinrich

“Blind Heinrich!”

Without any conscious effort of memory on my part, these words flashed suddenly into my mind, as, six weeks or so after the events just related, I sat lazily in Armand Hecq’s private room in the Boulevard des Capucines, turning over our latest problem in my mind, while I waited for the astute chief, who was busy investigating a report which had just been brought in by one of his numerous financial clients – in other words, by one of the numerous expert agents whom he kept constantly busy up and down Europe, at the task of countering the villainous work of the spy bureau in Berlin.

“I wonder whether he is mixed up in the affair,” I mused; rapidly working out a new train of thought to which the old scoundrel’s name had given rise. So intent was I that I did not notice Hecq’s entrance. His quick eye noticed my absorption.

“A penny for your thoughts, mon cher Gerald,” he laughed.

“Well,” I said with a smile, “I was pretty far away, I admit. The fact is, I was wondering whether Blind Heinrich is taking any part in the game?”

The director of the International Secret Service of the Allies raised his brows and stared at me across the big, littered writing-table. Behind him a tape machine was clicking out its message, just as it should in a well-ordered financier’s office. He was evidently surprised.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed in English, which he spoke to perfection. “I never thought of him! My dear Gerald, old Heinrich is an extremely wily bird; and if he is mixed up in this business we shall have all our work cut out. Remember how he wriggled out of our hands in the Gould affair, when we thought we had him safely netted?”

The Gould affair! I should think I did remember it! I took a part in tracing and arresting the spy, Frederick Adolphus Gould, who lived near Chatham, and who, a few months before the war, was sent to prison for five years for attempted espionage. The case was a bad one. For years “Gould” had posed, like so many of his unscrupulous countrymen, as a good, patriotic John Bull Englishman, unable to speak German, expressing hatred of Germany and the Kaiser, and warning us that wax would come. Yet, after his arrest, I had gone to Germany very much incognito to make inquiries, and found that exceedingly patriotic “Englishman” was the son of a certain Baron von S – , that he had been born in Berlin in 1851, had fought in the Franco-German War, and had been awarded the customary Iron Cross!

Now one of “Gould’s” closest friends in England had been a certain Norwegian named Heinrich Kristensten, a half-blind violinist who lived at Hampstead. Some strange facts came to light in the course of our inquiries, but the afflicted musician forestalled us by very cleverly coming forward and denouncing his whilom friend – not, however, before he saw that Gould was quite hopelessly entangled in the net which had been spread for him by the British Secret Service. His action, of course, was quite in accord with German practice. Seeing that the game was up, so far as Gould was concerned, he saved himself on the principle that one loss was better than two. His name had leaped spontaneously into my mind in connection with the latest problem upon which we were engaged – the mysterious manner in which, despite the rigid British censorship, details of the damage done in London by the raiding Gothas were so quickly and so accurately transmitted to Berlin. That they were so transmitted we knew, for the German papers promptly published them. And obviously, if severely censored matters of this kind were leaking out, there was some channel of information open of which we were unaware. We had to find and close it.

Now, as is well known, every wireless message which passes from the outer world to Berlin, or from Berlin to the outer world, is picked up and decoded at our wireless stations. The news was, we knew, not sent by wireless. Yet it was clear the Wilhelmstrasse got early information, not only as to where the bombs were dropped, but the extent of the damage done, both points on which they could not obtain the slightest information from the English papers. These details were published by the German and Swiss papers, and, allowing for Berlin’s invariable exaggeration of its own prowess, they were remarkably full and accurate. The task before me was to find out how the news was transmitted, and it was one, I confess, which fairly bristled with difficulties.

“Heinrich, being a neutral, has lately been showing a great interest in the welfare of blinded British soldiers,” I remarked to Hecq. “If he were a friend of Gould’s, why should he do this?”

“For some reason of his own,” said Hecq, “possibly to avert suspicion. We know pretty well that he was very deep in it with Gould and had received money from him. Perhaps you will recollect that he admitted it, explaining that it was a loan, and indeed we found his I.O.U. in Gould’s desk, made out, no doubt, ‘to lend artistic verisimilitude to a bald and otherwise unconvincing narrative,’ as your Gilbert has it. You know he said his daughter had been ill, and that in consequence he was short of money. That was too weak; we knew well enough that Heinrich made a good deal out of his fiddle, as his bank balance showed. He was not short of money at all, and I have not the least doubt that the ‘loan’ was for value received in the shape of information or assistance, perhaps both.”

“Yes, I remember now,” I said, reflecting deeply.

Three weeks went by. I was tired and run down, and decided to snatch a fortnight with Doris in Worcestershire before embarking upon a task which was likely to be arduous, if not actually dangerous. Greatly strengthened by my sojourn in delightful Worcestershire, I was back in town, keenly interested in the work I had in hand.

One evening I had been down to Hertford, and was returning by the Great Eastern Railway to Liverpool Street, when, just before ten o’clock, the train pulled up abruptly at Stratford, all lights were instantly extinguished, and I was swept into an excited throng of several hundreds of refugees in the subway beneath the line. There, amid a motley gathering, largely composed of panic-stricken foreign Jews, I was compelled to remain for over three hours, listening to the venomous barking of the anti-aircraft guns and the occasional rending, ear-splitting crash of a high explosive bomb.

It was the first time I had seen the alien under air-raid conditions, though I had heard a good deal about him; and as I watched the cowardly wretches my whole mind was revolted at the thought that a large proportion of these quivering masses of jelly, for in their fright they were little else, had been welcomed to British citizenship under the imbecile naturalisation system. No one blamed them for being frightened: the Englishwomen and children of the working classes, huddled in the shelters, were quite obviously frightened, and small wonder. But if they were frightened, they were brave, and they kept their self-control even when the infernal racket overhead was at its worst. I had seldom seen a better proof of the essential superiority of the Briton over the harpies who prey upon him, and as I watched I felt proud that, cosmopolitan as I am, I had good English blood in my veins.

At ten o’clock next morning I went to Whitehall, where exact of all the damage done by the Gothas was placed freely at my disposal. From the secret reports I made certain extracts for future use.

Five days later.

As I sat in my flat in Curzon Street, my man, Burton, brought in copies of the General Anzeiger für Elberfeld-Barmen, the Berlin Borsen Courier, and the Tageblatt, all of which had been sent me by special messenger from Whitehall.

I opened them, and in both the General Anzeiger and the Tageblatt were exultant articles on the success of the air raid upon the metropolitan area a few nights before. They were, of course, luridly “written up,” but they contained a great deal of perfectly accurate information, as I knew by the secret reports shown to me directly after the raid.

How could the enemy know? Of course, the blazing accounts of the terror and panic supposed to have been created in London could have been written up anywhere. But how was it that not only were the localities in which the bombs had fallen accurately specified, but in several instances details were given of the exact damage to certain buildings? By no possibility could the latter information have been the result of an effort of Teutonic imagination. The enemy knew; proof of it was there in cold print. How did the news reach the Wilhelmstrasse so quickly?

It was certainly not by wireless, for every message was picked up and decoded by our own stations. That the news had not passed through the great German wireless stations of Norddeich, at the north of the Elbe, or Nauen, near Berlin, was certain. Here was a pretty problem set for solution.

As I sat alone in my room that evening, having dined at my club and returned to the enjoyment of slippers, a novel, and a good cigar, I reflected on the task I had in hand. I realised, of course, that my suspicions of Blind Heinrich might be entirely unfounded, but I had at the moment nothing better to go upon, and I decided that, in view of his known association with Gould, whether he was mixed up with the matter we now had in hand or not, a close watch upon him might provide some facts of interest.

Upon my arrival in London from Paris, I had sought out Blind Heinrich, who was now living in a boarding-house in Hereford Road, Bayswater, close to Westbourne Grove. In the same house was now living a dainty little woman, a Belgian refugee, who was in very straitened circumstances. According to her own story, she had become separated from her husband, a rich merchant of Brussels, before going on board a boat at Ostend, during the terrible flight from Belgium in 1914. Since then she had been unable to obtain the slightest information about him, and did not know even whether he was alive or dead.

For nearly three years, she related, she had remained in terrible anxiety, which was rapidly wrecking her nerves and her life. As a refugee, a pitiful victim of the catastrophe which had befallen her beloved country, she was existing upon English charity. She called herself Madame Taymans, and her old address in happier days was in the Rue de Namur in Brussels. But her real name was – Gabrielle Soyez!

Few women in the world could so perfectly adapt themselves to the ever-changing demands of the Secret Service as Madame Soyez. In her present circumstances she was absolutely at home, for she had been educated in part at a convent near Gembloux, and could assume the Belgian accent to perfection. It was an easy matter, therefore, for her to pass for what she pretended to be.

In Hereford Road the Frenchwoman had established herself on my instruction for the purpose of keeping a watchful eye upon the quiet, long-haired, half-blind violinist, who, to all appearances, was eking out only a meagre existence, and whose clothes were of that shabby-genteel brand which usually betrays respectable poverty. But we knew enough of Heinrich’s affairs to be convinced that the shabby-genteel rôle was deliberately assumed for purposes of deception. A splendid musician and a born teacher, Heinrich could command his own terms, and, as a matter of fact, he made a good deal of money. More than this, he was well known in high circles of Society, where his teaching abilities gave him the entrée to a large number of the best houses. And, of course, no one ever suspected that the half-blind old fiddler, crawling from house to house in the aristocratic quarters in which he found most of his pupils, was in reality the alert and dangerous agent of the enemy which subsequent events revealed him to be.

Chapter Eleven
An Air Raid on London

One night of brilliant moonlight, I had just come in from a visit to a theatre and was glancing through the evening papers before turning in, when my telephone bell rang. On replying, I found the caller was Madame Gabrielle, and in consequence of the cryptic message she gave me I abandoned the idea of going to bed and remained keenly on the alert. For a full hour nothing occurred. Then I heard the air raid warnings for which I had been waiting and soon after the guns, distant at first, but gradually drawing nearer, began to boom out their defiance of the aerial invaders.

For nearly two hours the raid continued at brief intervals, as squadron after squadron of Gothas came hurtling through the night sky on their mission of hate. As soon as the “All clear” signal was given, I hurried out and made my way rapidly to Harrington Street, a quiet thoroughfare at the back of Cadogan Square, with dark, old-fashioned houses, each with the deep basement and flight of steps to the front door so characteristic of a period of architecture which we may hope has passed away for ever.

One of these houses was my objective, and I soon found it, for its door was painted in a light shade, quite different from the hue of sombre respectability which characterised all its neighbours in the gloomy street. It was noticeable that while nearly every house in the street showed lights – the inmates had not yet got over their scare and could be heard volubly discussing the alarms and excursions of the night – this particular house was in total darkness and was as silent as the grave.

I soon located a deep doorway from which I, myself unseen, could keep a close watch on the dark and silent house, and commenced my vigil.

Presently a man wearing a long light overcoat turned from the square into Harrington Street, and, sauntering leisurely along, ascended the steps of the house I was watching, and let himself in with a latchkey. Five minutes later a second man passed close to where I was standing – luckily my doorway was in deep shadow and he did not notice me – and also entered the house. Two others followed in quick succession. One of them I instantly recognised by his gait. It was Blind Heinrich!

For four hours I kept surveillance, and during that time no fewer than seven men arrived, each letting himself in with his latchkey. It was evident we had found out the meeting-place of some highly doubtful individuals, whose obvious familiarity with the locality, coupled with the strange hours at which they arrived, indicated quite clearly that some nefarious scheme was afoot. It was evident, too, that the old Norwegian belonged to the gang. And I began to feel assured that our suspicions as to his real character were well founded.

It would have been difficult to find a better place for the meeting, for Harrington Street, though readily accessible, led to nowhere in particular, and was as quiet a thoroughfare as any in London. No one would notice the arrival at intervals of the men, policemen rarely visited the street, and after midnight it was entirely deserted save for the occasional arrival home of some belated resident.

It was not until five o’clock in the morning that the last man arrived in a taxi, which, however, did not come along the street, but deposited him at the corner of the Square. A quarter of an hour later they began to come out singly, at intervals of about five minutes, dispersing in different directions. There was no sign, however, of Heinrich Kristensten.

“Well, mon cher Gerald,” said Madame Gabrielle, as she sat with me in my flat in Curzon Street, soon after breakfast the same morning. “You see they receive warning of coming air raids and meet directly after. Who are they?”

“Enemy spies, beyond any possibility of doubt,” I replied. “Our course is clear now. When the next raid is made we must follow them individually and learn each man’s identity. I will make all the arrangements. Meanwhile, do you continue as you are and keep an eye on the blind fiddler.”

Madame Gabrielle returned to Hereford Road to continue her watch. For my own part, I set to work, and very soon discovered that the mysterious house in Harrington Street was unoccupied and was to let furnished. In the guise of a possible tenant I went over it thoroughly, but could see nothing suspicious, except that I ascertained that the caretaker was an old compatriot of Heinrich’s. The owner, who had left London and was now residing on the South Coast, was well known and his loyalty was beyond dispute. It then became evident that the caretaker was cognisant of the secret meeting, if, indeed, he was not closely concerned in the business, whatever it might be, that brought these men together in an empty house at dead of night so soon after a raid, when most honest people would be only too anxious to get to bed as promptly as possible.

It was obviously necessary that we should learn all we could about the identity of the men who met in the empty house in Harrington Street, and I was soon in touch with the Special Branch, and made all the necessary arrangements for shadowing our suspects.

Four nights later another raid took place. As soon as the Gothas were gone we were all swiftly at our posts. So thoroughly was the house surrounded that a mouse could hardly have gone in or out undetected. Yet there was no sign of a watcher, and anyone going to the house would certainly be in blissful ignorance of the fact that he was under the close scrutiny of the keen eyes of the Secret Service. There is very little clumsy “shadowing” about the Special Branch!

But we watched in vain. No meeting was held, or if it was it was held elsewhere. The blind musician, it is true, left his room in Bayswater, but he never reached Harrington Street. The house remained all night silent and apparently deserted.

I wondered whether the gang had by any chance discovered our activities and taken alarm. I was not very deeply concerned about it, apart from the chagrin which the delay caused me. Blind Heinrich, at any rate, could hardly escape us, and, if the gang had for any reason changed its place of meeting, I had little doubt that we should soon discover it. But who had blundered? I felt certain that it was not Madame Gabrielle, and I did not think it could be myself.

One morning I received a note from the clever little Frenchwoman, asking me to take tea with her at Hereford Road that afternoon, and adding: “I have something to show you.”

Of course I went, and we had tea together in the big drawing-room which she used in common with the other guests in the boarding-house. Several of the old ladies who lived in the house were present.

Just as we had finished our tea, Madame exclaimed: “Do excuse me, m’sieur! I have forgotten my handkerchief.”

Rising, she left me. When she returned she was carrying a work-bag of blue brocaded silk, which she placed upon her lap as she reseated herself. In her hand also she had an evening paper which she handed to me with a casual remark that I might like to look at it while she got her work ready.

I knew well enough that this was for the benefit of the other people in the room, who, as usual, were keenly interested in any friends of a pretty woman, and were scrutinising me pretty carefully. I knew, too, that Gabrielle had some further motive in her mind. Accordingly, I leaned back in my chair and read the paper diligently.

A moment later I noticed Madame Gabrielle telegraphing me in our “finger Morse.”

“Look carefully at the book showing in the mouth of my work-bag,” she signalled, “and get a copy at once. It belongs to Heinrich, and I have just borrowed it from his room. He may be back at any moment – he has only just gone out – and I must replace it at once.”

She had casually left the mouth of her work-bag open. It revealed the title-page of an open book, published, as I saw, about seven years before. The title was Royal Love Letters. I had never heard of the volume, but I made a note of its title.

Madame Gabrielle, with an excuse, quitted the room for a few moments, taking the book with her in her bag. On her return she began talking pleasantly about general subjects, but she was listening keenly, I could see. Soon we heard the front door slam, and a heavy shuffling tread crossed the hall and went up the stairs.

“Blind Heinrich,” she telegraphed; “I was only just in time. He is terribly watchful, and would certainly have noticed if the book had not been on the table where he left it. I often wonder whether he is as blind as he pretends to be. You had better go; if he comes in here for tea, it is quite possible he may recognise you.” A quarter of an hour later we were walking along Westbourne Grove together, and Gabrielle told me the history of the mysterious book. For several days, she said, she had been following Heinrich, who had suddenly developed an amazing interest in second-hand bookstalls. He had gone into shop after shop in various parts of London, asked a single question apparently, and come out again. At length she had managed to overhear him ask at one shop for a copy of Royal Love Letters. The shopkeeper had not the volume in stock, and, as the request was such a peculiar one for a man of Heinrich’s temperament, Madame Gabrielle determined to run risks and follow him daily. He entered six more shops, making the same request at each, and at length, in a dingy little by-lane in Soho, managed, to his evident glee, to get what he wanted, and carried it back to Hereford Road with obvious satisfaction.

“Why that particular book, and why so much trouble to get it?” said Madame Gabrielle. “What do you make of it, Mr Sant?”

I made nothing of it, except that there seemed to be good reasons why I should get a copy at once. If Royal Love Letters interested Heinrich Kristensten so deeply, it might well be that it would not be wholly without interest for me.

My first care was to ring up Hecq on the official telephone and give him full particulars respecting Heinrich’s sudden interest in an obscure and practically unknown volume published and forgotten seven years ago. It was quite clear that this was a hint we could not ignore, but I confess I failed to see how it helped us. But I was soon to learn more; Hecq’s quick brain had seen a possibility which I had overlooked.

At seven next morning, before I was out of bed, my telephone rang, and Hecq once more spoke to me.

“I have been searching the papers, Sant,” he said, “and I have found out something that will interest you. Listen carefully. In the Petit Parisien five days ago there was an advertisement for the recovery of a lady’s gold trinket. I have it here. I’ll read it to you,” and he read:

Perdus Ou Trouvés.

Perdu Mét. Opéra Breloque Or.

Vialet 28 Marigny R. 100.

“Yes,” I said, “I hear you. But what has that to do with me?”

“Listen,” said Hecq. “There is nobody named Vialet at that address; we found that out at once. I have had nearly fifty of my people examining every advertisement in the Paris papers issued just before Heinrich began to display an interest in Royal Love Letters. Now we have found out that the advertisement I have just read to you conveys in cryptogrammic form the message, ‘Buy Royal Love Letters.’ It would take too long to explain it, but the paper containing that advertisement would be on sale in London the very day on which, according to Madame Gabrielle, Heinrich began to haunt the second-hand bookstalls on his peculiar quest. Rather curious, is it not?”

Curious it certainly was, and once more I found myself confronted with a further enigma. Why on earth should the book be advertised in cryptogrammic form in a French newspaper? How did Heinrich come to see the advertisement, and how did he know the key to the code? No doubt the paper had accepted the innocent-looking advertisement without the slightest suspicion that it was anything but the genuine announcement it purported to be. It was impossible to overlook the coincidence between the appearance of the advertisement and Blind Heinrich’s sudden deep interest in a forgotten book.

Next day I started out in search of a copy of Royal Love Letters. Of course I failed to get one: it had been out of print for years, as it had been published privately and comparatively few copies had been printed. However, I sent wires to some twenty provincial dealers in second-hand books, and at noon next day had a reply from a dealer in Birmingham, offering me a copy for four and sixpence. I wired the money, and next morning received the shabby little volume. Little did I realise what a dividend my investment of four shillings and sixpence was going to pay me!

On reading the book through, I found it was merely a monograph on the published love letters of various royal personages. It was as dull as the proverbial ditch-water, and I was not surprised at the difficulty both Heinrich and myself had experienced in securing copies: the wonder was that any had escaped the fire or the waste-paper basket. But the very fact made Heinrich’s interest in the book the more suspicious. It conveyed nothing to me, it is true, about Gotha raids on London, but did it convey anything to Heinrich, or was it the means of conveying anything from him to someone else?

I called up Madame Gabrielle on the ’phone, and after she had arrived and examined the volume, we went out to lunch at the Ritz. Across the table I told her of the curious advertisement in the Petit Parisien, whereupon she exclaimed:

“Why, Kristensten reads that paper regularly. I often see him with it. He goes down practically every column of it with his big reading-glass!”

“That settles two points, anyhow,” I said. “The first is that he uses that paper for receiving, and perhaps for sending messages. The second is that he knows the spy-cipher used in drawing up the advertisement. I am beginning to feel that this out-of-print and forgotten book will, if we watch carefully, supply us with a very interesting line to follow.”

And, ringing up Hecq, I told him about the latest development. He was keenly alive to the possibilities of the new situation.