Loe raamatut: «Number 70, Berlin: A Story of Britain's Peril», lehekülg 9

“Bah! The charge cannot fail. Of course I’ve had nothing to do with the matter as far as the authorities are concerned. I have simply slipped the noose over his head, and shall let the Intelligence Department do the rest. They will do their work well – never fear.”

“But you told the Intelligence Department about that Dr Jerrold?”

“Boyle did. I was most careful to keep out of it,” replied Rodwell, with a cunning look. “Boyle happens to be a friend of Heaton-Smith, who is in the Intelligence Department, and to him he gave information which cast a very deep suspicion that while Jerrold was pretending to hunt out spies, he was also engaged in collecting information. Indeed, we sent our friend Klost to consult him as a patient in order to further colour the idea that, in the doctor’s consulting-room, he was receiving German spies. Heaton-Smith, who has a perfect mania regarding espionage, took it, up at once, and had Jerome watched, while we on our part, manufactured just a little thread of evidence, as we have done in the present case. By it we succeeded in a warrant being issued for his arrest. It would have been executed that night if – well, if he had not committed suicide.”

“Perhaps he knew a warrant was out against him?”

“I think he did,” said Rodwell, with an evil smile.

“What causes you to think so?”

“Well, by the fact that Boyle, to whom he was unknown, rang him up that evening at half-past seven and, posing as an anonymous friend, warned him that there was a warrant out for him and that, as a friend, he gave him an opportunity to escape.”

“What did he reply to Sir Boyle?”

“He hardly replied anything, except to thank the speaker for his timely information, and to ask who it was who spoke. Boyle pretended to be a certain Mr Long, speaking from the National Liberal Club, and added, ‘If you wish to write to me, my name is J.S. Long.’ The doctor said he would write, but could not understand the charge against him. Boyle replied that it was one of war-treason, and added that the authorities had got hold of some documents or other which incriminated him on a charge of spying.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, he declared that it was an infernal lie, of course,” laughed Rodwell.

The woman was again silent for a few moments.

“Its truth was plainly shown by his suicide,” she remarked at last. “By Jove, my dear Lewin, his death was most fortunate for you – wasn’t it?”

“Yes. We had to play a trump card then – just as we now have to play another against young Sainsbury,” replied the man, his eyes narrowing.

“I must congratulate you both,” said Mrs Kirby. “You’ve played your cards well – if you’re certain that he’ll be convicted.”

“My dear Molly, they can’t help convicting him. The acknowledgment and payment for reports, the request for more information, and the vague references to certain matters in which our friends in Holland are so keenly interested, all are there – addressed to him. Besides, he is known to have been an intimate friend and assistant of the man Jerrold – the man who committed suicide rather than face arrest and trial for treason. No,” Rodwell added confidently; “the whole affair is quite plain, and conviction must most certainly follow.”

“And serve him well right!” added the handsome woman. “Serve him right for being too inquisitive. But,” she added in a rather apprehensive voice, “I suppose there’s no chance of him making any allegations against you – is there?”

“What do I care if he did!” asked the man, with a laugh of defiance. Then, lowering his voice, he added: “First, there is no evidence whatsoever to connect me with any matters of espionage, and secondly, nobody would believe a word he said. The world would never credit that Lewin Rodwell was a spy!”

“No,” she laughed; “you are far too clever and cunning for them all. Really your sang-froid is truly marvellous.”

Chapter Sixteen.
The Catspaw

Some weeks had passed.

Jack Sainsbury had not reappeared at Bow Street, the authorities having decided, so serious was the charge and so important the evidence, that the trial should take place by court-martial and in camera.

Therefore the prisoner spent day after day in his narrow cell at Brixton Prison, full of fierce, angry resentment at the false charge made against him, and full of anxiety as to how Elise was bearing up beneath the tragic blow which had fallen upon them both.

He saw no one save Charles Pelham, his counsel, who now and then visited him. But even his adviser was entirely in the dark as to the exact evidence against his client. In the meantime the truth was that the Intelligence Department at Whitehall had sent an agent over to Holland to inquire into the bona fides of the Insurance Company whose offices were supposed to be in the Kalverstraat, in Amsterdam, and had discovered that though the “office” was run by highly respectable persons, the latter were undoubtedly Germans who had come to Holland just before the war. Every inquiry made by the Department revealed further proof of the accused’s guilt. Indeed, the astute Colonel who was the titular head of the Department had had Mr Charlesworth up at the War Office and thanked him personally for exposing what he had declared to be “a most serious case of espionage.”

Truly the fetters were gradually being forged upon the innocent young fellow languishing within Brixton Prison.

In complete ignorance of either the exact charge, or the identity of those who made it, Jack lived on day by day, full of the gravest apprehensions. The whole affair seemed to be one great, hideous nightmare. What would old Dan Shearman, never very well disposed towards him, think of him now? He recollected that strange anonymous letter which Elise had received. Who could possibly have sent it? A friend, without a doubt. Yet who was that secret friend? When would his identity be revealed?

He wondered if the person who had written that warning to his well-beloved would, when he knew of his arrest, come forward and expose the dastardly plot against him? Would he rescue him, now that he was in deadly peril?

With chagrin, too, he remembered how he had treated Elise’s fears with such silly unconcern. He had never dreamed of the real gravity of the situation until he found himself in the hands of the police, with that scandalous and disgraceful charge hanging over his head. The whole thing was so amazing, and so utterly bewildering, that at times he felt, as he paced that narrow, dispiriting cell, that he must go mad.

The days dragged on, each longer than its predecessor. Once his sister was allowed to see him. But he was anxious and eager to face his judges, to hear what false evidence the prosecution had to offer, and to refute the foul lies that had evidently been uttered against him. The authorities, however, seemed in no hurry to act, and it almost, seemed as though they had forgotten all about him.

One day he received a letter – the one welcome gleam of hope – a letter from Elise, who told him to bear up, to take courage, and to look forward to an early freedom.

“You surely know, Jack,” she wrote, “that I do not believe you to be a spy. Surely I know how strenuously you have worked in order to ferret out and expose the horde of spies surrounding us, and how you constantly helped poor Dr Jerrold.”

Those words of hers cheered him, yet he deeply regretted that she should have referred to the dead man’s name. The prison, authorities had read that letter, and mention of Jerrold would, in the circumstances, probably be registered as a point against him.

The weeks thus lengthened, until the middle of February.

On the night of the 21st of that month – the night on which the Admiralty issued its notification that a British fleet of battleships and battle cruisers, accompanied by flotillas, and aided by a strong French squadron, the whole under the command of Vice-Admiral Carden, had begun the attack on the forts of the Dardanelles – Charles Trustram dined early with Lewin Rodwell at the Ritz.

Rodwell was due to speak at a big recruiting meeting down at Poplar, and after their meal the pair drove in his car eastwards to the meeting, where he was received with the wildest enthusiasm.

A well-known retired Admiral was in the chair – a man whose name was as a household word, and whose reputation was that of one who always hit straight from the shoulder with the courage of his own convictions. The hall was crowded. The speech by the chairman was a magnificent one, well calculated to stir the blood of any Briton of military age to avenge Germany’s piracy “blockade.” He spoke of the low cunning of the “scrap-of-paper incident,” of the introduction of the red phosphorus poison-shells a month before, and the terrible barbarities committed in Belgium. That East-End audience were held spellbound by the fine patriotic speech of the grey-haired Admiral, who had spent his whole life at sea ever since he had left the Britannia as a midshipman.

Trustram, seated near the front, saw Lewin Rodwell rise deliberately from his chair on the platform, and became electrified by his words – fiery words which showed how deep was the splendid patriotic spirit within his heart.

On rising he was met with a veritable thunder of applause from that huge expectant working-class audience. They knew that Lewin Rodwell, being in the confidence of the Cabinet, would tell them something real and conclusive about the secret war-facts which the hundred-and-one irresponsible censors, in their infinite wisdom, forbade the long-suffering press to publish. Lewin Rodwell always regaled them with some tit-bits of “inside information.” It had been advertised up and down the country that he was on golfing terms with the rulers of Great Britain, and the words of a man possessing such knowledge of state-secrets were always worth listening to.

Glibly, and with that curious, half-amused expression which always fascinated an audience, Lewin Rodwell began by jeering at those who “slacked.”

“I ask you – every man of military age present,” he cried, thrusting forth his clenched fist towards his audience – “I ask you all to get, at any post office, that little pink-covered pamphlet called ‘The Truth about German Atrocities.’ You can get it for nothing – just for asking for it. Take it home and read it for yourselves – read how those devilish hordes of the Kaiser invaded poor little law-abiding Belgium, and what they did when they got there. Murder, rape, arson and pillage began from the first moment when the German army crossed the frontier. Soldiers had their eyes gouged out, men were murdered treacherously and given poisoned food. Those fiends in grey killed civilians upon a scale without any parallel in modern warfare between civilised Powers. We know now that this killing of civilians was deliberately planned by the higher military authorities in Berlin, and carried out methodically. They are a nation of murderers and fire-bugs. A calculated policy of cruelty was displayed that was without parallel in all history. Women were outraged, murdered and mutilated in unspeakable fashion; poor little children were murdered, bayoneted or maimed; the aged, crippled and infirm were treated with a brutality that was appalling; wounded soldiers and prisoners were tortured and afterwards murdered; innocent civilians, women and children of tender age, were placed before the German troops to act as living screens for the inhuman monsters, while there was looting, burning and destruction of property everywhere. Read, I say, that official report for yourselves!” he shouted, with anger burning his eyes, for he was indeed a wonderful actor.

“Read!” he cried again. “Read, all of you, how seven hundred innocent men, women and children were shot in cold blood in the picturesque little town of Dinant, on the Meuse; read of the massacres and mutilations at Louvain, Tamines, Termonde and Malines – and then reflect! Think what would be the fate of your own women and children should the German army land upon these shores! The Germans did not hate the Belgians – they had no reason whatever to do so. But the hatred in Germany against the British race to-day amounts to a religion, and if ever the Germans come, depend upon it that the awful massacres in Belgium will be repeated with tenfold vigour, until the streets of every English town and village run red with the blood of your dearly-loved ones. Young men!” he shouted, “I ask you whether you will still stand by and see these awful outrages done, whether you will be content to witness the mutilation and murder of those dearest to your hearts, or whether, before it is too late, you will come forward, now, and at once, and bear your manly share in the crushing out for ever of this ogre of barbarism which has arisen as a terrible and imminent menace to Europe, and to the thousand years of the building up of our civilisation.”

In conclusion he made a fervent, stirring appeal to his hearers – an appeal in which sounded a true ring of heartfelt patriotism, and in consequence of which many young men came forward and gave in their names for enlistment.

And Lewin Rodwell laughed within himself.

A dozen men congratulated him upon his splendid speech, and as Charles Trustram sat by his side, on their drive back to the West End, he could not refrain from expressing admiration of the speech.

“Ah!” laughed Rodwell. “I merely try to do my little bit when I can. It is what we should all do in these black days. There is a big section of the public that doesn’t yet realise that we are at war; they must be taught, and shown what invasion would really mean. The lesson of poor stricken Belgium cannot be too vividly brought home to such idiots as we have about us.”

As the car dashed past Aldgate, going west, Trustram caught sight of the contents-bill of a late edition of one of the evening papers. In large letters was the bold announcement, “Air Raids on Colchester, Braintree and Coggeshall.”

“The Zeppelins have been over again!” he remarked, telling Rodwell what he had just read.

“When?”

“Last night, I suppose.”

“Didn’t you know anything of it at the Admiralty?” asked Rodwell.

“I heard nothing before I left this evening,” Trustram replied.

The pair smoked together for an hour in Rodwell’s room in Bruton Street; and during that time the conversation turned upon the arrest of Jack Sainsbury, Trustram expressing surprise that he had not yet been brought to trial.

“I suppose the case against him is not yet complete,” remarked Rodwell, with a careless air. “A most unfortunate affair,” he added. “He was a clerk in the office of a company in which I have some interest.”

“So I hear. But I really can’t think it’s true that he’s been guilty of espionage,” remarked the Admiralty official. “He was a great friend of Jerrold’s, you remember.”

“Well, I fear, if the truth were told, there was a charge of a similar character against Jerrold.”

“What!” cried Trustram, starting forward in great surprise. “This is the first I’ve heard of it!”

“Of course I can’t say quite positively – only that is what’s rumoured,” Rodwell said.

“But what kind of charge was there against Jerrold? I can’t credit it. Why, he did so much to unearth spies, and was of the greatest assistance to the Intelligence Department. That I happen to know.”

“That is, I think, admitted,” replied the man who led such a wonderful life of duplicity. “It seems, however, that information which came into the hands of the authorities was of such a grave character that a warrant was issued against him for war-treason, and – ”

“A warrant!” cried Trustram. “Surely that’s not true!”

“Quite true,” was Rodwell’s cold reply. “On the evening of his death he somehow learned the truth, and after you had left him that night he apparently committed suicide.”

Trustram was silent and thoughtful for some time. The story had astounded him. Yet, now he reflected, he recollected how, on that fatal night, while they had been dining together, the doctor had spoken rather gloomily upon the outlook, and had remarked that he believed that all his patriotic efforts had been misunderstood by the red-taped officialdom. In face of what his companion had just told him, it was now revealed that Jerome Jerrold, even while they had been dining together, had been contemplating putting an end to his life. He recollected that envelope in his possession, that envelope in which the man now dead had left something – some mysterious message, which was not to be read until one year after his death. What could it be? Was it, after all, a confession that he, the man so long unsuspected, had been guilty of war-treason!

The doctor’s rather strange attitude, and the fierce tirade he had uttered against the Intelligence Department for their lack of initiative and their old-fashioned methods, he had, at the time, put down to irritability consequent upon over-work and the strain of the war, but, in face of what he had now learnt, he was quite able to understand it. It was the key to the tragedy. No doubt that letter left for Jack Sainsbury contained some confession. Curious that suspicion had now also fallen upon Sainsbury, who had so often assisted him in watching night-signals over the hills in the southern counties, and in making inquiries regarding mysterious individuals suspected of espionage.

“Well,” he said at last, “you’ve utterly astounded me. Where did you hear this rumour?”

“My friend Sir Boyle Huntley is very intimate with a man in the War Office – in the Intelligence Department in fact – and it came from him. So I think there’s no doubt about it. A great pity, for Dr Jerrold was a first-class man, and highly respected everywhere.”

“Yes. If true, it is most terrible. But so many idle and ill-natured rumours get afloat nowadays – how, nobody can tell – that one doesn’t know what to believe, if the information does not come from an absolutely reliable source.”

“What I’ve just told you does come from an absolutely reliable source,” Rodwell assured him. “And as regards young Sainsbury, letters which he forgot and left behind him in his desk at the office are clear proof of his dealings with the enemy. In one was enclosed a ten-pound note sent as payment for information from somebody in Holland.”

“Is that really so? And he forgot it?” asked Trustram.

“Well, I’ve had the letter and the banknote in my hand. Our managing-director found the correspondence, and showed it to me before he handed it over to Scotland Yard.”

“Well, I must say that I’ve never suspected either of them as traitors,” declared the Admiralty official. “I liked young Sainsbury very much. He was a smart young fellow, I thought, and I know that Jerrold held him in very high esteem.”

“Ah! my dear Trustram,” remarked Rodwell, with a sigh, “nowadays, with an avalanche of German gold doing its fell work in England, it is, alas! difficult to trust anybody. And yet it is all the fault of the Government, who seem afraid to offend Germany by interning our enemies. If I had my way I’d put the whole lot of them under lock and key, naturalised and unnaturalised alike. It is in that where the peril arises, for, in my opinion, the naturalised Germans in high places are suborning many of our men to become traitors and blackmailing them into the bargain – alas! that I, an Englishman, should be compelled to express such an opinion regarding my compatriots. Here you have two cases in point where apparently honest, well-meaning and patriotic Englishmen are branded as spies, with evidence – in one case certainly, that of Sainsbury – sufficient to convict him.”

“When will his trial be? Have you heard?”

“No. You will be better able to discover that. It will, of course, be a secret court-martial.”

“In that case we shall never know either the nature of the charge – or of his defence.”

“Exactly,” replied Lewin Rodwell, with grim inward satisfaction. “We shall only know the sentence.”

Charles Trustram drew heavily at the fine cigar his host had given him, and sighed. The terrible charges of treason against his dead friend and young Sainsbury were indeed astounding. Yet he, as an official, knew full well that the Director of Intelligence did not take such steps as had been taken without some very firm and sound basis for prosecution. The Department generally erred upon the side of leniency, and always gave the accused the benefit of the doubt. That there was to be a court-martial was, indeed, a very significant fact.

“I suppose you are sending out troops to the Dardanelles?” remarked Lewin Rodwell carelessly, after a short silence. “I saw the announcement in to-day’s papers?”

“Yes. It will be a far tougher proposition than we at first believed. That’s the general opinion at the Admiralty. We have three troop-ships leaving Southampton to-morrow, and four are leaving Plymouth on Friday – all for Gallipoli.”

“Of course they’ll have escorts,” Rodwell remarked, making a mental note of that most important information.

“As far as Gibraltar.”

“Not farther? Aren’t you afraid of German submarines?”

“Not after they have passed the Straits. The drafts we are sending out this week are the most important we have yet despatched. The American liners Ellenborough and Desborough are also taking out troops to Egypt to-morrow.”

“From Plymouth, I suppose?”

“Yes. All the drafts for Egypt and Gallipoli are going via Plymouth in future,” was Trustram’s innocent reply.

Those few unguarded words might cost the British Empire several thousand officers and men, yet it seemed as though Trustram never dreamed the true character of the unscrupulous spy with whom he was seated, or the fact that the woman Kirby – whom he had never seen – was seated in an adjoining room, patiently awaiting his departure.

What, indeed, would Charles Trustram have thought had he known the true import of that vital information which he had imparted to his friend, under the pledge of confidence. The bombardment of Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby had been directly due to what he had divulged, though he was in ignorance of the truth. More than once, however, he had reflected upon it and wondered.

Yet after all he had dismissed such suspicion as utterly absurd. To suspect Lewin Rodwell of any dealings with the enemy was utterly ridiculous. No finer nor truer Englishman had ever breathed. The very thought of such a thing caused him to ridicule himself.

He rose at half-past eleven, and, warmly shaking his friend’s hand, asked:

“Will you dine with me to-morrow at the Club?”

Rodwell hesitated; then, consulting his little pocket diary, replied —

“I’m awfully sorry, my dear fellow, but I am due to speak in Lincoln to-morrow night. Any other night I’ll be delighted.”

“Thursday next, then, at eight o’clock – eh?”

“Good. It’s an appointment,” and he scribbled it down.

Then Trustram strode out and, hailing a passing taxi, drove home to his quiet rooms off Eaton Square.

The moment he had gone Mrs Kirby, wearing a small, close-fitting hat and blue serge walking-gown, quickly joined Rodwell in the hall.

“I’ve learnt something of importance, Molly. I must get away down to old Small’s at once. Gott strafe England!” he added very seriously.

“Gott strafe England!” the woman repeated after him in fervent earnestness, as though it were a prayer. Then she asked in surprise, “Going to-night? It’s a long way. Why, you won’t get there before morning!”

“I must be there as soon as possible. Our submarines can get some troop-ships – if we are slick enough! Every moment’s delay is of the utmost importance,” he exclaimed hurriedly. “Ring up Penney, will you, and tell him to bring round the car at once. Then come into the dining-room and have a snack with me before I go. But to what do I owe a visit at this hour? Have you anything to report?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll tell you when I’ve been on the ’phone,” she answered. “It’s something urgent, and very important. I don’t like the look of things.”