The Girl Philippa

"That the assault on you was merely a local matter instigated by Wildresse?"

"It wouldn't surprise me."

"I think it was, too. Some of his thugs did it. He had made up his mind about you. But somebody must have tipped him off to watch you."

"Probably."

"I am sure of it. The three German-appearing men who tried to pick a quarrel with you over the Archduke's murder were not the men who tried to frisk you for your papers. They were 'provocative agents' in the pay of a foreign government – hired opportunists who were expected to pick something of value out of any confusion attending a general row fomented by themselves."

"Who told you that?"

"Philippa."

Halkett, now thoroughly interested, looked keenly at Warner through the thin haze of his pipe.

"These three agents," continued Warner, "were certainly in close communication with the men who have been following you. And at least one of those men was seated at the table directly behind you when Wildresse's thugs tried to frisk you for documents. So you see that Wildresse, prodded by the French secret police, and these provocative agents, prodded by the people who are following you, who, in turn, are spurred by the German Government, were all playing at cross purposes, but with you as a common objective. A fine nest of intrigue I led you into when I took you to the Cabaret de Biribi! I'm terribly sorry, Halkett. But I believe that some good has come out of that mess – a fragment of a letter, written in German, which Philippa gave me in the meadow this afternoon.

"She found it under the wrecked table behind you. Nobody has seen it except myself and Philippa; and the child cannot read much German. But, studying it and seeing your name in the letter, she was clever enough to bring it to me. Here it is." He laid it on the table under the Englishman's eyes.

While Halkett remained absorbed in his translation, Warner paced the garden, deeply occupied with his own uneasy cogitations. After a little while Halkett spoke to him in an altered voice, and he turned and came swiftly back to the arbor.

The Englishman, looking up, said gravely:

"Concerning myself, there seems to remain now nothing worth concealing from you… Perhaps you had better know the truth. I happen to be an officer temporarily serving with the Intelligence Department; I had just been assigned to duty in New York when the Harkness shell was stolen. The general alarm went out. Gray, a brother officer, and I chanced to stumble on evidence which sent us aboard an Antwerp steamer. Our birds were aboard. We pulled every string available, and, passing over the details of the affair, he and I managed to recover the drawings, specifications, and formula which had been stolen. Some of these papers are in that envelope.

"Every German agent in Europe knows we have them. My Government, for some reason or other, instructs me to remain here for the present. As Gray and I are known, doubtless somebody will appear and take the drawings out of our hands, because the chances are that I'd be murdered before I reached Calais. That is the situation, Warner."

"Has Gray any of the drawings?"

"He has."

"I understand."

"And that is why I am worrying about Gray. They'd not hesitate to kill him if they thought there was a chance that he had any of the papers."

Warner said:

"They couldn't have killed him. A crime on the public highway cannot remain undiscovered very long."

Halkett sat thoughtfully stroking Ariadne. Presently he looked up with a slight smile.

"Well, what are you going to do with the girl Philippa?" he inquired.

"Now, what do you think of a situation like this?" demanded Warner, half laughing, half vexed. "I told her to go home. She positively refuses. You can't blame the child. The dirty business there has disgusted her. This seems to be a final revolt. But – what would you do if a young girl wished herself on you?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Halkett, intensely amused.

Warner reddened.

"I haven't either," he said. "All I can think of is to use her as a model – give her a small salary until she finds something to do."

"Are you going to use her for a model?"

"I suppose so, until somebody comes after her to take her back."

"Suppose nobody comes?" suggested Halkett mischievously.

"Well, I'm not going to adopt her, that's certain," insisted the other. "Poor little thing!" he added. " – Her instincts seem to be decent. Who could blame a young girl for sickening of such a life and cutting away on her own hook? That's a rotten joint, that Cabaret de Biribi. And as for that old villain, Wildresse, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he were playing the dirty game from both ends – German and French. Informers are often traitors."

"Very frequently."

"Spies also have that reputation, I believe – except in romantic fiction," said Warner.

"They usually deserve it," returned Halkett. "Generally speaking, they are a scum recruited from low pubs and brothels. Rarely does any reputable person enter that profession except in line of military duty or in time of war.

"Servants, waiters, chauffeurs, those are the most respectable classes of secret agents. But the demi-monde and their hangers-on furnish the majority of those popularly supposed to represent people of position who play the rôle of international spy. They are a rummy lot, Warner.

"It is very, very seldom in Occidental drawing-rooms that such practices prevail. A woman of position very rarely becomes a paid agent of that sort. Diplomats and attachés who are pumped and victimized are usually the dupes of socially disreputable people. Society in England and in Western Europe rarely entertains such a favorite of fiction as a paid Government spy; nor are such people very often recruited from its ranks. East of the Danube it is different."

They sat for a while smoking, Halkett lavishing endearments upon Ariadne who never failed to respond, Warner musing on what Halkett had said and wondering exactly what duties the Military Intelligence Department of any Government might include.

No doubt, like the Government, it employs spies, and, like the Government, never admits the fact.

For among all outcasts so vitally necessary to autocracy and militarism, the spy is the most pitiable: in time of peace no authority admits employing him; in time of war, his fate, if taken, is as certain as that his own Government will disown him. Eternally repudiated, whether of respectable or disreputable antecedents, honest or otherwise, patriotic or mercenary, the world has only one opinion to express concerning spies, although it often cackles over their adventures and snivels over their fate.

Perhaps Halkett was musing on these things, for presently he took his pipe from his mouth and said:

"To my knowledge, we British never employ spies in America. Your Government, I know, never employs them anywhere in time of peace. All other Governments do. Europe swarms with them. If I were in Germany today, I'd be considered a spy. They'd follow me about and lock me up on the first excuse – or without any excuse at all. And if we chanced to be at war with Germany, and I were caught, they'd certainly shoot me because I have recovered stolen property."

"They'd execute you because you are not in uniform?"

"Certainly. I'd not stand a ghost of a chance. So I shall be rather glad that I'm in France when war comes."

"You are so certain it is coming?"

"Absolutely, my dear fellow. Probably it will be declared tomorrow."

"I cannot believe it, Halkett."

"I can scarcely believe it myself. But – I know it is coming. And it is coming from the north."

"Through Belgium?"

"Exactly."

"And the treaty?"

"I have already told you how Germany regards such agreements. She'll kill that treaty with just as much emotion as she'd experience in assassinating a fly. It's a rotten outlook, Warner. The eleventh hour has passed."