Number 70, Berlin: A Story of Britain's Peril

A silence again fell between them.

“It is a great pity poor Dr Jerrold died as he did,” the girl remarked thoughtfully at last. “I met him twice with you, and I liked him awfully. He struck me as so thoroughly earnest and so perfectly genuine.”

“He was, Elise. When he died – well – I – I lost my best friend,” and he sighed.

“Yes,” she answered. “And he was doing such a good work, patiently tracing out suspicious cases of espionage.”

“He was. Yet by so doing he, like all true patriots, got himself strangely disliked, first by the Germans themselves, who hated him, and secondly by the Intelligence Department.”

“The latter were jealous that he, a mere civilian doctor, should dare to interfere, I suppose,” remarked the girl thoughtfully.

“The khaki cult is full of silly jealousies and petty prejudices.”

“Exactly. It was a very ridiculous situation. Surely the man in khaki cannot pursue inquiries so secretly and delicately as the civilian. The Scotland Yard detective does not go about dressed in the uniform of an inspector. Therefore, why should an Intelligence officer put on red-tabs in order to make himself conspicuous? No, dearest,” he went on; “I quite agree with the doctor that the officials whose duty it is to look after spies have not taken sufficient advantage of patriotic civilians who are ready to assist them.”

“Why don’t you help them, Jack?” suggested the girl. “You assisted Dr Jerrold, and you know a great deal regarding spies and their methods. Yet you are always so awfully mysterious about them.”

“Am I, darling?” he laughed, carrying her hand tenderly to his lips and kissing it fondly.

“Yes, you are,” she protested quickly. “Do tell me one thing – answer me one question, Jack. Have you any suspicion in one single case? – I mean do you really know a spy?”

Jack hesitated. He drew a long breath, as again across his troubled mind flashed that thought which had so constantly obsessed him ever since that afternoon before Jerome Jerrold had died so mysteriously.

“Yes, Elise,” he answered in a thick voice. “Yes, I do.”

Chapter Eleven.

The Enemy’s Cipher

The afternoon of December 16th, 1914 – the 135th day of the war – was grey and gloomy in Northumberland Avenue, that short thoroughfare of high uniform hotels and buildings.

The street-lamps had just been lit around Trafalgar Square when Lewin Rodwell passed out of the big hall of the Constitutional Club, and down the steps into the street. At the moment a newsboy dashed past crying the evening papers.

The words that fell upon Rodwell’s ear caused him to start; and, stopping the lad, he purchased a paper, and, halting, read the bold, startling headlines: “Bombardment of the East Coast this morning: Great destruction of seaside towns.”

“Ach!” he murmured with a grin of satisfaction. “Ach! Number 70 was not slow in acting upon my message. Instead of the German Fleet falling into the trap, they have taught these pigs of English a lesson. Not long ago one Minister declared that if the German Fleet did not come out of the Kiel Canal, that the brave British would dig them like rats out of a hole. Good! They have come out to respond to that challenge,” and he laughed in grim satisfaction. “Let’s see what they’ve done.”

Turning upon his heel, in his eagerness to learn the truth, he reascended the broad steps of the Club, and in the hall seated himself and eagerly devoured the account which, at that moment, was thrilling the whole country.

The paper stated, as all will remember, that the German ships having, by some extraordinary and unknown means, succeeded in evading the diligent watch kept upon them in the North Sea, had appeared on the Yorkshire coast early that morning. A German battleship, together with several first-class cruisers, had made a raid, and shelled Hartlepool, Scarborough and Whitby. At the three towns bombarded much damage was done, hotels, churches and hospitals being struck; and, according to the casualty list at that moment available, twenty-nine persons had been killed and forty-six wounded at Hartlepool; two killed and two wounded at Whitby, and thirteen casualties in Scarborough. The paper added that the list of casualties was believed to be very much greater, and would, it was thought, amount to quite two hundred. British patrol boats had endeavoured to cut off the Germans, whereupon the latter had fled.

Lewin Rodwell, having read the leading article, in which the journal loudly protested against the bombardment of undefended towns, and the ruthless slaughter of women and children, cast the paper aside, rose and again went out.

As he walked in the falling twilight towards Pall Mall, he laughed lightly, muttering in German, beneath his breath: “That is their first taste of bombardment! They will have many yet, in the near future. They laugh at our Zeppelins now. But will they laugh when our new aircraft bases are ready? No. The idiots, they will not laugh when we begin to drop bombs upon London!”

And, hailing a taxi, he entered it and drove home to Bruton Street, where Sir Boyle Huntley was awaiting him.

The man with the bloated, red face and loose lips greeted his friend warmly as he entered the quiet, cosy study. Then when Franks, Rodwell’s man, had pulled down the blinds and retired, he exclaimed:

“Seen this evening’s paper? Isn’t it splendid, Lewin! All your doing, my dear fellow. You’ll get a handsome reward for it. Trustram is very useful to us, after all.”

“Yes,” was the other’s reply. “He’s useful – but only up to a certain point. My only regret is that we haven’t a real grip upon him. If we knew something against him – or if he’d borrowed money from one of our friends – then we might easily put on the screw, and learn a lot. As it is, he’s careful to give away but little information, and that not always trustworthy.”

“True,” was Sir Boyle’s reply. “But could we not manage to entice him into our fold? We’ve captured others, even more wary than he, remember.”

“Ah! I wish I could see a way,” replied Rodwell reflectively, as he stood before his own fireplace, his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets.

“To my mind, Lewin, I foresee a danger,” said the stout man, tossing his cigarette-end into the grate as he rose and stood before his friend.

“How?”

“Well – last night I happened to be at the theatre, and in the stalls in front of me sat Trustram with young Sainsbury, the fellow whom we dismissed from the Ochrida office.”

“Sainsbury!” gasped the other. “Is he on friendly terms with Trustram, do you think?”

“I don’t think, my dear fellow – I am certain,” was the reply. “He had his girl with him, and all three were laughing and chatting merrily together.”

“His girl? Let me see, we had him watched a few days ago, didn’t we? That’s a girl living up at Hampstead – daughter of a Birmingham tool-manufacturer, Elise Shearman, isn’t she?” remarked Rodwell slowly, his eyebrows narrowing as he spoke.

“I believe that was the name. Olsen watched and reported, didn’t he?” asked the Baronet.

“Yes. I must see him. That young fellow is dangerous to us, Boyle – distinctly dangerous! He knows something, remember, and he would have told his friend Jerrold – if the latter had not conveniently died just before his visit to Wimpole Street.”

“Yes. That was indeed a lucky incident – eh?”

“And now he is friendly with Charles Trustram. How did they meet, I wonder?”

“Trustram was, of course, a friend of Jerrold’s.”

“Ah – I see. Well, we must lose no time in acting,” exclaimed Lewin Rodwell in a low, hard voice. “I quite realise the very grave and imminent danger. We may be already suspected by Trustram.”

“Most probably, I think. We surely can’t afford to court disaster any further.”

“No,” was Rodwell’s low, decisive answer, and he drew a long breath. “We must act – swiftly and effectively.”

And then he lapsed into a long silence, during which his active brain was ardently at work in order to devise some subtle and deadly plan which should crush out suspicion and place them both in a position of further safety.

At the moment, the British public believed both men to be honest, patriotic supporters of the Government – men who were making much sacrifice for the country’s welfare.

What if the horrible and disgraceful truth ever became revealed? What if they were proved to be traitors? Why, a London mob would undoubtedly lynch them both, and tear them limb from limb!

One man in England knew the truth – that was quite plain – and that man was young Sainsbury, the clerk who had accidentally overheard those indiscreet words in the boardroom in Gracechurch Street.

Lewin Rodwell, though ever since that afternoon when he had been so indiscreet he had tried to hide the truth from himself, now realised that, at all hazards, the young man’s activity must be cut short, and his mouth closed.

Sir Boyle remained and dined with him. As a bachelor, and an epicure, Lewin Rodwell always gave excellent dinners, dinners that were renowned in London. He had a French chef to whom he paid a big salary – a man who had been chef at Armenonville, in the Bois, in Paris. Upon his kitchen Rodwell spared nothing, hence when any of those men – whom he afterwards so cleverly made use of to swell his bank-balance – accepted his hospitality they knew that the meal would be perhaps the best procurable in all London.

Many are the men-about-town who pride themselves upon their knowledge of the gastronomic art, and talk with loving reflections of the soups, entrées, and what-not, that they have eaten. Most of such men are what may be termed “hotel epicures.” They swallow the dishes served at the fashionable hotels – dishes to the liking of their own palates possibly – smack their lips, pay, and are satisfied. But the real epicure – and he is indeed a rara avis– is the one who knows that the thin-sliced grey truffle, light as a feather, cannot be put on a fillet in London, and that “sea-truffles” have never been seen in the Metropolis.