by John Buchan
“Anyhow, the next time I ran across him he was friendly. It was at a little mountain inn in the Vosges, where I had turned up on a push-bike in one of my private explorations. I was then at the Staff College. Cecilia was on the same errand, I think — for the other side. He was using a different name, and was got up like a clerk on holiday. We both knew what the other was doing, and we didn’t refer to it. But we had a great evening’s talk about things in general. At first he was cold to me — you see, I had been a witness of his humiliation at Glenfargie, and the man was as proud as Lucifer. But he thawed in the end, and gave me about a quarter of his confidence. He had grown into a tough, lean, sallow little fellow, with a quiet manner hiding the embanked fires. A real volcano, for he was the complete dare-devil, with a passion for all that was desperate and spectacular and incalculable, and at the same time as cunning as a monkey, and with shrewdness behind his grandiose imagination. A sort of d’Annunzio. I remember thinking that, if war came, he would be killed in the first month.
“But he wasn’t. I had a letter from him in 1920. He did not know what I had been after in the war, but somehow or other he had heard that I had done something, so he assumed that I must be a fire-eater like himself. It was a long, crazy epistle. He complained that the world was no longer fit for a gentleman, but that there was still hope if the gentlemen would only get together. National hatreds, he said, were over, the battle was now between the gentlemen and the rabble, and it was for all men of breeding and courage to work together. I gathered that he was in the inner circle of the Iron Hands, and he wanted to connect up with those who were fighting the same battle elsewhere, for, as he saw it, it was a world conflict. . . . I took some pains in replying to his nonsense. I didn’t choke him off, but told him that just at present I was out of action and lying low. I was interested in the Iron Hand business and wanted to keep in touch with Cecilia.
“Well, I succeeded in doing that, and I found out a good deal. The Iron Hand movement was on the face of it just an organisation of ex-soldiers, like the American Legion, partly benevolent and partly nationalist. There were thousands of members who only joined to keep up the fellowship of the trenches. But there was an inner circle to it which was playing a big part in politics, and an innermost circle which meant real mischief. This last cherished the old idea of iron discipline and class supremacy, and meant to win or perish. Peace in the world was the last thing they sought, for their only hope lay in a new and bigger ferment. They were violent German nationalists, but they were cosmopolitan too in their outlook — they wanted to brigade all the elements in every land that would help to restore the old world. They were true storm-troops, ready for any forlorn hope and prepared to use any means however devilish, and Cecilia was one of their brains.
“As soon as I left the Black Forest I went to Cecilia — I had been keeping track of him, you see. I didn’t say much, but he believed that I was ready for the field again. Anyhow, he welcomed me. He sat and stared at me for a minute or two, and seemed to be satisfied.”
Falconet laughed.
“I judge he was,” he said. “If I was looking for a confederate in a desperate job, your face would be enough for me. Go on, Adam.”
“He told me that if he took me among his friends there would be no going back, and he fixed me with his solemn mad eyes. I said that I perfectly understood that. Then my doings became like a crude detective yarn, and I needn’t trouble you with the details. He gave me passports to the inner circle, but I had to find my way there alone — that was part of the ritual. I had to pass through layers and layers of vedettes — all kinds of people you wouldn’t suspect — bagmen, and small officials, and tradesmen, and peasants, each doing his appointed job in the dark. In the end I landed in the upper room of a squalid little eating-house in — never mind where. And there I became an honorary member of a fairly mischievous brotherhood.
“Cecilia was there, but he wasn’t the most important member. There was a small plump man with the thick rings on his hands that people wear for rheumatism, and a face all puckered into grey bags. He only spoke in grunts, but he seemed to be the final court of appeal. They called him Gratias — Dr Gratias. And there was one wonderful fellow, with a neck like the busts of Julius Cæsar and atop of it a small round head. He looked the pure human animal, one-idea’d, with the force and fury of a bull. He was a noble of sorts — the Baron von Hilderling. There were others too. . . . No, there was no melodrama. No signature in blood, no swearing of oaths — those gentry are beyond the inhibitions of oaths. They treated me with immense civility, but rather as if I was a criminal whose dossier was wanted by the police. They most politely took down every detail about my appearance, every measurement — even my finger-prints. You see, they were determined never to lose sight of me again, and if I turned traitor to make certain of a reckoning.”
Falconet looked grave. “That’s bad. They’ve gotten a tight cinch on you.”
“It was the only way. I had to put myself in their hands. It adds to the odds in the game, but only a little. . . . After that was done they were perfectly frank with me, and Cecilia was almost affectionate. They took it for granted that I was heart and soul on their side, but they didn’t ask me to do anything — not yet. I was only a friendly foreign associate. But I learned a good deal about their plans.”
“Loeffler?” Falconet asked sharply.
“Yes, he is the enemy. Partly because he is Chancellor, and therefore the prop of a system which they detest. Partly because he is Loeffler. They are black afraid of him, for they are clever men, and recognise that he is the greatest force to-day making for peace. They have the wits to see that he is utterly honest and utterly courageous, and therefore they fear him more than anyone else. . . . But they are not yet quite sure, and that is the hope. He has always been a Nationalist, remember — he had a first-class war record — he’s not a Jew — and he’s not a Socialist. They are waiting and watching him. As soon as he declares himself the thumbs go down.”
“How do you mean?”
“They may let him attend the London Conference if his policy is still in doubt. But if in order to prepare the ground he thinks it necessary to make some preliminary declaration — some gesture to France or to America — then they will do their best to see that he doesn’t cross the Channel.”
Falconet whistled.
“But he means to say something. I heard that from Blakiston.”
“Yes, he means to. I gathered that in Berlin. . . . Well, so much for the Iron Hands. The Communists were an easier proposition. I dropped back into the underworld in which I moved in ‘17 and ‘18, and I had no trouble in picking up the threads. With the Iron Hands I was Melfort, formerly a lieutenant-colonel in the British Army, but among the anarchs I was somebody very different — a shabby Munich journalist called Brasser — Hannus Brasser. Some of them remembered me — one of them had actually hidden me for twelve hours in his wood-cellar.
“I met the Iron Hands in a room in a slum public-house, but the other lot were gathered in a castle! It was a great empty, shuttered schloss in a park of a thousand acres, and it belonged to one of them who bore a name more famous in history than Hohenzollern. What a mad turn-up the world is — gutter-blood out to restore aristocracy and blue blood eager to blast it! . . . It was a funny party, but not as impressive as the Iron Hands. You see, the Iron Hands are a new thing, idiomatically national, with a single definite purpose, while the others are only cogs in an international machine. Active cogs, of course. The last word in cold deadly fanaticism. They accepted me in my old rôle of fellow-worker, and didn’t trouble to ask what I had been doing since we met in cellars in ‘17. I noticed changes in them — they were wilder, less confident, a little more desperate. There was a woman among them called Probus — Netta Probus — who struck me as nearly the evillest thing I had ever set eyes on.”
“How do they look at Loeffler?” Falconet asked.
“With respect — and utter hatred. He is the triumphant bourgeois who
may just pull Germany out of the mire, which is the last thing they want. They don’t underrate his abilities — if anything they overrate them. They are as afraid as the Iron Hands of the London Conference, and will do their best to keep him away from it. Oh yes, murder is their usual card, and no doubt they will have a try at it — they are an unimaginative lot with a monotonous preference for the crude. But they are less to be feared than the Iron Hands, for they have been trying that game for years, and the police have a line on most of them. I had some difficulty in getting away from that cheerful party, for it broke up in confusion. Yes, a police raid. It was piquant to be hunted by Loeffler’s own watch dogs, when I was trying my hand at the same game.”
Falconet demanded the full story, but he got little of it, for Adam seemed to regard it as a thing of minor importance.
“Two, I think, were caught. The woman Probus got away unfortunately. I had a bit of a cross-country run, with several automatics behind me to improve my speed. A good thing that I was in pretty hard condition! Lucky for me too that I had kept my communications open. I had rather a difficult twelve hours till I reached one of my hidy-holes. After that it was easy, and I emerged the spruce Parisian commis-voyageur you saw this afternoon. Flew into France with a water-tight passport and a valise full of samples.”
Adam yawned. “I’m for bed. To-night I am a Christian gentleman, but Heaven knows what I shall be to-morrow. You and I must part for a week or two, for I’m going to be rather busy. My job is to see Loeffler safe in England. There we can leave him to the best police in the world.”
“And after that?” Falconet asked.
“One stage at a time. The London Conference is the thing that matters most to the world at this moment. After it I stand back. I leave Loeffler to have it out with Creevey and his friends. By the way, Creevey has a bigger international reputation than I thought. The Iron Hands know all about him, and don’t approve of him. Same with the Communist lot. He’s their pet mystery man, and they have built a wonderful bogy out of him, something which they can fear and hate to their heart’s content. He may find some day that his life isn’t as healthy as he would like.”
Adam stretched his arms like a tired boy. For one of his years his movements were curiously young. Falconet dragged his long limbs from his arm-chair and complained of stiffness.
“I’m growing old,” he said. “I get rheumatism if I sit long in the same position. How in thunder do you manage to keep so spry, Adam? You look happy, too.”
The other laughed.
“I have an active job to look forward to. And I haven’t had much of that since you and I left the Polar ice. . . . Also, I now know where I am. I have been flying too high and my pinions won’t carry me. I have been trying to work on the stage, when my proper job is in the wings. Loeffler has the right word for it. I’m content to be the manure to make the corn spring.”
CHAPTER II
I
On the 23rd of October the Chancellor spent a busy day in the important city of Rottenburg. He arrived in the morning by special train from Berlin, and drove to the apartments taken for him at the Kaiserhof, which stands near the middle of the Koenigplatz, the famous street which divides the new industrial and residential city from the older quarter of Altdorf. In the forenoon, attended by the burgomaster and councillors, he opened the new Handelshochschule, one of the extravagant public buildings which Germany had indulged in since the war, and made a speech on his country’s industrial future. After luncheon he fulfilled many engagements, including visits to the new technical museum and to several schools, at each of which he had something pleasant to say, for the Chancellor had a gift for apposite occasional speeches. Thereafter he had long interviews with certain steel magnates, and then retired to deal with his papers. It was understood that he proposed to himself dinner in his rooms with his secretaries and a quiet evening, leaving early next morning for Cologne.
But this programme was only for the public. The Chancellor did not dine at the Kaiserhof, and the dinner ordered for him was eaten by his secretaries alone. As the October dusk fell he descended, wrapped up in a heavy ulster with a white muffler round his neck, and, emerging from a side door in a narrow street which ran at right angles from the Koenigplatz, entered a waiting motor-car. Outside the town he stopped the car, and took his seat beside the driver, for the evening was fine and he was a glutton for fresh air.
Twenty miles from Rottenburg is the important railway junction of Neumarkt, on the main line between Paris and eastern Europe. It is the junction from which travellers branch off to Switzerland and the south. The main day express from Paris arrives there at seven o’clock, but the night express which crosses the Alps does not leave till nine-thirty, having to wait for the connection with the Rhineland and the north. Passengers for the south have consequently two hours and a half at their disposal, which they usually spend in dining at the excellent table of the Hôtel Splendide, adjacent to the railway station.
A certain French Minister of State left Paris that morning, his destination, as the press announced, being a well-known holiday resort on the Italian lakes, where he proposed to take a week’s rest before the toil of the London Conference. But the Minister did not dine at the Hôtel Splendide. He left his secretary to see to his baggage, and hurried into the street, where a car awaited him by arrangement. After that he was driven rapidly through the pleasant woodland country to the north of Neumarkt to a village called Neustadt, where a little inn stood apart in a rose garden. There he found a modest dinner awaiting him, and he ate it in the company of a small man with a peaked beard to whom he had much to say. At a quarter to nine he left the inn, rejoined his car, which was waiting in a retired place, duly caught the south-bound express, and next morning was among the pines and vineyards of the Italian foothills.
A quarter of an hour later his companion paid the bill, and ordered his car. Night had fallen, but it was the luminous dark of a fine autumn. As on the outward journey he sat beside the driver, partly for fresh air, and partly for another reason. He wore a white scarf round his neck, a dark ulster, and a soft black hat.
A mile from Neustadt the road was under repair for several hundred yards, and there was passage only for a single car at a time. Traffic had to wait at each end at the dictation of a man with a red lamp, who blocked ingress till the other end was clear. At the Rottenburg end several men with motor bicycles might have been seen, lounging and smoking. They were men with unsmiling faces and broad shoulders that had once been drilled, and, though in ordinary civilian dress, they had the air of being on duty. They had inconspicuously accompanied the Chancellor from the Kaiserhof as his bodyguard, and now awaited his return, for their orders had been to stop short of Neustadt.
A car came out of the alley-way which they recognised. It was a big Mercedes, and beside the driver sat a small man in a dark coat with a white muffler. That white muffler was their cue. They mounted their bicycles, and two preceded the car, and two followed it. They attended it till it stopped in the side street running up from the Koenigplatz, and they saw the passenger descend and enter the hotel, after which they dispersed for supper. But one of them had stopped for a moment and rubbed his eyes. “His Excellency has dined well,” he said. “He trips like a young ‘un.”
Five minutes or so after the cyclists had started, another car passed the road-mending operations. It was exactly the same as its predecessor — a Mercedes limousine, and beside the driver sat a small man in a dark greatcoat and a white scarf. There were no cyclists to accompany this car, which made its best speed along the fine broad highway towards Rottenburg.
Presently the speed slackened, and the driver stopped to examine his engine.
“She pulls badly, mein Herr,” he said. “I do not know why, for she was overhauled but yesterday.”
The journey continued, but it was a limping business, scarcely ten miles an hour. Loeffler looked at his watch, and compared it with the far-off chiming of the half-hour from the Rottenburg clocks. He was
in no hurry, for he had nothing more to do that night, and he was enjoying the mild autumn weather.
But when the Rottenburg lights were near and lamp-posts had begun to dot the country road, the car came to a dead stop. The chauffeur descended, and, after examination, shook his head.
“As I thought. It is the big end which has had some mischief done to it. Somehow it has not been getting its oil. We cannot continue. I must wait here in the hope of a tow, and you, I fear, must go on on foot. We are almost in Rottenburg. That is Altdorf before you, and in half an hour you will be in the Koenigplatz.”
Loeffler was not unwilling. He had had too little exercise of late, and he was glad to stretch his legs. He took off his ulster and bade the driver leave it at his hotel when he reached the city. But he retained his white neckerchief, for his throat was weak, and he had a good deal of public speaking before him in the near future.
“You will continue till you meet the tram-lines,” said the driver. “See, there is their terminus just ahead. But stop, there is a better road, I think.” He removed his cap and scratched his head. “I am a newcomer to this place, but it sticks in my mind that the tram-lines fetch a circuit. Here, friend,” he cried to a man who stood on the side-path. “What’s the nearest way to the Kaiserhof hotel?”
The man, who looked like a workman, took his pipe from his mouth and came forward.
“The Kaiserhof?” he said. “Through Altdorf undoubtedly. It will save the gentleman a mile at least. By the Ganzstrasse which enters the Koenigplatz almost at the hotel door. See, mein Herr. After the tramway terminus you take the second street on your left and continue. That is the Ganzstrasse. You cannot miss it.”