The Second Seal

by Dennis Wheatley

  “I agree; although what is called ‘informed opinion’ in the Austro-German press appears to think otherwise.”

  “So, too, do most of my colleagues. Once again I am in a minority. But the British are not fools. They dare not stand by and see France defeated. To do so would be to court war single-handed against an infinitely more powerful Germany in a few years’ time.”

  The Duke took the long cigar that his host offered him, and remarked: “I am sure that is how they view it themselves, and I should have thought that Mr. Churchill’s having held the First and Second Fleets together would have made it plain to others.”

  “There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see, my friend. If the war spreads we shall have that mountebank, William Hohenzollern, to thank for it. His war-monger Generals are always dangling before him the picture of himself as another Frederick the Great, and he is a born wishful thinker. He is convinced that France is in no state to put up a serious resistance to his armies, and I would wager on it that he regards the continued concentration of the British Fleet merely as a bluff.”

  Count Tisza stroked his beard thoughtfully, then went on: “That man is of the type most dangerous and unsuited of any to be an absolute monarch—a mixture of timidity, impulsiveness and vanity. When Hoyos returned from Berlin early in the month we were given to understand that, although we could count on Germany’s support to the limit, the Kaiser did not believe that there was the least danger of our quarrel with Serbia leading to a European war. He took his decision to support us without consulting his Cabinet, and we have since learned that afterwards he did not bother to summon it in order to hear its views on possible repercussions to his rash act. Instead, he seems to have suddenly changed his mind about the likelihood of war; but even then he did not ask the opinion of his principal advisers at a council. That afternoon and evening he sent for his Chancellor, his military chiefs, and his armaments’ director, Krupp, one by one, and told them impulsively to be prepared for an outbreak of hostilities. Then, having set the German war machine secretly in motion, he calmly went off next morning on a holiday cruise to Norway. Naturally, with no hand left to check them, the delighted Generals took the bit between their teeth. And now, having been accused by them so often in previous crises of having shown the white feather at the last moment, his vanity will not allow him to climb down.”

  “What you tell me tallies with the sort of situation I have always feared,” said the Duke. Then, so that his friend should not make any further disclosures that he might afterwards regret, he added as a deliberate warning, “And so, Count, it seems that you and I will soon find ourselves in enemy camps. May I say that in this frightful tragedy there are few things that I shall regret more deeply.”

  “And I.” The Count smiled. “But at least I am happy to think that, for people like ourselves, war does not mean the breaking of a friendship. It is one of the greatest blessings granted to educated and travelled men, that they are not subject to the blind hatred of the mobs. The less fortunate know next to nothing of other nations, so regard them with either jealousy or contempt, and can be roused by any alarmist parrotcry to howl for their blood. Whereas we who have seen many cities and walked the countryside of many lands, know that all races differ only in small, unimportant things; and that they hold in common the golden thread of charity, humour, courage and goodwill. For you and me war will mean a separation, during which each of us will do his duty to his country; but attributes of the spirit, such as love and friendship, can survive unsmirched by the dirt of man-made conflicts. Even if we met as two scouts upon a battlefield, instead of attempting to hack one another to pieces, I am sure we should sit down and have a drink; then return to our respective lines without giving away one another’s position.”

  The Duke nodded gravely. He too had been brought up in the tradition of chivalry, and he agreed whole-heartedly with every word that the noble-minded Hungarian had said. Soldier as he was, he regarded war as an evil thing, arising always from the ambitions of unscrupulous men; and, although he had fought in many for the sake of the interest and excitement they afforded him, he had always observed the traditional courtesies of war, and counted his personal relationships with people who chanced to be on the other side, as a thing apart, concerning only his own honour.

  “You have expressed exactly my own feelings, Count,” he declared warmly. “And we can only pray that the conflict will be a brief one. That it should occur at all is beyond words tragic. In spite of your pessimism when you came to see me three weeks ago, I must confess I lapsed into a fool’s paradise until I learned that the ultimatum to Serbia had actually been sent. To have thrown that bombshell after such a long delay seems really wanton. And, even knowing what I do of von Hötzendorf’s ideas—I mean his theory about waging a series of wars against the Empire’s potential enemies in turn as the best hope of holding it together—I still cannot understand how your Government could have allowed him to persuade them into opening hostilities after they had received Serbia’s abject submission.”

  “I understand it only too well.” Count Tisza rose from his chair and began to pace up and down the room with his hands behind his back. “Berchtold wanted to secure the complete elimination of Serbia as a factor in Balkan politics, and he made up his mind to use the Archduke’s murder as an excuse to achieve that. The delay in sending the ultimatum is easily explained. The French President, M. Poincaré, and his Prime Minister were on an official goodwill visit to St. Petersburg. They were not due to leave until 23rd July. In order to prevent their conferring personally with the Czar and his advisers, so that Russia and France might formulate a common policy, it was decided to pigeon-hole the ultimatum till that date. In fact, Berchtold actually delayed its delivery for an additional hour in order to make quite certain that the Czar’s French visitors should have started on their way home before the Russian Foreign Office learned of it.”

  “Then your pessimism was well-founded. But, even so, the meekness of the Serbian answer must have been quite unexpected. Surely it gave Count Berchtold all that he required? In fact, I find it inexplicable that he should have courted condemnation of Austria-Hungary as an agressor by pressing the matter further.”

  The Count shrugged. “For that the Kaiser is to blame. It was he who gave us the blank cheque. Its use was even urged upon us and implied that if Russia attempted to intervene, Germany would attack her. Is it not plain to you how the minds of von Hötzendorf and Berchtold must have worked? They said to themselves, ‘Here is our chance to eliminate not only our little enemy, Serbia, but our big enemy, Russia, as well. But unless we force a war upon Serbia, Russia will not threaten us; so we shall have lost the God-given opportunity of involving the Germans in a war which should cripple the mighty Empire of the Czars for many years to come.’ From that moment the tone of Serbia’s reply became a matter of indifference to them. Nothing but war would any longer serve their full purpose; and they were determined to have it.”

  “I see that; yet I still marvel that either the Kaiser or the Emperor should have been willing to go to such lengths, once all grounds for aggression had been cut from beneath their feet by the humility of the Serbian reply.”

  “You may well do so. But I think the Kaiser is caught in the web created by his own initial impetuosity. His Chief of Staff, von Moltke, has stated that Germany could never hope to be in a more favourable condition to enter on a general conflict than she is at present. The German Foreign Office agrees to that. During the Kaiser’s absence all preparations that could be made for war, short of actual mobilisation, were hurried forward. He returned to find all his high officials not only ready for war, but awaiting his signal to press the trigger. It is possible that a return of his timidity might restrain him from taking the final plunge, but I fear his people have made up their minds that it should be given no opportunity to do so. I was told this morning on good authority that on one pretext or another they prevented him from seeing the Serbian reply until sixty hours aft
er it had been delivered. When he did see it, apparently, he was astounded, and said at once how delighted he was that we had secured everything we could possibly wish for without resorting to war. But it was too late. By then we had already begun hostilities against Serbia.”

  Count Tisza coughed, then went on sadly: “The case of my own sovereign is even more distressing. He was tricked into acquiescence in a manner positively revolting to honourable people like ourselves. When the declaration of war was handed to Count Paar for him to obtain the Emperor’s signature to it, the old man said: ‘Well, this may be all right; but all I can say is that monarchs of eighty-four don’t plunge their countries into war without a just cause for doing so’. On this being reported to Berchtold, he quickly formulated a statement to accompany the declaration when it was submitted to the Emperor. Having urged such reasons as he could for going to extremes, he went on to say that there was now no choice, as hostilities had already begun. And he ended with the announcement that Serbian troops had attacked Austrian detachments at Temes-Kurbin that morning.”

  After taking a drink of wine, the Count added quickly: “That was not true. It was a deliberate lie to induce the Emperor to sign the declaration. Today, Berchtold has had that last sentence erased from his statement, with the glib excuse that he had later learned that the report of the Serbian attack was unconfirmed.”

  De Richleau sighed. “How horrible! How unutterably shocking that such unscrupulous men should have the power to secure by fraud what amounts to a death warrant for Heaven knows how many innocent people. Was there nothing you could do?”

  “By the time I learned of this awful deed, it was too late. And as far as the bigger picture is concerned, everything points to all attempts at mediation or restraint being similarly smothered by evil machinations. Russia has made it plain that she will not stand by and see Serbia annihilated. The Kaiser is ringed around by men who are now spoiling for a fight. Neither he nor the Czar are any longer the real masters of their countries. Neither of them can afford to risk being charged later with having betrayed their people by restraining their Generals from taking measures to guard against a surprise attack. They are now no more than cogs in a machine. It needs only a clash between frontier patrols and the great war which we have so long dreaded will have started.”

  “Again,” said the Duke, “you have expressed my own thoughts as clearly as I could do it myself.”

  “I would to God there were more who thought as we do, and could see the bottomless abyss towards which the criminal few are driving the helpless many. Needless to say, these confidences I am making to you should go no further, either here in Vienna or when you reach London. But I am so surrounded by honest fools, misguided patriots, and self-seeking knaves, that it is a great relief to be able to talk freely for a while to a man of my own stature, who puts the welfare of humanity before a narrow nationalism.”

  “I consider myself much honoured; and you may rest assured that everything you have said, or may say, is safe with me,” replied de Richleau; and, even had he not given his word on that, he would have regarded Count Tisza’s confidences as sacred.

  For a further half hour they talked on about the impending catastrophe. Then a knock came at the door and, on Count Tisza’s calling “Come in”, it opened to reveal a footman carrying a silver salver. Advancing into the room, he presented the card upon it to his master, and said:

  “Excuse me, Excellency, for interrupting you, but two men have called who ask to see you urgently; and I understand that one of them is a high police official.”

  Count Tisza glanced at the card and murmured, “Major Maximillian Ronge. Yes, I know him, but I am engaged. Tell him I cannot see him until to-morrow morning.”

  The footman’s eyes flickered towards the Duke. “He asked me to tell you, Excellency, that the matter he has come upon concerns the gentleman who is with you at the moment.”

  With a smile the Count turned to his guest, and asked jocularly: “What trouble have you been getting yourself into?”

  De Richleau returned the smile and answered, with a slight uneasiness which his voice did not betray: “None that I know of.”

  “With your permission, we will have them up, then; although I must apologise for their intrusion on you while you are my guest.”

  “Don’t think of it,” the Duke smiled again. “I shall be only too pleased to help them in any way I can.”

  As the footman left the room, the Count remarked: “Major Ronge is the head of the Kundschafts Stelle, our espionage and counterespionage service. He is a very able fellow and it may be that he has ferreted out some new angle to the Sarajevo murders, on which he wants your opinion. If so, it must be something rather startling for him to bother us at this time of night.”

  At the Count’s words de Richleau’s uneasiness increased to apprehension, but his shrug conveyed that the matter hardly concerned him any more.

  A moment later the two officials were shown in. Major Ronge was a jovial-looking fat man with sly eyes and a small dark moustache that was waxed into a pair of stiff sharp points. His companion, whom he introduced as Herr Höller, was a small wisened individual, with grey hair and a long, sad face. Ronge did nearly all the talking and, having bowed to the Minister-President, said deferentially:

  “I thank your Excellency for receiving us at this unusual hour. We would not have dreamt of troubling you so late had we not learned that the gentleman who is with you took a cab from Sacher’s to your house about an hour ago. I beg that your Excellency will excuse the apparent impertinence of the question; but what do you know about him?”

  Count Tisza frowned. “I am not accustomed to being questioned about my guests.”

  De Richleau drew a shade more heavily on his cigar, while watching the Major from beneath half-lowered lids. He did not at all like the way in which the conversation had opened.

  Quite unperturbed by the rebuff, Ronge attacked the matter from another angle. “No doubt your Excellency knows him as the Duke de Richleau; or as Count von Königstein.” Then, with startling suddenness, he added:

  “He is neither! He is an impostor!”

  The Duke burst out laughing, and his laughter was quite genuine. But Count Tisza did not regard it as a laughing matter. Drawing himself up, he said icily:

  “Major Ronge, you are making a complete fool of yourself. You have my permission to leave us.”

  The fat man made no move towards the door. Instead, he turned to his companion, pointed at the Duke, and said: “Now that you have seen him closer, do you confirm your identification of him?”

  Herr Höller nodded lugubriously. “That’s him all right. With them slant-up eyebrows and thin hooky nose, no one could mistake him.”

  “Then,” declared Ronge, “it is my duty to acquaint your Excellency with certain facts. Herr Höller is one of our operatives normally stationed in Belgrade. He re-crossed the frontier yesterday a few hours before it was closed, in order to give us the latest information that he had gathered in the Serbian capital. When passing Sacher’s Hotel this afternoon he chanced to see your Excellency’s guest enter it. On inquiring from the porter he learned the names under which this individual passes in Vienna. He at once reported to Headquarters that the same person was living in Belgrade at the Hotel Continental for a short period in mid-May, and a longer one towards the end of June; and that during both he was on intimate terms with Serbian officers whom we know to have been leaders of the Black Hand.”

  After a brief pause to get his breath, the fat man hurried on: “Our interest was immediately aroused because we already have on our files a statement made to my chief, General von Ostromiecz, by this so-called Count Königstein. It is to the effect that during a forty-eight-hour visit to Belgrade he learned by chance of the plot to assassinate the Archduke, and records his efforts to prevent it. But this statement and Herr Höller’s report do not tally. He is prepared to testify on oath that this individual was in close association with Colonel Dimitriyevitch, Major T
ankosić and Captain Ciganović; all of whom are now known to us to have been concerned in the plot.”

  Count Tisza shrugged. “I do not see that it matters in the least if my friend was in Belgrade for forty-eight hours or a fortnight. It is nothing to do with us where he spent his time during his absences from Vienna. He may have paid several visits to Belgrade, and when making his statement not thought it worth while to mention any but the last. As for Herr Höller, he has obviously allowed his imagination to run away with him. The suggestion that this gentleman was mixed up with the Black Hand is the most utter nonsense.”

  “Your pardon, Excellency, but I must disagree. In his statement he alleges that he learned of the Sarajevo plot from a party of drunken officers at a cabaret called Le Can-Can on the night of Friday, the 26th of June. That is not true. There was a fire at the cabaret on the previous night, so on that of the 26th it was closed for repairs. Moreover, Herr Höller is a very reliable agent. He is positive that this individual was on most friendly terms with several prominent members of the Black Hand, and was working for them. During his last stay in Belgrade he used to go every morning to the War Office, and spend most of his day there.”

  “And what do you conclude from all this?”

  “That he cannot possibly be, as your Excellency supposes, either the Duke de Richleau or Count Königstein.”

  “They are one and the same person. But what leads you to suppose that he is an impostor?”

  “Excellency, is it not obvious?” The Major spread out a pair of plump hands. “Whoever he may be, it is beyond dispute that he did his utmost to prevent the tragedy at Sarajevo. But how did he obtain knowledge of the plot? Certainly not in the manner he has stated; and Herr Höller’s report gives us the answer. He wormed his way into the confidence of the Black Hand leaders and obtained work in the Serbian War Office. That he should have betrayed them when he learned full details of the plot, makes it clear that he was not in sympathy with them, and there is no reason to believe him to be a Serbian. Therefore, he must be a professional secret agent. And in all my experience I have never heard of a nobleman who became a spy.”