The Second Seal

by Dennis Wheatley

  The Duke had left him three weeks ago on the platform of the railway junction outside Berlin, with his dead master’s body and baggage, and had never expected to set eyes on him again. But the explanation of his appearance in Hohenembs was quite simple. The Major with the fierce red moustache and prawn-like eyebrows was a Count Zelltin, and Lanzi’s nephew. The depot of his regiment was at Dornbirn, a small town about seven miles from Hohenembs; and, on hearing of his uncle’s death, he had applied for this admirable personal servant to be transferred to him.

  In spite of de Richleau’s civilian clothes, the soldier had recognised him at once, but had had the sense to wait to tell his officers, until they came out to their car, that the Duke was a British spy, about whom he had been questioned at great length by the German police. Then, all three of them had returned to the coffee room fully prepared to overcome the Duke by force, or shoot him if need be. But he had been taken entirely by surprise. Before he had a chance to get at a weapon they had him covered, and threatened to kill him there and then if he moved. The ex-valet had searched him and removed the two pistols he was carrying. The picnic had been postponed, and the two glamorous young women left round-eyed with excitement, while their swains ran the prisoner into Dornbirn. They had taken him to the barracks, at which, as the regiment was on active service, Count Zelltin was the Commandant. There, the Duke had been put in one of the defaulters’ cells, placed under double guard, and left to contemplate his impending fate.

  He had as yet no idea how much the K.S. knew about him; but, as nearly three weeks had elapsed since he had escaped from Germany, it was a fair assumption that by now Nicolai and Ronge between them would have completed a dossier containing all there was to know. Even if there remained a blank in it here and there, it was certain that they would have collected enough evidence to have him shot on at least one charge if not several.

  His thoughts naturally turned to Ilona as his one possible life line. As a prisoner awaiting trial he considered it unlikely that he would be allowed to communicate with her, or anyone else, by letter; and as his money and belongings had been taken from him, he had no means of bribing one of his guards to carry a message to Hohenembs. But, as soon as he had had time to think matters over, he decided that it would be not only futile, but wrong, to attempt either.

  She had herself confirmed what Major Ronge had said in Vienna: that although a member of the Imperial Family she had no official status. So obviously she had no power to make the Commandant release a prisoner about to be charged with serious crimes; and it was equally clear that she was in no position to help him break prison.

  Had he felt that there was the remotest chance that she would be able to save him, he would have strained his wits to the utmost in seeking some way of getting in touch with her; but, since she was powerless to do so, to involve her at all would be both cowardly and wicked. The burden she had to bear was great enough already, without his adding to it. The thought of his trial and execution would immensely increase the suffering of her last days, and to inflict that upon her when she could do nothing to assist him was unthinkable.

  He had wanted so much to give her the small consolation of their love ending on a high romantic note, and to prove how deeply he loved her by risking death himself to see her again before she died. But now a last meeting was to be denied them, he could only hope that she would remain in ignorance of his plight until, if fate proved adamant, a firing squad had removed all possibility of her torturing herself with vain prayers for his release.

  On Monday he was again kept in solitary confinement, and no one came to interrogate him. His guards were evidently under orders not to enter into conversation; as, when they brought him his food, they simply thrust it into his cell and ignored his attempts to get them to talk. However, at mid-day he asked if he could have something to read, and one of them brought him a Bible, a few other books, and a newspaper.

  From the latter he saw that the cat was out of the bag about von Hötzendorf. The communiqué gave the situation in carefully guarded phrases, so as not to cause alarm; but certain place names were mentioned, and it was obvious to the Duke that a disaster had overtaken the Austrian Armies on the Russian Front, of such magnitude that it could no longer entirely be concealed.

  Apparently von Hötzendorf had suffered from genuine ill-fortune in his great offensive to the north and east. After initial encouraging successes during the latter part of August, early in September he had all but encircled and destroyed an entire Russian Army; but false reconnaissance reports on the critical day had caused both wings of his enveloping force to believe they were about to be attacked in rear: both had faced about, and thus given the Russians just time to slip away before the jaws of the pincers closed upon them. Meanwhile it emerged that the bulk of General Ivanov’s Southern Army Group was concentrated against much weaker Austrian forces farther south. Von Hötzendorf had shown great courage in holding on there till the last possible moment, and sending everything he could spare north to the front that promised him a brilliant victory; and, even when it became apparent that ill luck had robbed him of it, he had re-deployed his forces in a series of brilliant moves that might yet have spelled disaster to the Russians. But the enemy’s weight had proved too much for him. After a final effort on the 9th, involving a whole day of battle from one end of his two hundred miles long front to the other, he had, on the 11th, ordered a general withdrawal to behind the line of the river San.

  That much was clear from the communiqué. What it did not reveal was that, with a determination unequalled by any other Commander-in-Chief, von Hötzendorf had kept the great majority of his troops marching and fighting for twenty consecutive days. Had he had better luck and better material at his disposal he might well have achieved victories comparable with those of Hindenburg. As it was, he gave up only because what was left of his forces was in no condition to continue the struggle an hour longer. They had suffered appalling losses, many of his Army Corps having been reduced to less than the normal strength of a Division. In three weeks he had lost 600,000 men. The remnants of his four Armies were dead beat. They no longer had the strength to carry out the movements ordered by their Commanders, and thousands of them were dropping in their tracks from exhaustion. As the Russian pressure increased, the whole front had collapsed. For the past four days the Austrians had been streaming back in hopeless dejection and inextricable confusion; and many days were to pass yet before they could be finally halted and re-formed on the line of the Carpathians, nearly a hundred miles to the rear of the area in which they had sustained their terrible defeat.

  So ended the last and longest of the opening battles of the great war; and as de Richleau laid down the paper he knew that the final outcome had now been decided. On four fronts the great Armies had clashed and fought themselves to a standstill. The carnage had been unbelievably appalling. In a little over three weeks not less than 2,000,000 men had been killed, captured or seriously wounded. Battles of such magnitude could never take place simultaneously on several fronts again. The manpower of the nations did not permit it. Either the war-mongers had learnt their ghastly lesson and there would be peace by Christmas or, if an evil pride kept them obdurate, a new kind of war must emerge. In it, from time to time great offensives might be launched with appalling losses to the attacker, but in the main the combatants must be reduced to endeavouring to wear one another down. And in such a contest the Central Powers must prove the weaker.

  In a prolonged struggle the effects of the Allies’ blockade would gradually become apparent. Cut off from the outer world by mighty Fleets that they could have no hope of defeating, Germany and Austria would be deprived of all but a trickle of many of the commodities vital to their war economy. Now that the Austrian bolt was shot, Russia would be able to concentrate her efforts against East Prussia. The rickety Dual Monarchy might be able to maintain armies in the field, but Germany would have to shoulder the main burden, and wage a desperate, long-drawn-out war on two fronts. Her only r
eal hope had lain in putting France out of the war by a swift overwhelming victory, so that she had both hands free to assist Austria against Russia. That hope had been the key to everything—and it was gone.

  The Duke smiled at the thought that he had been instrumental in influencing the German High Command into taking a decision that had robbed Germany of victory in the West. It was not much consolation to him now; but he felt that it would be a comforting thought on which to die.

  Any lingering hopes he had of being able to escape the final penalty were dissipated on the Tuesday afternoon. At half past five he was taken from his cell to an office on the ground floor of the barracks. The Commandant was there, and with him was Major Ronge.

  It was soon clear that, from the moment of his leaving Vienna to that of his having been released from prison in Maastricht, the broad outline of his activities was fully known. Ronge did most of the talking, while the Count eyed the prisoner with a malevolent stare. Not much was said about the deaths on the train, but the fiery-moustached Commandant made it abundantly clear that he believed de Richleau to be responsible for his uncle’s murder. To all specific charges the Duke replied only with a shrug, and a statement that he reserved his defence; as, although it was futile to argue, he saw no reason why he should make a gratuitous admission of anything.

  They questioned him with great persistence as to why, having succeeded in escaping, he should have given himself up as a hostage to fortune by re-crossing the Rhine into enemy territory; but they got no satisfaction from him.

  At length Count Zelltin informed him that he would be tried by court martial on the following afternoon at three o’clock, and that in the morning a Prisoner’s Friend would be sent to help him to prepare any defence he cared to put before the court. Then he was taken back to his cell.

  Next morning a pink-faced Lieutenant, who was limping from a wound received on the Serbian front, arrived and offered his services as an advocate. Obviously he did not like the task for which he had been detailed, but he courteously endeavoured to hide his distaste, and produced all the materials requisite for making copious notes. De Richleau swiftly relieved him of his embarrassment by saying that he would prefer to conduct his own defence.

  At three o’clock punctually, he was marched from his cell between soldiers with fixed bayonets to a large cheerless room. On the wall opposite the door hung a picture of the aged Emperor, in his white Field Marshal’s tunic, gold braid and ribbons. At a table beneath it the court was already sitting. It consisted of Major Count Zelltin as President, an elderly, red-faced Captain who looked like an ex-Quartermaster sergeant, and a monocled Lieutenant. There were two side tables. At one sat another Captain; a dark little man wearing gold spectacles, who was acting as Prosecutor and, opposite him, at the other, the pink-faced Prisoner’s Friend; the presence of the latter, whether he uttered or not, being required by the court as a formality which technically guaranteed the prisoner a fair trial.

  As the Duke had often sat on courts martial himself, he knew well that in war time such trials were rarely conducted with the scrupulous fairness usual in the administration of civil justice. The members of such courts were not qualified to go deeply into legal technicalities, nor expected to give time to examining the finer points of evidence. In a spy case they were usually pre-disposed against the prisoner, and it was accepted that spies should be given short shrift in war time; so unless the accused had ample means of proving his innocence he had little chance of an acquittal.

  In view of the blackness of the case against him, and the fact that Lanzi’s nephew was President of the court, de Richleau felt that he had none at all; but he was most strongly in favour of the admirable dictum that ‘while there is life there is hope’; so he was determined to do his utmost to procure a postponement of sentence; for, if he could gain a week or two, or even a few days, there was always the possibility that he might manage to escape.

  In consequence, at the very opening of the proceedings, he challenged the court’s right to try him at all. He pointed out that in the Austrian Army he held the rank of Colonel, and therefore could not be tried by officers of lesser rank.

  The President was obviously somewhat shaken by this, and called over the Prosecutor, with whom he held a whispered conversation. He then ruled that as the rank given had been an honorary one, it did not carry any seniority for the purpose of a trial such as the present.

  A long list of charges was read out, to all of which the Duke pleaded not guilty.

  The Prosecutor asked baldly why he should attempt to waste the court’s time by denying the obvious; but at that the Prisoner’s Friend intervened, and said that the accused had a right to assert his innocence.

  With a grim smile the Prosecutor produced a sheaf of affidavits, and started to read out one that had been made by Colonel Nicolai.

  As soon as he had finished, the Duke said that he wished to cross-examine this witness; but the President replied that in time of war it was not practicable to bring officers engaged on important duties many hundreds of miles to testify in person, therefore the court was prepared to accept sworn statements as evidence.

  The next statement read out was by Herr Steinhauer. There followed those of the Sergeant-Conductor of the train; Colonel Tappen; the garage proprietor in Aix-la-Chapelle from whom de Richleau had hired the car he had abandoned near the frontier; and a score more by orderlies and other people. It was clear to the Duke that the material from which the Prosecutor was reading must be the dossier of the case compiled by Colonel Nicolai, and that Ronge had had it forwarded from Germany during the past two days. When the reading was finished, he said:

  “I submit to the court that all this is irrevelant because it is not supported by the personal appearance of the witnesses. Even if those statements are accurate about a certain person, it does not follow that the person referred to is myself.”

  “I am fortunately in a position to satisfy the court upon that,” replied the Prosecutor; and he called his first witness, Soldat Johan Weber, Lanzi’s ex-valet.

  Soldat Weber definitely identified the accused as the officer who had accompanied Colonel Baron Ungash-Wallersee from Przemysl to Wartenburg and, with Major Tauber, on the train from Wartenburg to Berlin. Prompted by questions from the Prosecutor, he recounted the whole story as he knew it, and his testimony occupied nearly three quarters of an hour.

  De Richleau knew that it was futile to attempt to shake him, but at least he had the satisfaction of learning that the manner in which Lanzi and Tauber had met their deaths was still in doubt. Obviously everyone believed that he had killed them, but his efforts to destroy any evidence against himself had been so successful that the German police had failed to make out a prima facie case against him.

  He stoutly maintained that Soldat Weber’s testimony proved nothing at all, except that he had accompanied Baron Ungash-Wallersee from Przemsyl to Berlin, and there was nothing criminal about that.

  Major Ronge was then called. It was the first time that the Duke had seen the fat Secret Service Chief in uniform, but he proved a no less shrewd and formidable antagonist on that account. He recounted what was known of de Richleau’s activities in Serbia, told the story of his arrest, and release owing to the intervention of Her Imperial Highness the Archduchess Ilona Theresa, and of his obtaining an appointment on General von Hötzendorf’s operations’ staff under false pretences.

  In cross examination the Duke forced him to make the following admissions: that there was no proof of his having committed any act of espionage while in Belgrade, or in Vienna: that he had been about to leave Austria before war was declared, whereas a spy would normally have gone into hiding there with the object of continuing to learn all he could: that he had been prevented from leaving by arbitrary arrest: and that the Archduchess had procured his release because there was not a shread of evidence to support any charge against him. But the two things he could not disprove were that he had deceived General von Hötzendorf concerning his nationalit
y, and had left Vienna clandestinely when he had been warned by the police that, as an enemy alien, he must remain there.

  When called on to make his defence, de Richleau took the line that he was an entirely innocent British subject who, merely on suspicion, had been detained in Austria contrary to his will. He pointed out that no charge had been preferred against him of communicating Austria’s military secrets to the enemy while on von Hötzendorf’s staff: that the crimes imputed to him while in Germany were based solely on the written evidence of witnesses whom he had not been given an opportunity to cross-examine; that he had been denied the opportunity to call witnesses, such as the Hungarian Minister-President, Count Tisza, to testify to his character and conduct while in Vienna: and, finally, that, having been illegally prevented from returning to his own country before the outbreak of war, no blame could be attached to him for having done so at the first opportunity.

  The case had looked so black against him to start with that he now felt things might have gone far worse. No evidence at all had been forthcoming about the deaths of Lanzi and Tauber, and he had raised issues which he was certain would have caused a civil court to adjourn the hearing until more conclusive proof of his guilt could be brought. With new hope he saw, too, that he had succeeded in arousing doubts in two members of the court. The monocled Lieutenant was regarding him quite sympathetically, and the elderly Captain with grave, rather kindly interest. But Lanzi’s nephew continued to stare at him with black hostility and, brushing up his fierce red moustache, called on the Prosecutor to make his final speech.

  Adjusting his gold spectacles, the dark little Captain proceeded in a quiet unemotional voice to go over the ground again. He did not contest the fact that the accused had been on the point of leaving Vienna before the war broke out, but drew attention to his having left his attempt to do so to the very last moment. That, he suggested, was because the accused had wanted to secure the latest possible information on the Dual Monarchy’s intentions before returning to London; and there could be no doubt that his many contacts in high places had given him access to information, both diplomatic and military, which could be of very great value indeed to the enemy. Therefore the K.S. had had the best possible grounds for preventing him from leaving.