The Lost Naval Papers

by Bennet Copplestone

  CHAPTER IV

  SABOTAGE

  Dawson showed no malice towards the Admiral or myself for ourtreatment of him. I do not think that he felt any; he was too fullyoccupied in collecting the spoils of victory to trouble his head aboutwhat a Scribbler or a Salt Horse might think of him. He gathered tohimself every scrap of credit which the affair could be induced toyield, and received--I admit quite deservedly--the most handsomeencomiums from his superiors in office. During the two weeks he passedin my city after the capture--weeks occupied in tracing out thethreads connecting his wretch of a prisoner with the German agentsupon what Dawson called his "little list"--he paid several visits bothto my house and my office. His happiness demanded that he should readto me the many letters which poured in from high officials of theC.I.D., from the Chief Commissioner, and on one day--a day of days inthe chronicles of Dawson--from the Home Secretary himself. To me itseemed that all these astute potentates knew their Dawson verythoroughly, and lubricated, as it were, with judicious flattery themachinery of his energies. I could not but admire Dawson's truly royalfaculty for absorbing butter. The stomachs of most men, really good attheir business, would have revolted at the diet which his superiorsshovelled into Dawson, but he visibly expanded and blossomed. Yes,Scotland Yard knew its Dawson, and exactly how to stimulate the bestthat was in him. He never bored me; I enjoyed him too thoroughly.

  One day in my club I chanced upon the Admiral.

  "Have you met our friend Dawson lately?" I asked.

  "Met him?" shouted he, with a roar of laughter. "Met him? He is in myoffice every day--he almost lives with me; goodness knows when he doeshis work. He has a pocket full of letters which he has read to me tillI know them by heart. If I did not know that he was a first-class manI should set him down as a colossal ass. Yet, I rather wish that theAdmiralty would sometimes write to me as the severe but very humanScotland Yard does to Dawson."

  "Does he ever come to you in disguise?" I asked.

  "Not that I know of. I see vast numbers of people; some of them may beDawson in his various incarnations, but he has not given himselfaway."

  Then I explained to my naval friend my own experience. "He tried," Isaid, "to play the disguise game on me, and clean bowled me the firsttime. While he was laughing over my discomfiture I studied his facemore closely than a lover does that of his mistress. I tried topenetrate his methods. He never wears a wig or false hair; he is toowise for that folly. Yet he seems able to change his hair from lightto dark, to make it lank or curly, short or long. He does it; how Idon't know. He alters the shape of his nose, his cheeks, and his chin.I suppose that he pads them out with little rubber insets. He altershis voice, and his figure, and even his height. He can be stiff andupright like a drilled soldier, or loose-jointed and shambling like atramp. He is a finished artist, and employs the very simplest means.He could, I truly believe, deceive his wife or his mother, but he willnever again deceive me. I am not a specially observant man; still onecan make a shot at most things when driven to it, and I object tobeing the subject of Dawson's ribaldry. If you will take my tip, youwill be able to spot him as readily as I do now."

  "Good. I should love to score off Dawson. He is an aggravating beast."

  "Study his ears," said I. "He cannot alter their chief characters. Thelobes of his ears are not loose, like yours or mine or those of mostmen and women; his are attached to the back of his cheekbones. Mymother had lobes like those, so had the real Roger Tichborne; Inoticed Dawson's at once. Also at the top fold of his ears he hasrather a pronounced blob of flesh. This blob, more prominent in somemen than in others, is, I believe, a surviving relic of the sharppoint which adorned the ears of our animal ancestors. Dawson'sancestor must have been a wolf or a bloodhound. Whenever now I have astrange caller who is not far too tall or far too short to be Dawson,if a stranger stops me in the street to ask for a direction, if aporter at a station dashes up to help me with my bag, I go for hisears. If the lobes are attached to the cheekbones and there is apronounced blob in the fold at the top, I address the man instantly asDawson, however impossibly unlike Dawson he may be. I have spotted himtwice now since he bowled me out, and he is frightfully savage--especiallyas I won't tell him how the trick is done. He says that it is my duty totell him, and that he will compel me under some of his beloved Defence ofthe Realm Regulations. But the rack could not force me to give away myprecious secret. Cherish it and use it. You will not tell, for you loveto mystify the ruffian as much as I do."

  "I will watch for his ears when he next calls, which, I expect, willbe to-morrow. Thank you very much. I won't sneak."

  "Remember that nothing else in the way of identification is of anyuse, for I doubt if either of us has ever seen the real, undisguisedDawson as he is known to God. We know a man whom we think is thegenuine article--but is he? Cary's description of him is most unlikethe man whom we see here. I expect that he has a different identityfor every place which he visits. If he told me that at any moment hewas wholly undisguised, I should be quite sure that he was lying. Theman wallows in deception for the very sport of the thing. But he can'tchange his ears. Study them, and you will be safe."

  Our club was the only place in which we could be sure that Dawson didnot penetrate, though I should not have been surprised to learn thatone or two of the waitresses were in his pay. Dawson is an ardentfeminist; he says that as secret agents women beat men to a frazzle.

  Shortly before Dawson left for his headquarters on the north-eastcoast he dropped in upon me. He had finished his researches, andrevealed the results to me with immense satisfaction.

  "I have fixed up Menteith," he began, "and know exactly how he cameinto communication with the German Secret Service." The contemptuousemphasis which he laid on the word "Secret" would have annoyed theCentral Office at Potsdam. I have given the detected British spy thename of Menteith after that of the most famous traitor in Scottishhistory; if I called him, say, Campbell or Macdonald, nothing couldsave me from the righteous vengeance of the outraged Clans.

  "It was all very simple," he went on, "like most things in my businesswhen one gets to the bottom of them. He was seduced by a man whom thelocal police have had on their string for a long time, but who willnow be put securely away. Menteith was a frequenter of a certainpublic house down the river, where he posed as an authority on theNavy, and hinted darkly at his stores of hidden information. OurGerman agent made friends with him, gave him small sums for drinks,and flattered his vanity. It is strange how easily some men aredeceived by flattery. The agent got from Menteith one or two bits ofnews by pretending a disbelief in his sources of intelligence, andthen, when the fool had committed himself, threatened to denounce himto the police unless he took service with him altogether. Money, ofcourse, passed, but not very much. The Germans who employ spies soextensively pay them extraordinarily little. They treat them likescurvy dogs, for whom any old bone is good enough, and I'm not surethey are not right. They go on the principle that the white trash whowill sell their country need only to be paid with kicks and coppers.Menteith swears that he did not receive more than four pounds for theplans and description of the _Rampagious_. Fancy selling one's countryand risking one's neck for four measly pounds sterling! If he had gotfour thousand, I should have had some respect for him. His home is ina wretched state, and his wife--a pretty woman, though almost askeleton, and a very nicely mannered, honest woman--says that herhusband unexpectedly gave her four pounds a month ago. He had keptnone of the blood money for drink! Curious, isn't it?"

  "It shows that the man had some good in him. It shows that he wasashamed to use the money upon himself. We must do something for thepoor wife, Dawson."

  "She will easily get work, and she will be far better without her sotof a husband. She did not cry when I told her everything. 'I ought tohave left him long ago,' she said, 'but I tried to save him. Thank Godwe have no children,' That seemed to be her most insistent thought,for she repeated it over and over again. 'Thank God that we have nochildren.'"

 
"I hope that you were gentle with her, Dawson," said I, deeply moved.Long ago the wife had come to me and pleaded for her husband. She hadshed no tear; she had admitted the justice, the necessity, of mysentence. "Can you not give him another chance?" she had asked. "No,"I had answered sadly. "He has exhausted all the chances." When she hadrisen to go and I had pressed her hand, she had said, still dry-eyed,"You are right, sir, it is no use, no use at all. Thank God that wehave no children."

  "I hope that you were gentle with her, Dawson," I repeated.

  He astonished me by the suddenness of his explosion. "Damn," roaredhe--"damn and blast! Do you think that I am a brute. Gentle! It was asmuch as I could do not to kiss the woman, as your little daughterkissed me, and to promise that I would get her husband off somehow.But I should not be a friend to her if I tried to save that man."

  So Dawson had soft spots in his armour of callousness, and littleJane's instinct was far surer than mine. She had taken to him atsight. When I tried to get from her why, why he had so marked anattraction for her, her replies baffled me more than the central fact."I love Colonel Dawson. He is a nice man. He has a little girl likeme. Her name is Clara. Her birthday is next month. I shall save up mypocket money and send Clara a present. I like Colonel Dawson bettereven than dear Bailey." I tore my hair, for "Bailey" is a whollyimaginary friend of little Jane, whom I invented one evening at herbedside and who has grown gradually into a personage of clearlydefined attributes--like the "Putois" of Anatole France. Dawson and"Bailey"; they are both "nice men" and little Jane's friends; she issure of them, and I expect that she is right. Children always areright.

  Dawson, after his outburst, glowered at me for a moment and thenlaughed. "I am a man," said he, "though you may not think it, and Ihave my weaknesses. But I never give way to them when they interferewith business. Menteith is in my grip, and he won't get out of it. Buthe is a poor creature. He handed over the description of the_Rampagious_, saw it hidden in the sardine tin, and was ordered totake the food parcel to the Post Office. The German agent who used himhad no notion of risking his own skin. Then followed the discovery andthe arrest of the draughtsman who had drawn the plan. Those who hadseduced Menteith forbade him to come near them. They slipped away intohiding--which profited them little since all of them were on ourstring--after threatening Menteith that he would be murdered if hegave himself up to the police, as in his terror he seemed to want todo. When nothing happened for two weeks, the vermin came out of theirholes, made up the last parcel, and forced Menteith to go to Carlislein order to post it. All through he has been the most abject of tools,and received nothing except the four pounds and various small sumsspent in drinks."

  "You have the principal all right?"

  "Yes, I have him tight. The others associated with him I shall leavefree; they will be most useful in future. They don't know that we knowthem; when they do know, their number will go up, for they will bethen of no further use to us. It is a beautiful system, Mr. Copplestone,and you have had the unusual privilege of seeing it at work."

  "What will your prisoners get by way of punishment?"

  "I am not sure, but I can guess pretty closely. The principal will goout suddenly early some morning. He is a Jew of uncertain CentralEuropean origin, Pole or Czech, a natural born British subject, ashining light of a local anti-German society, an 'indispensable' inhis job and exempted from military service. He will give no moretrouble. Menteith will spend anything from seven to ten years in p.s.,learn to do without his daily whisky bottle, and possibly come out adecent citizen. The draughtsman, I expect, will be let off witheighteen months of the Jug. We are just, but not harsh. My birds don'tinterest me much once they have been caught; it is the catching that Ienjoy. Down in the south, where I have a home of my own--which Ihaven't seen during the past year except occasionally for an hour ortwo--I used to grow big show chrysanthemums. All through the processesof rooting the cuttings, repotting, taking the buds, feeding up theplants, I never could endure any one to touch them. But once theflowers were fully developed, my wife could cut them as much as shepleased and fill the house with them. My job was done when I had gotthe flowers perfect. It is just the same with my business. I cultivatethe little dears I am after, and hate any one to interfere with me; Ihumour them and water them and feed them with opportunities till theyare ripe, and then I stick out my hand and grab them. After that thelaw can do what it likes with them; they ain't my concern any more."

  By this time it had become apparent even to my slow intelligence whyDawson told me so much about himself and his methods. He had formedthe central figure in a real story in print, and the glory of itpossessed him. He had tasted of the rich sweet wine of fame, and hethirsted for more of the same vintage. He never in so many words askedme to write this book, but his eagerness to play Dr. Johnson to myBoswell appeared in all our relations. He was communicative far beyondthe limits of official discretion. If I now disclosed half, or aquarter, of what he told me of the inner working of the SecretService, Scotland Yard, which admires and loves him, would cast himout, lock him up securely in gaol, and prepare for me a safeharbourage in a contiguous cell. So for both our sakes I must be very,very careful.

  "You have been most helpful to me," he said handsomely at parting,"and if anything good turns up on the North-East coast, I will let youknow. Could you come if I sent for you?"

  "I would contrive to manage it," said I.

  Dawson went away, and the pressure of daily work and interests thrusthim from my mind. For a month I heard nothing of him or of Cary, andthen one morning came a letter and a telegram. The letter was fromRichard Cary, and read as follows: "A queer thing has happened here.A cruiser which had come in for repair was due to go out this morning.She was ready for sea the night before, the officers and crew had allcome back from short leave, and the working parties had cleared out.Then in the middle watch, when the torpedo lieutenant was testing thecircuits, it was discovered that all the cables leading to the gunshad been cut. Dawson has been called in, and bids me say that, if youcan come down, now is the chance of your life. I will put you up."

  The telegram was from Dawson himself. It ran: "They say I'm beaten.But I'm not. Come and see."

  "The deuce," said I. "Sabotage! I am off."