Chronicles of the Secret Service

‘Have you ever read the fable of the wolf and the lamb, Carter?’ asked Sir Leonard Wallace, leaning back in his chair, and looking up at his assistant.

The tall, good-looking young man with the wavy hair and bronzed complexion smiled.

‘Well, yes, sir,’ he replied. ‘I suppose everyone has.’

He wondered what was in his chief’s mind. Sir Leonard did not ask such questions, as a rule, unless there was reason behind them.

‘Not everyone,’ disagreed Wallace. ‘That is rather an exaggerated statement to make. Still, Aesop’s Fables are probably as widely read as anything written or told ever has been. It is pretty evident, however, that the powers that be in Japan know all about the wolf and the lamb. Japan has cast herself for the part of wolf and a play neatly arranged, to be produced and directed by herself.’

‘Who plays the part of the lamb, sir?’ asked Carter.

‘China, of course. Poor helpless China, with her internal troubles, her disruption, her family quarrels is an easy prey for the voracious wolf. Japan has had her eyes on China for years. The time has now come when she thinks she is powerful enough to strike the blow. It will not happen all at once. She is too cute for that. Besides the Oriental method of torture indicates a gradual process. China will be annexed in a succession of cuts – eaten up slice by slice so to speak. And as she has commenced over Manchuria and Jehol so she will continue. China is held responsible for provocation just as the wolf put the blame on the poor lamb before devouring her. I’ve sent warning after warning to London. America has suggested a joint action which Japan would not dare face, but we are not ready to take any steps just now. Think of it! It makes me feel blasphemous. Of course I must admit to a feeling of admiration for the Japs. They have chosen their time well, and with amazing nerve and skill, when Europe is staggering about like a drunken man from one crisis to another. Well, I’ve done my best to point out what should be done and the necessity for quick action. I can do no more than that. There is one thing I can do and will do, though, before I leave this colony. I shall rout out, lock, stock and barrel, the nest of the Japanese spies here.’

‘But I thought—’ commenced Carter.

‘So did I,’ interrupted the other grimly; tapped a document lying before him on his desk with a shapely forefinger. ‘This proves otherwise. It was brought to me this morning by a messenger from Winstanley. As you were out I opened it myself.’ He held it up to Carter. ‘Read it!’

The young man, who appeared greatly interested now, took
the sheets of foolscap covered with typescript, displaying the stamp of the Inspector-General of Police on each page, and commenced eagerly to peruse them. Sir Leonard removed the lid of the large tobacco bowl standing before him on the desk; proceeded to fill his pipe, making use of his artificial hand with amazing celerity and adroitness. When the tobacco was lit and burning to his satisfaction, he sat puffing away contentedly as though he had not a care in the world, watching with approval the keen, interested expression on the face of his young assistant as the latter stood by his side reading.

Sir Leonard Wallace and Carter were in Hong Kong; had been there for some months. At the earnest request of the British governor, Sir Leonard had accepted the appointment of acting governor in order to investigate with the fullest authority and on the spot a gigantic plot to defraud the government of Hong Kong. He had taken with him Carter as his private secretary while Cousins had been sent to the colony to act independently. His investigations and those of his colleagues had been entirely successful and, at the time this narrative opens, Wallace’s periods of office as governor was drawing to a close. To be exact, there were but three weeks to run.

The conspirators had planned not only to deplete the Treasury, by means of forged government bonds, fictitious loans, and fraudulent contracts, but had been handing over to a Japanese consul secret information of a naval and military character concerning the defences of Hong Kong. It appeared that an agent of Japan had obtained possession of information regarding the conspiracy and a list of all concerned in it. This had been used as a lever to force the principals to supply the Japanese consul with the
details he demanded. Naturally, when Sir Leonard Wallace had brought all this to light, a strongly-worded protest had been sent by the British government to Japan. As a result of this the consul had been relieved of his appointment, and ordered to return to Japan, while the Japanese government, as was only to be expected, denied all knowledge of any espionage activities in Hong Kong. Sir Leonard Wallace, however, had not been prepared to allow the consul to depart so easily. Directly information reached him that the official had been relieved of his appointment, and was, therefore, no longer a privileged person, he had given instructions for him to be subpoenaed as a witness against the ringleaders of the conspiracy. The Japanese had attempted to evade this and sail for his own country, whereupon he had been promptly arrested. His evidence had proved valuable at the trial but he had also been forced to part with information about his own activities. Wallace possessed methods of his own of exacting items of that kind from recalcitrant spies. Yumasaki, the ex-consul, discovered that fact to his sorrow. Afterwards he had been escorted to a ship and not left until she sailed for Japan.

Carter finished his perusal of the sheets of paper with a soft but prolonged whistle. He placed them on the desk in front of Sir Leonard.

‘Then we couldn’t have cleared them all out, sir,’ he commented.

‘Obviously not,’ replied the governor, removing the pipe from his mouth, and tapping out the ashes into a tray. ‘There must have been others hidden away somewhere. Yet I could have sworn Yumasaki had told me all. There’s no getting completely inside an Oriental mind, though,’ he added with a sigh. ‘Well,
we start again, Carter, and we have three weeks to make a clean sweep.’

‘I wonder how Ransome found all this out. It’s pretty good work on his part.’

‘Very good work,’ agreed Sir Leonard. ‘He’s a splendid man, but I think his popularity as a policeman has a lot to do with it. Those Chinese detectives under him would go through fire and water for him. It’s what I’ve always contended. Treat a Chinaman well, and you can trust him up to the hilt; he’ll do anything for you.’

‘I can’t quite see why these spies are remaining here,’ observed Carter. ‘After the manner in which you descended on the others, sir, followed by that rigid scrutiny of the papers of every Jap in the colony, I should have thought they would have waited a bit before commencing again; at least, until your term of office was over. They must know you will soon be leaving.’

Sir Leonard smiled.

‘They probably thought I would not expect their activities to recommence so soon. They didn’t anticipate Ransome and his sleuths being kept on the watch.’

‘But what can they hope to discover now?’

‘You must remember Yumasaki only received the plans of the fortifications from Collinson. He badly wanted the chart, promised him, showing the exact position of the minefields, lists of the number and calibre of the big guns, and a plan depicting the location of all magazines and other military and naval stores. He never received those. We ascertained that. Thank God he didn’t. Collinson and Ferguson have run Great Britain into an expenditure of millions of dollars, as it is, by handing over plans
of the fortifications. If every defensive scheme in the colony had to be altered, as well as the fortifications, the expense would be colossal. Besides, Japan naturally is anxious to keep watch, if she can, on the new scheme of fortifying the island. The more I think of it,’ he added, lying back in his chair, and regarding the young man by his side, ‘the more bothered I feel. This desperate anxiety to know all there is to know about our defences, taken in conjunction with Japan’s operations in China, can only mean one thing: she anticipates a continuation of trouble in Europe and eventually a war into which Great Britain will be drawn. When that time comes, she will sail her warships into Hong Kong having, as she hopes, made herself perfectly acquainted with all defensive measures, and annex the colony confident that we shall be too heavily engaged elsewhere to offer resistance. The same, I imagine, applies to Singapore, but that’s not my pidgin – at the moment. In the meantime, she will continue with her policy of slicing off bits of China as a punishment for pretended affronts gradually consolidating herself in that country.’

He suddenly sprang to his feet, and began to pace to and fro in the large, well-furnished apartment.

‘Heavens!’ he exclaimed. ‘Were there ever such blind, inept fools as those at home? When I get back, Carter, I’ll have so much to say about their lack of vision and dilatoriness that they’ll – they’ll want to make me Governor of the South Pole or somewhere as far away as possible to get rid of me.’

Carter smiled. He knew how caustic Sir Leonard could be and his opinion of certain statesmen. He imagined the bad time his chief would give them when he did return to England. The young man had seldom seen Wallace so deeply moved. It was
a rarity for the Chief of the British Secret Service to display his feelings in such a manner; an eloquent proof of how seriously he regarded the Japanese menace.

Wallace continued his pacing for some time, his chin sunk on his breast, his artificial hand pushed deep into his coat pocket, the other firmly gripping his pipe. Carter remained by the desk watching him, making no attempt to speak. He knew the signs. Sir Leonard was deep in thought; that astute mind of his turning over the fresh problem that confronted him, and the young man, acting as secretary, knew better than to interrupt the brain that had once been described as the most brilliant in England. At length, Wallace returned to his chair, and sat down.

‘What a pity Cousins went back to England!’ he remarked. ‘He would have been extremely useful now. Still, it’s no use bothering about that.’ He became silent again, his hand caressing his determined, well-shaped chin as his mind continued to grapple with the news that had caused him such perturbation. Presently he picked up the report from the Inspector-General of Police and read it through for perhaps the twentieth time. Occasionally he murmured fragments aloud as though they in particular impressed themselves upon him. ‘“A Japanese sailor from a
Maru
boat drunk with
samsui
was taken to the central police station and, in the ordinary course of routine, searched. Among the articles found on him was a document which Superintendant Ransome decided was in Japanese cipher … Mr Ransome, who knows the language well, set to work to get at its meaning, being convinced that such a letter in the possession of an illiterate seaman must have some particular significance.” Bright of Ransome,’ approved Sir Leonard, ‘and brighter still that he succeeded in deciphering the document.
I should rather like to have that young man in the Intelligence Service.’ He continued to read on, again murmuring certain parts of the report aloud. At last he threw down the sheets of paper, and looked up at Carter. ‘In short,’ he declared, ‘a drunken Japanese seaman is found to possess a coded document which turns out to be a message obviously from Japanese espionage agents in this colony to a central headquarters in Tokyo. It contains nothing very significant except the fact that difficulties are great, more agents are required, and great care must be taken in smuggling them into the colony. Neither the address of the Tokyo headquarters is given nor, and this is more important, is that of the agents in Hong Kong. The fact that the seaman, on recovering from his drunkenness, seemed so appalled when he found his precious letter had been taken from him, and committed
hara kiri
directly he was questioned and realised it had been decoded, proves that he was acting under very stringent orders. It’s a great pity that knife of his was lying within his reach when they were examining him. Still, I suppose we can’t blame them; they could hardly have anticipated such an action on his part, and he must have been extraordinarily quick. Clever of the Japs, you know, Carter, to use common seamen as messengers. Who would be likely to suspect them? If this fellow hadn’t slipped up and got drunk, we might have continued comfortably to believe Hong Kong was quite free of the spy menace. Poor chap, he took the only possible way out for him. The trouble is, his masters in this colony will know all about his arrest, death and, of course, guess the reason why he committed suicide. In other words, they will know we are wise to them again.’

‘Ransome’s investigations will already have told them that, sir, won’t they?’

‘Not necessarily. According to this’ – he tapped the report – ‘the superintendent’s Chinese detectives did all the tracing of the sailor’s movements from the time he left the ship until he was picked up drunk. Chinese are the craftiest people in the world, and obviously Ransome’s bunch are particularly gifted. The pity of it is that such good work should have had such a negative result. Ring up Sir Masterson Winstanley, Carter, and ask him to come along to see me directly after tiffin. I can’t manage it this morning owing to the visit of the arts and crafts deputation and my appointment at the Happy Valley to open the new sports club. Lord!’ he sighed. ‘How glad I shall be when I can shed all this ceremonial nonsense.’

Sir Leonard had all along found the role of acting governor of a colony, with its continuous succession of public duties, extremely irksome. That type of appointment did not appeal to him at all; nevertheless, although he had kept always foremost in mind the real reason for his presence in Hong Kong, he had not in any way neglected his multifarious social and official obligations. He had, in fact, proved himself an ideal governor. The manner in which he had handled a terrible situation, with murder stalking grimly any who threatened to prove of danger to the conspirators, had won the admiration and respect of everyone. There was a general desire that he should continue to hold his appointment for, at least, the usual period of five years; the Legislative Council had asked his permission to send a strongly-worded request to Westminster that his services be retained. Sir Leonard, however, quickly put an end to all hopes in that direction. While thanking the council for the confidence shown in him, he made it quite clear that he himself had no intention of remaining in the colony as governor.