Graham Greene (30 page)

R. H. BRUCE LOCKHART

t half-past twelve o'clock, as Geoffrey Engleheart was busy writing alone in his room at the Foreign Office, he was interrupted by the opening of the door.

“Hulloa, dear boy! I've found my way up here by myself. Busy, as usual, I see!” cried a cheery voice as the door slowly opened, and Geoffrey looking up saw it was his friend Count von Beilstein, well groomed and fashionably attired in glossy silk hat, perfect-fitting frock coat, and varnished boots. He called very frequently upon Engleheart, and had long ago placed himself on excellent terms with the messengers and doorkeepers, who looked upon him as a most generous visitor.

“Oh, how are you?” Engleheart exclaimed, rising and shaking his hand. “You must really forgive me, Count, but I quite forgot my appointment with you today.”

“Oh, don't let me disturb you, pray. I'll have a glance at the paper till you've finished,” and casting himself into a chair near the window he took up
The Times
and was soon absorbed in it.

A quarter of an hour went by in silence, while Engleheart wrote on, calmly unconscious that there was a small rent in the newspaper the Count was reading, and that through it he could plainly see each word of the treaty as it was transcribed from the secret code and written down in plain English.

“Will you excuse me for ten minutes?” Geoffrey exclaimed presently. “The Cabinet Council is sitting, and I have to run over to see Lord Stanbury for a moment. After I return I must make another copy of this paper, and then I shall be free.”

The Count, casting the newspaper wearily aside, glanced at his watch.

“It's half-past one,” he said. “You'll be another half-hour, if not more. After all, I really think, old fellow, I'll go on down to Hurlingham. I arranged to meet the Vaynes at two o'clock.”

“All right. I'll run down in a cab as soon as I can get away,” answered Engleheart.

“Good. Come on as soon as you can. Violet will be expecting you, you know.”

“Of course I shall,” replied his unsuspicious friend, and they shook hands, after which the Count put on his hat and sauntered jauntily out.

In Parliament Street he jumped into his phaeton, but instead of driving to Hurlingham gave his man orders to proceed with all speed to the General Post Office, St Martin's-le-Grand. Within half an hour from the time he had shaken the hand of his unsuspecting friend, a message in code—to all intents and purposes a commercial dispatch—was on its way to “Herr Brandt, 116 Friedrich Strasse, Berlin.”

That message contained an exact transcript of the secret treaty!

WILLIAM LE QUEUX

anuary 6th, 1895. Sandherr's agents are capable of the craziest schemes, the most dangerous acts of temerity.… In this connection there is a formidable precedent that could be quoted. If I am not mistaken, it was in 1891—you remember how bad our relations with Britain were at that time, because of Siam. To gain information, Sandherr took into his pay the valet of the Ambassador, Lord Lytton. You also remember that Lytton was a neurotic, who sometimes took champagne to keep himself going and sometimes took drugs to enable him to sleep. In either case he slept very soundly. Every night before going to bed he put the letters and telegrams of the day in a drawer, the key of which, a small golden key strung on a curb-chain, never left him. He used carefully to put it on his night table, with his watch-chain. As soon as he was asleep the valet would creep into his room, take the key, open the drawer, and remove the papers. Then he quickly took them to a house in the Rue d'Aguesseau, where an officer of the Intelligence Department, Captain Rollin, would be waiting for him. An hour later the papers and golden key would be back in their places. But you can imagine the manner in which the British Government would have demanded redress if it had discovered this violation of human rights, carried out at night, and in the Ambassador's own bedroom, and with the connivance of a serving officer into the bargain. In fact Lord Lytton must have ended by noticing something, because one day he suddenly gave his valet the sack, without giving him any explanation … 

Count von Beilstein was a spy!

MAURICE PALEOLOGUE

n case the spy, who of course was to move about behind the front as a civilian, were to meet a body of troops accompanied by an officer, he was to act in a particular manner.
He was instructed that in such a dangerous predicament he was to squat innocently in the nearest ditch and let down his trousers, as though performing a physical necessity. It is extraordinarily difficult to cross-examine a man in such a position …

Before his departure from enemy territory the spy was to acquire a dog; if necessary he must buy one. This dog was to accompany him on his return. The spy was provided with very thin paper and a small aluminium tube. The paper he covered with his sketches and statistics; he rolled it up and slipped it into the tube, and the tube was inserted in the dog's rectum. There, for a time, no one thought of looking for it. The trick was detected only through a grotesque accident.

A sentry on a country road saw a pedlar trudging along the road with his dog. The dog ran to the edge of the ditch, whining piteously, and apparently anxious to relieve itself. The pedlar, however, would not let him stop, but dragged him along by his leash. The sentry, who was a great lover of animals, felt angry; he ordered the pedlar to let the dog do what it wanted. The poor animal, which was evidently in difficulties, finally got rid of a silvery metal tube. Since the sentry had never heard that dogs were accustomed to excrete such articles, he was struck with amazement, and being an intelligent man he took pedlar, dog and aluminium tube to the guard, and there related the incident. From that time onwards all the military police of this sector examined such dogs as were led about in the neighbourhood of the front by persons in civilian dress.

H. R. BERNDORFF

uddenly, while the Privy-Councillor lay back in his chair pulling thoughtfully at his cigar, there was a bright, blood-red flash, a dull report, and a man's short agonised cry. Startled, I leaned around the corner of the deck-house, when, to my abject horror, I saw under the electric rays the Czar's Privy-Councillor lying sideways in his chair with part of his face blown away. Then the hideous truth in an instant became apparent. The cigar which Oberg had pressed upon him down in the saloon had exploded, and the small missile concealed inside the diabolical contrivance had passed upwards into his brain.

WILLIAM LE QUEUX

y May [1915] the general outlook which faced the Coalition Government, recently formed by Mr Asquith, was one of much anxiety. Our war plan had broken down, nor was there any hopeful prospect of regaining the initiative. It was the moment to do everything possible to relieve the pressure on the armies in France.

Hall had for some time exploited the obvious method of conveying false information to the Germans by briefing members of his staff to let slip hints about the movements of our ships and troops and forthcoming operations when in company with foreigners whose German sympathies might lead them to
pass on the information. Ralph Nevill, who was a well-known figure in London society and in London clubs, earned an unenviable reputation for being highly indiscreet, as he gave members of the foreign embassies and legations a lot of news when lunching and dining with them. Hall himself had the singular experience of being reprimanded by a fellow member of his club for giving away secrets to a comparative stranger.

This was all useful, but now more was required, and he had printed, bound, and weighted in the usual way a Secret Emergency War Code. His plan was to convey this book to the Germans, and then from time to time arrange for messages to be transmitted in the code from our wireless stations. The messages would be unintelligible to our own ships and wireless stations, and so pass unnoticed, but they would be read by the Germans.