The Lost Naval Papers - Bennet Copplestone
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
JOHN TREHAYNE.
* * * * *
I folded up the papers and returned them to Dawson, who carefully
placed them in his pocket. In the shadows the spirit of Trehayne still
seemed to be waiting. I thought for a few minutes, and then rose to my
feet. "He was an officer on secret service," said I slowly. "An enemy,
but a gallant and generous enemy. In love and in war he played the
game, Requiescat in pace."
"Amen," said Cary.
Dawson rose and gripped our hands. "I have the locket and the ring,
and I will write as he wished. It is the least that I can do."
They buried Trehayne with naval honours as an enemy officer who had
died among us. England does not war with the dead. Though he had
fallen by his own hand, the Roman Church did not withhold from an
erring son the beautiful consolation of her ritual. Cary and I openly
attended the funeral. Dawson was officially in bed, suffering from his
much-desired attack of influenza. But in the firing party of Red
Marines, whose volleys rang through the wintry air over the body of
Trehayne, I espied one whom I was glad to see present.
PART II
_MADAME GILBERT_
CHAPTER IX
THE WOMAN AND THE MAN
If one believed Dawson's own accounts of his exploits--I can conceive
no greater exercise in folly--one would conclude that he never failed,
that he always held the strings by which his puppets were constrained
to dance, and that he could pluck them from their games and shut them
within his black box whenever he grew wearied of their fruitless
sport. He trumpets his successes, but he never speaks of his
failures--he buries them so deeply that he forgets them himself. He
veils his plans, movements, and personal appearance in a fog of
mystery. None, not even his closest associates, know what he would be
at until a job is completely finished, and finished successfully. Thus
when he succeeds, his own small world is deeply impressed--even
nauseated--by the compelling spectacle of a Dawson triumphant; when he
fails, very few know or hear of the failure. He loves the jealousy of
his equals and inferiors even more than the admiration of his
superiors. Thoroughly to enjoy life he must be surrounded by both in
the amplest measure.
What I now have to tell is the story of a failure--a failure due to
his refusal ever to allow his right hand to know what his left hand
sought to do. He never told me himself one word concerning this story.
I obtained the details partly from Captain Rust, partly from Dawson's
Deputy, but chiefly from the lady who filled the star role. Dawson
himself foolishly introduced me to her nearly two years later; he did
not anticipate that we should become friendly, confidential, that we
should discuss him and his little ways over cups of tea, made the
sweeter by the clandestine nature of our frequent meetings. He had not
allowed for the fascinations of the lady--fascinations so alluring
that even I, a middle-aged Father of a Family and Justice of the
Peace, was instantly reduced by them to the softest moral pulp; and he
had not allowed for the Puckish glee with which I welcomed the tale,
rolled it round in my wicked fancy, and bent its ramifications into an
orderly narrative.
* * * * *
I very vividly remember my first meeting with the lady. She came one
day, a fortnight after I had returned from Cary's flat to my neglected
duties, heralded by a short note from Dawson. "I shall be greatly
obliged if you will give Madame Gilbert all assistance in your power.
She is one of my team." That was all, but my curiosity was piqued. I
had heard much of Dawson's team of feminine assistants--rudely called
by rivals his "harem"--and I was eager to meet one of them. I ordered
Madame Gilbert to be admitted to my presence. She came, I saw, she
conquered. When I assert that in two minutes she had plucked me from
my chair of dignity, flung me upon the Turkey carpet, and jumped upon
me with her daintily shod feet, I do not exaggerate.
She was not very young--I put her at two or three years over thirty.
She was, or gave herself out to be, a widow. She was a female
detective; I was a modest gentleman of rigid English respectability,
not without some matrimonial experience in the ways of Woman. There
was nothing in the purpose of her visit to have caused her to come
upon me as a Venus, fully armed, and to have forced me to an abject
surrender. From the feathers of her black picture hat to the tips of
her black velvety shoes she was French-clad, the French of Paris, and
wore her clothes like a Frenchwoman. She was dressed--_bien habillee,
bien gantee, bien coiffee_. Her hair was red copper, her skin--the
"glad neck" of her dress showed a lot of it--had the colour and bloom,
the cream and roses, of Devon. Her eyes were very large and of a deep
violet All these charms of dress and face and colour I could have
gallantly withstood, but the voice of her settled my business at once.
Its rich, full tone, its soft, appealing inflection, the pretty
foreign accent with which she then chose to speak English--I can hear
them now. I have always been sensitive to beautiful voices, and Madame
Gilbert's voice is beyond comparison the most beautiful voice in the
wide world.
Madame Gilbert made one or two small requests to which I gave an
immediate assent, and then she asked me to do something within my
power but much against my uncontrolled will. "Madame," said I
shamelessly, "as you are strong be merciful; let me off as lightly as
you can." She laughed, and eyed me with interest. My defeat had been
with her, of course, a certainty, but perhaps it took place more
rapidly than she had expected. "I have not asked for much," said she.
"It is not what you have asked that I fear, but what you may ask
before I get you out of my room," said I.
She laughed again and let me down very gently. I did not tell her more
than three secrets which I was pledged never to reveal. "That's all,"
said Madame Gilbert. "Thank Heaven," said I.
On the following afternoon, about four o'clock, Madame Gilbert called
again upon me. When her card was brought in I trembled, and for a
moment had in mind to deny myself to her. But I thrust away the
cowardly thought. Be brave, said I to myself, advance boldly, attack
the terrible delightful siren, say "no" to her once, and you will be
saved! She entered, and though my knees shuddered as I rose to greet
her, my mien was bold and warlike. She warmly squeezed my hand, and I
returned the attention with _empressement_. For a few minutes we
exchanged polite compliments, and then she sprung upon me in her
tender confident tones, a request so preposterous that my rapidly
flitting courage was stimulated to return. Be brave, I murmured to
myself, attack boldly, say "No," and you will be saved for ever.
"I deeply regret, madame," said I coldly, "that it is not possible for
me to accede to your wishes." It was done, and I breathed more freely
though the sweat broke out on my forehead.
Her eyes opened upon me with the pained surprised look of a deeply
disappointed child. "Oh, Mr. Copplestone," she moaned, "and I thought
that you were my friend."
I clutched tightly at the arms of my faithful chair and held to my
programme of heroic boldness.
"You shouldn't have asked me such a question. You really
shouldn't--you know you shouldn't."
Her eyelids flickered, and the violet pools which they uncovered
glittered with a moisture which was not of tears, and she laughed,
laughed, and continued to laugh with the deepest enjoyment.
"I wanted to see how much you would stand," said she at last.
From that moment her spell over me was broken, and we became friends.
I admired her as much as ever, but she was no longer the all-devouring
siren. I could say "no" to her as easily as to the most dowdy and
unbeautiful of female axe-grinders.
"Will you permit me to offer you a cup of tea so as to wash from your
mouth the unpleasant taste of my brutal refusal?"
"I will," said Madame Gilbert graciously.
We issued from my office and betook ourselves to a pleasant shop where
we could drink tea and nibble cakes, and talk without being overheard.
Madame Gilbert, I observed, had a healthy appetite.
We talked of ourselves and exchanged delicious confidences. "You have
asked me many questions," I said. "May I ask one of you? What are you?
You are not English, and you are not, I think, French."
"Shall I also learn a lesson from you in unkindness and say 'No'?" she
inquired. "But it would be cruel, for you have really been quite nice
to me. I will reveal the secret of my birth." She put up one hand and
began to tick off the countries which had been privileged to play a
part in her origin and education. "My father was a Swede--one; my
mother was an Irishwoman--two. I was born at Cork in Ireland, but
remember nothing about it, for my father died when I was three years
old, and my Irish mother removed instantly to Paris--three. By the
way, I have observed that the Irish and the Scotch always run away
from their own countries at the first possible opportunity. Why is
this?"
"It is much pleasanter," I remarked sententiously "to sentimentalise
over the fringes of the United Kingdom from a safe distance, than to
live in them."
"Oh! Let me see, I had got as far as Paris. When I was old enough I
went to a convent school there. I speak French rather better than I do
the Irish-English which my mother taught me."
"You speak English most charmingly. There is about it now a delicate
suggestion, no more, of Ireland. When you first came to me your accent
was distinctly foreign, French or Italian. I am afraid that you are a
wicked woman, a deceiver, and that the fascinating accent was put on
for my subduing. It was a very pretty accent."
"I have found it most effective," said she brazenly.
"When I was eighteen I was married--to an Italian (Guilberti)--four. I
should have become a Catholic, my husband's faith, but for my mother's
Protestant-Irish prejudices. She was of the Irish Church, my husband
of the Roman, so I compromised. I joined the Church of England, the
High Branch."
"Your religion is almost as complicated as your nationality."
"Yes, isn't it?" said she. Her hand was still uplifted; she had paused
at the fourth finger. "We lived in Italy and in France. Two years ago
my husband died, and shortly after the war began my mother died. I had
a little money, I was known to the Embassy in Paris as one who could
pass indifferently as English, or French, or Italian. I wanted to
strike a blow for all my countries, and I was recommended to Mr.
Dawson for"--she looked round carefully, bent her head close to mine,
and whispered--"the Secret Service. So I came for the first time that
I remember to England--five."
"But what are you?" I asked, with knitted brows; "I am not an
international lawyer."
"Mr. Dawson says"--I found that she has a childlike confidence in the
redoubtable Dawson--"that by birth I am a British subject. My Swedish
father doesn't count, as I never adopted Sweden when I came of age. My
domicile before marriage was France, but by marriage I became an
Italian. It is no matter; I am of the Entente, and I do my bit. It is
not a bad bit sometimes."
That was the first of many agreeable tea-drinkings which Madame
Gilbert and I took together.
Madame Gilbert believes herself to be, as she puts it, a woman of
"surprising virtue," and I am by no means sure that she is not right.
For the doing of her bit has led her into situations from which
nothing but the coolest of hearts and the quickest of wits could have
brought her out untarnished. She has played her part gallantly,
serenely, in the service of the Alliance; I should be a poor creature
if I judged her by British provincial standards. Among other stories
she told me the tale which I will repeat to the reader. Here and there
were gaps which I have sought diligently to fill up until the whole
has been made complete. Madame Gilbert told to me the most intimate
details without a blush, and if in my telling I startle the blood to
the cheek of the very oldest of readers, the fault will rest with me.
* * * * *
"I have a notion, Madame Gilbert, which I should like you to follow
up," said Dawson. He was at that time (the Spring of 1915) in his
office in London--he had not yet been despatched on his spacious
pilgrimage to the northern shipyards--and Madame Gilbert sat opposite
to him in an attitude deliberately provocative. She sat back in a
comfortable chair facing the light, her legs were crossed, and she
displayed a great deal more of beautifully rounded calf and perfectly
fitting silk stockings than is usual even in the best society.
Although she did not look at Dawson, she was fully conscious of the
frowning glare which he threw at the audacious leg.
"Please give me your attention--if you can. I have been out at the
Front lately, at General Headquarters, to advise upon the means of
stopping the flow of information from our lines to the enemy. All the
obvious channels have been stopped--the telephones hidden in French
cellars, the signals given by the hands of clocks, the German spies
dressed in uniforms stripped from our dead, and so on. Lots of them,
all obvious and simple. One can deal with that sort of thing by a
careful system of unremitting watchfulness. We must have caught up
with most of the arrangements made by the Germans before the war, but
they still get much more information than is good for them to have,
and for us to lose. I am convinced--and G.H.Q. agrees--that there are
many officers, especially in the French and Belgian armies, who were
planted there years before the war for the precise purpose to which
they are now put. Even in our own Army, which is expanding so rapidly,
the same thing is possible, even probable. An infantry officer spy can
do little--he knows nothing of the Staff plans, and cannot get into
communication with the enemy at all readily, without arousing
suspicion. I went into the whole thing at the Front, and I put my
finger, as I always do, upon the danger spot--the Flying Corps. Those
who fly constantly over our own and the enemy's lines have complete
information as to distribution and movements, and, if they choose, can
drop dummy bombs containing news for the enemy to pick up. A French,
Belgian, or English aeroplane 'observer' in the enemy's secret service
could convey information to him at pleasure and without the
possibility of detection. I don't suspect our own Flying Corps, except
on the general principle of suspecting everybody and everything, but I
do that of the French and the Belgians. France and Belgium were salted
through and through by the Germans in anticipation of war. There in
the Flying Corps we have a very grave danger which--But I see that you
are not attending, madame," he broke off angrily.
Her eyes withdrew from the offending leg for an instant, and flashed
at Dawson with a penetrative power which even he felt.
"Shall I repeat what you have said, word for word?" asked Madame
Gilbert coldly.
"I am not now dealing with facts, but with conjecture;" went on
Dawson, after begging her pardon. "I have nothing to go upon, but the
Germans have far more of imagination and ingenuity than we always
credit to them. They must see that with the great advance in the
Flying Corps of the Allied armies, and the opportunities which flying
men have for collecting and conveying information, one flying spy
would be worth a hundred spies on foot. For them to perceive is to
act. I therefore conclude positively that they have agents in the
flying squadrons of France and Belgium, and possibly even in our own.
So I told the C. in C., and he agreed with me. He was good enough to
say that he would never have thought of this had I not suggested it to
him. Soldiers are not detectives, madame, and very few detectives are
William Dawsons. If the War Office knew its business, every Assistant
Provost-Marshal would be, not a soldier, but a man from the Yard, and
I should be the P.M. in Chief on the Headquarters Staff. I should wear
a general's uniform and hat."
"You would look sweet," said Madame politely.
Dawson, the ex-private of Red Marines, swelled out his chest and felt
himself to be a Major-General at the least.
"They will do their best to follow up my idea at the Front, and I
shall start a campaign here. For I become more and more convinced that
the head centre of the German secret service is here in London. Paris,
even before the war, was too watchful, and now is as hot as Hell.
London reeked with spies, and though we locked up the worst of them
when war broke out, lots still remain. If you only knew how many we
laid by the heels and keep shut up without any trial, or nonsense of
that sort, you would be surprised. It is only since the Defence of the
Realm Act was passed that England has become a free country. We keep a
drag-net going continually, we have hundreds of agents in all
suspected quarters, but this wilderness of bricks and mortar is too
big even for us. Once an enemy agent has got himself into an English
or Allied uniform, he is horribly difficult to run down. That is where
you, and those like you, come in. Are you sure, my dear madame, that
you can pass without detection as a Frenchwoman or a French-Belgian?"
Madame Gilbert put up her left hand, and began to tick off her
qualifications. "My father was a Swede, my mother was Irish, I was
educated in France from the age of three to eighteen, I married an
Italian. Brussels I know almost as well as dear Paris. I can be
Parisienne or Bruxelloise--whichever you wish, Mr. Dawson."
"Good," said Dawson. "What I want of you is this. Whenever here in
London you see a French or Belgian officer wearing the badges of the
Flying Corps, mark him down. Make his acquaintance somehow; you will
know how. Entertain him, fascinate him, let him entertain you; fool
him as you would fool me if I let you; worm out his secrets, if he has
any. If you get upon a promising track, go strong; let the man make
love to you--he will, whoever he is, if you give him half a
chance--intoxicate him with those confounded eyes of yours. If you can
find only one who is in the enemy's service, you will be fully repaid
for all your trouble."
"It is a largish contract," murmured Madame thoughtfully.
"There are not so very many flying officers," said Dawson, "and they
are all young. You will work through them pretty quickly. Most of them
will be the genuine article upon whom you need not waste much time.
But the others, those whom I suspect, you must grab hold of and never
let go, whatever happens."
"I hope," said Madame primly, "that you do not expect me to do
anything--improper."
Dawson stared at her in wonder. Her big eyes, shining with the lovely
innocence of childhood, met his without a flicker. "Bless my immortal
soul," he muttered, "she is getting at me again." Then aloud, and
gravely--"My assistants are always expected to conduct themselves with
the strictest propriety."
Madame laughed softly. "I have known many men in my time, Mr. Dawson,
but I have never enjoyed any man so much as I do you."
"I appear to have rather a roaming commission," Madame Gilbert went
on, after a thoughtful pause. "Can you not give me any guidance?"
"Not at present. I am testing an idea, that is all. You must be guided
by your own wit and judgment, in which I have the utmost confidence.
Don't waste your time or fascinations on the wrong people. Find out if
among the French or Belgian flying officers, who from time to time
visit London, there are any whose connections and movements will repay
close watching here and at the Front. Sift them out. When you get upon
a track which seems promising, follow it up, and do not be--what shall
I say?--do not be too squeamish. Money is no object. Behind us is the
whole British Treasury, and you can have whatever you want. Will you
take on the contract, madame?"
"I will do my best," she replied soberly, "and I will not be--too
squeamish. I can look after myself, my friend."
In another room of the great building upon the Thames Embankment sat
Deputy Chief Inspector Henri Froissart, a French detective officer who
had been "lent" to the English service. Opposite him was sitting a
young handsome man in the uniform of a captain in the British Army.
Froissart was frowning and speaking in savage disrespect of Dawson,
his immediate chief. "This English Dawson, with whom it is my
misfortune to work, is of all men the most impossible. He is clever,
as the Devil, but secretive--my faith! He tells me nothing. He lives
in disguise of body and mind. There are twenty men in his face, his
figure, and his dress. He comes to me as a police officer, a doctor, a
soldier, a priest, even as an old hag who cleans the stairs. He
deceives me continually, and laughs, laughs. He is a reproach and an
insult. I have it in my mind to score off him; what do you say, mon
ami?"
Froissart spoke in French, and the English officer replied in the same
language. "With pleasure, in the way of business. I have been placed
at your orders, not at old man Dawson's. Go ahead, what is the game?"
Froissart nodded approval. "I think that you can pass as a French
officer or a French-speaking Belgian. Is it not so?"
"You should be able to certify that better than I can myself," replied
the officer modestly. "As a boy I was brought up at Dinard in
Normandy. I served two years in the French Army as a volunteer, a
gunner. Then I went to St. Cyr, but England, the home of my father,
claimed me, and I was given a commission in the Artillery. That was
two years ago. I volunteered for the Flying Corps, served in it at the
outbreak of war, but was invalided after that confounded accident
which spoilt my nerve. I fell two hundred feet into the sea, and
passed thirty hours in the bitter water before a destroyer picked me
up. Thirty hours, my friend. My nerve went, and I was besides crippled
by rheumatism of the heart. Then I was for a few weeks liaison officer
on the Yser at the point where the English and Belgian lines met. The
wet, the cold, were too great for me, and again I was invalided. I was
a temporary captain without a job until you met me and asked for me to
be attached to you for secret service. Yes, M. Froissart, I can pass
as a French or a Belgian officer. It needs but the uniform."
"Good," cried Froissart. "You are English of the English, and French
of the French. You have served under the Tricolor and under the Union
Jack. You are an embodiment of L'Entente Cordiale. You almost
reconcile me to that detestable Dawson, but not quite. He is of the
provincial English, what you call a Nonconformist--bah! He is clever,
but bourgeois. He grates upon me; for I, his subordinate in this
service, am _aristocrat_, a Count of _l'ancien regime, catholique,
presque royaliste_. His blood is that of muddy peasants, yet he is my
chief! Peste, I spit upon the sacred name of Dawson!"
"You don't seem to be a very loyal subordinate," observed the officer,
smiling.
"Me, not loyal!" cried Froissart astonished. "I surely am of all men
most loyal to l'Entente. Have I not proved my loyalty? I have left my
beautiful France and come here to this foggy London to aid this
flat-footed _homme de bout_, Dawson, in his researches. Yet he tells
me nothing. He disguises himself before me, and laughs, laughs, when I
fail to recognize his filthy, obscene countenance. But I am loyal, of
a true loyalty unapproachable."
"I believe you, though you have a queer way of showing it. What is now
the game that you want to play off on the old man as a proof of your
unapproachable loyalty?"
"He is clever, my faith, clever as the Devil. He discerns the German
plans before they are made. He has their agents within a wire net
which closes whenever he wishes. He has swept London clean of the foul
brood which festered here before the war. I have great, limitless
confidence in this Dawson whom I detest, but to whom I am of all his
assistants the most loyal. He now suspects that contained within the
Flying Corps of us, the Belgians, and the English are observers in the
pay of Germany. It is an idea most splendid. For if it is true, what
greater opportunity could be given to any spies! To fly over our
lines, to learn of everything, and then to convey the news to the
enemy by way of the air! If he had told me of this most perspicuous of
theories, I would have aided him with all the wealth of my genius. But
no, he tells to me nothing. He comes and goes, he spins his web like a
great fat female spider, but he tells me nothing. It is my belief that
he despises me because I am French, _aristocrat_, and _catholique_.
But I will show him; I will, as you call it, score most bitterly off
him; I will do in my way successfully what he vainly seeks to do in
his way. _Conspuez_ Dawson!"
"This is quite like the old times of the Dreyfus case," said the
Englishman.