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propaganda stuff, all “O beautiful Hitler, O Adolf my love, what a wonderful Führer you are, you

are, you are,” besides, that kind of thing would be much more acceptable to the Austrian in

Germany than a story about another young man who went into a foreign country and came to

horrid grief ...

Hambledon stretched his arms over his head and yawned. Reck was coming out from his

ten days in camp on Friday, three days hence, probably in a more malleable mood, it should at

least be possible to persuade him to code the messages as soon as one knew exactly what one had

to say. Arrangements must be made about Heckstall, first for his arrest, which was easy, and later

on for his release. This last could be announced in the morse accompaniment to the broadcast

play. For the finishing touch, there could be nothing better than to supply whatever information

Heckstall was sent to obtain, if one could discover what it was.

On Friday afternoon Reck was ushered into the office of the Deputy Chief of Police, and

Hambledon greeted him cheerfully.

“Welcome, little stranger,” he said genially. “Sit down and have a cigar. Or a bag of nuts.

Forgive the implications of the alternative, but you really do look remarkably agile.”

“Agile,” said Reck scornfully, but he accepted the cigar.

“No, really, you look years younger—you may go, Hagen—what have you been doing?”

“Working. Shovelling concrete, look at my hands. Physical drill, insufficient food and no

schnapps.”

“Insufficient food,” repeated Hambledon. “Then I take it you collected an appetite?”

“I wish to complain of the soap. Bright yellow, smelt disgusting, and stung, too.”

“I dare say, but that wouldn’t kill you,” said Hambledon, with a slight stress on the

pronoun. “Anything else?”

“There was an inaccurate notice to the effect that purity of the soul is won through

labour. It was displayed where we could see it while shovelling. I find I am not, by nature, a

shoveller, and the notice is a lie.”

“I take it you don’t want to go back?”

“Am I a fool? Besides, it is unjust, I haven’t done anything to deserve punishment, it is

not a crime to sell newspapers.”

“No,” said Hambledon coldly, “but it is a crime to refuse to serve your country when it is

in your power to do so. Your next visit may not be quite so pleasant.”

“Pleasant!”

“Comparatively pleasant. Will you code three or four simple sentences for me?”

“If that is all,” said Reck unwillingly, “I will agree this once.”

“It is all at present,” said Hambledon significantly, and went on in a lighter tone. “So

that’s settled, good. Will you dine with me to-night and we’ll try to remove that hollow feeling?”

Early in the following week Niehl sent for Hambledon and complained bitterly of the

difficulty of getting definite evidence against Heckstall. “I am sure he is an English spy,” he

repeated more than once, “but there is no evidence to prove it apart from Niessen’s statement.

But he is a good man.”

“Niessen?”

“Carl Niessen, a Danish importer who lives in London and is a friend of Herr Heckstall’s.

His real name is Schulte, but they do not know that in London. He has lived there many years, he

knows a number of people in Government circles and they talk to him, my goodness how these

English talk—thank heaven!”

Tommy Hambledon winced inwardly, for he knew this was perfectly true. “But hasn’t

Heckstall done anything? Not even asked questions about anything?”

“Oh, yes. Pipes—the kind water goes through, or gas. In lengths with screwed

connections, you know. There are probably some in your bathroom. They are also used

extensively in breweries, so Heckstall may be quite justified in asking about them. Only, he

started asking at such an awkward time, you know, just when we were short.”

Klaus Lehmann nodded comprehendingly, and said, “It looks fishy, certainly, I should be

inclined to assume him guilty. Would you like me to try and make him talk?”

“What’s the good? If he’s made to talk we shall have to shoot him anyway, or there will

be a fuss when he gets home, and we want no more of these fusses.”

Eventually Lehmann offered to deal with the matter himself, and Niehl gratefully

accepted. “I should like an official order to deport him across the frontier,” said Klaus, “just in

case our bona fides are ever called in question.”

“You are very wise,” said Niehl. “You shall have it.”

Hambledon took himself off with a feeling of good work well done, for he knew now

what the information was for which Heckstall had come. Hambledon returned home with a light

heart and drafted three short messages which Reck coded for him as a background to his

propaganda play.

The play itself was broadcast on Friday, March 31st, as in the case of a monologue very

little rehearsing is necessary. It is possible that that is why the author wrote a one-character play

in the first place, though to those who commented upon this he said seriously that he was

experimenting with a new art-form, a reply which can be relied upon to silence ninety-nine

people out of every hundred, and no wonder.

On Sunday evening he said to Fräulein Rademeyer, “I am sorry to have to leave you

alone for an hour or so tonight. I have business to do at the office.”

“What, on Sunday night?”

“I have some papers to study before to-morrow morning.”

“Papers, dear?”

“Yes.”

“Blonde or brunette, Klaus?”

“Good gracious,” said Klaus, horrified, “what an idea!”

“I understand,” said the old lady, “that when a man has business at the office out of

hours, it’s usually feminine.”

“You’ve been reading the comic papers,” said her adopted nephew accusingly, and left

the house.

In his official capacity he had access to certain confidential documents. He took out a

folder from the safe where it was kept, and spent an uninterrupted half-hour copying a sketch-

map and a page of notes. He put his copies in an envelope the flap of which was embossed,

curiously enough, with the Royal Arms of England, and added a covering letter thumped out,

like the page of notes, with one unskilled finger on a typewriter. “It will be time enough,” he said

to himself, “if I speak to Johann the footman on Tuesday night.” He paused, while a gentle smile

illuminated his scarred face. “And he thinks he’s such a clever Nazi agent, bless his little striped

waistcoat!”

There was a meeting in London in the evening of Thursday, April the 6th, when Wilcox

of the Foreign Office, his immediate superior, and a retired Colonel from Sussex came together

to hear a curious story from the lips of Arnold Heckstall. When the British agent from Germany

had told all he knew, he was dismissed with kindly words, and the three men remaining settled

down to discuss the further enigma from the British diplomatic bag.

“This map,” said the Foreign Office Head of Department, “shows the frontiers of

Germany with France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland in detail, merely indicating the

others. Along these frontiers, starting at a point near Karlsruhe where the Rhine ceases to be the

boundary between Germany and France, and going westward, there appears a line of red ink in

places where the land lies low. Where the land lies low,” he repeated, and glanced at his hearers.

“The notes make this clear. They refer to numbers marked on the map, and in several instances,

at points where the red line is gapped, they say, ‘Broken for such-and-such a ridge of hills.’ In

the next valley the line begins again. The notes are headed ‘Galvanized iron pipe half-inch,

screwed connections.’ At the bottom there is ‘Laid by draining-plough.’”

He paused and addressed the Colonel. “You may not have heard the rumour. It was

whispered that Germany was laying a pipe-line along her western frontiers to supply gas. Gas,

hissing softly through the soil, to drench the valleys through which an invasion must pass. Those

valleys might be death to every living thing for months on end.”

“So Heckstall went to find out if this were true,” said the Colonel, “and was dropped on.”

The Foreign Office man nodded, and Wilcox said, “I am a Londoner. This business of a

draining-plough?”

“I am a countryman,” said the Colonel modestly. “A draining-plough carves a deep but

narrow slot in the earth in which drainage-pipes may be laid, deep enough to be out of danger

from the ordinary plough. A quick and easy method, and on arable land leaves no trace at all.”

“The Rhineland and the Saar are, of course, demilitarized zones,” said Wilcox.

“Yes, but there’s nothing in the Treaty to prevent a simple but industrious peasantry from

tillin’ the soil,” said the Colonel.

“Sowing dragon’s teeth,” commented Wilcox, “and what will the harvest be?”

“Dead men,” said the Colonel grimly, for he was at Ypres in ’15.

“So our anonymous correspondent has done us a good turn,” said Wilcox, with a slight

shiver.

“He has done us another,” said the superior, “at least, if what he says is true. There is a

covering note, I’ll read it to you.

“Information required herewith. Also Niessen, Danish importer, real name Schulte, is

agent of Germany. He it is who on Heckstall the gaff stridently has blown. Passed to you for

action, please!”

“I am beginning to know,” said the Colonel, “what women feel like when they go into

hysterics. It can’t be true, it’s fantastic. I think I’m getting old. In my day we had a cupboard

which contained restoratives—”

“I beg your pardon,” said his host, rising hastily, “so do we. Soda? Or just straight?”

“After a letter like that,” said the Colonel, “I think I won’t dilute it, thanks. My soul, I

needed that. Who is this fellow who uses a German construction one moment and a Civil Service

formula the next?”

“A man might easily do that,” said Wilcox, “who had lived in Germany so long that his

English was rusty.”

“All we can suggest about him,” said Authority, “is that he is possibly a friend of

Reck’s.”

“Reck’s been dead these twelve years,” said Wilcox.

“I don’t know what you propose to do,” said the Colonel, “but Denton used to know Reck

personally.”

“Am I to recall Denton from the Balkans to hunt for a dead man?”

The Colonel made a gesture of despair. “There’s Niessen too,” he said.

In Berlin, the Deputy Chief of Police made a report to his superior in the matter of the

British agent.

“I regret to inform you, sir, that there was trouble at the frontier. I passed Herr Heckstall

through on our side in accordance with your orders, but when the Belgian guard challenged, the

prisoner, instead of stopping, ran like a hare. As you know, there has been a lot of trouble

thereabouts with smugglers, and the guards have been told to be exceedingly firm. They fired,

and the prisoner fell dead—on the Belgian side.”

“Most unfortunate,” said Niehl smoothly. “Very unfortunate, but no one can say it was

our fault. A traveller so experienced as poor Heckstall should have known better than to behave

so foolishly. Well, it’s no use crying over spilt milk, the incident is closed.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Lehmann hesitantly.

“Why, what is the matter? You have no reason, have you, to expect any—er—

repercussions?”

“None in regard to Heckstall. I did have a little talk with him in the course of which he

gathered that our decision was final, and though his immediate departure rather depressed him he

still seemed to be unpleasantly pleased about something. He rather hinted that two Governments

could play at that game.”

“Can they possibly have found out about Niessen?”

“I wondered that myself, sir.”

“I will recall him at once.”

So Herr Niessen packed his suit-cases and left London in haste, but two horribly calm

men in plain clothes met him at Dover and took him back again, protesting volubly. It appeared

that Niessen had been the leading spirit in an organization which smuggled drugs into England,

and though he declared with tears that he did no more than sniff occasionally, he retired from

public life for a very long time indeed.

Charles Denton returned from the Balkans without regret and presented himself at the

Foreign Office at the end of a fortnight’s leave.

“Glad to see you, Denton. Sorry to come away?”

“Not at all,” said the young man in a tired voice. “Those people are too damned energetic

by half, fight on the smallest excuse. The Younger Nations, what? Simply too nursery for

words.”

“Perhaps your next job will be more to your liking. I want you to go to Germany to look

for a man who is almost certainly dead.”

“Do I have to provide my own spade?”

“Do you remember a man named Reck? He used to code and dispatch messages for our

Cologne agents during the war.”

Denton nodded. “He went bats and died in the giggle-house in Mainz.”

“Are you sure?” The Foreign Office man unfolded his tale, ending with, ‘This has been

going on for more than a year now, sixteen months to be exact. We get reports of German

rearmament and aviation developments which, so far as we can check them, are scrupulously