Part 4

‘But you take them on board the ship it is your duty to guard,’ I returned fiercely, carried out of myself.

The lieutenant drew back, amazed.

‘I have taken a worthy priest to console a dying man--one of his own faith,’ he stammered out.

‘A German police agent, disguised as a priest, I suppose you mean. The spy Kehler?’

He began to tremble violently. ‘But the Sister! The nurse!’

‘Sister Marie-Joseph! What do you mean?’

‘She is on board now, nursing O’Callaghan.’

It was my turn to utter an oath of consternation.

‘Come with me. Take me on board instantly, or take me to your commander.’

‘We will go on board,’ said the sobered lieutenant.

Glancing round as I followed him out I saw that Kehler had disappeared. Quickening our steps by a common instinct, the lieutenant and I almost ran down to the water’s edge.

‘Thank God!’ burst from his lips as we came in sight of the majestic vessel lying peacefully at her anchors in the calm waters of the bay, her spars and turrets outlined against the clear, starlit sky, and only a few twinkling lights betraying the presence of the two hundred men who slept below her decks. The same instant there was a spout of fire, a cloud of wreck and dust mounted to heaven, and a thunderous boom stunned our ears, and sent the waters of the bay dashing up at our feet.

The _Maine_ had broken like a bubble. I saw all in a flash--in some dark way that will never now be revealed Sister Marie-Joseph had blown up the _Maine_. Kehler had succeeded--I had failed.

It has not been easy for me to write the story of what I regard as the greatest failure of my career. My mistake was the initial one of refusing to purchase Kehler’s confidences, by the expedient of pledging myself to assist his enterprise.

Immediately the intelligence of the disaster reached Europe Stearine sent me a cable peremptorily enjoining silence. That injunction I consider has now lost its force through three circumstances, the lapse of time, the death in action of Lieutenant ----, and the living suicide of the arch-criminal, haunted by the horror of his own deed, in the deathlike cloisters of La Trappe.

III

THE MYSTERY OF CAPTAIN DREYFUS

Every one must feel that the last word has not been said on that extraordinary transaction which convulsed France, and shocked Europe, during the close of the nineteenth century, under the name of the Dreyfus Case.

It is true that no effort has been spared by the Government of the Republic to put an end to an agitation which threatened to develop into a civil war. A general amnesty has been proclaimed; the courts of law have been forbidden to entertain any proceedings involving the guilt or innocence of Captain Dreyfus, his accusers or his partisans, and the French press has been appealed to, in the name of patriotism, to close its columns to all further discussion of the dangerous topic.

Such an attitude, adopted in order to save France from disruption, is not without a certain dignity; but it is at the same time terribly unjust. It is as if France had repeated to the victim of the Devil’s Isle the memorable words--‘It is better that one man should die for the people.’

The one person in Europe who is completely ignorant of the true motives underlying this grim tragedy is without doubt Dreyfus himself. That taciturn, commonplace figure, suddenly elevated into the position of criminal, martyr, and hero, was merely the shuttlecock driven through the air by unseen hands. Even if he was guilty of writing the celebrated bordereau--a question which the Court of Rennes decided in the affirmative--he must have done it by the order of others, given for reasons which he did not comprehend.

It will be remembered that before and during the second trial of Dreyfus, the strongest efforts were put forth on his behalf by three foreign Powers--those composing the Triple Alliance. The German, Austrian, and Italian military attachés, breaking through the etiquette of their position, disclaimed, each on his personal word of honour, any dealings with the alleged spy.

Not only so, but I myself sent for the Paris correspondent of a London newspaper of high standing, and authorised him to inform his readers that the German Emperor himself was prepared personally to exculpate the accused from the charge of selling information to Germany.

This offer, made privately to the French President, was declined for the same reasons which prompted the Government to hush up the whole affair. But every thoughtful man will realise that it would not have been made unless there had been more at stake than the freedom of an obscure captain.

My own connection with the _Affaire Dreyfus_ dates from the time of the first trial and sentence, when the theatrical spectacle of the degradation of the unfortunate officer was the theme of universal comment. At this juncture I received a visit from Colonel ----, an officer high in the Emperor’s confidence, and at that time attached to the German Embassy in Paris.

‘I have come to you,’ he announced, as soon as we found ourselves alone, ‘by command of his Imperial Majesty the Kaiser.’

I bowed respectfully as I replied--

‘I am deeply honoured by this fresh proof of his Majesty’s confidence.’

The Colonel regarded me for a moment with some curiosity.

‘You are a sort of spy, are you not?’ he inquired.

I refused to take offence at this blunt question, so natural on the part of a soldier.

‘Each of us has his own part to play,’ I explained suavely. ‘The soldier fights with the enemy in the open field; the man of my profession has to encounter the foes who burrow underground.’

Colonel ---- appeared satisfied.

‘The Kaiser trusts you; that is enough for me,’ he declared. ‘You will not dare to betray this confidence?’

This time I rose to my feet, stern and contemptuous.

‘You have not come here to insult me, I suppose, Colonel? If you are the bearer of instructions from the Kaiser, be good enough to deliver them without comment; if not, I will attend to my other business.’

The German’s face betrayed his astonishment at this rebuke. He hastened to mutter an apology, which I received in silence.

‘His Majesty wishes you to investigate this _Affaire Dreyfus_, on his behalf. There is some secret motive for the notoriety which they are conferring on this unlucky spy’--the Colonel gave me an apprehensive glance as he pronounced this word--‘and the Kaiser is determined to find out what it is. It appears that we are being made a sort of stalking-horse in the business; it is pretended that Dreyfus was an agent of ours, which is utterly untrue.’ The German smiled sardonically as he added: ‘Our information is supplied to us from higher sources than a simple captain of artillery, and we can get as much as we choose to pay for.’

‘Is it not likely that Dreyfus may be the scapegoat of others--perhaps those higher sources to which you refer?’

The Colonel shook his head.

‘That does not explain the persistence with which they are trying to connect the affair with Germany. I have information that the heads of the French Army are representing that France is in actual danger. The bitterness with which Dreyfus is assailed is due, they pretend, to a sense of the national peril.’

‘And all that is quite untrue, I understand?’

‘So untrue that I have reason to know that Wilhelm II. has a particular desire to conciliate the French----’ The Colonel stopped abruptly as if he had been on the point of saying too much.

‘Very good. Then I am to find out for his Majesty as much as I can about this affair, and particularly why it is sought to represent Dreyfus as an agent of Germany?’

Colonel ---- nodded.

It was not an easy task to set me; nevertheless, I had some hope of success. It so happened that I had formerly had transactions of a confidential nature with General Garnier, one of the foremost, if not the foremost, figure among the persecutors of Dreyfus. I had the right to approach this General as a friend, and I had reasons for believing that he might be willing to open his mouth for a sufficient consideration.

Shortly after Colonel ----’s departure, therefore, I strolled round to the General’s private residence, off the Avenue Clichy. Garnier was not at home, but I left a message with the concierge that the dealer in old coins, who had formerly sold him some Roman specimens, had just obtained others which he was anxious to submit for inspection.

As I anticipated, this message had the desired result of bringing General Garnier to see me the same night. He came, not to my public bureau, but to a little apartment in the Quartier Latin which I rent for the purpose of interviews with clients who do not wish their acquaintance with me to be known.

It was evident that my summons had annoyed, perhaps frightened, him.

‘Now, Monsieur V----, what does this mean?’ he blustered, as I closed the door behind him.

‘It means, Monsieur le Général, that I have a question to ask you, but that I do not expect you to answer it for nothing.’

Garnier was visibly relieved to discover that I had not sent for him to extort blackmail. But his reply was not encouraging.

‘I fear that you have given yourself trouble uselessly. It is not my intention to sell any information of a kind which cannot be given openly.’

I knew the man I was dealing with too well to take this answer as final.

‘Without doubt you are right to remind me that a man like yourself ought to be approached with a great deal of circumspection,’ I returned, with a mixture of politeness and irony.

Garnier’s face flushed.

‘I mean what I have said,’ he affirmed. ‘You must not suppose that you are dealing to-day with Colonel Garnier. In my position one has responsibilities to which there attaches itself a sentiment of honour, you understand, M. V----?’

My experience has not taught me that men become more scrupulous by being promoted from the rank of Colonel to that of General, but only that they become more greedy. I replied--

‘I understand of course that one does not buy old coins at the same price from a general officer as from a field officer.’

Garnier’s face assumed a look of indecision.

‘For whom are you acting, this time?’ he demanded.

‘General, if any one had asked me formerly from where I had procured my Roman coins, what do you suppose my answer would have been?’

Garnier tugged thoughtfully at his moustache, as he frowned over a refusal which was, at the same time, a proof that he could trust me.

‘Suppose you explain to me what information you are in search of?’ he said, throwing himself into a chair.

I thought the battle was won, as I responded--

‘It concerns the Dreyfus Case.’

To my surprise, Garnier bounded out of the seat into which he had just dropped.

‘As to that--impossible!’ he exclaimed with vigour. ‘That is our secret--_ours_, you understand.’

I listened to this declaration with secret dismay. It revealed to me that the fate of Dreyfus was in some manner connected with the interest of the heads of the French Army, in short, with Garnier’s own; and from his tone I suspected that I was questioning the arch-plotter.

There was still the chance that he might be willing to part with the secret if he could be assured that it would not be used against him.

‘Suppose I required this information on behalf of a friendly monarch, who is himself a soldier, and who might be willing to pledge his word that it should not be made use of to your disadvantage?’

Garnier gazed at me as though he would have read the name of this monarch in my eyes.

‘Impossible,’ he repeated, in a tone of real regret; ‘_twice impossible!_’ And, as though anxious to convince me that his refusal was not unfriendly, he added--‘It is not a question of a Boulanger this time.’

Perceiving that I could not press him further without showing my own hand, I reluctantly allowed Garnier to depart. He had in reality told me more than he suspected.

In the first place, he had convinced me that the Kaiser’s suspicions were not idle, by his reception of my hint that I was acting for a foreign Power. If the ferocious sentence on Dreyfus had been inspired by spite against an unpopular officer, or by a desire to find a scapegoat for bigger traitors; or if it had merely been an episode in the secret duel between the Church and the Freemasons, as the champions of Dreyfus were inclined to believe, there would have been no meaning in that regretful ‘Twice impossible!’ If Garnier had refused to sell his secret to a foreign Power, I knew him well enough to feel assured that it must be because that Power was in some way interested to defeat Garnier’s conspiracy.

But the real clue had been placed in my hands by those concluding words--‘It is not a question of a Boulanger this time.’

Such a phrase constituted a riddle which few men in Europe were better able than myself to decipher.

Boulanger was an adventurer, lifted on a wave of popular favour, who had seemed likely at one moment to overturn the republic and replace it by a military dictatorship with himself at the head. He had failed because he was a mere adventurer, who represented no principle, and who lacked that personal prestige with the Army which is only acquired by successful leadership in war.

Nevertheless his career had revealed the weakness of the Republic, and proved that all that was necessary to bring about its downfall was an alliance between the military caste and some pretender with more substantial claims than those conferred by the shouts of the Paris mob.

Every one who knows anything of France knows that the soldiers have long chafed under the ascendency of the lawyers, which is a necessary consequence of Republican institutions. But Garnier’s words, if I interpreted them rightly, showed that the lesson of Boulanger’s failure had been laid to heart, and that this time the military conspiracy which undoubtedly existed had found a really formidable figurehead. In short, it was a question not of a military dictator, but of a monarch; not of a Boulanger, but of a Bourbon or a Bonaparte.

I found myself on the brink of a discovery of first-rate importance. For the success of such a military revolution as that indicated only two things seemed necessary, a candidate and an occasion. If my diagnosis were sound, a candidate had been found in Philippe d’Orléans, the representative of the ancient monarchy, or Victor Napoleon, the heir of the Bonapartes. The occasion was to be furnished, perhaps, by the long-delayed war of _la revanche_!

As soon as I had reduced my thoughts to some sort of order I decided that my next step must be to ascertain which of the two pretenders, who seemed pointed out for the leading _rôle_ in such a conspiracy, was the chosen one. The Duke of Orleans was at this time in England, while the home of Prince Napoleon, as every one knows, is in the neighbourhood of Brussels.

I despatched two of my most trusted subordinates, one to Belgium, and the other to England, with instructions to keep a close watch on the movements of both princes, and to let me know if there were any signs of unusual activity which would indicate that some stroke was in preparation.

In Paris I kept up a similar watch on the headquarters of the Royalist and Bonapartist parties. The Royalists are formidable, thanks to the influence of society; but the Bonapartist cause is represented by a small and dwindling clique of journalists and demagogues, who exhaust themselves in the effort to revive the Napoleonic legend, by their parrot-like repetition of the words _Marengo_ and _Austerlitz_.

I did not imagine that this noisy faction would be intrusted with any important secret; and I was soon satisfied that if the chiefs of the Army were really contemplating a restoration, Bourbon or Bonapartist, they had kept their design entirely to themselves.

The first reports which I received from my agents abroad were discouraging. The Bourbon Pretender, who is without reticence, and seeks every opportunity of advertising his personality, appeared to be quite passive for the moment.

Prince Victor Napoleon, a man of a very different character, who withdraws himself as much as possible from public notice, conscious, perhaps, that he has inherited some of his father’s unpopularity, was also leading his usual quiet life, and no evidence was forthcoming of any secret intelligence between him and the group of generals who controlled the French army.

Things were in this position, and I was beginning to feel dissatisfied with the slow progress I was making, when I was suddenly called to the telephone one evening by my agent in Brussels, who had at last some important news for me.

‘Prince Victor is going to England,’ he announced, after we had exchanged the password.

‘To _England_!’ Was it possible that the two rivals were about to meet? I asked myself. ‘When does he depart?’

‘Perhaps to-morrow. His secretary has been to the Belgian Foreign Office to procure passports.’

‘There are no passports required in England,’ I returned, my suspicions instantly roused. ‘You have been deceived. Have you seen the passport?’

‘No. It was from the servants that I learned the Prince was going to England.’

‘It is a blind, rest assured. Keep the strictest watch, and do not allow him to leave Brussels without you. I shall come by the next train.’

I rang off the communication, and hastened to make the necessary preparations for a journey of which I could not foresee the end.

On alighting in the Belgian capital I was met by my faithful henchman, who informed me with sparkling eyes that he had succeeded, by means of a bribe, in ascertaining from a clerk in the Foreign Office that a passport had been granted to the Comte de Saint Pol and secretary, travelling to Berlin.

If anything had been needed to convince me that the journey of Prince Napoleon had a serious purpose, these concealments would have done so. I was now confident that I was on the right track, and I did not grudge the fatigue involved in a journey across Europe.

I ordered Fouqué, as my man was named, to resume his watch on the Prince’s abode, while I waited at the station from which the Berlin express takes its departure. It was understood that we were both to proceed by the same train as the Comte de Saint Pol and his companion.

No hitch occurred; the Prince, accompanied by his secretary and my agent, duly arrived to take their seats in the train, and the four of us alighted together in the capital of Germany. I had spent the interval in considering my plan of action. I was so far from foreseeing the true cause of Prince Napoleon’s mysterious journey, that I expected to find him closeted the next day with the German Emperor, imparting the confidence which Garnier had refused to me. The event proved very different.

As soon as the two travellers had taken up their quarters in a hotel, whither, it is needless to say, we accompanied them, the secretary was sent out on an errand by himself. Fouqué, of course, followed, and came back in about an hour with the startling information that the secretary had been to the Russian Embassy.

The meaning of this proceeding flashed upon me at once. The real destination of the Prince was not Berlin, but Petersburg. He was merely passing a few hours in Berlin in order to confuse the trail, and he had sent his passport to the Embassy to be _viséd_ for Russia.

In order to make sure that my surmise was correct, I decided to make use of my implied authority to act on behalf of the German Government. I ordered Fouqué to force his way bodily into the Count’s apartment, announce himself as an agent of the Berlin police, and demand to see the stranger’s passport. The ruse was completely successful, and I learned that the yellow seal of the Russian Eagle had been affixed to the paper.

My own task had now become difficult and dangerous. Although I maintain friendly relations with the Russian police, with whom I have often collaborated, I knew they were not likely to tolerate my intrusion into their territory as the spy of a foreign Power. In dealing with half-reclaimed savages like the Slaves, one never knows what form their revenge will take, and Siberia is not a country in which I have ever had any inclination to reside.

The plan which presented itself to my mind was an audacious one, but in such situations audacity is safer than faint-heartedness. I despatched Fouqué to the headquarters of the Berlin police with a denunciation against Prince Napoleon’s secretary for the crime of _lèse-majesté_.

_Lèse-majesté_ is the one offence which is never treated lightly in German official quarters. Fouqué’s information was eagerly taken down, and a police officer promptly arrived at the hotel armed with a warrant for the arrest of the traveller.

M. Rémillard, the secretary, protested in vain that he was a stranger, who had only that hour arrived in Berlin, and was leaving Germany the next day; and that he had never been guilty of the least disrespect towards Wilhelm II.

‘You declared that the Emperor was a babbler,’ he was informed.

‘Ah, but I meant the Emperor of Russia,’ retorted the Frenchman smartly.

‘What, is he a babbler, too?’ exclaimed the policeman--an answer which, I believe, has since become celebrated.

But his ingenuity could not save the unlucky secretary from arrest, and the Comte de Saint Pol found himself obliged to proceed on his journey alone. It remained for me to complete the execution of my design, by substituting myself in the place of M. Rémillard.

This project, which would have been beyond the powers of an ordinary police agent, was rendered possible in my case by my extensive knowledge of underground politics, and the reputation which I have striven to deserve of a man whose faith can be depended on.

I dismissed Fouqué, whose further presence would have embarrassed me, and took my seat in the _coupé_ reserved for the Comte de Saint Pol in the Petersburg express.

In answer to the remonstrance with which my intrusion was received, I explained that I was acting under orders.

‘Your travelling companion has been arrested, Monsieur le Comte, but perhaps I may be allowed to supply his place.’

‘Am I under arrest, too?’ Prince Victor demanded with some indignation.

‘Not at all,’ I answered, ‘but your movements are of some interest to the German Government, or rather the Emperor, who has honoured me with his personal instructions.’

‘What have my affairs to do with his Imperial Majesty?’ inquired the Prince anxiously.

‘Perhaps nothing, perhaps a great deal. You will, at least allow, _Monsieur le Comte_, that your passage through Germany appears to be attended with some mystery.’

‘In short----?’

‘In short, the Emperor will be glad to be honoured by your confidence, _Monseigneur_.’

The Prince started at this title, and began narrowly scrutinising my face, while he evidently considered in his own mind what account to give of himself.

‘It may assist you, perhaps,’ I went on to say, ‘if I tell you that I already know nearly all that you can tell me. I am M. V----.’

At this name a change passed over Prince Napoleon’s face. A silent struggle seemed to be taking place in his breast. Presently he raised his eyes to mine.

‘Tell me, M. V----, are you capable of forgetting for a couple of hours that you are the Emperor’s confidential agent, and favouring me with your disinterested advice?’

‘I believe so, always provided that your Highness does not ask me to betray the confidences I have received from others.’

The Prince accepted this stipulation with frankness.

‘In all probability you are in a position to tell me more about the reasons for this journey than I know myself. I am going, as a matter of fact, in search of information.’