Chapter Sixteen. In a Tight Corner.

I was caught red-handed—caught as neatly as any bona-fide burglar who ever picked a lock!

I had opened the trunk of a fellow visitor with a skeleton key; I had been caught in the very act of pilfering the contents. Indeed, at that very moment I held in my left hand a tiny leather box containing Engström’s diamond tie-pin and studs, while with my right hand I had been delving into his big trunk. Never was a capture neater or more complete. And, with the menace of the big revolver in Engström’s hand, and knowing something of my captor, I knew better than to attempt a rush for escape. I should never have reached the door alive!

“Well, and what does this mean?” harshly demanded the Swedish engineer, in bad French, still covering me with his pistol. “And who are you?”

Had Engström suspected who I really was, I knew he would have shot me out of hand and chanced all consequences: indeed, he would have had little to fear, for there would have been nothing more than a casual inquiry into the shooting of a thief caught red-handed. Moreover, dead men tell no tales, and Engström would have had no difficulty whatever in excusing himself by some hastily concocted story that I had attacked him as soon as he found me plundering his trunk. My disguise saved me, and it was evident he had no suspicion that I was anything but a common thief.

I broke instantly into a torrent of excuses, putting down the little jewel box and the papers with as guilty an air as I could assume. The situation obviously required both tact and cunning, for I realised that I was in a tight corner and that a slip would cost me my life. I pleaded desperate poverty; I was an honest workman driven to evil courses by want; I am afraid I even invented a story of a wholly mythical wife and family in the last stage of starvation. Finally, I roundly promised amendment of my ways if he would but let me go. “Forgive me this time,” I implored. “Do forgive me—this will ruin me.”

“You dog of a thief, I have caught you stealing from my room,” was his only reply. “I shall call the manager,” and he slammed the door and pressed the electric bell. “Send the manager here at once,” he commanded the messenger who answered the bell.

Luigi came immediately, and there was a great scene in which my friend very cleverly worked himself into a state of virtuous indignation at the slur I had cast upon his hotel’s high reputation. He assured Engström that justice should be done forthwith, and actually handed me over to a police officer, and I was at once marched off as a common hotel thief.

Guess my surprise when, as soon as we had turned the first corner, the officer whispered: “Monsieur Battini has told me all the circumstances. He did not telephone to the Bureau, but called me in out of the street. Dash away from me in a few moments when we come to a lonely place, and I will merely pretend to follow you. But, monsieur, get away from Lucerne as quickly as possible.”

I smiled: Luigi had shown that he possessed a quick and ready resourcefulness. It was most fortunate that Engström, finding me with my skeleton keys on the floor, and his jewellery in my hand, had failed to suspect the truth.

I slipped away at the first convenient corner, and an hour later was well on my way by the St. Gothard route to Milan, the excellent police officer undertaking to let Luigi know whither I had gone. I learned later that, when my “escape” was reported to him, Engström took the matter very quietly, and, beyond roundly abusing the officer for letting me slip through his fingers, did not propose any further action. As a matter of fact, having lost nothing, he was probably well content that the affair should end thus. I have no doubt that, masquerading in the name of another man, publicity was the last thing he would desire.

Our problem now was how to deal with Engström and his associates. Obviously to arrest them, even if we had good ground for doing so, would have been to defeat our own object, for we wanted to find out all the details of the plot upon which they were engaged. But, as a matter of fact, they had done nothing up to this moment to bring themselves within the clutches of the law. Engström, it is true, was posing as someone else, but, so long as he did not attempt to profit by it, this was not a criminal offence. I decided to continue our investigations.

Reaching Milan, I put up at the Cavour, where, of course, I was well known. A few hours later I received a long dispatch in cipher from Madame Gabrielle, and two days later an explicit letter from Luigi. I was also able to secure some further information regarding the mysterious engineer and his friends, and this decided me to go to Sweden myself and see the real Mr Engström.

My journey to Malmö was uneventful, and, arriving there, I lost no time in repairing to the yard of Messrs Engström and Linner, the engineers. There, in the private office of the head of the firm, I soon found myself face to face with the principal, Mr Oscar Engström. He was a short, dark, alert little man, with charming manners, and I took a liking to him at once. I had not previously decided on my course of action, but after a few minutes’ conversation I decided on a policy of complete frankness. As rapidly as possible, I told him the full story of the man who had been using his name in London and on the Continent.

At first he expressed himself as completely puzzled. He could not, he said, imagine what the object of the gang could be. They could hardly commit the firm to anything which would profit themselves, for no one abroad would act without inquiries. At length I happened to mention that Johnson-Meads had told me that the man had for disposal something connected with submarines.

“With submarines!” he exclaimed in obvious surprise. “Why, we have in hand at this moment several submarine inventions, of which we own the patents. Two of them are completely secret, and they are in use only by France and Britain.”

This put a new aspect on the affair. “I begin to see now,” I said, “why your name has been assumed. Have you heard of any attempt to secure the submarine secrets?”

“None whatever,” replied Mr Engström. “Moreover, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. One of the appliances with which we are concerned is of such importance that, while we make the greater part of it, a vital portion is manufactured in England, and the apparatus is not put together until the whole is actually on the submarine for which it is intended. Consequently, unless a thief or spy secured copies of the plans both here and in England he would be powerless to profit by either. I may mention that this arrangement was arrived at with the British Admiralty at our express wish and suggestion. I am quite frank with you, Mr Sant.”

“One more question, Mr Engström,” I added. “You are in a position to know of any important inventions in connection with submarine work. Have you heard of any recent invention which would bring it within the bounds of possibility that your double is acting honestly and has really something to sell?”

“That is out of the question,” returned the engineer decidedly. “Unless the invention were German, in which case it would not come out of that country, I think I should certainly have heard something of it. Of course, we have rivals in our business, but there is a certain amount of freemasonry even among business rivals. I know all the people who are making submarine parts—there are very few who could or would tackle a big invention. Besides, if the man has an honest bargain to drive, why should he assume my name?”

This argument was unanswerable. But I confess I was still a long way from guessing just what the bogus Engström and his friends were plotting.

My next visit was to the Swedish police in search of information about Madame Bohman. Here, however, I was quite at fault. It was evident she was passing under an assumed name, and I could not succeed in identifying her among the long array of photographs of known German agents laid before me by the chief of the Swedish Secret Police.

Arriving at Bergen, I received, before I sailed for England, a long telegram from Madame Gabrielle, telling me that Engström, Madame Bohman, and Thornton had left for Paris. Fearing that they would immediately recognise her if she followed them, she had telephoned the news to Hecq, and that astute official had promised to take the suspects under his own wing for the immediate future, pending my arrival.

I proceeded to London, where, to my dismay, I learned that, although Madame Bohman had arrived in Paris with Thornton, Engström was missing.

Twenty minutes later I was speaking with Hecq at St. Germain over the official telephone. Three days later I heard that Hecq’s men had succeeded in running the elusive Engström to earth at Marseilles, where he was staying at the Hôtel Louvre et Paix under the name of Jansen, and was constantly meeting a compatriot named Tegelmund.

The situation at this moment remained a complete puzzle so far as the real objective of the gang was concerned. On the one hand, we had at Marseilles the mysterious individual who posed as the Swedish engineer, Engström. On the other, we had his known associates, Thornton and Madame Bohman, in Paris. Engström was living quite openly, with no appearance of concealment, at a good hotel, but he was quite obviously doing nothing and meeting nobody. The other two, however, were just as obviously lying low. They had taken apartments at a very small and not very reputable hotel in the Rue Royale, and both had changed their names, entering France with new and apparently perfectly genuine Swedish passports, issued only a few weeks previously.

Our next discovery was a staggering surprise. One of our agents, who had been watching Madame Bohman, came in and reported that, late the previous night, she had left her hotel and walked swiftly to an obscure café in the Quartier Latin. She had entered the place, taken a seat at a table by herself, and called for a glass of wine. While she was drinking it, a man, very untidy and apparently half intoxicated, lurched up to the table and sat down facing her. She took no notice of him whatever, or he of her. Calling a waiter, the man ordered a double glass of Chianti. Our agent, seated at an adjoining table, saw her then glance quickly at the stranger, and a moment later she ordered an absinthe.

Now, an order for a double glass of Chianti is unusual, especially in a disreputable café in a low part of Paris, and it is hardly customary for women to follow wine with absinthe. Our agent was struck by the oddity of the two orders and listened closely.

Directly the waiter had placed the drinks on the table and left, the man, without even glancing at the woman, muttered something in an undertone which our agent could not catch. It was, however, evidently sufficient, for the woman drank up her absinthe, and, rising, left the café. She took no notice whatever of the man, and he paid, to all appearances, as little regard to her. Apparently half overcome by drink, he remained at the table, nodding drowsily, for a quarter of an hour. It was a clever bit of acting, but he forgot his eyes! Our agent caught a sight of them, and realised at once that the drunkenness was feigned.

At length the man got up and lurched towards the door. The police agent at the same moment left by another exit into an adjoining street, and, casually turning the corner in the direction the supposed drunken man had taken, saw him a few yards ahead, walking steadily enough.

Five minutes later he had overtaken Madame Bohman, and, walking side by side for a few hundred yards, they had a brief conversation and parted.

Our agent was in a quandary. He had the strictest instructions not to lose sight of Madame Bohman, but he was a man of intelligence, and realised that a new factor had appeared on the scene. Accordingly, he decided to follow the man, and soon saw him enter a cheap boarding-house, letting himself in with a latchkey. Five minutes later we had the news, and a couple of men were at once detailed to take up the watch. Madame Bohman, we soon ascertained, had gone straight to her hotel.

The boarding-house which the mysterious stranger had entered was closely watched all night. The next morning the man came out, and was immediately recognised as none other than Halbmayr himself! How he had got into France and Paris was a mystery, for the police had no register of his arrival. I may say here that this point was never completely cleared up, but it was very generally believed that he was put ashore by a submarine, and intended leaving in the same way.

We now had him safely enough; he could not possibly escape. He was a known spy, and there was ample ground for arresting him. But this would have made mincemeat of our plans, as Hecq saw plainly enough.

“Halbmayr is very dangerous,” he declared to me as I sat in his office the same day. “Evil work is on foot somewhere, and our friend the German is director of operations. He would not dare to show his face in France after meeting Brahe in Lisbon unless he were playing for a big coup. But, my dear Sant, what is his motive? What is he after? To that question so far we have got no reply whatever. And we must find the answer.”

I agreed with my chief most cordially. “Give him rope,” I said, “and see if he does not hang himself. At any rate, he won’t escape us this time; we shall get him even if we don’t learn his secret. What worries me is that he may have done his nefarious work, and inflicted untold injury on the Allies before we nab him. But we must take some chances.”

“The telegram sent by Brahe, or Thornton, to Engström just before the former left Lisbon mentioned two things,” said my chief. “The first was that Johnson-Meads was with them—in other words, that his suspicions had been allayed (which we know to be a fact)—and that ‘T.’ was here in Paris ‘to arrange further details and transit of machinery.’ What machinery? And who is ‘T’? ‘T’ must be Tegelmund, the man in Marseilles. We must look out for him.”