The Sincere Spy"Well, Winston, fill your glass and sit you down by the fire."Another rainy Sunday afternoon. I took my customary chair, having decanted some of William Blackstone Wildman's fine old port into a vessel more suitable for the purpose at hand -- viz. to drink it. The wrinkled old man raised his glass and cackled merrily. "Cheers!" Clink of glass on glass. He stretched out a gnarled blue hand and picked up a battered cardboard box from the floor beside him. Setting down his port, he opened the box and unwrapped an object from a mass of tissue paper. He passed it across to me. "It's a wax model hand," I said, inspecting the old curio. "Fingers in a flattened position. Thumb set slightly apart. From a wax museum, am I right?" "Quite right, Winston. A souvenir of a remarkable case I worked on back in 1912. It is Napoleon's hand." "Is that what you wish to call the case?" "Oh, no. Heh, heh. I call it the case of the Sincere Spy. Sincere in his convictions, but also a flesh and blood spy -- without wax, you see, if you remember your Latin, heh, heh, heh." ********************************* Colonel Heinrich von Truss (he went on) was an officer attached to the military staff of the Kaiser's London embassy. It was known to us that he was a spy, and he was kept under constant observation (I was under the temporary employ of the War Office, and this was one of my duties). But von Truss was merely the receiver for German Intelligence; the identity of their mysterious head agent, the Co-ordinator, was not known to anybody in the Secret Service. His unmasking came about, ironically, as a result of the murder of von Truss himself in the Faustus Wax Museum on January 12, 1912, which was a Tuesday, I recall. That was shortly after I started working unofficially for the British Secret Service under Sir Jacob Bond. On that day papers concerning important plans for French fleet maneuvers in the Mediterranean came into the hands of the Co-ordinator -- we knew this from the confession of a Foreign Office clerk. They were, of course, to be transferred to von Truss at the earliest opportunity. Consequently, a swarm of agents -- British, French, Russian and what-all -- got after him. An intelligence coup such as this could not be kept secret from those in the game. With the efficiency of his race, he quickly laid red herrings across his track and shook off most of his pursuers. I, however, succeeded in following him into the Faustus Wax Museum in Brewer Street shortly before five o'clock in the afternoon. Then I lost him. A double was awaiting him in the Hall of the Conquerors. That one I followed out into the dark alleys of Soho, and tracked him to the Lamb & Flag in Covent Garden before I realised my mistake. With an incident in the life of John Dryden* soon brought to mind by this location, I made an arrangement with some bully boys of my acquaintance and hurried back to the Faustus, summoning my friend Inspector Aphid and two constables on the way. It was now past eight o'clock. Several hours wasted (and perhaps I had spent too much time in the Lamb & Flag), and heaven knows, we were probably too late. --------- * John Dryden, the poet, was beaten up at the Lamb & Flag, a notorious rough-house place, by hooligans hired by his political enemies It is now a place where you take your girl before the opera. --CMW --------- The museum was locked up and dark, but by persistent application to the great bronze eagle on the door we aroused the night watchman, a little white-haired chap called Hans. "What for I should let you come herein?" he growled. "For this," I said, showing him the muzzle of my American 'Peacemaker' revolver. (You see it over there, Winston; a relic of my adventures in California in '91.) "Here, Wildman, none of that," Aphid muttered as we entered the building. "Who is in charge of the museum," I demanded. "Myself, Hans Heinz, mein Herr," the watchman said. "Herr Donnerblitzen, der Direktor, iss from home tonight." "Donnerblitzen!" I cried. "What fools we have been! Does nobody know anything? Tell me, does he live on the premises?" "Ja, but as I said, he iss from home." "Turn on all the lights! We must find those papers or there will be hell to pay." We began to search the museum, starting with the director's quarters (empty). And on the ground floor, nothing. But in the Hall of the Conquerors near a figure of Napoleon I saw an inconspicuous door marked Private. An exit for von Truss? "Where does that lead to?" I said, pointing. "Die voork raums, mein Herr." "Ha! Follow me, gentlemen..." I paused. "Locked. Open this door, Hans!" "I haf not der key on my ring, mein Herr." He shook a bunch of keys in my face. "It iss lost. Also, it is not permitted you should go in die voork raums." "Say you! Aphid, there is a public stairway in the hall. It may be there is another entrance." Down we went, the boots of the constables clumping loudly on the marble stairs. Facing the bottom of the stairway, across a small hallway, was a large arch; this led into the notorious Hall of Terror. To the left a door led to the watchman's room. This was open, and the room untenanted; a half-empty bottle of Schnapps sat on the table. Next to the watchman's door was the back exit, locked and bolted on the inside. To the right of the archway there was a tableau of four wax figures, posing in an infernal red light: a prison cell, with Dr Palmer (the poisoner), two leering prison guards, and with his back to us, a chaplain holding out a large Bible to the unfortunate prisoner. An arc light shone down melodramatically on that steady rock of faith and hope being held out as a mockery to the doomed man. Behind this grim scene, a false window, and the shadow of a gallows. Next to all this nightmare, the unobtrusive door to the workrooms. It was not locked. We entered a long shadowy room cluttered with workbenches and dismembered wax figures. In a lavatory next to a small stairway leading up to the locked door in the Hall of Conquerors I found a pile of half-smoked cigarettes. "Rhodesian," I said. "Von Truss must have waited here for the museum to be closed, in order to obtain the papers afterwards -- that the papers were hidden in the building now seems certain. Well, there remains just one more room to see before we start a systematic search for the papers. But I fear they will have been long gone." We went back into the hallway and entered the Hall of Terror, a nightmarish exhibition compared to which the scene in the tableau seemed as innocent as a wedding. There were murderers, witches, thugs, and Dacoits; wheel, gallows, and ducking stool. A guillotine, with Madame Defarge and her cronies in devotional position round it. A Chinese water torture apparatus, complete with dripping water and a yellow stalagmite of a face beneath. And along the entire back wall a session of the Spanish Inquisition, with hooded monks, and Iron Maiden, and a Rack. "I say," Aphid exclaimed. "Realistic, eh? Don't it make your hair stand on end!" "Herr Donnerblitzen," Hans said proudly, "insist on reality. Voorking models, all." "Well," I said, "somebody has worked that one." I pointed to the Rack. "That is von Truss." There was a profound silence. The Chinese Water Torture dripped. The shadow of the ducking stool jumped on the wall. We whirled round to glare at the sheepish face of one of the constables. Hans turned away, white-faced. "Where are you going?" I said. His reply was terse. "Schnapps." "Fill five glasses, my man. You, constable, go with him. Have yourself a drink -- no, that's all right. Then go back to the Yard and bring more men. Call also at this address." I wrote a quick note on a card (Mycroft, you know). Meanwhile, Inspector Aphid had found the wax figure that had preceded von Truss on the Rack lying beneath it. Blood from the German was dripping down from a knife wound in his side onto the dummy below. Shuddersome business: The dummy looked more like a real corpse than von Truss himself. "'Ere are 'is clothes," the second constable said from a dark corner. We searched them, but of course there were no secret papers. Suddenly we heard a groan and a crash from the hall, and felt a cold draught on our necks. "Outside, quickly," I shouted, and ran out through the arch. Hans lay on the floor of his room, moaning, with the fragments of several glasses beside him; by some miracle the bottle of Schnapps was intact under the table. The unconscious body of the constable was behind the door. As Aphid went to the aid of the injured men, I turned to the back exit in the hallway. The door was wide open, and the alleyway beyond deserted. "Look, mein Herr," said Hans, who had crawled out behind me. "Der Doktor Polymer." I looked. The parson from the prison tableau was gone. Aphid cried out from the watchman's doorway: "'E was there all the time. 'Iding. Well jigger me!" "That's rather absurd," I said. "Why on earth would he do a thing like that?" "'E--he couldn't get out of the building. The watchman had all the keys. And where else could he hide, with us searching about?" "I can think of several places. And if he wished to impersonate a dummy, why not in the workroom, where he would not be so conspicuously in sight?" "Because," Aphid said with inescapable logic, "he had to be near the back door to await his chance. The real dummy will be in the workroom." "Hide the tree in the forest. I see." "Exactly, Wildman! While we was in the torture room he stood here like the Rock of Gibraltar until Hans and Smithers went for the spirits. Overpowers Constable Smithers, takes the keys from Hans -- yes, you! You're in this, my fine fellow, and you'll pay for it." Hans had turned white. "Nein, nei...no, guv'nor. I hain't got nuffink to do wiv it. 'E tol' me to keep me mouf shut, or -- kkkik. Blimey! that Fritz bloke di'n't 'alf squeal! Set me teef on hedge, 'e did." "You are no German," shouted Aphid. "You are a fake!" I interrupted. "Why did you let us in? Or, more to the point, why didn't you let the other man out before admitting us?" "The German bloke wouldn't talk. The other bloke said 'e needed ten more minutes. I 'ad to keep you people up at t'top, so's you wouldn't 'ear no screams." Now Aphid had turned white. "Do you mean to say... Harrumph! What did this man look like?" "Big tall cove, wiv a...a clubfoot like. All done up in black. Foreign, 'e was. 'E kep' calling me summat like Gus Pudding." "Gospodin," I said. "Russian. A Socialist. Now tell me what happened just now when you left us." "Ha! Well, yer see I recernised 'im as the parson in the tabloo when we come down. So when 'e comes in and bashes the peeler, I hain't suprised. I says, 'Yer shount 'a done that, I'm a law-abiding--' and 'e says all gruff like, 'Gif to me de kyeys.'" Hans's (Jack Hants's, as it turned out) mimicry was startling. Even his voice changed to a lower register. "'Gif to me de kyeys, or I cut your troat from de right ear to de left ear ond bach hagain.' So I gives 'im the keys, and 'e pushes me ahead. When 'e's got it open, 'e goes--" Hans made such a frightful leer that Aphid looked round behind his back--"and gives me such a shove back into my room, I come up against the table all topsy-turvy like." Inspector Aphid rubbed his jaw. He turned to me and said: "Do you suppose that Cossack found the papers you are looking for?" "That is why he tortured von Truss. I have no doubt he was successful." We stood about rather helplessly. Finally, I said, "You had better go back to the Yard and see what you can do. I'll remain here and guard the museum. Leave Hans here with me, as I have some further questions to put to him." He hesitated. "Go!" I ordered. "Take these two with you." And the representatives of Scotland Yard hurried off with their wounded comrade. I turned to Hans, who was leaning against a wall. "Come forward, monsieur," I said. "I'll have the papers, if you please. This revolver is loaded." "Wotcher mean, guv. I hain't got no papers." "Come now, there was no living person in that group, sir. The figure of the chaplain was holding out at arm's length...what?" "A--a Bible." "Indeed. Right under an arc light. Try holding out a large book under an arc light for several minutes, and I shall recommend you to any circus if you are able to keep your arm from trembling or your hand from sweating. There never was a sinister Russian spy." Hans shrugged. "Ah, c'est la vie. This information rightly belongs to my country, you know, but... You have great powers of observation, mon ami." "Pshaw! You, sir, did well to divert suspicion from yourself with such speed when we interrupted your activities so inconveniently. Without that sudden diversion, the truth would soon have been out. You must have knocked out Smithers immediately upon leaving the torture chamber. That would give you time to remove the parson figure to the workroom and set the stage for the false escaping Russian. But why did you remain here in the building? Again, why did you admit us?" He smiled quite pleasantly. "Your knocking at the door came just as I had elicited the location of the papers. I killed the devil and went up to admit you under the mistaken impression that you were some allies I had summoned." "Then you have not yet recovered the papers? Where are they?" He motioned me to follow him up the stairs. "I must know, first, what you intend to do with me?" "Our respective governments," I said oratorically, "are now cordially allied in the interest of peace, prosperity, and a balanced distribution of power. France has seen fit to entrust to His Majesty's Government certain strategic information. It is our duty to ensure that such trust is warranted. Therefore, I am in honour bound to recover those papers for the British Ministry. When I have done so, M. Jean Hanteur, alias Herr Hans Heinz, alias Mr Jack Hants, you shall go free." "Ah, ha!" he said. "You know my name. This talk of Bibles is what you call a bluff, eh?" "In part," I chuckled. "Where are the papers hidden?" "Under Napoleon's waistcoat. The left side. His hand, of course, will have to come off." It was, naturally, the inevitable hiding place. Several minutes were needed to get at the papers. I could see why Hans had wished to draw us away from the museum, so that he, or a confederate, could be alone with Napoleon for a while. Finally.... "Voila." He pulled them out and handed them over without any hesitation. I took a quick look at them. They were genuine. "Very well, Hans, you may go. Thank you, also, for drawing my attention to Herr Co-ordinator Donnerblitzen, who 'iss from home tonight'." The Frenchman coughed. "My friend, you did not think to look inside the Iron Maiden." "Shocking! But then you are not an Englishman. Please give my regards to Monsieur Poisson of the Bureau. Au revoir!" "Vive l'Entente!" "Shall we finish off this bottle of Schnapps?" "There is no time." "There is time enough for this, my friend." And so we did, in that strangest setting (almost) in my career. Hans Heinz and I had many adventures thereafter during the Great War and I consider him one of my best friends. Alas, he was one of the people killed during the Mata Hari business. My foresightful note to Mycroft resulted in what you call a cover-up of major proportions. That was fine, indeed. In the long run, the secret papers turned out to be absolutely useless -- they were fake, a perfidious French trick. From the William Blackstone Wildman Collection by Grobius Shortling[Another wax museum murder... Well, what's wrong with that? Everyone with any romance in his or her soul should have a wax museum story in them. (Wildman, a private detective, rides roughshod over police procedure, even in those days, but that's the convention for this type of thing.) --Grobius] |
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