THE SPY

By Richard Harding Davis

My going to Valencia was entirely an accident. But the more often Istated that fact, the more satisfied was everyone at the capital that Ihad come on some secret mission. Even the venerable politician whoacted as our minister, the night of my arrival, after dinner, saidconfidentially, "Now, Mr. Crosby, between ourselves, what's the game?"

"What's what game?" I asked. 

"You know what I mean, " he returned. "What are you here for?"

But when, for the tenth time, I repeated how I came to be marooned inValencia he showed that his feelings were hurt, and said stiffly: "Asyou please. Suppose we join the ladies. "

And the next day his wife reproached me with: "I should think you couldtrust your own minister. My husband NEVER talks--not even to me. "

"So I see, " I said. 

And then her feelings were hurt also, and she went about telling peopleI was an agent of the Walker-Keefe crowd. 

My only reason for repeating here that my going to Valencia was anaccident is that it was because Schnitzel disbelieved that fact, andto drag the hideous facts from me followed me back to New York. Throughthat circumstance I came to know him, and am able to tell his story. 

The simple truth was that I had been sent by the State Department toPanama to "go, look, see, " and straighten out a certain conflict ofauthority among the officials of the canal zone. While I was therethe yellow-fever broke out, and every self-respecting power clapped aquarantine on the Isthmus, with the result that when I tried to returnto New York no steamer would take me to any place to which any white manwould care to go. But I knew that at Valencia there was a direct line toNew York, so I took a tramp steamer down the coast to Valencia. I wentto Valencia only because to me every other port in the world was closed. My position was that of the man who explained to his wife that he camehome because the other places were shut. 

But, because, formerly in Valencia I had held a minor post in ourlegation, and because the State Department so constantly consults ourfirm on questions of international law, it was believed I revisitedValencia on some mysterious and secret mission. 

As a matter of fact, had I gone there to sell phonographs or to start asteam laundry, I should have been as greatly suspected. For in Valenciaeven every commercial salesman, from the moment he gives up his passporton the steamer until the police permit him to depart, is suspected, shadowed, and begirt with spies. 

I believe that during my brief visit I enjoyed the distinctionof occupying the undivided attention of three: a common or gardenGovernment spy, from whom no guilty man escapes, a Walker-Keefe spy, and the spy of the Nitrate Company. The spy of the Nitrate Company isgenerally a man you meet at the legations and clubs. He plays bridgeand is dignified with the title of "agent. " The Walker-Keefe spy isostensibly a travelling salesman or hotel runner. The Government spy isjust a spy--a scowling, important little beast in a white duck suit anda diamond ring. The limit of his intelligence is to follow you into acigar store and note what cigar you buy, and in what kind of money youpay for it. 

The reason for it all was the three-cornered fight which then was beingwaged by the Government, the Nitrate Trust, and the Walker-Keefe crowdfor the possession of the nitrate beds. Valencia is so near to theequator, and so far from New York, that there are few who studied theintricate story of that disgraceful struggle, which, I hasten to add, with the fear of libel before my eyes, I do not intend to tell now. 

Briefly, it was a triangular fight between opponents each of whom was inthe wrong, and each of whom, to gain his end, bribed, blackmailed, androbbed, not only his adversaries, but those of his own side, the end inview being the possession of those great deposits that lie in therocks of Valencia, baked from above by the tropic sun and from below byvolcanic fires. As one of their engineers, one night in the Plaza, saidto me: "Those mines were conceived in hell, and stink to heaven, andthe reputation of every man of us that has touched them smells like themines. "

At the time I was there the situation was "acute. " In Valencia thesituation always is acute, but this time it looked as though somethingmight happen. On the day before I departed the Nitrate Trust had cabledvehemently for war-ships, the Minister of Foreign Affairs had refused toreceive our minister, and at Porto Banos a mob had made the tin sign ofthe United States consulate look like a sieve. Our minister urged me toremain. To be bombarded by one's own war-ships, he assured me, would bea thrilling experience. 

But I repeated that my business was with Panama, not Valencia, and thatif in this matter of his row I had any weight at Washington, as betweenpreserving the nitrate beds for the trust, and preserving for hiscountry and various sweethearts one brown-throated, clean-limbedbluejacket, I was for the bluejacket. 

Accordingly, when I sailed from Valencia the aged diplomat would havedescribed our relations as strained. 

Our ship was a slow ship, listed to touch at many ports, and as early asnoon on the following day we stopped for cargo at Trujillo. It was thereI met Schnitzel. 

In Panama I had bought a macaw for a little niece of mine, and while wewere taking on cargo I went ashore to get a tin cage in which to putit, and, for direction, called upon our consul. From an inner room heentered excitedly, smiling at my card, and asked how he might serve me. I told him I had a parrot below decks, and wanted to buy a tin cage. 

"Exactly. You want a tin cage, " the consul repeated soothingly. "TheState Department doesn't keep me awake nights cabling me what it'sgoing to do, " he said, "but at least I know it doesn't send athousand-dollar-a-minute, four-cylinder lawyer all the way to this feverswamp to buy a tin cage. Now, honest, how can I serve you?" I saw it washopeless. No one would believe the truth. To offer it to this friendlysoul would merely offend his feelings and his intelligence. 

So, with much mystery, I asked him to describe the "situation, " and hedid so with the exactness of one who believes that within an hour everyword he speaks will be cabled to the White House. 

When I was leaving he said: "Oh, there's a newspaper correspondent afteryou. He wants an interview, I guess. He followed you last night from thecapital by train. You want to watch out he don't catch you. His name isJones. " I promised to be on my guard against a man named Jones, andthe consul escorted me to the ship. As he went down the accommodationladder, I called over the rail: "In case they SHOULD declare war, cableto Curacoa, and I'll come back. And don't cable anything indefinite, like 'Situation critical' or 'War imminent. ' Understand? Cable me, 'Comeback' or 'Go ahead. ' But whatever you cable, make it CLEAR. "

He shook his head violently and with his green-lined umbrella pointed atmy elbow. I turned and found a young man hungrily listening to my words. He was leaning on the rail with his chin on his arms and the brim of hisPanama hat drawn down to conceal his eyes. 

On the pier-head, from which we now were drawing rapidly away, theconsul made a megaphone of his hands. 

"That's HIM, " he called. "That's Jones. "

Jones raised his head, and I saw that the tropical heat had made Jonesthirsty, or that with friends he had been celebrating his departure. Hewinked at me, and, apparently with pleasure at his own discernment andwith pity for me, smiled. 

"Oh, of course!" he murmured. His tone was one of heavy irony. "Make it'clear. ' Make it clear to the whole wharf. Shout it out so's everybodycan hear you. You're 'clear' enough. " His disgust was too deep forordinary words. "My uncle!" he exclaimed. 

By this I gathered that he was expressing his contempt. 

"I beg your pardon?" I said. 

We had the deck to ourselves. Its emptiness suddenly reminded me thatwe had the ship, also, to ourselves. I remembered the purser had told methat, except for those who travelled overnight from port to port, I washis only passenger. 

With dismay I pictured myself for ten days adrift on the highseas--alone with Jones. 

With a dramatic gesture, as one would say, "I am here!" he pushed backhis Panama hat. With an unsteady finger he pointed, as it was drawndripping across the deck, at the stern hawser. 

"You see that rope?" he demanded. "Soon as that rope hit the water Iknocked off work. S'long as you was in Valencia--me, on the job. Now, YOU can't go back, I can't go back. Why further dissim'lation? WHO AMI?"

His condition seemed to preclude the possibility of his knowing who hewas, so I told him. 

He sneered as I have seen men sneer only in melodrama. 

"Oh, of course, " he muttered. "Oh, of course. "

He lurched toward me indignantly. 

"You know perfec'ly well Jones is not my name. You know perfec'ly wellwho I am. "

"My dear sir, " I said, "I don't know anything about you, except thatyour are a damned nuisance. "

He swayed from me, pained and surprised. Apparently he was upon anoutbreak of tears. 

"Proud, " he murmured, "AND haughty. Proud and haughty to the last. "

I never have understood why an intoxicated man feels the climax ofinsult is to hurl at you your name. Perhaps because he knows it is theone charge you cannot deny. But invariably before you escape, as thoughassured the words will cover your retreat with shame, he throws at youyour full title. Jones did this. 

Slowly and mercilessly he repeated, "Mr. --George--Morgan--Crosby. OfHarvard, " he added. "Proud and haughty to the last. "

He then embraced a passing steward, and demanded to be informed why theship rolled. He never knew a ship to roll as our ship rolled. 

"Perfec'ly satisfact'ry ocean, but ship--rolling like a stone-breaker. Take me some place in the ship where this ship don't roll. "

The steward led him away. 

When he had dropped the local pilot the captain beckoned me to thebridge. 

"I saw you talking to Mr. Schnitzel, " he said. "He's a little under theweather. He has too light a head for liquors. "

I agreed that he had a light head, and said I understood his name wasJones. 

"That's what I wanted to tell you, " said the captain. "His name isSchnitzel. He used to work for the Nitrate Trust in New York. Thenhe came down here as an agent. He's a good boy not to tell things to. Understand? Sometimes I carry him under one name, and the next voyageunder another. The purser and he fix it up between 'em. It pleases him, and it don't hurt anybody else, so long as I tell them about it. I don'tknow who he's working for now, " he went on, "but I know he's not withthe Nitrate Company any more. He sold them out. "

"How could he?" I asked. "He's only a boy. "

"He had a berth as typewriter to Senator Burnsides, president of theNitrate Trust, sort of confidential stenographer, " said the captain. "Whenever the senator dictated an important letter, they say, Schnitzelused to make a carbon copy, and when he had enough of them he sold themto the Walker-Keefe crowd. Then, when Walker-Keefe lost their suit inthe Valencia Supreme Court I guess Schnitzel went over to PresidentAlvarez. And again, some folks say he's back with the Nitrate Company. "

"After he sold them out?"

"Yes, but you see he's worth more to them now. He knows all theWalker-Keefe secrets and Alvarez's secrets, too. "

I expressed my opinion of every one concerned. 

"It shouldn't surprise YOU, " complained the captain. "You know thecountry. Every man in it is out for something that isn't his. The pilotwants his bit, the health doctor must get his, the customs take all yourcigars, and if you don't put up gold for the captain of the port and thealcalde and the commandant and the harbor police and the foreman of thecargadores, they won't move a lighter, and they'll hold up the ship'spapers. Well, an American comes down here, honest and straight andwilling to work for his wages. But pretty quick he finds every oneis getting his squeeze but him, so he tries to get some of it back byrobbing the natives that robbed him. Then he robs the other foreigners, and it ain't long before he's cheating the people at home who sent himhere. There isn't a man in this nitrate row that isn't robbing the crowdhe's with, and that wouldn't change sides for money. Schnitzel's noworse than the president nor the canteen contractor. "

He waved his hand at the glaring coast-line, at the steaming swamps andthe hot, naked mountains. 

"It's the country that does it, " he said. "It's in the air. You cansmell it as soon as you drop anchor, like you smell the slaughter-houseat Punta-Arenas. "

"How do YOU manage to keep honest, " I asked, smiling. 

"I don't take any chances, " exclaimed the captain seriously. "When I'min their damned port I don't go ashore. "

I did not again see Schnitzel until, with haggard eyes and suspiciouslywet hair, he joined the captain, doctor, purser, and myself atbreakfast. In the phrases of the Tenderloin, he told us cheerfully thathe had been grandly intoxicated, and to recover drank mixtures ofraw egg, vinegar, and red pepper, the sight of which took away everyappetite save his own. When to this he had added a bottle of beer, hedeclared himself a new man. The new man followed me to the deck, andwith the truculent bearing of one who expects to be repelled, he askedif, the day before, he had not made a fool of himself. 

I suggested he had been somewhat confidential. At once he recovered hispose and patronized me. 

"Don't you believe it, " he said. "That's all part of my game. 'Confidence for confidence' is the way I work it. That's how I learnthings. I tell a man something on the inside, and he says: 'Here'sa nice young fellow. Nothing standoffish about him, ' and he tells mesomething he shouldn't. Like as not what I told him wasn't true. See?"

I assured him he interested me greatly. 

"You find, then, in your line of business, " I asked, "that apparentfrankness is advisable? As a rule, " I explained, "secrecy is what a--aperson in your line--a--"

To save his feelings I hesitated at the word. 

"A spy, " he said. His face beamed with fatuous complacency. 

"But if I had not known you were a spy, " I asked, "would not that havebeen better for you?"

"In dealing with a party like you, Mr. Crosby, " Schnitzel begansententiously, "I use a different method. You're on a secret missionyourself, and you get your information about the nitrate row one way, and I get it another. I deal with you just like we were drummers in thesame line of goods. We are rivals in business, but outside of businesshours perfect gentleman. "

In the face of the disbelief that had met my denials of any secretmission, I felt to have Schnitzel also disbelieve me would be too greata humiliation. So I remained silent. 

"You make your report to the State Department, " he explained, "and Imake mine to--my people. Who they are doesn't matter. You'd like toknow, and I don't want to hurt your feelings, but--that's MY secret. "

My only feelings were a desire to kick Schnitzel heavily, but forSchnitzel to suspect that was impossible. Rather, he pictured me asshaken by his disclosures. 

As he hung over the rail the glare of the sun on the tumbling water litup his foolish, mongrel features, exposed their cunning, their utterlack of any character, and showed behind the shifty eyes the vacant, half-crooked mind. 

Schnitzel was smiling to himself with a smile of completeself-satisfaction. In the light of his later conduct, I grew tounderstand that smile. He had anticipated a rebuff, and he had beenreceived, as he read it, with consideration. The irony of my politenesshe had entirely missed. Instead, he read in what I said the admirationof the amateur for the professional. He saw what he believed to be ahigh agent of the Government treating him as a worthy antagonist. In noother way can I explain his later heaping upon me his confidences. Itwas the vanity of a child trying to show off. 

In ten days, in the limited area of a two-thousand-ton steamer, onecould not help but learn something of the history of so communicative afellow-passenger as Schnitzel. His parents were German and still livedin Germany. But he himself had been brought up on the East Side. Anuncle who kept a delicatessen shop in Avenue A had sent him to thepublic schools and then to a "business college, " where he had developedremarkable expertness as a stenographer. He referred to his skill inthis difficult exercise with pitying contempt. Nevertheless, from aroom noisy with type-writers this skill had lifted him into the privateoffice of the president of the Nitrate Trust. There, as Schnitzelexpressed it, "I saw 'mine, ' and I took it. " To trace back the criminalinstinct that led Schnitzel to steal and sell the private letters ofhis employer was not difficult. In all of his few early years I found itlying latent. Of every story he told of himself, and he talked only ofhimself, there was not one that was not to his discredit. He himselfnever saw this, nor that all he told me showed he was without the moralsense, and with an instinctive enjoyment of what was deceitful, mean, and underhand. That, as I read it, was his character. 

In appearance he was smooth-shaven, with long locks that hung behindwide, protruding ears. He had the unhealthy skin of bad blood, and hiseyes, as though the daylight hurt them, constantly opened and shut. Hewas like hundreds of young men that you see loitering on upper Broadwayand making predatory raids along the Rialto. Had you passed him in thatneighborhood you would have set him down as a wire-tapper, a racingtout, a would-be actor. 

As I worked it out, Schnitzel was a spy because it gave him animportance he had not been able to obtain by any other effort. As achild and as a clerk, it was easy to see that among his associatesSchnitzel must always have been the butt. Until suddenly, by one dirtyaction, he had placed himself outside their class. As he expressed it:"Whenever I walk through the office now, where all the stenographerssit, you ought to see those slobs look after me. When they go to thepresident's door, they got to knock, like I used to, but now, when theold man sees me coming to make my report after one of these trips hecalls out, 'Come right in, Mr. Schnitzel. ' And like as not I go in withmy hat on and offer him a cigar. An' they see me do it, too!"

To me, that speech seemed to give Schnitzel's view of the values of hislife. His vanity demanded he be pointed at, if even with contempt. Butthe contempt never reached him--he only knew that at last people tooknote of him. They no longer laughed at him, they were afraid of him. Inhis heart he believed that they regarded him as one who walked in thedark places of world politics, who possessed an evil knowledge of greatmen as evil as himself, as one who by blackmail held public ministers athis mercy. 

This view of himself was the one that he tried to give me. I probablywas the first decent man who ever had treated him civilly, and toimpress me with his knowledge he spread that knowledge before me. It wassale, shocking, degrading. 

At first I took comfort in the thought that Schnitzel was a liar. Later, I began to wonder if all of it were a lie, and finally, in a way I couldnot doubt, it was proved to me that the worst he charged was true. 

The night I first began to believe him was the night we touched atCristobal, the last port in Valencia. In the most light-hearted mannerhe had been accusing all concerned in the nitrate fight with every crimeknown in Wall Street and in the dark reaches of the Congo River. 

"But, I know him, Mr. Schnitzel, " I said sternly. "He is incapable ofit. I went to college with him. "

"I don't care whether he's a rah-rah boy or not, " said Schnitzel, "Iknow that's what he did when he was up the Orinoco after orchids, andif the tribe had ever caught him they'd have crucified him. And I knowthis, too: he made forty thousand dollars out of the Nitrate Company ona ten-thousand-dollar job. And I know it, because he beefed to me aboutit himself, because it wasn't big enough. "

We were passing the limestone island at the entrance to the harbor, where, in the prison fortress, with its muzzle-loading guns pointingdrunkenly at the sky, are buried the political prisoners of Valencia. 

"Now, there, " said Schnitzel, pointing, "that shows you what the NitrateTrust can do. Judge Rojas is in there. He gave the first decision infavor of the Walker-Keefe people, and for making that decision WilliamT. Scott, the Nitrate manager, made Alvarez put Rojas in there. He'sseventy years old, and he's been there five years. The cell they keephim in is below the sea-level, and the salt-water leaks through thewall. I've seen it. That's what William T. Scott did, an' up in New Yorkpeople think 'Billy' Scott is a fine man. I seen him at the Horse Showsitting in a box, bowing to everybody, with his wife sitting beside him, all hung out with pearls. An' that was only a month after I'd seen Rojasin that sewer where Scott put him. "

"Schnitzel, " I laughed, "you certainly are a magnificent liar. "

Schnitzel showed no resentment. 

"Go ashore and look for yourself, " he muttered. "Don't believe me. Ask Rojas. Ask the first man you meet. " He shivered, and shrugged hisshoulders. "I tell you, the walls are damp, like sweat. "

The Government had telegraphed the commandant to come on board and, ashe expressed it, "offer me the hospitality of the port, " which meantthat I had to take him to the smoking-room and give him champagne. Whatthe Government really wanted was to find out whether I was still onboard, and if it were finally rid of me. 

I asked the official concerning Judge Rojas. 

"Oh, yes, " he said readily. "He is still incomunicado. "

Without believing it would lead to anything, I suggested:

"It was foolish of him to give offence to Mr. Scott?"

The commandant nodded vivaciously. 

"Mr. Scott is very powerful man, " he assented. "We all very much loveMr. Scott. The president, he love Mr. Scott, too, but the judges werenot sympathetic to Mr. Scott, so Mr. Scott asked our president to givethem a warning, and Senor Rojas--he is the warning. "

"When will he get out?" I asked. 

The commandant held up the glass in the sunlight from the open air-port, and gazed admiringly at the bubbles. 

"Who can tell, " he said. "Any day when Mr. Scott wishes. Maybe, never. Senor Rojas is an old man. Old, and he has much rheumatics. Maybe, hewill never come out to see our beloved country any more. "

As we left the harbor we passed so close that one could throw a stoneagainst the wall of the fortress. The sun was just sinking and the airbecame suddenly chilled. Around the little island of limestone the wavesswept through the sea-weed and black manigua up to the rusty bars of thecells. I saw the barefooted soldiers smoking upon the sloping ramparts, the common criminals in a long stumbling line bearing kegs of water, three storm-beaten palms rising like gallows, and the green and yellowflag of Valencia crawling down the staff. Somewhere entombed in thatblotched and mildewed masonry an old man of seventy years was shiveringand hugging himself from the damp and cold. A man who spoke fivelanguages, a just, brave gentleman. To me it was no new story. I knewof the horrors of Cristobal prison; of political rivals chained tocriminals loathsome with disease, of men who had raised the flag ofrevolution driven to suicide. But never had I supposed that my ownpeople could reach from the city of New York and cast a fellow-man intothat cellar of fever and madness. 

As I watched the yellow wall sink into the sea, I became conscious thatSchnitzel was near me, as before, leaning on the rail, with his chinsunk on his arms. His face was turned toward the fortress, and for thefirst time since I had known him it was set and serious. And when, amoment later, he passed me without recognition, I saw that his eyes werefilled with fear. 

When we touched at Curacoa I sent a cable to my sister, announcing thedate of my arrival, and then continued on to the Hotel Venezuela. Almostimmediately Schnitzel joined me. With easy carelessness he said: "I wasin the cable office just now, sending off a wire, and that operator toldme he can't make head or tail of the third word in your cable. "

"That is strange, " I commented, "because it's a French word, and he isFrench. That's why I wrote it in French. "

With the air of one who nails another in a falsehood, Schnitzelexclaimed:

"Then, how did you suppose your sister was going to read it? It's acipher, that's what it is. Oh, no, YOU'RE not on a secret mission! Notat all!"

It was most undignified of me, but in five minutes I excused myself, andsent to the State Department the following words:

"Roses red, violets blue, send snow. "

Later at the State Department the only person who did not eventuallypardon my jest was the clerk who had sat up until three in the morningwith my cable, trying to fit it to any known code. 

Immediately after my return to the Hotel Venezuela Schnitzel excusedhimself, and half an hour later returned in triumph with the cableoperator and ordered lunch for both. They imbibed much sweet champagne. 

When we again were safe at sea, I said: "Schnitzel, how much did you paythat Frenchman to let you read my second cable?"

Schnitzel's reply was prompt and complacent. 

"One hundred dollars gold. It was worth it. Do you want to know how Idoped it out?"

I even challenged him to do so. "'Roses red'--war declared; 'violetsblue'--outlook bad, or blue; 'send snow'--send squadron, because thewhite squadron is white like snow. See? It was too easy. "

"Schnitzel, " I cried, "you are wonderful!"

Schnitzel yawned in my face. 

"Oh, you don't have to hit the soles of my feet with a night-stick tokeep me awake, " he said. 

After I had been a week at sea, I found that either I had to believethat in all things Schnitzel was a liar, or that the men of the NitrateTrust were in all things evil. I was convinced that instead of thepeople of Valencia robbing them, they were robbing both the people ofValencia and the people of the United States. 

To go to war on their account was to degrade our Government. I explainedto Schnitzel it was not becoming that the United States navy should bemade the cat's-paw of a corrupt corporation. I asked his permission torepeat to the authorities at Washington certain of the statements he hadmade. 

Schnitzel was greatly pleased. 

"You're welcome to tell 'em anything I've said, " he assented. "And, " headded, "most of it's true, too. "

I wrote down certain charges he had made, and added what I had alwaysknown of the nitrate fight. It was a terrible arraignment. Inthe evening I read my notes to Schnitzel, who, in a corner of thesmoking-room, sat, frowning importantly, checking off each statement, and where I made an error of a date or a name, severely correcting me. 

Several times I asked him, "Are you sure this won't get you into troublewith your 'people'? You seem to accuse everybody on each side. "

Schnitzel's eyes instantly closed with suspicion. 

"Don't you worry about me and my people, " he returned sulkily. "That'sMY secret, and you won't find it out, neither. I may be as crooked asthe rest of them, but I'm not giving away my employer. "

I suppose I looked puzzled. 

"I mean not a second time, " he added hastily. "I know what you'rethinking of, and I got five thousand dollars for it. But now I mean tostick by the men that pay my wages. "

"But you've told me enough about each of the three to put any one ofthem in jail. "

"Of course, I have, " cried Schnitzel triumphantly. 

"If I'd let down on any one crowd you'd know I was working for thatcrowd, so I've touched 'em all up. Only what I told you about mycrowd--isn't true. "

The report we finally drew up was so sensational that I was of a mindto throw it overboard. It accused members of the Cabinet, of our Senate, diplomats, business men of national interest, judges of the Valenciacourts, private secretaries, clerks, hired bullies, and filibusters. Men the trust could not bribe it had blackmailed. Those it could notcorrupt, and they were pitifully few, it crushed with some disgracefulcharge. 

Looking over my notes, I said:

"You seem to have made every charge except murder. "

"How'd I come to leave that out?" Schnitzel answered flippantly. "What about Coleman, the foreman at Bahia, and that German contractor, Ebhardt, and old Smedburg? They talked too much, and they died ofyellow-fever, maybe, and maybe what happened to them was they ateknockout drops in their soup. "

I disbelieved him, but there came a sudden nasty doubt. 

"Curtis, who managed the company's plant at Barcelona, died ofyellow-fever, " I said, "and was buried the same day. "

For some time Schnitzel glowered uncertainly at the bulkhead. 

"Did you know him?" he asked. 

"When I was in the legation I knew him well, " I said. 

"So did I, " said Schnitzel. "He wasn't murdered. He murdered himself. Hewas wrong ten thousand dollars in his accounts. He got worrying about itand we found him outside the clearing with a hole in his head. He left anote saying he couldn't bear the disgrace. As if the company would holda little grafting against as good a man as Curtis!"

Schnitzel coughed and pretended it was his cigarette. 

"You see you don't put in nothing against him, " he added savagely. 

It was the first time I had seen Schnitzel show emotion, and I was movedto preach. 

"Why don't you quit?" I said. "You had an A-1 job as a stenographer. Whydon't you go back to it?"

"Maybe, some day. But it's great being your own boss. If I was astenographer, I wouldn't be helping you send in a report to the StateDepartment, would I? No, this job is all right. They send you aftersomething big, and you have the devil of a time getting it, but when youget it, you feel like you had picked a hundred-to-one shot. "

The talk or the drink had elated him. His fish-like eyes bulged andshone. He cast a quick look about him. Except for ourselves, thesmoking-room was empty. From below came the steady throb of the engines, and from outside the whisper of the waves and of the wind through thecordage. A barefooted sailor pattered by to the bridge. Schnitzel benttoward me, and with his hand pointed to his throat. 

"I've got papers on me that's worth a million to a certain party, " hewhispered. "You understand, my notes in cipher. "

He scowled with intense mystery. 

"I keep 'em in an oiled-silk bag, tied around my neck with a string. And here, " he added hastily, patting his hip, as though to forestall anyattack I might make upon his person, "I carry my automatic. It shootsnine bullets in five seconds. They got to be quick to catch me. "

"Well, if you have either of those things on you, " I said testily, "Idon't want to know it. How often have I told you not to talk and drinkat the same time?"

"Ah, go on, " laughed Schnitzel. "That's an old gag, warning a fellow notto talk so as to MAKE him talk. I do that myself. "

That Schnitzel had important papers tied to his neck I no more believethan that he wore a shirt of chain armor, but to please him I pretendedto be greatly concerned. 

"Now that we're getting into New York, " I said, "you must be verycareful. A man who carries such important documents on his person mightbe murdered for them. I think you ought to disguise yourself. "

A picture of my bag being carried ashore by Schnitzel in the uniform ofa ship's steward rather pleased me. 

"Go on, you're kidding!" said Schnitzel. He was drawn between believingI was deeply impressed and with fear that I was mocking him. 

"On the contrary, " I protested, "I don't feel quite safe myself. Seeingme with you they may think I have papers around MY neck. "

"They wouldn't look at you, " Schnitzel reassured me. "They know you'rejust an amateur. But, as you say, with me, it's different. I GOT to becareful. Now, you mightn't believe it, but I never go near my uncle nornone of my friends that live where I used to hang out. If I did, theother spies would get on my track. I suppose, " he went on grandly, "Inever go out in New York but that at least two spies are trailing me. But I know how to throw them off. I live 'way down town in a littlehotel you never heard of. You never catch me dining at Sherry's nor theWaldorf. And you never met me out socially, did you, now?"

I confessed I had not. 

"And then, I always live under an assumed name. "

"Like 'Jones'?" I suggested. 

"Well, sometimes 'Jones', " he admitted. 

"To me, " I said, "'Jones' lacks imagination. It's the sort of name yougive when you're arrested for exceeding the speed limit. Why don't youcall yourself Machiavelli?"

"Go on, I'm no dago, " said Schnitzel, "and don't you go off thinking'Jones' is the only disguise I use. But I'm not tellin' what it is, amI? Oh, no. "

"Schnitzel, " I asked, "have you ever been told that you would make agreat detective?"

"Cut it out, " said Schnitzel. "You've been reading those fairy stories. There's no fly cops nor Pinks could do the work I do. They're pikerscompared to me. They chase petty-larceny cases and kick in doors. Iwouldn't stoop to what they do. It's being mixed up the way I amwith the problems of two governments that catches me. " He addedmagnanimously, "You see something of that yourself. "

We left the ship at Brooklyn, and with regret I prepared to bidSchnitzel farewell. Seldom had I met a little beast so offensive, buthis vanity, his lies, his moral blindness, made one pity him. And in tendays in the smoking-room together we had had many friendly drinks andmany friendly laughs. He was going to a hotel on lower Broadway, andas my cab, on my way uptown, passed the door, I offered him a lift. He appeared to consider the advisability of this, and then, with muchby-play of glancing over his shoulder, dived into the front seat anddrew down the blinds. "This hotel I am going to is an old-fashionedtrap, " he explained, "but the clerk is wise to me, understand, and Idon't have to sign the register. "

As we drew nearer to the hotel, he said: "It's a pity we can't dine outsomewheres and go to the theatre, but--you know?"

With almost too much heartiness I hastily agreed it would be imprudent. 

"I understand perfectly, " I assented. "You are a marked man. Until youget those papers safe in the hands of your 'people, ' you must be verycautious. "

"That's right, " he said. Then he smiled craftily. 

"I wonder if you're on yet to which my people are. "

I assured him that I had no idea, but that from the avidity with whichhe had abused them I guessed he was working for the Walker-Keefe crowd. 

He both smiled and scowled. 

"Don't you wish you knew?" he said. "I've told you a lot of insidestories, Mr. Crosby, but I'll never tell on my pals again. Not me!That's MY secret. "

At the door of the hotel he bade me a hasty good-by, and for a fewminutes I believed that Schnitzel had passed out of my life forever. Then, in taking account of my belongings, I missed my field-glasses. Iremembered that, in order to open a trunk for the customs inspectors, I had handed them to Schnitzel, and that he had hung them over hisshoulder. In our haste at parting we both had forgotten them. 

I was only a few blocks from the hotel, and I told the man to return. 

I inquired for Mr. Schnitzel, and the clerk, who apparently knew him bythat name, said he was in his room, number eighty-two. 

"But he has a caller with him now, " he added. "A gentleman was waitingfor him, and's just gone up. "

I wrote on my card why I had called, and soon after it had been borneskyward the clerk said: "I guess he'll be able to see you now. That'sthe party that was calling on him, there. "

He nodded toward a man who crossed the rotunda quickly. His face wastwisted from us, as though, as he almost ran toward the street, he werereading the advertisements on the wall. 

He reached the door, and was lost in the great tide of Broadway. 

I crossed to the elevator, and as I stood waiting, it descended with acrash, and the boy who had taken my card flung himself, shrieking, intothe rotunda. 

"That man--stop him!" he cried. "The man in eighty-two--he's murdered. "

The clerk vaulted the desk and sprang into the street, and I dragged theboy back to the wire rope and we shot to the third story. The boy shrankback. A chambermaid, crouching against the wall, her face colorless, lowered one hand, and pointed at an open door. 

"In there, " she whispered. 

In a mean, common room, stretched where he had been struck back upon thebed, I found the boy who had elected to meddle in the "problems of twogovernments. "

In tiny jets, from three wide knife-wounds, his blood flowed slowly. Hisstaring eyes were lifted up in fear and in entreaty. I knew that he wasdying, and as I felt my impotence to help him, I as keenly felt a greatrage and a hatred toward those who had struck him. 

I leaned over him until my eyes were only a few inches from his face. 

"Schnitzel!" I cried. "Who did this? You can trust me. Who did this?Quick!"

I saw that he recognized me, and that there was something which, withterrible effort, he was trying to make me understand. 

In the hall was the rush of many people, running, exclaiming, the noiseof bells ringing; from another floor the voice of a woman shriekedhysterically. 

At the sounds the eyes of the boy grew eloquent with entreaty, and witha movement that called from each wound a fresh outburst, like a manstrangling, he lifted his fingers to his throat. 

Voices were calling for water, to wait for the doctor, to wait for thepolice. But I thought I understood. 

Still doubting him, still unbelieving, ashamed of my own credulity, Itore at his collar, and my fingers closed upon a package of oiled silk. 

I stooped, and with my teeth ripped it open, and holding before him theslips of paper it contained, tore them into tiny shreds. 

The eyes smiled at me with cunning, with triumph, with deep content. 

It was so like the Schnitzel I had known that I believed still he mighthave strength enough to help me. 

"Who did this?" I begged. "I'll hang him for it! Do you hear me?" Icried. 

Seeing him lying there, with the life cut out of him, swept me with ablind anger, with a need to punish. 

"I'll see they hang for it. Tell me!" I commanded. "Who did this?"

The eyes, now filled with weariness, looked up and the lips movedfeebly. 

"My own people, " he whispered. 

In my indignation I could have shaken the truth from him. I bent closer. 

"Then, by God, " I whispered back, "you'll tell me who they are!"

The eyes flashed sullenly. 

"That's my secret, " said Schnitzel. 

The eyes set and the lips closed. 

A man at my side leaned over him, and drew the sheet across his face.