THE SECRET OF THE NEW ARMOUR-PLATES
"I wonder if that fellow is aware of his danger?" remarked Ray, speaking to himself behind the paper he was reading before the fire in New Stone Buildings, one afternoon not long after we had returned from Scotland.
"What fellow?" I inquired.
"Why Professor Emden," he replied. "It seems that in a lecture at the London Institution last night, he announced that he had discovered a new process for the hardening of steel, which gives it no less than eight times the resisting power of the present English steel!"
"Well!" I asked, looking across at my friend, and then glancing at Vera, who had called and was seated with us, her hat still on, and a charming figure to boot.
"My dear fellow, can't you see that such an invention would be of the utmost value to our friends the Germans? They'd use it for the armour-plates of their new navy."
"H'm! And you suspect they'll try and obtain Emden's secret--eh?"
"I don't suspect, I'm confident of it," he declared, throwing aside the paper. "I suppose he's a bespectacled, unsuspicious man, like all scientists. _The Times_ is enthusiastic over the discovery--declaring that the Admiralty should secure it at once, if they have not already done so. It's being made experimentally at Sheffield, it seems, and has been tried in secret somewhere out near the Orkneys. Admiralty experts are astounded at the results."
"Who is Emden?" I asked. "Just look at 'Who's Who?' It's by your elbow, old chap."
Ray proceeded to search the fat red book of reference, and presently exclaimed:
"It seems he's a Fellow of the Royal Society, a very distinguished chemist, and a leading authority on electro-metallurgy and ferro-alloys.
He has improved upon the Kjellin furnace as installed at Krupp's at Essen, and at Vickers, Sons, and Maxim's at Sheffield, and by this improvement, it seems, has been able to invent the new steel-making process."
"If he has improved upon any of the machinery or processes at the Krupp works," remarked Vera, glancing across at me, "then, no doubt, our friends across the North Sea will endeavour to filch the secret from him."
"Yes," I agreed, "he certainly ought to be warned of his danger. As soon as Hartmann sees the announcement in the papers, there's certain to be a desperate attempt to get hold of the secret."
"That mustn't be allowed, my dear fellow," Ray exclaimed. "With such steel as this the British Navy will have a splendid and distinct advantage over that of our friend 'William the Sudden.' This is a great and important secret which England must keep at all hazards."
"Certainly," declared Vera. "Really, Ray, you ought to see Professor Emden and have a chat with him."
"His address is given at Richmond," was my friend's reply, "but I have to go up to Selkirk early to-morrow, and shall be away nearly a week."
"Then shall I run down and see him this evening?" I suggested. And agreeing with my idea, he wrote the address for me. Then we made a cup of tea for Vera, who always delighted in the rough-and-ready bachelordom of a barrister's chambers. Afterwards Ray took his fiancee home to her aunt's, while I went back to my rather dismal lodgings in Guilford Street, Russell Square.
At nine o'clock that evening I rang at a pleasant, good-sized, modern house, which overlooked the beautiful Terrace Gardens and the river lying deep below at Richmond--a house which, perhaps, commanded the finest view within twenty miles of London.
The door was upon that main road which leads from the town up to the "Star and Garter," but the frontage faced the Gardens. The dark-eyed maid who opened the door informed me that the Professor was at home, and took my card upstairs. Then, a few moments later, I was ushered up to a cosy den, the study of a studious man, where I found the distinguished scientist standing in expectation, with his back to the fire.
He was a strange-looking man of sixty-five, his hair unusually white and slightly bald on top. Tall beyond the average, he wore a moustache and slight pointed beard, while his countenance seemed very broad in the forehead tapering to a point. His face was, indeed, almost grotesque.
I commenced by apologising for my intrusion, but explained that I had called on a purely confidential matter. When the door was closed, and we were alone, I said:
"My mission, Professor, is a somewhat curious one"; and I went on to explain our fears that German secret agents might obtain knowledge of the new process to which he had referred at the London Institution on the previous night.
For a moment he stroked his pointed white beard thoughtfully. I detected that he was as eccentric as he was curious-looking. Then, with a light laugh, he replied:
"Really Mr.--Mr. Jacox, I can't see your motive, or that of your friends, in thus interfering in my private affairs!"
"But is not this splendid discovery of yours of national importance?" I protested. "Will it not give us an enormous advantage over our enemies?
Therefore, is it not more than probable that you have already attracted the attention of these spies of Germany?"
"My dear sir," he laughed, "I tell you quite frankly that I don't believe in all these stories about German spies. What is there in England for Germany to discover? Nothing; they know everything. No, Mr.
Jacox, I'm an Englishman, a patriot, and I still believe in England's power. We have nothing whatever to fear from Germany."
"Your theory is hardly borne out by facts, Professor," I said, proceeding to tell him of our discovery at Rosyth, and how we had outwitted the spies regarding the new submarine, and also the airship at Lochindorb.
But the strange-looking old scientist, distinguished as he was, only laughed my fears to scorn.
"I'd like to see any German trying to learn my secret," he said defiantly.
"Then I would urge you to take every precaution. These agents employed by the German Secret Police on behalf of the General Staff are bold and unscrupulous."
"And do you allege that there are actually German spies in England?"
asked the strange man.
"Most certainly. We have in England and Scotland more than five thousand fixed agents, men of almost every nationality except German, and in every walk of life, from humble labourers to men and women in good positions, all of whom are collecting information at the order of the German travelling agents, who visit them from time to time, collect their reports, and pay them their salaries. French, Swiss, and Italians are mostly employed," I said. "At the present time my friend Raymond has under observation a German band, seven young fellows all army officers, who are playing in the streets of Leeds, and at the same time making a secret map of the water-mains of that city, in order that when 'the Day'
of invasion comes, the enemy will be able to suddenly deprive a densely populated area of water."
"But have you any actual proof of this?" he inquired.
As he spoke the door opened, and there entered a pretty dark-haired girl of twenty-two, wearing a light skirt and a pale pink evening blouse.
"Oh, dad!" she exclaimed, halting suddenly, "I'm sorry I didn't know you had a visitor."
"I shan't be a moment, Nella dear," the curious-looking old man said, and after a quick, inquisitive glance at me the girl withdrew.
"Well," exclaimed the Professor, with a smile, "I'm really very obliged to you for troubling to come here to warn me, but I think, my dear sir, that warnings are quite unnecessary. I haven't the slightest fear that any attempt will ever be made to secure my secret"; and he rose impatiently.
"Very well," I replied, shrugging my shoulders. "I have warned you, Professor Emden. The Government will not admit the presence of spies amongst us, and for that reason we are now collecting indisputable evidence."
"Ah!" he laughed, "and you want me to help you, eh? Well, sir, I don't believe in a word of this scare--so I must decline that honour."
"And you will take no unusual precaution to keep the truth out of the hands of our enemies, eh?"
"I leave it to Joynson's of Sheffield," he said. "They've paid me a large sum down and a royalty for the secret of my process, and it is scarcely likely that they'll allow it to fall into other hands, is it?"
"They will not, but you, a private individual, may," I said.
"I think not," he laughed, and a moment later I descended the stairs, passing his pretty daughter Nella on the way out.
That night I called on Ray at Bruton Street, but he was out at the theatre with Vera. At half-past eleven they called as they went back to the girl's aunt's, and as they sat before the fire, Vera with her opera-cloak thrown back revealing a pretty pale blue corsage a trifle _decollete_, I reported the non-success of my mission.
"He's a pig-headed old ass!" I declared. "One of millions of others in England. They close their eyes to the dangers of this horde of spies among us, and will only open them when the Germans come marching up the street and billet themselves in their houses. But he's a strange man, Ray, a very strange man," I added.
"You're right, Mr. Jacox," the girl declared. "Instead of teaching boys how to scout and instructing young men in the use of popguns, we should strike first at the root of all things. Cut off the source of this secret information which daily goes across the North Sea. Such hidebound patriots as the Professor are a peril to the nation!"
"If he refuses to help himself, Jacox, we must protect him ourselves,"
Ray declared. "I leave it to you and Vera to keep an open eye until I return from Selkirk next Monday. I'm bound to go down and see my sister.