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Page 3
I persisted with my questions but it was of no avail. Red Tabs only
laughed and said: "I know nothing at all except that your brother is a
most delightful fellow with all your own love of getting his own way."
Then Sonny Martin, who is the perfection of tact and diplomacy--probably
on that account he failed for the Diplomatic--chipped in with an
anecdote about a man who was rating the waiter at an adjoining table,
and I held my peace. But as Red Tabs rose to go, a little later, he held
my hand for a minute in his and with that curious look of his, said
slowly and with meaning:
"When a nation is at war, officers on _active service_ must occasionally
disappear, sometimes in their country's interest, sometimes in their
own."
He emphasised the words "on active service."
In a flash my eyes were opened. How blind I had been! Francis was in
Germany.
CHAPTER II
THE CIPHER WITH THE INVOICE
Red Tabs' sphinx-like declaration was no riddle to me. I knew at once
that Francis must be on secret service in the enemy's country and that
country Germany. My brother's extraordinary knowledge of the Germans,
their customs, life and dialects, rendered him ideally suitable for any
such perilous mission. Francis always had an extraordinary talent for
languages: he seemed to acquire them all without any mental effort, but
in German he was supreme. During the year that he and I spent at
Consistorial-Rat von Mayburg's house at Bonn, he rapidly outdistanced
me, and though, at the end of our time, I could speak German like a
German, Francis was able, in addition, to speak Bonn and Cologne
_patois_ like a native of those ancient cities--ay and he could drill a
squad of recruits in their own language like the smartest _Leutnant_
ever fledged from Gross-Lichterfelde.
He never had any difficulty in passing himself off as a German. Well I
remember his delight when he was claimed as a fellow Rheinl�nder by a
German officer we met, one summer before the war, combining golf with a
little useful espionage at Cromer.
I don't think Francis had any ulterior motive in his study of German.
He simply found he had this imitative faculty; philology had always
interested him, so even after he had gone into the motor trade, he used
to amuse himself on business trips to Germany by acquiring new dialects.
His German imitations were extraordinarily funny. One of his "star
turns", was a noisy sitting of the Reichstag with speeches by Prince
B�low and August Bebel and "interruptions"; another, a patriotic oration
by an old Prussian General at a Kaiser's birthday dinner. Francis had a
marvellous faculty not only of _seeming_ German, but even of almost
looking like a German, so absolutely was he able to slip into the skin
of the part.
Yet never in my wildest moments had I dreamt that he would try and get
into Germany in war-time, into that land where every citizen is
catalogued and pigeonholed from the cradle. But Red Tabs' oracular
utterance had made everything clear to me. Why a mission to Germany
would be the very thing that Francis would give his eyes to be allowed
to attempt! Francis with his utter disregard of danger, his love of
taking risks, his impish delight in taking a rise out of the stodgy
Hun--why, if there were Englishmen brave enough to take chances of
that kind, Francis would be the first to volunteer.
Yes, if Francis were on a mission anywhere it would be to Germany. But
what prospect had he of ever returning--with the frontiers closed and
ingress and egress practically barred even to pro-German neutrals? Many
a night in the trenches I had a mental vision of Francis, so debonair
and so fearless, facing a firing squad of Prussian privates.
From the day of the luncheon at the Bath Club to this very afternoon I
had had no further inkling of my brother's whereabouts or fate. The
authorities at home professed ignorance, as I knew, in duty bound, they
would, and I had nothing to hang any theory on to until Dicky Allerton's
letter came. Ashcroft at the F.O. fixed up my passports for me and I
lost no time in exchanging the white gulls and red cliffs of Cornwall
for the windmills and trim canals of Holland.
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