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Even the venerable +politician who acted as our minister, the night of my arrival, +after dinner, said confidentially, "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 +in Valencia he showed that his feelings were hurt, and said +stiffly: "As you please. Suppose we join the ladies." + +And the next day his wife reproached me with: "I should think you +could trust 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 +people I was an agent of the Walker-Keefe crowd. + +My only reason for repeating here that my going to Valencia was an +accident is that it was because Schnitzel disbelieved that fact, +and to drag the hideous facts from me followed me back to New York. +Through that 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 +to Panama to "go, look, see," and straighten out a certain conflict +of authority among the officials of the canal zone. While I was +there the yellow-fever broke out, and every self-respecting power +clapped a quarantine on the Isthmus, with the result that when I +tried to return to New York no steamer would take me to any place +to which any white man would care to go. But I knew that at +Valencia there was a direct line to New York, so I took a tramp +steamer down the coast to Valencia. I went to 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 came +home because the other places were shut. + +But, because, formerly in Valencia I had held a minor post in our +legation, and because the State Department so constantly consults +our firm on questions of international law, it was believed I +revisited Valencia on some mysterious and secret mission. + +As a matter of fact, had I gone there to sell phonographs or to +start a steam laundry, I should have been as greatly suspected. +For in Valencia even every commercial salesman, from the moment he +gives up his passport on 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 distinction of +occupying the undivided attention of three: a common or garden +Government spy, from whom no guilty man escapes, a Walker-Keefe +spy, and the spy of the Nitrate Company. The spy of the Nitrate +Company is generally a man you meet at the legations and clubs. He +plays bridge and is dignified with the title of "agent." The +Walker-Keefe spy is ostensibly a travelling salesman or hotel +runner. The Government spy is just a spy--a scowling, important +little beast in a white duck suit and a diamond ring. The limit of +his intelligence is to follow you into a cigar store and note what +cigar you buy, and in what kind of money you pay for it. + +The reason for it all was the three-cornered fight which then was +being waged by the Government, the Nitrate Trust, and the Walker- +Keefe crowd for the possession of the nitrate beds. Valencia is so +near to the equator, and so far from New York, that there are few +who studied the intricate 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 in the wrong, and each of whom, to gain his end, bribed, +blackmailed, and robbed, not only his adversaries, but those of his +own side, the end in view being the possession of those great +deposits that lie in the rocks of Valencia, baked from above by the +tropic sun and from below by volcanic fires. As one of their +engineers, one night in the Plaza, said to me: "Those mines were +conceived in hell, and stink to heaven, and the reputation of every +man of us that has touched them smells like the mines." + +At the time I was there the situation was "acute." In Valencia the +situation always is acute, but this time it looked as though +something might happen. On the day before I departed the Nitrate +Trust had cabled vehemently for war-ships, the Minister of Foreign +Affairs had refused to receive our minister, and at Porto Banos a +mob had made the tin sign of the United States consulate look like +a sieve. Our minister urged me to remain. To be bombarded by +one's own war-ships, he assured me, would be a thrilling +experience. + +But I repeated that my business was with Panama, not Valencia, and +that if in this matter of his row I had any weight at Washington, +as between preserving the nitrate beds for the trust, and +preserving for his country and various sweethearts one brown- +throated, clean-limbed bluejacket, I was for the bluejacket. + +Accordingly, when I sailed from Valencia the aged diplomat would +have described our relations as strained. + +Our ship was a slow ship, listed to touch at many ports, and as +early as noon on the following day we stopped for cargo at +Trujillo. It was there I met Schnitzel. + +In Panama I had bought a macaw for a little niece of mine, and +while we were taking on cargo I went ashore to get a tin cage in +which to put it, and, for direction, called upon our consul. From +an inner room he entered 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. +"The State Department doesn't keep me awake nights cabling me what +it's going to do," he said, "but at least I know it doesn't send a +thousand-dollar-a-minute, four-cylinder lawyer all the way to this +fever swamp to buy a tin cage. Now, honest, how can I serve you?" +I saw it was hopeless. No one would believe the truth. To offer +it to this friendly soul would merely offend his feelings and his +intelligence. + +So, with much mystery, I asked him to describe the "situation," and +he did so with the exactness of one who believes that within an +hour every word he speaks will be cabled to the White House. + +When I was leaving he said: "Oh, there's a newspaper correspondent +after you. He wants an interview, I guess. He followed you last +night from the capital by train. You want to watch out he don't +catch you. His name is Jones." I promised to be on my guard +against a man named Jones, and the consul escorted me to the ship. +As he went down the accommodation ladder, I called over the rail: +"In case they SHOULD declare war, cable to Curacoa, and I'll come +back. And don't cable anything indefinite, like 'Situation +critical' or 'War imminent.' Understand? Cable me, 'Come back' or +'Go ahead.' But whatever you cable, make it CLEAR." + +He shook his head violently and with his green-lined umbrella +pointed at my 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 his Panama hat drawn down to conceal his +eyes. + +On the pier-head, from which we now were drawing rapidly away, the +consul 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 +Jones thirsty, or that with friends he had been celebrating his +departure. He winked at me, and, apparently with pleasure at his +own discernment and with 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 everybody can hear you. You're 'clear' enough." His disgust +was too deep for ordinary 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 +that we had the ship, also, to ourselves. I remembered the purser +had told me that, except for those who travelled overnight from +port to port, I was his only passenger. + +With dismay I pictured myself for ten days adrift on the high seas-- +alone with Jones. + +With a dramatic gesture, as one would say, "I am here!" he pushed +back his Panama hat. With an unsteady finger he pointed, as it was +drawn dripping across the deck, at the stern hawser. + +"You see that rope?" he demanded. "Soon as that rope hit the water +I knocked 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 AM I?" + +His condition seemed to preclude the possibility of his knowing who +he was, 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 +well who I am." + +"My dear sir," I said, "I don't know anything about you, except +that your are a damned nuisance." + +He swayed from me, pained and surprised. Apparently he was upon an +outbreak of tears. + +"Proud," he murmured, "AND haughty. Proud and haughty to the +last." + +I never have understood why an intoxicated man feels the climax of +insult is to hurl at you your name. Perhaps because he knows it is +the one charge you cannot deny. But invariably before you escape, +as though assured the words will cover your retreat with shame, he +throws at you your full title. Jones did this. + +Slowly and mercilessly he repeated, "Mr.--George--Morgan--Crosby. +Of Harvard," he added. "Proud and haughty to the last." + +He then embraced a passing steward, and demanded to be informed why +the ship 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 the +bridge. + +"I saw you talking to Mr. Schnitzel," he said. "He's a little +under the weather. He has too light a head for liquors." + +I agreed that he had a light head, and said I understood his name +was Jones. + +"That's what I wanted to tell you," said the captain. "His name is +Schnitzel. He used to work for the Nitrate Trust in New York. +Then he 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 voyage under 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't know who he's working for now," he +went on, "but I know he's not with the 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 +the Nitrate Trust, sort of confidential stenographer," said the +captain. "Whenever the senator dictated an important letter, they +say, Schnitzel used to make a carbon copy, and when he had enough +of them he sold them to the Walker-Keefe crowd. Then, when Walker- +Keefe lost their suit in the Valencia Supreme Court I guess +Schnitzel went over to President Alvarez. 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 the +Walker-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 the +country. Every man in it is out for something that isn't his. The +pilot wants his bit, the health doctor must get his, the customs +take all your cigars, and if you don't put up gold for the captain +of the port and the alcalde and the commandant and the harbor +police and the foreman of the cargadores, they won't move a +lighter, and they'll hold up the ship's papers. Well, an American +comes down here, honest and straight and willing to work for his +wages. But pretty quick he finds every one is getting his squeeze +but him, so he tries to get some of it back by robbing 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 him here. +There isn't a man in this nitrate row that isn't robbing the crowd +he's with, and that wouldn't change sides for money. Schnitzel's +no worse than the president nor the canteen contractor." + +He waved his hand at the glaring coast-line, at the steaming swamps +and the hot, naked mountains. + +"It's the country that does it," he said. "It's in the air. You +can smell it as soon as you drop anchor, like you smell the +slaughter-house at Punta-Arenas." + +"How do YOU manage to keep honest," I asked, smiling. + +"I don't take any chances," exclaimed the captain seriously. "When +I'm in their damned port I don't go ashore." + +I did not again see Schnitzel until, with haggard eyes and +suspiciously wet hair, he joined the captain, doctor, purser, and +myself at breakfast. In the phrases of the Tenderloin, he told us +cheerfully that he had been grandly intoxicated, and to recover +drank mixtures of raw egg, vinegar, and red pepper, the sight of +which took away every appetite save his own. When to this he had +added a bottle of beer, he declared himself a new man. The new man +followed me to the deck, and with the truculent bearing of one who +expects to be repelled, he asked if, the day before, he had not +made a fool of himself. + +I suggested he had been somewhat confidential. At once he +recovered his pose 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 +learn things. I tell a man something on the inside, and he says: +'Here's a nice young fellow. Nothing standoffish about him,' and +he tells me something 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 apparent +frankness is advisable? As a rule," I explained, "secrecy is what +a--a person 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 +have been better for you?" + +"In dealing with a party like you, Mr. Crosby," Schnitzel began +sententiously, "I use a different method. You're on a secret +mission yourself, 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 the same line of goods. We are rivals in +business, but outside of business hours perfect gentleman." + +In the face of the disbelief that had met my denials of any secret +mission, I felt to have Schnitzel also disbelieve me would be too +great a humiliation. So I remained silent. + +"You make your report to the State Department," he explained, "and +I make mine to--my people. Who they are doesn't matter. You'd +like to know, 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 for +Schnitzel to suspect that was impossible. Rather, he pictured me +as shaken by his disclosures. + +As he hung over the rail the glare of the sun on the tumbling water +lit up his foolish, mongrel features, exposed their cunning, their +utter lack of any character, and showed behind the shifty eyes the +vacant, half-crooked mind. + +Schnitzel was smiling to himself with a smile of complete self- +satisfaction. In the light of his later conduct, I grew to +understand that smile. He had anticipated a rebuff, and he had +been received, as he read it, with consideration. The irony of my +politeness he had entirely missed. Instead, he read in what I said +the admiration of the amateur for the professional. He saw what he +believed to be a high agent of the Government treating him as a +worthy antagonist. In no other way can I explain his later heaping +upon me his confidences. It was the vanity of a child trying to +show off. + +In ten days, in the limited area of a two-thousand-ton steamer, one +could not help but learn something of the history of so +communicative a fellow-passenger as Schnitzel. His parents were +German and still lived in Germany. But he himself had been brought +up on the East Side. An uncle who kept a delicatessen shop in +Avenue A had sent him to the public schools and then to a "business +college," where he had developed remarkable expertness as a +stenographer. He referred to his skill in this difficult exercise +with pitying contempt. Nevertheless, from a room noisy with type- +writers this skill had lifted him into the private office of the +president of the Nitrate Trust. There, as Schnitzel expressed it, +"I saw 'mine,' and I took it." To trace back the criminal instinct +that led Schnitzel to steal and sell the private letters of his +employer was not difficult. In all of his few early years I found +it lying latent. Of every story he told of himself, and he talked +only of himself, there was not one that was not to his discredit. +He himself never saw this, nor that all he told me showed he was +without the moral sense, 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 +behind wide, protruding ears. He had the unhealthy skin of bad +blood, and his eyes, as though the daylight hurt them, constantly +opened and shut. He was like hundreds of young men that you see +loitering on upper Broadway and making predatory raids along the +Rialto. Had you passed him in that neighborhood you would have set +him down as a wire-tapper, a racing tout, a would-be actor. + +As I worked it out, Schnitzel was a spy because it gave him an +importance he had not been able to obtain by any other effort. As +a child and as a clerk, it was easy to see that among his +associates Schnitzel must always have been the butt. Until +suddenly, by one dirty action, he had placed himself outside their +class. As he expressed it: "Whenever I walk through the office +now, where all the stenographers sit, you ought to see those slobs +look after me. When they go to the president's door, they got to +knock, like I used to, but now, when the old man sees me coming to +make my report after one of these trips he calls out, 'Come right +in, Mr. Schnitzel.' And like as not I go in with my 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 +his life. His vanity demanded he be pointed at, if even with +contempt. But the contempt never reached him--he only knew that at +last people took note of him. They no longer laughed at him, they +were afraid of him. In his heart he believed that they regarded +him as one who walked in the dark places of world politics, who +possessed an evil knowledge of great men as evil as himself, as one +who by blackmail held public ministers at his mercy. + +This view of himself was the one that he tried to give me. I +probably was the first decent man who ever had treated him civilly, +and to impress me with his knowledge he spread that knowledge +before me. It was sale, 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 could not 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 at +Cristobal, the last port in Valencia. In the most light-hearted +manner he had been accusing all concerned in the nitrate fight with +every crime known in Wall Street and in the dark reaches of the +Congo River. + +"But, I know him, Mr. Schnitzel," I said sternly. "He is incapable +of it. I went to college with him." + +"I don't care whether he's a rah-rah boy or not," said Schnitzel, +"I know that's what he did when he was up the Orinoco after +orchids, and if the tribe had ever caught him they'd have crucified +him. And I know this, too: he made forty thousand dollars out of +the Nitrate Company on a ten-thousand-dollar job. And I know it, +because he beefed to me about it 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 +pointing drunkenly at the sky, are buried the political prisoners +of Valencia. + +"Now, there," said Schnitzel, pointing, "that shows you what the +Nitrate Trust can do. Judge Rojas is in there. He gave the first +decision in favor of the Walker-Keefe people, and for making that +decision William T. Scott, the Nitrate manager, made Alvarez put +Rojas in there. He's seventy years old, and he's been there five +years. The cell they keep him in is below the sea-level, and the +salt-water leaks through the wall. I've seen it. That's what +William T. Scott did, an' up in New York people think 'Billy' Scott +is a fine man. I seen him at the Horse Show sitting 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 Rojas in +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 +his shoulders. "I tell you, the walls are damp, like sweat." + +The Government had telegraphed the commandant to come on board and, +as he expressed it, "offer me the hospitality of the port," which +meant that I had to take him to the smoking-room and give him +champagne. What the Government really wanted was to find out +whether I was still on board, 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 +love Mr. Scott. The president, he love Mr. Scott, too, but the +judges were not sympathetic to Mr. Scott, so Mr. Scott asked our +president to give them 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, he will never come out to see our beloved +country any more." + +As we left the harbor we passed so close that one could throw a +stone against the wall of the fortress. The sun was just sinking +and the air became suddenly chilled. Around the little island of +limestone the waves swept through the sea-weed and black manigua up +to the rusty bars of the cells. 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 yellow flag of Valencia +crawling down the staff. Somewhere entombed in that blotched and +mildewed masonry an old man of seventy years was shivering and +hugging himself from the damp and cold. A man who spoke five +languages, a just, brave gentleman. To me it was no new story. I +knew of the horrors of Cristobal prison; of political rivals +chained to criminals loathsome with disease, of men who had raised +the flag of revolution driven to suicide. But never had I supposed +that my own people could reach from the city of New York and cast a +fellow-man into that cellar of fever and madness. + +As I watched the yellow wall sink into the sea, I became conscious +that Schnitzel was near me, as before, leaning on the rail, with +his chin sunk on his arms. His face was turned toward the +fortress, and for the first time since I had known him it was set +and serious. And when, a moment later, he passed me without +recognition, I saw that his eyes were filled with fear. + +When we touched at Curacoa I sent a cable to my sister, announcing +the date of my arrival, and then continued on to the Hotel +Venezuela. Almost immediately Schnitzel joined me. With easy +carelessness he said: "I was in the cable office just now, sending +off a wire, and that operator told me 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 +is French. That's why I wrote it in French." + +With the air of one who nails another in a falsehood, Schnitzel +exclaimed: + +"Then, how did you suppose your sister was going to read it? It's +a cipher, that's what it is. Oh, no, YOU'RE not on a secret +mission! Not at all!" + +It was most undignified of me, but in five minutes I excused +myself, and sent to the State Department the following words: + +"Roses red, violets blue, send snow." + +Later at the State Department the only person who did not +eventually pardon my jest was the clerk who had sat up until three +in the morning with my cable, trying to fit it to any known code. + +Immediately after my return to the Hotel Venezuela Schnitzel +excused himself, and half an hour later returned in triumph with +the cable operator and ordered lunch for both. They imbibed much +sweet champagne. + +When we again were safe at sea, I said: "Schnitzel, how much did +you pay that 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 I doped it out?" + +I even challenged him to do so. "'Roses red'--war declared; +'violets blue'--outlook bad, or blue; 'send snow'--send squadron, +because the white 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 +to keep me awake," he said. + +After I had been a week at sea, I found that either I had to +believe that in all things Schnitzel was a liar, or that the men of +the Nitrate Trust were in all things evil. I was convinced that +instead of the people of Valencia robbing them, they were robbing +both the people of Valencia and the people of the United States. + +To go to war on their account was to degrade our Government. I +explained to Schnitzel it was not becoming that the United States +navy should be made the cat's-paw of a corrupt corporation. I +asked his permission to repeat to the authorities at Washington +certain of the statements he had made. + +Schnitzel was greatly pleased. + +"You're welcome to tell 'em anything I've said," he assented. +"And," he added, "most of it's true, too." + +I wrote down certain charges he had made, and added what I had +always known of the nitrate fight. It was a terrible arraignment. +In the evening I read my notes to Schnitzel, who, in a corner of +the smoking-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 +trouble with 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's MY secret, and you won't find it out, neither. I may be as +crooked as the 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're +thinking of, and I got five thousand dollars for it. But now I +mean to stick by the men that pay my wages." + +"But you've told me enough about each of the three to put any one +of them 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 that +crowd, so I've touched 'em all up. Only what I told you about my +crowd--isn't true." + +The report we finally drew up was so sensational that I was of a +mind to throw it overboard. It accused members of the Cabinet, of +our Senate, diplomats, business men of national interest, judges of +the Valencia courts, private secretaries, clerks, hired bullies, +and filibusters. Men the trust could not bribe it had blackmailed. +Those it could not corrupt, and they were pitifully few, it crushed +with some disgraceful charge. + +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 of yellow-fever, maybe, and maybe what happened to them +was they ate knockout drops in their soup." + +I disbelieved him, but there came a sudden nasty doubt. + +"Curtis, who managed the company's plant at Barcelona, died of +yellow-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. He was wrong ten thousand dollars in his accounts. He +got worrying about it and we found him outside the clearing with a +hole in his head. He left a note saying he couldn't bear the +disgrace. As if the company would hold a 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 +moved to preach. + +"Why don't you quit?" I said. "You had an A-1 job as a +stenographer. Why don't you go back to it?" + +"Maybe, some day. But it's great being your own boss. If I was a +stenographer, I wouldn't be helping you send in a report to the +State Department, would I? No, this job is all right. They send +you after something big, and you have the devil of a time getting +it, but when you get 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 +and shone. He cast a quick look about him. Except for ourselves, +the smoking-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 the cordage. A barefooted sailor pattered by to the +bridge. Schnitzel bent toward me, and with his hand pointed to his +throat. + +"I've got papers on me that's worth a million to a certain party," +he whispered. "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 any attack I might make upon his person, "I carry my +automatic. It shoots nine 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, +"I don't want to know it. How often have I told you not to talk +and drink at the same time?" + +"Ah, go on," laughed Schnitzel. "That's an old gag, warning a +fellow not to talk so as to MAKE him talk. I do that myself." + +That Schnitzel had important papers tied to his neck I no more +believe than that he wore a shirt of chain armor, but to please him +I pretended to be greatly concerned. + +"Now that we're getting into New York," I said, "you must be very +careful. A man who carries such important documents on his person +might be murdered for them. I think you ought to disguise +yourself." + +A picture of my bag being carried ashore by Schnitzel in the +uniform of a ship's steward rather pleased me. + +"Go on, you're kidding!" said Schnitzel. He was drawn between +believing I was deeply impressed and with fear that I was mocking +him. + +"On the contrary," I protested, "I don't feel quite safe myself. +Seeing me with you they may think I have papers around MY neck." + +"They wouldn't look at you," Schnitzel reassured me. "They know +you're just an amateur. But, as you say, with me, it's different. +I GOT to be careful. Now, you mightn't believe it, but I never go +near my uncle nor none of my friends that live where I used to hang +out. If I did, the other spies would get on my track. I suppose," +he went on grandly, "I never 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 little hotel you never heard of. You +never catch me dining at Sherry's nor the Waldorf. 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 +you give when you're arrested for exceeding the speed limit. Why +don't you call 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, am I? Oh, no." + +"Schnitzel," I asked, "have you ever been told that you would make +a great 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 pikers compared to me. They chase petty-larceny cases and +kick in doors. I wouldn't stoop to what they do. It's being mixed +up the way I am with the problems of two governments that catches +me." He added magnanimously, "You see something of that yourself." + +We left the ship at Brooklyn, and with regret I prepared to bid +Schnitzel farewell. Seldom had I met a little beast so offensive, +but his vanity, his lies, his moral blindness, made one pity him. +And in ten days in the smoking-room together we had had many +friendly drinks and many friendly laughs. He was going to a hotel +on lower Broadway, and as 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 much by-play of glancing over +his shoulder, dived into the front seat and drew down the blinds. +"This hotel I am going to is an old-fashioned trap," he explained, +"but the clerk is wise to me, understand, and I don't have to sign +the register." + +As we drew nearer to the hotel, he said: "It's a pity we can't dine +out somewheres 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 you get those papers safe in the hands of your 'people,' you +must be very cautious." + +"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 +which he 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 inside +stories, 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 few +minutes I believed that Schnitzel had passed out of my life +forever. Then, in taking account of my belongings, I missed my +field-glasses. I remembered that, in order to open a trunk for the +customs inspectors, I had handed them to Schnitzel, and that he had +hung them over his shoulder. 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 by that name, said he was in his room, number eighty-two. + +"But he has a caller with him now," he added. "A gentleman was +waiting for him, and's just gone up." + +I wrote on my card why I had called, and soon after it had been +borne skyward the clerk said: "I guess he'll be able to see you +now. That's the party that was calling on him, there." + +He nodded toward a man who crossed the rotunda quickly. His face +was twisted from us, as though, as he almost ran toward the street, +he were reading 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 a crash, and the boy who had taken my card flung himself, +shrieking, into the 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 the boy back to the wire rope and we shot to the third +story. The boy shrank back. 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 the bed, I found the boy who had elected to meddle in the +"problems of two governments." + +In tiny jets, from three wide knife-wounds, his blood flowed +slowly. His staring eyes were lifted up in fear and in entreaty. +I knew that he was dying, and as I felt my impotence to help him, I +as keenly felt a great rage 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, +with terrible effort, he was trying to make me understand. + +In the hall was the rush of many people, running, exclaiming, the +noise of bells ringing; from another floor the voice of a woman +shrieked hysterically. + +At the sounds the eyes of the boy grew eloquent with entreaty, and +with a movement that called from each wound a fresh outburst, like +a man strangling, he lifted his fingers to his throat. + +Voices were calling for water, to wait for the doctor, to wait for +the police. But I thought I understood. + +Still doubting him, still unbelieving, ashamed of my own credulity, +I tore 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 +the slips 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 +might have strength enough to help me. + +"Who did this?" I begged. "I'll hang him for it! Do you hear me?" +I cried. + +Seeing him lying there, with the life cut out of him, swept me with +a blind 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 moved +feebly. + +"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. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Spy, by Richard Harding Davis + |