Herr Schmidt had left his pension in Bloomsbury and was hurrying eastward. It was a late autumn evening and a chilly rain fell, and Herr Schmidt was debating in his mind whether he should go direct to the rendezvous where he had promised to meet his two compatriots, or whether he should call a taxi and drive direct to the hall, when a hand grasped his arm.
He turned quickly and reached for his hip-pocket. Two men stood behind him and but for themselves the square through which he was passing was deserted.
Before he could grasp the Browning pistol, his other arm was seized and the taller of the two men spoke.
“You are Augustus Schmidt?” he asked.
“That is my name.”
“You are an Anarchist?”
“That is my affair.”
“You are at present on your way to a meeting of the Red Hundred?”
Herr Schmidt opened his eyes in genuine astonishment.
“How did you know that?” he asked.
“I am Detective Simpson from Scotland Yard, and I shall take you into custody,” was the quiet reply.
“On what charge?” demanded the German.
“As to that I shall tell you later.”
The man from Baden shrugged his shoulders.
“I have yet to learn that it is an offence in England to hold opinions.”
A closed motorcar entered the square, and the shorter of the two whistled and the chauffeur drew up near the group.
The Anarchist turned to the man who had arrested him.
“I warn you that you shall answer for this,” he said wrathfully. “I have an important engagement that you have made me miss through your foolery and—”
“Get in!” interrupted the tall man tersely.
Schmidt stepped into the car and the door snapped behind him.
He was alone and in darkness. The car moved on and then Schmidt discovered that there were no windows to the vehicle. A wild idea came to him that he might escape. He tried the door of the car; it was immovable. He cautiously tapped it. It was lined with thin sheets of steel.
“A prison on wheels,” he muttered with a curse, and sank back into the corner of the car.
He did not know London; he had not the slightest idea where he was going. For ten minutes the car moved along. He was puzzled. These policemen had taken nothing from him, he still retained his pistol. They had not even attempted to search him for compromising documents. Not that he had any except the pass for the conference and—the Inner Code!
Heavens! He must destroy that. He thrust his hand into the inner pocket of his coat. It was empty. The thin leather case was gone! His face went grey, for the Red Hundred is no fanciful secret society but a bloody-minded organisation with less mercy for bungling brethren than for its sworn enemies. In the thick darkness of the car his nervous fingers groped through all his pockets. There was no doubt at all—the papers had gone.
In the midst of his search the car stopped. He slipped the flat pistol from his pocket. His position was desperate and he was not the kind of man to shirk a risk.
Once there was a brother of the Red Hundred who sold a password to the Secret Police. And the brother escaped from Russia. There was a woman in it, and the story is a mean little story that is hardly worth the telling. Only, the man and the woman escaped, and went to Baden, and Schmidt recognized them from the portraits he had received from headquarters, and one night. … You understand that there was nothing clever or neat about it. English newspapers would have described it as a “revolting murder,” because the details of the crime were rather shocking. The thing that stood to Schmidt’s credit in the books of the Society was that the murderer was undiscovered.
The memory of this episode came back to the Anarchist as the car stopped—perhaps this was the thing the police had discovered? Out of the dark corners of his mind came the scene again, and the voice of the man. … “Don’t! don’t! O Christ! don’t!” and Schmidt sweated. …
The door of the car opened and he slipped back the cover of his pistol.
“Don’t shoot,” said a quiet voice in the gloom outside, “here are some friends of yours.”
He lowered his pistol, for his quick ears detected a wheezing cough.
“Von Dunop!” he cried in astonishment.
“And Herr Bleaumeau,” said the same voice. “Get in, you two.”
Two men stumbled into the car, one dumbfounded and silent—save for the wheezing cough—the other blasphemous and voluble.
“Wait, my friend!” raved the bulk of Bleaumeau; “wait! I will make you sorry. …”
The door shut and the car moved on.
The two men outside watched the vehicle with its unhappy passengers disappear round a corner and then walked slowly away.
“Extraordinary men,” said the taller.
“Most,” replied the other, and then, “Von Dunop—isn’t he—?”
“The man who threw the bomb at the Swiss President—yes.”
The shorter man smiled in the darkness.
“Given a conscience, he is enduring his hour,” he said.
The pair walked on in silence and turned into Oxford Street as the clock of a church struck eight.
The tall man lifted his walking-stick and a sauntering taxi pulled up at the curb.
“Aldgate,” he said, and the two men took their seats.
Not until the taxi was spinning along Newgate Street did either of the men speak, and then the shorter asked:
“You are thinking about the woman?”
The other nodded and his companion relapsed into silence; then he spoke again:
“She is a problem and a difficulty, in a way—yet she is the most dangerous of the lot. And the curious thing about it is that if she were not beautiful and young she would not be a problem at all. We’re very human, George. God made us illogical that the
