His employers were pleased with Gustav and Gustav had reason to be pleased with his employers. His services were so useful that he was not only paid more highly than the others, but for particular scoops had received from time to time a handsome bonus.
This went on for more than a year. Then something aroused R.’s quick suspicions; he was a man of an amazing alertness, not so much of mind, as of instinct, and he had suddenly a feeling that some hanky-panky was going on. He said nothing definite to Ashenden (whatever R. surmised he was disposed to keep to himself), but told him to go to Basle, Gustav being then in Germany, and have a talk with Gustav’s wife. He left it to Ashenden to decide the tenor of the conversation.
Having arrived at Basle, and leaving his bag at the station, for he did not yet know whether he would have to stay or not, he took a tram to the corner of the street in which Gustav lived and, with a quick look to see that he was not followed, walked along to the house he sought. It was a block of flats that gave you the impression of decent poverty and Ashenden conjectured that they were inhabited by clerks and small tradespeople. Just inside the door was a cobbler’s shop and Ashenden stopped.
“Does Herr Grabow live here?” he asked in his none too fluent German.
“Yes, I saw him go up a few minutes ago. You’ll find him in.”
Ashenden was startled, for he had but the day before received through Gustav’s wife a letter addressed from Mannheim in which Gustav by means of his code gave the numbers of certain regiments that had just crossed the Rhine. Ashenden thought it unwise to ask the cobbler the question that rose to his lips, so thanked him and went up to the third floor on which he knew already that Gustav lived. He rang the bell and heard it tinkle within. In a moment the door was opened by a dapper little man with a close-shaven round head and spectacles. He wore carpet slippers.
“Herr Grabow?” asked Ashenden.
“At your service,” said Gustav.
“May I come in?”
Gustav was standing with his back to the light and Ashenden could not see the look on his face. He felt a momentary hesitation and gave the name under which he received Gustav’s letters from Germany.
“Come in, come in. I am very glad to see you.”
Gustav led the way into a stuffy little room, heavy with carved oak furniture, and on the large table covered with a tablecloth of green velveteen was a typewriter. Gustav was apparently engaged in composing one of his invaluable reports. A woman was sitting at the open window darning socks, but at a word from Gustav rose, gathered up her things and left. Ashenden had disturbed a pretty picture of connubial bliss.
“Sit down, please. How very fortunate that I was in Basle! I have long wanted to make your acquaintance. I have only just this minute returned from Germany.” He pointed to the sheets of paper by the typewriter. “I think you will be pleased with the news I bring. I have some very valuable information.” He chuckled. “One is never sorry to earn a bonus.”
He was very cordial, but to Ashenden his cordiality rang false. Gustav kept his eyes, smiling behind the glasses, fixed watchfully on Ashenden, and it was possible that they held a trace of nervousness.
“You must have travelled quickly to get here only a few hours after your letter, sent here and then sent on by your wife, reached me in Geneva.”
“That is very probable. One of the things I had to tell you is that the Germans suspect that information is getting through by means of commercial letters and so they have decided to hold up all mail at the frontier for eight-and-forty hours.”
“I see,” said Ashenden amiably. “And was it on that account that you took the precaution of dating your letter forty-eight hours after you sent it?”
“Did I do that? That was very stupid of me. I must have mistaken the day of the month.”
Ashenden looked at Gustav with a smile. That was very thin; Gustav, a business man, knew too well how important in his particular job was the exactness of a date. The circuitous routes by which it was necessary to get information from Germany made it difficult to transmit news quickly and it was essential to know precisely on what days certain events had taken place.
“Let me look at your passport a minute,” said Ashenden.
“What do you want with my passport?”
“I want to see when you went into Germany and when you came out.”
“But you do not imagine that my comings and goings are marked on my passport? I have methods of crossing the frontier.”
Ashenden knew a good deal of this matter. He knew that both the Germans and the Swiss guarded the frontier with severity.
“Oh? Why should you not cross in the ordinary way? You were engaged because your connection with a Swiss firm supplying necessary goods to Germany made it easy for you to travel backwards and forwards without suspicion. I can understand that you might get past the German sentries with the connivance of the Germans,
