The Yellow Dove

He laid it upon the table before her eyes and she looked, her eyes distended with terror of she knew now what.

Hammersley caused arrest of Byfield. Has informed on Rizzio and myself. Am in hiding in Kent. Will reach Germany by usual methods.

Maxwell.

Doris sat immovable, petrified with horror. Von Stromberg’s voice crackled harshly at her ear.

“Well? And what have you to say?”

“It is a lie!” she managed to stammer. “He lies—lies, I tell you!”

“Ach! If I could believe you! Why should he lie? Unlike the case of Rizzio, Herr Hammersley has not robbed Herr Maxwell of a bride.”

“There is a mistake–”

“I fear not.”

“But why should Mr. Hammersley have come? He would have been safe in England–”

“He himself says to the contrary–”

She was breaking fast and he sought further to involve her.

“He did not have to come. Why should he have come?” she asked wildly, rising to her feet and laying her hands upon his arm. “Answer me that, Excellenz.”

For reply he turned away from her abruptly and walked the length of the room to an end window, where he stood for a moment looking out.

“Come, Fräulein, and I will show you something.”

She approached him blindly and followed his gaze around the corner of the building. Upon a tree stump in the kitchen garden, looking out across the fields toward the wooded hills sat Hammersley, calmly smoking.

“Half of his blood is English, half Prussian, Fräulein, but it is the English in him that dominates. Is there anything that is Prussian about him? Tell me. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot—his pipe, his bent shoulders, his careless air—he is English, all English. He knows that at this moment I am weighing his fate in the balance and yet he smokes his short wooden pipe. If he has Prussian blood it is a pity, for Germany needs all the Prussian blood that flows red in the veins of men.” He paused and then abruptly, “But the Prussian blood must be sacrificed with the English–”

She fell back from him, deathly white, groping for a chair to support her.

“You mean–” she whispered.

“That I can take no chances. He will be shot tomorrow.”

“O God! He is loyal to Germany. I swear it.” Her utterance was choked. Her breath came with difficulty. The room darkened suddenly and she seemed about to swoon. She dropped to her knees beside the armchair, clinging to it, trying to speak, but no words would come. She was aware of his hawk-like face bending over her as though in the act of striking its prey and she heard his voice at her ear.

“There is one chance to save him.”

She reached his hand and clung to it.

“A chance—what—”

“Tell me the truth,” he said sternly.

“I—I have told you the truth. He is innocent.”

He loosened her fingers and stood away.

“Quatsch!” he muttered, leaning forward. “The truth, girl!”

“I—I–”

She fell against the chair and clung to it for support.

“The truth, and he becomes an honorable prisoner of war. Silence, and he is shot tomorrow. Speak.”

“He is–” The words choked her. “He is–”

“Bah!” he growled, moving toward the table. “You have already convicted him!”

She struggled to her feet and followed him. He was about to touch the bell when she caught his arm.

“Wait!” she whispered. “What guarantee have I that he will not be injured?”

He shrugged and laughed. “I need give no guarantee now, Fräulein. This is not a court of law! I am the judge of what constitutes proof. You have testified.”

He shook her off and sounded the bell, which was immediately answered by Udo von Winden.

“You will conduct Fräulein Mather to her room upstairs. Lock the door and bring me the key. Then tell Herr Hammersley that I am waiting to see him.”

CHAPTER XVII

LINDBERG

When Hammersley entered the house with von Winden he was immediately aware that a crisis had come in his affairs, for in the hall leading to the living-room stood Captain Wentz and two soldiers, and when he was shown into von Stromberg’s presence, the Councilor stood with his back to the hearth, his long legs wide apart, his hands behind his back and the expression of his long, bony face was not pleasant to see. He smiled and frowned at the same time—a smile which possessed so few of the ingredients of humor that the tangled brows even seemed less ominous. Doris was nowhere to be seen. Hammersley made no sign of his prescience of trouble. He put his pipe in the pocket of his leather jacket, strolled forward into the room and stood at attention. “Search him!” snapped von Stromberg. And when von Winden had finished, “Leave us,” he said to the officer, “and keep within call, I shall need you presently.” He waited until the door was closed and then turned to Hammersley somberly.

“Your jig is danced, Herr Hammersley, Fräulein Mather has confessed.”

“Confessed what, Excellenz?” questioned Hammersley calmly.

“She has told the truth.”

“Of course, that was to be expected of her.”

“Bah!” roared the General. “There’s no need of more of that. She told me that you were an English spy.”

Hammersley started forward, the only expression on his face one of complete incredulity. “Fräulein Mather told you that? Impossible!”

“Do you mean to say that you don’t believe me?”

Hammersley managed a smile.

“It would hardly be good ethics for me to say that. I simply repeat that it is impossible.”

“Why?” Von Stromberg sneered.

“Because it is morally impossible for her to tell an untruth.”

“Ach, so. But it is physically impossible for her to keep from not doing so.” He leaned forward, grinning craftily. “In the small games of life, in the things which amount to nothing, women lie with a careless skill that is amazing, but in a game of life and death, their little tricks are negligible. Pouf! Herr Hammersley, did you expect to match mere falsehood and such a tissue of flimsy evidence against a man of my experience? It was a desperate game from the beginning—one which could have had only one end. You have been clever—very, very clever. In time, perhaps, under proper guidance and with the necessary political opinions, you could have succeeded in becoming a very useful helper of the Universe, through the medium of the Secret Service Department of the German Empire. But such cleverness is superficial and quickly burns out in the hotter fire of genius. I would like you to know—”

“One moment, Excellenz,” put in Hammersley coolly. “Am I to understand from your attitude that you believe I am false to the Vaterland?”

Von Stromberg laughed.

“You still insist on acting out the part?”

Hammersley did not answer the question. Instead he asked, “Will you be good enough to tell me upon what new evidence you base your present position?”

The Councilor strode to the table and thrust the telegraphic message he had shown to the girl under Hammersley’s nose.

“This,” he growled. “I will read it to you. ‘Hammersley caused arrest of Byfield. Has informed on Rizzio and myself–’ It’s signed ‘Maxwell.’ What do you think of my evidence?” He grinned, “Convincing, nicht wahr?”

Hammersley looked up into von Stromberg’s face with a smile.

“Not even in code, Excellenz? It is a pity you did not write it in English. But under the circumstances you can’t expect me to take any interest in such a trick.”

“Not you, Herr Hammersley,” he chuckled. “It is not necessary that you should believe in it. In fact there are reasons why you shouldn’t believe in it, the most important reason being that Herr Maxwell is dead.”

“Dead!”

“Obviously. You condemned him and he was put in prison. If he is not dead it is through no fault of yours.”

Hammersley smiled. “You cannot get me to acquiesce in such strange statements.”

“I do not ask you to acquiesce. I could not expect to catch Herr Hammersley by a trick. But Miss Mather was less difficult.”

Hammersley’s jaws set. “I understand. But do you mean to say that I can be incriminated by a confession made under the stress of a terror artificially produced?”

“That is a clever turn of phrase, Herr Hammersley, worthy of the high regard with which I hold your abilities. In reply I can only say that in time of war my deductions in all matters connected with my department are final. You are an English spy, Herr Hammersley, and you are quite aware of the penalty.”

Hammersley raised his head and folded his arms. “Quite,” he replied, “if you choose to take that action. I can only say that the time will come when you will regret it.”

“I must take that chance, for there will be no trial.”

Hammersley shrugged his shoulders and turned aside. His face was white and the muscles at his jaws worked for a moment, but otherwise he gave no sign of emotion. General von Stromberg had gone back to his favorite pose by the mantel and Hammersley again heard his voice.

“It seems a pity, Herr Hammersley, that after all it should be you instead of Herr Rizzio who is the culprit. You are a type of young man very much to my liking, and the position of the young lady is unpleasant in the extreme. She has served her purpose here and I shall, of course, take immediate steps to have her returned to her own people.”

“Thanks,” said Hammersley dryly.

“But the thing that has interested me in your case from the first,” he continued with a return of his mastodonic playfulness, “and indeed still continues to interest me, is why you should choose to return to Germany when you knew that you were under suspicion. Surely you did not come here to pick cowslips in March? Come now, I could have you shot this afternoon if I chose. Tell me the truth and I will promise to postpone the affair until tomorrow.”

Hammersley studied the pattern in the rug thoughtfully for a moment, and at last he straightened and shrugged again.

“I don’t suppose there is any use playing the game further. Since I am to go, it doesn’t matter if I tell you. I have planned for some time to be able to get plans of the recent additions to the fortifications of Strassburg.”

“Ach, so. Strassburg! And what, may I ask, were to be your means of procuring them?”

“That, of course, since my utility has ceased, cannot possibly be of interest to you.”

Von Stromberg studied him narrowly for a long moment and then wagged his head sagely. It was an unnecessary suspicion that he had cherished. This had been a case with interesting aspects, but after all it was not much out of the usual way. An English spy betrayed by the simplest of tricks upon the credulity and affection of a woman. He thought that Hammersley had been after bigger game. Plans, fortifications—the same objects, the same methods. Von Stromberg had tried to puzzle out in the mazes of his wonderful brain the possible chance that this man could have had of learning of the whereabouts of Herr Gottschalk’s memoranda and of the momentous decision which had been reached in the Wilhelmstrasse with regard to them. He studied Hammersley closely, with something approaching regret that the contest between them could not have been waged at greater length and for higher stakes. He felt a genuine human sorrow at this moment over the impending fate of this handsome young man who was only doing his duty for the fatuous English. It was too bad. But there was much else to do. Tomorrow his mission in this part of the Empire would be ended and the Wilhelmstrasse was calling. He touched the bell upon the table and Captain Wentz entered.

“Herr Hammersley is to be taken to the room on the third floor. Tonight you will see that he is securely bound and a guard set over him, within the room. You will place another guard outside below his window. If he tries to escape, shoot him.”

Wentz spoke to the man in the hall and Hammersley, between them, was led to the foot of the steps, and followed his captors to the upper story. He knew, in view of the instructions that he had overheard, that any effort to escape would be fruitless. He sat on the edge of the bed submitting calmly while his feet and hands were bound under the direction of Captain Wentz; after which the officers went out, leaving a man to guard him, and locked the door. Hammersley rolled over on the bed and lay for a long while staring at the wall. The day was fading into dusk. Five o’clock, it might be, Hammersley guessed. Six hours or less remained to him in which to act. Six hours in which he must lie helpless while the one chance of intercepting the messenger from Berlin came and passed. He lay perfectly still as he had fallen, but his spirit writhed in agony.

Doris was in a room near him, likewise a prisoner, aware of the fate in store for him and able to do nothing but wait as he would wait until the shots were fired below there in the garden, which would be the end of all things for him. He found that he was thinking little of himself. It was Doris and what she must be suffering that occupied the moments of his thoughts which were not given to the remote chances of escape.

His bonds were tightly drawn—a rope tied with German thoroughness. He moved his hands behind him and tried to gain a little room for his present ease. If he was to be shot tomorrow morning it would have seemed indeed a small charity to have permitted him to pass his last night in some degree of comfort. Could it be that, after all, von Stromberg suspected the real object of his return? That hardly seemed possible; for his informant in Berlin, a woman close to those in high authority, had made every move with the utmost discretion and his own relations to Lindberg could not possibly be suspected.

Lindberg! Hammersley turned and looked at his guard who was standing motionless by the window, gazing out at the fading landscape. Lindberg was his one, his last desperate hope. Udo von Winden, his cousin— It was too much to hope that Udo would be of service to him. He had caught a glimpse of Udo’s face in the hallway downstairs when von Stromberg’s orders were given. He had gone pale and stared at him in pity and horror as Hammersley had gone up the stairs, but Hammersley knew that the ties of kinship, the memories of their boyhood together, were nothing beside the iron will and indomitable authority of the great man who had condemned him. Udo would suffer when Hammersley died, for there had been a time when the two had been much to each other, but he would do his duty, however painful, as a small unit of the relentless machine which Hammersley had had the temerity to oppose. What else could be expected?

A word, a sign, the slightest aid to such a prisoner, and he would be as guilty as his cousin. Hammersley knew that he did Udo no injustice in supposing that any help from such a source was out of the question. If Udo had been caught in England as Hammersley was caught in Germany, Hammersley knew that he could do nothing to save him.

But Lindberg! Here the case was different. It was Lindberg whose life Hammersley had saved three years ago in this very forest, when the Forester had stumbled and fallen in the path of an angry boar who would have gored him to death, if Hammersley had not shot the beast. Lindberg the Forester it was, who, in his hours off duty, had been Hammersley’s chosen companion in many a hunt up through the rocky gorges of these very mountains, every stick and stone of which he knew as he knew his own rugged face in the mirror. It was Lindberg who had been so useful in keeping him informed of the exact state of affairs at Blaufelden. It was Lindberg who had learned of the microphone that von Stromberg had installed and it was Lindberg who had listened at the receiver upstairs in von Stromberg’s room to the conversation when the Councilor had told Captain Wentz the nature of the documents from Berlin and the hour of their arrival.

Already Lindberg had repaid a hundredfold the debt of Hammersley’s service and it was quite possible, now that Hammersley’s actual mission had been discovered, that he would take to cover, his mind clear in the thought that he had done all that could be expected of him. But there was a warm affection between the two, born of many a long day in the open and many a night by the campfire where the old man had taught him the Foresters’ secrets of the trees, the birds in their branches and of the many four-legged things that scurried beneath them. They had often talked, too, of many other things, and Hammersley had learned that Lindberg’s politics were those that one learns under the open sky—the eternal peace of Nature, before which war and men, its armed instruments, were a blasphemy.

Perhaps Lindberg would find a way. But what way? How? Udo von Winden, too, was aware of the woodcraft fellowship, for often he had made their duet a trio. Hammersley knew that Udo von Winden as yet suspected nothing of the services Lindberg had rendered him and he wondered whether in this pass the ties of kinship would be strong enough to keep him silent as to the possible capabilities of the old Forester for mischief in Hammersley’s behalf.

Hammersley hoped. He clung to the thought of Lindberg’s fidelity and affection as a dying man clings to the hope of Heaven. He tried to analyze the old man’s capacities for sympathy and courage. To help a man in his position seemed to require larger stores of both of these qualities than human clay was molded for. Lindberg did not fear death, he knew, but the death he courted was the kind of death Hammersley had saved him from, a good death in a fair game with a noble enemy, not the kind of death that awaited Hammersley, a cold, machine-made death against a kitchen wall. And he must know as Hammersley knew that this was what would follow.

The dusk faded into dark and the soldier lit a candle. Hammersley turned his head and examined him attentively. His face was unfamiliar at Blaufelden, one of the men probably sent down at von Stromberg’s orders from the upper district to be useful in just this emergency. Von Stromberg would make no mistakes, of course. He never did make mistakes. He had enough men about him to cope with the situation safely. He would leave no opportunity for his plans to miscarry. Any opportunity, should there be one, must be created. Hammersley managed to wriggle into a sitting posture on the bed and spoke to his captor in German.

“You wouldn’t mind my having a smoke, would you?” he asked.

The man looked at him, debating the matter.

“Just get into the side pocket of my jacket and fish out my pipe and tobacco, mein junger. I need a smoke badly. And so would you if you were going to be shot in the morning.”

“Ach, wohl. I see no harm in that, mein Herr. You cannot smoke yourself away.”

He came over, brought out Hammersley’s short pipe, filled it from the pouch and stuck it between his lips. Then he got out a match and lighted it while Hammersley puffed.

“Ah!” said Hammersley contentedly. “You are a good fellow. Tomorrow morning I will give you my blessing.”

The man paced stolidly up and down beside the bed.

“I am sorry for you, mein Herr. But it is life. It is all decided for us beforehand. We are here a moment and then we are gone.”

Hammersley smiled.

“A fatalist! Then perhaps you can tell me if there is any chance of my escape.”

He was stopped abruptly.

“I can tell you that there is not,” he said severely.

“I would have said as much. But it was a pardonable curiosity, nicht wahr?”

“Pardonable, ja wohl,” the man replied, “but most unseemly under the circumstances.”

“You have a deep sense of your responsibilities.”

“Ja. I obey my orders, that is all. I do not care what others do.”

“Therefore you will shoot me tomorrow.”

“Perhaps,” he shrugged. “I am but an instrument of Providence.” He waved his hand. “But I talk too much, and so do you. It is not seemly in a soldier and a prisoner.”

Hammersley laughed. “You have a fine sense of the fitness of things.”

“Ja. It was so written.”

He relapsed into silence and in spite of efforts on Hammersley’s part refused to speak further. It was only after Hammersley badgered him for his unsociability that he spoke with some asperity.

“I will trouble you to be quiet. When I am relieved, my successor may let you speak and laugh as much as you please. But it is unnatural in a man at the point of death. It would be better if you were saying your prayers.”

“I am sure that you are right. But I still have a few hours. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me the hour at which you are to be relieved—the hour when we are both of us to be relieved?”

The man gazed at him uncomprehendingly.

“After supper.” He finished indifferently, “Eight o’clock, perhaps.”

Hammersley was silent. Two hours or more to wait before a change of guards, and then only a chance that Lindberg would be able to do something. Even then if he managed to get loose, there was left little more than an hour in which to reach the road by which the machine would come from Berlin, and even then what should he do without Doris? His case was desperate. Only a miracle it seemed could make a success of what had been a pitiful failure; only an act of Providence could save him from the discreditable end that awaited him.

He drew up his knees and studied the knots at his ankles. His guardian was the one who had tied them.

“You tie a good square knot, my friend. You were once a sailor?”

But nothing would induce the soldier to talk.

As the supper hour approached, Hammersley could hear the rattle of pans and dishes downstairs and noticed the odor of coffee. They would not starve him, of course. In a little while someone would come with food. After a while, which seemed interminable, the noise of the rattling dishes ceased and there was a sound at the door into the hall as the key turned in the lock and Captain Wentz entered. His sturdy back had never seemed so ugly nor so welcome, for the silence and the inaction were getting on Hammersley’s nerves. The officer came over to the bed and gravely examined the knots of the rope that bound the prisoner. Then, satisfied with the results of his inspection, he straightened and glanced around the room.

“Gut,” he muttered. And then to the soldier: “You will go down and tell Lindberg to bring Herr Hammersley’s supper. I will stay here in the meanwhile. You will then relieve the man at the door of his Excellenz.”

The man saluted and departed. They still trusted Lindberg. Then Udo had suspected nothing, or if he had suspected, had kept his thoughts to himself. Hammersley lay back on the pillow preparing a stolid indifference for Lindberg’s entrance. And when the meal was brought, Wentz untied his hands and stood over him with an automatic while he ate.

“Your weapon makes a poor relish, Herr Hauptmann,” said Hammersley with a laugh.

“I greatly regret its necessity,” replied Wentz with his machine-made politeness.

Hammersley ventured nothing further, eating silently, and with a surprising appetite, for good Lindberg’s face in the background had given him new courage. When the meal was done, he asked for his pipe again and Wentz ordered the Forester to fill it. Hammersley inhaled the smoke and exhaled a sigh.

“So far as I am concerned, Herr Hauptmann,” he said with a smile, “when this pipe is finished you may kill me at once.”

He extended his wrists behind him in silence while Captain Wentz took half a dozen turns of the rope and made it fast. Hammersley sat up in bed puffing at his pipe and wondering whether some miracle might not be induced that would kill Wentz. But he was quickly disillusioned, for when Lindberg took the dishes and moved toward the door, he heard Wentz’s crisp orders:

“You will send Max Senf to take the first night watch upon the prisoner. He is awaiting my orders in the guard room. Schnell.”

Without even a glance at the prisoner Lindberg saluted and went out and Hammersley’s spirits fell. Help from Lindberg was impossible. Von Stromberg was taking every precaution. There was no way out of it. Hammersley was doomed. But while Wentz was in the room he kept a cheerful countenance, though for the first time in his life that he could remember his pipe was acrid. He saw the new guard enter and heard the last orders of the officer.

“You will watch until one o’clock when your relief will be sent. The prisoner is to be allowed no privileges. Under no circumstances are his hands to be untied. If he wants water, you will give it to him with your own hands. Verstehen sie?”