Pfeil obeyed smartly. With a savage jerk he exposed the face of his captive.
"Utter idiot!" shouted Andrew Norton in German. "Imbecile! You've blundered and spoilt everything."
CHAPTER VII
THE RAID
OBER-LEUTNANT JULIUS VON LORINGHOVEN recoiled a couple of paces in sheer amazement. The compartment in which he stood was strictly limited in point of size, or he might have stepped back even more, so great was his consternation. For some seconds he stood with his shoulders against the aluminium bulkhead, his small eyes protruding to their utmost capacity.
"Von Eitelwurmer!" he gurgled at last. "What does this mean?"
"It means," retorted Andrew Norton furiously, "that your men have wrecked everything. It is their duty to wreck everything English, I admit, but they have overreached themselves."
"I am sorry," said the ober-leutnant humbly, though the apology needed an effort. "The culprits will be duly punished."
"And serve them right," interrupted the kidnapped man. "But that will not mend matters. Our plans are completely upset; Barcroft will take warning; there will be no plausible excuse for my sudden departure—Ach, it is intolerable. Is it possible to set me down?"
Von Loringhoven shook his head.
"Impossible," he replied. "You must return with us to the Fatherland. Meanwhile I must take steps to justify the presence of this war-machine over the hated country."
Siegfried von Eitelwurmer was one of the German super-spies—a class far and above the host of ordinary spies that, in spite of the utmost vigilance on the part of the British government, still continue their activities although in a restricted form. To all outward appearance he was English born and bred. His mannerisms were entirely so. Even in his most excitable moods, for Teutonic stolidity was almost a stranger to him, he would never betray by word or gesture the fact that he was of Hunnish birth and sympathies. When he spoke in English his inflexion was as pure as a typical Midlander; his knowledge of British habits and customs was profound. In short, he was one of the most dangerous type of German agents that ever set foot on British soil.
It will be unnecessary to detail his past activities, which almost invariably he carried out successfully and without giving rise to suspicion, even at times when the espionage mania was at its height, and Britons were being arrested and detained on suspicion for various slight acts of indiscretion that they had committed in pure ignorance. A man might in all good faith take photographs of a place of national interest; an artist might make a sketch in the grounds of his own house—and be promptly haled before the magistrates and fined. The "powers-that-be" seem to be blind to the fact that a trained spy would not attempt to use a conspicuous camera. An instrument of the vest-pocket type would serve his purpose equally well and with little chance of detection.
It was the Kaiser's manifesto relating to the capture of the "dangerous" Peter Barcroft that turned the course of von Eitelwurmer's activities in the direction of Ladybird Fold—not wholly for the sake of the pecuniary reward, but with the idea of gaining additional kudos at the hands of his Imperial master.
The spy had little difficulty in tracing Barcroft's movements from the time he vacated Riversdale House in the village of Alderdene. The information that his quarry had removed to Tarleigh in Lancashire he had communicated to Berlin, but owing to a delay the news was not in time to prevent the Hun airman, von Bülow und Helferich, making his ill-fated flight to the south-eastern part of England.
Von Eitelwurmer's method of communicating with Berlin was simplicity itself, and as such ran less chance of detection than if he had resorted to elaborate and intricate means.
He would obtain catalogues from manufacturers living in the same town in which he had taken up his temporary abode. On the pages he would write with invisible ink—or even milk or lemon, both of which when dried naturally show no trace of their presence—his reports, taking the additional precaution of using a cipher which he could retain mentally and thus do away with the risk of incriminating documents.
The next step was to get possession of a printed wrapper bearing the name and address of the firm in question. The catalogue, enclosed in the wrapper, was then sent to a pseudo Englishman living in Holland, who, almost needless to say, was a German agent.
These reports were then sent in duplicate, one preceding the other in the space of three days. Fortunately or otherwise—according to the standpoint taken by interested parties—the first secret dispatch related to the movements of Peter Barcroft was lost in a Dutch mail-boat that a German submarine had sent to the bottom. The second resulted in Ober-leutnant von Loringhoven being dispatched on a Zeppelin raid with the primary intention of kidnapping the proscribed Englishman.
Julius von Loringhoven was an officer of the Imperial German Navy. In his youth he had served before the mast on board several British coasters with the idea of gaining intimate local knowledge of the harbours of the land that in due course would be an integral part of the vast and unassailable German Empire; for, like thousands of Germans he held the firm belief that the Emperor Wilhelm II was the rightful heir to the British throne by virtue of his descent through the eldest child of the late Queen Victoria.
It was on one of these coasting trips that von Loringhoven then a stripling of seventeen—was within an ace of losing his life. Ordered aloft on a winter's night to furl the topsail of the schooner "Pride o' Salcombe," he was benumbed with the piercing cold as he lay along the lee yard-arm. A burly British seaman saved him just as he was on the point of relaxing his hold. Gathering him in his arms the man brought him down on deck, little knowing what manner of young reptile he was nursing in his bosom. If von Loringhoven had had any spark of gratitude it had been smothered by the passion of "frightfulness" as expressed by dropping powerful explosives upon the defenceless civil population of the country to one of whose sons he owed his life.
A brief training at Friedrichshaven was followed by an exacting period at Borkum which qualified von Loringhoven for a series of flights across the North Sea to the East Coast of England. As yet he was merely a tyro, gaining practical experience under a veteran Zeppelin commander. But at last the day came when he was given sole charge of one of the Kaiser's giant gas-bags.
"Go and raid the counties of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire," were his superior officer's instructions. "That's a fairly safe game. You'll find little more than dummy guns against you. Acquit yourself well and you will be given an opportunity to take part in the forthcoming gigantic raid upon London."
This was before the time when, as the Huns knew to their cost, the "swarm of hornets" promised by a former First Lord of the Admiralty proved their existence.
And now, after twelve months of active Zeppelin service von Loringhoven was over Lancashire. One part of his mission foiled he had yet to exhibit Teutonic frightfulness to the dwellers of the large manufacturing town of Barborough.
The second in command of the Zeppelin was an unter-leutnant of the name of Klick. It was one of his triumphs to announce that he had been arrested in England as a spy. That was in those distant pre-war times. He had been "spotted" by a sentry while in the act of sketching a fortification in the neighbourhood of an important naval station, arrested and charged at a police-court. Committed to the County Assizes he was politely told by the judge that espionage was dishonourable. Klick smiled inwardly. To him spying was part of an important German military training—an organised procedure. Nevertheless he was agreeably surprised when he was allowed to go with the admonition, "Don't do it again."
Fortunately for Great Britain such misplaced leniency is a thing of the past. On Unter-leutnant Klick it was entirely thrown away. His typically German mind read the clemency as a sign of weakness. He came from a country where the only strength is "force majeur."