ormation that he
was taking people by automobile out through Liege into Holland,
giving one thus the opportunity to see a great many troops and
ruins along the way. I told him I had some money and would be
glad to invest in such a trip, at the same time giving him my
address at the Hotel Metropole. Guileless as he appeared, he
turned out to be an agent of the German Government. He naturally
wanted to make himself solid with his masters by delivering the goods,
so he had twisted all my words into the most damning evidence,
and had fixed up two or three witnesses ready to swear anything.

"No use wasting time or effort to save this man," they told de Leval
at the American Embassy, later. "We've got a cast-iron case
against him, with witnesses to back it up."

Javert no doubt proved himself an invaluable ally of the Dutchman
in fixing up the charges. I don't believe he would manufacture a
story out of whole cloth, but once his mind was set in a certain
direction he could build up a good one on very shaky foundations.
Perhaps he had an animus against these bumptious, undeferential,
overcritical Americans, and thought it was time to give one of them
a lesson. Perhaps he was tired of trapping ordinary garden variety
spies of the Belgian brand. It would be a pleasing variation in the
monotony of convicting defenseless, helpless Belgians if he
could show that one of these fellows masquerading as Americans
was a sham. Especially one of that journalistic tribe that had been
sending out reports of German atrocities. Furthermore, it would
redound greatly to his professional glory to hand me over to the
General with a case proved to the hilt.

There was no trick in the repertory of a prosecutor that was
unknown to Javert. He now shifted to the confidential and dropping
His voice very low, he said to me:

"You know that if you make a full, complete confession, I'll promise
to do my very best for you. And as a matter of fact you have been
under the eyes of our Secret Service ever since you came to
Belgium. We are aware of everything that you have done."

Was that a bluff or the truth? If it was true then they knew about
my capture near Louvain on the day before in suspicious
observation of the signaling-balloon. If this was a bluff, then my
confession would be simply a case of gratuitously damning myself
and likewise endangering my companion of yesterday's adventure--the
British lieutenant with the American passport. Yet again