tood outside the door, but unfortunately the doors of the "Ritz" are
so constructed that nothing can be heard in the corridors. All I knew
was that, on being called in to give a message over the telephone, I saw
lying on the table between them several English six-inch ordnance maps.

No master could have been more generous than the Baron. He was tall,
rather dandified, and seemed a great favourite with the ladies. Hartmann
had introduced him to certain well-known members of the German colony in
London, and he passed as the possessor of a big estate near Cochem, on
the Moselle. He told me one day while I was brushing his coat that he
preferred life in England to Germany. He, however, made no mention of
his residence in France and how he had ingeniously induced a French
naval officer to become a traitor.

From the "Ritz" we, later on, removed into expensive quarters at
"Claridge's," and here my master received frequent visits from a shabby,
thin-faced, shrivelled-up old foreigner, whom I took to be a Dutchman,
his name being Mr. Van Nierop.

Whenever he called the Baron and he held close consultation, sometimes
for hours. We travelled to Eastbourne, Bournemouth, Birmingham,
Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other cities, yet ever and anon the shabby old
Dutchman seemed to turn up at odd times and places, as though springing
from nowhere.

When absent from London, the Baron frequently sent telegraphic messages
in cipher to a registered address in London. Were these, I wondered,
intended for Hartmann or for the mysterious Van Nierop?

The old fellow seemed to haunt us everywhere, dogging our footsteps
continually, and appearing in all sorts of out-of-the-way places with
his long, greasy overcoat, shabby hat, and shuffling gait, by which many
mistook him for a Hebrew.

And the more closely I watched my aristocratic master, the more
convinced I became that Van Nierop and he were acting in collusion. But
of what was in progress I could obtain no inkling.

Frequently we moved quickly from one place to another, as though my
master feared pursuit, then we went suddenly to Aix, Vichy, and
Carlsbad, and remained away for some weeks. Early in the autumn we were
back again at a suite of well-furnished chambers in Clarges Street, off
Piccadilly.

"I expect, Dickson, that we shall be in London some months," the Baron
had said to me on the second morning after we had installed ourselves
with our luggage. The place belonged to a wealthy y