n the morning of the 21st,
three days from now, we attack the right wing of the British Army. In
two days we shall be in Amiens. On the third we shall have driven a
wedge as far as the sea. Then in a week or so we shall have rolled up
your army from the right, and presently we shall be in Boulogne and
Calais. After that Paris falls, and then Peace.'

I made no answer. The word 'Amiens' recalled Mary, and I was trying to
remember the day in January when she and I had motored south from that
pleasant city.

'Why do I tell you these things? Your intelligence, for you are not
altogether foolish, will have supplied the answer. It is because your
life is over. As your Shakespeare says, the rest is silence ... No, I
am not going to kill you. That would be crude, and I hate crudities. I
am going now on a little journey, and when I return in twenty-four
hours' time you will be my companion. You are going to visit Germany,
my dear General.'

That woke me to attention, and he noticed it, for he went on with gusto.

'You have heard of the _Untergrundbahn_? No? And you boast of an
Intelligence service! Yet your ignorance is shared by the whole of your
General Staff. It is a little organization of my own. By it we can take
unwilling and dangerous people inside our frontier to be dealt with as
we please. Some have gone from England and many from France. Officially
I believe they are recorded as "missing", but they did not go astray on
any battle-field. They have been gathered from their homes or from
hotels or offices or even the busy streets. I will not conceal from you
that the service of our Underground Railway is a little irregular from
England and France. But from Switzerland it is smooth as a trunk line.
There are unwatched spots on the frontier, and we have our agents among
the frontier guards, and we have no difficulty about passes. It is a
pretty device, and you will soon be privileged to observe its working
... In Germany I cannot promise you comfort, but I do not think your
life will be dull.'

As he spoke these words, his urbane smile changed to a grin of impish
malevolence. Even through my torpor I felt the venom and I shivered.

'When I return I shall have another companion.' His voice was honeyed
again. 'There is a certain pretty lady who was to be the bait to entice
me into Italy. It was so? Well, I have fallen to the bait. I have
arranged that she shall meet me this very night at a mountain inn on
the Italian s