Edgar Wallace

“ She asked me if I had heard about the lathe at Woolwich, and I said that I had heard rumors that there was such a lathe. She was quite overjoyed at the opportunity of giving me information, and asked me whether in the event of her showing me the prints I would keep the fact a great secret, because,” he laughed softly, “she did not think her father would like the print to leave his office!”
“You must be careful of this girl,” I said, “she may be detected.”
“There is no danger, my dear fellow,” said Alexander, “she is the shrewdest little woman in the world. ”

“ It is not generally known that the royal and high-born Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria is rightful king of Scotland. Tremble, wild Wales and unreliable Ireland when you come in arms against a land which can produce such men as Alexander Koos! ”

“ The Scotch or Scots are shrewder in business, but very simple people, practically ignorant as are the English of European politics, and very naïve in all matters affecting the state.
Moreover, as I had discovered on several of my visits, the Scots are not particularly well disposed to their southern neighbors, and I have heard many insulting references made by them against the others. It is quite a common thing to hear the expressions of scorn, “A close-fisted Scot” or “A pudding-headed Englishman,” while in Wales neither the Scots nor the English are popular. ”

“ SECRET-SERVICE work is a joke in peace time and it is paid at joke rates. People talk of the fabulous sums of money , which our government spends on this kind of work, and I have no doubt a very large sum was spent every year, but it had to go a long way. ”

“ Other useful investigators are Turkish-bath attendants and dentists. A man in a dentist’s chair is always nervous and will try to make friends with the surgeon who is operating on him. Of all agents, the waiter is in reality the least useful because writers have been pointing out for so many years the fact that most waiters were German, although the truth is that most restaurant waiters are Italian, and it is among the bedroom waiters that you find a preponderance of my fellow countrymen. ”

“ Another department of my work which kept me busy was the money-lending department. I had initiated a system of inquiry into the financial affairs of officers and I was able to keep track of all officers who were in financial difficulties. This department had been a very great disappointment to us, for in spite of the fact that we had the power to ruin hundreds of careers we have never been able to employ that power profitably.
The British officer is absolutely unscrupulous and has no sense of honor. ”

“ An only daughter, and a little spoiled, I am afraid; she knows secrets of construction of which even the techincal experts of the government are ignorant. Can you imagine a German talking over military secrets with his daughter?”
“The English are a little mad, as I have remarked before,” said I.
I then closely questioned Koos as to the activity of the police. It was naturally to be expected that Woolwich would be well guarded and that strangers would arouse suspicion. ”

“ Often our agents have offered to release them from their liabilities in return for some trifling service, and these people have preferred to live under the odium of owing people money to securing an honorable release from their debts by some simple little obliging act such as giving us particulars of their brother officers’ losses at cards, and the like. ”

“ Also officers will occasionally talk at lunch and dinner and will tell their womenfolk military secrets which a waiter can mentally note and convey to the proper quarters. Our best agents, however, were barbers, tailors, chiropodists and dentists. English people will always discuss matters with a barber or with the man who is fitting them with their clothes, and as almost every tailor was making military uniforms and a very large number of the tailors in London were either German or Austrian, I had quite a wealth of news.
Tailors are useful because they work to time. ”

“ I laughed again.
“I could have done very well without her assistance, of course,” he went on; “as a matter of fact I had met one or two very excellent Englishmen who, with their usual penchant for boastfulness, were able to supply me with particulars of a new gun lathe of which they are very proud. ”

“ I have a considerable respect for the Scotland Yard routine—investigation. No, my sirs, you do us no justice when you talk of “German spies.” Search not for the “Hun” as in the bitterness of your impotent rage you call us, but for the——
I think I have said that much of my time was taken up by answering telephone calls.
You must remember that I was in London as the representative of a Chinese News Bureau. I was also an agent for a firm of importers in Shanghai. It was, therefore, only natural that I should be called up all hours of the day and night with offers of goods. ”

“ Every German agent would prove his bona fides by producing three used postage stamps of Nicaragua. It is a simple method of identification, for there is nothing treasonable or suspicious in a man carrying about in his pocketbook a ten, twenty or a fifty-centime stamp of a neutral country.
I sent Emil Stein away to Portsmouth and instructed him to make contact with sailors of the fleet, especially with officers. ”

“ The relations of soldiers are always willing to talk about their men and will tell you, if they know, when they are leaving, the ships they are leaving by, and will sometimes give you other important facts, but particularly about ports and dates of embarkation their information is useful. ”