Graham Greene by The Spy's Bedside Book Page A

Fatherland will suffer.
    Mrs Sanderson:
Yes, you’re quite right. The cause demands it.She
pulls herself together and turns to
FRITZ .) Where is the petrol stored?
    Fritz:
In de shmall, empdy room.
    Mrs Sanderson
(to FRITZ ): Mr Carl will give you his orders. Do nothing until you have heard from him. (She
turns to
FRÄULEIN SCHROEDER .) You have packed, Luise?
    Fräulein:
Everything. After twenty long years of exile, I return to my own land. (She
draws her handkerchief from her belt, and dabs at her eyes.
) It is too good—too good!
    Mrs Sanderson:
What about your drawings?
    Fräulein:
They are here. (She
takes them from her bag, and gives them to
FRITZ .) I have addressed them. They are all ready. You will post them.
    ( FRITZ
takes the letter, slips it into his pocket, and moves up to the door.
)
    Mrs Sanderson:
You are sending them to London?
    Fräulein:
To our good friend, Mr Smith. From him they go to Holland, and from Holland to Berlin. It is so simple. (
She presses her hand to her forehead.
) I think I go now to rest until the dinner hour.
    LECHMERE WORRALL AND J. E. HAROLD TERRY

30. THE CASE OF THE DIXON TORPEDO
    ewitt was very apt in conversation to dwell upon the many curious chances and coincidences that he had observed, not only in connection with his own cases, but also in matters dealt with by the official police, with whom he was on terms of pretty regular and, indeed, friendly acquaintanceship. He has told me many an anecdote of singular happenings to Scotland Yard officials with whom he has exchanged experiences. Of Inspector Nettings, for instance, who spent many weary months in a search for a man wanted by the American Government, and in the end found, by the merest accident (a misdirected call), that the man had been lodging next door to himself the whole of the time; just as ignorant, of course, as was the inspector himself as to the enemy at the other side of the party-wall. Many criminals had met their deserts by venturing out of their own particular line of crime into another: often a man who got into trouble over something comparatively small, found himself in for a startlingly larger trouble, the result of some previous misdeed that otherwise would have gone unpunished. The rouble note-forger, Mirsky, might never have been handed over to the Russian authorities had he confined his genius to forgery alone. It was generally supposed at the time of his extradition that he had communicated with the Russian Embassy with a view to giving himself up—a foolish proceeding on his part, it would seem, since his whereabouts, indeed, even his identity as the forger, had not been suspected. He
had
communicated with the Russian Embassy, it is true, but for quite a different purpose, as Martin Hewitt well understood at the time. What the purpose was is now for the first time published.
    The time was half-past one in the afternoon, and Hewitt sat in his inner office examining and comparing the handwriting of two letters by the aid of a large lens. He put down the lens and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece with a premonition of lunch; and as he did so his clerk quietly entered the room with one of those printed slips which were kept for the announcement of unknown visitors.
    It was filled up in a hasty and almost illegible hand thus:
    Name of visitor:
F. Graham Dixon
    Address:
Chancery Lane
    Business:
Private and urgent
    â€œShow Mr Dixon in,” said Martin Hewitt.
    Mr Dixon was a gaunt, worn-looking man of fifty or so, well although rather carelessly dressed, and carrying in his strong though drawn face and dullish eyes the look that characterises the life-long strenuous brain-worker. He leaned forward anxiously in the chair which Hewitt offered him, and told his story with a great deal of very natural agitation.
    â€œYou may possibly have heard, Mr Hewitt—I know there are rumours—of the new locomotive torpedo which the Government is thinking about adopting; it is, in