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Utrecht, with an office in the Höhe Strasse in Köln.”

His knees trembled so much that he sat down upon the ground regardless of kind people,

glad to be doing something, who passed the word back for a glass of water, a deputy was taken

ill—a judge of the Supreme Court had fainted—the President of the Reichstag was dying. His

mind raced on.

“I am not really Hendrik Brandt either, I am Hambledon, an agent of British Intelligence.

Bill, where is Bill?”

There was a crash and a roar of flame as one of the floors fell in, and Hambledon looked

up. That was the Reichstag burning. “Good God,” he thought, “and now I am a member of the

Reichstag. It’s enough to make anybody feel faint, it is indeed.”

Somebody handed him a glass of water, he sipped it and began to feel better, which was

as well since in a few moments he was pulled to his feet and dragged back with the recoiling

crowds as more fire-engines came rocketing down the Dorotheen Strasse and swung into the

Reichstag entrance.

“If the Herr Deputy is feeling better,” suggested his anonymous friend, “perhaps Your

Excellency could manage to pass back through the crowd and a cab could be summoned—”

“You are too kind,” said Hambledon, pulling himself together, “but there is no need. It

was a momentary weakness—I ran all the way here. I will rest a few minutes longer and then I

must go in and see the President.”

“I wonder who could possibly have done such a wicked thing,” said the man.

“They say it was the Communists,” said another voice. “They will be found out and

punished whoever they are,” said Hambledon authoritatively, wondering, as he spoke, whether

perhaps Bill had done it himself, Bill Saunders, who fired the Zeppelin sheds at Ahlhorn. He

thrust the idea from him, mustn’t think of things like that just now, he was Klaus Lehmann, a

member of the Reichstag, and he had to go and see Goering, the President.

Brown-shirt guards at the gate directed him to a spot near the President’s house, where

stood a group of men which included Franz von Papen, Hermann Goering, President of the

Reichstag, and the new Chancellor of the Reich, Adolf Hitler, talking earnestly together; they

looked round as Lehmann came up and greeted them. “This is a frightful thing,” he said.

“It is indeed a monstrous crime,” said the leader solemnly. “Yes, isn’t it?” said von Papen

cheerfully. “The same thought occurred to me as soon as I saw it,” and Goering burst out

laughing. “Is it known who did it?”

“The Communists did it, of course,” said Goering. “One of them has been caught—a

Dutchman, I believe.”

Lehmann’s heart almost stopped. A Dutchman—Bill Saunders had passed for a

Dutchman when they were working together for British Intelligence in Cologne during the war.

Klaus had been Hendrik Brandt, the Dutch importer, and Bill his young nephew Dirk Brandt

from South Africa.

“Who is he—is anything known about him?”

“His name is Van der Lubbe, I understand,” said Goering, indifferently. “A member of

some Communist gang in Holland, according to his papers. I don’t know any more about him.”

“Lubbe,” said von Papen in his light way. “A stupid name, it means ‘fat stupid’ in

English, you know.”

“Perhaps the English sent him,” suggested the Chancellor. Hambledon felt that if he had

just a little more of this he would be uncontrollably sick, yet he must hear more. “He must have

been rather stupid to be caught,” he said casually. “What was he doing?”

“Oh, running about with a torch,” said Goering. “The police saw him through one of the

windows and collared him as he came out.”

That didn’t sound like Bill, who was never seen if he didn’t want to be, and would

certainly not walk out straight into the arms of the police, unless he had lost his cunning and

taken to drink or something, men did who had lived his life, and he had a slight tendency that

way ... “Lehmann,” said the Chancellor in a tone of authority. Hambledon looked at him in the

light of the fire and noticed as though for the first time his insignificant form, his nervous

awkward gestures, and his mean little mouth set with obstinacy. “You moth-eaten little squirt,”

he thought, but all he said was, “Yes, Herr Reichkanzler?”

“I expect a large majority in the elections at the end of this week, there is no doubt of it

whatever, and the natural indignation of the people against the Communists on account of this

horrible outrage will only serve to augment it. I am, therefore, making arrangements already to

fill the principal posts in my Government. You will, I hope, accept the office of Deputy Chief of

Police.”

Police—the ideal post. If this fellow Van der Lubbe was Bill—”I am honoured, Herr

Reichkanzler,” he said with a bow. “That is well, you may regard the appointment as settled and

you will take office to-morrow. I am anxious to reward my faithful friends as they deserve, and

to surround myself with men I can trust. I know no one upon whom I place more reliance than I

do upon you, my dear Lehmann.”

“I shall continue to deserve it,” said Lehmann untruthfully, “and I thank you from the

bottom of my heart.”

“We are all sure you will know how to deal with the Communists,” said von Papen.

“Rout out the rats’ nests, what?”

Goering broke into another of his uproarious peals of laughter, and Klaus Lehmann took

his leave.

He walked slowly home, thinking deeply, and indeed he had so much to think about that

six minds at once would not have seemed enough to deal with the whole matter. As soon as he

started one train of thought, another would present itself and confuse him again. His reawakened

memory presented him with innumerable disconnected pictures from his past, von Bodenheim at

the Café Palant, the guilty faces of four small boys caught smoking behind the fives court at

Chappell’s School, Elsa Schwiss saying, “We love each other,” Bill in the antique dealer’s house

in Rotterdam saying, “Must I wear these boots?” and a free fight on the station platform at Mainz

between a drunken German private and an official courier. He stood still in the deserted Unter

den Linden and said sternly to himself, “Think of the future, you fool, not the past. If Van der

Lubbe is Bill—” He shook himself impatiently and remembered that he himself would be

dealing with Van der Lubbe in the morning and nothing could be done before then, so there was

no object in thinking about it now. Hitler’s plans, which he had so often heard discussed, the

reoccupation of the Rhineland and the Saar, the push to the East, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia,

Poland, the Ukraine, the Balkan States, one foot on the Black Sea and the other on the Baltic;

then turning West again, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, the subjugation of France and finally the

conquest of the British Empire—Lehmann had often thought the plans too grandiose to be

practical, but as a German they had seemed more than admirable. As an Englishman—he walked

on again—as an Englishman they were definitely out of the question and must be stopped at the

earliest possible moment.

He admitted quite frankly to himself that he had immense sympathy with Germany, he

had lived there for years and had shared in the piteous unmerited suffering of millions of quiet,

decent people. He had worked for ten years to rehabilitate Germany and had succeeded, and he

told himself defiantly that if he had known all the time that he was a British agent, he would have

worked to that end just the same. The people were all right, they were fine, it was only their

rulers who were so impossible to live with internationally, first the Kaiser and now this fellow

Hitler. Someone had said that nations got the governments they deserved; if that were true there

was something the matter with a race which could throw up and support a succession of fanatical

megalomaniacs.

At this point he stopped again and actually blushed, for he suddenly remembered that few

men had had more to do with promoting the rise of this fellow Hitler than he himself.

“The trouble is,” he said, “that I’m thinking like an Englishman with half my mind and

like a German with the other half.”

He regarded this unpleasant predicament for a moment, and came to a decision.

“Since this is largely your fault, you interfering chump, it’s up to you to put a spoke in

their wheel. And I will.”

After which the British agent went home, reassured his adoptive aunt and went to bed.

The last thought that occurred to him as his head touched the pillow was a comforting one.

“But oh, what a marvellous, incredibly heaven-sent position I’m in. And to think Hitler’s

paying me for this! Money for old rope—” He slept peacefully.

In the morning it was his first care to interview Van der Lubbe at the earliest possible

moment, an enthusiastic newly appointed Deputy Chief of Police naturally would, anyway. Van

der Lubbe turned out to be about as different from Bill Saunders as was possible within the limits

of humanity. The prisoner was a fat, unhealthy, over-grown oaf, practically subhuman in

intelligence. Hambledon sighed with relief. On the other hand, it was obvious at sight that this

moron could never have thought out a scheme for firing the Reichstag; he did not look capable of

lighting a domestic gas-ring without burning his fingers. Then the question arose, if Van der

Lubbe wasn’t responsible, who was?

At the time of the fire, the police had thrown a cordon round the Reichstag and its

environs, and arrested everyone who might conceivably either have had a hand in the crime or

have seen something significant which they could be induced to tell. These unlucky ones

numbered some hundreds, and Lehmann spent many days in his new office examining suspects.

Among their number was a frowsty old man who sold newspapers on the streets; he was well

known to the police in that capacity and would not have been the object of the slightest suspicion

had it not been for his state of almost uncontrollable nervousness. Why should he be so

frightened if he had a perfectly clear conscience?

The old man stood before the desk at which Lehmann was sitting and replied unwillingly

to the questions which were fired at him. An S.S. man in the famous brown uniform, who had

brought in the prisoner, now-stood by the door, and the news-vendor shot agitated glances over

his shoulder at the man from time to time.

“What is your name?” asked Lehmann.

“Johann.”

“Surname?”

The man hesitated, and said, “Schaffer.”

“Johann Schaffer. Address?”

“Haven’t got one.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“Anywhere.”

“No fixed abode. What were you doing on the night of the Reichstag fire?”

“Nothing. Only walking along selling papers.”

“Walking along where?”

“Konigsgratzer Strasse.”

“At what time?”

“Just before ten.”

“Very late, wasn’t it, to be selling papers? Surely the last edition is much earlier than

that?”

“I had some left,” said Johann Schaffer, and looked for the first time straight at the

questioner. What he saw in Lehmann’s face did not appear to reassure him. He looked first

puzzled, then incredulous, turned even a more unpleasant colour than he had been before,

swayed forward against Lehmann’s big desk and placed his hands on it for support. He continued

to stare and Lehmann, mildly surprised, stared back.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. Nothing whatever.”

Johann began to drum nervously with his first finger on Lehmann’s desk.

“What did you see of the fire?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t be absurd, man! You were within a few hundred yards of one of the most

spectacular fires in history, and you saw nothing of it! Why not?”

“No business of mine. I always mind my own business. Don’t like being dragged into

things.”

The irritating drumming on the desk continued, rhythmic but irregular, dactylic.

Lehmann, who had not noticed it at first, suddenly found himself listening to it with interest.

“What was your profession before you sold newspapers?”

“I—have seen better days.”

“Heaven help us, I should hope so. I said, what was your profession?”

“I was a schoolmaster,” said the old man, slowly and reluctantly. Lehmann leaned

forward across the desk till his face was near the other’s, stared into his eyes, and said, in a low

tone that could not reach the ears of the S.S. man by the door, “Not a wireless operator?”

Johann Schaffer gasped, closed his eyes and slid to the floor in a dead faint.

“Take him away,” said Lehmann as the guard sprang forward. “Tidy him up. Wash him

—de-louse him if necessary, and I expect it is—and bring him back here at ten o’clock to-

morrow.”

At the appointed hour a clean, tidy old man, with his scrubby whiskers shaved off, was

brought into Lehmann’s room. Klaus looked him up and down, and said to the guard, “Are you

sure this is the same man?”

“Quite sure, Excellency,” said the man with a grin. “Merciful heavens, what a little soap

and water will do.”

“You should have seen what we took off him,” began the man, but Lehmann said with a