The Lost Naval Papers | Page 8

a whisper of
Hagan's movements steal over the wires into the ears of the spider
Dawson. He reported progress to Cary with ever-increasing
satisfaction.
"Hagan has applied for and been granted a passport to Holland, and has
booked a passage in the boat which leaves Harwich to-night for the
Hook. We will go with him. The other two spies, with the copies,
haven't turned up yet, but they are all right. My men will see them safe
across into Dutch territory, and make sure that no blundering Customs
officer interferes with their papers. This time the way of transgressors
shall be very soft. As for Hagan, he is not going to arrive."
"I don't quite understand why you carry on so long with him," said
Cary, who, though tired, could not but feel intense interest in the
perfection of the police system and in the serene confidence of Dawson.
The Yard could, it appeared, do unto the spies precisely what Dawson
chose to direct.
"Hagan is an American citizen," explained Dawson. "If he had been a
British subject I would have taken him at Euston--we have full
evidence of the burglary, and of the stolen papers in his suit-case. But
as he is a damned unbenevolent neutral we must prove his intention to
sell the papers to Germany. Then we can deal with him by secret
court-martial.[1] The journey to Holland will prove this intention.
Hagan has been most useful to us in Ireland, and now in the North of
England and in Scotland, but he is too enterprising and too daring to be
left any longer on the string. I will draw the ends together at the Hook."
[Footnote 1: Author's Note: This conversation is dated May, 1916.]
"I did not want to go to Holland," said Cary to me, when telling his
story. "I was utterly sick and disgusted with the whole cold-blooded
game of cat and mouse, but the police needed my evidence about the
Notes and the burglary, and did not intend to let me slip out of their
clutches. Dawson was very civil and pleasant, but I was in fact as
tightly held upon his string as was the wretched Hagan. So I went on to
Holland with that quick-change artist, and watched him come on board

the steamer at Parkeston Quay, dressed as a rather German-looking
commercial traveller, eager for war commissions upon smuggled goods.
This sounds absurd, but his get-up seemed somehow to suggest the idea.
Then I went below. Dawson always kept away from me whenever
Hagan might have seen us together."
The passage across to Holland was free from incident; there was no
sign that we were at war, and Continental traffic was being carried
serenely on, within easy striking distance of the German submarine
base at Zeebrugge. The steamer had drawn in to the Hook beside the
train, and Hagan was approaching the gangway, suit-case in hand. The
man was on the edge of safety; once upon Dutch soil, Dawson could
not have laid hands upon him. He would have been a neutral citizen in
a neutral country, and no English warrant would run against him. But
between Hagan and the gangway suddenly interposed the tall form of
the ship's captain; instantly the man was ringed about by officers, and
before he could say a word or move a hand he was gripped hard and led
across the deck to the steamer's chart-house. Therein sat Dawson, the
real, undisguised Dawson, and beside him sat Richard Cary. Hagan's
face, which two minutes earlier had been glowing with triumph and
with the anticipation of German gold beyond the dreams of avarice,
went white as chalk. He staggered and gasped as one stabbed to the
heart, and dropped into a chair. His suit-case fell from his relaxed
fingers to the floor.
"Give him a stiff brandy-and-soda," directed Dawson, almost kindly,
and when the victim's colour had ebbed back a little from his
overcharged heart, and he had drunk deep of the friendly cordial, the
detective put him out of pain. The game of cat and mouse was over.
"It is all up, Hagan," said the detective gently. "Face the music and
make the best of it, my poor friend. This is Mr. Richard Cary, and you
have not for a moment been out of our sight since you left London for
the North four days ago."
When I had completed the writing of his story I showed the MS. to
Richard Cary, who was pleased to express a general approval. "Not at
all bad, Copplestone," said he, "not at all bad. You have clothed my dry

bones in real flesh and blood. But you have missed what to me is the
outstanding feature of the whole affair, that which justifies to my mind
the whole