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Great Secret

<h2 id="id02130" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXX</h2> <h5 id="id02131">THE "WAITERS' UNION"</h5> Guest and I had taken small rooms not a hundred yards from the Café Suisse, as the restaurant was called. We made our way there immediately after we had settled with our friend Karl, and Guest locked the door of our tiny sitting-room behind us. He first of all walked round the room and felt the wall carefully. Then he seated himself in front of the table and motioned me to draw my chair up almost to his side. "My young friend," he said, "we have now reached the most difficult part of our enterprise. For several days we have not spoken together confidentially. I have not even told you the little I was able to discover in Hamburg. Shall I go on?" "Of course," I answered. "Take off your gloves," Guest said. "You cannot wear them in the restaurant. Good! Now, first of all, have you seen the morning papers?" "No!" I answered. He produced one from his pocket, and, placing it before me, pointed to a paragraph. "Read," he said, "your obituary notice." This is what I read: <h5 id="id02140">"TRAGIC DEATH OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN IN THE ROCKIES</h5> "Yesterday, whilst Mr. Charles Urnans and a party of friends from New York were returning to their camp near Mount Phoenix, they came across the body of a man in a deserted gorge half-way down the mountain. He had apparently been shot through the heart by a rifle bullet, and must have been dead for some weeks. From papers and other belongings found in his possesion, the deceased gentleman appears to have been a Mr. Hardross Courage of England." <h5 id="id02142">LATER</h5> "The body found this morning by Mr. Charles Urnans of New York has been identified as that of Mr. Hardross Courage, the famous English cricketer and well-known sportsman. Mr. Courage is known to have left New York some months ago, for a hunting trip in the Rockies, and nothing has been heard of him for some time. No trace has been discovered of his guides, although his camp and outfit were found close at hand. As no money or valuables were discovered on the body of the deceased, it is feared that he has met with foul play." I think that no man can read his own obituary notice without a shiver. For a moment I lost my nerve. I cursed the moment when I had met Guest, I felt an intense, sick hatred of my present occupation and everything connected with it. I felt myself guilty of this man's death. Guest listened to my incoherent words gravely. When I had finished he laid his hand upon nine. "Gently, Courage," he said. "I knew that this must be a shock to you, but you must not lose your sense of proportion. Think of the men who have sacrificed their lives for just causes, remember that you and I to-day, and from to-day onward, can never be sure that each moment is not our last. Remember that we are working to save our country from ruin, to save Europe from a war in which not one life, but a hundred thousand might perish. Remember that you and I alone are struggling to frustrate the greatest, the most subtle, the most far-reaching plot which the mind of man ever conceived. That poor fellow who lies out on the Rockies with a bullet in his heart, is only a tiny link in the great chain: you or I may share his fate at any moment. Be a man, Courage. We have no time for sentiment." "You are right," I answered. "Go on." "We are now," Guest declared, "in this position. In Hamburg I discovered the meeting-place of the No. 1 Branch of the Waiters' Union, and the place itself is now under our control. In that room at the Café Suisse will be woven the final threads of the great scheme. How are we to get there? How are we to penetrate its secrets?" "We must see the room first," I remarked. "And then there is the question of ourselves," Guest continued. "We are both nominally dead men. But none the less, our friends leave little to chance. You may not have noticed it, but I knew very well that we were followed home to-day from the café. Every moment of ours will be spied upon. Is the change in our appearance sufficient?" I looked at myself in the little gilt mirror over the mantel-piece. Perhaps because I looked, thinking of myself as I had been in the days before these strange happenings had come into my life, I answered his question promptly. "I cannot believe," I said, "that any one would know me for Hardross Courage. I am perfectly certain, too, that I should not recognize in you to-day the Leslie Guest who—died at Saxby." "I believe that you are right," Guest admitted. "At any rate, it is one of those matters which we must leave no chance. Only keep your identity always before you. At the Café Suisse we shall be watched every moment of the day. Remember that you are a German-American of humble birth. Remember that always." I nodded. "I am not an impulsive person," I answered. "I am used to think before I speak. I shall remember. But there is one thing I am afraid of, Guest. It must also have occurred to you. Now that the Café Suisse is in the hands of strangers, will not your friends change their meeting-place?" "I think not," Guest answered slowly. "I know a little already about that room. It has a hidden exit, by way of the cellar, into a court, every house of which is occupied by foreigners. A surprise on either side would be exceedingly difficult. I do not think that our friends will be anxious to give up the place, unless their suspicions are aroused concerning us. You see their time is very close at hand now. This, at any rate, is another of the risks which we must run." "Very well," I answered, "You see the time?" Guest nodded. "I am going to explain to you exactly," he said, "what you have to do." "Right," I answered. "The parcel on the sofa there," he said, "contains a second-hand suit of dress clothes. You will put them on, over them your old black overcoat which we bought at Hamburg, and your bowler hat. At four o'clock precisely you will call at the offices of the German Waiters' Union, at No. 13, Old Compton Street, and ask for Mr. Hirsch. Your name is Paul Schmidt. You were born in Offenbach, but went to America at the age of four. You were back in Germany for two years at the age of nineteen, and you have served your time at Mayence. You have come to England with an uncle, who has taken a small restaurant in Soho, and who proposes to engage you as head-waiter. You will be enrolled as a member of the Waiters' Union, as a matter of course; but when that has been arranged you write on a slip of paper these words, and pass them to Mr. Hirsch—'I, too, have a rifle'!" I was beginning to get interested. "'I, too, have a rifle,'" I repeated. "Yes! I can remember that; but I shall be talking like a poll-parrot for I shan't have the least idea what it means." "You need not know much," Guest answered. "Those words are your passport into the No. 1 Branch of the Waiters' Union, whose committee, by the bye meet at the Café Suisse. If you are asked why you wish to join, you need only say because you are a German!" "Right," I answered. "I'll get into the clothes." Guest gave me a few more instructions while I was changing, and by four o'clock punctually I opened the swing door of No. 13, Old Compton Street. The place consisted of a waiting-room, very bare and very dirty; a counter, behind which two or three clerks were very busy writing in ponderous, well-worn ledgers, and an inner door. I made my way towards one of the clerks, and inquired in my best German if I could see Mr. Hirsch. The clerk—he was as weedy a looking youth as ever I had seen—pointed with ink-stained finger to the benches which lined the room. "You wait your turn," he said, and waved me away. I took my place behind at least a dozen boys and young men, whose avocation was unmistakable. Most of them were smoking either cigarettes or a pipe, and most of them were untidy and unhealthy looking. They took no notice of me, but sat watching the door to the inner room, which opened and shut with wonderful rapidity. Every time one of their number came out, another took his place. It came to my turn sooner than I could have believed possible. I found myself in a small office, untidy, barely furnished, and thick with tobacco smoke. Its only occupant was a stout man, with flaxen hair and beard, and mild blue eyes. He was sitting in his shirt-sleeves, and smoking a very black cigar. "Well?" he exclaimed, almost before I had crossed the threshold. "My name is Paul Schmidt," I said, "and I should like to join the Waiters' Union." "Born?" "Offenbach!" "Age?" "Thirty!" "Working?" "Café Suisse!" "Come from?" "America!" He tossed me a small handbook. "Half-a-crown," he said; holding out his hand. I gave it him. I was beginning to understand why I had not been kept very long waiting. "Clear out!" he said. "No questions, please. The book tells you everything!" I looked him in the face. "I, too, have a rifle," I said boldly. I found, then, that those blue eyes were not so mild as they seemed. His glance seemed to cut me through and through. "You understand what you are saying?" he asked. "Yes!" I answered. "I want to join the No. 1 Branch." "Why?" "Because I am a German," I answered. "Who told you about it?" "A waiter named Hans in the Manhattan Hotel, New York." I lied with commendable promptitude. "Have you served?" he asked. "At Mayence, eleven years ago," I answered. "Where did you say that you were working?" he asked. "Café Suisse!" I said. It seemed to me that he had been on the point of entering my name in a small ledger, which he had produced from one of the drawers by his side, but my answer apparently electrified him. His eyes literally held mine. He stared at me steadily for several moments. "How long have you been there?" he asked. "I do not recognize you." "I commence to-day," I said. "My uncle has just taken the café. He will make me his head-waiter." "Has your uncle been in the business before?" he asked. "He kept a saloon in Brooklyn," I answered. "Made money at it?" "Yes!" "Were you with him?" "No! I was at the Manhattan Hotel." "Your uncle will not make a fortune at the Café Suisse," he remarked. "I do not think," I answered, "that he will lose one." "Does he know what you propose?" I shook my head. "The fatherland means little to him," I answered. "He has lived in America too long." "You are willing to buy your own rifle?" he asked. "I would rather not," I answered. "We sell them for a trifle," he continued. "You would not mind ten shillings." "I would rather pay nothing," I answered, "but I will pay ten shillings if I must." He nodded. "I cannot accept you myself," he said. "We know too little about you. You must attend before the committee to-night." "Where?" I asked. "At the Café Suisse," he answered. "We shall send for you! Till then!" "Till then," I echoed, backing out of the room. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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