George Gibbs - The Maker of Opportunities

“You’ve bought experience.”

“Cheap at any cost. You can’t buy fear. Love comes in varieties at the market values. Hate can be bought for a song; but fear, genuine and amazing, is priceless – a gem which only opportunity can provide; and how seldom opportunity knocks at any man’s door!”

“Crabb the original – the esoteric!”

“Yes. The same. The very same. And you, how different! How sober and rounded!”

There was a silence, contemplative, retrospective on both their parts. Crabb broke it.

“Tell me, old man,” he said, “about your position. Isn’t there any chance?”

Burnett smiled a little bitterly.

“I’m a consular clerk at twelve hundred a year during good behavior. When I’ve said that, I’ve said it all.”

“But your future?”

“I’m not in line of promotion.”

“Impossible! Politics?”

“Exactly. I’ve no pull to speak of.”

“But your service?”

“I’ve been paid for that.”

“Isn’t there any other way?”

“Oh, yes,” Burnett laughed, “that treaty. I happened to know something about it when I was out there. It has to do with neutrality, trade ports and coaling stations; but just what, the devil only knows, and his deputy, Baron Arnim, won’t tell. Arnim is now in Washington, ostensibly sight-seeing, but really to confer with Von Schlichter, the ambassador there, about it. You see, we’ve got rather more closely into the Eastern question than we really like, and a knowledge of Germany’s attitude is immensely important to us.”

“Pray go on,” drawled Crabb.

“That’s all there is. The rest was a joke. Crowthers wants me to get the text of that treaty from Baron Arnim’s dispatch-box.”

“Entertaining!” said Crabb, with clouding brow. And then, after a pause, with all the seriousness in the world: “And aren’t you going to?”

Burnett turned to look at him in surprise.

“What?”

“Get it. The treaty.”

“The treaty! From Baron Arnim! You don’t know much of diplomacy, Crabb.”

“You misunderstood me,” he said, coolly; and then, with lowered voice:

“Not from Baron Arnim – from Baron Arnim’s dispatch-box.”

Burnett looked at his acquaintance in a maze. Crabb had been thought a mystery in the old days. He was an enigma now.

“Surely you’re jesting.”

“Why? It oughtn’t to be difficult.”

Burnett looked fearfully around the room at their distant neighbors. “But it’s burglary. Worse than that. If I, in my connection with the State Department, were discovered tampering with the papers of a foreign government, it would lead to endless complications and, perhaps, the disruption of diplomatic relations. Such a thing is impossible. Its very impossibility was the one thing which prompted Crowthers’ suggestion. Can’t you understand that?”

Crabb was stroking his chin and contemplating his well-shaped boot.

“Admit that it’s impossible,” he said calmly. “Do you think, if by some chance you were enabled to give the Secretary of State this information, you’d better your condition?”

“What is the use, Crabb?” began Burnett.

“It can’t do any harm to answer me.”

“Well – yes, I suppose so. If we weren’t plunged immediately into war with Emperor William.”

“Oh!” Crabb was deep in thought. It was several moments before he went on, and then, as though dismissing the subject.

“What are your plans, Ross? Have you a week to spare? How about a cruise on the Blue Wing ? There’s a lot I know that you don’t, and a lot you know that I’d like to. I’ll take you up to Washington whenever you’re bored. What do you say?”

Ross Burnett accepted with alacrity. He remembered the Blue Wing , Jepson and Valentin’s dinners. He had longed for them many times when he was eating spaghetti at Gabri’s little restaurant in Genoa.

When they parted it was with a consciousness on the part of Burnett that the affair of Baron Arnim had not been dismissed. The very thought had been madness. Was it only a little pleasantry of Crabb’s? If not, what wild plan had entered his head? It was unlike the Mortimer Crabb he remembered.

And yet there had been a deeper current flowing below his placid surface that gave a suggestion of desperate intent which nothing could explain away. And how illimitable were the possibilities if some plan could be devised by which the information could be obtained without resort to violent measures! It meant for him at least a post at the helm somewhere, or, perhaps, a secretaryship on one of the big commissions.

The idea of burglary, flagrant and nefarious, he dismissed at a thought. Would there not be some way – an unguarded moment – a faithless servant – to give the thing the aspect of possible achievement? As he dressed he found himself thinking of the matter with more seriousness than it deserved.

A week had passed since the two friends had met, and the Blue Wing now lay in the Potomac near the Seventh Street wharf. It was night and the men had dined.

Valentin’s dinners were a distinct achievement. They were of the kind which made conclusive the assumption of an especial heaven for cooks. After coffee and over a cigar, which made all things complete, Mortimer Crabb chose his psychological moment.

“Burnett,” he said, “you must see that treaty and copy it.”

Burnett looked at him squarely. Crabb’s glance never wavered.

“So you did mean it?” said Burnett.

“Every word. You must have it. I’m going to help.”

“It’s hopeless.”

“Perhaps. But the game is worth the candle.”

“A bribe to a servant?”

“Leave that to me. Come, come, Ross, it’s the chance of your life. Arnim, Von Schlichter and all the rest of them dine at the British embassy to-night. There’s to be a ball afterward. They won’t be back until late. We must get into Arnim’s rooms at the German embassy. Those rooms are in the rear of the house. There’s a rain spout and a back building. You can climb?”

“To-night?” Burnett gasped. “You found out these things to-day?”

“Since I left you. I saw Denton Thorpe at the British embassy.”

“And you were so sure I’d agree! Don’t you think, old man – ”

“Hang it all, Burnett! I’m not easily deceived. You’re down on your luck; that’s plain. But you’re not beaten. Any man who can buck the market down to his last thousand the way you did doesn’t lack sand. The end isn’t an ignoble one. You’ll be doing the Administration a service – and yourself. Why, how can you pause?”

Burnett looked around at the familiar fittings of the saloon, at the Braun prints let into the woodwork, at the flying teal set in the azure above the wainscoting, at his immaculate host and at his own conventional black. Was this to be indeed a setting for Machiavellian conspiracy?

Crabb got up from the table and opened the doors of a large locker under the companion. Burnett watched him curiously.

Garment after garment he pulled out upon the deck under the glare of the cabin lamp; shoes, hats and caps, overcoats and clothing of all sizes and shapes from the braided gray of the coster to the velvet and sash of the Niçois.

He selected a soft hat and a cap and two long, tattered coats of ancient cut and style and threw them over the back of a chair. Then he went to his stateroom and brought out a large square box of tin and placed it on the table.

He first wrapped a handkerchief around his neck, then seated himself deliberately before the box, opened the lid and took out a tray filled with make-up sticks. These he put aside while he drew forth from the deeper recesses mustachios, whiskers and beards of all shapes and complexions. He worked rapidly and silently, watching his changing image in the little mirror set in the box lid.