William Le Queux - The Secrets of Potsdam

And the abusive missive proceeded to denounce two of my friends, ladies-in-waiting at the Neues Palais, and to make some blackguardly allegations concerning the idol. Von Hindenburg.

"Well," I exclaimed, "that certainly is a very interesting specimen of anonymous correspondence."

"Yes, it is!" exclaimed the Baron. "In Berlin every inquiry has been made to trace its author. Schunke, head of the detective police, was charged by the Emperor to investigate. He did so, and both he and Klewitz failed utterly. Now it has been given into my hands."

"Have you discovered any clue to the writer?" I asked anxiously, knowing full well what a storm of indignation those letters had produced in our own circle.

Presently, when I sat with the Baron at his table, he switched on an intense electric light, even though it was day-time, and then spread out some of the letters above a small, square mirror.

"You see they are on various kinds of note-paper, bearing all kinds of watermarks, of French, English, and German manufacture. Some we have here are upon English paper, because it is heavy and thick. Again, three different makes of typewriter have been used – one a newly-invented importation from America. The written letters are, you will see, mostly in a man's hand."

"Yes, I see all that," I said. "But what have you discovered concerning their author? The letter I received bore a French stamp and the postmark of Angers."

He placed before me quite a dozen envelopes addressed to the Emperor and Empress, all bearing the postmark of that town in the Maine-et-Loire. Others had been posted in Leipzig, Wilhelmshaven, Tours, Antwerp, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, and other places.

"The investigation is exceedingly difficult, I can assure you," he said. "I have had the assistance of some of the best scientific brains of our Empire in making comparisons and analyses. Indeed, Professor Harbge is with me from Berlin."

As he uttered those words the Professor himself, an elderly, spectacled man in grey tweeds, entered the room. I knew him and greeted him.

"We have been studying the writing-papers," the Professor said presently, as he turned over the letters, some of which were upon commercial typewriting paper, some on cheap thin paper from fashionable "blocks," and others upon various tinted paper of certain mills, as their watermarks showed. The papers were various, but the scurrilous hand was the clever and evasive one of some person who certainly knew the innermost secrets of the German Court.

"Sixteen different varieties of paper have been received at the Neues and Marmor Palaces," the Baron remarked. "Well, I have worked for two months, night and day, upon the inquiry, for, as you know, the tentacles of our Teuton octopus are everywhere. I have discovered that eleven of these varieties of paper can be purchased at a certain small stationer's shop, Lancry's, in the Boulevard Haussmann, close to the 'Printemps.' One paper especially is sold nowhere else in Paris. It is this."

And he held over a mirror a letter upon a small sheet of note-paper bearing the watermark of a bull's head.

"That paper was made at a mill in the south of Devonshire, in England, destroyed by fire five years ago. Paper of that make cannot be obtained anywhere else in France," he declared.

I at once realized how much patience must have been expended upon the inquiry, and said:

"Then you have actually fixed the shop where the writer purchased his paper?"

"Yes," he replied. "And we know that the newly-invented typewriter, a specimen one, was sold by the Maison Audibert, in Marseilles. The purchaser of the typewriter in Marseilles purchases his paper and envelopes at Lancry's, in the Boulevard Haussmann."

"Splendid!" I said enthusiastically, for it was clear that the Baron, with the thousand-and-one secret agents at his beck and call, had been able, with the Professor's aid, to fix the source of the stationery. "But," I added, "what is wanted from me?" Why, I wondered, had His Majesty sent the Baron that photograph of Elise Breitenbach?

"I want you to go with me to the central door of the 'Printemps' at four o'clock this afternoon, and we will watch Lancry's shop across the way," the Baron replied.

This we did, and from four till six o'clock we stood, amid the bustle of foot passengers, watching the small stationer's on the opposite side of the boulevard, yet without result.

Next day and the next I accompanied the prosperous cinema proprietor upon his daily vigil, but in vain, until his reluctance to tell me the reason why I had been sent to Paris annoyed me considerably.

On the fifth afternoon, just before five o'clock, while we were strolling together, smoking and chatting, the Baron's eyes being fixed upon the door of the small single-fronted shop, I saw him suddenly start, and then make pretence of utter indifference.

"Look!" he whispered beneath his breath.

I glanced across and saw a young man just about to enter the shop.

The figure was unfamiliar, but, catching sight of his face, I held my breath. I had seen that sallow, deep-eyed countenance before.

It was the young man who, two months previously, had sat eating his luncheon alone at the "Esplanade," apparently fascinated by the beauty of little Elise Breitenbach!

"Well," exclaimed the Baron. "I see you recognize him – eh? He is probably going to buy more paper for his scurrilous screeds."

"Yes. But who is he? What is his name?" I asked anxiously. "I have seen him before, but have no exact knowledge of him."

The Baron did not reply until we were back again in the cosy room in Neuilly. Then, opening his cigar-box, he said:

"That young man, the author of the outrageous insults to His Majesty, is known as Franz Seeliger, but he is the disgraced, ne'er-do-well son of General von Trautmann, Captain-General of the Palace Guard."

"The son of old Von Trautmann!" I gasped in utter amazement. "Does the father know?"

The Baron grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

Then after I had related to him the incident at the "Esplanade," he said:

"That is of greatest interest. Will you return to Berlin and report to the Emperor what you have seen here? His Majesty has given me that instruction."

Much mystified, I was also highly excited that the actual writer of those abominable letters had been traced and identified. The Baron told me of the long weeks of patient inquiry and careful watching; of how the young fellow had been followed to Angers and other towns in France where the letters were posted, and of his frequent visits to Berlin. He had entered a crack regiment, but had been dismissed the Army for forgery and undergone two years' imprisonment. Afterwards he had fallen in with a gang of clever international hotel thieves, and become what is known as a rat d'hôtel . Now, because of a personal grievance against the Emperor, who had ordered his prosecution, he seemed to have by some secret means ferreted out every bit of scandal at Potsdam, exaggerated it, invented amazing additions, and in secret sown it broadcast.

His hand would have left no trace if he had not been so indiscreet as to buy his paper from that one shop close to the Rue de Provence, where he had rooms.

On the third night following I stood in the Emperor's private room at Potsdam and made my report, explaining all that I knew and what I had witnessed in Paris.

"That man knows a very great deal – but how does he know?" snapped the Emperor, who had just returned from Berlin, and was in civilian attire, a garb quite unusual to him. He had no doubt been somewhere incognito – visiting a friend perhaps. "See Schunke early to-morrow," he ordered, "and tell him to discover the link between this young blackguard and your friends the Breitenbachs, and report to me."

I was about to protest that the Breitenbachs were not my friends, but next instant drew my breath, for I saw that the great War-Lord, even though he wore a blue serge suit, was filled with suppressed anger.