LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

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      EAN 4064066133672

Table of Contents

       PART I

       CHAPTER I

       CHAPTER II

       CHAPTER III

       CHAPTER IV

       CHAPTER V

       CHAPTER VI

       CHAPTER VII

       CHAPTER VIII

       PART II

       CHAPTER IX

       CHAPTER X

       CHAPTER XI

       PART III

       CHAPTER XII

       CHAPTER XIII

       CHAPTER XIV

       PART IV

       CHAPTER XV

       CHAPTER XVI

       CHAPTER XVII

       THE END

      PART I

       WILLIAM DAWSON

      CHAPTER

      I A STORY AND A VISIT

      II AT CLOSE QUARTERS

      III AN INQUISITION

      IV SABOTAGE

      V BAFFLED

      VI GUESSWORK

      VII THE MARINE SENTRY

      VIII TREHAYNE'S LETTER

      PART II

       MADAME GILBERT

      IX THE WOMAN AND THE MAN

      X A PROGRESSIVE FRIENDSHIP

      XI AT BRIGHTON

      PART III

       SEE IS TO BELIEVE

      XII DAWSON PRESCRIBES

      XIII THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN

      XIV A COFFIN AND AN OWL

      PART IV

       THE CAPTAIN OF MARINES

      XV DAWSON REAPPEARS

      XVI DAWSON STRIKES

      XVII DAWSON TELEPHONES FOR A SURGEON

      PART I

       Table of Contents

       WILLIAM DAWSON

      CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      A STORY AND A VISIT

      At the beginning of the month of September, 1916, there appeared in the Cornhill Magazine a story entitled "The Lost Naval Papers." I had told this story at second hand, for the incidents had not occurred within my personal experience. One of the principals—to whom I had allotted the temporary name of Richard Cary—was an intimate friend, but I had never met the Scotland Yard officer whom I called William Dawson, and was not at all anxious to make his official acquaintance. To me he then seemed an inhuman, icy-blooded "sleuth," a being of great national importance, but repulsive and dangerous as an associate. Yet by a turn of Fortune's wheel I came not only to know William Dawson, but to work with him, and almost to like him. His penetrative efficiency compelled one's admiration, and his unconcealed vanity showed that he did not stand wholly outside the human family. Yet I never felt safe with Dawson. In his presence, and when I knew that somewhere round the corner he was carrying on his mysterious investigations, I was perpetually apprehensive of his hand upon my shoulder and his bracelets upon my wrists. I was unconscious of crime, but the Defence of the Realm Regulations—which are to Dawson a new fount of wisdom and power—create so many fresh offences every week that it is difficult for the most timidly loyal of citizens to keep his innocency up to date. I have doubtless trespassed many times, for I have Dawson's assurance that my present freedom is due solely to his reprehensible softness towards me. Whenever I have showed independence of spirit—of which, God knows, I have little in these days—Dawson would pull out his terrible red volumes of ever-expanding Regulations and make notes of my committed crimes. The Act itself could be printed on a sheet of notepaper, but it has given birth to a whole library of Regulations. Thus he bent me to his will as he had my poor friend Richard Cary.

      The mills of Scotland Yard grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small. There is nothing showy about them. They work by system, not by inspiration. Though Dawson was not specially intelligent—in some respects almost stupid—he was dreadfully, terrifyingly efficient, because he was part of the slowly grinding Scotland Yard machine.

      As this book properly begins with my published story of "The Lost Naval Papers," I will reprint it here exactly as it was written for the readers of the Cornhill Magazine in September, 1916.

      * * * * *

      I. BAITING THE TRAP

      This story—which contains a moral for those fearful folk who exalt everything German—was told to me by Richard Cary, the accomplished naval correspondent of a big paper in the North of England. I have known him and his enthusiasm for the White Ensign for twenty years. He springs from an old naval stock, the Carys of North Devon, and has devoted his life to the study of the Sea Service. He had for so long been accustomed to move freely among shipyards and navy men, and was trusted so completely, that the veil of secrecy which dropped in August 1914 between the Fleets and

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