"I've tried every means in my power, Jack, to find Nessa," she declared; "but with no result at all; and it's killing me."
I did what I could to reassure her, and then a somewhat harum-scarum idea occurred to me—that I should use my leave to go to Berlin and make inquiries. She wouldn't hear of it at first, because of the danger to me; but I showed her that there would really be very little risk, as I had often passed for a German, and that the only real difficulty was getting permission from the authorities.
I set about that at once and succeeded—the result of having a friend at court in the War Office; but before that was settled Nessa's brother-in-law, Jimmy Lamb, an American manufacturer, came over on munitions business and wouldn't hear of my going.
"See here, Jack, this is my show, not yours. For one thing I can do it better than you, as I'm a bit of a hustler and have a good friend, Greg Watson, in our Berlin Embassy. More than that, I can go safely, while if you were found out, you'd be shot as a spy;" and he wouldn't listen to my protests.
But the scheme fell through at the last moment. On the very day he was to have started, he had a cable that his father was dying; and he had to catch the first boat home.
"I'm real sick about it, Jack, but there's nothing else for it. I've booked a berth in the Slavonic to-day."
"Then I shall go, Jimmy. I can't bear the thought of Nessa being in those beggars' hands. I'm certain there's some devilment at the bottom of it;" and I told him a few of the items I had seen with my own eyes.
"Well, what price your going in my name? Much better than the German stunt; and you can actually see about the business that I meant to do. Here are all the papers needed, my passport and ticket, a bunch of German notes I've picked up at a good discount, and you can see Greg Watson—I'll give you a letter to him—and you'll find him a white man right through, ready to do his durndest to help you."
A few minutes clinched the job; an hour or two sufficed for all the preparations I needed to make for the trip; and that night I left Harwich for Rotterdam in a little steamer called the Burgen, as Jas. R. Lamb, an American merchant, equipped with all the credentials necessary to keep up my end.
It was all plain sailing enough, but it didn't turn out so simple as it looked. There was another American on board and I kept out of his way at first, but when he had heard me talking to a waiter in German, he came sidling up and scraped acquaintance. He soon let out that he was as genuine an American as I was, and the best of it was that he took me for what he was in reality—a German.