Government by inspection is not only oppressive; it is also very expensive. It is dangerous in times when authorities are face to face with unrest; at any time it is the least desirable thing there is. It was not long before both government and public discovered that. To inspect households systematically was impossible, of course. The informer had to be relied upon. Usually, discharged servants wrote anonymous letters to the police, and often it was found that this was no more than a bit of spite work. If a servant-girl wanted to give a former mistress a disagreeable surprise she would write such a letter. Some hoards were really uncovered in that manner, but the game was not worth the candle.
To get at the men who were hoarding en masse for speculation and price-boosting purposes, an efficient secret service was needed. But this the Central European governments do not possess. The police of Germany and Austria-Hungary plays an important part in the life of man. But it does this openly. The methods employed are bureaucratic routine. The helmet shows conspicuously. Wits have no place in the system.
One cannot move from one house to another without being made the subject of an entry on the police records. To move from one town to another was quite an undertaking during the war. Several documents were required. A servant or employee may not change jobs without notifying the police authorities. All life is minutely regulated and recorded on the books of the minions of the law.
In matters of that sort the Central European police is truly efficient, because the system employed has been perfected by the cumulative effort and experience of generations. Detective work, on the other hand, is out of the reach of these organizations. The German detective is as poor a performer and as awkward as certain German diplomatists. He is always found out.
Why the German and Austro-Hungarian detective services did not succeed in finding the commercial hoards I can readily understand. One could recognize the members of the services a mile off, as it were. It seemed to me that they were forever afraid of being detected. In the detective that is a bad handicap. Now and then the German detective could be heard.
As a foreigner I received considerable attention from the German, Austrian, and Hungarian police forces in the course of three years. My case was simple, however. I looked outlandish, no doubt, and since I spoke German with a foreign accent it really was not difficult to keep track of me. In the course of time, also, I became well known to thousands of people. That under these circumstances I should have known it at once when detectives were on my trail can be ascribed only to the clumsy work that was being done by the secret-service men. In Berlin I once invited a "shadow" of mine to get into my taxicab, lest I escape him. He refused and seemed offended.
But there is a classic bit of German detective work that I must give in detail, in order to show why the food speculator and his ilk were immune in spite of all the regulations made by the government.
I had been in Berlin several times when it happened. I knew many men in the Foreign Office, and in the bureaus of the German general staff, while to most of the Adlon Hotel employees I was as familiar a sight as I well could be without belonging to their families.
I had come over the German-Dutch border that noon, and had been subjected to the usual frisking. There had also been a little trouble—also as usual.
The clerk at the desk in the Adlon did not know me. He was a new man. He had, however, been witness to the very effusive welcome which the chef de réception gave me.