PAUL ZIMMERLEIN was a mining engineer. His offices were off Fifth Avenue, somewhere above 34th Street. He stood well in his profession, he stood high as a citizen. No one questioned his integrity, his ability or his loyalty. He was a good American. At least, a great many good Americans said he was, which amounts to the same thing.
One entered his offices through a small antechamber, where a young woman at the telephone-desk made perfunctory inquiries, but always in a crisp, business-like manner. She was the first cog in a smooth-running piece of machinery. Her name was Mildred,—Mildred Agnew, and she had a brother in the British navy, from whom she received infrequent letters of a most unilluminating character,—letters omitting date, place and ship: in which he said he was well and happy and hoped to God the Germans would come out into the open to see what the weather was like.
If your business was important, or you had an appointment, you would be conducted by a smart-looking boy into a rather imposing corner room, from whose windows you could look down fourteen storeys to the roof of an eight storey building below. Presently you would be invited into Mr. Zimmerlein’s private office. Beyond this snug little office was the drafting room, where several actively studious men of various ages bent over blue-prints and estimate sheets.
They all appeared to be good, industrious Americans; you could see them quite plainly through the glass upper half of the intervening door.
You were at once aware of an impression that this was not the place to come if you were engaged in a secret or shady enterprise,—such as the exploitation of a “get-rich-quick” mining proposition or any kindred opening for the unwary. You always said to yourself that you felt quite safe in the hands of Mr. Paul Zimmerlein,—and his associates.
You went about saying that you wished all men with German blood in them were like Mr. Paul Zimmerlein. He became one of your pet hobbies. You invariably referred to him when you declared that you knew at least one man of German extraction who was “absolutely on the level,” and you would unhesitatingly go about proving it if any one had the effrontery to even discuss the point with you. All you would have to do would be to point in triumph to the men who were his associates professionally, commercially and socially. The list would include many of the really significant figures in public life. Among them, for instance, you would mention several United States senators, at least two gentlemen high up in Administrative circles, practically all of the big financiers, certain members of the English Cabinet, and,—in a pinch,—the presidents of three South American Republics. He was on record as being violently opposed to Von Berastorff,—indeed, he had said such bitter and violent things about the ex-ambassador that even the most conservative German-Americans,—those who actually were opposed to the Kaiser and his policies,—felt that he was going much too far.
He was about forty years of age, tall and powerfully built, with surprisingly mobile features for one whose face at a glance suggested heaviness and stolidity. His smile was ever ready and genial; his manner courtly; his eyes, which were honest and unwavering, had something sprightly in them that invited confidence and comradeship. The thick, dark hair was touched with grey at the temples, and there was a deep scar on his left cheek, received—not in a German university, as you might suppose,—but during a fierce and sanguinary encounter with Yaqui Indians in northern Mexico,—a tragedy which cost the lives of several of his companions and brought from the people of the United States a demand that the government take drastic action in the matter. Altogether, a prepossessing, substantial figure of a man, with a delightful personality.
Shortly before noon on the day following the destruction of the great Reynolds plant by alien plotters, Zimmerlein was seated in his office, awaiting the arrival of two well-known New York merchants and a gentleman from Brazil. Half-a-dozen morning newspapers, with their sinister head-lines, lay upon his desk, neatly folded and stacked with grave orderliness. He had read them, and was lolling back in his big leather chair with a faint smile on his lips, and a far-off, frowning expression in his eyes.
The gentleman from Brazil came first.
“Sit down,” said Zimmerlein curtly. “They will be here in a few minutes.”
“That was a terrible thing last night, Zimmerlein,” said the Brazilian, nervously glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the drafting-room.
Zimmerlein made no response. He resumed his set, faraway expression, his gaze directed at the upper sash of the broad, high window, beyond which a distant, grey cloud glided slowly across a blue-white sky.
“Most shocking,” went on the Brazilian, after a moment. He had not removed his overcoat. The fur collar was still fastened closely about his neck.
Zimmerlein turned toward his visitor.
“Take off your coat, Riaz. Make yourself comfortable,” he said, affably. “Help yourself to a cigar.”
Riaz,—Sebastian Riaz, diamond merchant and mine-owner of Rio Janeiro,—removed his coat. “The appointment was for eleven o’clock, Mr. Zimmerlein,” he said, looking at his watch. “They are late. It is nearly twelve.”
“Permit me to remind you that you also were late. Everything is in order, my dear sir. The deal may be closed in ten minutes,—or even less time than that,—if there is no further haggling on your part.” He closed one eye slowly. “The contracts, the estimates, the plans are ready. Nothing is lacking except the signatures.”
“Just as they have been ready for nearly two months,” observed Riaz, also closing an eye.
“All ready—except the signatures and the date.”
“We shall date them,—and sign them,—in our extremity,” said Zimmerlein, going to a safe which stood invitingly open in a corner of the room. He removed a small but important-looking package of papers and tossed them carelessly on the table. “Such as a visit from on high,” he added, with a smile.
“Yes,” said Riaz, and sat down again, frowning.
“We shall never be caught napping. Here are the papers, as they would say in the melodrama. By the way, do you go in for melodrama in Rio? Or are you above that form of amusement?”
Riaz remained unsmiling. “It is not as popular with us as it is with you Americans,” said he. “We see through it too readily.”
Zimmerlein unfolded and spread out several of the documents. “There!” he said. “Let him come who will. Under the sharpest eyes in America you may transfer property valued at ten millions, and no one will question the validity of the transaction. You see, my dear Riaz, you do own these mines and they are exactly what they are represented to Be. To save their lives, they can’t go behind the facts. And the purchasers are prepared to hand over the cash at any moment. Could anything be simpler?”
“Nothing,” said the Brazilian, sententiously,—“except the damned little slip that sometimes comes between the cup and the lip.”
“Ah, but our cup is always at the lip,” said Zimmerlein buoyantly. “Don’t be a kill-joy, old chap.”
“All well and good, Zimmerlein, unless some one’s lip splits.” He shot an uneasy glance into the drafting-room.
“This is the most perfect machine in the world, Riaz. Have no fear. Every cog has been tested and is of the staunchest steel. Every part has been put in its proper place by the greatest genius alive.”
“I don’t have to remind you that a few cogs in the Foreign office have slipped badly.”
The door opened to admit two brisk, prosperous-looking gentlemen.
“I fear we are late,” said the foremost. “It was unavoidable, I assure you.”
“It is never too late,” said Zimmerlein, advancing to shake hands with the new-comers. Then, while they were laying aside their overcoats, he stepped swiftly to the door of the drafting-room and called out: “Thorsensel! Come here, please. And you also, Martin.”
One of the men in the outer room, laid down the instrument with which he was working over a huge blue-print; with a sigh of resignation, he removed his green eye-shield, smoothed out his wrinkled alpaca coat, and came slowly, diffidently into the private office. He was a middle-aged, stoop-shouldered, sunken-faced man, with a drooping moustache that lacked not only in pride but in colour as well. The ends were gnawed and scraggly, and there were cigarette stains along the uneven edges. Otherwise, this sickly adornment was straw-coloured. Thick spectacles enlarged his almost expressionless blue eyes; as one looked straight into them, the eyeballs seemed to be twice the normal size.
This man was John Thorsensel, civil engineer, American—born of Norwegian parentage, graduate of one of the greatest engineering universities in the country. You would go many a league before encountering a more unimposing, commonplace person,—and yet here was the most astute secret servant in the German Kaiser’s vast establishment. Not Zimmerlein, nor Riaz, nor any of the important-looking individuals who skulked behind respectable names, not one of them was the head and heart of the sinister, far-reaching octopus that spread its slimy influence across the United States of America. John Thorsensel, an insignificant toiler, was the master-mind, the arch-conspirator. It was his hand that rested on the key, his thought that covered everything, his infernal ingenuity that confounded the shrewdest minds on this side of the Atlantic. The last man in the world to be suspected,—such was John Thorsensel, bad angel.
Martin, the other man called to the conference, was a brisk young fellow who left a rolltop desk in the corner of the drafting-room and presented himself with stenographer’s note-book and pencil. It is worthy of mention that this book already contained the stenographic notes of the preliminary verbal discussion between the three principals to a transaction involving the sale of great mining properties in South America. Everything was perfectly prepared, even to the abrupt termination of the conference that would come naturally in case agents of t............