DICING WITH DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 267, 10 November 1934, Page 4 (Supplement)

DICING WITH DEATH.

WHEN THE EMPIRE SHOOK. SILK LETTERS PLOT RECALLED—PLAN TO EFFECT INDIAN MUTINY REVEALED—ARRANGEMENTS FOR GREAT GUN-RUNNING ESCAPADEPOWERFUL BANKING MAGNATE ASSOCIATED WITH AUSTRALIAN COMMUNIST — DETECTIVE IMPERSONATES TRAMP STEAMER CAPTAIN—DRAMA OF ISOLATED EAST END MANSION. (By EX-DETECTIVE INSPECTOR HERBEKT T. FITCH, formerly of the Special Branch, New t-cotland yard.—World Copyright.—All Kighte Reserved.)

Do you remember the famous Silk Letters Plot ot the Great War? Certain powenul prices and financiers in India spnt letters, written on yellow silk, to the Czar of Russia, offering him India if he would abandon his British alliance and thrust an army through the Afghan passes. The Russian advance was to be aided by a native attack on Calcutta and other towns. Four steamers loaded with rifles and machine-guns were sent by sympathisers to help the plotters, but these were captured en route. The ringleaders m India were seized and tried. One escaped conviction. He was a very rich and influential banker, who bought his way to freedom by the aid of bribed evidence. He tried a second time to repeat the mutiny, only a year or two ago. This time we got him well and truly. His effort was part of a concerted scheme of foreign financiers to break up the British Empire by turning a stream of Home Rule propaganda into organised anarchist action. Here is the story of one of the world's most daring gambles, and how it failed. The captain and owner of a small tramp steamer, who was suspected of having run rifles out to the Riffs of Morocco, was reported to have visited London. This man was on our list of suspects at the Yard, and as he was suspected of various political misdemeanours it became a Special Branch job to follow him. I went myself to look him up. Meeting With Ship's Captain. Luck was with me at first. I found Captain Anderson in a Limehouse pub— I was, of course, in mufti —and he had been celebrating his coming ashore. He

on a certain day, Captain Anderson's ship will be waiting. You will transfer your cargo to his ehip, and he will take it on to a place we shall tell him. Is that clear?" '"To take the guns, ja!" said Riesruaycr, contemptuous at all this caution. '"Never mind what the cargo is," growled the Australian, "That's our business. Kow you, Anderson. We'll tell you later where you're to take the cargo. It's sewing machines on the bills of lading. All we have to settle this afternoon is the place. You can memorise both longitude and latitude —there's going to be no maps or writing to get us into trouble this time." Nautical Chart Produced. He pulled out a nautical chart, and put it on the table. On it was marked a email cross. "That's the place," he said. The chart was unintelligible to me. It showed no coastlines or other fixed points by which a landsman could identify the district indicated. I knew that Borkum was one of the islands near the Elbe mouth, and a dangerous place for eandbanks. Apparently, the shadowy masses shoirn were sandbanks, and the maze of whirling lines showed depths. Captain Riesniayer, who had stared at me two or three times, leaned over the map. "Which way will yon go there?" he asked me surlily. There was suspicion in his voice. "What's that got to do with it?" I asked him. "If I'm there on time to take over the cargo, what's it to do with anyone how I come? I've been nearlycaught once before from not keeping my mouth shut." i

had drunk a little too much. I offered him a drink, which he accepted, and he started talking at once. I was dressed in sailor's shore-going blue, and he asked me if I wanted a berth. It was a good berth. Oh, yes—he knew where to pick up the gold!

The police had found someone cleverer than themselves for once. Some of the jobs he had done . . . He pulled himself up, and then started talking again. Would I sign on with him, at double wages, and keep my mouth shut? I would? Good! He wanted a few boys like me. He was going to ... He stopped talking again, and winked knowingly. ■ Did I think I was going to get it out of him! No; by G ! . . He got up, as we had finished our drinks, and I saw that his right hand, which had been beneath the table, was clutching something tightly. I accidentally lurched against him, his hands flew out to save himself, and he dropped the paper. He went after it like a terrier after a rat, but I got it first, stumbled drunkenly again, got a glimpse of the address at the head of a letter, and then handed it back to him. Outside in the chilly dockside street I arrested him on suspicion, for the address was that of an East End house, once a mansion, now a decayed relic among factories. This place had recently been rented by an agent of the Hindu banker who had slipped through our fingers in the Silk Letters Plot.

The letter, which I read while Captain Anderson languished in the cells of an East End police station, was to arrange an appointment for him at the house mentioned. Now I was almost exactly the captain's build. I gamblad on the belief that the principals in this new plot had probably never met him, and I went in his stead to keep the appointment. A Place to Talk Secrets. The house was surrounded by a high wall, enclosing an acre of overgrown and sooty gardens. It was a well-chosen place to talk secrets. I was admitted, after ringing the cracked bell, by an old woman caretaker, who said the gentlemen had not yet arrived x She showed me into a bare, mildewy room, where the first fire for several years was struggling svnokily against extinction. Ten minutes later I heard voices coming from down the pasSajre, and I .stood up. Four men entered. One was $ie Hindu banker, his face olive-coloured by the cold weather despite a wonderful fur coat. Another was an Australian Communist leader. The third was a great Continental financier, and the fourth a seaman whose face I did not recognise. All of them shook hands with me without the least suspicion, and the Australian passed round cicars while the old crone came in With whisky and glasses. So far, my impersonation was successful. We got down to business immediately the old woman left the room. '"'This is Captain Riesmayer.'' the Australian said in me, indicating the sailor at his side. "Captain Anderson. Now you two know what you've sot to do, so all that needs settling is where you're to meet." Riesmayer nodded, but, as this was f?ibberish to me, I put in a word, imitating as well as I could the absent man's gruff voice. '"We don't want any mistakes, sir," I srrowled. "Better just check over the main points again." The Hindis palled me nn the shoulder with his fat hand. "Good! Good! Good!" he said. "This is the man for us. No mistakes this time. We lost four ships before through mistakes." The Australian looked at Riesmayer. '"You can understand if I speak slowly?" ho asked. ".Ta!" replied that laconic gft'leman. "Well, your ship—no names mentioned — is to proceed to a certain place oft' Borkum, among *he sandbanks. There,

The Australian backed me up, but out of the corner of my eye I could see the Hindu looking queerly at me. "What tonnage is your boat?" he asked, as I looked- at the map again. I stood up angrily. "I'm not going to etay here talking unnecessarily, gentlemen," I said, "She'll carry your sewing-machines—she's done such jobs before, as you know. I want to do the work and get the cash—and not to talk. Men who talk in this country soon find themselves talking iu the dock." They seemed satisfied for the time. We studied the map. By saying as little as possible, and ambiguous things even then, I gave the impression that I understood it. A date and time were fixed for the ships to meet. "It's right in among the sandbanks, and I can't hang about," growled Riewmayer, whose mood had not improved. "If- you're not there inside an hour after I arrive, I'll dump the cargo overboard and clear out. That's no place to be in when there's wind or fog." "I'll be there," I said. Suspicion Grows. Riesinayer got up* as if to go. At the same moment, the Hindu asked me quietly—"What about our terms, Captain Anderson? Were they all right?" "Not much money, gentlemen," I said. "I'm risking' my ship, and 6he'a all I've got." \ "Well, if we make it five hundred more to each of you —how about that?" I waited for Riesmayer to answer, but he stood looking hard at me. Everyone was wating for my reply. "What do you say, Riesmayer?" I asked, for I had no idea what terms they referred to. "You settle," he grunted. "All right. I agree," I said finally.. I found myself looking down a revolver barrel, held by the Australian. "We hadn't 'fixed any terms," he said softly. "Now, who the hell are you, anyway? Because you're not Anderson." "Not a sailor," added Riesmayer savagely. It was a nasty position. I had my men posted round the place, waiting till I had got enough evidence to convict before making their rush to capture the plotters. But these latter had too much at stake to care whether they shot me or not, if it gave them a better chance of liberty. "Turn round," snapped the Australian. I obeyed. "Now," he said, when I had my back to them, "we'll tell you some more, Mister Spy. We're going" to run the guns to India. They want to use 'em there. In Canada and"Australia, there's going to be a big outbreak of Home Rule-itis at the signal given in India by the sacking of Calcutta and the setting up of a native India agaiu. Britain's been bossing a bit too long. Now you know it all. but you won't take it home with you. Your body will be found in this house, if it's ever found at alt. Run over his pockets for a gun, Riesmayer. Who's to shoot him?"

Dramatic Climax Develops. • At that identical moment, I flung myself flat on my face, getting my whistle to my lips as 1 fell and blowing hard. The bullet that was meant for my head went iuto the wall opposite and cracked the plaster all over the place. The four men nung themselves on top of me, but they were a bit too late. Before much harm was done to any of us a detective sergeant came crashing through the window, and other officers could be heard running up the passage outside the door. In addition to the four men in London, nearly a dozen others were arrested in various parts of the Empire and charged with various offences such as conspiring to make a breach of the peace. My own attackers received various sentences for attempted murder, and for resisting a

detective officer in the execution of his duty, which kept them in durance long enough for us to frustrate utterly the widespread plot o£ which they were the leaders. The Continental financier, who had been banking on the successful outcome of his plot to break up the Empire, found his affairs in such a state when his sentence ended that he committed suicide to save himself from bankruptcy and ruin.

Anyone at the tiine who rend the report of an obscure police-court case in which four men were found guilty of a common East End brawl, might have suspected a set of racecourse rowdies of having tried to even up accounts with a hated police officer. But nobody unacquainted with the inside story would have suspected that these commonplace police court proceedings covered one of the most widereaching plots ever staged to make money and power by striking a vital blow at British prestige. '[Two years ago, there was much talk about a "death ray" which could kill advancing troops, strike down aircraft, and so on. Then the rumours died. There was such a ray; certain influential persons gathered to see the ray tested. The night before the test, an agent of a foreign country interviewed the inventor secretly. Jlr. Kitch. iu shadowing this agent, saw the inventor kill himself with his own apparatus, and the secret of its production was lost. This is told in n stirring article which will appear next week.]