LITERATURE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7709, 11 January 1905, Page 4

LITERATURE.

- THE MAN WITH THE TUKEAD- C LESS BUTTON, C (Continacd.) 'J •' Ask away, uiy dear fellow ! " ex- V claimed JU'froy. as, leaning at Ins II ease over tire loot of my bed, he I beamed genially upon me. 11 -Wedjifs only tKs—and I nope V you won't think me very rude. How 1 "L it there is no thread on the second button of your overcoat ? " J •• i_i_haidly understand you— ' . ho stammered, throwing an apple- y hensivc look over his sbouwler in V the direction of the dpor. K His agitation was such that he ( could haidly speak plainly. ? His hand trembled as it lay on my arm. I was porry for the fellow, lit- ' ' tie as 1 understood the reason of j his excitement. >•• The button was off—torn off, i ami 1 put tn a stud till 1 could i tend the coat back to the tailor, j sj that l'.e might sew on a button that would match the others, you know," he said at last. The explanation was perfectly sim- I pie and natural. Why should he display so much hesitation in alluding j to it ? Aly apologies, based on my absurd and insatiate curiosity, were uuiple; and Mr Lefroyi assuring me that I had said nothing that required an apology, IxKta me adieu and left the room.. I reached Paris next day. In the evening a card was banded to me, and, going into the waiting-room of the hotel, I found a man, whose bearing marked him out as one who, if not sttil a soldier!, had been one rccently« He bowed and smiled, and said that he had come for the book sent by Mr Jjefroy, I went at once for my ulster, and in tugging at the volume to get it out of the pocket I must have broken the elastic band, for in handing it to tl»e messenger it flew open, and out fell a number of tiny plates of gUass ! Luckiiy i happened to be standing on a rug, so that they were not all broken, though some of them were. Along with the plates of glass were loose sheets of pai>er, which my .visitor and I hastened to pick up. I cotftd see that they were marked .with Kncs and figures, and as I handed them to the person who had sent lor them, a peculiar expression in bis face helped me to a solution of the problem, ' Mr Leiroy was a French spy, and he had been taking photographs of the German fortresses, at close quar-

tors ! The little disc of black bone made to imitate a button, was in reality the shield of the tube of a small camera, which the spy wore concealed in front of his persoi>. This accounted for his great bulkno doubt he had been padded so as to make the protuberance where the camera was fastened imperceptible. I understood, with the help of this Kej* much that had puzzled me dur- . tag my stay at Hoscnbcrg; but it ' was not until I happened to meet lefroy one day in a restaurant near Leicester Square that the whole business was naade plain to me. lie greeted me with eJTusion, and yet with a degree of embarrassment. -'■ You took a fine advantage of my good nature," I exclaimed, when we had exchanged greetings, " when you asked me to carry that precious volume to your friend in l J ar- ** : " " How so ? I trust you did not find the volume any inconvenience ! " he asked, coolly. ". Jusft think what would have happened if the police, warned beforehand that I was an acquaintance oi jours, insisted upon searching me at the frontier ! Englishman as I am, I could have expected nothing leas than a year or two En prison. A most particularly cool thing; to So, upon my word ! " - ' "-My dear sin. your safety never was in question. It was precisely because the police must have seen British Subject, Taxpaying Citizen, Most Respectable Man, written on every r lint, 0 f your {ace that j venturcd t() «4k you to undertake to convey ■fftose documents, which, of course, I , dtt not dare to pass through the post. There were the plates, too. J* Some of them, I was told, ' were t . broken. Such a pityi, that monuf meats of skill and daring should s meet with such a fate,"u The vaiiity of the man amused me, and I went on to ask him what Miss Brandt played in the litI mentioned the name the face the Helmiriuion whlicii genKus united

woman he ot cntluisiasnu " She She had the very flimsito go upon, and she Ivud that she tad noticed the button, X should be eating some filthy mess in a German prison, instead of enjoying an excelW' lent luncheon at this moment, fe' "ShVi attached herself to the %■- Westrops and went to tlte hotel on |T purpose to play the spy on me. ='" "She obtained the i>ermit through jgr the V.B. consul on purpose to tempt §?;• me to go anii do something under lp! her eye which .would make it pos- * sible for her to denounce me on the v spot. *r .".« But I saw through her design, \ . and determined to take advantage f of it to the full without allowing I per to dee .what I was doing. t- ••'True, I was forced to leave the f fieM.: But I retired with all the &'- honours of the campaign, jt ' 4 3 .was able to provide the French I ' War Office with full descriptions of £ • . the defences of the Castle and town Y of Rosenberg, for which I fully ex■j pect to receive the Cross of the LegEl" ion of Honour, as .well as a. large ■ pecuniary reward. *-" '•' It was not until that cunning, ' that admirable woman got upon the i, idea o$ haling me searched as if for ti a revolver, which she knew perfectly >■ .well I had not got with me, that I bad to slop. But I had a compass in the palm of my glove, and very step I took was counted,, and noted, ajpno- -with the direction." P~""--~ ■T'How couuld you remember it all?" " I could not possibly have remembered it< I wrote it down at the lime.'-* " But I .was with you all the time, and I am certain 1 never saw you .write anything-. "- , '"I dare say not,'' said Lefrov, with a smile, if I wrote 6t in liiy pocket—the outside pocket of my overcoat. A word or <a figure was enough for me. But Miss Brandt nearly caught me out at that< •> " Didn't you see how she hung 0 n to my arm ? She knew I was up to something, but how I wias managing she could not guess. However, she Jrtsnt to the police that night, and if the German police had been as smart as they are in Paris, I would not havo been here ' , ■'•'• But I got away, and, thanks to >■ you, I saved the result of my toil. _ IV You must pardon mo for giving * ynu false particulars as to the ' ithreadless button, and so on.. Withe out intending it, you might have ; put the pofieo 0 n my track.'i l '' I might even have done so in- *- tentionally,'* I said. "Not after my littfe book was safe in the pocket of your ulster," " ,was the cool reply.