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BRITAIN'S DEADLY PERIL
undersized, badly dressed, and more or less covered with mud, probably mechanics. One I remember had extraordinary teeth, about the size of the thickness of one's little finger. The officer, as I have said, was a fine man, broad and well-proportioned, from thirty to forty years of age. Oddly enough I thought that I recognised him recently on a cinematograph film depicting the staff of the German Emperor. I left the neighbourhood not long after, otherwise I should certainly have made further investigations, convinced as I was of the shady nature of these individuals. The officer, I am sure, recognised that I was a detective."
Another report is from a steward on a liner, who writes:
"At the Queen's Hotel, at Leith, one day I overheard these words from a man speaking in German. 'What's this! Your Highness's servants—when did they come North?' Now one of these I have met several times. I have travelled with him from Antwerp, and I was in his company between Leith and London. He was of a cheerful disposition, and played the violin well, but would not allow any one to go into his cabin, not even the steward! One day, while he was playing to the passengers on the promenade deck, and the sailors were washing down the poop deck, I had to go into his berth to shut his port-hole; to my surprise I found that he had been working out the draft of a plan, and was marking in the coast defence stations, and all the information he had obtained from the ship's officers and passengers. There were also various other drawings of the Forth and other bridges, and plans of the sea coast from the Firth of Forth to Yarmouth, while in his box were all kinds of mathematical instruments, together with some envelopes addressed to Count von X. [the name is given] of Bremen. He told me that he was going to London for a year's engagement
