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Updated: June 17, 2025
"Don't you wish you knew?" he said. "I've told you a lot of inside stories, Mr. Crosby, but I'll never tell on my pals again. Not me! That's my secret." At the door of the hotel he bade me a hasty goodbye, and for a few minutes I believed that Schnitzel had passed out of my life forever. Then, in taking account of my belongings, I missed my field-glasses.
We left the ship at Brooklyn, and with regret I prepared to bid Schnitzel farewell. Seldom had I met a little beast so offensive, but his vanity, his lies, his moral blindness, made one pity him. And in ten days in the smoking-room together we had had many friendly drinks and many friendly laughs.
I asked his permission to repeat to the authorities at Washington certain of the statements he had made. Schnitzel was greatly pleased. "You're welcome to tell 'em anything I've said," he assented. "And," he added, "most of it's true, too." I wrote down certain charges he had made, and added what I had always known of the nitrate fight. It was a terrible arraignment.
True that at lunch with two VanZile automobile salesmen he ate Wiener Schnitzel and shot dice for cigars, with no signs of a mystic change. It is even true that, dining at the Brevoort with Charley Forbes, he though of Istra Nash, and for a minute was lonely for Istra's artistic dissipation. Yet the change was there.
In the evening I read my notes to Schnitzel, who, in a corner of the smoking-room, sat, frowning importantly, checking off each statement, and where I made an error of a date or a name, severely correcting me. Several times I asked him, "Are you sure this won't get you into trouble with your 'people'? You seem to accuse everybody on each side." Schnitzel's eyes instantly closed with suspicion.
"That is strange," I commented, "because it's a French word, and he is French. That's why I wrote it in French." With the air of one who nails another in a falsehood, Schnitzel exclaimed: "Then, how did you suppose your sister was going to read it? It's a cipher, that's what it is. Oh, no, you're not on a secret mission! Not at all!"
My only feelings were a desire to kick Schnitzel heavily, but for Schnitzel to suspect that was impossible. Rather, he pictured me as shaken by his disclosures. As he hung over the rail the glare of the sun on the tumbling water lit up his foolish, mongrel features, exposed their cunning, their utter lack of any character, and showed behind the shifty eyes the vacant, half-crooked mind.
From below came the steady throb of the engines, and from outside the whisper of the waves and of the wind through the cordage. A barefooted sailor pattered by to the bridge. Schnitzel bent toward me, and with his hand pointed to his throat. "I've got papers on me that's worth a million to a certain party," he whispered. "You understand, my notes in cipher." He scowled with intense mystery.
I disbelieved him, but there came a sudden nasty doubt. "Curtis, who managed the company's plant at Barcelona, died of yellow-fever," I said, "and was buried the same day." For some time Schnitzel glowered uncertainly at the bulkhead. "Did you know him?" he asked. "When I was in the legation I knew him well," I said. "So did I," said Schnitzel. "He wasn't murdered. He murdered himself.
No true-blooded American hated the Huns as did Franz Schnitzel, of German parentage. "Very well," assented the captain. "You may stay until morning, at least." "Thank you, sir," replied Franz, saluting. He knew in his heart that he would never give in, no matter how his ankle hurt, and the pain was not inconsiderable, either.
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