In those few brief moments there had been enacted before me, at that busy London terminus, the dénouement of a great life-drama, and, as the spy disappeared, there arose before me recollections of the gay places of Europe where we had before met--the Rooms at Monte Carlo, the Casino at Trouville, and other places where he had been such a well-known figure, always exquisitely dressed, always the acme of correctness, and always a great favourite with the fair sex. What would the latter think could they see him now? In silence and in sorrow I have watched the proceedings of many a German spy in this country--watched while the public have been lulled to slumber by those who rule. Ah! it has all been a fearful comedy, which has, alas! now ended in tragedy--the tragedy of our dead sons, brothers and husbands who lie in unnumbered graves in France and in Belgium. My thoughts revert to individual cases which I have investigated during recent years. At Rosyth, I lived in an obscure hotel in Queensferry under the name of William Kelly, enduring three weeks of wearisome idleness, boating up and down the Firth of Forth, and watching, with interest, the movements of two Germans. They had arrived in Edinburgh from a tourist-ship which had touched at Leith. The first suspicion of them had been conveyed to me by my friend Mr. D. Thomson, proprietor of the _Dundee Courier_, and I sped north to investigate. In passing I may say that this journal was one of the first--with the _Daily Mail_--to point out the danger of German spies. My journey was not without result, for I waited, I watched, and I returned to the Intelligence Department with certain important details which proved to be the beginning of a long campaign. Those two Germans, unsuspicious-looking professors with gold-rimmed spectacles, were making elaborate maps. But these maps were not ordnance maps, but maps of our weaknesses. Our secret agents followed them to Plymouth, to Milford Haven, to Cromarty, and afterwards on a tour through Ireland. Surely it is betraying no confidence to say that one of our secret agents--a man whose remarkable career I hope to some day record in the guise of fiction--acted as their guide on that curious tour! I know I have written times without number of spies in the form of fiction. Many people have asked me, "Is it true?" To such I will say that the dramas I have written, short and long, have been penned solely with one single purpose--in order to call public attention to our peril. Many of the stories I have written have been based upon actual fact. Half a life spent in travelling up and down Europe has shown me most conclusively how cleverly Germany has, with the aid of her spies, made elaborate preparations to invade us. So intimate have I been with Germany's secret agents that, during this last Christmas, I had the _dis_pleasure of sending Compliments of the Season to two of them!