Simple, of course. Yet the very simplicity of it all, combined with the constant change, constituted its greatest and most remarkable secrecy. The great Steinhauer, with his far-reaching tentacles of espionage across both hemispheres, held his octopus-like grip upon the world, a surer, a more subtle and a more ingenious hold than the civilised world, from the spies of Alexander the Great down to those of President Kruger, had ever seen. With infinite care, and because the information concerning certain naval movements in the Channel was urgent, he produced a mass of letters with words in German interspersed--a cipher message which resulted a fortnight later in one of our battleships being sunk in the Channel, with only eighty survivors. Of the message the following is a facsimile:-- CHAPTER TWELVE. ON THIN ICE. One evening early in January three men had assembled and held a serious conference in Jack Sainsbury's modest little flat in Heath Street, Hampstead. His sister being out for the day, Jack had personally admitted his visitors, who were Charles Trustram and Sir Houston Bird, and the trio had sat by the fire discussing a matter of the greatest moment. Briefly, the facts were as follow: Trustram had, ever since the raid on Scarborough, wondered whether the failure of the British naval plan to entrap the German Fleet had been directly due to his own indiscretion in mentioning to Lewin Rodwell what was intended. He deeply regretted having let out what had been an absolute secret; yet Rodwell was a man of such tried and sterling patriotism, constantly addressing audiences in the interests of recruiting, and a man whose battle cry "Britain for the British" had been taken up everywhere. No one was possessed of a deeper and more intense hatred of Germany than he, and Trustram felt certain that no man was a greater enemy of the Kaiser. The papers wrote fulsome praise of his splendid example and his fine patriotic efforts, both as regards recruiting and in the raising of funds for various charitable objects; therefore the Admiralty official was wont to comfort himself with the reflection that such a man could never be an agent of Germany. Only a few days ago, when he had confessed to Sir Houston and the latter had, on his part, spoken to Sainsbury, the puzzle had become pieced together; and on that evening, as the trio sat opposite each other, the young fellow explained how he had been dismissed from the Ochrida Company at the instigation of Lewin Rodwell and his titled sycophant Sir Boyle Huntley. "There is a mystery," Jack went on. "I'm certain there's some great mystery regarding poor Jerrold's sudden death," he said decisively. "I was, that night, on my way to him, to tell him what I had accidentally learnt, and to seek his advice how to act. Yet, poor fellow, he died in my arms."