By what strange fate, you may ask, did I, Heine, the chief of the Intelligence Bureau in England, escape the detection which was the fate of Koos, of Klein, of Posser and in a degree of von Kahn? Had I not been associated with them? Had I not been identified with them? It is possible that there would have been little reason to ask this question, but I had been seen with Koos. The British Intelligence Department knew that I was associated with Posser and Klein. I had been seen in circumstances which, I am willing to admit, were suspicious, in Manchester, and yet I, the head and brain of the organization might walk at liberty and none question me as to my comings and goings! I had this matter thoroughly thrashed out with myself in the seclusion of my room, for we Germans harbour no illusions. We have that gift of introspection, of self-weighing, which gift no other nation can claim with truth. We see the black side and the bright side. We see our own faults, few though they are, our own national shortcomings, such as modesty, sentimentality, and transparent honesty, and we are able to balance delicately the pros and the cons, even though in so doing we disparage in thought our own acts and thoughts. And after a night of self-communion I came to this conclusion: It is true that I had been seen in association with my unfortunate friends, but then so had other men who were beyond any suspicion. It was abundantly clear to me that I had escaped any unpleasantness as a result of the thoroughness of my organization, my foresight, and the well-devised methods I had adopted for covering my tracks. You might come into my office any day and demand that my books should be seen. You might go to my bank and look at my account. You might examine all the records of my trading and find nothing there to support the suggestion that I was not carrying on a legitimate business. I had not been very well after the unhappy ending of Klein and the disappearance of poor Posser. Who knows in what prison camp he languishes, far from the sound of Hameln’s bells--he was a Hanoverian, related to the well-born Graf von Welsich-Heidebrand--or with what anguished tears he dreams of his beloved Fatherland? But enough of sentiment! We Germans are a practical people, so practical that we have aroused the envy and hatred of the whole world. I think it must have been my association with the spurious journalist, Haynes, that not only awoke a certain uneasiness in my breast, and shook my confidence in my judgment as to the existence of a British secret service, but it also showed me a way to dispel any suspicion which I might have created in the bosom of the police, and also to advertize my innocence to the great public. I began systematically to write letters to the newspapers.