Dawson, William (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Mystery and detective stories
where he lodged, the address used by me was as probable as any other;
what more natural and commendable than that I should write to cheer
him up a bit in exile, and that I should send him books and
illustrated magazines? If it had been noticed by the postal
authorities in Holland that my friend did not live at the address
which I used, it would have been supposed that I had made a mistake,
and no suspicion would have been attracted to me. But how did my
letters, books, and magazines containing information, the most secret
and urgent, pass through the censorship unchecked? That again was
simple. My letters were those which a friend in freedom in England
would write to his friend who was a captive in Holland. They were
personal, sympathetic, no more. The books and magazines were just
those which such a man as my friend would desire to have to lighten
the burden of idleness. Between the lines of my letters, and on the
white margins of the books and papers, I wrote the vital information
which my country desired to have, and I desired to give. The ink which
I used for this purpose left no trace and could not be made visible by
any one who had not its complementary secret. It is the special ink of
the Austrian Secret Service; you do not know it, your Censors do not
know it, your chemists might experiment for months and years and not
discover it. I used it always, and you never read what I wrote. Now
you will understand why I wish the small stock of money, my police
pay, which I could not myself have used without dishonour, to go to
the interned sailors in Holland. I feel that I owe to my friend some
little reparation for the crooked use to which I have put his name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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