This is how it happened. In that brief moment of cogitation in front of the Horse Guards, I saw that my one safe method was audacity and directness, my only hope to tell some sort of a story before my accuser could tell his. So I went direct to Downing Street and the Foreign Office, which was walking into the Lion's jaws with a vengeance. I asked for Mr. Campbell of the Secret Intelligence Department and told him I wished to enter his service. What, he asked, did I claim to have information about? Zeppelin raids, I told him, that being the least harmful subject I could think of, in case my "traitorous" offer should ever come to German ears. No topic was more closely guarded, so I knew I could trust Berlin to realize I was bluffing when I claimed any knowledge of it. Also, it was a topic which vastly interested the English. The bluff went through to this extent: It left the British authorities thoroughly at sea. My apparent good intent, combined with my Mexican commission and American passport, provided them with a puzzle which would take a good long time solving. The only provable charge they could bring against me was that of being an alien enemy who had failed to register. IV--IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH IN A BRITISH PRISON So, on the 13th of November, I found myself arraigned in police court on that charge. You may be sure I did not complain. It would have been so very easy for me to be standing before a court-martial, on a charge that carried the penalty of death. On the 26th of November I was sentenced to six months at hard labor at Pentonville Prison, with a recommendation for deportation at its expiration. I served five months at Pentonville, and then my good conduct let me out. Home Secretary MacKenna signed the order for my deportation. But I was not deported. Instead, I was thrust into Brixton Prison. In Brixton, though I was not sentenced on any charge, I was kept in solitary confinement until January, 1916, when I was transferred to Reading Jail. At Reading--locale of Oscar Wilde's ballade--conditions were less disagreeable than they had been at Brixton. I was allowed to have newspapers and magazines and to talk and exercise with my fellow prisoners. All this time, you may be sure, attempts were made to secure further information from me, and especially to solve the enigma of my personal identity. But I stuck steadfastly to my story. By that time it had crystallized to this: I was Horst von der Goltz, born in Gautemala of German parents, but not a German citizen. I was an officer on leave from the Mexican army and had used the Bridgeman Taylor passport from necessity. From necessity, too, I had concocted the fable of wishing to sell information to the British Government, in the natural hope of avoiding the predicament in which I found myself.