vary in various districts, the message it
contained was as follows:

(Phrase I) I send you your monthly payment.

(Phrase 2) Your informations during the past month are
satisfactory.

(Phrase 3) Your service in general is giving satisfaction, and
if it continues so, we shall at the next inspection augment
your monthly payment.

(Phrase 4) We wish you, however, to send us more detailed
notes, and report oftener.

(Phrase 5) Cease your observations upon Charles. We have what
we require. Turn your attention to defences at Tynemouth.

(Phrase 6) As you know, the chief (spring) is very difficult to
please, for at the last inspection we were given increased
work.

(Phrase 7) Remain in negotiation with your three
correspondents--Charles (meaning the foreman, Rosser),
Charlotte, and Frederick--until you hear further. You may make
them offers for the information.

Thus it will be seen that any one into whose hands this letter from
"Henry Lewis" fell would be unable to ascertain its real meaning.

The fictitious Lewis, we afterwards discovered, occupied a small office
in Berkeley Chambers in the guise of a commission agent, but was no
doubt the travelling agent whose actions were controllable by Hermann
Hartmann, but who in turn controlled the fixed agents of that district
lying between the Humber and the Tweed.

Most of these travelling agents visit their fixed agents--the men who do
the real work of espionage--in the guise of a commercial traveller if
the agent is a shopkeeper, or if he is not, he will represent himself as
a client or an insurance agent, an auctioneer or a house agent. This
last _metier_ is greatly recommended by the German Secret Police as the
best mode of concealing espionage, and is adopted by the most dangerous
and ingenious of the spies.

When I returned I showed my treasures to Ray, who at once became
excited.

"The fellow is a fixed agent here in Newcastle, no doubt," he declared.
"We must watch him well."

We continued our observations. The spy and Rosser were inseparable. They
met each evening, and more than once the whole Rosser family went out to
entertainments at Mr. Barker's expense. He would allow the foreman
fitter to pay for nothing.

Judicious inquiries at Elswick revealed the fact that Charles Rosser was
one of the most skilful fitters in the employ of the firm, and that such
was the confi