He put down his ’phones, switched off, and leaving the hotel, walked again to the Raadhus-Plads. Around the square the well-lit electric trams were circulating slowly, while all around were the illuminated advertisements of motor-tyres, mineral waters, cocoa, and soap, a picturesque night scene beneath the clear starlit sky.
Watching him unseen was his little grey-haired neighbour from the adjoining room in the Angleterre. The old fellow was, no doubt, a very clever watcher. As a matter of fact, he was Ivan Stromoff, one of the most astute officers of the secret police under the régime of the last Tsar Nicholas, now, of course, pressed into Lenin’s service.
The secret police of Russia were ever corrupt, and they had now been suborned by the Bolsheviks to act in the interests of the Soviets as they had previously done in the interests of the Monarch.
While passing across the Kongens-Nytorv--the King’s new market--the fashionable centre of Copenhagen, Geoffrey again realised that the little old man was following him. So during the following day he walked the streets of the Danish capital with the sole purpose of drawing on the old fellow who was keeping such strict surveillance upon his movements. Everywhere he went the little old fellow shadowed him.
Therefore, at about ten o’clock on that evening he managed to elude the watchful old man, and taking a taxi, drove to the central bureau of police. He was taken at once to Marius Lund, the director of the police, and when alone with him, explained the object of his visit to Denmark, and asked that he might be given assistance in order to unearth the secret wireless station of the revolutionaries.
Lund, a broad-shouldered, fair-haired Dane, at once became sympathetic, promising all the assistance he could render.
“We in Denmark are always anxious to support the Allies against the machinations of Germany and Russia. So I will give you whatever help you may require. Already we have been advised of your presence here, Mr. Falconer, and I confess it has aroused some suspicion, because you had in your baggage some wireless apparatus.” And he laughed.
Falconer explained all the circumstances, how the bearings taken in England had shown that the Bolshevik transmission set was not in Russia at all, but somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Raadhus-Plads in that city.