Chapter IV: Prologue

This is the story of a great peril, and how it was averted.

It is surprising to think how few persons were aware of this peril, or had any suspicion of the extraordinary events that were taking place in Stockholm during the fateful year 1917.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of the year, a little weekly newspaper published a very striking open letter, entitled: "Who is the Man in the Whirlpool?"

To whom was it addressed? There was no indication, but the writer was evidently inspired by a deep and growing conviction of impending evil. The article ran as follows:

Have we lost all power of distinguishing between essentials and
non-essentials? Stockholm has become a caravanserai, a link between
East and West, a central clearing-house for all those who, under
various disguises and with varying aims, seek to enrich themselves
in the blood-stained arena of War. Can no one foresee what sort
of crop must ultimately spring from this strife-sodden soil? It
is tragic, while almost laughable, to see how people persist in
labeling as 'espionage' every new development whose purpose is
unintelligible to them, in the same way that they would probably
account for all unexplained conflagrations with the glib verdict:
'a short-circuit.'

What _is_ espionage? Of course, it exists. But is there nothing
more?

Chips from many kinds of timber float on the surface of the
whirlpool. What a medley of strange faces, which nobody recognizes,
bob up from its mysterious depths!

The short-sighted public are content to go on believing that in
Stockholm, where secret committees and conferences, planners and
plotters from every quarter of the earth, are struggling together
for the mastery, these dark deeds are one and all the work of
secret agents of the belligerent powers.

Yet it is as certain as a problem of Euclid that at the vortex of
the Whirlpool we shall find a group of intelligences working solely
for their own interests. Let us suppose that amongst these, _one_
alone is to be found who is strong enough to fight his way through
chaos, or rather let us say, to _dominate_ chaos. Would not such a
man establish himself at the very heart of the Whirlpool, to direct
the various powers of destruction whither he will?

We need not limit ourselves to supposition: _He exists_. We do not
know who he is, and it is possible that his plans are known to no
one besides himself. The air is full of rumors, and no one can
tell what the future may bring forth. There is enough to show that
a powerful will is evidently directing the activities of many of
these lawless phenomena. Who is the Man in the Whirlpool?

Can no one answer the question before it is too late? For he
certainly exists.

This appeal fell on deaf ears. The few who read it shook their heads, and laughed. The newspaper relapsed into silence with its next number.

To this very day, nobody knows who wrote the article, though Maurice Wallion can make a pretty shrewd guess. The article does not affect our story except as an example of the characteristic and frequently recurring collapse which precedes the fulfilment of a truth, as the prophetic slump gives warning of a financial crisis. It is known now that there _was_ a Man in the Whirlpool, and in order to give an account of that daring adventurer's gigantic attempt to organize chaos, the author has had recourse to the evidence of a number of persons, in particular Messrs. Wallion and Raebel, and, above all, Mr. Leonard Grath.

But we must tell our tale methodically, and many things happened before the actual appearance of the arch-villain himself. The story opens, appropriately, with the arrival of two of the principal characters in Stockholm, that is to say, on July 19th, 1917. From that moment, the depths begin to seethe, the catastrophe looms nearer, and a Face appears amidst the foaming waters....

The curtain rises....