his pointed brown beard. “If burglars had visited the place, he would have asked for a clever officer or two, not for a personal interview with me.” With this view I was compelled to agree, then, lighting cigarettes, we sat back calmly contemplating the beautiful, fertile country through which we were driving. The road, leaving the quaint old town, descended sharply for a short distance, then wound uphill through cornfields lined by high hedges of hawthorn and holly. On, past a quaint old water-mill we skirted Warnham Pond, whereon Shelley in his youthful days sailed paper boats, then half-a-mile further entered the handsome lodge-gates of Warnham Park. Through a fine avenue, with a broad sweep of park on either side well stocked with deer, emus and many zoological specimens, we ascended, until at last, after negotiating the long, winding drive in front of the Hall, the carriage pulled up with a sudden jerk before its handsome portico.
As I alighted, old Stanford, the white-haired butler, came forward hurriedly, saying, —
“His Lordship is in the library awaiting you, sir. He told me to bring you to him the moment you arrived.”
“Very well,” I said, and the aged retainer, leading the way along a spacious but rather cheerless corridor, stopped before the door of the great library, and throwing it suddenly open, announced me.
“At last, Deedes,” I heard the Earl exclaim in a tone that showed him to be in no amiable mood; and as I entered the long, handsome chamber, lined from floor to ceiling with books, I did not at first notice him until he rose slowly from a large writing-table, behind which he had been hidden. His face, usually wizened and pale, was absolutely bloodless. Its appearance startled me.
“I wired you last night, and expected you by the 9:18 this morning, Why did you not come?” was his first question, uttered in a sharp tone of annoyance.
“The sudden death of a friend caused me to lose the train I intended to catch,” I explained.
“Death!” he snapped, in the manner habitual to him when impatient. “Is the death of a friend any account when the interests of the country are at stake? On the night my wife was dying I was compelled to leave her bedside to travel to Balmoral to have audience of Her Majesty regarding a document I had sent for the Royal assent. When I returned, Lady Warnham had been dead fourteen hours. In the successful diplomat there must be no sentiment – none.”
“The five minutes I lost when I discovered my friend dead caused me to miss my train from Staines to London,” I explained.
“But you received my telegram, and should have strictly regarded its urgency,” he answered, with an air of extreme dissatisfaction. “The fact of its being in cipher was sufficient to show its importance.”
“I was out dining, and my man brought it along to me,” I said.
“Why did he do so?” he inquired quickly.
“Because he thought it might be urgent.”
“Did he open it?”
“No. Even if he had it was in cipher.”
“Is your man absolutely trustworthy?” he asked.
“He has been in the service of my family for fifteen years. He was my father’s valet at the Hague.”
“Is his name Juckes?” he inquired.
“Yes.”
“Ah! I know him. He is absolutely trustworthy; a most excellent man.”
The Earl’s manner surprised me. His face, usually calm, sphinx-like and expressionless, betrayed the most intense anxiety and suspicion. That my delay had caused him great annoyance was apparent, but the anxious expression upon his ashen, almost haggard face was such, that even in moments of extreme perplexity, when dealing with one or other of the many complex questions of foreign policy, it had never been so intense.
Standing with his back to one of the great bay windows that commanded extensive views of the picturesque park, he was silent for a moment, then turning his keen, grey eyes upon me, he suddenly exclaimed, in a tone of extreme gravity, —
“Since yesterday, Deedes, a catastrophe has occurred.”
“You briefly hinted at it in your telegram,” I answered. “What is its nature?”
“The most serious that has happened during the whole of my administration,” he said in a voice that plainly betrayed his agitation. “The clauses of the secret defensive alliance which Hammerton brought from Berlin yesterday are known in St Petersburg.”
“What!” I cried in alarm, remembering the Earl’s words, and his elaborate precautions to preserve its secrecy. “Surely they cannot be already known?”
“We have been tricked by spies, Deedes,” he answered sternly. “Read this,” and he handed me a telegram in the private cipher known only to the Minister himself. Its transcript was written beneath, and at a glance I saw it was from a Russian official in the Foreign Office at St Petersburg, who acted as our secret agent there and received a large sum yearly for his services. The dispatch, which showed that it had been handed in at Hamburg at six o’clock on the previous evening – all secret messages being sent in the first instance to that city – and re-transmitted – read as follows: —
“Greatest excitement caused here by receipt by telegraph an hour ago of verbatim copy of secret defensive alliance between England and Germany. Have seen telegram, which was handed in at 369, Strand, London, at 3:30. Just called at Embassy and informed Lord Strathavon. Council of Ministers has been summoned.”
“It is amazing,” I gasped, when I had read the dispatch. “How could our enemies have learned the truth?”
Without replying he took from his writing-table another message, which read: —
“From Strathavon, St Petersburg. To the Earl of Warnham, London. – Defensive alliance known here. Hostilities feared. French ambassador has had audience at Winter Palace, and telegraphed to Paris for instruction. Shall wire hourly.”
One by one he took up the telegraphic dispatches which, during the night, had been re-transmitted from the Foreign Office over the private wire to the instrument that stood upon a small table opposite us. As I read each of them eagerly, I saw plainly that Russia and France were in complete accord, and that we were on the verge of a national disaster, sudden and terrible. With such secrecy and rapidity were negotiations being carried on between Paris and St Petersburg, that in Berlin, a city always well-informed in all matters of diplomacy, nothing unusual was suspected.
A further telegram from our secret agent in the Russian Foreign Office, received an hour before my arrival at Warnham, read: —
“The secret is gradually leaking out. The Novosti has just issued a special edition hinting at the possibility of war with England, and this has caused the most intense excitement everywhere. The journal, evidently inspired, gives no authority for its statement, nor does it give any reason for the startling rumour.”
I laid down the dispatch in silence, and as I raised my head the Minister’s keen, penetrating eyes met mine.
“Well,” he exclaimed, in a dry, harsh tone. “What is is your explanation, sir?”
“My explanation?” I cried, in amazement, noticing his determined demeanour. “I know nothing of the affair except the telegrams you have shown me.”
“Upon you alone
