messages had been transmitted with a rapidity that was astonishing, the telegraphist turned in his chair and asked, —
“Anything more, your lordship?”
“Nothing for the present,” he answered. “Leave us.” Then, when he had gone, the Earl rose slowly, and with bent head, and hands clasped behind his back, he strode up and down the library in silent contemplation. Suddenly he halted before me where I stood, and abruptly asked, —
“What did you say was the name of that friend who lunched with you yesterday?”
“Ogle,” I answered. “Dudley Ogle.”
“And his profession?”
“He had none. His father left him with enough to live upon comfortably.”
“Who was his father?” he inquired, with a sharp look of doubt.
“A landowner.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
The Earl slightly raised his shaggy grey brows, then continued, —
“How long have you known this friend?”
“Several years.”
“You told me that he has died since yesterday,” his lordship said. “Is not that a rather curious fact – if true?”
“True!” I cried. “You apparently doubt me. A telegram to the police at Staines will confirm my statement.”
“Yes, I never disguise my doubts, Deedes,” the Earl snapped, fixing his grey eyes upon mine. “I suspect very strongly that you have sold the secret to our enemies; you have, to put it plainly, betrayed your country.”
“I deny it!” I replied, with fierce anger. “I care not for any of your alleged proofs. True, the man who was with me during the whole time I was absent is dead. Nevertheless I am prepared to meet and refute all the accusations you may bring against me.”
“Well, we shall see. We shall see,” he answered dryly, snapping his fingers, and again commencing to pace the great library from end to end with steps a trifle more hurried than before. “We have – nay, I, personally have been the victim of dastardly spies, but I will not rest until I clear up the mystery and bring upon the guilty one the punishment he deserves. Think,” he cried. “Think what this means! England’s prestige is ruined, her power is challenged; and ere long the great armies of Russia and France will be swarming upon our shores. In the fights at sea and the fights on land with modern armaments the results must be too terrible to contemplate. The disaster that we must face will, I fear, be crushing and complete. I am not, I have never been, one of those over-confident idiots who believe our island impregnable; but am old-fashioned enough to incline towards Napoleon’s opinion. We are apt to rely upon our naval strength, a strength that may, or may not, be up to the standard of power we believe. If it is a rotten reed, what remains? England must be trodden beneath the iron heel of the invader, and the Russian eagle will float beside the tricolour in Whitehall.”
“But can diplomacy do nothing to avert the catastrophe?” I suggested.
“Not when it is defeated by the devilish machinations of spies,” he replied meaningly, flashing a glance at me, the fierceness of which I did not fail to observe.
“But Russia dare not take the initiative,” I blurted forth.
“Permit me, sir, to express my own opinion upon our relations with St Petersburg,” he roared. “I tell you that for years Russia has held herself in readiness to attack us at the moment when she received sufficient provocation, and for that very object she contracted an alliance with France. The Tzar’s recent visit to England was a mere farce to disarm suspicion, a proceeding in which, thank Heaven! I refused to play any part whatever. The blow that I have long anticipated, and have sought to ward off all these long years of my administration as Premier and as Foreign Secretary, has fallen. To-day is the most sorry day that England has ever known. The death-knell of her power is ringing,” and he walked down the room towards me, pale-faced and bent, his countenance wearing an expression of unutterable gloominess. He was, I knew, a patriot who would have sacrificed his life for his country’s honour, and every word he had uttered came straight from his heart.
“How the secret agents of the Tzar obtained knowledge of the treaty surpasses comprehension,” I exclaimed.
“The catastrophe is due to you – to you alone!” he cried. “You knew of what vital importance to our honour it was that the contents of that document should be kept absolutely secret. I told you with my own lips. You have no excuse whatever – none. Your conduct is culpable in the highest degree, and you deserve, sir, instant dismissal and the publication in the Gazette of a statement that you have been discharged from Her Majesty’s service because you were a thief and a spy!”
“I am neither,” I shouted in a frenzy of rage, interrupting him. “If you were a younger man, I’d – by Heaven! I’d knock you down. But I respect your age, Lord Warnham, and I am not forgetful of the fact that to you I owe more than I can ever repay. My family have faithfully served their country through generations, and I will never allow a false accusation to be brought upon it, even though you, Her Majesty’s Foreign Secretary, may choose to make it.” He halted, glancing at me with an expression of unfeigned surprise.
“You forget yourself, sir,” he answered, with that calm, unruffled dignity that he could assume at will. “I repeat my accusation, and it is for you to refute it.”
“I can! I will!” I cried.
“Then explain the reason you handed me a sheet of blank paper in exchange for the instrument.”
“I cannot, I – ”
He laughed a hard, cynical laugh, and, turning upon his heel, paced towards the opposite window.
“All I know is that the envelope I gave you was the same that you handed to me,” I protested.
“It’s a deliberate lie,” he cried, as he turned in anger to face me again. “I opened the dispatch, read it through to ascertain there was no mistake, and, after sealing it with my own hands, gave it to you. Yet, in return, you hand me this!” and he took from the table the ingeniously-forged duplicate envelope and held it up.
Then, casting it down again passionately, he added, —
“The document I handed to you was exchanged for that dummy, and an hour later the whole thing was telegraphed in extenso to Russia. The original was in your possession, and even if you are not actually in the pay of our enemies, you were so negligent of your duty towards your Queen and country that you are undeserving the name of Englishman.”
“But does not London swarm with Russian agents?” I said. “Have we not had ample evidence of that lately?”
“I admit it,” he answered. “But what proof is there to show that you yourself did not hand the original document to one of these enterprising gentlemen who take such a keen interest in our affairs?”
“There is no proof that I am a spy,” I cried hotly. “There never will be; for I am entirely innocent of this disgraceful charge. You overlook the fact that after it had been deposited in the safe it may have been tampered with.”
“I have overlooked no detail,” he answered, with calmness. “Your suggestion
