a little breakdown on a freight ahead, which required time to patch up. It reminded me ————” and then he launched boldly into one of the bright dinner stories for which he was noted among his companions at home. His heart was beating wildly, but he succeeded in turning the attention of the table to his joke, instead of to asking from where he had come and on what road. Questions about himself were dangerous he plainly saw, if he would get possession of the valued paper and get away without leaving a trail behind him. He succeeded in one thing more, which, though he did not know it, was the very thing his chief had hoped he would do when he chose him instead of a man who had wider experience:: he made every man at the table feel that he was delightful, a man to be thoroughly trusted and enjoyed; who would never suspect them of having any ulterior motives in anything they were doing.
The conversation for a little time rippled with bright stories and repartee, and Gordon began to feel almost as if he were merely enjoying a social dinner at home, with Julia Bentley down the table listening and haughtily smiling her approval. For the time the incidents of the dog and the newsboy were forgotten, and the young man felt his self-respect rising. His heart was beginning to get into normal action again and he could control his thoughts. Then suddenly, the crisis arrived.
The soup and fish courses had been disposed of, and the table was being prepared for the entrée. The host leaned back genially in his chair and said, “By the way, Mr. Burnham, did you know I had an axe to grind in asking you here this evening? That sounds inhospitable, doesn’t it? But I’m sure we’re all grateful to the axe that has given us the opportunity of meeting you. We are delighted at having discovered you.”
Gordon bowed, smiling at the compliment, and the murmurs of hearty assent around the table showed him that he had begun well. If only he could keep it up! But how, how, was he to get possession of that magic bit of paper and take it away with him?
“Mr. Burnham, I was delighted to learn through a friend that you are an expert in code-reading. I wonder, did the message that my friend, Mr. Burns sent you this morning give you any information that I wanted you to do me a favor?”
Gordon bowed again. “Yes: it was intimated to me that you had some message you would like deciphered, and I have also sent a letter of introduction from Mr. Burns.”
Here Gordon took the letter of introduction from his pocket and handed it across the table to his host, who opened it genially, as if it were hardly necessary to read what was written since they already knew so delightfully the man whom it introduced. The duplicate cipher writing in Gordon’s pocket crackled knowingly when he settled his coat about him again, as if it would say, “My time is coming! It is almost here now.”
The young man wondered how he was to get it out without being seen, in case he should want to use it, but he smiled pleasantly at his host with no sign of the perturbation he was feeling.
“You see,” went on Mr. Holman, “we have an important message which we cannot read, and our expert who understands all these matters is out of town and cannot return for some time. It is necessary that we know as soon as possible the import of this writing.”
While he was speaking Mr. Holman drew from his pocket a long, soft leather wallet and took therefrom a folded paper which Gordon at once recognized as the duplicate of the one he carried in his pocket. His head seemed to reel, and all the lights go dark before him as he reached a cold hand out for the paper. He saw in it his own advancement coming to his eager grasp, yet when he got it would he be able to hold it? Something of the coolness of a man facing a terrible danger came to him now. By sheer force of will he held his trembling fingers steady as he took the bit of paper and opened it carelessly, as if he had never heard of it before, saying as he did so:
“I will do my best.”
There was a sudden silence as every eyes was fixed upon him while he unfolded the paper. He gave one swift glance about the table before he dropped his eyes to the task. Every face held the intensity of almost terrible eagerness, and on every one but that of the gentle hostess sat cunning – craft that would stop at nothing to serve its own ends. It was a moment of almost awful import.
The next instant Gordon’s glance went down to the paper in his hand, and his brain and heart were seized in the grip of fright. There was no other word to describe his feeling. The message before him was clearly written in the code of the home office, and the words stared at him plainly without the necessity to study. The import of them was the revelation of one of the most momentous questions that had to do with the Secret Service work, a question the answer to which had puzzled the entire department for weeks. That answer he now held in his hand, and he knew that if it should come to the knowledge of those outside before it had done its work through the department it would result in dire calamity to the cause of righteousness in the country, and incidentally crush the inefficient messenger who allowed it to become known. For the instant Gordon felt unequal to the task before him. How could he keep these bloodhounds at bay – for such they were, he perceived from the import of the message, bloodhounds who were getting ill-gotten gains from innocent and unsuspecting victims – some of them little children.
But the old chief had picked his man well. Only for an instant the glittering lights darkened before his eyes and the cold perspiration started. Then he rallied his forces and looked up. The welfare of a nation’s honor was in his hands, and he would be true. It was a matter of life and death, and he would save it or lose his own life if need be.
He summoned his ready smile.
“I shall be glad to serve you if I can,” he said. “Of course I’d like to look this over a few minutes before attempting to read it. Codes are different, you know, from one another, but there is a key to them all if one can just find it out. This looks as if it might be very simple.”
The spell of breathlessness was broken. The guests relaxed and went on with their dinner.
Gordon, meanwhile, tried coolly to keep up a pretense of eating, the paper held in one hand while he seemed to be studying it. Once he turned it over and looked on the back. There was a large crossmark in red ink at the upper end. He looked at it curiously and then instinctively at his host.
“That is my own mark,” said Mr. Holman. “I put it there to distinguish it from other papers.” He was smiling politely, but he might as well have said, “I put it there to identify it in case of theft;” for every one at the table, unless it might be his wife, understood that that was what he meant. Gordon felt it and was conscious of the other paper in his vest-pocket. The way was going to be difficult.
Among the articles in the envelope which the chief had given him before his departures from Washington were a pair of shell-rimmed eye-glasses, a false mustache, a goatee, and a pair of eyebrows. He had laughed at the suggestion of high-tragedy contained in the disguise, but had brought them with him for a possible emergency. The eye-glasses were tucked into the vest-pocket beside the duplicate paper. He bethought himself of them now. Could he, under cover of taking them out, manage to exchange the papers? And if he should, how about that red-ink mark across the back? Would anyone notice its absence? It was well to exchange the papers as soon as possible before the writing had been studied by those at the table, for he knew that the other message, though resembling this one in general words, differed enough to attract the attention of a close observer. Dared he risk their noticing the absence of the red cross on the back?
Slowly, cautiously, under cover of the conversation, he managed to get that duplicate paper out of his pocket and under the napkin in his lap. This he did with one hand, all the time ostentatiously holding the code message in the other hand, with its back to the people at the table. This hand meanwhile also held his coast lapel out that he might the more easily search his vest-pockets for the glasses. It all looked natural. The hostess was engaged in a whispered conversation with the maid at the moment.
