THE CALL OF THE KEY
This astonishing dénouement fairly paralysed Arrelsford. With a daring
and ability for which he had not given Thorne credit, and which was
totally unexpected, although what he had learned of his previous career
might have given him some warning, the tables had been turned upon him
by a man whom he confidently fancied he had entrapped beyond possibility
of escape!
His amazement held him speechless for a moment, but his natural
resourcefulness came back to him with his returning presence of mind. He
knew the futility of an attempt to struggle with his captors, he
therefore decided to try to reason with them.
“Sergeant,” he began, quietly enough, “my orders are——”
But Thorne would not let him continue. Having gained the advantage he
was determined to keep it to the end and for that purpose he followed up
his first blow, ruthlessly pressing his charge hard.
“Damn your orders!” he interrupted furiously. “You haven’t got orders to
shoot up everybody you see in this office, have you?”
This was too much for Arrelsford, and he made a desperate plunge forward
to get at Thorne, who shook his wounded wrist in the Secret Service
Agent’s face. The soldiers held him tightly, however, and Thorne
continued hotly:
“Get his gun away, Sergeant; he’ll hurt somebody.”
While the soldiers—who appeared to entertain no doubt and to have no
hesitancy whatever about obeying Thorne’s orders, the latter evidently
the military man of the two and his voice and bearing, to say nothing of
his uniform, telling heavily against a civilian like Arrelsford—were
taking the revolver out of his hands, Thorne once more turned to the
telegraph table. His blood was up and he would send the despatch now
before the whole assemblage, before the Confederate Government or its
Army, if necessary.
Arrelsford burst out in a last vain attempt to stop him:
“Listen to me, Sergeant,” he pleaded desperately, “he is going to send
out a false telegram and——”
“That’ll do,” gruffly said the Sergeant of the Guard, shaking his fist
in Arrelsford’s face, “what is it all about, Captain!”
“All about? I haven’t the slightest idea. He says he comes from some
office or other. I was sending off some important official despatches
here and he began by letting off his gun at me. Crazy lunatic, I think.”
“It’s a lie!” said Arrelsford furiously. “Let me speak—I
will—prove——”
“Here!” said the Sergeant of the Guard, “that’ll do now. What shall I do
with him, Captain?”
“I don’t care a damn what you do with him. Get him out of here, that’s
all I want.”
“Very well, sir. Are you much hurt?”
“Oh, no. He did up one hand, but I can get along with the other all
right,” said Thorne, sitting down at the table and seizing the key.
“Stop him!” cried Arrelsford, fully divining that Thorne intended to
send the message. “He’s sending a—wait!” A thought came to him. “Ask
Miss Varney, she saw him,—ask Miss Varney.”
But the old Sergeant of the Guard paid no attention whatever to his
frantic appeals.
“Here, fall in there!” he said. “We’ll get him out, Captain. Have you
got him, men? Forward then!”
Struggling furiously the squad of soldiers forced Arrelsford to the
door. Thorne paid absolutely no attention to them; he had forgotten
their presence. Like his attention, his mind and heart were on the key
again. But he was fated to meet with still another interruption.
“Halt there!” cried a sharp voice from the hall, just as the group
reached the door.
“Halt! Left Face!” cried the Sergeant in turn, recognising that here was
a superior whom it were well to obey without question or hesitation.
“Here is General Randolph,” said the voice outside, giving the name of
one of the high officers of the Richmond Garrison.
“Present arms!” cried the Sergeant of the Guard as General Randolph
appeared in the doorway.
Following him were some officers of his staff and by his side was the
imposing figure of Miss Caroline Mitford. The humiliation and
indignation had vanished from her bearing which was one of unmitigated
triumph. She threw a glance at Arrelsford which bode ill for that young
man. The General entered the room and stopped before the Secret Service
Agent, who stood in front of the guard, although he had been released by
the men.
“What’s all this about?” he asked peremptorily.
Although he knew that something important was transpiring, and that the
newcomer was a man of rank, Thorne never turned his head. At whatever
cost, he realised he must get the telegram off, and from the look of
things it appeared that his only chance was then and there. He did not
care if the President of the Confederate States of America were there in
person, his mind and soul were on the order. He was frantically calling
the station he wanted, the one indicated by “Plan 3,” and he had the
doctored despatch, to which he had pasted the Secretary’s signature
spread out on the table before him.
“What’s all this about refusing to send out Miss Mitford’s telegram!”
began General Randolph peremptorily. “Some of your work, I understand,
Mr. Arrelsford.”
“General!” cried Arrelsford breathlessly. “They have arrested me. It is
a conspiracy——” He turned toward Thorne. “Stop that man, for God’s
sake stop him before it’s too late!”
At this juncture, Caroline Mitford turned from the room and joined old
Martha in the hall, and disappeared. She had only come back with the
General to punish Arrelsford, but she did not care to have her precious
despatch made the subject of discussion before so many people.
“Stop him!” exclaimed the General. “What do you mean?”
It was evident that the despatch was not to go out then. Thorne had not
succeeded in getting an answer to his signal. He left the key, rose, and
saluted.
“He means me, sir,” he said. “He’s got an idea some despatch I’m sending
out is a trick of the Yankees.”
“It is a conspiracy!” cried Arrelsford. “He is an impostor——”
“Why, the man must have gone crazy, General,” said Thorne coolly,
holding his position by the table and listening with all his ears for
the return signal.
“I came here on a case for——” expostulated Arrelsford.
“Wait!” said General Randolph. “I will soon get at the bottom of this.
What was he doing when you came in, Sergeant?” he asked of the
non-commissioned officer in charge of the guard.
“He was firing on the Captain, sir,” answered the Sergeant saluting.
“He was sending out a false order to weaken our lines at Cemetery Hill,
and I—ah—Miss Varney, she was here. She saw it all,” explained
Arrelsford.
“Miss Varney!” exclaimed the General.
“Yes, sir.”
“The General’s daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what was she doing here?”
“She came to see for herself whether this man was guilty or not; whether
he was a spy or a traitor.”
“Is this some personal matter of yours, Mr. Arrelsford?” asked the
General suspiciously.
“He was a visitor at her house and I wanted her to know.”
“Where is she now? Where is Miss Varney?” asked Randolph impatiently.
“She must be out there on the balcony,” answered Arrelsford. “I beg you
to send for her, sir.”
“Sergeant,” said General Randolph, “step out on the balcony. Present my
compliments to Miss Varney, and ask her to come in at once.”
In a moment the Sergeant returned.
“There is no one there, sir,” he replied saluting.
At that instant Thorne got the long desired signal. Without a moment’s
hesitation, he turned to the key. He picked up the despatch with his
wounded left hand and with the other began to manipulate the sounder.
“She must be there,” said Arrelsford, “or else she’s stepped into the
next room, the Commissary General’s Office, the window was open, tell
him to—ah!” as the sound of the clicking caught his ear, “Stop him! He
is sending it now!”
Mr. Arrelsford’s distress was so overwhelming and so genuine that
something of the man’s suspicion was communicated to the General.
“One moment, Captain,” he said.
Captain Thorne, of course, had no option but to release the key. He
stopped sending and dropped the despatch, saluting.
“Now, Mr. Arrelsford,” said the General, “what have you to do with the
Military Telegraph Department?”
“This is a Secret Service case; they assigned it to me, sir.”
“What is a Secret Service case?”
“The whole plot to send the order. It’s the Yankee Secret Service. He is
a member of it and his brother brought in the signal to-night.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Thorne, “this despatch ought to go out at
once, sir. It came from the Secretary of War and it is very urgent.”
“Go ahead with it,” said General Randolph.
Thorne needed no further permission than that, dropped to his seat, and
once more seized the fatal key.
“No, no!” cried Arrelsford. “Don’t let him—I tell you it’s a——”
“Silence, sir,” thundered Randolph.
“Do you know what he is telling them?” persisted Arrelsford.
“No, do you?”
“Yes,” returned the Secret Service Agent.
“Wait a moment, Captain Thorne,” said the General, impressed in spite of
himself by this man’s earnestness, which made him disregard all orders,
commands, and everything else. “Where is the despatch?”
Captain Thorne picked up the paper and handed it to the General, and
then stepped back. He had played his last card. He played it
desperately, boldly, and well.
“Well?” asked the General, looking from the despatch to the accuser,
“what has he been telling them?”
“He began to give an order to withdraw Marston’s Division from its
present position,” said Arrelsford, making a brilliant and successful
guess at the probable point of attack in “Plan 3.”
“That is perfectly correct,” said General Randolph, looking at the
paper.
“Yes, by that despatch, but that despatch is a forgery. It is an order
to withdraw a whole division from a vital point. A false order, he wrote
it himself. This is the turning point of the whole plot.”
“But why should he write it himself? If he wanted to send a false order,
he could send it without putting it down on paper, couldn’t he?”
“Yes,” admitted Arrelsford, but he went on with great acuteness, “if any
of the operators came back they would catch him doing it. With that
order and the Secretary’s signature he could go right on. He could even
order one of them to send it.”
“And pray how did he get the Secretary’s signature to a forged
telegram?” asked General Randolph.
“He tore it off a genuine despatch. Why, General, look at that despatch
in your hand yourself. The Secretary’s signature is pasted on, I saw him
do it.”
“They often come that way, sir,” said Thorne nonchalantly.
“He is a liar!” cried Arrelsford. “They never do!”
Thorne stepped forward impulsively, his face flushed at the word “liar,”
but he controlled himself.
“General,” he said, “if you have any doubt about that despatch, send it
back to the War Office and have it verified.”
It was a splendid, magnificent bluff. So overwhelming in its assurance
that even Arrelsford himself was petrified with astonishment. He was
morally certain that Thorne was a Federal Secret Service Agent and that
the despatch was a forgery, yet it would take but a few minutes to send
it over to the Secretary’s office and convict him out of his own mouth.
What could the man mean!
“That’s a good idea,” said General Randolph. He hesitated a moment and
then turned to the guard. “Sergeant,” he said, “take this despatch over
to the Secretary’s office and——”
At that moment, the key which had been silent began a lively clicking.
General Randolph turned toward it, and Thorne made a quick step in the
same direction.
“What’s that?” asked the General.
Thorne stood by the desk listening while the key clicked out the
message.
“Adjutant General Chesney,” he spelt out slowly.
“Oh, from the front, then?” said Randolph.
“Yes, sir,” answered Thorne.
“What is he saying!”
Thorne stepped to the table and bent over the clicking key. “His
compliments, sir,” he read off slowly. “He asks”—waiting for a few
minutes—“for the rest,”—still another pause—“of that despatch—he
says it’s of vital importance, sir, and——”
The communication which Thorne had made to General Randolph was in
itself of vital importance. The General was too good a soldier not to
know the danger of delay in the carrying out of a military manœuvre
which was probably part of some general plan of attack or defence to
which he was not privy. He made up his mind instantly. He took the
despatch from the hand of the Sergeant and turned it over to Thorne
again.
“Let him have it,” he said decisively.
The Captain with his heart pounding like mad sat down at the table and
seized the key. Was he going to complete the despatch? Was the plan to
be carried out? Had he triumphed in the bold and desperately played game
by his splendid courage, resourcefulness, and assurance? His eyes shone,
the colour came back into his pale cheeks as his hands trembled on the
key.
“General!” cried Arrelsford, “if you——”
“That’s enough, sir. We will have you examined at headquarters.”
At that instant Lieutenant Foray came rapidly into the room.
“Thank God!” cried Arrelsford, as he caught sight of him. “There’s a
witness, he was sent away on a forged order, ask him?”
Another interruption, thought Thorne, desperately fingering the keys. If
they would only give him a minute more he could complete the order, but
he was not to have that minute apparently.
“Wait, Captain,” said General Randolph quickly, and again the key was
silent. “Now, sir,” he said to Lieutenant Foray, “where did you come
from!”
The Lieutenant did not all comprehend what was toward, but his answer to
that question was plain.
“There was some mistake, sir,” he answered, saluting.
“Ah!” cried Arrelsford, a note of triumph in his voice.
“Who made it?” asked the General.
“I got an order to go to the President’s house,” returned Foray, “and
when I got there the President——”
Thorne made one last attempt to complete his message.
“Beg pardon, General, this delay will be most disastrous. Permit me to
go on with this message. If there’s any mistake, we can rectify it
afterward.”
He seized the key and continued sending the message as he spoke.
“No!” cried Arrelsford.
General Randolph either did not hear Thorne’s speech or heed it, or else
he did not care to prevent him, and he continued his questioning.
“Where did you get this mistaken order?” he asked.
But Arrelsford, intensely alive to what was going on, interposed.
“He’s at it again, sir!”
“Halt, there!” said General Randolph. “I ordered you to wait.”
The despatch was almost completed. Thorne ground his teeth with rage in
his impatience. He had tried audacity before, he would try it again.
“I was sent here to attend to the business of this office and that
business is going out,” he said resolutely.
“No,” said General Randolph with equal firmness, “it is not going out
until I am ready for it.”
“My orders come from the War Department, not from you, sir. This
despatch came in half an hour ago,” answered Thorne angrily, his voice
rising, “they are calling for it at the other end of the line. It’s my
business to send it out and I am going to do it.”
“Stop!” said General Randolph, as Thorne began to send the message
again. “Sergeant, seize that man and keep him from that machine.”
Well, the last hope was gone. As the Sergeant stepped forward to execute
his orders, Thorne, desperately determined to the last, clicked out a
letter, but he was cut short in the middle of a word. The Sergeant and
two men dragged him away, chair and all, from the table, and two others
posted themselves in front of the key.
“I will have you court-martialled for this, sir,” said General Randolph
angrily.
“You will have to answer yourself,” cried Thorne, playing the game to
the last, “for the delay of a despatch of vital importance, sent by the
Secretary of War.”
“Do you mean that?” cried Randolph.
“I mean just that,” answered Thorne, “and I demand that you let me
proceed with the business of this office. Before these officers and men
I repeat that demand.”
“By what authority do you send that despatch?”
“I refer you to the Department, sir.”
“Show me your orders for taking charge of this office.”
“I refer you to the Department, sir,” answered Thorne stubbornly.
“By God, sir!” continued General Randolph hotly. “I will refer to the
Department. Leave your men on guard there, Sergeant. Go over to the War
Office. My compliments to the Secretary of War, and ask him if he will
be so good as to——”
But Arrelsford’s evil genius prompted him to interpose again. When
affairs were going to his liking he should have let them alone, but fate
seemed to be playing into his hand, and he determined to make the most
of it and the chance.
“Another witness! Miss Varney,” he cried triumphantly, as he bowed
toward the window in which Edith had at that moment appeared. “She was
here with me, she saw it all. Ask her.”
General Randolph turned toward the window and in his turn bowed to the
girl.
“Miss Varney,” he asked courteously, “do you know anything about this?”
“About what, sir?” answered Edith in a low voice.
“Mr. Arrelsford claims that Captain Thorne is acting without authority
in this office and that you can testify to that effect,” was the
General’s answer.