‘Your Majesty has taken no steps to make your repudiation public?’
The Kaiser gave an angry frown.
‘That is the serious part of the affair,’ he answered. ‘Kruger, in
his eagerness to proclaim to the world that I was on his side, had
sent copies of this infamous production to every newspaper in the two
hemispheres before it reached my eyes. At the moment when I first saw
it, it had already been read and commented upon all round the globe.
The British newspapers were already threatening war, and my own
people had been excited to a pitch of enthusiasm such as no other act
of mine has ever called forth. You see the position I was placed in.
If I were now to disavow this forgery, my disavowal would be received
everywhere with the same scepticism as was felt even by my own
Chancellor. The British would triumph over me, and my own subjects
would never forgive me for what they would regard as a surrender to
British threats.’
I sat silent. I realised the full difficulty of the Kaiser’s
position. He was committed in spite of himself to the act of some
impostor, whose real motives were yet to be discovered, but who had
already succeeded in bringing the two greatest Powers of Europe to
the verge of war.
‘Before I can undo the mischief which has been done,’ the Emperor
proceeded, ‘I must first of all ascertain from what quarter this
forgery emanated. When I have obtained that information, backed by
clear and convincing proofs, it may be possible for me to satisfy
the British Government that they and I have been the victims of a
conspiracy. If you can succeed in furnishing me with those proofs, it
shall be the best day’s work you ever did in your life.’
I listened carefully to these words, scrutinising them for any trace
of a double meaning. It was impossible for me to dismiss entirely
from my mind that suspicion which the story told by Wilhelm II. was
naturally calculated to excite. I asked myself whether the Kaiser was
really in earnest, or whether he was not inviting me, in a delicate
fashion, to extricate him from the consequences of his own rashness,
by putting together some fictitious account of the origin of the
telegram, which might impose on Lord Salisbury.
It was clearly necessary, however, for me to appear to be convinced.
‘May I ask if your Majesty’s suspicions point in any particular
direction?’ I asked, trying to feel my way cautiously. ‘The President
of the Boers is perhaps----’
The Kaiser interrupted me.
‘I do not think Kruger would dare to provoke me by such a trick.
He would know that he would be the first to suffer when it was
found out. No, I am convinced that we must look nearer home for the
traitor.’
Something in the Emperor’s tone struck me as significant.
‘If you could give me any indication of the person----’ I ventured to
throw out.