Mr. Mervin Brown on this occasion did not beat about the bush. His old
air of confident, almost smug self-satisfaction, had vanished. He
received Nigel with a new deference in his manner, without any further
sign of that good-natured tolerance accorded by a busy man to a kindly
crank.
"Lord Dorminster," he began, "I have sent for you to renew a
conversation we had some little time since. I will be quite frank with
you. Certain circumstances have come to my notice which lead me to
believe that there may be more truth in some of the arguments you
brought forward than I was willing at the time to believe."
"I must confess that I am relieved to hear you say so," Nigel replied.
"All the information which I have points to a crisis very near at hand."
The Prime Minister leaned a little across the table.
"The immediate reason for my sending for you," he explained, "is this.
My friend the American Ambassador has just sent me a copy of a wireless
dispatch which he has received from China from one of their former
agents. The report seems to have been sent to him for safety, but the
sender of it, of whose probity, by the by, the American Ambassador
pledges himself, appears to have been sent to China by you."
"Jesson!" Nigel exclaimed. "I have heard of this already, sir, from a
friend in the American Embassy."
"The dispatch," Mr. Mervin Brown went on, "is in some respects a little
vague, but it is, on the other hand, I frankly admit, disturbing. It
gives specific details as to definite military preparations on the part
of China and Russia, associated, presumably, with a third Power whose
name you will forgive my not mentioning. These preparations appear to
have been brought almost to completion in the strictest secrecy, but the
headquarters of the whole thing, very much to my surprise, I must
confess, seems to be in southern China."
"In that case," Nigel pointed out, "if you will permit me to make a
suggestion, sir, you have a very simple course open to you."
"Well?"
"Send for Prince Shan."
"Prince Shan," the Prime Minister replied, with knitted brows, "is not
over in this country officially. He has begged to be excused from
accepting or returning any diplomatic courtesies."
"Nevertheless," Nigel persisted, "I should send for Prince Shan. If it
had not been," he went on slowly, "for the complete abolition of our
secret service system, you would probably have been informed before now
that Prince Shan has been having continual conferences in this country
with one of the most dangerous men who ever set foot on these
shores--Oscar Immelan."
"Immelan has no official position in this country," the Prime Minister
objected.
"A fact which makes him none the less dangerous," Nigel insisted. "He is
one of those free lances of diplomacy who have sprung up during the last
ten or fifteen years, the product of that spurious wave of altruism
which is responsible for the League of Nations. Immelan was one of the
first to see how his country might benefit by the new régime. It is he
who has been pulling the strings in Russia and China, and, I fear,
another country."
"What I want to arrive at," Mr. Mervin Brown said, a little impatiently,
"is something definite."
"Let me put it my own way," Nigel begged. "A very large section of our
present-day politicians--you, if I may say so, amongst them, Mr. Mervin
Brown--have believed this country safe against any military dangers,
because of the connections existing between your unions of working men
and similar bodies in Germany. This is a great fallacy for two reasons:
first because Germany has always intended to have some one else pull the
chestnuts out of the fire for her, and second because we cannot
internationalise labour. English and German workmen may come together
on matters affecting their craft and the conditions of their labour, but
at heart one remains a German and one an Englishman, with separate
interests and a separate outlook."
"Well, at the end of it all," Mr. Mervin Brown said, "the bogey is war.
What sort of a war? An invasion of England is just as impossible to-day
as it was twenty years ago."
Nigel nodded.
"I cannot answer your question," he admitted. "I was looking to Jesson's
report to give us an idea as to that."
"You shall see it to-morrow," Mr. Mervin Brown promised. "It is round at
the War Office at the present moment."
"Without seeing it," Nigel went on, "I expect I can tell you one
startling feature of its contents. It suggested, did it not, that the
principal movers against us would be Russian and China and--a country
which you prefer just now not to mention?"
"But that country is our ally!" Mr. Mervin Brown exclaimed.
Nigel smiled a little sadly.
"She has been," he admitted. "Still, if you had been _au fait_ with
diplomatic history thirty years ago, Mr. Mervin Brown, you would know
that she was on the point of ending her alliance with us and
establishing one with Germany. It was only owing to the genius of one
English statesman that at the last moment she almost reluctantly
renewed her alliance with us. She is in the same state of doubt
concerning our destiny to-day. She has seen our last two Governments
forget that we are an Imperial Power and endeavour to apply the
principles of sheer commercialism to the conduct of a great nation. She
may have opened her eyes a thousand years later than we did, but she is
awake enough now to know that this will not do. There is little enough
of generosity amongst the nations; none amongst the Orientals. I have a
conviction myself that there is a secret alliance between China and this
other Power, a secret and quite possibly an aggressive alliance."
Mr. Mervin Brown sat for a few moments deep in thought. Somehow or other
his face had gained in dignity since the beginning of the conversation.
The nervous fear in his eyes had been replaced by a look of deep and
solemn anxiety.
"If you are right, Lord Dorminster," he pronounced presently, "the world
has rolled backwards these last ten years, and we who have failed to
mark its retrogression may have a terrible responsibility thrust upon
us."
"Politically, I am afraid I agree with you," Nigel replied. "Only the
idealist, and the prejudiced idealist, can ignore the primal elements in
human nature and believe that a few lofty sentiments can keep the
nations behind their frontiers. War is a terrible thing, but human life
itself is a terrible thing. Its principles are the same, and force will
never be restrained except by force. If the League of Nations had been
established upon a firmer and less selfish basis, it certainly might
have kept the peace for another thirty or forty years. As it is, I
believe that we are on the verge of a serious crisis."
"War for us is an impossibility," Mr. Mervin Brown declared frankly,
"simply because we cannot fight. Our army consists of policemen; science
has defeated the battleship; and practically the same conditions exist
in the air."
"You sent for me, I presume, to ask for my advice," Nigel said. "At any
rate, let me offer it. I have reason to believe that the negotiations
between Prince Shan and Oscar Immelan have not been entirely successful.
Send for Prince Shan and question him in a friendly fashion."
"Will you be my ambassador?" the Prime Minister asked.
Nigel hesitated for a moment.
"If you wish it," he promised. "Prince Shan is in some respects a
strangely inaccessible person, but just at present he seems well
disposed towards my household."
"Arrange, if you can," Mr. Mervin Brown begged, "to bring him here
to-morrow morning. I will try to have available a copy of the dispatch
from Jesson. It refers to matters which I trust Prince Shan will be able
to explain."
Nigel lingered for a moment over his farewell.
"If I might venture upon a suggestion, sir," he said, "do not forget
that Prince Shan is to all intents and purposes the autocrat of Asia. He
has taught the people of the world to remodel their ideas of China and
all that China stands for. And further than this, he is, according to
his principles, a man of the strictest honour. I would treat him, sir,
as a valued _confrère_ and equal."
The Prime Minister smiled.
"Don't look upon me as being too intensely parochial, Dorminster," he
said. "I know quite well that Prince Shan is a man of genius, and that
he is a representative of one of the world's greatest families. I am
only the servant of a great Power. He is a great Power in himself."
"And believe me," Nigel concluded fervently, as he made his adieux, "the
greatest autocrat that ever breathed. If, when you exchange farewells
with him, he says--'There will be no war'--we are saved, at any rate for
the moment."