When at noon, in accordance with the urgent and strangely-worded
telegram I had received from the Earl of Warnham, I alighted at Horsham
Station, in Sussex, I found one of the carriages from the Hall awaiting
me. As I entered it, I was followed by a man I knew slightly,
Superintendent Frayling, chief of the Criminal Investigation Department
at Scotland Yard, who had apparently travelled down by the same train
from Victoria.
Greeting me, he took the place beside me, and a moment later the footman
sprang upon the box and we sped away towards the open country. To my
question as to his business with the Earl, he made an evasive reply,
merely stating that he had received a telegram requesting an immediate
interview.
"This summons is rather unusual," he added, smiling. "Has anything
serious occurred, do you know?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Perhaps there's been a burglary at the Hall?"
I suggested.
"Hardly that, I think," he replied, with a knowing look, stroking his
pointed brown beard. "If burglars had visited the place, he would have
asked for a clever officer or two, not for a personal interview with
me." With this view I was compelled to agree, then, lighting
cigarettes, we sat back calmly contemplating the beautiful, fertile
country through which we were driving. The road, leaving the quaint old
town, descended sharply for a short distance, then wound uphill through
cornfields lined by high hedges of hawthorn and holly. On, past a
quaint old water-mill we skirted Warnham Pond, whereon Shelley in his
youthful days sailed paper boats, then half-a-mile further entered the
handsome lodge-gates of Warnham Park. Through a fine avenue, with a
broad sweep of park on either side well stocked with deer, emus and many
zoological specimens, we ascended, until at last, after negotiating the
long, winding drive in front of the Hall, the carriage pulled up with a
sudden jerk before its handsome portico.
As I alighted, old Stanford, the white-haired butler, came forward
hurriedly, saying,--
"His Lordship is in the library awaiting you, sir. He told me to bring
you to him the moment you arrived."
"Very well," I said, and the aged retainer, leading the way along a
spacious but rather cheerless corridor, stopped before the door of the
great library, and throwing it suddenly open, announced me.
"At last, Deedes," I heard the Earl exclaim in a tone that showed him to
be in no amiable mood; and as I entered the long, handsome chamber,
lined from floor to ceiling with books, I did not at first notice him
until he rose slowly from a large writing-table, behind which he had
been hidden. His face, usually wizened and pale, was absolutely
bloodless. Its appearance startled me.
"I wired you last night, and expected you by the 9:18 this morning, Why
did you not come?" was his first question, uttered in a sharp tone of
annoyance.
"The sudden death of a friend caused me to lose the train I intended to
catch," I explained.
"Death!" he snapped, in the manner habitual to him when impatient. "Is
the death of a friend any account when the interests of the country are
at stake? On the night my wife was dying I was compelled to leave her
bedside to travel to Balmoral to have audience of Her Majesty regarding
a document I had sent for the Royal assent. When I returned, Lady
Warnham had been dead fourteen hours. In the successful diplomat there
must be no sentiment--none."
"The five minutes I lost when I discovered my friend dead caused me to
miss my train from Staines to London," I explained.
"But you received my telegram, and should have strictly regarded its
urgency," he answered, with an air of extreme dissatisfaction. "The
fact of its being in cipher was sufficient to show its importance."
"I was out dining, and my man brought it along to me," I said.
"Why did he do so?" he inquired quickly.
"Because he thought it might be urgent."
"Did he open it?"
"No. Even if he had it was in cipher."
"Is your man absolutely trustworthy?" he asked.
"He has been in the service of my family for fifteen years. He was my
father's valet at the Hague."
"Is his name Juckes?" he inquired.
"Yes."
"Ah! I know him. He is absolutely trustworthy; a most excellent man."
The Earl's manner surprised me. His face, usually calm, sphinx-like and
expressionless, betrayed the most intense anxiety and suspicion. That
my delay had caused him great annoyance was apparent, but the anxious
expression upon his ashen, almost haggard face was such, that even in
moments of extreme perplexity, when dealing with one or other of the
many complex questions of foreign policy, it had never been so intense.
Standing with his back to one of the great bay windows that commanded
extensive views of the picturesque park, he was silent for a moment,
then turning his keen, grey eyes upon me, he suddenly exclaimed, in a
tone of extreme gravity,--
"Since yesterday, Deedes, a catastrophe has occurred."
"You briefly hinted at it in your telegram," I answered. "What is its
nature?"
"The most serious that has happened during the whole of my
administration," he said in a voice that plainly betrayed his agitation.
"The clauses of the secret defensive alliance which Hammerton brought
from Berlin yesterday are known in St Petersburg."
"What!" I cried in alarm, remembering the Earl's words, and his
elaborate precautions to preserve its secrecy. "Surely they cannot be
already known?"
"We have been tricked by spies, Deedes," he answered sternly. "Read
this," and he handed me a telegram in the private cipher known only to
the Minister himself. Its transcript was written beneath, and at a
glance I saw it was from a Russian official in the Foreign Office at St
Petersburg, who acted as our secret agent there and received a large sum
yearly for his services. The dispatch, which showed that it had been
handed in at Hamburg at six o'clock on the previous evening--all secret
messages being sent in the first instance to that city--and
re-transmitted--read as follows:--
"_Greatest excitement caused here by receipt by telegraph an hour ago of
verbatim copy of secret defensive alliance between England and Germany.
Have seen telegram, which was handed in at 369, Strand, London, at 3:30.
Just called at Embassy and informed Lord Strathavon. Council of
Ministers has been summoned_."
"It is amazing," I gasped, when I had read the dispatch. "How could our
enemies have learned the truth?"
Without replying he took from his writing-table another message, which
read:--
"_From Strathavon, St Petersburg. To the Earl of Warnham, London.--
Defensive alliance known here. Hostilities feared. French ambassador
has had audience at Winter Palace, and telegraphed to Paris for
instruction. Shall wire hourly_."
One by one he took up the telegraphic dispatches which, during the
night, had been re-transmitted from the Foreign Office over the private
wire to the instrument that stood upon a small table opposite us. As I
read each of them eagerly, I saw plainly that Russia and France were in
complete accord, and that we were on the verge of a national disaster,
sudden and terrible. With such secrecy and rapidity were negotiations
being carried on between Paris and St Petersburg, that in Berlin, a city
always well-informed in all matters of diplomacy, nothing unusual was
suspected.
A further telegram from our secret agent in the Russian Foreign Office,
received an hour before my arrival at Warnham, read:--
"_The secret is gradually leaking out. The_ Novosti _has just issued a
special edition hinting at the possibility of war with England, and this
has caused the most intense excitement everywhere. The journal,
evidently inspired, gives no authority for its statement, nor does it
give any reason for the startling rumour_."
I laid down the dispatch in silence, and as I raised my head the
Minister's keen, penetrating eyes met mine.
"Well," he exclaimed, in a dry, harsh tone. "What is is your
explanation, sir?"
"My explanation?" I cried, in amazement, noticing his determined
demeanour. "I know nothing of the affair except the telegrams you have
shown me."
"Upon you alone the responsibility of this catastrophe rests," he said
angrily. "It is useless to deny all knowledge of it and only aggravates
your offence. Because you come of a diplomatic family I have trusted
you implicitly, but it is evident that my confidence has been utterly
misplaced."
"I deny that I have ever, for a single instant, betrayed the trust you
have placed in me," I replied hotly. "I know nothing of the means by
which the Tzar's army of spies have obtained knowledge of our secret."