"Anything further?" inquired the great statesman in a low, mechanical
tone, his gaze fixed straight before him as he sat.
"Nothing further, your Lordship," answered the telegraphist.
The Earl of Warnham sighed deeply, his thin hands twitching with a
nervous excitement he strove in vain to suppress.
"Ask if Lord Maybury is in town," he said hoarsely, suddenly rousing
himself.
Again the instrument clicked, and a few moments later the telegraphist,
turning to the Foreign Minister, said,--
"The Premier is in town, your Lordship."
The Earl glanced at his watch a few seconds in silence, then
exclaimed,--
"Tell Gaysford to inform Lord Maybury at once of the contents of this
last dispatch from St Petersburg, and say that I will meet the Premier
at 5:30 at the Foreign Office." The telegraphist touched the key, and
in a few moments the Minister's orders were obeyed. Then, taking a
sheet of note-paper and a pencil, he wrote in a private cipher a
telegram, which he addressed to Her Majesty at Osborne. This, too, the
clerk dispatched at once over the wire, followed by urgent messages to
members of the Cabinet Council and to Lord Kingsbury, Commander-in-Chief
of the British Army, asking them to meet informally at six o'clock that
evening at the Foreign Office.
When all these messages had been transmitted with a rapidity that was
astonishing, the telegraphist turned in his chair and asked,--
"Anything more, your lordship?"
"Nothing for the present," he answered. "Leave us." Then, when he had
gone, the Earl rose slowly, and with bent head, and hands clasped behind
his back, he strode up and down the library in silent contemplation.
Suddenly he halted before me where I stood, and abruptly asked,--
"What did you say was the name of that friend who lunched with you
yesterday?"
"Ogle," I answered. "Dudley Ogle."
"And his profession?"
"He had none. His father left him with enough to live upon
comfortably."
"Who was his father?" he inquired, with a sharp look of doubt.
"A landowner."
"Where?"
"I don't know."