"How long have you known this friend?"
"Several years."
"You told me that he has died since yesterday," his lordship said. "Is
not that a rather curious fact--if true?"
"True!" I cried. "You apparently doubt me. A telegram to the police
at Staines will confirm my statement."
"Yes, I never disguise my doubts, Deedes," the Earl snapped, fixing his
grey eyes upon mine. "I suspect very strongly that you have sold the
secret to our enemies; you have, to put it plainly, betrayed your
country."
"I deny it!" I replied, with fierce anger. "I care not for any of your
alleged proofs. True, the man who was with me during the whole time I
was absent is dead. Nevertheless I am prepared to meet and refute all
the accusations you may bring against me."
"Well, we shall see. We shall see," he answered dryly, snapping his
fingers, and again commencing to pace the great library from end to end
with steps a trifle more hurried than before. "We have--nay, I,
personally have been the victim of dastardly spies, but I will not rest
until I clear up the mystery and bring upon the guilty one the
punishment he deserves. Think," he cried. "Think what this means!
England's prestige is ruined, her power is challenged; and ere long the
great armies of Russia and France will be swarming upon our shores. In
the fights at sea and the fights on land with modern armaments the
results must be too terrible to contemplate. The disaster that we must
face will, I fear, be crushing and complete. I am not, I have never
been, one of those over-confident idiots who believe our island
impregnable; but am old-fashioned enough to incline towards Napoleon's
opinion. We are apt to rely upon our naval strength, a strength that
may, or may not, be up to the standard of power we believe. If it is a
rotten reed, what remains? England must be trodden beneath the iron
heel of the invader, and the Russian eagle will float beside the
tricolour in Whitehall."
"But can diplomacy do nothing to avert the catastrophe?" I suggested.
"Not when it is defeated by the devilish machinations of spies," he
replied meaningly, flashing a glance at me, the fierceness of which I
did not fail to observe.
"But Russia dare not take the initiative," I blurted forth.
"Permit me, sir, to express my own opinion upon our relations with St
Petersburg," he roared. "I tell you that for years Russia has held
herself in readiness to attack us at the moment when she received
sufficient provocation, and for that very object she contracted an
alliance with France. The Tzar's recent visit to England was a mere
farce to disarm suspicion, a proceeding in which, thank Heaven! I
refused to play any part whatever. The blow that I have long
anticipated, and have sought to ward off all these long years of my
administration as Premier and as Foreign Secretary, has fallen. To-day
is the most sorry day that England has ever known. The death-knell of
her power is ringing," and he walked down the room towards me,
pale-faced and bent, his countenance wearing an expression of
unutterable gloominess. He was, I knew, a patriot who would have
sacrificed his life for his country's honour, and every word he had
uttered came straight from his heart.
"How the secret agents of the Tzar obtained knowledge of the treaty
surpasses comprehension," I exclaimed.
"The catastrophe is due to you--to you alone!" he cried. "You knew of
what vital importance to our honour it was that the contents of that
document should be kept absolutely secret. I told you with my own lips.
You have no excuse whatever--none. Your conduct is culpable in the
highest degree, and you deserve, sir, instant dismissal and the
publication in the _Gazette_ of a statement that you have been
discharged from Her Majesty's service because you were a thief and a
spy!"
"I am neither," I shouted in a frenzy of rage, interrupting him. "If
you were a younger man, I'd--by Heaven! I'd knock you down. But I
respect your age, Lord Warnham, and I am not forgetful of the fact that
to you I owe more than I can ever repay. My family have faithfully
served their country through generations, and I will never allow a false
accusation to be brought upon it, even though you, Her Majesty's Foreign
Secretary, may choose to make it." He halted, glancing at me with an
expression of unfeigned surprise.
"You forget yourself, sir," he answered, with that calm, unruffled
dignity that he could assume at will. "I repeat my accusation, and it
is for you to refute it."
"I can! I will!" I cried.
"Then explain the reason you handed me a sheet of blank paper in
exchange for the instrument."
"I cannot, I--"
He laughed a hard, cynical laugh, and, turning upon his heel, paced
towards the opposite window.
"All I know is that the envelope I gave you was the same that you handed
to me," I protested.
"It's a deliberate lie," he cried, as he turned in anger to face me
again. "I opened the dispatch, read it through to ascertain there was
no mistake, and, after sealing it with my own hands, gave it to you.
Yet, in return, you hand me this!" and he took from the table the
ingeniously-forged duplicate envelope and held it up.