Louise left her brougham in Piccadilly and walked across the Green
Park. Bellamy, who was waiting, rose up from a seat, hat in hand. She
took his arm in foreign fashion. They walked together towards
Buckingham Palace—a strangely distinguished-looking couple.
“My dear David,” she said, “the man perplexes me. To look at him, to
hear him speak, one would swear that he was honest. He has just those
clear blue eyes and the stolid face, half stupid and half splendid, of
your athletic Englishman. One would imagine him doing a foolishly
honorable thing, but he is not my conception of a criminal at all.”
Bellamy kicked a pebble from the path. His forehead wore a perplexed
frown.
“He didn’t give himself away, then?”
“Not in the least.”
“He took you out and showed you the spot where it happened?”
“Without an instant’s hesitation.”
“As a matter of curiosity,” asked Bellamy, “did he try to make love to
you?”
She shook her head.
“I even gave him an opening,” she said. “Of flirtation he has no more
idea than the average stupid Englishman one meets.”
Bellamy was silent for several moments.
“I can’t believe,” he said, “that there is the least doubt but that he
has the money and the portfolio. I have made one or two other
inquiries, and I find that his firm was in very low water indeed only a
week ago. They were spoken of, in fact, as being hopelessly insolvent.
No one can imagine how they tided over the crisis.”
“The man who was watching for you?” she inquired.
“He makes no mistakes,” Bellamy assured her. “He saw Laverick enter
that passage and come out. Afterwards he went back to his office,
although he had closed up there and had been on his homeward way. The
thing could not have been accidental.”
“Why do you not go to him openly?” she suggested. “He is, after all, an
Englishman, and when you tell him what you know he will be very much in
your power. Tell him of the value of that document. Tell him that you
must have it.”
“It could be done,” Bellamy admitted. “I think that one of us must talk
plainly to him. Listen, Louise,—are you seeing him again?”
“I have invited him to come to the Opera House to-night.”
“See what you can do,” he begged. “I would rather keep away from him
myself, if I can. Have you heard anything of Streuss?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Nothing directly,” she replied, “but my rooms have been searched—even
my dressing-room at the Opera House. That man’s spies are simply
wonderful. He seems able to plant them everywhere. And, David!—”
“Yes, dear?”
“He has got hold of Lassen,” she continued. “I am perfectly certain of
it.”
“Then the sooner you get rid of Lassen, the better,” Bellamy declared.
“It is so difficult,” she murmured, in a perplexed tone. “The man has
all my affairs in his hands. Up till now, although he is uncomely, and
a brute in many ways, he has served me well.”
“If he is Streuss’s creature he must go,” Bellamy insisted.
She nodded.
“Let us sit down for a few minutes,” she said. “I am tired.”
She sank on to a seat and Bellamy sat by her side. In full view of them
was Buckingham Palace with its flag flying. She looked thoughtfully at
it and across to Westminster.
“Do they know, I wonder, your country-people?” she asked.
“Half-a-dozen of them, perhaps,” he answered gloomily, no more.
“To-day,” she declared, “I seem to have lost confidence. I seem to feel
the sense of impending calamity, to hear the guns as I walk, to see the
terror fall upon the faces of all these great crowds who throng your
streets. They are a stolid, unbelieving people—these. The blow, when it
comes, will be the harder.”
Bellamy sighed.
“You are right,” he said. “When one comes to think of it, it is
amazing. How long the prophets of woe have preached, and how completely
their teachings have been ignored! The invasion bogey has been so long
among us that it has become nothing but a jest. Even I, in a way, am
one of the unbelievers.”
“You are not serious, David!” she exclaimed.
“I am,” he affirmed. “I think that if we could read that document we
should see that there is no plan there for the immediate invasion of
England. I think you would find that the blow would be struck
simultaneously at our Colonies. We should either have to submit or send
a considerable fleet away from home waters. Then, I presume, the
question of invasion would come again. All the time, of course, the
gage would be flung down, treaties would be defied, we should be
scorned as though we were a nation of weaklings. Austria would gather
in what she wanted, and there would be no one to interfere.”
Louise was very pale but her eyes were flashing fire.
“It is the most terrible thing which has happened in history,” she
said, “this decadence of your country. Once England held the scales of
justice for the world. Now she is no longer strong enough, and there is
none to take her place. David, even if you know what that document
contains, even then will it help very much?”
“Very much indeed. Don’t you see that there is one hope left to us—one
hope—and that is Russia? The Czar must be made to withdraw from that
compact. We want to know his share in it. When we know that, there will
be a secret mission sent to Russia. Germany and Austria are strong, but
they are not all the world. With Russia behind and France and England
westward, the struggle is at least an equal one. They have to face both
directions, they have to face two great armies working from the east
and from the west.”
She nodded, and they sat there in silence for several moments. Bellamy
was thinking deeply.
“You say, Louise,” he asked, looking up quickly, “that your rooms have
been searched. When was this?”
“Only last night,” she replied.
Bellamy drew a little sigh of relief.
“At any rate,” he said, “Streuss has no idea that the document is not
in our possession. He knows nothing about Laverick. How are we going to
deal with him, Louise, when he comes for his answer?”
“You have a plan?” she asked.
“There is only one thing to be done,” Bellamy declared. “I shall say
that we have already handed over the document to the English
Government. It will be a bluff, pure and simple. He may believe it or
he may not.”
“You will break your compact then,” she reminded him.
“I shall call myself justified,” he continued. “He has attempted to rob
us of the document. You are sure of what you say—that your rooms and
dressing-room have been searched?”
“Absolutely certain,” she declared.
“That will be sufficient,” Bellamy decided. “If Streuss comes to me, I
shall meet him frankly. I shall tell him that he has tried to play the
burglar and that it must be war. I shall tell him that the compact is
in the hands of the Prime Minister, and that he and his spies had
better clear out.”
She looked at him questioningly.
“Of course, you understand,” he added, “there is one thing we can do,
and one thing only. We must send a mission to Russia and another to
France, and before the German fleet can pass down the North Sea we must
declare war. It is the only thing left to us—a bold front. Without that
packet we have no casus belli. With it, we can strike, and strike hard.
I still believe that if we declare war within seven days, we shall save
ourselves.”
Streuss and Kahn looked, too, across the panorama of London, across the
dingy Adelphi Gardens, the turbid Thames, the smoke-hung world beyond.
They were together in Streuss’s sitting-room on the seventh floor of
one of the great Strand hotels.
“Our enterprise is a failure!” Kahn exclaimed gloomily. “We cannot
doubt it any longer. I think, Streuss, that the best course you and I
could adopt would be to realize it and to get back. We do no good here.
We only run needless risks.”
The face of the other man was dark with anger. His tone, when he spoke,
shook with passion.
“You don’t know what you say, Kahn!” he cried hoarsely. “I tell you
that we must succeed. If that document reaches the hands of any one in
authority here, it would be the worst disaster which has fallen upon
our country since you or I were born. You don’t understand, Kahn! You
keep your eyes closed!”
“What men can do we have done,” the other answered. “Von Behrling
played us false. He has died a traitor’s death, but it is very certain
that he parted with his document before he received that twenty
thousand pounds.”
“Once and for all, I do not believe it!” Streuss declared. “At mid-day,
I can swear to it that the contents of that envelope were unknown to
the Ministers of the King here. Now if Von Behrling had parted with
that document last Monday night, don’t you suppose that everything
would be known by now? He did not part with it. Bellamy and
Mademoiselle lie when they say that they possess it. That document
remains in the possession of Von Behrling’s murderer, and it is for us
to find him.”
Kahn sighed.
“It is outside our sphere—that. What can we do against the police of
this country working in their own land?”
Streuss struck the table before which they were standing. The veins in
his temples were like whipcord.
“Adolf,” he muttered, “you talk like a fool! Can’t you see what it
means? If that document reaches its destination, what do you suppose
will happen?”
“They will know our plans, of course,” Kahn answered. “They will have
time to make preparation.”
Streuss laughed bitterly.
“Worse than that!” he exclaimed. “They are not all fools, these English
statesmen, though one would think so to read their speeches. Can’t you
see what the result would be if that document reaches Downing Street?
War at a moment’s notice, war six months too soon! Don’t you know that
every shipbuilding yard in Germany is working night and day? Don’t you
know that every nerve is being strained, that the muscles of the
country are hammering the rivets into our new battleships? There is but
one chance for this country, and if her statesmen read that document
they will know what it is. It is open to them to destroy the German
navy utterly, to render themselves secure against attack.”
“They would never have the courage,” Kahn declared. “They might make a
show of defending themselves if they were attacked, but to take the
initiative—no! I do not believe it.”
“There is one man who has wit enough to do it,” Streuss said. “He may
not be in the Cabinet, but he commands it. Kahn, wake up, man! You and
I together have never known what failure means. I tell you that that
document is still to be bought or fought for, and we must find it. This
morning Mademoiselle drove into the city and called at the offices of a
stockbroker within a dozen yards of Crooked Friars’ Alley. She was
there a long time. The stockbroker himself came out with her into the
street, took her to see the entry, stood with her there and returned.
What was her interest in him, Kahn? His name is Laverick. Four days ago
he was on the brink of ruin. To the amazement of every one, he met all
his engagements. Why did Mademoiselle go to the city to see him? He was
at his office late that Tuesday night. He had a partner who has
disappeared.”
Kahn looked at his companion with admiration.
“You have found all this out!” he exclaimed.
“And more,” Streuss declared. “For twenty-four hours, this man Laverick
has not moved without my spies at his heels.”
“Why not approach him boldly?” Kahn suggested. “If he has the document,
let us outbid Mademoiselle Louise, and do it quickly.”
Streuss shook his head.
“You don’t know the man. He is an Englishman, and if he had any idea
what that document contained, our chances of buying it would be small
indeed. This is what I think will happen. Mademoiselle will try to
obtain it, and try in vain. Then Bellamy will tell him the truth, and
he will part with it willingly. In the meantime, I believe that it is
in his possession.
“The evidence is slender enough,” objected Kahn.
“What if it is!” Streuss exclaimed. “If it is only a hundred to one
chance, we have to take it. I have no fancy for disgrace, Adolf, and I
know very well what will happen if we go back empty-handed.”
The telephone bell rang. Streuss took off the receiver and held it to
his ear. The words which he spoke were few, but when he laid the
instrument down there was a certain amount of satisfaction in his face.
“At any rate,” he announced, “this man Laverick did not part with the
document to-day. Mademoiselle Louise and Bellamy have been sitting in
the Park for an hour. When they separated, she drove home and dropped
him at his club. Up till now, then, they have not the document. We
shall see what Mr. Laverick does when he leaves business this evening;
if he goes straight home, either the document has never been in his
possession, or else it is in the safe in his office; if he goes to
Mademoiselle Idiale’s—”
“Well?” Kahn asked eagerly.
“If he goes to Mademoiselle Idiale’s,” Streuss repeated slowly, “there
is still a chance for us!”