Surgeon-Major Thomson looked up almost eagerly as Ambrose entered his room the next morning. The young man’s manner was dejected and there were black lines under his eyes. He answered his chief’s unspoken question by a little shake of the head.
“No luck, sir,” he announced. “I spent the whole of last night at it, too—never went to bed at all. I’ve tried it with thirty-one codes. Then I’ve taken the first line or two and tried every possible change.”
“I couldn’t make anything of it myself,” Thomson confessed, looking at the sheet of paper which even at that moment was spread out before him. “All the same, Ambrose, I don’t believe in it.”
“Neither do I, sir.” The other assented eagerly. “I am going to have another try this afternoon. Perhaps there’ll be some more letters in then and we can tell whether there’s any similarity.”
Thomson frowned.
“I’ve a sort of feeling, Ambrose,” he said, “that we sha’n’t have many of these letters.”
“Why not, sir?”
“I heard by telephone, just before you came,” Thomson announced, “that a certain very distinguished person was on his way to see me. Cabinet Ministers don’t come here for nothing, and this one happens to be a friend of Sir Alfred’s.”
Ambrose sighed.
“More interference, sir,” he groaned. “I don’t see how they can expect us to run our department with the civilians butting in wherever they like. They want us to save the country and they’re to have the credit for it.”
There was a knock at the door. A boy scout entered. His eyes were a little protuberant, his manner betokened awe.
“Mr. Gordon Jones, sir!”
Mr. Gordon Jones entered without waiting for any further announcement. Thomson rose to his feet and received a genial handshake, after which the newcomer glanced at Ambrose. Thomson signed to his assistant to leave the room.
“Major Thomson,” the Cabinet Minister began impressively, as he settled down in his chair, “I have come here to confer with you, to throw myself, to a certain extent, upon your understanding and your common sense,” he added, speaking with the pleased air of a man sure of his ground and himself.
“You have come to protest, I suppose,” Thomson said slowly, “against our having—”
“To protest against nothing, my dear sir,” the other interrupted. “Simply to explain to you, as I have just explained to your Chief, that while we possess every sympathy with, and desire to give every latitude in the world to the military point of view, there are just one or two very small matters in which we must claim to have a voice. We have, as you know, a free censorship list. We have put no one upon it who is not far and away above all suspicion. I am given to understand that a letter addressed to Sir Alfred Anselman was opened yesterday. I went to see your Chief about it this morning. He has referred me to you.”
“The letter,” Thomson remarked, “was opened by my orders.”
“I happened,” Mr. Gordon Jones went on, “to be dining at Sir Alfred’s house when the letter was presented. Sir Alfred, I must say, took it exceedingly well. At the same time, I have made it my business to see that this does not occur again.”
Thomson made no sign. His eyebrows, however, rose a little higher.
“The country,” his visitor continued, “will know some day what it owes to Sir Alfred Anselman. At present I can only express, and that poorly, my sense of personal obligation to him. He has been of the greatest assistance to the Government in the city and elsewhere. His contributions to our funds have been magnificent; his advice, his sympathy, invaluable. He is a man inspired by the highest patriotic sentiments, one of the first and most noteworthy of British citizens.”
Thomson listened in silence and without interruption. He met the well-satisfied peroration of his visitor without comment.
“I am hoping to hear,” the latter concluded, with some slight asperity in his manner, “that the circumstance to which I have alluded was accidental and will not be repeated.”
Major Thomson glanced thoughtfully at a little pile of documents by his side. Then he looked coldly towards his visitor and provided him, perhaps, with one of the most complete surprises of his life.
“I am sorry, Mr. Gordon Jones,” he said, “but this is not a matter which I can discuss with you.”
The Cabinet Minister’s face was a study.
“Not discuss it?” he repeated blankly.
Major Thomson shook his head.
“Certain responsibilities,” he continued quietly, “with regard to the safe conduct of this country, have been handed over to the military authorities, which in this particular case I represent. We are in no position for amenities or courtesies. Our country is in the gravest danger and nothing else is of the slightest possible significance. The charge which we have accepted we shall carry out with regard to one thing only, and that is our idea of what is due to the public safety.”
“You mean, in plain words,” Mr. Gordon Jones exclaimed, “that no requests from me or say, for instance, the Prime Minister, would have any weight with you?”
“None whatever,” Major Thomson replied coolly. “Without wishing to be in any way personal, I might say that there are statesmen in your Government, for whom you must accept a certain amount of responsibility, who have been largely instrumental in bringing this hideous danger upon the country. As a company of law-makers you may or may not be excellent people—that is, I suppose, according to one’s political opinions. As a company of men competent to superintend the direction of a country at war, you must permit me to say that I consider you have done well in placing certain matters in our hands, and that you will do better still not to interfere.”
Mr. Gordon Jones sat quite still for several moments.
“Major Thomson,” he said at last, “I have never heard of your before, and I am not prepared for a moment to say that I sympathise with your point of view. But it is at least refreshing to hear any one speak his mind with such frankness. I must now ask you one question, whether you choose to answer it or not. The letter which you have opened, addressed to Sir Alfred—you couldn’t possibly find any fault with it?”
“It was apparently a quite harmless production,” Major Thomson confessed.
“Do you propose to open any more?”
Thomson shook his head.
“That is within our discretion, sir.”
Mr. Gordon Jones struggled with his obvious annoyance.
“Look here,” he said, with an attempt at good-humour, “you can at least abandon the official attitude for a moment with me. Tell me why, of all men in the world, you have chosen to suspect Sir Alfred Anselman?”
“I am sorry,” Thomson replied stiffly, “but this is not a matter which I can discuss in any other way except officially, and I do not recognise you as having any special claims for information.”
The Minister rose to his feet. Those few minutes marked to him an era in his official life.
“You are adopting an attitude, sir,” he said, “which, however much I may admire it from one point of view, seems to me scarcely to take into account the facts of the situation.”
Thomson made no reply. He had risen to his feet. His manner clearly indicated that he considered the interview at an end. Mr. Gordon Jones choked down his displeasure.
“When you are wanting a civil job, Major Thomson,” he concluded, “come and give us a call. Good morning!”
Granet turned quickly around in his chair. Almost instinctively he pulled down the roll top of the desk before which he was seated. Then he rose to his feet and held out his hand. He managed with an effort to conceal the consternation which had succeeded his first impulse of surprise.
“Miss Worth!” he exclaimed.
She came towards him confidently, her hands outstretched, slim, dressed in sober black, her cheeks as pale as ever, her eyes a little more brilliant. She threw her muff into a chair and a moment afterwards sank into it herself.
“You have been expecting me?” she asked eagerly.
Granet was a little taken aback.
“I have been hoping to hear from you,” he said. “You told me, if you remember, not to write.”
“It was better not,” she assented. “Even after you left I had a great deal of trouble. That odious man, Major Thomson, put me through a regular cross-examination again, and I had to tell him at last—”
“What?” Granet exclaimed anxiously.
“That we were engaged to be married,” she confessed. “There was really no other way out of it.”
“That we were engaged,” Granet repeated blankly.
She nodded.
“He pressed me very hard,” she went on, “and I am afraid I made some admissions—well, there were necessary—which, to say the least of it, were compromising. There was only one way out of it decently for me, and I took it. You don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” he replied.
“There was father to be considered,” she went on. “He was furious at first—”
“You told your father?” he interrupted.
“I had to,” she explained, smoothing her muff. “He was there all the time that Thomson man was cross-examining me.”
“Then your father believes in our engagement, too?”
“He does,” she answered drily, “or I am afraid you would have heard a little more from Major Thomson before now. Ever since that night, father has been quite impossible to live with. He says he has to being a part of his work all over again.”
“The bombs really did do some damage, then?” he asked.
She nodded, looking at him for a moment curiously.
“Yes,” she acknowledged, “they did more harm than any one knows. The place is like a fortress now. They say that if they can find the other man who helped to light that flare, he will be shot in five minutes.”
Granet, who had been standing with his elbow upon the mantelpiece, leaned over and took a cigarette from a box.
“Then, for his sake, let us hope that they do not find him,” he remarked.
“And ours,” she said softly.
Granet stood and looked at her steadfastly, the match burning in his fingers. Then he threw it away and lit another. The interval had been full of unadmitted tension, which suddenly passed.
“Shall you think I am horribly greedy,” she asked, “if I say that I should like something to eat? I am dying of hunger.”
Granet for a moment was startled. Then he moved towards the bell.
“How absurd of me!” he exclaimed. “Of course, you have just come up, haven’t you?”
“I have come straight from the station here,” she replied.
He paused.
“Where are you staying, then?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know yet,” she admitted.
“You don’t know?” he repeated.
She met his gaze without flinching. There was a little spot of colour in her cheeks, however, and her lips quivered.
“You see,” she explained, “things became absolutely impossible for me at Market Burnham. I won’t say that they disbelieved me—not my father, at any rate—but he seems to think that it was somehow my fault—that if you hadn’t been there that night the thing wouldn’t have happened. I am watched the whole of the time, in fact not a soul has said a civil word to me—since you left. I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I packed up this morning and I came away without saying a word to any one.”
Granet glanced at the clock. It was a quarter past ten.
“Well, the first thing to do is to get you something to eat,” he said; ringing the bell. “Do you mind having something here or would you like to go to a restaurant?”
“I should much prefer having it here,” she declared. “I am not fit to go anywhere, and I am tired.”
He rang the bell and gave Jarvis a few orders. The girl stood up before the glass, took off her hat and smoothed her hair with her hands. She had the air of being absolutely at home.
“Did you come up without any luggage at all?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I have a dressing-bag and a few things downstairs on a taxicab,” she said. “I told the man to stop his engine and wait for a time—until I had seen you,” she added, turning around.
There was a very slight smile upon her lips, the glimmer of something that was almost appealing, in her eyes. Granet took her hand and patted it kindly. Her response was almost hysterical.
“It’s very sweet of you to trust me like this,” he said. “Jarvis will bring you something to eat, then I’ll take you round to your aunt’s. Where is it she lives—somewhere in Kensington, isn’t it? Tomorrow we must talk things over.”
She threw herself back once more in the easy-chair and glanced around her.
“I should like,” she decided, “to talk them over now.”
He glanced towards the door.
“Just as you please,” he said, “only Jarvis will be in with your sandwiches directly.”
She brushed aside his protest.
“I was obliged,” she continued, “to say that I was engaged to you, to save you from something—I don’t know what. The more I have thought about it, the more terrible it has all seemed. I am not going to even ask you for any explanation. I—I daren’t.”
Granet looked at his cigarette for a moment thoughtfully. Then he threw it into the fire.
“Perhaps you are wise,” he said coolly. “All the same, when the time comes there is an explanation.”
“It is the present which has become such a problem,” she went on. “I was driven to leave home and I don’t think I can go back again. Father is simply furious with me, and every one about the place seems to have an idea that I am somehow to blame for what happened the other night.”
“That seems to me a little unjust,” he protested.
“It isn’t unjust at all,” she replied brusquely. “I’ve told them all lies and I’ve got to pay for them. I came to you—well, there really wasn’t anything else left for me to do, was there? I hope you don’t think that I am horribly forward. I am quite willing to admit that I like you, that I liked you from the first moment we met at Lady Anselman’s luncheon. At the same time, if that awful night hadn’t changed everything, I should have behaved just like any other stupidly and properly brought-up young woman—waited and hoped and made an idiot of myself whenever you were around, and in the end, I suppose, been disappointed. You see, fate has rather changed that. I had to invent our engagement to save you—and here I am,” she added, with a little nervous laugh, turning her head as the door opened.
Jarvis entered with the sandwiches and arranged them on a small table by her side. Granet poured out the wine for her, mixed himself a whiskey-and-soda and took a sandwich also from the plate.
“Now tell me,” he began, as soon as Jarvis had disappeared, “what is there at the back of your mind about my presence there at Market Burnham that night?”
She laid down her sandwich. For the first time her voice trembled. Granet realised that beneath all this quietness of demeanour a volcano was threatening.
“I have told you that I do not want to think of that night,” she said firmly. “I simply do not understand.”
“You have something in your mind?” he persisted. “You don’t believe, really, that that man Collins, who was found shot—”
She glanced at the door.
“I couldn’t sleep that night,” she interrupted. “I heard your car arrive, I saw you both together, you and the man who was shot. I saw—more than that. I hadn’t meant to tell you this but perhaps it is best. I ask you for no explanation. You see, I am something of an individualist. I just want one thing, and about the rest I simply don’t care. To me, to myself, to my own future, to my own happiness the rest is very slight, and I never pretend to be anything else but a very selfish person. Only you know now that I have lied, badly.”
“I understand,” he said. “Finish your sandwiches and I will take you to your aunt’s. To-morrow I will write to your father.”
She drew a little sigh.
“I will do whatever you say,” she agreed, “only—please look at me.”
He stooped down a little. She seized his wrists, her voice was suddenly hoarse.
“You weren’t pretending altogether?” she pleaded. “Don’t make me feel a perfect beast. You did care a little? You weren’t just talking nonsense?”
She would have drawn him further down but he kept away.
“Listen,” he said, “when I tell you that I am going to write to your father to-morrow, you know what that means. For the rest, I must think. Perhaps this is the only way out. Of course, I like you but the truth is best, isn’t it? I hadn’t any idea of this. As a matter of fact, I am rather in love with someone else.”
She caught at her breath for a moment, half closed her eyes as thought to shut out something disagreeable.
“I don’t care,” she muttered. “You see how low I have fallen—I’ll bear even that. Come,” she added, springing up, “my aunt goes to bed before eleven. You can drive me down there, if you like. Are you going to kiss me?”
He bent over her a little gravely and his lips touched her forehead. She caught his face suddenly between her hands and kissed him on the lips. Then she turned towards the door.
“Of course, I am horribly ashamed,” she exclaimed, “but then—well, I’m myself. Come along, please.”
He followed her down into the taxi and they drove off towards Kensington.
“How long have you known the other girl?” she asked abruptly.
“Very little longer than I have known you,” he answered.
She took off her glove. He felt her hand steal into his.
“You’ll try and like me a little, please?” she begged. “There hasn’t been any one who cared for so many years—not all my life. When I came out—ever since I came out—I have behaved just like other properly, well-brought-up girls. I’ve just sat and waited. I’ve rather avoided men than otherwise. I’ve sat and waited. Girls haven’t liked me much. They say I’m odd. I’m twenty-eight now, you know. I haven’t enjoyed the last six years. Father’s wrapped up in his work. He thinks he has done his duty if he sends me to London sometimes to stay with my aunt. She is very much like him, only she is wrapped up in missions instead of science. Neither of them seems to have time to be human.”
“It must have been rotten for you,” Granet said kindly.
Her hand clutched his, she came a little nearer.
“Year after year of it,” she murmured. “If I had been good-looking, I should have run away and gone on the stage. If I had been clever, I should have left home and done something. But I am like millions of others—I am neither. I had to sit and wait. When I met you, I suddenly began to realise what it would be like to care for some one. I knew it wasn’t any use. And then this miracle happened. I couldn’t help it,” she went on doggedly. “I never thought of it at first. It came to me like a great flash that the only way to save you—”
“To save me from what?” he asked.
“From being shot as a spy,” she answered quickly. “There! I’m not a fool, you know. You may think I’m a fool about you but I am not about things in general. Good-bye! This is my aunt’s. Don’t come in. Ring me up to-morrow morning. I’ll meet you anywhere. Good-bye, please! I want to run away.”
He watched her go, a little dazed. A trim parlourmaid came out and, after a few words of explanation, superintended the disposal of her luggage in the hall. Then the taxicab man returned.
“Back to Sackville Street,” Granet muttered.
Granet, on his return to Sackville Street, paid the taxicab driver, ascended the stairs and let himself into his rooms with very much the air of a man who has passed through a dream. A single glance around, however, brought him vivid realisations of his unwelcome visitor. The little plate of sandwiches, half finished, the partly emptied bottle of wine, were still there. One of her gloves lay in the corner of the easy-chair. He picked it up, drew it for a moment through his fingers, then crushed it into a ball and flung it into the fire. Jarvis, who had heard him enter, came from one of the back rooms.
“Clear these things away, Jarvis,” his master ordered. “Leave the whiskey and soda and tobacco on the table. I may be late.”
Jarvis silently obeyed. As soon as he was alone, Granet threw himself into the easy-chair. He was filled with a bitter sense of being entrapped. He had been a little rash at Market Burnham, perhaps, but if any other man except Thomson had been sent there, his explanations would have been accepted without a word, and all this miserable complication would have been avoided. He thought over Isabel’s coming, all that she had said. She had left him no loophole. She had the air of a young woman who knew her own mind excellently well. A single word from her to Thomson and the whole superstructure of his ingeniously built-up life might tumble to pieces. He sat with folded arms in a grim attitude of unrest, thinking bitter thoughts. They rolled into his brain like black shadows. He had been honest in the first instance. With ancestors from both countries, he had deliberately chosen the country to which he felt the greatest attachment. He remembered his long travels in Germany, he remembered on his return his growing disapproval of English slackness, her physical and moral decadence. Her faults had inspired him not with the sorrow of one of her real sons, but with the contempt of one only half bound to her by natural ties. The ground had been laid ready for the poison. He had started honestly enough. His philosophy had satisfied himself. He had felt no moral degradation in wearing the uniform of one country for the benefit of another. All this self-disgust he dated from the coming of Geraldine Conyers. Now he was weary of it all, face to face, too, with a disagreeable and insistent problem.
He started suddenly in his chair. An interruption ordinary enough, but never without a certain startling effect, had broken in upon his thoughts. The telephone on his table was ringing insistently. He rose to his feet and glanced at the clock as he crossed the room. It was five minutes past twelve. As he took up the receiver a familiar voice greeted him.
“Is that Ronnie? Yes, this is Lady Anselman. Your uncle told me to ring you up to see if you were in. He wants you to come round.”
“What, to-night?”
“Do come, Ronnie,” his aunt continued. “I don’t suppose it’s anything important but your uncle seems to want it. No, I sha’n’t see you. I’m just going to bed. I have been playing bridge. I’m sure the duchess cheats—I have never won at her house in my life. I’ll tell your uncle you’ll come, then, Ronnie.... Good night!”
Granet laid down the receiver. Somehow or other, the idea of action, even at that hour of the night was a relief to him. He called to Jarvis and gave him a few orders. Afterwards he turned out and walked through the streets—curiously lit and busy it seemed to him—to the corner of Park Lane, and up to the great mansion fronting the Park, which had belonged to the Anselmans for two generations. There were few lights in the windows. He was admitted at once and passed on to his uncle’s own servant.
“Sir Alfred is in the study, sir,” the latter announced, “if you will kindly come this way.”
Granet crossed the circular hall hung with wonderful tapestry, and passed through the sumptuously-furnished library into the smaller, business man’s study, in which Sir Alfred spent much of his time. There were telephones upon his desk, a tape machine, and a private instrument connected with the telegraph department. There was a desk for his secretary, now vacant, and beyond, in the shadows of the apartment, winged bookcases which held a collection of editions de luxe, first editions, and a great collection of German and Russian literature, admittedly unique. Sir Alfred was sitting at his desk, writing a letter. He greeted his nephew with his usual cheerful nod.
“Wait before you go, Harrison,” he said to his valet. “Will you take anything, Ronald? There are cigars and cigarettes here but nothing to drink. Harrison, you can put the whiskey and soda on the side, anyhow, then you can wait for me in my room. I shall not require any other service to-night. Some one must stay to let Captain Granet out. You understand?”
“Perfectly, sir,” the man replied.
“If you don’t mind, Ronnie, I will finish this letter while he brings the whiskey and soda,” Sir Alfred said.
Captain Granet strolled around the room. There was no sound for a moment but the scratching of Sir Alfred’s quill pen across the paper. Presently Harrison returned with the whiskey and soda. Sir Alfred handed him a note.
“To be sent to-night, Harrison,” he directed; “no answer.”
The man withdrew, closing the door behind him. Sir Alfred, with his hands in his pockets, walked slowly around. When he came back he turned out all the lights except the heavily shaded one over his desk, and motioned his nephew to draw his easy-chair up to the side.
“Well, Ronnie,” he said, “I suppose you are wondering why I have sent for you at this hour of the night?”
“I am,” Granet admitted frankly. “Is there any news?—anything behind the news, perhaps I should say?”
“What there is, is of no account,” Sir Alfred replied. “We are going to talk pure human nature, you and I for the next hour. The fate of empires is a matter for the historians. It is your fate and mine which just now counts for most.”
“There is some trouble?” Granet asked quickly,—“some suspicion?”
“None whatever,” Sir Alfred repeated firmly. “My position was never more secure than it is at this second. I am the trusted confidant of the Cabinet. I have done, not only apparently but actually, very important work for them. Financially, too, my influence as well as my resources have been of vast assistance to this country.”
Granet nodded and waited. He knew enough of his uncle to be aware that he would develop his statement in his own way.
“When all has gone well,” Sir Alfred continued, “when all seems absolutely peaceful and safe, it is sometimes the time to pause and consider. We are at that spot at the present moment. You have been lucky, in your way, Ronnie. Three times, whilst fighting for England, you have managed to penetrate the German lines and receive from them communications of the greatest importance. Since your return home you have been of use in various ways. This last business in Norfolk will not be forgotten. Then take my case. What Germany knows of our financial position, our strength and our weakness, is due to me. That Germany is at the present time holding forty millions of money belonging to the city of London, is also owing to me. In a dozen other ways my influence has been felt. As I told you before, we have both, in our way, been successful, but we have reached the absolute limit of our effectiveness.”
“What does that mean?” Granet asked.
“It means this,” Sir Alfred explained. “When this war was started, I, with every fact and circumstance before me, with more information, perhaps, than any other man breathing, predicted peace within three months. I was wrong. Germany to-day is great and unconquered, but Germany has lost her opportunity. This may be a war of attrition, or even now the unexpected may come, but to all effects and purposes Germany is beaten.”
“Do you mean this?” Granet exclaimed incredulously.
“Absolutely,” his uncle assured him. “Remember that I know more than you do. There is a new and imminent danger facing the dual alliance. What it is you will learn soon enough. The war may drag on for many months but the chances of the great German triumph we have dreamed of, have passed. They know it as well as we do. I have seen the writing on the wall for months. To-day I have concluded all my arrangements. I have broken off all negotiations with Berlin. They recognise the authority and they absolve me. They know that it will be well to have a friend here when the time comes for drawing up the pact.”
Granet gripped the sides of his chair with his hand. It seemed to him impossible that with these few commonplace words the fate of all Europe was being pronounced.
“Do you mean that Germany will be crushed?” he demanded.
Sir Alfred shook his head.
“I still believe that impossible,” he said, “but the peace of exhaustion will come, and come surely, before many months have passed. It is time for us to think of ourselves. So far as I am concerned, well, there is that one censored letter—nothing in itself, yet damning if the code should be discovered. As for you, well, you are safe from anything transpiring in France, and although you seem to have been rather unlucky there, you appear to be safe as regards Norfolk. You must make up your mind now to follow my lead. Take a home command, do the rest of your soldiering quietly, and shout with the others when the day of peace comes. These last few months must be our great secret. At heart we may have longed to call ourselves sons of a mightier nation, but fate is against us. We must continue Englishmen.”
“You’ve taken my breath away,” Granet declared. “Let me realise this for a moment.”
He sat quite still. A rush of thoughts had crowded into his brain. First and foremost was the thought of Geraldine. If he could cover up his traces! If it were true that he was set free now from his pledges! Then he remembered his visitor of the evening and his heart sank.
“Look here,” he confessed, “in a way this is a huge relief. I, like you, thought it was to last for three months and I thought I could stick it. While the excitement of the thing was about it was easy enough, but listen, uncle. That Norfolk affair—I am not really out of that.”
“What do you mean?” Sir Alfred demanded anxiously. “This fellow Thomson?”
“Thomson, of course,” Granet assented, “but the real trouble has come to me in a different way. I told you that the girl got me out of it. She couldn’t stand the second cross-examination. She was driven into a corner, and finally, to clear herself, said that we were engaged to be married. She has come up to London, came to me to-night. She expects me to marry her.”
“How much does she know?” Sir Alfred asked.
“Everything,” Granet groaned. “It was she who had told me of the waterway across the marshes. She saw me there with Collins, just before the flare was lit. She knew that I lied to them when they found me.”
Sir Alfred sighed.
“It’s a big price, Ronnie,” he said, “but you’ll have to pay it. The sooner you marry the girl and close her mouth, the better.”
“If it hadn’t been for that damned fellow Thomson,” Granet muttered, “there would never have been a suspicion.”
“If it hadn’t been for the same very enterprising gentleman,” Sir Alfred observed, “my correspondence would never have been tampered with.”
Granet leaned a little forward.
“Thomson is our one remaining danger,” he said. “I have had the feeling since first he half recognised me. We met, you know, in Belgium. It was just when I was coming out of the German lines. Somehow or other he must have been on my track ever since. I took no notice of it. I thought it was simply because—because he was engaged to Geraldine Conyers.”
“You are rivals in love, too, eh?” Sir Alfred remarked.
“Geraldine Conyers is the girl I want to marry,” Granet admitted.
“Thomson,” Sir Alfred murmured to himself,—“Surgeon-Major Hugh Thomson. He seems to be the only man, Ronnie, from whom we have the least danger to fear. Personally, I think I am secure. I do not believe that that single letter will be ever deciphered, and if it is, three-parts of the Cabinet are my friends. I could ruin the Stock Exchange to-morrow, bring London’s credit, for a time, at any rate, below the credit of Belgrade.”
“All the same, it seems to me,” Granet declared grimly, “that we should both be more comfortable if there were no Surgeon-Major Thomson.”
“The very last dispatches I had to deal with,” Sir Alfred continued, “made allusion to him. They don’t love some of his work in Berlin, I can tell you. What sort of a man is he, Ronnie? Can he be bought? A hundred thousand pounds would be a fortune to a man like that.”
“There is only one way of dealing with him,” Granet said fiercely. “I have tried it once. I expect I’ll have to try again.”
Sir Alfred leaned across the table.
“Don’t be rash, Ronnie,” he advised. “And yet, remember this. The man is a real danger, both to you and to me. He is the only man who has had anything to do with the Intelligence Department here, who is worth a snap of the fingers. Now go home, Ronnie. You came here—well, never mind what you were when you came here. You are going back an Englishman. If they won’t send you to the Front again, bother them for some work here, and stick to it. You will get no reports nor any visitors. I have strangled the whole system. You and I are cut loose from it. We are free-lances. Mind, I still believe that in the end German progress and German culture will dominate the world, but it may not be in our day. It just happens that we have struck a little too soon. Let us make the best of things, Ronnie. You have many years of life. I have some of unabated power. Let us be thankful that we were wise enough to stop in time.”
Granet rose to his feet. His uncle watched him curiously.
“You’re young, of course, Ronnie,” he continued indulgently. “You haven’t yet fitted your burden on to your shoulders properly. England or Germany, you have some of both in you. After all, it isn’t a vital matter under which banner you travel. It isn’t quite like that with me. I have lived here all my life and I wouldn’t care to live anywhere else, but that’s because I carry my own country with me. It’s English air I breathe but it’s a German heart I still carry with me. Good night, Ronnie! Remember about Thomson.”
The two men wrung hands and Granet made his way towards the door.
“About Thomson,” he repeated to himself, as the servant conducted him towards the door.
Ambrose announced a visitor, early on the following morning, with some show of interest.
“Captain Granet to see you, sir. We’ve a good many notes about him. Would you like the book?”
Thomson shook his head.
“Thank you,” he answered drily, “I have it in my desk but I think I can remember. Is he outside now?”
“Yes, sir! He said he wouldn’t keep you for more than a few minutes, if you could spare him a short interview.”
“Any luck last night?”
Ambrose sighed.
“I was up till three o’clock again. Once I thought I was on the track of it. I have come to the conclusion now that it’s one of those codes that depend upon shifting quantities. I shall start again to-night on a different idea. Shall I show Captain Granet in, sir?”
Thomson assented, and a few minutes later Granet entered the room. He made no attempt to shake hands or to take a seat. Thomson looked at him coldly.
“Well,” he asked, abruptly, “what can I do for you?”
“I don’t suppose you can do anything,” Granet replied, “but I am going to spend to-day and to-morrow, too, if necessary, in this place, bothering every one I ever heard of. You have some influence, I know. Get me a job out of this country.”
Thomson raised his eyebrows slightly.
“You want to go abroad again?”
“Anywhere—anyhow! If they won’t have me back in France, although heaven knows why not, can I be sent to the Dardanelles, or even East Africa? I’ll take out Territorials, if you like. I’ll do anything sooner than be ordered to one of these infernal country towns to train young tradespeople. If I don’t worry, I know I shall get a home appointment directly, and I don’t want it.”
Thomson studied his visitor, for a moment, carefully.
“So you want to be fighting again, eh?” he remarked.
“I do,” Granet answered firmly.
Major Thomson drew a little locked book towards him, unfastened it with a key from his chain and held his hand over the page. It was noticeable that his right hand slipped open a few inches the right-hand drawer of his desk.
“You have come to me, Captain Granet,” he said, “to ask my aid in getting you a job. Well, if I could give you one where I was perfectly certain that you would be shot in your first skirmish, I would give it to you, with pleasure. Under present conditions, however, it is my impression that the further you are from any British fighting force, the better it will be for the safety and welfare of that force.”
Granet’s face was suddenly rigid. He had turned a little paler and his eyes flashed.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
Thomson had removed his hand and was glancing at the open page.
“There are a few notes here about you,” he said. “I will not read them all but I will give you some extracts. There is your full name and parentage, tracing out the amount of foreign blood which I find is in your veins. There is a verbatim account of a report made to me by your Brigadier-General, in which it seems that in the fighting under his command you were three times apparently taken prisoner, three times you apparently escaped; the information which you brought back led to at least two disasters; the information which exactly at the time you were absent seemed to come miraculously into the hands of the enemy, resulted in even greater trouble for us.”
“Do you insinuate, then, that I am a traitor?” Granet asked fiercely.
“I insinuate nothing,” Thomson replied quietly. “So far as you and I are concerned, we may as well, I presume, understand one another. You are, without doubt, aware that my post as inspector of hospitals is a blind. I am, as a matter of fact, chief of the Intelligence Department, with a rank which at present I do not choose to use. I have been myself to your Brigadier-General and brought home this report, and if it is any satisfaction to you to know it, I brought also an urgent request that you should not be allowed to rejoin any part of the force under his control.”
“It was simply rotten luck,” Granet muttered.
“I come here to a few more notes,” Thomson proceeded. “I meet you some weeks ago at a luncheon party at the Ritz. A Belgian waiter, who I learned, by later inquiries was present as a prisoner in the village where you were being entertained as a guest at the German headquarters, recognised you and was on the point of making a disclosure. The excitement, however, was too much for him and he fainted. He was at once removed, under your auspices, and died a few days later, at one of your uncle’s country houses, before he could make any statement.”
“This is ridiculous!” Granet exclaimed. “I never saw the fellow before in my life.”
“Ridiculous, doubtless, but a coincidence,” Major Thomson replied, turning over the next page of his book. “A little later I find you taking an immense interest in our new destroyers, trying, in fact, to induce young Conyers to explain our wire netting system, following him down to Portsmouth and doing your best to discover also the meaning of a new device attached to his destroyer.”
“That is simply absurd,” Granet protested. “I was interested in the subject, as any military officer would be in an important naval development. My journey to Portsmouth was simply an act of courtesy to Miss Conyers and her cousin.”
“I find you next,” Thomson went on immovably, “visiting the one French statesmen whom we in England had cause to fear, in his hotel in London. I find that very soon afterwards that statesman is in possession of an autograph letter from the Kaiser, offering peace to the French people on extraordinary terms. Who was the intermediary who brought that document, Captain Granet?”
Granet’s face never twitched. He held himself with cold composure.
“These,” he declared, “are fairy tales. Pailleton was a friend of mine. During my visit we did not speak of politics.”
“More coincidences,” Major Thomson remarked. “We pass on, then, to that night at Market Burnham Hall, when a Zeppelin was guided to the spot where Sir Meyville Worth was experimenting on behalf of the British Government, and dropped destructive bombs. A man was shot dead by the side of the flare. That man was one of your companions at the Dormy House Club.”
“I neither spoke to him nor saw him there, except as a casual visitor,” Granet insisted.
“That I venture to doubt,” Major Thomson replied. “At any rate, there is enough circumstantial evidence against you in this book to warrant my taking the keenest interest in your future. As a matter of fact, you would have been at the Tower, or underneath it, at this very moment, but for the young lady who probably perjured herself to save you. Now that you know my opinion of you, Captain Granet, you will understand that I should hesitate before recommending you to any post whatever in the service of this country.”
Granet made a stealthy movement forward. He had been edging a little closer to the desk and he was barely two yards away. He suddenly paused. Thomson had closed the drawer now and he was holding a small revolver very steadily in his right hand.
“Granet,” he said, “that sort of thing won’t do. You know now what I think of you. Besides these little incidents which I have related, you are suspected of having, in the disguise of an American clergyman, delivered a message from the German Government to an English Cabinet Minister, and, to come to more personal matters, I myself suspect you of having made two attempts on my life. It is my firm belief that you are nothing more nor less than a common and dangerous German spy. Keep back!”
The veins were standing out like whipcord on Granet’s flushed forehead. He swayed on his feet. Twice he had seemed as though he would spring at his opponent.
“Now listen to me,” Thomson continued. “On Monday I am going from Southampton to Boulogne for forty-eight hours, to attend a court martial there. There is only one decent thing you can do. You know what that is. I’ll have you exchanged, if you are willing, into a line regiment with your present rank. Your colonel will have a hint. It will be your duty to meet the first German bullet you can find. If you are content with that, I’ll arrange it for you. If not—”
Major Thomson paused. There was a queer twisted smile at the corners of his lips.
“If not,” he concluded, “there is one more little note to add in this book and the account will be full. You know now the terms, Captain Granet, on which you can go to the Front. I will give you ten days to consider.”
“If I accept an offer like this,” Granet protested, “I shall be pleading guilty to all the rubbish you have talked.”
“If it weren’t for the fact,” Major Thomson told him sternly, “that you have worn his Majesty’s uniform, that you are a soldier, and that the horror of it would bring pain to every man who has shared with you that privilege, I have quite enough evidence here to bring your career to a disgraceful end. I give you your chance, not for your own sake but for the honour of the Army. What do you say?”
Granet picked up his hat.
“I’ll think it over,” he muttered.
He walked out of the room without any attempt at farewell, pushed his way along the corridors, down the steps and out into Whitehall. His face was distorted by a new expression. A sudden hatred of Thomson had blazed up in him. He was at bay, driven there by a relentless enemy, the man who had tracked him down, as he honestly believed, to some extent through jealousy. The thoughts framed themselves quickly in his mind. With unseeing eyes he walked across Trafalgar Square and made his way to his club in Pall Mall. Here he wrote a few lines to Isabel Worth, regretting that he was called out of town on military business for forty-eight hours. Afterwards he took a taxi and called at his rooms, walked restlessly up and down while Jarvis threw a few clothes into a bag, changed his own apparel for a rough tweed suit, and drove to Paddington. A few minutes later he took his place in the Cornish Express.