The Under-Secretary

“I think I know the combination to which you refer. Something regarding it leaked out to one of the newspapers a few weeks ago, and a question was asked in the House.”

Cator laughed.

“Yes,” he said, “a question to which you gave a very neat, but altogether unintelligible reply – eh? They were waiting that reply of yours in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a good deal of anxiety, I can tell you. It was telephoned to Paris before you had delivered it.”

“Ah! copied from one of the sheets of replies given out to the Press Gallery, I expect,” observed the Under-Secretary. “But I had no idea that our friends across the Channel were so watchful of my utterances.”

“Oh, aren’t they? They are watchful of your movements, too,” replied the Secret Agent of Her Majesty’s Foreign Office. “Recollect, Mr Chisholm, you as Parliamentary Under-Secretary are in the confidence of the Government, and frequently possess documents and information which to our enemies would be priceless. If I may be permitted to say so, you should be constantly on the alert against any of your papers falling into undesirable hands.”

“But surely none have?” Dudley gasped in alarm.

“None have, to my knowledge,” his visitor replied.

“But information is gained by spies in a variety of ways. Perhaps few know better than myself the perfection of the secret service system of certain Powers who are our antagonists. Few diplomatic secrets are safe from them.”

“And few of the secrets of our rivals are safe from you, Captain Cator – if all I’ve heard be true,” observed Chisholm, smiling.

“Ah!” the other laughed; “I believe I’m credited with performing all sorts of miracles in the way of espionage. I fear I possess a reputation which I in no way desire. But,” he added, “can you tell me nothing more of this man Lennox – of his antecedents, I mean?”

“Nothing. I know absolutely nothing of his people.”

“Can you direct me to the mutual friend at whose rooms you met him, for he might possibly be able to tell us his whereabouts?”

“It was a man in the Worcestershire Regiment; he’s out in Uganda now. Perhaps the War Office knows, for doubtless he draws his pension,” Chisholm suggested.

“No. That source of information has already been tried, but in vain.” The visitor thrust his ungloved hands into the pockets of his shabby overcoat, stretched out his legs, and fixed his keen eyes upon the rising statesman, to interview whom he had travelled post-haste half across Europe.

“If I knew more of the character of your inquiries and the point towards which they are directed I might possibly be able to render you further assistance,” Dudley said after a short pause, hoping to obtain some information from the man who, as he was well aware, so completely possessed the confidence of the controller of England’s destinies.

“Well,” said Cator, after some hesitation, “the matter forms a very tangled and complicated problem. By sheer chance I discovered, by means of a document which was copied in a certain Chancellerie and found its way to me in secret a short time ago, that a movement was afoot in a most unexpected direction to counter-balance Britain’s power on the sea, and oust us from China as a preliminary to a great and terrific war. The document contained extracts of confidential correspondence which had passed between the Foreign Ministers of the two nations implicated, and showed that the details of the conspiracy were arranged with such an exactitude and forethought that by certain means – which were actually given in one of the extracts in question, a grave Parliamentary crisis would be created in England, of which the Powers intended to take immediate advantage in order the better to aim their blow at British supremacy.”

Archibald Cator paused and glanced behind him half suspiciously, as if to make certain that the door was closed, while Chisholm sat erect, immovable, as though turned to stone. What his visitor had told him, confirmed the horrible suspicion which had crept upon him some weeks ago.

“Yes. It was a very neat and very pretty scheme, all of it,” went on the man with the hollow cheeks, giving vent to a short, dry laugh. “During my career I have known many schemes and intrigues with the same object, but never has one been formed with such open audacity, such cool forethought, and such clever ingenuity as the present.”

“Then it still exists?” exclaimed Chisholm quickly.

“Most certainly. My present object is to expose and destroy it,” answered the confidential agent. “That it has the support of two monarchs of known antipathy towards England is plain enough, but our would-be enemies have no idea that the details of their plot are already in my possession, nor that yesterday I placed the whole of them before the chief. By to-morrow every British Embassy in Europe will be in possession of a cypher despatch from his lordship warning Ministers of the intrigue in progress. The messengers left Charing Cross last night carrying confidential instructions to all the capitals.”

“And especially to Vienna, I presume?”

“Yes, especially to Vienna,” Cator said, adding, “That, I suppose, you guessed from the tenor of the confidential report from the Austrian capital which passed through your hands a short time back. Do you recollect that your answer to that embarrassing question in the House was supplied to you after a special meeting of the Cabinet?”

“I recollect that was so.”

“Then perhaps it may interest you to know that I myself drafted the answer and suggested to the F.O. that it should be given exactly as I had written, it, in order to mislead those who were so ingeniously trying to undermine our prestige. It was our counter-stroke of diplomacy.”

This statement of Cator’s was a revelation. He had been under the impression that the public reply to the Opposition was the composition of the Foreign Secretary himself.

“Really,” he said, “that is most interesting. I had not the least idea that you were responsible for that enigmatical answer. I must congratulate you. It was certainly extremely clever.”

The captain smiled, as though gratified by the other’s compliment. As he sat there, a wan and very unimpressive figure, none would have believed him to be the great confidential agent who, if the truth were told, was the Foreign Secretary’s trusted adviser upon the more delicate matters of European policy. This man with the muddy trousers and frayed suit was actually the intimate friend of princes; he knew reigning Sovereigns personally, had diplomatic Europe at his fingers’ ends, and had often been the means of shaping the policy to be employed by England in Europe.

“I must not conceal from you the fact that the present situation is extremely critical,” the secret agent went on. “When Parliament reassembles you will find that a strenuous attempt will be made by the Opposition to force your hand. It is part of the game. All replies must be carefully guarded – most carefully.”

“That I quite understand.”

“It was certainly most fortunate for us that I, quite by accident, dropped upon the conspiracy,” the other went on. “The man through whom I obtained the copy of the document was a person well-known to us. He was in a high position in his own government, but as his expenditure greatly exceeded his income, the bank drafts that mysteriously found their way into his pocket were most acceptable.”

“You speak in the past tense. Why?”

“Because unfortunately the person in question fell into disgrace a few weeks ago, and was called upon to resign. Hence, our channel of information is, just at the moment when it would be so highly useful, suddenly closed.”

“Fortunate that it was not closed before you could obtain the document which gave you the clue to what was really taking place,” remarked the Under-Secretary. “Cannot you tell me more regarding the plot? From which Chancellerie did the document emanate?”

“Ah, I regret that at this juncture I am not at liberty to say! The matter is still in the most confidential stage. The slightest betrayal of our knowledge may result in disaster. It is the chief’s policy to retain the facts we have gathered and act upon them as soon as the inquiry is complete. For the past three weeks all my endeavours and those of my staff have been directed towards unravelling the mystery presented by the document I have mentioned. In every capital active searches have been made, copies of correspondence secured, prominent statesmen sounded as to their views, and photographs taken of certain letters and plans, all of which go to show the deep conspiracy that is in progress, with the object of striking a staggering blow at us. Yet, strangest of all, there is mention of a matter which is hinted at so vaguely that up to the present I have been unable to form any theory as to what it really is. To put it plainly,” he added, with his eyes fixed upon Chisholm’s face, “in certain parts of the correspondence the name of Mayne Lennox is mentioned in connection with your own.”

“In connection with my own!” gasped Dudley, his face blanching again in an instant. “What statements are made?”

“Nothing is stated definitely,” replied his shabby visitor. “There are only vague hints.”

“Of what?”

“Of the existence of something that I have up to the present failed to discover.”

Dudley Chisholm breathed more freely, but beneath that cold, keen gaze of the man of secrets his eyes wavered. Nevertheless, the fact that Cator was still in ignorance of the truth reassured him, and in an instant he regained his self-possession.

“Curious that I should be mentioned in the same breath, as it were, with a man whom I know so very slightly – very curious,” he observed, as though reflecting.

“It was because of this that I have sought you here to-night,” the confidential agent explained. “I must find this man Lennox, for he alone can throw some light upon the strange hints contained in two of the letters. Then, as soon as we know the truth, the chief will act swiftly and fearlessly to expose and overthrow the dastardly plot. Until all the facts are quite plain it is impossible to move, for in this affair the game of bluff will avail nothing. We must be absolutely certain of our ground before making any attack. Then the whole of Europe will stand aghast, and England will awake one morning to discover how she has been within an ace of disaster.”

“But tell me more of this mention of myself in the confidential correspondence of our enemies,” Dudley urged. “What you have told me has aroused my curiosity.”

“I have told you all that there is to tell at this stage,” Cator replied. “It is most unfortunate that you can give me absolutely no information regarding this man; but I suppose I must seek for it elsewhere. He must be found and questioned, for the allegations are extremely grave, and the situation the most critical I have known in all my diplomatic career.”

“What are the allegations? I thought I understood you that there were only vague hints?” exclaimed Chisholm in suspicion.

“In some letters the hints are vague, but in one there is a distinct and serious charge.”

“Of what?”

“Of a certain matter which, together with the name of the Ministry from which the document was secured, must remain for the present a secret.”

“If the crisis is so very serious I think I, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary, have a right to know,” protested Dudley.

“No. I much regret my inability to reply to your questions, Mr Chisholm,” his visitor answered. “It is, moreover, not my habit to make any statement until an inquiry is concluded, and not even then if the chief imposes silence upon me, as he has done in the present case. Remember that I am in the public service, just as you are. All that has passed between us to-night has passed in the strictest confidence. Any communication made by the chief through you in the House will, in the nation’s interest, be of a kind to mislead and mystify our enemies.”

“But the mention of my own name in these copied letters!” observed the Under-Secretary. “What you have told has only whetted my appetite for further information. I really can’t understand it.”