“She’s gone abroad somewheres, but I don’t know where,” the woman answered. “She’s sold all her valuables, discharged the servants, and left me ’ere as ’ouse-keeper.”

“When did she go?” I asked.

“This morning. I answered an advertisement in the Chronicle yesterday, and entered on my duties ’ere to-day. Quick, ain’t it?”

The rapidity of her engagement I was compelled to admit, but proceeded to make further inquiry whether Mrs Laing’s daughter had been there.

“No, sir. No one’s been ’ere to-day, except a foreign-looking gentleman who asked if madame had left, and when I said that she had, he went away quite satisfied.”

“What kind of man was he?”

“Tall and thin, with a longish dark beard.”

The description did not correspond with anyone of my acquaintance; therefore, after some further questions regarding Mrs Laing’s mysterious departure, I was compelled to wish the worthy woman good evening. She knew nothing of Mrs Laing’s movements, not even the name of the terminus to which she had driven, such pains had Ella’s mother taken to conceal the direction in which she intended to travel.

Some secret undoubtedly existed between mother and daughter; its nature held me perplexed and bewildered.

Chapter Twenty Four
Strictly Confidential

The early morning was dry, frosty, but starless. The clock of that fashionable temple of Hymen, St George’s, Hanover Square, was slowly chiming three as I alighted from a cab at the corner of Mount Street, and walking along Berkeley Square, ascended the steps of the Earl of Warnham’s great mansion, and rang its ponderous bell. The place was severe and gloomy enough by day, but in the silence and darkness of the night its exterior presented a forbidding, almost ghostly appearance. It was an unusual hour for a call, but, knowing that a porter was on duty always, and that dispatches frequently arrived during the night, I had no hesitation in seeking an interview.

In a few moments there was a grating sound of bolts drawn back, a clanking of chains, and the heavy door was slowly opened by the sleepy man, who, with a word of recognition, at once admitted me. Walking across the great square hall; warmed by a huge, roaring fire, I passed down the passage to the Earl’s study and rapped at the door, receiving an impatient permission to enter.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs was sitting at his table where I had left him, with an empty tea-cup at his side, resting his pale, weary brow upon his hand and writing dispatches rapidly with his scratchy quill. His fire was nearly out, the pair of candles, in their heavy, old-fashioned silver candlesticks that stood upon his writing-table, had burned down almost to their sockets, and the strong smell of burnt paper that pervaded the book-lined den, showed that, with his innate cautiousness, he had destroyed documents that he did not desire should be seen by other eyes.

The world-renowned statesman raised his head as I entered, gave vent to a low grunt of dissatisfaction, and continued writing at topmost speed. I saw I was unwelcome, but, well acquainted with his mannerisms and eccentricities, walked to the fire, added more fuel, and waited in patience until he had finished.

“Well,” he snarled, casting down his pen impatiently, and turning upon me at last. “I thought you, of all men, were aware that I do not desire interruption when at work.”

“I should not have ventured to come at this hour,” I said, “were it not that the news I bring is of extreme importance.”

He sighed, as was his habit when expecting further complications.

“What is its nature?” he asked coldly, leaning back in his chair. “Abandon preliminaries, please, and come to the point. What is it?”

“I have recovered the original of our secret convention with Germany,” I answered in as quiet a tone as I could assume.

“You have!” he cried excitedly, starting up. “You are quite right to seek me at once – quite right. Where did you obtain it?” he inquired.

Slowly I drew forth the precious document from my pocket, and handed it to him, still in the envelope that bore my own mark, with the remains of his broken seal. He took it eagerly and bent to the candles to examine it more closely. A few seconds sufficed to reassure him that the document was the genuine one.

“It is fortunate that this has returned into our possession,” he observed, his thin blue lips quivering slightly. “I feared that it had already passed beyond our reach, and that one day or other in the near future our policy must be narrowed by the knowledge that it was preserved in the archives of the Foreign Office at St Petersburg, and could be used as a pretence for a declaration of war by Russia and France. Now, however, that the original is again in our possession we can disclaim all copies, and give assurances that no secret understanding exists between us and Berlin. The only fact that at present lends colour to the assertion of the boulevard journals is the ill-timed bestowal of the Iron Cross upon Count Landsfeldt. Such an action was characteristic of their impetuous Emperor.” Then, after a second’s reflection, he added, “Just sit down, Deedes, and write to Sir Philip Emden at Berlin, asking him to obtain audience immediately of the Kaiser, point out the harmful impression this decoration has occasioned, and get His Majesty to exhibit his marked displeasure towards Landsfeldt in some form or other. That will remove any suspicion that the convention is actually an accomplished fact. Besides, you may hint also that it may be well for the relations between the Kaiser and Sir Philip to appear slightly strained, and that this fact should be communicated indirectly to the Press. Sit down and write at once: it must be sent under flying seal.”

I obeyed, and commenced writing a formal dispatch while, in answer to the electric bell rung by his Lordship, the sleepy night-porter appeared.

“Calvert,” exclaimed the Minister, “telephone to the Foreign Office and say that I want a messenger to call here and proceed to Berlin by the morning mail.”

“Yes, m’lord,” answered the man, bowing and closing the door.

While I wrote, the Earl perused the document, the loss of which had caused the Cabinets of Europe so much apprehension, and taking his magnifying glass he examined the portions of the seal still remaining. Then carefully unlocking one of the small private drawers in the top of the great writing-table, he took therefrom some object, and gazed upon it long and earnestly. With a heavy sigh he again replaced it, and slowly locked the drawer. When I had finished and placed the instructions to Sir. Philip Emden before him, he took up his quill, corrected my letter, here and there adding an emphatic word or two, and then appended his signature. Obtaining one of the bags used for the transmission of single dispatches, I deposited it therein, sealed it, and placed upon it one of those labels with a cross drawn upon its face, the signification of that mark being that it is never to be lost sight of by the messenger. There are two kinds of bags sent out and received by the Foreign Office, one with this cross-marked label, and the other without it. The latter are generally larger and less important, and may be placed with the messenger’s luggage. It is no pleasant life our messengers lead, liable as they are to be summoned at an hour’s notice to “proceed at once” to anywhere, from Brussels to Teheran. Armed with a laissez-passer, they are constantly hurrying over the face of Europe as fast as the fastest expresses can carry them, passing through the frontier stations freed from the troublesome concomitant of ordinary travelling – the examination of luggage – known on all the great trunk lines from Paris to Constantinople and from Rome to St Petersburg, sometimes bearing epoch-making documents, sometimes a lady’s hat of latest mode, or a parcel of foreign delicacies, but always on the alert, and generally sleeping on a layer of stiff dispatches and bulky “notes.”

At last, having made up the bag, I rose slowly and faced my chief.

“Well,” he exclaimed, raising his keen eyes from the document I had brought him and regarding me with that stony, sphinx-like expression he assumed when resolved upon cross-questioning, “how did you obtain possession of this?”

“I found it,” I answered.

“Found it?” he growled, with a cynical curl of the lip. “I suppose you have some lame story that you picked it up in the street, or something – eh!” he exclaimed testily.

“No,” I replied hoarsely. “Mine is no lame story, although a wretched one. The discovery has unnerved and bewildered me; it – ”

“I have no desire to know how its discovery affected you mentally,” he interrupted, with impatient sarcasm. “I asked where you found it,” he observed coldly.

“I found it in my own house,” I answered.

“Then you mean to tell me that it has been in your possession the whole time. The thing’s impossible,” he cried angrily. “Remember the dummy palmed off upon me, and the fact that an exact copy was transmitted to St Petersburg.”

“No. It has not been in my possession,” I answered, leaning against my writing-chair for support. “I found it among my wife’s letters.”

“Your wife!” he gasped, agitated. He had turned ghastly pale at mention of her name, and, trembling with agitation, swayed forward.

A moment later, however, he recovered his self-possession, clutched at the corner of his table, and regarding me sharply, asked, “What do you suspect?”

“I scarce know what to suspect,” I answered gravely, striving to remain calm, but remembering at that instant the curious effect produced upon the Foreign Minister when he had first seen Ella dancing at the Embassy ball. My declaration that I had found this official bond of nations in her possession had produced a similar disquieting result which puzzled me.

“But surely she can have had no hand in the affair,” he cried. “She certainly did not strike me as an adventuress, or an agent of the Tzar’s secret service.”

“It is a problem that I cannot solve,” I exclaimed slowly, watching the strange, haggard look upon his usually imperturbable features. “After leaving you this evening I went home only to find a letter of farewell from her, and – ”

“She has fled, then!” he exclaimed, with quick suspicion.

“Yes. Her flight was evidently pre-arranged, and curiously enough her mother, who lives in Pont Street, has discharged her servants, disposed of a good deal of her property, and also departed.”

“Gone together, no doubt,” the Earl observed, frowning reflectively.

“But is it not very strange that she should have left the stolen convention behind? Surely if my wife were actually a Russian agent she would never have been guilty of such indiscretion,” I said.

“The mystery is inexplicable, Deedes,” he declared, with a heavy look, half of pain, half of bewilderment. “Absolutely inexplicable.”

This aged man, to whose firmness, clever statesmanship, and calm foresight England owed her place as foremost among the Powers, was trembling with an excitement he strove in vain to suppress. In manner that surprised me, his cold, cynical face relaxed, and placing his thin, bony hand upon my shoulder with fatherly tenderness, Her Majesty’s most trusted Minister urged me to confide in him all my suspicions and my fears.

“You have, I believe, after all, been cruelly wronged, Deedes,” he added in a low, harsh tone. “I sympathise with you because I myself once felt the loss of a wife deeply, and I know what feelings must be yours now that you suspect the woman you have trusted and loved to have been guilty of base treachery and espionage. She, or someone in association with her, has besmirched England’s honour, and brought us to the very verge of a terrible national disaster. Providentially, this was averted; by what means we have not yet ascertained, although our diplomatic agents at the Court of the Tzar are striving day and night to ascertain; yet the fact remains that we were victimised by some daring secret agent who sacrificed everything in order to accomplish the master-stroke of espionage. I can but re-echo the thanks to Heaven uttered by my gracious Sovereign when she received the news that war had been averted; nevertheless it is my duty – nay, it is yours, Deedes, to strive on without resting, in order that this mystery may be satisfactorily unravelled.”

For a moment we were silent. Then in a voice that I felt painfully conscious was broken by grief and emotion, I related to him the whole of the wretched story of my marriage, my suspicions, the discovery of Ella in Kensington Gardens, how I had taxed her with flirtation and frivolity, our peace-making, and her sudden and unexpected flight.

He heard me through to the end with bent head, sighing now and then sympathetically. Then he slowly asked, – “Did you ever refer to those earlier incidents, such as the death of that young man Ogle? Remember, whatever you tell me I shall regard as strictly confidential.”

“I seldom mentioned it, as she desired me not to do so.”

“When you referred to it, what was her attitude?” he inquired, in a pained tone, the furrows on his high white brow deep and clearly defined.

“She declared always that he had been murdered, and vowed to detect the author of the crime.”

“Are you, in your own mind, convinced that there was anything really mysterious regarding her actions; or were they only everyday facts distorted by jealousy?” he asked gravely.

“There is, I believe, some deep mystery regarding her past,” I answered.

He knit his grey, shaggy brows, and started perceptibly.

“Her past!” he echoed. “Were you aware of any – er – unpleasant fact prior to marriage?” he inquired quickly.

“Yes. She promised to explain everything ere long; therefore, loving her devotedly as I did, I resolved to make her my wife and await in patience her explanation.”

“Love!” he cried cynically. “She did not love you. She only married you, it seems, to accomplish her own base and mysterious designs.” Then, pacing the room from end to end, he added, “The more I reflect, the more apparent does it become that Ella Laing meant, by becoming your wife, to accomplish some great coup, but, prevented by some unforeseen circumstance, she has been compelled to fly, and in her haste overlooked this incriminating paper.”

This, too, was my own opinion, and taking from my pocket the whole of the letters that were in the escritoire, I placed them before him.

“They are from your wife’s mysterious lover,” he observed, when a few moments later he had digested them. “Who he is there is no evidence to show. You suspect him, of course, to be the man she met in Kensington Gardens?”

I nodded. A sigh escaped me.

“Well,” he went on. “Leave them with me. A calligraphic expert may possibly find some clue to the identity of their writer.”

Afterwards, he took up the broken envelope that had contained the treaty, carefully re-examining its edges by the aid of his large magnifying glass.

“There is another curious fact that we must not overlook,” he observed slowly. “While the seal has been broken this envelope has also passed through a ‘cabinet noir.’ See, this edge bears unmistakable traces after wear in the pocket,” and he handed it to me, together with his glass.

The suggestion was startling, and one that I had entirely overlooked. The “cabinet noir” is a term well understood in diplomacy, but unfamiliar perhaps to the general public. Official documents of no great importance are often sent by post, and in most European countries this has led to the establishment of a “cabinet noir,” in which the envelope is opened and its contents examined. The mode of procedure is interesting. The letter to be opened is first shaken well in such a way that the enclosure falls to one side of the envelope, leaving a space of about a quarter of an inch between it and the outer edge. This edge is then placed under an extremely sharp knife worked like a guillotine, care being taken to put it carefully at right angles to the knife, which is then brought down and cuts off a slip about one hundredth part of an inch wide. The envelope is now open, and the enclosure is extracted by a pair of pincers made for the purpose. After examination it is replaced, and the ticklish job of removing all trace of the opening has to be done. This is very ingenious. There are different pots of paper pulp mixed with a little gum, and each tinted a different colour to suit the various shades of paper that are operated upon. A very fine camel-hair brush is dipped into the pot containing the proper tint, and is then run carefully along the edges which have been cut open. They are then closed and left under a press for an hour or so, and after being smoothed with a flat steel instrument, it would take a very clever expert to notice that the envelope has passed through the “cabinet noir.”

I saw, however, in this worn envelope the two edges were coming apart, and at once admitted the truth of the Earl’s assertions. He was intensely shrewd; scarcely any minute detail escaped him.

“Well,” he said reflectively, at last, “there is but one person from whom we may ascertain the truth.”

“Who?”

“Your wife.”

“But she has disappeared.”

“We must trace her. She must not escape us,” he cried fiercely, with set teeth. “She has wronged you and acted in collusion with a man who has betrayed his country and met with a tragic end, even if she herself did not actually sell the copy of the secret convention to our enemies – which appears to me more than likely.”

“What causes you to believe this?” I inquired, surprised at his sudden assertion.

“I have a reason,” he answered quickly, with an air of mystery. The cold manner of the expert diplomatist had again settled upon him. “If it is as I expect, I will show her no mercy, for it is upon me, as Foreign Minister of Her Majesty, that opprobrium has fallen.”

“But she is still my wife,” I observed, for even at that moment, when I had discovered her false and base, I had not ceased to regard her with a passionate affection.

“Wife!” he snarled angrily. “You would have been a thousand times better dead than married to such as she.” Then he added, “Remain here. I am going to the telephone to apprise Scotland Yard of her flight. She only left to-night after the mails were gone, therefore if we have the ports watched we may yet find her.”

And he left me, his quick footsteps echoing down the long corridor.

The moment he had gone I went to his table. Some sudden curiosity prompted me to endeavour to ascertain what he had been gazing upon so intently while my back had been turned in penning the instructions to Sir Philip Emden.

Quickly I took his keys, and, unlocking the tiny drawer, opened it.

Inside there reposed a highly-finished cabinet portrait of my wife.

Amazed to find this picture in the possession of my chief, I took it in my hands and stood agape. Its pose was unfamiliar, but the reason I had never before seen a copy of it was instantly made plain. It bore the name of a well-known St Petersburg photographer.

Ella had lied to me when she had denied ever having been in Russia.

Chapter Twenty Five
The Man of the Hour

Months of anxiety went wearily by, but no tidings of Ella could I glean. Time could never efface the bitter memories of the past. The police had, at Lord Warnham’s instigation, exerted every effort to trace her, but without avail. She had disappeared with a rapidity that was astounding, for, apparently expecting that some attempt might be made to follow her, she had ingeniously taken every precaution to baffle her pursuers in the same manner as her mother had done. The cause of her sudden flight was an enigma only equalled by my discovery of her portrait in the Earl’s possession. Although I had several times in conversation led up to the subject of photographs, and shown him Ella’s picture, that had been taken by a firm in Regent Street, the astute old statesman made no sign that he already had her counterfeit presentment hidden among his most treasured possessions. When I recollected, as I often did, how on gazing upon it, while believing me engrossed in the writing of a dispatch, the sight of it had affected him, the new phase of the mystery perplexed me sorely. That they had been previously acquainted seemed more than probable, and his Lordship’s earnest desire to secure knowledge of her whereabouts lent additional colour to this opinion.

Daily the aged statesman grew more gloomy and misanthropic. He lived alone, in an atmosphere of severe officialdom. His only recreation was a formal visit on rare occasions to a reception at one or other of the principal Embassies, or attendance on Her Majesty at Osborne or Balmoral; his brief, far-seeing suggestions at the Cabinet Council were always adopted unanimously, and his peremptory “notes” to the Powers incontrovertible marvels of diplomacy. He hated society, and never went anywhere without some strong motive by which he could further his country’s interests. His eccentricities were proverbial, his caustic observations on men and things the delight of leader-writers on Government journals; and as director of England’s foreign policy he was feared, yet admired, in every capital in Europe. He, however, cared not a jot for notoriety, but with an utter disregard for all else, served his country with a slavish devotion, that even the most scathing Opposition gutter-journal could not fail to recognise.

It was common talk that some strange, romantic incident had overshadowed his life, but with that innate secrecy that was part of his creed he never confided in anybody. Notwithstanding his frigid cynicism, however, he was nevertheless sympathetic, and at any mention of Ella’s name he would rivet his searching eyes upon me, while across the white brow, furrowed by the heavy responsibilities of State through so many years, would spread an expression of regret, anxiety or pain. But he spoke seldom upon that subject. That he regarded my marriage as a deplorable fiasco I was well aware, but felt that in his cold heart, hardened as it was by the artful subterfuges of successful diplomacy, there yet remained a spark of pity, for he still regarded me as his protégé.

On the day after Ella had fled I called at Andrew Beck’s office at Winchester House, Old Broad Street, but found he had sailed a few days before by the Union Liner Scot for Cape Town. Of late he had become connected with several South African gold ventures of enormous extent, and in the interests of some of the companies most prominently before the public, had undertaken the journey. His great wealth, in combination with that of his associates, had inspired public confidence, and there had commenced that feverish tendency in the city that quickly developed, and was later known as the “gold boom.” The movements of the popular member for West Rutlandshire were cabled and chronicled in the newspapers as diligently as if he were a prince of a reigning house, and it was with extreme satisfaction that one morning in June I saw it announced that the mail had arrived at Southampton from the Cape bearing him on board, the same paper printing an account of an interview regarding gold prospects in South Africa which he had given its representative before he left the steamer. I was down at Warnham at the time, but three days later returned to London, and that same night sought Beck at the House of Commons.

I found him in the Members’ Lobby, bustling about in his ill-fitting evening clothes and crumpled shirt-front, looking sun-tanned and well; a trifle more arrogant, perhaps, but nevertheless easy-going and good-natured as usual. He greeted me heartily, and the night being warm we lit cigars and walked out upon the Terrace beside the Thames. Big Ben was chiming the midnight hour. It was bright and star-lit above, but before us the river ran darkly beneath the arches of Westminster Bridge, its ripples glistening under the gas lamps. Across on the opposite bank, in the row of buildings comprising St Thomas’s Hospital, lights glimmered faintly in the windows of the wards, while here and there on the face of the black, silent highway, lights, white, red and green, shone out in silent warning.

As we set foot upon the long, deserted Terrace, strolling slowly forward in the balmy, refreshing night air, my thoughts wandered back to the last occasion when we had spent an evening together beside the Thames, that memorable night at “The Nook,” when we had afterwards discovered Dudley Ogle lying dead.

During the first half-hour we discussed the progress of several questions of foreign policy which had been pursued during his absence, and he, an enthusiast in politics, confided in me his intention to head a select circle of his party to demand a commission of inquiry into the working of our mobilisation scheme for home defence.

“One would think that you desired to obtain further notoriety,” I laughed. “Surely you are popular enough; you are now the man of the hour.”

“Well, I suppose I am,” he answered, a trifle proudly, halting suddenly, leaning with his back to the stone parapet and puffing vigorously at his cigar. “But it isn’t for the sake of notoriety that I’m pressing forward this inquiry. It is for the benefit of the country generally. The scheme for the mobilisation of our forces in case of invasion is utterly rotten, and had we been compelled to fight a little time ago, when France and Russia were upon the point of declaring war, we should have been in a wretched plight. The scheme is all very well on paper, but I and my friends are determined to ascertain whether it will act. It has never been tested, and no doubt it is utterly unworkable. What, indeed, can be said of a scheme which decrees that in case of an enemy landing on our shores a regiment of cavalry, now in London, must draw its horses from Dublin! Why, the thing’s absurd. We don’t mean to rest until the whole matter is thoroughly threshed out.”

“You intend to worry up the War Office a little,” I observed, smiling.

“Yes,” he answered, ostentatiously. “We intend to bring public opinion to bear so heavily upon them that they will be absolutely bound to submit to the inquiry. This is, however, a secret for the present. It is best that the newspapers should not get hold of it yet. You understand?”

“Of course,” I said.

We stood watching the dark, swirling waters and enjoying the cool night breeze that swept along the river, causing the lamps to flicker, when he suddenly asked, – “How is Ella? I quite forgot to ask after your wife.”

“I don’t know,” I replied, after a brief pause.

“Don’t know?” he echoed, looking at me, puzzled. “Why, what’s the matter?”

“She has left me,” I answered gravely.

“Left you!” he cried, removing his cigar and staring at me. “Have you quarrelled?”

“No. On my return home one night in January I found a note of farewell from her. I have heard nothing of her since. Mrs Laing disappeared on the same day.”

“Disappeared!” he gasped. My announcement had caused him the greatest consternation, for he stood agape. “Have you no idea of the reason?”

“None whatever,” I replied. Then confidentially I told him of Ella’s mysterious absences, her walk in Kensington Gardens, and her letters from the unknown individual who had met her so frequently, omitting, however, all mention either of the theft or recovery of the secret convention, for it was Lord Warnham’s wish that I should keep the existence of that instrument a profound secret.

“Have you no idea who this strange fellow is?” he inquired, sympathetically.

“Not the slightest,” I said.

“Ella was not addicted to flirtation,” he observed reflectively, a few moments later. “As you are aware, I have been acquainted with the family for some years, and have known your wife ever since she could toddle.”

“Tell me of them,” I urged impatiently. “I know scarcely anything beyond what Ella and her mother have told me. What do you know of Ella’s past?”

“You speak as if you suspected her to be an adventuress,” he said, and as the lamplight fell upon his face I saw that his lips relaxed into a good-humoured smile. “As far as I’m aware there is no incident of her life prior to marriage that will not bear the fullest investigation; and as for her mother, no more straightforward nor upright woman ever lived. Before poor Robert Laing died I was a frequent visitor at their country house, so I had ample opportunity of noticing what an affectionate family they were; and after his death it was I who succeeded in turning his great business into a limited liability concern.”

To outsiders Beck was a swaggering parvenu, who delighted in exhibiting his wealth to others by giving expensive dinners and indulging in extravagances of speech and beverage; but towards me he had always been honestly outspoken and unassuming – in fact, a typical successful business man, with whose unruffled good humour I had, even when madly jealous of his attentions to Ella, found it impossible to quarrel. I had long ago grown to ridicule the suggestion that any secret had existed between them, and now felt instinctively that he was my friend.

“Do you think – ” I asked him, after a long pause. “Candidly speaking, have you any suspicion that Dudley Ogle was her lover?”

He knit his brows. For an instant a hard expression played about his mouth, and he drew a long breath.

“I didn’t, of course, know so much of Dudley as you did,” he answered, slowly contemplating the end of his cigar. “But to tell you the honest truth, I always suspected that he loved her. In fact her own evidence at the inquest was sufficient proof of that.”

“His death was an enigma,” I observed.

“Entirely so,” he acquiesced, sighing.

“She alleged that he had been murdered, and there is no room for doubt that she entertained certain very grave suspicions.”