The White Lie Part 24

"Yes," replied the other, thoughtfully.

"He was a fine fellow, Darnborough--a very fine young fellow. He came to see me once or twice upon confidential matters. You sent him to Mexico, you'll remember, and he came to report to me personally. I was much struck by his keen foresight and cleverness. Have you gained any further information concerning his mysterious end?"

"I have made a good many inquiries, both at home and abroad, but Harborne seems to have been something of a mystery himself. He was strangely reserved, and something of a recluse in private life--lived in chambers in the Temple when not travelling abroad, and kept himself very much to himself."

"For any reason?"

"None, as far as I can tell. He was a merry, easy-going young fellow, a member of the St. James's, and highly popular among the younger set at the club, but he held aloof from them all he could. As I told you some time ago, there was a lady in the case."

His lordship sighed.

"Ah! Darnborough, the best of men go under for the sake of a woman!"

"In this case I am not sure that Harborne was really a victim," replied his visitor. "Only the other day, when in Bork.u.m, I ascertained that Harborne had been in Germany and met by appointment a young foreign woman named Fraulein Montague. She was French, I was told, and very pretty. It was she who carried on the negotiations for the purchase of the secret of the new Krupp aerial gun."

"You ought to find her. She might tell you something."

"That's just what I am striving my utmost to do. I have learnt that she was the daughter of a French restaurant-keeper, living somewhere in London, and that after Harborne's death she married a Frenchman, whose name I am unable, as yet, to ascertain."

"You will soon know it, Darnborough," remarked the Earl with a faint smile. "You always know everything."

"Is it not my profession?" the other asked. "Yes, I shall try to discover this lady, for I have a theory that she knows something which we ought to know. In addition, she knows who killed Richard Harborne."

"I sincerely hope that you will be successful," declared the Foreign Minister. "By Harborne's death Britain has lost a fearless patriot, a man who served his country as truly and as well as any bedecorated general, and who had faced death a dozen times unflinchingly in the performance of his duties to his country and his sovereign."

"Yes," declared Darnborough, "if any man deserved a C.M.G. or a knighthood, d.i.c.k Harborne most certainly did. I am the only person who is in the position of knowing how devotedly he served his country."

"I know, I know!" exclaimed the Earl. "And if he had lived it was my intention of including his name in the next Birthday Honours list."

"Poor fellow," remarked his chief. "I wonder who that woman Montague was, and whether she really had any hand in the crime? That he was fond of her I have learned on good authority, yet d.i.c.k was, after all, not much of a ladies' man. Therefore I am somewhat surprised at the nature of the information I have gathered. Nevertheless, I mean to find the woman--and to know the truth."

"Have you any clue whatever to her ident.i.ty?" inquired the Earl, looking at him strangely.

"None, save what I have told you," was the slow, deliberate reply. "But I think I shall eventually find her."

"You will, Darnborough. I know well what you mean when you reply in those terms. I have experienced your vague responses before," laughed his lordship.

But the great secret agent only grinned, and his grey face broadened into a smile, while the Earl lay wondering whether, after all, his visitor knew more concerning the mysterious female friend of Harborne than he had admitted.

Darnborough went on with his secret report, placing before the Secretary of State the exact nature of the war-cloud which once again threatened to arise over Europe, and of which our Emba.s.sies in Berlin and Vienna, with all the pomp of their officialdom, were as yet in ignorance.

And while the chief of the Secret Service was closeted with the Foreign Minister, and the latter was scribbling some pencil notes of his visitor's report, Jean waited downstairs in the library for the Earl's permission to return to his room.

As the soft after-glow of early autumn spread over the western sea before her, she turned at last from the long window and crossed the big room, wherein deep shadows were now falling.

The Earl's mysterious visitor had been shown in there by Jenner before being conducted to his lordship's room, and upon the Earl's pedestal writing-table, set in an alcove overlooking the terrace, stood a small, well-worn despatch-box of green enamelled steel, covered with dark green canvas.

It had been brought by Darnborough, and stood unlocked and open, just as he had taken from it the written reports of the agents of the Secret Service who had arrived at Charing Cross early that morning from the Continent.

Curiosity prompted Jean to pause and peer into it. She wondered what business that rather sour-faced man had with the Earl, and what that portable little steel box could contain.

A photograph--the photograph of a young and handsome woman--which was lying face upwards, first attracted her attention. Curious, she thought, that the man towards whom old Jenner had been so deferential should carry about the picture of a pretty woman.

She took it in her fingers and held it in the light in order to examine it more closely. Then, in replacing it, she glanced at the file of papers uppermost, a thick bundle of various doc.u.ments, stamped with the arms of England and the words, "Foreign Office," and upon the outside of which was written in a bold, clerkish hand, "_Re_ Richard Harborne, deceased."

Richard Harborne! Sight of that name caused her to hold her breath.

She took out the file of papers with trembling hand and bent to examine them in the light.

She saw there were newspaper cuttings, and long reports both in writing and typed--reports signed by persons of whom she had no knowledge.

In one paper at which she glanced d.i.c.k was referred to as "The Honourable Richard Davies Harborne, late of His Britannic Majesty's Secret Service."

She read eagerly, hoping to discover something to throw light upon the poor fellow's sad end, but the writing was small, cramped, and difficult for her to decipher.

Yet, so deeply interested did she become that she did not hear the door open.

Suddenly she heard a footstep behind her, and, starting quickly, turned to find his lordship's mysterious visitor standing facing her with a look of severe inquiry upon his grey, furrowed countenance.

"Oh! I--I--I'm so very sorry!" was all she could say, as she quickly replaced the file of papers in the despatch-box. "I--I----"

But further words failed her, and she stood abashed, confused, and ashamed.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DARKENING HORIZON.

"Well, nurse, I hardly expected that," he said, reprovingly, his serious eyes fixed upon hers.

Jean turned scarlet, and then admitted, as she stood with her back to the writing table:

"I saw the photograph in your despatch-box, and it attracted me. Then I saw those papers."

"And they seem to have greatly interested you, nurse--eh?" Darnborough remarked.

"A woman is always interested in what does not concern her," she replied with a forced smile.

"Well, forgive me for saying so, but I consider it gross impertinence on your part to have pried into my papers, young lady," exclaimed the chief of the Secret Service, with some asperity.

"I trust you will forgive me, Mr. Darnborough, but, truth to tell, I could not resist the temptation."

"Just as many other people could not resist--if they knew what secrets this despatch-box of mine sometimes contains," he laughed. "Well, nurse, I forgive you," he added cheerfully, his manner changing. "Go back to Lord Bracondale, and make haste and get him well again. England is sorely in need of him to-day--I can a.s.sure you."

"Does he wish for me?"