The White Lie Part 6

"Never mind, darling; November will soon come, and you will then have no further need to go to business. You will be mine. Shall we go out for a walk?" he suggested, noticing that she already had her hat on.

To his suggestion she willingly a.s.sented, and, raising her full, red lips to his, she kissed him, and then they descended to the restaurant below, empty at that hour save for the seedy old waiter, Pierre, and her father, an elderly, grey, sad-looking man, whose business in later years had, alas! sadly declined on account of the many restaurants which had sprung up along Oxford Street during the past ten years. He had seen better times, but nowadays it was always a hard struggle to make both ends meet, to pay the landlord and to live.

Ralph and old Libert exchanged greetings in French, and then, with Jean upon his arm, young Ansell stepped out into Oxford Street.

The August night was dry, warm, and starlit. Few people were about as they strolled along, chatting and laughing merrily. Before the theatres discharge their chattering crowds, the main thoroughfares of central London are usually quiet and half-deserted, and as the pair walked in the direction of Regent Street, Jean's heart beat gladly with supreme satisfaction that at last Ralph had returned to London.

November! Far off seemed that day of all days in her life when she would be Ralph's bride.

Upon her finger was the engagement ring he had given her, one set with diamonds of such fine quality that old Libert had wondered. Indeed, a jeweller, whose habit it was to take his luncheon there each day, had noticed it upon Jean's finger, and had valued it roughly at a hundred pounds. Therefore Ralph could certainly not be badly off!

They had turned the corner into Regent Street, but were too engrossed in each other's conversation to notice that, in pa.s.sing, a tall, grey-faced man, who wore a crush-hat, with a black coat over his evening clothes, had suddenly recognised Ansell.

For a few steps he strode on with apparent unconcern, then he paused and, having gazed for several moments after them still walking with linked arms, unconscious of being remarked, he turned on his heel, crossed the road, and strolled in the direction they were walking.

The watcher was the same grey-faced, keen-looking stranger who, earlier that day, had sat in the country schoolroom at North Walsham listening to the evidence given before the coroner concerning the mystery of the Norwich Road.

His thin lips curled in a smile--a smile of bitter triumph--as he went on with crafty footsteps behind the pair, watching them from across the road.

CHAPTER V.

SECRETS OF STATE.

The right honourable the Earl of Bracondale, His Majesty's Princ.i.p.al Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, crossed his big, business-like library at Bracondale Hall, near Torquay, and stood upon the Turkey hearthrug ready to receive his visitor.

Beneath the red-shaded lamplight he presented a handsome picture, a tall, well-built man of refined elegance, upon whom the cares of State weighed rather heavily. His age was about forty-three, though, in his well-cut evening clothes, he looked much younger; yet his face undoubtedly denoted strength and cleverness, a sharpened intellect ever on the alert to outwit foreign diplomacy, while the lines across his brow betokened deep thought and frequent nights of sleeplessness.

To Great Britain's Foreign Minister is entrusted the care of her good relations with both friends and enemies abroad, and surely no member of the Cabinet occupies such a position of grave responsibilities, for a false step upon his part, the revelation of a secret policy, of an unfriendly att.i.tude maintained injudiciously, may at any moment cause the spark in the powder magazine of Europe.

To preserve peace, and yet be in a position to dictate to the Powers is what a British Foreign Minister must do, a task the magnitude and difficulty of which in these days can very easily be understood.

With his hands behind his back, his dark brow slightly contracted, his eyes were fixed blankly upon the big, littered writing-table before him; he was thinking deeply.

In profile his features were clean-cut, his forehead high and above the average intelligence; his hair, though a trifle scanty on top, was as yet untinged by grey, while he wore the ends of his carefully-trimmed moustache upturned, which gave him a slightly French appearance.

In his youthful days, long before he had succeeded to the t.i.tle, he had been honorary attache at the Emba.s.sy in Rome, and afterwards in Paris, to which was attributable the rather Continental style in which he wore both hair and moustache.

He drew his hand wearily across his brow, for ever since dinner he had never left his writing-table, so busy had he been with the great pile of doc.u.ments which had been brought that afternoon by special messenger from the Foreign Office.

Suddenly Jenner, the grave old butler who had been fifty years in the service of his family, opened the door and announced:

"Mr. Darnborough, m'lord."

"Halloa, Darnborough!" cried the earl cheerily, as his visitor entered.

"Where have you sprung from at this time of night?"

"From London," replied the other. "I wanted to see you urgently, so I ran down."

And the two men shook hands.

That the visitor was no stranger to the house was apparent, for, without invitation, he sank into an arm-chair, stretched out his legs, and looked very gravely up into the face of the Cabinet Minister before him.

He was dressed in a dark brown suit, and was none other than the grey-faced stranger who, four days before, had sat in the schoolroom at North Walsham and had aroused the curiosity of the coroner.

"Well, Darnborough, what's the matter?" asked the Earl, pa.s.sing his visitor the cigar-box. "I can see there's trouble by your face. What's the latest problem--eh?"

The visitor selected a cigar, turned it over in his fingers critically, and then, rising suddenly, bit off the end viciously and crossed to the electric lighter near the fireplace.

"Well," he answered, "there are several things. First, we know why poor Harborne was killed."

"Good," replied his lordship. "You Secret Service men always get to know all there is to know. You're marvellous! Have you told them at Scotland Yard?"

"No, and I don't mean to," replied Hugh Darnborough, the chief of the British Secret Service, the clever, ingenious man whose fingers were upon the pulse of each of the Great Powers, and whose trusty agents were in every European capital. Long ago he had held a commission in the Tenth Hussars, but had resigned it to join the Secret Service, just as d.i.c.k Harborne had resigned from the Navy to become a cosmopolitan, and to be dubbed an adventurer by those in ignorance. That had been years ago, and now he held the position of being the most trusted man in any Government department, the confidant of each member of the Cabinet, and even of the Sovereign himself, who frequently received him in private audience.

"You have reasons for not telling them at Scotland Yard--eh?" asked the Foreign Minister.

"Strong ones," replied the other, pulling hard at his cigar. "A woman who, I have ascertained, was on one occasion very useful to us, would be dragged into it--perhaps incriminated. And you know we are never anxious to court publicity."

"Ah! A woman--eh?"

"Yes; a young, and rather pretty, woman."

"And you've come all the way from London, and got here at eleven o'clock at night, to tell me this?"

"I have something else--of greater gravity."

"Well, let's hear the worst," said the Earl with a sigh. "Every day brings its troubles. Look yonder!" and he pointed to the table. "Those are despatches from all the Emba.s.sies. The eternal Balkan trouble seems threatening to break out, unless we take strong action. Bulgaria is mobilising again, and Turkey is protesting."

"There has been a leakage from the Admiralty. How, I cannot explain. A copy of the secret report upon our last naval manoeuvres is in the hands of our friends in the Wilhelmstra.s.se."

"What?" cried the Earl, starting, his face pale with alarm.

"I repeat that the report is known in Germany--every word of it!"

"And our weakness is thereby revealed?"

"The exact position is known."

"But the confidential report has not yet come through to me!"

"And yet it has somehow leaked out from Whitehall," Darnborough replied, drily.

"A full and drastic inquiry must be ordered. I will telephone at once to the First Lord."

"He already knows. I saw him this afternoon," was the quiet reply of the head of the Secret Service, a man whose coolness in great crises was always remarkable. When danger threatened he was always far more cool and collected than when all was plain sailing.