Kitabı oku: «The Under-Secretary», sayfa 10
Chapter Eighteen.
Introduces an Interesting Person
He hesitated for a moment; then, setting his jaws hard in sudden resolution, he turned the door-handle and entered.
Within, the long, low-ceilinged room was furnished as a kind of office. From an armchair near the fireless grate rose the spare figure of a grey-haired, grey-eyed, haggard-faced man of a type which might be described as shabby-genteel, a man who had without doubt seen better days. His features were refined, but his cheeks were sunken until the bones of the face showed plainly beneath the skin, and his hair and moustache, though grey, had prematurely lost their original colour. His tall, slim figure was straight, and he bowed to Chisholm with the easy manner of a gentleman. His overcoat of shabby grey Irish frieze was open, displaying a coat and vest much the worse for wear, while his upturned trousers were sodden by the melting snow.
“I understand that you wish, to see me,” Chisholm began, glancing at the fellow keenly, and not half liking his appearance. “This is a rather unusual hour for a visit, is it not?”
“Yes,” the man replied. “For the lateness of the hour I must apologise, but my trains did not fit, and I was compelled to walk from Shrewsbury.” He spoke in a refined voice, and his bearing was not that of a person who intended to ask assistance. Dudley possessed a quick insight into character, and could sum up a man as sharply and correctly as a lawyer with a wide experience of criminals.
“And what may your business be with me?” asked the master of Wroxeter.
The man glanced suspiciously at the door by which Dudley had entered, and asked:
“Are we alone? Do you think there can possibly be any eavesdroppers?”
“Certainly not. But I cannot understand why your business should be of such a purely private character. You are entirely unknown to me, and I understand that you refused to give a card.” He uttered the last words with a slight touch of sarcasm, for the man’s appearance was not such as would warrant the casual observer in believing him to be possessed of that mark of gentility.
“Of course I am unknown to you, Mr Chisholm. But although unknown to you in person, I am probably known to you by name.” As he spoke, he selected from his rather shabby pocket-book a folded paper, which he handed to Dudley. “This credential will, I think, satisfy you.”
Dudley took it, glanced at it, and started quickly. Then he fixed his eyes upon his visitor in boundless surprise. The man before him smiled faintly at the impression which the sight of that document had caused. The paper was headed with the British arms in scarlet, and contained only three lines written over a signature he knew well – the signature of the Prime Minister of England.
“And you are really Captain Cator?” exclaimed the Under-Secretary, looking at him in amazement, and handing him back his credential.
“Yes, Archibald Cator, chief of Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” said the shrunken-faced man. “We have had correspondence on more than one occasion, but have never met, for the simple reason that I am seldom in England. Now you will at once recognise why I refused a card, and also why I wished my visit to you to remain a secret.”
“Of course, of course,” answered Dudley. “I had no suspicion of your identity, and – well, if you will permit me to say so, your personal appearance at this moment is scarcely that which might be expected of Captain Archibald Cator, military attach in Rome.”
“Exactly! But I have been paying a call earlier in the day, and shabbiness was a necessity,” he explained with a laugh. “Besides, I tramped all the way from Shrewsbury and – ”
“And you are wet and cold. You’ll have a stiff whiskey and soda.” Dudley pressed the bell and, when Riggs appeared, gave the necessary order.
“You won’t return to-night, of course,” suggested Chisholm. “I’ll tell them to get a room ready for you.”
“Thanks for your hospitality, but my return is absolutely imperative. There is a train from Shrewsbury to town at 4:25 in the morning. I must leave by that.”
Both men sank into chairs opposite each other in the chill, rather gloomy, room. The mysterious visitor who had called at that extraordinary hour was one of the most trusted and faithful servants at the disposal of the Foreign Office. Although nominally holding the appointment of military attach at the Embassy in Rome, he was in reality the chief of the British Secret Service on the Continent, a man whose career had been replete with extraordinary adventures, to whose marvellous tact, ready ingenuity, and careful methods of investigation, England was indebted for many of the diplomatic coups she had made during the past dozen years or so.
In the diplomatic circle, and in the British colony in Rome, every one knew Archie Cator, for he was popular everywhere, and a welcome visitor at the houses of the English and the wealthier Italians alike. It was often hinted that in the Foreign Office at home he possessed influential friends, for whenever he wished for leave he had only to wire to London to obtain a grant of absence. The supposition was that in summer he went to his pretty villa at Ardenza, on the Tuscan shore near Leghorn, there to enjoy the sea-breezes, or in winter over to Cairo or Algiers. None knew, save, of course, Her Majesty’s Ambassador, that these frequent periods of leave were spent in flying visits to one or other of the capitals of Europe to direct the operations of the band of confidential agents under him, or that the attach so popular with the ladies was in reality the Prince of Spies.
Spying is against an Englishman’s notion of fair-play, but to such an extent have the other great Powers carried the operation of their various Intelligence Departments that to the Foreign Office the secret service has become a most necessary adjunct. Were it not for its operations, and the early intelligence it obtains, England would often be left out of the diplomatic game, and British interests would suffer to an extent that would soon become alarming, even to that puerile person, the Little Englander. Officially no person connected with the Secret Service is recognised, except its chief, and he, in order to cloak his real position, was at that moment holding the post of attaché in Rome, where he had but little to do, since Italy was the Power most friendly towards England.
Stories without number of the captain’s prowess, of his absolute fearlessness, and of his marvellous ingenuity as a spy in the interests of his country, had already reached Chisholm. They were whispered within a certain circle at the Foreign Office when from time to time a copy of a secret document, or a piece of remarkable intelligence reached headquarters from Paris, Berlin, or Petersburg. They knew that it came from Archie Cator, the wiry, middle-aged attach who idled in the salons of the Eternal City, drove in the Corso, and, especially as he was an easy-going bachelor, found remarkable favour in the eyes of the ladies.
He lived two lives. In the one he was a diplomatist, smart, polished, courtly – the perfect model of all a British attach should be. In the other he was a shrewd, crafty spy, possessed of a tact unequalled by any detective officer at Scotland Yard, a brain fertile in invention and subterfuge, and nerves of iron. In Rome, in Paris and in Petersburg, only the ambassadors knew the secret of his real office. He transacted his business direct with them and with the chief in London, Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Indeed, British diplomatic policy was often based upon his reports and suggestions. The utmost care was always exercised to conceal his real office from the staffs of the various Embassies. They only knew him as Archie Cator from Rome, the man with a friend high up in the Foreign Office who got him short leave whenever he chose to take it.
The money annually voted by Parliament for secret service was entirely at his disposal, and the only account he rendered was to the chief himself. The department was a costly one, for often he was compelled to bribe heavily through his agents, men specially selected for the work of spying; and as these numbered nearly forty, distributed in the various capitals, the expenditure was by no means light. With such a director, for whose methods, indeed, the staff at Scotland Yard had the highest admiration, the successes were many. To Cator’s untiring energy, skilful perception, and exhaustless ingenuity in worming out secrets, our diplomatic success in various matters, despite the conspiracies formed against us by certain of the Powers, was entirely due. The Foreign Secretary himself had, it was whispered, once remarked at a Cabinet meeting that if England possessed half a dozen Cators she would need no ambassadors. The marquess trusted him implicitly, relying as much upon his judgment as upon that of the oldest and most practised representative of Her Majesty at any of the European courts.
If the truth were told, the secret of England’s dominant influence in Central Africa was entirely due to the discovery of a diplomatic intrigue in Berlin by the omnipotent Cator, who, at risk of his life, secured a certain document which placed our Foreign Office in a position to dictate to the Powers. It was a master-stroke, and as a partial return for it the popular, cigarette-smoking attach in Rome, found one morning upon his table an autograph letter of thanks from Her Majesty’s Prime Minister. When occupying his position as attach he was an idler about the Eternal City, an inveterate theatre-goer, and a well-known, and even ostentatious, figure in Roman society. But when at work he was patient, unobtrusive, and usually ill-dressed, moving quickly hither and thither, taking long night journeys by the various rapides, caring nothing for fatigue, and directing his corps of secret agents as a general does an army.
Knowledge is power. Hence England is compelled to hold her place in the diplomatic intrigues of the world by the employment of secret agents. There are many doors to be unlocked, and to men like Cator, England does not grudge golden keys.
Riggs had brought the whiskey and soda, and the man whose career would have perhaps made the finest romance ever written, had drained a tumblerful thirstily, with a laugh and a word of excuse that “the way had been long, and the wind cold.”
When they were alone again, he twisted the rather stubby ends of his grey moustache, and with his eyes fixed upon the Under-Secretary said:
“I should not have disturbed you at this hour, Mr Chisholm, were not the matter one of extreme urgency.”
Dudley sat eager and anxious, wondering what could have brought this man to England. A grave and horrible suspicion had seized him that the truth he dreaded was actually out – that the blow had fallen. No secret was safe from Cator. As he had obtained knowledge of the profoundest secrets of the various European Powers in a manner absolutely incredible, what chance was there to hide from him any information which he had set his mind to obtain. “Is the matter serious?” he asked vaguely.
“For the present I cannot tell whether it is actually as serious as it appears to be,” the other answered with a grave look. “As you are well aware, the outlook abroad at this moment is far from promising. There is more than one deep and dastardly intrigue against us. The diplomatic air on the Continent is full of rumours of antagonistic alliances against England, and even Mercier, in Paris, has actually gone the length of planning an invasion. But a fig for all the bumptious chatter of French invasions!” he said, snapping his finger and thumb. “What we have to regard at this moment is not menaces abroad, but perils at home.”
“I hardly follow you,” observed the Under-secretary.
“Well, I arrived in London from the Continent the night before last upon a confidential mission, and it is in order to obtain information from yourself that I am here to-night,” he explained. “Perhaps the fact that I have not had my clothes off for the past five days, and that I have been in four of the capitals of Europe during the same period, will be sufficient to convince you of the urgency of the matter in hand. Besides, it may account for my somewhat unrepresentable appearance,” he added with a good-humoured laugh. “But now let us get at once to the point, for I have but little time to spare if I’m to catch the early express back to London. The matter is strictly private, and all I ask, Mr Chisholm, is that what passes between us goes no further than these four walls. Recollect that my position is one of constant and extreme peril. I am the confidential agent of the Foreign Office, and you are its Parliamentary Under-secretary. Therefore, in our mutual interests, no word must escape you either in regard to my visit here, or even to the fact that I have been in England. London to-day swarms with foreign spies, and if I am recognised all my chances of being successful in the present matter must at once vanish.”
“I am all attention,” said Dudley, interested to hear something from this gatherer of the secrets of the nation. “If I can give you any assistance I shall be most ready to do so.”
“Then let me put a question to you, which please answer truthfully, for much depends upon it,” he said slowly, his eyes fixed upon the man before him as he pensively twisted his moustache. “Were you ever acquainted with a man named Lennox?”
The words fell upon Dudley Chisholm like a thunderclap. Yes, the blow had fallen! He started, then, gripping the arms of the chair, sat upright and motionless as a statue, his face blanched to the lips. He knew that the ghastly truth, so long concealed that he had believed the matter forgotten, was out. Ruin stood before him. His secret was known.
Chapter Nineteen.
A Man of Secrets Speaks
Archibald Cator’s bony face was grave, serious, sphinx-like. His personality was strange and striking.
He had detected in an instant the sudden alarm which his question had aroused within the mind of the man before him, but, pretending not to observe it, he added with a pleasant air:
“You will, of course, forgive anything which may appear to be an impertinent cross-examination, Mr Chisholm. Both of us are alike working in the interests of our country, and certain facts which I have recently unearthed are, to say the least, extremely curious. They even constitute a great danger. Do you happen to remember any one among your acquaintances named Lennox – Major Mayne Lennox?”
Mayne Lennox! Mention of that name brought before Chisholm’s eyes a grim and ghastly vision of the past – a past which he had fondly believed was long ago dead and buried. There arose the face that had haunted him so continuously, that white countenance which appeared to him in his dreams and haunted him even in the moments of his greatest triumphs, social and political.
The shabbily attired man patiently awaited an answer, his eyes fixed upon the man before him.
“Yes,” answered Dudley at last, with a strenuous effort to calm the tumultuous beating of his heart.
“I was once acquainted with a man of that name.”
His visitor slowly changed his position, and a strange half-smile played about the corners of his mouth, as though that admission was the sum of his desire.
“May I ask under what circumstances you met this person?” he inquired, adding: “I am not asking through any idle motive of curiosity, but in order to complete a series of inquiries I have in hand, it is necessary for certain points to be absolutely clear.”
“We met at a card-party in a friend’s rooms,” Dudley said. “I saw something of him at Hastings, where he was spending the summer. Afterwards, I believe, he went abroad. But we have not met for years.”
“For how many years?”
“Oh, seven, or perhaps eight! I really could not say exactly.”
“Are you certain that Mayne Lennox went abroad?” inquired Cator as though suddenly interested.
“Yes. He told me that he had lived on the Continent for a great many years, mostly in Italy, I think. He often spoke of a villa he had outside Perugia, and I presume that he returned there.”
“Ah, exactly!” said his visitor, again twisting his moustache, as was his habit when deep in thought. “And you have not seen him for some years?”
“No. But is it regarding Major Lennox that you are making inquiries? He surely had no political connections?”
“My inquiries concern him indirectly,” admitted the man with the hollow cheeks. “I am seeking to discover him.”
“Surely that will not be difficult. A retired officer is usually found with the utmost ease.”
“Yes. But from inquiries I have already made I have come to the conclusion that he returned to England again. If so, my difficulty increases.” Dudley was silent for some moments. Was this man telling the truth? he wondered.
“May I ask what is your object in discovering him?” he inquired, feeling that as he had now answered Cator’s questions he might be permitted to ask some himself.
“I desire to ascertain from him certain facts which will elucidate what remains at present a profound mystery,” the other replied. “Indeed, a statement by him will place in our hands a weapon by which we can thwart certain of the Powers who are launching a powerful combination against us.”
Cator, who occupied the post that Colonel Murray-Kerr had once held, was himself a skilled diplomatist. As the confusion caused in the Under-Secretary’s mind at his first question had shown how unlikely it was that he would get a clear statement of the truth, he proceeded to work for the information he wanted, and to work in a cautious and indirect manner. Chisholm, recollecting the confidential document which had passed through his hands some time before, and which had aroused his suspicions, said:
“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.”
“No, nor can I,” replied Archibald Cator frankly.
And he certainly spoke the honest truth, even though he knew a good deal more than he had thought it wise to admit.
