Читать книгу The White Lie - Le Queux William - Страница 5

The right honourable the Earl of Bracondale, His Majesty’s Principal 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 attitude 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 title, he had been honorary attaché at the Embassy 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 documents 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, passing 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 Dick 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 Embassies. 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 manœuvres is in the hands of our friends in the Wilhelmstrasse.”

“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.

“But what are the main features of the report? Tell me, Darnborough. You always know everything.”

“The chief points of the secret report reached me from one of my agents in Berlin this morning. It was brought over by messenger,” replied the Earl’s visitor, seating himself and puffing thoughtfully at his cigar. “You will recollect that two fleets were engaged in the North Sea, Blue being the British Fleet, and Red representing the German.”

“How foolish of the Admiralty not to have issued a report for public consumption. They ought to have done so long ago, and issued the confidential report afterwards – as was done two years ago,” interrupted His Majesty’s Minister.

“Yes, that is what should have been done,” the other assented. “It is useless to tell the world the truth when national defence is in question. But to resume. Blue’s commander was given two hundred and thirty ships to Red’s one hundred and seventeen, or nearly two to one. Blue had twenty-eight battleships and battle-cruisers to Red’s eighteen, or fifty-five per cent. more.”

“An advantage far greater than we should possess in actual war, unless every British fighting ship was brought home from the Mediterranean.”

“Exactly. War was declared on June 18th – earlier than is usual – and six days later a truce was suddenly ordered from Whitehall. War was resumed three days afterwards, but was stopped suddenly four days later.”

“Well, and what did really happen? I mean, what facts have our friends in Berlin got hold of?” asked the Earl, with the greatest interest.

“Proofs undeniable that, under our present arrangements for home defence, a serious raid must entail a vital blow at the heart of the Empire,” he replied slowly.

“How?” asked Lord Bracondale sharply.

“Because the enemy, notwithstanding all our efforts at defence, our destroyers, our scouting hydroplanes, and our look-outs along the coast, raided the Humber, landing thirty-six thousand men, and, on the following day, made raids on the Wear, Blyth, and Sunderland, putting twenty-four thousand men ashore. Thus, four of the most important ports and bases on the East Coast were captured within two days, together with the wireless stations at Cleethorpes, Hunstanton, and Caister, and sixty thousand men were ashore. Moreover, the supposed enemy inflicted very heavy losses upon us without sustaining any disasters, and, further, they sent a strong force of cruisers into the Atlantic to prey upon British trade.”

“Bad,” sighed the Earl, the corners of his mouth hardening. “Very bad, Darnborough. It is to be hoped that the Press won’t get wind of this!”

The ubiquitous Chief of the Secret Service shrugged his shoulders.

“It may leak out to the Opposition journals, just as it has already leaked out to the Wilhelmstrasse. If the Admiralty had not ordered a sudden cessation of hostilities the enemy’s admiral would next have been heard of in such a position that a panic would have been caused throughout the country. As it was, the enemy’s submarines of the D and E classes, which were sent away to hunt on their own, established a reign of terror, getting to the entrance of Cromarty Harbour, which was our base, and torpedoing the ships which were guarding the Fleet inside. They also torpedoed the Dreadnoughts St. Vincent and Collingwood, while another section of the enemy’s submarines inflicted very heavy loss on the British Fleet in the North Sea and seized the wireless at Cleethorpes.”

The Earl was silent for a long time, thoughtfully stroking his moustache.

“But all this betrays our weakness to Germany!” he exclaimed at last. “It is astounding – incredible!”

“But it is, nevertheless, true,” remarked Darnborough. “The security of the country is in gravest danger. Why, only a few days ago the Post Office allowed Germany to lay another cable across the North Sea from Mundesley, in Norfolk, to the Island of Nordeney.”

“Mundesley?” repeated the Earl. “Why, that was where poor Harborne went on the day he lost his life.”

“Yes. He had been in that neighbourhood for some time – upon a secret mission, poor fellow! – a mission which he had not lived to fulfil.”

A silence fell between the two men.

“The situation is, I see, one of the utmost gravity. Steps must be taken at once to reassure the public in case rumours should be published regarding the truth. The Opposition will certainly not spare the Government the facts, and must, if disclosed, give an impetus to the campaign for universal service, which would be very inconvenient to us at the present time. And more than that – Germany now actually knows the rottenness of our defences!”

“That, unfortunately, is the case.”

The Earl of Bracondale bit his under lip. A Cabinet Council had been summoned for the next afternoon, and he must place the true situation before it. All the clever diplomacy he had exercised with the Powers during the past five years had now been nullified, and England stood exposed in all her vulnerability. The inflated bubble of the strong, invincible British Navy had been pricked and burst.

Black days had, alas! fallen upon our nation, and a grave peril hourly threatened. Germany had hitherto hesitated to attack England because of the uncertainty regarding our true strength. Our land defences were known to Germany, even to the most minute detail, all reported accurately and methodically by the enemy’s spies living amongst us. But our naval secrets had all been well preserved, so that the British Fleet had always been regarded as able to repel invasion and make reprisals.

Now, however, its failure to prevent an armed raid was known to our friends across the North Sea, and most certainly they would seek to take advantage of the valuable knowledge they had gained.

Suddenly the Earl, turning to where Darnborough stood, exclaimed:

“You spoke of poor Harborne. He was a smart agent, I believe?”

“The best I ever had. He was clever, ingenious, utterly fearless, and devoted to the service. You will recollect how he obtained the accurate clauses of the secret Japanese treaty, and how he brought to us news of the secret French agreement over the Morocco question.”

“I recollect,” replied the Foreign Minister. “When he told me I would not believe it. Yet his information proved correct.”

“Harborne’s death is to be deeply regretted,” Darnborough said. “I attended the inquest. Of course, to the public, the motive is a mystery.”

“Not to you – eh, Darnborough?”

“No. If Richard Harborne had lived, Germany would never have learnt the truth regarding the recent naval manœuvres,” was the reply of the Chief of the Secret Service.

“You said something about a woman. Is she known?”

“No. I have suspicions that an indiscretion was committed – a grave indiscretion, which cost poor Harborne his life. Yet what is one man’s life to his enemies when such a secret is at stake?”

“But who was the woman?”

“A friend of Harborne’s. She had been, I believe, useful to him in certain negotiations regarding the purchase of copies of plans of the new Krupp aerial gun, and in several other matters.”

“Any suspicion regarding her?” asked the Earl quickly.

“None. She is, of course, in ignorance of the truth, and probably unaware who killed the man with whom she was so friendly. I am endeavouring to trace her.”

“Is she a lady?”

“No. A French milliner, I understand.”

“A little romance of Harborne’s which has ended fatally?”

“Yes – poor Harborne!” sighed the grey-faced man, in whose keeping were the secrets of the Empire, and who knew more of the political undercurrents of Europe than any other living person. “His loss is very great to us, for he was a fine specimen of the true-hearted, patriotic Englishman,” he added, pulling hard at his cigar. “His place will be hard to fill – very hard.”

“I know, Darnborough,” remarked Lord Bracondale gravely. “To such a man the country ought to erect a monument, for he has laid down his life for his country. But, alas! our country recognises no heroes of the Secret Service!”

And as the Cabinet Minister spoke the telephone-bell rang. He crossed to his writing-table, took up the instrument, and responded to an urgent call from the House of Commons in London, where an important and heated debate regarding our foreign relations was in progress.