Her Majesty's Minister

No, I did not like the aspect of things in the least. The night was absolutely breathless, and the asphalt of the boulevard seemed to reflect back into one’s face the heat of the sun that had blazed upon it during the day. I removed my hat, and walked with it in my hand, my brain awhirl. The spies of France had effected a coup against us, and within twenty-four hours Europe might, I knew, be convulsed by a declaration of war.

Here and there the cafés were still open, but few customers were inside. A pair of drunken roysterers staggered past me singing that catchy song of the less fashionable boulevards:

“Dansons la rondeDes marmites de Paris,Ohé! les souris!Les rongeuses de monde!Faisons sauter avec nousNos michets et nos marlous.Dansons la ronde!Paris est à nous!”

With that single exception all was silent. From half-past three till four in the morning is the quietest period that the City of Pleasure experiences. She is dormant only one half-hour in the whole twenty-four.

Yolande was suspected of being a spy! The thought seemed absolutely absurd. She was Belgian, it was true, and there is somehow always a prejudice against Belgian women in Paris, due perhaps to the fact that although they speak French with an accent, they are often perfect linguists. But for Yolande to be actually a spy – why, the thing was ridiculous!

Arrived at my own rooms, I found Mackenzie, my old Scotch manservant, awaiting me.

“Mr Kaye called, sir, half an hour ago,” he said. “He could not wait, for he was leaving Paris.”

“Leaving Paris?” I echoed, for the ubiquitous chief of the secret service had only come back from Madrid a few hours before.

“Yes, sir. He left you a note;” and my well-trained man drew a letter from his pocket. He always kept my letters upon his person, in order that any callers might not pry into them during my absence.

I tore open the note eagerly, and read the few scribbled lines. Next instant the paper almost fell from my fingers. I held my breath, scarcely believing my own eyes. Yet the writing was plain enough, and was as follows:

“Within the past hour I have ascertained that your friend Yolande de Foville is a secret agent. Keep strict watch upon her. I have left instructions that if she leaves Paris she is to be followed. I go to Berlin at once to make inquiries, and am leaving by the 4:30 train this morning. I have the address you gave, and the particulars concerning her. Shall return as soon as possible.

“K.”

I crushed the note in my hand, and, walking on into my sitting-room, gulped down some brandy. Everything had conspired against me. When I had given Kaye those details concerning my charming little friend three years ago, I had never dreamed that he would register them and afterwards use them in an endeavour to fasten upon her a charge of being a spy. Yet he was actually on his way to Berlin, and any attempt upon my part to hinder him would only be misconstrued into a treasonable endeavour to shield her.

Upon the table before me stood her photograph in a silver frame, looking out at me. I took it up. Those eyes were so innocent that I could not bring myself to believe that any evil lurked in them. Surely she would not attempt to harm me? Such an action was absolutely contrary to any woman’s nature.

Yolande! The sound of that name brought back to me a sweet, tender memory of the past. I sighed as the recollection of that bygone day arose within me, and flung myself down into an easy-chair to smoke and to think. In the blue ascending rings from my cigarette her face seemed to smile at me with those red parted lips and merry eyes, clear and azure as a child’s. How charming and chic she had once appeared to me in those days when we had first met – in those days before I had known Edith Austin, my absent well-beloved! Her portrait, too, was there – the picture of a woman, sweet, tender, grave-faced, of similar age perhaps, but whose peerless beauty was typically English and devoid of any artificiality. I took it up and touched it reverently with my lips. I loved the original of that photograph with all the strength of my being, hoping always that some day ere long I might ask her to become my wife.

Some there are who hold the theory that to all diplomatists, ambassadors excepted, wives are an unnecessary encumbrance. I admit that there is much to be said in favour of the celibate state as the ideal existence for the secretary or attaché, who is bound, more or less, to make himself agreeable to the many cosmopolitan ladies who make up the diplomatic circle, and sometimes even to flirt with them, when occasion requires. Yet after fifteen years or so beneath the shadows of the various thrones of Europe, a man tires of the life, and longs for the one sweet woman whom he can trust and love. In this I was no exception. I loved Edith Austin with all my heart and all my soul; and she, I felt assured, reciprocated my affection.

It is part of the diplomatist’s creed to be on good terms with all and sundry of the feminine butterflies who hover about the embassies, no matter what their age or nationality. Hence it was that five years ago, while stationed at Brussels, I had become attracted by Yolande de Foville. Once, long before I met Edith, I fancied myself in love with her. Her father, Count de Foville, was aide-de-camp to King Leopold, and with her mother she moved in the best society in Paris and Brussels. On several occasions I had been invited for the boar hunting at the great gloomy old château at Houffalize, in the Ardennes forest, where the powerful de Fovilles had been seigneurs through five centuries.

It was a dull, snowbound, dreary place in winter, bare and chill, furnished in ancient style, and situated thirty miles from the nearest railway, in the midst of a flat forest country. It was, therefore, not surprising that on the death of the Count, Yolande and her mother should prefer to leave Belgium and travel in England and Italy, spending the winter at Rome or at Monte Carlo, the spring in Paris, and summer in one or other of the fashionable French watering-places. During three years we had been excellent friends, and after I had been promoted from Brussels to the Embassy in Rome, she came with her mother and spent the spring in the Eternal City, with the result that our firm friendship became even firmer. I am fain to admit that our flirtation was of the kind called desperate, and that it had ended in love.

And a week ago she had suddenly arrived in Paris at the smart little flat in the Rue de Courcelles, which her mother had possessed for years, but now so seldom occupied. Her arrival was unexpected, and I had only known of it from Giraud, the military attaché at the Belgian Legation, a friend of my Brussels days, whom I met in the Café de Paris one evening after the opera, and who had said suddenly:

“Do you, my dear Ingram, know that a little friend of yours has arrived in Paris?”

“Who?” I inquired eagerly.

“Yolande,” was the response. “You used to be her cavalier in Brussels in the old days. Have you forgotten her?”

His announcement surprised me. Since my friendship with Edith had grown to be a grand passion, I had exchanged no correspondence with Yolande. Indeed, the last I had heard of her was that she and the Countess were at Cairo spending the winter.

To tell the truth I was rather glad that she had not sought me out, for I had no wish to renew her acquaintance, now that I had found a woman in England whom I meant to try to win for my wife. Yet as I looked back at the past through the haze of my cigarette-smoke I was compelled to admit that I had spent some charming hours by her side, dancing at those brilliant balls in Brussels or driving in that pretty wood so beloved of the Bruxellois, the Bois de la Cambre. Many were the incidents that came back to me as I sat there pondering. Nevertheless, in the storehouse of memory I found nothing half sweet enough to tempt me from my love for Edith.

The denunciation of the pretty Yolande as a spy staggered belief; yet the Chief himself, as well as Kaye, was convinced, and the latter was already on his way to the north to prosecute inquiries.

What, I wondered, had really aroused their suspicions? As His Excellency had not seen Kaye since his return from Madrid, they could not have exchanged views. It seemed my duty to call and see her, to renew the acquaintance that I so strongly desired to end, and, indeed, to continue the flirtation of bygone days with a view to discovering the truth. Was it fair? Was it just? I hesitated to call upon her, half fearful lest her charm and natural chic should again attract me towards her. Nevertheless, it was my duty, as servant of my Sovereign, to attempt to discover England’s secret enemies.

Chapter Three

Yolande

The remainder of that night I spent in restless agitation, and at the Embassy early next morning showed His Excellency the note that Kaye had left for me.

“You must see her, Ingram,” he said briefly. “You must obtain her secret from her.”

“But I cannot believe that she is a secret agent!” I declared. “We were friends, and she surely would not seek to injure me?”

“Trust nobody, my dear Ingram,” answered the grave-eyed old man. “You know how unreliable women are where diplomacy is concerned. Remember the incident of the Princess Ghelarducci in Rome.”

My lips compressed themselves. He referred to a matter which, for me, was anything but a pleasant recollection. The Princess, after learning our intentions regarding Abyssinia, had openly betrayed us; and I had very foolishly thought her my friend.

“I shall call on her this afternoon,” I answered briefly. “The worst of it is that my action will lead her to think that I desire to renew the acquaintance.”

“H’m, I see,” observed His Excellency quickly, for his shrewdness had detected the truth. “You were once in love with her – eh?”

I nodded.

“Then don’t allow her to think that your love has cooled,” he urged. “Act diplomatically in this matter, and strive to get at the truth.”

“And deceive her?”

“Deception is permissible if she is a spy.”

“But she is not a spy,” I declared quickly.

“That remains to be seen!” he snapped. He then turned on his heel and passed into an adjoining room.

At three o’clock I presented my card at the flat in the Rue de Courcelles, and was admitted to a cosy little salon, where the persiennes were closed to keep out the blazing July sun, and the subdued light was welcome after the glare of the streets. Scarcely, however, had my eyes become accustomed to the semi-darkness, when the door suddenly opened, and I found myself face to face with the woman I had loved a few years ago.

“Gerald! You!” she cried in English, with that pretty accent which had always struck me as so charming.

Our hands clasped. I looked into her face and saw that in the two years which had elapsed she had grown even more beautiful. In a cool white dress of soft, clinging muslin, which, although simply made, bore the unmistakable stamp of a couturière of the first order, she stood before me, my hand in hers, in silence.

“So you have come to me?” she said in a strained voice. “You have come, at last?”

“You did not let me know you were in Paris,” I protested.

“Giraud told you four days ago,” she responded, “and you could not spare a single half-hour for me until to-day!” she added in a tone of reproach. “Besides, I wrote to you from Cairo, and you never replied.”

“Forgive me,” I urged – “forgive me, Yolande. It is really my fault.”

“Because you have forgotten me,” she said huskily. “Here, in Paris, you have so many distractions that memories of our old days in Brussels and at Houffalize have all been swept away. Come, admit that what I say is the truth.”

“I shall admit nothing of the kind, Yolande,” I answered, with diplomatic caution. “I only admit my surprise at finding you here in July. Why, there is nobody here except our unfortunate selves at the embassies. The boulevards are given over to the perspiring British tourist in knickerbockers and the usual week-end trippers who ‘do’ the city in a char-à-banc.”

She laughed for the first time, and seated herself upon a large settee covered with yellow silk, motioning me to a chair near her.

“It is true,” she said. “Paris is not at all pleasant just now. We are only here for frocks. In a week we go to Marienbad. And you – how are you?” and she surveyed me with her head held slightly aside in that piquante manner I knew so well.

“The same,” I laughed – “ever the same.”

“Not the same to me,” she hastened to protest.

“I might make a similar charge against yourself,” I said. “Remember, you did not tell me you were in Paris.”

“Because I thought you would know it quickly enough. I wanted, if possible, to meet you accidentally and surprise you. I went to the ball at the German Embassy, but you were not there.”

“I was in London,” I explained briefly, my thoughts reverting to the allegation against her and the unhesitating action of the wary Kaye in travelling direct to Berlin.

If there was any man in Europe who could clear up a mystery it was the indefatigable chief of the British secret service. He lived in Paris ostensibly as an English lawyer, with offices in the Boulevard des Italiens, next the Café Américain. Hence his sudden journeys hither and thither were believed to be undertaken in the interests of various clients. But although he had an Irish solicitor, O’Brien by name, to attend to the inquiries of any chance clients, the amount of legal business carried on in those offices was really nil. The place was, in fact, the headquarters of the British secret service on the Continent.

“I, too, was in England a year ago,” she said. “We were invited to a house-party up in Scotland. Mother was bored, but I had great fun. An English home seems somehow so much jollier than the houses where one visits in any other country. You know how I love the English!”

“Is that meant as a compliment?” I laughed.

“Of course,” she answered. “But English diplomatists are just as grave as those of any other nation. Your people are always full of all sorts of horrid secrets and things.”

She referred to the old days in Brussels, for she knew well the difficulties under which our diplomacy had been conducted there, owing to the eternal questions involving Egypt and the Congo.

But I laughed lightly. I did not intend that she should suspect the real motive of my call. Evidently she knew nothing of my love for Edith Austin, or she would have referred to it. Fortunately I had been able to keep it a secret from all.

“And you are actually leaving us in a week?”

I observed, for want of something else to say. “I hear that Marienbad is crowded this season.”

“We are going to visit my uncle, Prince Stolberg, who has a villa there.”

Then I asked her of our mutual friends in Brussels, and she in return retailed to me all the latest gossip concerning them. As she sat there in the subdued light, her white dress, relieved by a touch of turquoise at the wrists and waist, she presented a picture graceful, delicate, and altogether charming. I reasoned with myself as she went on chattering. No; it was not surprising that I had once fallen in love with her. She was more French than Belgian, for the days of her girlhood had been passed mostly in France; her Christian name was French, and in manner she possessed all that smartness and chic peculiar to the Parisienne. Mentally I compared her with Edith, but next instant laughed within myself. Such comparison was impossible. Their styles were as different as were their nationalities. Beside Edith, my well-beloved, the beauty of this fair-haired, gesticulating girl paled entirely, and became insipid. The Englishwoman who held me beneath the spell of her soft and truthful eyes was without a peer.

Still, Yolande amused me with her chatter. The reader will forgive me this admission, for in calling there I was only acting a part. I was endeavouring in the interests of my country to find out whether there was any truth in the allegation recently made against her by my friend. Of a sudden a thought crossed my mind, and I asked:

“Have you met many acquaintances since you’ve been in Paris?”

“Only Hartmann and some of the people at the Legation,” she responded. “We are just going to five o’clock with the Princess Olsoufieff this afternoon.”

“There is an old friend of yours just arrived,” I said. “Have you met him?”

“An old friend?” she echoed in surprise. “Man or woman?”

“A man,” I answered. “Rodolphe Wolf.”

“Rodolphe Wolf!” she gasped, starting up, the colour dying from her lips in an instant. “Rodolphe Wolf in Paris – impossible!”

“He was at the Baroness de Chalencon’s last night,” I said quite calmly, watching her face the while.

Her sudden fear and surprise made plain a fact of which I had not before been aware – namely, that there was something more than a casual link between them. Years ago, when in Brussels, I had suspected Wolf of being a secret agent, and the fact that she was closely acquainted with him appeared to prove that my Chief’s suspicion was not unfounded.

She had risen. Her hands were trembling, and although she strove desperately to betray to me no outward sign of agitation, she was compelled to support herself by clutching the small table at her side. Her countenance was blanched to the lips. She presented the appearance of one haunted by some terrible dread.

“Wolf!” she gasped again, as though speaking to herself. Then, turning to me, she stretched forth both her hands, and, looking earnestly into my eyes, cried in wild desperation: “Gerald, save me! For the sake of our love of the old days, save me!”

“From what?” I cried, jumping up and catching her by both hands. “Tell me, Yolande. If I can assist you I certainly will. Why are you so distressed?”

She was silent, with one trembling hand pressed upon her heart, as though to stay its wild, tumultuous beating.

“No,” she said in a hoarse whisper, “it is useless – all useless.”

“But if you are in distress I can surely help you,” I said.

“Alas! you cannot,” she answered in despair. “You do not know – you cannot understand.”

“Why not tell me? Confide in me,” I urged.

“No,” she replied. “I am very foolish – forgive me;” and she tried to smile.

“The news that Wolf is here has upset you,” I said. “Why?”

“He has escaped.”

“From where?”

“From prison.”

I was silent. I knew not what to say. This declaration of hers was strange. It was startling news to me that Rodolphe Wolf had been in prison.

“You have asked me to save you,” I said, reverting to her wild supplication. “I will do so willingly if you only tell me how.”

“It is impossible,” she said in a broken voice, shaking her head mournfully. “By what you have told me I am forewarned.”

A deep sigh escaped her, and I saw that her fingers worked restlessly in the palms of her hands. She was desperate.

“Can I do absolutely nothing?” I asked in a tone of sympathy, placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder.

“Nothing,” she answered in a hoarse whisper. “I am not fit to talk further. Let us say good-bye.”

“Then you prefer that I should leave you?”

“Yes,” she said, holding out her hand. “Forgive me for this, but I want to go to my own room to think. What you have told me has upset me.”

“Tell me plainly – you fear that man?”

She nodded in the affirmative.

“And you will not allow me either to advise or to assist you?”

“No,” she said hoarsely. “Go, Gerald. Leave me! When we meet again I shall be calmer than I am now.”

Her face was deathly pale; her eyes had a distinct look of terror in them.

“Very well,” I answered when again she had urged me to leave her; “if you insist, I will go. But remember that if I can be of service, Yolande, I am ready at once to render you assistance. Good-bye,” and I pressed her hand in sympathy.

She burst into tears.

“Farewell,” she faltered.

Then I turned, and, bowing, went forth into the glaring sunshine of the boulevard.

She had virtually admitted a close acquaintance with a man upon whom distinct suspicion rested, and her actions had been those of a guilty woman. My thoughts were full of that interview and its painful ending as I walked back towards the Embassy.

Chapter Four

A Curious Story

There was war in the air. At the Embassy we could not conceal from ourselves the seriousness of the situation. From hour to hour we were living in dread lest diplomatic negotiations should be broken off with the French Republic. We had discovered what seemed very much like a conspiracy against England, and as an energetic protest it appeared quite possible that the Marquess of Malvern might order my Chief to leave Paris. This would mean a rupture of diplomatic relations, and in all probability war.

Never in the history of modern Europe had there been a day so critical as that blazing, well-remembered one in mid-July. There were ugly rumours of complications in the Transvaal. The fate of certain nations trembled in the balance. In every capital diplomatists were active, some striving to force war, others endeavouring to prevent it. A diplomatist’s life is assuredly no sinecure. The British public, as I have said before, little dreams of the constant anxiety and terrible tension which are parts of the daily life of its faithful servants abroad.

On my return to the Embassy I found that some important despatches had been brought from London by Anderson, the foreign service messenger.

He was sitting in my room smoking a cigarette, and awaiting me in order to obtain the receipt for his despatch-box. A tall, round-faced, merry man of middle age, he was an especial favourite in all the embassies as far as Teheran. A thorough cosmopolitan and man of the world, he had resigned his commission in the Scots Greys to become one of that half-dozen of the greyhounds of Europe known as Queen’s messengers.

“Well, Anderson,” I exclaimed, shaking his hand on entering, “what’s the news from Downing Street?”

“Oh, nothing very fresh,” he laughed, sinking back in his chair again, and passing me over the receipt for signature. “Old Tuite, of the Treaty Department, has retired on his pension this week. That’s about all that’s new. The Chief, however, seems busy. I’m loaded with despatches.”

“Where for?”

“Vienna and Constantinople. I leave by the Orient express in an hour’s time,” he answered, with a glance at his watch.

“Then you’re getting over a little ground just now?” I laughed.

“A little ground!” he echoed. “Well, I’ve been two trips to Petersburg this month, twice here to Paris, and once to Vienna. I’ve only slept one night in London since the 1st.”

“You’re a bit sick of it, I should think,” I observed, looking at the round face lit up by its pair of merry grey eyes. He was an easy-going fellow; his good-humour never seemed ruffled.

“Oh, it agrees with me,” he laughed lightly. “I don’t care as long as I get the monthly run to Teheran now and then. That’s a bit of a change, you know, after these everlasting railways, with their stuffy sleeping-cars and abominable arrangements for giving a man indigestion.”

I examined the box to see that the seals affixed in Downing Street were intact, then signed the receipt and handed it back to him.

Of the corps of Queen’s messengers – nicknamed “the greyhounds” because of the badge which each wears suspended round his neck and concealed beneath his cravat, a silver greyhound surmounted by the Royal arms – Captain Jack Anderson was the most popular. A welcome guest at every embassy or legation, he was on friendly terms with the whole staff, from the Ambassador himself down to the hall-porter, and he carried the gossip of the embassies to and fro across Europe. From him we all gathered news of our old colleagues in other capitals – of their joys and their sorrows, their difficulties and their junketings. His baggage being by international courtesy free from Customs’ examination, he oft-times carried with him a new frock for an ambassador’s wife or daughter – a service which always put him high in the good graces of the feminine portion of the diplomatic circle.

“Kaye seems bobbing about pretty much,” he observed, handing me his cigarette-case. Anderson’s cigarettes were well known for their excellence, for he purchased them at a shop in Petersburg, and often distributed a box in one or other of the embassies. “I met him a week ago on board the Calais boat, and two days later I came across him in the buffet down at Bâle. He was, however, as close as an oyster.”