‘Does it not occur to you, Monsieur V——, that there is in my Empire a powerful family, the heads of which seem at one time to have cherished the notion that the Hohenzollerns could not reign without them, a family which aspired to play the same part in modern Germany which was played by the Mayors of the Palace in the Empire of the Merovingians?’
‘You allude, sire, without doubt, to the Bismarcks?’
‘My grandfather was forced into war with the French by a forged telegram. There would be nothing surprising in an attempt from the same quarter to force me into a war with England.’
I had no answer to make to such reasoning. Daring as such a manœuvre might appear, it was absurd, in the face of historical facts, to pronounce it improbable.
After a minute spent in considering the situation, I turned to the question of how the fraud might have been carried out.
It was quite clear to me that such a message could not have gone over the ordinary wires. The despatches of Emperors are not, as a rule, handed in over the counter of a post-office, like a telegram from a husband announcing that he is prevented from dining at home. I asked the Kaiser to explain to me the system pursued with regard to Imperial messages.
‘That is a matter about which you will be able to learn more from the Chancellor than from me,’ was the answer. ‘Foreign despatches go through the Chancellery, and there is a staff of telegraphists there to deal with them. The wire goes direct to the Central Telegraph Office, I believe, from which it would, of course, find its way to the Cable Company.’
‘Then this fabrication must have been sent from the Chancellery in the first instance?’ I inquired. ‘It could not have been received at the Central Office from an outside source?’
‘Impossible. They would not dare to transmit a message in my name which had not reached them through one of the authorised channels.’
This was the reply I had expected. But I did not fail to mark the admission that there was more than one channel through which the forgery might have come. I was quick to ask—