‘All that is absurd,’ he rapped out. ‘The Emperor is quite foolish about that family, which possesses no more influence to-day than any Pomeranian squire. No, if his Majesty wants a victim he ought to be content with one of his own staff. I refuse to allow the Imperial Chancellery to be discredited in the eyes of Europe.’
This reception, so unlike what I had anticipated, made me begin to think that my inquiry would have to be serious. After a little further conversation with the Chancellor I decided to go to work regularly, beginning by tracing the Imperial telegram back from the Central Office.
The Chancellor readily furnished me with the necessary authority to produce to the Director of the Telegraph Service, to whom I had merely to explain that I had been instructed to verify the exact wording of the now famous despatch.
It is unnecessary for me to detail my interview with this functionary, whose share in the business was purely formal. Suffice it that within a quarter of an hour after entering his office, I came out with the all-important information that the congratulation to Mr. Kruger had come direct from the Imperial Palace, over the Kaiser’s private wire.
By this time it was clear to me that either Wilhelm II. was playing a very complicated game indeed with me, or he really was the victim of one of the most audacious coups in history. My interest in the investigation was strongly roused, as I made my way to the Palace for the second time that day, bent upon a meeting with the telegraphist by whose agency, it now appeared, the war-making despatch had come over the wires.
My recent audience in the Imperial cabinet had invested me with authority in the eyes of the household, and I had no difficulty in getting a footman to conduct me to the operator’s room, which was situated at the far end of the corridor which I had previously passed through on my way to the Kaiser.
The room being empty on my arrival, I dismissed the footman in search of the operator, who, he informed me, would most probably be found with the private secretary to the Emperor.
The moment I found myself alone I stepped up to the apparatus. I am an expert telegraphist, and the machine speedily clicked off the following despatch—
‘To the German Ambassador, London.—See Lord Salisbury privately, at once, and inform him British Government entirely deceived as to my sentiments. Proofs will be sent to you shortly.—Wilhelm, Kaiser.’
I had hardly taken my fingers off the instrument when the door opened and the operator walked in.