Walter Topham was nearing San Francisco. His stay in Japan had been very brief. Long before he had had time to become acquainted with conditions in that country or to make certain that Stiles’ suspicions as to intense activity in the Japanese arsenals and dockyards were justified, the ambassador had called him into his private office and thrust before him a dispatch from Washington from the Secretary of State.
“Ask Topham what he knows about the Countess del Ouro Preto in Berlin. Cable fully,” it read.
The query was so unexpected that Topham flushed, despite his effort not to do so and despite his consciousness that the keen eyes of the ambassador were upon him. He flushed, but he did not hasten to answer as most people would have done in his place; instead he read the dispatch again slowly; and concluded that he owed it to what he had told Rutile in Berlin, and to that gentleman’s faculty of smelling out intrigues.
“Well, Mr. Topham?” questioned the ambassador.
Topham looked up. “I know the lady,” he said, slowly. “I met her in Berlin, and learned something of her mission there. I met her the night I reached Tokio—perhaps Stiles has told you. I do not want to conceal anything concerning her from any one who has a right to ask. The only question is what the Secretary wants to know.”
“Everything! I suppose, Mr. Topham.”
“‘Everything’ is pretty broad. Perhaps I had better write down anything that I have observed that I think may be of interest to the government, and submit it to you. Then if there is anything lacking, perhaps you may be able to discover what it is.”
The ambassador nodded. “Do so, Mr. Topham.”
Topham wrote out his account carefully, choosing his words with exactitude. He was anxious to tell everything that the secretary could want to know and yet not to magnify any of it or give any part of it a significance that it really did not possess.
He had about come to the conclusion that Stiles was wrong and that the errand of the countess to Japan had nothing whatever to do with any intrigue against the United States, and he naturally did not wish to say anything that would create such a belief. Nor did he consider himself called on to go into his personal relations with the countess.