"You are right, gentlemen," Monsieur Grisson said with a sigh. "We must tell Lord Fothergill that our relations with his country must remain unfettered. I——"
Again the telephone bell rang. Monsieur Grisson listened, and replied with a sudden return to his old briskness of manner.
"It is young De Bergillac," he announced. "He has been in England in search of that missing page of the treaty. I have told them to show him in."
The Vicomte entered, paler than ever from recent travel, and deeply humiliated from the fact that there was a smut upon his collar which he had had no time to remove. He presented a paper to Monsieur Grisson and bowed. The President spread it out upon the table, and the faces of the three men as they read became a study. Monsieur Grisson rang the bell.
"Monsieur le Duc de Bergillac and a young English gentleman," he told the attendant, "are in my private retiring-room. Desire their presence."
The servant withdrew. The three men looked at one another.
"If this is genuine!" the younger murmured.
"It is the Russian official paper," his vis-à-vis declared, holding it up to the light.
Then the Duc de Bergillac and Guy Poynton were ushered in. Monsieur Grisson rose to his feet.
"Monsieur Poynton," he said, "we have all three heard your story as to what you witnessed in the forest of Pozen. It is part of your allegation that a page of writing from the private car which you were watching was blown to your feet, and that you picked it up and brought it to Paris with you. Look at this sheet of paper carefully. Tell me if it is the one."