The Great Secret

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Guest told his first, I followed, Adèle told hers, and Monsieur Bardow rapidly filled in certain blanks. All the while Staunton listened in silence. He had opened an atlas, and studied it carefully with a cigarette in his mouth, whilst Monsieur Bardow was speaking. When he had heard everything we had to say, he pushed the atlas back and leaned over the table towards us.

"You ask me," he said slowly, "to publish this story to-morrow. With what object?"

"That the people of this great country," Monsieur Bardow answered quickly, "should at least have a chance to themselves arrest this horrible disaster. Let them rise up and insist that before four o'clock tomorrow that destroyer leaves Devonport, with orders to stop our fleet entering Kiel harbor. Let them insist upon a general mobilization of the fleet, and the breaking up of this traitorous Rifle Corps. Your ministers have failed you! It is by favor of the people that they rule! Let the people speak!"

The man at the table moved his position ever so slightly. His eyes were fixed downwards. He seemed to be thinking deeply. Monsieur Bardow continued.

"My friends here," he said, "have done all that can be done with members of the Cabinet, not only themselves, but in the person of others of great influence. The appeal to you is practically an appeal to Caesar. Ministers are great, but you are greater. It is your hand to-day which grasps the levers which guide the world."

And still the man at the table was silent. Monsieur Bardow had more to say.

"I will tell you," he said, "what an American newspaper has done for us. To-morrow, at twelve o'clock, ten million of dollars is due to be paid to the agents of Prince Victor of Normandy, by the Credit Lyonnais of Paris. To-morrow morning, the New York Herald, in great type, exposes as a gigantic joke the whole affair! It will give the names of the American citizens, and the titles which their contribution to the Royalist cause in France is to secure. To-morrow, all New York will be convulsed with laughter—and I do not think that that ten million dollars will be cabled to the Credit Lyonnais."

The man at the table lifted his head. His face was the face of a man who had been in pain.

"The two cases," he said slowly, "are not identical. The New York Herald perpetrates a huge joke upon its readers. Whichever way that affair ends, the newspaper has little to lose! You ask me, on the other hand, to risk ruin!"

"I do!" Monsieur Bardow answered. "I came to you, I and my friends here, because, from the first, you have shown yourself the uncompromising foe of German diplomacy and aspirations. I give you the chance to justify yourself. I know what it is that you fear, you do not doubt our faith—your only fear is lest we may have been deceived. Is that not so?"