"No, I didn't. There is no safe in my office. I gave the papers to Captain Lancing and Mr. Maxwell, and asked them to see that they were securely placed away. Then I came home. Do you mean to say that this thing has been over London for the past hour and I never knew it?"
"So it seems," Varney said coolly. "How should you know it when you have not been out of the house all the evening? And none of your guests could get at you to ask questions, seeing that you have been closeted with one ambassador or another ever since dinner."
"That's quite true," Lord Merehaven admitted moodily. "But what is to be done? You don't suggest that the contents of those papers is made public?"
"I fancy not," Varney replied. "My dear Sir Reginald, you have read that paragraph. What does it say?"
The stricken man in the armchair looked up with dulled eyes. It was some little time before he could be made to understand the drift of the question.
"I am trying to remember," he said, passing his hand over his forehead. "As far as I can recollect, there were no details given. The paragraph said that certain important papers had been stolen from the Foreign Office, and handed over to the enemies of this country. The editor of the Mercury was supposed to be in a position to vouch for this, and he hinted very freely at the identity of the culprits. A résumé of the missing papers was promised for the morning issue of the Mercury to-morrow. Then there was a break in the report, and down below a short history of my son's suicide. This was pointed to as an absolute confirmation of the news, the suggestion being that my son had shot himself after reading the nine o'clock edition of the Mercury, which contained the first part of the report."
"There is some foul and mysterious business here," Ronald Hope said sternly. "It is only twenty minutes ago that I heard what the boys were calling out. I immediately took a hansom to Maxwell's rooms, to find that he had gone to Paris in a great hurry. He had left no message behind him. He had not even taken his man, whom he never travels without."
"He has fled," Merehaven said promptly. "This thing is absolutely true. What beats me is the prompt way in which these Mercury people collected the news."
"That is where I come in," Varney remarked. "We'll get Lechmere into this, if you don't mind? Sir Reginald had better stay here for the present. Lechmere shall go and interview Hunt of the Mercury. And if he does not bring back some very startling news, I shall be greatly mistaken."