“I will do my best.”
There was a sudden silence as every eye was fixed upon him while he unfolded the paper. He gave one swift glance about the table before he dropped his eyes to the task. Every face held the intensity of almost terrible eagerness, and on every one but that of the gentle hostess sat cunning—craft that would stop at nothing to serve its own ends. It was a moment of almost awful import.
The next instant Gordon’s glance went down to the paper in his hand, and his brain and heart were seized in the grip of fright. There was no other word to describe his feeling. The message before him was clearly written in the code of the home office, and the words stared at him plainly without the necessity of study. The import of them was the revelation of one of the most momentous questions that had to do with the Secret Service work, a question the answer to which had puzzled the entire department for weeks. That answer he now held in his hand, and he knew that if it should come to the knowledge of those outside before it had done its work through the department it would result in dire calamity to the cause of righteousness in the country, and incidentally crush the inefficient messenger who allowed it to become known. For the instant Gordon felt unequal to the task before him. How could he keep these bloodhounds at bay—for such they were, he perceived from the import of the message, bloodhounds who were getting ill-gotten gains from innocent and unsuspecting victims—some of them little children.
But the old chief had picked his man well. Only for an instant the glittering lights darkened before his eyes and the cold perspiration started. Then he rallied his forces and looked up. The welfare of a nation’s honor was in his hands, and he would be true. It was a matter of life and death, and he would save it or lose his own life if need be.
He summoned his ready smile.
“I shall be glad to serve you if I can,” he said. “Of course I’d like to look this over a few minutes before attempting to read it. Codes are different, you know, from one another, but there is a key to them all if one can just find it out. This looks as if it might be very simple.”
The spell of breathlessness was broken. The guests relaxed and went on with their dinner.
Gordon, meanwhile, tried coolly to keep up a pretense of eating, the paper held in one hand while he seemed to be studying it. Once he turned it over and looked on the back. There was a large cross-mark in red ink at the upper end. He looked at it curiously and then instinctively at his host.
“That is my own mark,” said Mr. Holman. “I put it there to distinguish it from other papers.” He was smiling politely, but he might as well have said, “I put it there to identify it in case of theft;” for every one at the table, unless it might be his wife, understood that that was what he meant. Gordon felt it and was conscious of the other paper in his vest-pocket. The way was going to be most difficult.
Among the articles in the envelope which the chief had given him before his departure from Washington were a pair of shell-rimmed eye-glasses, a false mustache, a goatee, and a pair of eyebrows. He had laughed at the suggestion of high-tragedy contained in the disguise, but had brought them with him for a possible emergency. The eye-glasses were tucked into the vest-pocket beside the duplicate paper. He bethought himself of them now. Could he, under cover of taking them out, manage to exchange the papers? And if he should, how about that red-ink mark across the back? Would anyone notice its absence? It was well to exchange the papers as soon as possible before the writing had been studied by those at the table, for he knew that the other message, though resembling this one in general words, differed enough to attract the attention of a close observer. Dared he risk their noticing the absence of the red cross on the back?