"There's terrible news, sir," he faltered. "There's been a lot lately, but this is the worst of all."
"What is the matter, man?" I cried for the second time. "Don't stand there trembling. Tell me what has happened."
"I scarcely know how to tell you, sir," he answered, his voice almost failing him.
"Then give me the paper and let me look for myself," I said, and took it from him. On the page before me, in large type, was an announcement that made me feel sick and giddy:—
"ASSASSINATION OF THE PRIME MINISTER!"
My horror was greater even than Williams's had been. I read the heavy black lines over and over again, as if unable to grasp their meaning. The Prime Minister dead! My old friend and Chief murdered! Could it be possible?
When I had recovered my composure a little, I took up the paper, and tried to read the account there set forth. There had only been time for the insertion of a short paragraph, but its importance was such that it would ring throughout the world. It ran as follows:—
"It is with a sorrow that cannot be expressed in words, that we record the fact that the Right Honourable, the Earl of Litford, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Prime Minister of England, was assassinated soon after midnight. The Prime Minister was last seen alive by his private secretary, in the study at his residence at Grosvenor Square. He had left the House of Lords early, but, with the exception of a slight headache, appeared to be in the best of health and spirits. The presumption is that he was stabbed in the back, but how the wound was inflicted, and by whom, are matters which, at present, cannot be explained."
I could find no words to express my horror and surprise. It was only a few hours since he had congratulated me upon my speech in answer to the accusations of certain members of the Little Englander Party; now England was bereft, by as foul an act as had ever been committed in the annals of crime, of one of her greatest statesmen and of one of her noblest sons.
Craving further particulars, I dressed with all speed, and then drove to his residence in Grosvenor Square. Leaving my cab, I walked towards the well-known house, before which a large number of people had collected. Recognising me, they allowed me to pass, and so I gained the front door of the house I had so often entered as the friend and colleague of the dead man. I was shown into the morning-room, where presently I was joined by the secretary, who, as the newspapers had reported, had been the last to see him before the tragedy took place.