The secretary nodded.
"Well?" said he.
"Morse told me, in the brief talk that I had with him, that he had been attached as surgeon to the 47th Siberian infantry; and I learned from the newspaper file that Colonel Drevenoff had been commander of that very regiment."
The official shifted his position; his face was still unreadable; his voice, when he spoke, was even.
"You appear to attach some significance to that," said he.
"Suppose," spoke Ashton-Kirk, "that Colonel Drevenoff were possessed of something of great value; when brought in wounded and dying, what more likely thing than that he should be attended by Dr. Morse? Also it is not without the range of possibility that he should entrust this precious possession to the physician's keeping."
"You are not deficient in imagination." And as the secretary said this he smiled.
"Imagination is a vital necessity in my work. Without it I could make but little headway. And now I will venture still farther upon the same road; but, remember, I am claiming nothing substantial for what I am about to say. I merely place it before you as what might have happened and ask you to fit it to any facts of which you may be possessed. That Colonel Drevenoff was in the party of so eminent a diplomat as Count Malikoff shows him to have been a person of some standing; that he should so suddenly be packed off to the Orient to head a provincial regiment indicates a fall in favor.
"What was the cause of this? I have no means of knowing, but in view of what I do know, I can build up a structure which may be more or less composed of truths. Suppose, after Malikoff left Washington, he missed something—a document, perhaps, in the hand of some person high in this government. Suppose Drevenoff were suspected of taking it, but could not be charged with the act because of lack of proof. There we have a reason for his banishment. Now we will suppose that Drevenoff did actually take this paper. Why did he do so? In order that he should profit by it. In what way? The answer follows swiftly: by selling it to the Japanese government."