“Yes.”
“Explain,” said Nick. “I don’t quite get you.”
Senator Barclay proceeded to do so. Drawing forward in his chair, he said, even more gravely:
“Something like ten days ago, Nick, for no other reason than that I had apprehended something of the kind, I began to suspect the frame-up of the secret compact mentioned, and that a document to that effect already existed. Naturally, of course, I knew that Sir Edward Deland would be one of the chief figures in it.”
“Quite likely, of course,” bowed Nick.
“I had occasion three days ago to visit the Deland residence in company with my daughter, who long has been an intimate friend of Lady Deland. I found an opportunity to hint to the latter that she perhaps knew something of the matter I had on my mind, and that it would become a true-blue American girl to confidentially inform me of anything that might possibly be a menace to our country.”
“I see,” Nick remarked, suppressing an inclination to criticize. “What did she say to that?”
“Somewhat to my surprise, though I have always been very friendly with Lady Deland and her parents, a fact which perhaps led me to make such a suggestion to her—somewhat to my surprise, I repeat, she immediately admitted that such a compact had been made, that she had overheard her husband discussing it with other diplomats, and that the document bearing upon the matter then was in the library safe.”
“What followed?”
“Lady Deland hastened to add that the compact, of the nature of which she was partly informed, was in no sense a menace to this country,” Senator Barclay continued. “I told her I could not believe that, and that she really must be mistaken. We discussed the matter very earnestly for some time, and she then declared, with much feeling, that the very best service she could do me and her country would be to let me read the document, in order to convince me of my error and so avert the troubles that might otherwise result from it.[{24}]”