“I am only young in the service, Mr. Carter, but I have been sufficiently long engaged in it to know that whenever there is a diplomatic movement on foot, inimical to another country or government, the government which it threatens is pretty apt to have an inkling of the matter, or at least a suspicion.”
“Yes. I should suppose so.”
“We will say, then, that this affair threatens the government of Siam—which is preposterous, of course; I suggest it only by way of illustration.”
“Yes.”
“If the government of Siam were one of the first or second rate powers, it would have diplomatic representatives at every capital in the world. It would have secret agents all over the world. You understand that?”
“I do.”
“Now, if it suspected that Russia was plotting some antagonistic move, it would watch Russia, not alone at St. Petersburg, but all over the world. It would consider carefully who the man might be in the diplomatic service of Russia, who would be most likely to be given the operation of such a delicate affair, and who could be entirely trusted with it; who possessed the brain capacity to carry it out; who was in every way competent.”
“I understand you. Well?”
“Suppose that in such a case Siam decided that the ambassador to the United States was that man. Siam would at once dispatch a horde of secret agents to this country. Some of them would be Siamese, but the majority of them would be of other nationalities. They would belong to that class which become international spies through choice, and have little care what governments they serve; who go from the service of one to the service of another as readily as you or I would change our clothing.”
“And it is your opinion, then, that Siam—we will keep up the fiction for the moment—has many secret agents in Washington now, and that one of them has managed to get his hands on those papers.”