A murmur of applause broke from the Latin Americans. As it died down, Henry, looking up, saw standing by the door Charles Wilbraham, cool, immaculate, attentive, and unperturbed, and the soi-disant Protestant pastor at his elbow.
[42]
Henry allowed himself a smile. Here, then, arrived after all the years of waiting, was the hour. The hour of reckoning; the hour in which he, brought face to face with Charles Wilbraham, should expose him before men for what he was. The hour when Charles Wilbraham should face him, reduced at last to impotent silence, deflated to limp nothingness like a gas balloon, and find no word of defence. Shamed and dishonoured, he would slink away, at long last in the wrong. In the wrong himself, after all these years of putting others there. Truly, Henry's hour had arrived.
The President, too, had seen the new-comers now. He paused in his speaking; he was for a moment at a loss. Then, “Gentlemen, excuse me, but this is a strictly private session,” he said clearly across the large room, in his faultless Oxford English.
Charles Wilbraham bowed slightly and advanced.
“Forgive me, sir, but I have a card of admittance. Also for my friend here, Signor Angelo Cristofero.”
“Angelo Cristofero”—the name seemed to ripple over a section of the committee like a wind on waters.
“Who is he?” asked Henry, of an Italian Swiss, and the answer came pat.
“The greatest detective at present alive. An Italian, but at home in all countries, all languages, and all disguises. Really a marvellous genius. Nothing balks him.”