A Diplomatic Adventure

by S. Weir Mitchell

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To cut it short, Greville, she refused to be questioned, and, I fancy, lied rather more plainly than she was willing to admit to me. He went away furious and reasonably sure, or so I think, that she had the papers.”

“I see,” said I. “He had been careless. Of course, he hesitated for a day or two to confess his loss. But what about those papers? Where are they? She ought to have taken them at once to the legation.”

“Yes, but that is easily explained. The count called early, and after that she felt sure that she would be promptly arrested. He was too ashamed to go at once to any such length. He must be an indecisive man. At all events, he took no positive action until after our encounter and her escape, when he became still more sure where she was going and why. You see, he lacked the good sense to confess instantly to the head of his office. Arrest would have been instantaneous. He waited, ashamed to confess, and I presume did not fully inform the police he called in. Now, I suppose, he has had to confess his loss to his superiors.”

“But these papers?” said I.

“Well, don’t hurry me. When she got home that night and read the papers she had—well, taken, she saw their enormous value to our government. Their importance increased her alarm, and the count’s visit added to her sense of need to conceal somewhere the proofs of her guilt. After her first fatal delay of the next morning, she was afraid to carry the papers to the legation. She could trust no one. She believed the Emperor’s minister would act at once. She knew that, soon or late, her town house would be searched. To keep the papers about her would not do. She must hide them at once, and then we must hear of them; and no letters would serve her purpose. She was panic-stricken. I fancy the count, having been careless, was as anxious, but told no one that day. This gave her a chance until luck played her a trick. The count’s interview in the morning, while it frightened her, had not helped him. The next day his superiors would have to be told, and I have no doubt have been.

“Then, as you know, it came his turn to have a bit of good fortune. Walking in haste to escape a ducking, he must have turned into the Rue du Roi de Rome to get a cab, and was just in time to see her enter your carriage. Very likely he did not see you at all. Indeed, we may be sure that he did not. When, too, the count saw that, in place of turning homeward, she was being driven toward the Bois, his suspicions were at once aroused. I ought to say that, to avoid using her own carriage, she had set out to walk. She was not yet watched, though she may have thought she was, and her plan was a good one. Curious and troubled, he caught a cabriolet and followed, as was natural enough.

“The direction of your flight through the Bois confirmed his suspicions. He may have guessed, and he was right, that she was about to go to her well-known little country house and meant to hide the papers. I am trying to follow what must have been his course of thought and would have been mine. He would catch her and get them, even at the cost of arresting her. So far this is in part her account and in part my inferences. As we talked thus at length, she was again indescribably uneasy and took every one who passed for a spy.”

“Well,” said I, “I do not wonder. The court is cool to us. Something hostile to our country is going on between France and England. The English abuse is exhausting their adjectives. If they propose intervention in any shape, Mr. Adams has instructions of which every American should be proud.”

“Good!” cried Merton. “We have not put forth our power, and people over here do not dream of the way in which we could and would rise to meet new foes. But here is our own little battle. I have yet to tell you what she did and my further reflections. After you got her away from the count, and Alphonse guided her, she walked through the rain in the darkness to her small chalet beyond the Bois.”