CHAPTER XXV
AN OFFICIAL CALL
The Home Secretary sat before the red-leathern expanse of his writing-table. Papers of unique political importance were strewn carelessly about that diplomatic battlefield, for at this famous table the Right Honourable Walter Belford played political chess. To the right honourable gentleman the game of politics was a pursuit only second in its fascinations to the culture of rare orchids. It ranked in that fine, if eccentric, mind about equal with the accumulating of rare editions, early printed works, illuminated missals, palimpsests, and other MSS., or with the delights of the higher photography—a hobby to which Mr. Belford devoted much attention.
Visitors to a well-known Sussex coast resort will need no introduction to Womsley Old Place, the charming seat of that charming man, the Right Hon. Walter Belford. With a frowning glance at a number of letters pinned neatly together, Mr. Belford leant back in his heavily padded chair, and, through his gold-rimmed pince-nez, allowed himself the momentary luxury of surveying the loaded shelves of the noted Circular Study wherein he now was seated. The great writing-table, with its priceless bronze head of Cicero and its luxurious appointments; the morocco, parchment, the vellum backs of the rare works about; the busts above the belles-lettres, afforded him visible, if æsthetic enjoyment. In a gap between two tall bookcases a Persian curtain partially concealed the glass doors of a huge conservatory. Mr. Belford liked his orchids near him when at work and not, as lesser men, when at play.
Sighing gently, he took up the bundle of letters, laid it down again, and pressed a button.
"I will see Inspector Sheffield," he said to the footman who came.
Almost immediately entered a big man, fresh complexioned and of modest bearing—a man, Mr. Belford determined after one shrewd glance, who, once he saw his duty clearly, would pursue it through fire and flood, but who frequently experienced some difficulty in this initial particular.
"Sit down, inspector," said the politician genially, and with the appearance of wishing to hasten a distasteful business. "You would like to see the three communications which I have received from this man Bablon?"
Sheffield, seated on the extreme edge of a big morocco-covered lounge-chair, nodded deferentially. Mr. Belford took up the bundle of letters.
"This," he said, passing one to the man from Scotland Yard, "is that which I received upon the 28th ultimo."