“I’ve studied the secret service, Jerry,” Routledge ventured mildly. “It is interesting, but I’m more interested to know what happened.”
“We all proceeded to relax. The devil in me would not be burned by the fieriest wines. Remember, Cantrell was a weak man, but sincere. The other three had been studying Afghanistan against towering odds. They knew more about the inner life of the Buffer State than any three white men, not excepting Cantrell and yourself, between Persia and British India. They were sure of Cantrell. As for old Jerry Cardinegh—why, they took me for granted.
“Presently—it was very late—everybody but old Jerry had the bars down and soaked. Then I ventured to open the question of Colonel Hammond. It was an old story to Cantrell and to the three—not a new story to me, but a strange one. I was fascinated by the inside talk. Here were men who had kept the secret for years; the men—at least, two of them—who had helped to scatter the British troops of Colonel Hammond.
“Suddenly Cantrell arose and staggered to his safe, glancing at the shut door and the open windows of the office. He fumbled with the knob for a long time before the big door swung open. Then with small keys which he found inside he got into the inner compartment and drew forth a fat envelope.
“‘Speaking of Colonel Hammond,’ Cantrell said, with a drunken smile, ‘I’ve got the whole documents here. They were never trusted to the mails, but they trusted me. I’ve never brought them out before—but we have fallen into the arms of our friends. Isn’t it so?’
“We all acquiesced, and then there was interesting reading. Routledge, it was the great story I had been looking for—all that I wanted to know about one of the most damnable military expeditions ever transacted. I said to myself the world ought to know about this. That was because I was a newspaper man. Then I said again, ‘The world ought to know about this,’ and that was the humanitarian end. I was thinking of Ireland and India.
“Two of the secret-service men were asleep finally. Cantrell moved about and served on legs of hot wax.
“‘I’m glad you put that back in the safe, Cantrell,’ I said, when the envelope was safely in my pocket. ‘You could do a lot of damage to England with that just now.’
“I glanced at the secret agent who was awake, and found that he was not in on my steal. I should have made a joke of it, if he had been. The fact is, I did not really have the idea of stealing the papers until I found that I had done it.... Cantrell locked the safe, and the world was mine—all in a coat pocket!... You mind, when Cantrell was killed, or assassinated, the safe was blown open—quite a while afterward? I had been back to England and to Ireland with Noreen in the meantime.
“God, how I have whipped the English!... When your name was spoken last night at the Armory, the faces about me were like a lot of blood-mad dogs—nostrils dilated and hackles up. I had to love you, Routledge, to turn loose upon you—the Hate of London!”