“I have a suspicion,” I responded. “When it is established I will explain.”
“An alias—eh?”
“I think so,” I said. “Your daughter should be warned against him. They had better not meet.”
“I will see to that,” he said, and the next instant the telephone-bell rang loudly, announcing the response from Alderhurst.
In a moment we were both at the instrument. Then with the receiver at my car I inquired who was there.
“Durnford, Alderhurst,” was the response. “Are you Ingram?”
I replied in the affirmative, adding the word without the receipt of which no cipher despatch is ever sent by telephone, lest some trickery should be attempted.
“Take down, then,” came the secretary’s voice from the other side of the Channel. “From the Marquess of Malvern, to His Excellency, Lord Barmouth, Paris. July 12th, 2:10 a.m.;” and then followed a long row of ciphers, each of which I carefully wrote down upon the paper before me, reading it through aloud, in order that he might compare it with his copy.
Then, when the voice from Alderhurst gave the word “End,” I hung up the receiver and gave the paper into His Excellency’s eager hands.
Those puzzling lines of letters and numerals were secret instructions from the ruler of England’s destiny, who had been called from his bed to decide one of the most critical problems of statesmanship. Truly the position of the British Minister for Foreign Affairs is no enviable one. The responsibility is the heaviest weighing upon any one man in the whole world.