We were gossiping together, discussing a titbit of amusing Paris scandal which Volkouski had picked up at a dinner on the previous night, and was now relating, when suddenly Harding approached me.
“His Excellency would like to see you at once in his private room, sir.”
I excused myself, having heard the dénouement of the story and laughed over it, and then mounted the grand staircase to the room in which my own Chief was standing with his hands behind his back, gazing thoughtfully out of the window. As I entered and closed the door, he turned to me saying:
“The political wind has changed to-day, Ingram, and although the mystery regarding Ceuta remains the same, the outlook is decidedly brighter. I had a chat with de Wolkenstein and Olsoufieff over at the Quai d’Orsay an hour ago, and the result makes it plain that the tension is fast disappearing.”
“Olsoufieff leaves for Brittany to-morrow,” I said.
“He told me so,” answered the Ambassador. “Yet with regard to Ceuta I have learned a very important fact, which I must send by despatch to the Marquess. Anderson, however, left for Rome to-day, and we have no messenger. You, therefore, must carry it to London by the night service this evening. If you object, Vivian can be sent.”
“I’ll go with pleasure,” I responded, glad of an opportunity of spending a day, and perhaps even a couple of days, in town. We who are condemned to exile abroad love our dear old London.
“Then if you will get out the cipher-book I’ll write the despatch.”
I unlocked the safe, handed him the book, and then stood by, watching as he reduced the draft despatch which he had already written to the puzzling array of letters and numerals. The operation of transcribing into cipher always occupies considerable time, for perfect accuracy is necessary, otherwise disastrous complications might ensue.
At last, however, His Excellency concluded, appended his signature, and took from a drawer in his big writing-table a large envelope bearing a formidable red cross. Despatches placed in those envelopes are for the eye of the principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs alone, and are always carried by the Royal messengers in the chamois-leather belt worn next their skin. They are essentially private communications, which British ambassadors are enabled to make with the great statesman who, untiring by night and by day, controls England’s destinies. The messengers carry the ordinary despatches to and fro across Europe in their despatch-boxes, but what is known in the Foreign Office as a “crossed despatch” must be carried on the person of the messenger, and must be delivered into the actual hand of the person to whom it is addressed.