I had sat there before on previous occasions when I had been the bearer of secret reports from my Chief. I had only to wait a few moments, and the great statesman—a tall, thin, grave-faced gentleman, wrapped in his dressing-gown, opened the door and stood before me.
“Good-morning, Mr Ingram!” he exclaimed affably; for to all the staff of the Foreign Office, from ambassador down to the lower-grade clerk, the Marquess was equally courteous, and often gave a word of encouraging approval from his own lips. Many times had he been heard to say, “Each of us work for our country’s good. There must be neither jealousy nor pride among us.” The esprit de corps in the Foreign Office is well known.
I bowed, apologised for disturbing him at that early hour—it was half-past five—and handed him the despatch.
“You’ve been travelling while I’ve been sleeping,” laughed the director of England’s foreign policy, taking the envelope and examining the seals to assure himself they were intact. Then he scrawled his signature upon the receipt which I handed him, tore open the envelope, and glanced at the cipher.
“Have you any idea of the contents of this?” he inquired.
“No, it is secret. Lord Barmouth wrote it himself.”
“Then kindly come this way;” and he led me down a long corridor to a large room at the end—his library. From the safe he took his decipher-book, and after a few minutes had transcribed the despatch into plain English.
I saw from his face that what he read was somewhat displeasing, and also that he was considerably surprised by the news it contained. He re-read the lines he had written, twisting his watch-guard nervously within his thin white fingers. Then he said:
“It seems, Ingram, that you have some extremely difficult diplomacy in Paris just now—extremely difficult and often annoying?”
“Yes,” I said, “there are several problems of late that have required great tact and finesse. But we at the Embassy have the utmost confidence in our Chief.”