“I was watching the pair until nearly three o’clock this morning,” I explained. “At present Kaye has the matter in hand;” and then I proceeded to explain all the occurrences of the previous night and those that befell in the early hours of the morning. I told him of Edith, of my visit to her at Ryburgh, of her call upon me, and of my subsequent discovery of her at that low café near the station of Batignolles.
“Extraordinary!” he exclaimed in wonder, when I had finished. “Then this woman who declared that she loved you is, although an English girl living in a rural Norfolk village, actually a French spy? The ramifications of the secret service of our enemies are indeed amazing. The plot which has for its object the downfall of England is the most gigantic and at the same time the most ingenious and carefully planned of any known in modern history. Save for the little rift in the veil of secrecy, through which we have fortunately detected the danger, it is absolutely perfect.”
Chapter Thirty Two.
Betrayal.
Winter came, grey, cold, and cheerless, in Paris. The war that had broken out in the Transvaal dragged on, and the European outlook grew daily darker and more lowering.
Occasionally I had received letters from Edith in Bordighera, telling me how pleasant life was there amid the sunshine and the palms after the leafless dreariness of an English winter. She, however, never once mentioned the man Bertini. Her letters were still affectionate, despite the fact that my replies were very cold and distant.
I entertained a distinct suspicion that she it was who had stolen the compromising letter of the Princess. In addition to this, her midnight visit to that pair of adventurers in the café had incensed me. For this reason her letters to me were unwelcome, and I answered them in quite an indifferent spirit. There was a wound in my heart that never could be healed. Edith Austin, it was proved, was the associate of two of the most unscrupulous adventurers in Europe.
In Paris matters were extremely critical. Lord Barmouth had been to Downing Street to have an interview with the Marquess, the latter refusing further to trust his secret instructions to any messenger; yet though not a word had been written and though the interview had taken place in the Foreign Secretary’s private room, where the doors are double, thus preventing any sound from reaching the corridor, the exact nature of His Excellency’s instructions was actually known at the Quai d’Orsay. The thing was incomprehensible; it rendered our diplomacy utterly powerless, forewarning the French of our policy and giving them a weapon to use against us. The mystery was impenetrable. Yet the truth was only too evident. Within four days of the interview taking place in London, Kaye brought to the Embassy a copy of a cipher telegram handed in at the Waterloo Station Telegraph-office, and received by the French Foreign Office, giving practically every detail of the verbal instructions received by the Ambassador. The way in which the truth had leaked out staggered belief.