Her Majesty’s Minister heard me through, listening with breathless interest, and when I had concluded bestowed upon both of us many complimentary words.
“Both your Queen and your country owe a debt of gratitude to you, Ingram; for by dint of care and perseverance you have rescued us from our secret enemies,” he said. “Rest assured that your claim to distinction as an Englishman will not be forgotten.”
That night I sent a telegram from Charing Cross announcing to Léonie the death of the spy, which to her meant freedom. The same wire also carried a second message of comfort to Edith, with the promise that I would leave London for Bordighera on the following morning. Then, entering the telephone-box, I had a long conversation with Lord Barmouth, explaining to him the truth, and receiving his heartiest congratulations and best wishes for my happiness on my marriage with Edith Austin, who, he declared, had saved England’s prestige.
Chapter Thirty Seven.
Conclusion.
Two days later I was again seated with Edith under the olives on the sunny hillside behind Bordighera.
I had told her all that had happened, explained what we had discovered in that upper room at Cypress Cottage, and demanded to know the reason why some of the copies of those messages were in her own handwriting. Our hands were clasped in fervent affection, and now, fearing not the revenge of either Wolf or Bertini, she revealed to me the plain and ghastly truth in regard to her connection with that band of unscrupulous spies who had sought to bring about England’s downfall.
“I first knew Paolo Bertini when I was at school at St. Leonards, six years ago. He was then our Italian master, and we girls admired him, and were one and all enamoured of our teacher, as school-girls so often are. He and I became good friends, and one day he urged me to steal from another girl’s locker a letter addressed to her by her father, a high official at the War Office. He wished to see it, and I gave it to him in ignorance that the real reason was that he desired the signature for purposes of forgery. I knew it afterwards, but he threatened if I exposed him that he would denounce me as a thief. From that moment he held me in his power, gradually drawing me into the net he so carefully spread in order to secure my assistance in his nefarious schemes of espionage in conjunction with Rodolphe Wolf. Although she knew that upon leaving school I should be comparatively wealthy, my aunt, who, as you know, is eccentric, insisted that I should be taught some means of earning my own livelihood. At Bertini’s demand I chose telegraphy, and when I became proficient the wires from Windsor were tapped, and I was compelled to act as telegraphist in that lonely, unsuspicious-looking cottage, which became the headquarters of French spies in England. My many compulsory visits to London often aroused my aunt’s suspicion, but I always managed to receive convenient invitations from relatives or old schoolfellows, until at last I succeeded in convincing her that all was well. Ah!” she added, her bright, honest eyes turned away over the broad Mediterranean, where the sun was going down in golden glory behind the dark purple rock of Ventimiglia, “I have suffered, Gerald, quite as bitterly as yourself. I was held in that man’s power irrevocably, unable to extricate myself from the bond, unable to give you the least intimation of the evil influences always working against you, unable to accept your love. From the moment when, as a school-girl, I stole that letter, until to-day, my enemies implicated me more and more deeply, until to draw back became utterly impossible. I was their catspaw—held to them by fear of exposure and imprisonment, or even of death, if I disclosed their secret.”