“But I can’t believe it!” I declared. “Indeed, I won’t believe it!” I added vehemently.
“As you like,” he said coldly, with a slight shrug of his broad shoulders. “I’ve told you the plain truth as to what occurred.”
“She’s wealthy, and of one of the best families in Belgium. There is no necessity whatever for her to be in the pay of any foreign Government,” I protested.
“We have nothing to do with her reasons,” he said. “All we know is that she and her companion tried to drug me in order to get at the despatch.”
“You have no idea, I suppose, of the contents of the despatch in question?” I inquired.
“None, except that when I gave it into the Chief’s own hands in his private room at Downing Street, he appeared to be very much surprised by its contents, and at once wrote a reply, with which I posted back to Berlin by the same night’s mail from Charing Cross.”
“Then it was upon a matter of importance?”
“I judged it to be of extreme importance. Yolande de Foville was evidently well aware that I had the despatch in my belt.”
“You had never before seen this man who accompanied her?”
“Never. But now he has made one attempt it is quite probable he may make another. I’m on the look-out for him again.”