"And all three ships were sent to the bottom of the sea four months afterwards," added Frohnmeyer with a grim laugh.
"That isn't the question," Goslin said. "What we have now to face is the peril of exposure. No one can, of course, allege that we have ever resorted to any sharper practices than those of other financial groups; but the fact of our alliance and our impregnable strength will, when it is known, arouse the fiercest antagonism in certain circles."
"No one suspects the secret of our alliance," the Italian ejaculated.
"It must be kept—kept at all hazards."
Each man seated there knew that exposure of the tactics by which they were ruling the Bourse would mean the sudden end of their great prosperity.
"But this is not the first occasion that documents have been stolen from Sir Henry at Glencardine," remarked the Baron Conrad de Hetzendorf. "I remember the last time I went there to see him he explained how he had discovered his daughter with the safe open, and some of the papers actually in her hands."
"Unfortunately that is so," Goslin answered. "There is every evidence that we owe our present peril to her initiative. She and her father are on bad terms, and it seems more than probable that though she is no longer at Glencardine she has somehow contrived to get hold of the documents in question—at the instigation of her lover, we believe."
"How do you know that the documents are stolen?" the Baron asked.
"Because three days ago Sir Henry received an anonymous letter bearing the postmark of 'London, E.C.,' enclosing correct copies of the papers which our friend Volkonski brought from Petersburg, and asking what sum he was prepared to pay to obtain repossession of the originals. On receipt of the letter," continued Goslin, "I rushed to the safe, to find the papers gone. The door had been unlocked and relocked by an unknown hand."
"And how does suspicion attach to the girl's lover?" asked the man from
Hamburg.
"Well, he was alone in the library for half an hour about five days before. He called to see Sir Henry while he and I were out walking together in the park. It is believed that the girl has a key to the safe, which she handed to her lover in order that he might secure the papers and sell them in Russia."