That the visitor was no stranger to the house was apparent, for, without invitation, he sank into an arm-chair, stretched out his legs, and looked very gravely up into the face of the Cabinet Minister before him.
He was dressed in a dark brown suit, and was none other than the grey-faced stranger who, four days before, had sat in the schoolroom at North Walsham and had aroused the curiosity of the coroner.
“Well, Darnborough, what’s the matter?” asked the Earl, passing his visitor the cigar-box. “I can see there’s trouble by your face. What’s the latest problem—eh?”
The visitor selected a cigar, turned it over in his fingers critically, and then, rising suddenly, bit off the end viciously and crossed to the electric lighter near the fireplace.
“Well,” he answered, “there are several things. First, we know why poor Harborne was killed.”
“Good,” replied his lordship. “You Secret Service men always get to know all there is to know. You’re marvellous! Have you told them at Scotland Yard?”
“No, and I don’t mean to,” replied Hugh Darnborough, the chief of the British Secret Service, the clever, ingenious man whose fingers were upon the pulse of each of the Great Powers, and whose trusty agents were in every European capital. Long ago he had held a commission in the Tenth Hussars, but had resigned it to join the Secret Service, just as Dick Harborne had resigned from the Navy to become a cosmopolitan, and to be dubbed an adventurer by those in ignorance. That had been years ago, and now he held the position of being the most trusted man in any Government department, the confidant of each member of the Cabinet, and even of the Sovereign himself, who frequently received him in private audience.
“You have reasons for not telling them at Scotland Yard—eh?” asked the Foreign Minister.
“Strong ones,” replied the other, pulling hard at his cigar. “A woman who, I have ascertained, was on one occasion very useful to us, would be dragged into it—perhaps incriminated. And you know we are never anxious to court publicity.”
“Ah! A woman—eh?”