As I alighted, old Stanford, the white-haired butler, came forward hurriedly, saying,—
“His Lordship is in the library awaiting you, sir. He told me to bring you to him the moment you arrived.”
“Very well,” I said, and the aged retainer, leading the way along a spacious but rather cheerless corridor, stopped before the door of the great library, and throwing it suddenly open, announced me.
“At last, Deedes,” I heard the Earl exclaim in a tone that showed him to be in no amiable mood; and as I entered the long, handsome chamber, lined from floor to ceiling with books, I did not at first notice him until he rose slowly from a large writing-table, behind which he had been hidden. His face, usually wizened and pale, was absolutely bloodless. Its appearance startled me.
“I wired you last night, and expected you by the 9:18 this morning, Why did you not come?” was his first question, uttered in a sharp tone of annoyance.
“The sudden death of a friend caused me to lose the train I intended to catch,” I explained.
“Death!” he snapped, in the manner habitual to him when impatient. “Is the death of a friend any account when the interests of the country are at stake? On the night my wife was dying I was compelled to leave her bedside to travel to Balmoral to have audience of Her Majesty regarding a document I had sent for the Royal assent. When I returned, Lady Warnham had been dead fourteen hours. In the successful diplomat there must be no sentiment—none.”
“The five minutes I lost when I discovered my friend dead caused me to miss my train from Staines to London,” I explained.
“But you received my telegram, and should have strictly regarded its urgency,” he answered, with an air of extreme dissatisfaction. “The fact of its being in cipher was sufficient to show its importance.”
“I was out dining, and my man brought it along to me,” I said.