Whoso Findeth a Wife

by William Le Queux

“So you accepted,” I said sternly.

“Yes. I accepted their abominable conditions because I loved you so well, Geoffrey,” she said gloomily, her trembling hand upon my shoulder. “It was not my fault, indeed it wasn’t. If I had known what was to follow I would have killed myself rather than bring about all the trouble and disaster for which I became responsible.”

“No,” I said, “don’t speak like that.”

“I would,” she declared despairingly. “What followed was a dark, mysterious tragedy, while all the time I knew that you must suspect—that, after all, you might forsake me. Within a week after binding myself irrevocably to the Tzar’s army of spies I made a discovery that held me appalled. I found that my master, the man to whose will I was compelled to submit, was none other than our discharged valet de chambre—the man who two years before had declared his love. At the time my mother had engaged him he was already in the Secret Service, and had no doubt kept watch upon us. He came to me at ‘The Nook,’ and, exulting in the fact that I had become his puppet, renewed his protestations of affection. When, frankly, I told him that I hated him and loved only you, he at once informed me, with a grin of satisfaction, that the department in St Petersburg found it compulsory to obtain possession of a copy of a secret convention at that moment being concluded between your country and Germany, and that I must get possession of it at any cost, through you. It was in order that I might betray you that the Imperial permission had been given to our marriage. In indignation I refused, whereupon he threatened to expose me to you as a Russian spy, and I saw only too clearly that any such revelation must end for ever our acquaintance. He cajoled, urged, threatened, and explained all the elaborate precautions that had been taken by two clerks in Russian pay at your Foreign Office in order that on a certain day you should carry the precious document in your pocket, and how he had prepared the dummy envelope sealed with your Minister’s seal. At last—at last, after striving long and vainly against the performance of this ignominious action that I knew must reflect on your honesty, I was compelled to submit. Ah! you can never know what agony I suffered. I verily believe that in those few days the terrible vengeance of that scoundrel drove me insane. The hideous ghost of the past causes me to shudder whenever I think of it.”

I echoed her sigh, but no word escaped me. Her revelations were astounding. I had never suspected her of being actually a spy, although the discovery of the stolen convention in her escritoire had lent colour to that view.

“I deceived you,” she went on in a hard, monotonous voice. “But only because I loved you so fondly, and dreaded that this man, who had long ago vowed to wreck my life, would expose, and thus part us. Yet I could not bring myself to commit the theft. How could I place upon you—the man who was all in all to me—the stigma of having traitorously sold your country’s secrets? The man who held me enslaved, and whose attentions I had spurned, exulted in his malevolent revenge. Once he offered, if I would renounce all thought of you and treat him with more cordiality, to commit the theft himself; but I refused, determined at all hazards to remain with you as long as possible. Once it was thought that the secret convention would be sent to Warnham Hall, and I was compelled to go down there to devise some means of obtaining it. I found Dudley staying in the village, and we returned to London together. The end must soon come, I knew. Therefore I lived on in daily terror of what must follow. At last the day dawned on which I had to meet you at the Foreign Office, and filch from you the bond of nations. After breakfast I stood out on the lawn by the sunny river’s brink, contemplating suicide rather than your ruin, when there rowed up to the steps Dudley Ogle, who hailed me, inviting me to pull up to Windsor, and there lunch with him. At once I accepted, and after embarking, told him of my dilemma, and besought his assistance. As you know, he was a good amateur conjurer, and skilled in feats of sleight-of-hand. Without thought of the consequences, he resolved to commit the theft for my sake, and when I had fully explained all the facts and given him the dummy envelope that the cunning chief of the Okhrannoë Otdelenïe had prepared, he turned the boat and put me ashore at ‘The Nook,’ afterwards rowing rapidly down to Shepperton to change and go at once to London.”

“He did this because he loved you?” I exclaimed sternly.

“No,” she answered reassuringly. “Poor Dudley was simply my friend. He called on you and extracted the document from your pocket while you lunched together, because he saw in what a dilemma I was. He knew I loved you dearly, and never once spoke a single word of affection to me. That I swear before Heaven. What followed his visit to Downing Street I have only a hazy idea, so full of awful anxieties was that breathless day. From Waterloo Station he telegraphed to me that he had successfully secured the agreement and handed it to the chief of spies. The latter, who had been waiting in Parliament Street expecting me, seeing him, took in the situation at a glance, and approaching him, asked for the document, which he gave up. An hour afterwards, fearing that you might suspect me, I telegraphed to you at Shepperton to dine with us, well knowing that already the text of the convention was at that moment being transmitted to Petersburg, and that war was imminent. You came; you kissed me. I loved you dearer than life, yet dreaded the frightful consequences of the dastardly act I had instigated. Suddenly, while we were at dinner, and you were laughing, happy and unconscious of the conspiracy against the peace of Europe, a thought flashed across my mind. I well knew that an awful conflict of armed forces must accrue from my deep, despicable cunning, and it occurred to me, as I sat by your side, that I would, using the secret cipher I had been provided with, telegraph to St Petersburg in the name of the chief of spies, assuring our Foreign Department that a mistake had been made. I slipped out, and running down to the telegraph office just before it closed, sent a message to an unsuspicious-looking address, stating that the text of the convention already sent had been discovered to be that of a rejected draft, and not that of the actual defensive alliance which had received the signature of the Emperor William.”

“Then it was actually this message of yours that prevented war?” I gasped, in profound astonishment.

“Yes,” she answered. “Before receipt of my telegram all preparations were being made for the commencement of hostilities, but on its arrival the Tzar at once countermanded the mobilisation order, and Europe was thereby spared a terrible and bloody conflict. Ah! that was indeed a memorable night, brought to a conclusion by a dark and terrible tragedy.”