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“Yes,” I answered. “Your secret is out! We know the truth! Surrender!”
“Never!” he shouted, standing at bay. “Advance a step, and I’ll shoot you both dead.”
“The place is surrounded. You cannot escape,” Chick replied. “I am an officer of Metropolitan Police, and command you to lay down your weapon.”
But he refused, and we both saw that to ascend that narrow staircase in face of his revolver was a very risky proceeding. A dozen times Chick repeated the demand, but the adventurer was nothing daunted. The secret, if anywhere, was in that room, and he was evidently determined to guard it with his life.
Of a sudden the inspector, handing me the revolver, whispered to me to remain there, covering Wolf so as to prevent his escape, and assured me that he would return instantly. He rushed outside, but returned to my side in a few moments.
The vituperation which Rodolphe Wolf heaped upon me I need not repeat. Suffice it to say that during the few minutes which elapsed while we faced one another in that narrow way, each unable to move, he invoked upon my head all the curses of the evil one, vowing a revenge swift and terrible, not only upon myself, but also upon Léonie and Edith.
With a suddenness that startled all of us, however, there was a loud crashing of glass in the room behind him, and, thus taken by surprise, he turned to see how it had been caused.
In an instant Chick had sprung up the stairs, and we were both upon him. The spy fired his revolver, but at random, and the bullet pierced the ceiling. The inspector closed with him in deadly embrace, and a second later was assisted by one of the detectives, who had broken the window and entered the room by a ladder.
The fellow still held his weapon in a desperate grasp, and, having succeeded in pinning Chick against the wall, raised the revolver to his face. At that instant the other officer threw himself upon the pair. Wolf’s revolver exploded, but the bullet, instead of entering Chick’s head, penetrated the spy’s own neck, close behind the ear.
“Dieu!” he shrieked, “I’m shot! I’ve shot myself!” and as his grip relaxed, the two detectives allowed him to stagger and fall back upon the ground.
In endeavouring to murder the inspector he had inflicted a fatal wound upon himself.
Chick, who had had such a narrow escape from death, only brushed his clothes here and there, and remarked with a smile:
“That was pretty tough, sir, wasn’t it?”
Then, ordering his assistant to look after the wounded prisoner, we both searched the room. At first we saw nothing to account for Wolf resisting our progress so desperately. It was a bare place, with a couple of tables, a chair or two, and a few papers that had been strewn about in the struggle. I picked up some. They were copies of the Figaro, the Libre Parole, and the Petit Journal.
But in a corner by the fireplace, I saw a twisted heap of pale-green paper, like ribbon, and a moment later found beneath the table a broken telegraph-receiver. On taking it up I saw upon the small brass plate the words “General Post Office,” while near it lay the other portions of the apparatus, which was one of those which print upon the paper ribbon, and are worked by clockwork.
“Hulloa!” cried Chick, crossing the room and bending over the instrument, “what’s that?”
“A telegraph-receiver,” I replied, at the same moment examining the ceiling of the room and at once discovering two loose ends of wires suspended from a corner.
The instrument had evidently been torn hurriedly from the wires, and an unsuccessful effort made to destroy it and remove all traces of its existence. Wolf, however, had not had time to accomplish his object.
While the wounded man lay groaning, we all proceeded to make further search, and the result of our investigations proved startling indeed. We found that from the room there ran two wires outside, which, after being buried in the garden and along a field on the left, emerged beside one of the telegraph-posts on the main road, and joined one of the lines running to London.
At first we did not realise the extreme importance of our discovery, but from the telegraph-tape found in the room and the deciphers of official despatches which we discovered locked in a cupboard, the amazing truth was disclosed.
The wire so ingeniously tapped was the Queen’s private wire, which ran from Windsor Castle, along the road through Staines and Kingston, to the Foreign Office, and over which Her Majesty constantly exchanged views and gave instructions to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and others of her Ministers.
In that comfortless room we found transcripts of all kinds of official despatches and confidential messages, which, although sent in cipher over the wire, had been deciphered by the spies, who had unfortunately also obtained a copy of the secret code in use. The interchanges of views included much that concerned England’s attitude in the Boer war, then still in progress, and had without doubt been communicated to the Boers through their Continental agents. Not a single secret of State was safe from those emissaries of our enemies. Thus it was that before the suggestions or instructions of our Sovereign reached Downing Street, they were in the possession of those who aimed at our downfall, for every message transmitted between Windsor and Downing Street, every decision of the Sovereign or of the Cabinet, passed through that inoffensive-looking little instrument, and was registered upon the pale-green snake-like tape before it reached its destination.
A thorough search of the place revealed a perfect system of receiving and deciphering the despatches, all of which had been carefully registered by number in a book and the copies sent to the Quai d’Orsay. Hence it was, of course, that the knowledge of England’s decision regarding the attitude to be adopted towards the Transvaal and of our policy in reference to Ceuta, had been obtained before the Marquess had even written his despatch; while the secret instructions which I myself had carried from Downing Street to Paris had actually been known to the spies before the Chief had put his pen to paper. They did not seek to secure the despatches, because they were always in possession of the decisions and line of our diplomacy beforehand.
Having taken possession of the whole of the papers, some of which I was amazed to discover were in Edith’s handwriting, we removed the whole into the wagonette, placed a constable in charge of the cottage, and ordered the wounded man’s removal to the Cottage Hospital at Staines, as being the nearest institution where he could be treated.
That same evening I had a long interview with the Marquess at his private house, and, assisted by Chick, showed him the papers secured as the result of our investigations. Afterwards, when he had gone through them, I related to him the whole story, concealing nothing. While I sat recounting the incidents a telegram arrived for the inspector, to whom it had been forwarded from Scotland Yard. It was an official police message stating that the prisoner Wolf had died in the hospital at half-past six, having made no statement.
Her Majesty’s Minister heard me through, listening with breathless interest, and when I had concluded bestowed upon both of us many complimentary words.
“Both your Queen and your country owe a debt of gratitude to you, Ingram; for by dint of care and perseverance you have rescued us from our secret enemies,” he said. “Rest assured that your claim to distinction as an Englishman will not be forgotten.”
That night I sent a telegram from Charing Cross announcing to Léonie the death of the spy, which to her meant freedom. The same wire also carried a second message of comfort to Edith, with the promise that I would leave London for Bordighera on the following morning. Then, entering the telephone-box, I had a long conversation with Lord Barmouth, explaining to him the truth, and receiving his heartiest congratulations and best wishes for my happiness on my marriage with Edith Austin, who, he declared, had saved England’s prestige.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Conclusion
Two days later I was again seated with Edith under the olives on the sunny hillside behind Bordighera.
I had told her all that had happened, explained what we had discovered in that upper room at Cypress Cottage, and demanded to know the reason why some of the copies of those messages were in her own handwriting. Our hands were clasped in fervent affection, and now, fearing not the revenge of either Wolf or Bertini, she revealed to me the plain and ghastly truth in regard to her connection with that band of unscrupulous spies who had sought to bring about England’s downfall.
“I first knew Paolo Bertini when I was at school at St. Leonards, six years ago. He was then our Italian master, and we girls admired him, and were one and all enamoured of our teacher, as school-girls so often are. He and I became good friends, and one day he urged me to steal from another girl’s locker a letter addressed to her by her father, a high official at the War Office. He wished to see it, and I gave it to him in ignorance that the real reason was that he desired the signature for purposes of forgery. I knew it afterwards, but he threatened if I exposed him that he would denounce me as a thief. From that moment he held me in his power, gradually drawing me into the net he so carefully spread in order to secure my assistance in his nefarious schemes of espionage in conjunction with Rodolphe Wolf. Although she knew that upon leaving school I should be comparatively wealthy, my aunt, who, as you know, is eccentric, insisted that I should be taught some means of earning my own livelihood. At Bertini’s demand I chose telegraphy, and when I became proficient the wires from Windsor were tapped, and I was compelled to act as telegraphist in that lonely, unsuspicious-looking cottage, which became the headquarters of French spies in England. My many compulsory visits to London often aroused my aunt’s suspicion, but I always managed to receive convenient invitations from relatives or old schoolfellows, until at last I succeeded in convincing her that all was well. Ah!” she added, her bright, honest eyes turned away over the broad Mediterranean, where the sun was going down in golden glory behind the dark purple rock of Ventimiglia, “I have suffered, Gerald, quite as bitterly as yourself. I was held in that man’s power irrevocably, unable to extricate myself from the bond, unable to give you the least intimation of the evil influences always working against you, unable to accept your love. From the moment when, as a school-girl, I stole that letter, until to-day, my enemies implicated me more and more deeply, until to draw back became utterly impossible. I was their catspaw – held to them by fear of exposure and imprisonment, or even of death, if I disclosed their secret.”
“I understand it all now, darling. All is plain, and our estrangement has only rendered our love the more perfect.”
“You are generous to forgive, Gerald,” she answered in a low, faltering tone. “But I swear it was not my fault. In my ignorance of the world and its ways I took one false step long ago while still at school, and then could not draw back. I became a traitress and a spy!”
“And what of Yolande de Foville?” I inquired. “She was one of us, and in the service of France,” my love replied. “Like myself, she also was held in bondage. She wished to marry the young Count de Hochberg, an aide-de-camp of the Emperor William; but Bertini, who was in love with her, refused to allow her. It was because of jealousy that he made the ingenious attempt upon her life by the same means that he did later upon an Englishman in Paris, named Payne, who recognised him and suspected him of espionage. He is in possession of the knowledge of some subtle alkaloid poison, which he once boasted in my hearing to be even more deadly than the Indian Bikh poison, and unknown in the science of toxicology.”
“And where is Yolande now?”
“In Rome. Having obtained some secret of Bertini’s past, and a knowledge of his attempt upon her life, she defied him, and, freeing herself from the secret service, married de Hochberg only a fortnight ago. She is spending her honeymoon in southern Italy.”
“She is married!” I exclaimed, surprised.
“Yes. Her declarations of love for you were all false, made at the instigation of those schemers, Wolf and Bertini, who intended that she should worm from you certain diplomatic secrets. She hated her position, but, like myself, was powerless and compelled to submit.”
“To you alone, my love, is due the breaking-up of this ingenious band of spies, and the frustrating of the great conspiracy against England, which has, it seems, been fostered and aided by certain of the Powers.”
“And have you really perfect confidence in my honour and purity, Gerald?” she asked again, looking at me dubiously.
“I love you, darling,” I answered, bending down once more to kiss her beautiful mouth; “and that my confidence in you remains unshaken and is the same to-day as it was long ago in Scotland when I first declared my love, will be shown by our marriage, which nothing can now prevent. We are about to come into our kingdom.”
“But that letter,” she faltered, still dubious – “that letter of the Princess!”
“I do not love her, dearest. I have never loved her,” I declared earnestly. “I am yours, and yours alone.”
She turned quickly, kissing me fondly, and shedding tears of joy. We were both free at last, and that peaceful hour of our new-found happiness was full of that ecstasy which comes to man and woman only once in a lifetime, at the moment when two hearts first beat in unison.
But why need I dwell upon the supreme happiness of that calm and glorious evening high up above the tideless sea, except to say that it was then each read the other’s heart openly and truly; then that we discovered how best to interchange a perfect and fadeless affection.
And you ask how this strange romance of an Englishman in his Sovereign’s service ended? Well, Edith became my own queen within two months. We were married in London, and since my promotion and transfer to the Embassy at St. Petersburg our lives have been idyllic in their happiness. Edith likes the Russian capital, where everyone is so hospitable and the fêtes are never-ending. I also prefer it to the artificiality and glare of Paris which is to me a city of bitter memories.
As for the Princess, she is one of Edith’s warmest friends. She was married four months ago to Prince Stroganoff, a charming Russian whom everyone knows in Moscow and the capital, and who lives at the great Stroganoff Palace in St. Petersburg, where we are frequent visitors Lord Barmouth’s failing health compelled him to retire from the Diplomatic Service after the lamented death of Her Majesty, and he is now living in London once more, after so many years of compulsory exile; while the World, a few weeks ago, announced Sibyl’s engagement to the Hon. Jack Willoughby, who is well known as a rising politician and Member for one of the Metropolitan Boroughs. Her ladyship has written to me, declaring it to be a most excellent match.
Bertini, the spy and traitor, having been condemned by the military court in Milan to imprisonment for life, is at this moment languishing in the convict prison at Orbetello. Assuredly Europe is well rid of such an ingenious and unscrupulous scoundrel.
Nothing appeared in the English newspapers regarding Wolf’s death, beyond the statement that he had committed suicide rather than suffer arrest. For what reason the police raided Cypress Cottage never leaked out. It was kept a close secret, in order that the discovery of the headquarters of the French spies should not create undue public alarm. Hence all of the foregoing incidents long remained a secret chapter of England’s history; and the gigantic conspiracy on the part of our nation’s enemies is here related for the first time by one who was himself a principal actor in the stirring drama of diplomacy, and who has been fortunate enough to secure peace, happiness, and the love of a gentle and happy woman.
The End.