"Tell us both quickly," she said in a low tone, "exactly how things stand. This gentleman is the head of the French secret police. He is here to help, if it is possible."

"We have collected our material," I answered, "and placed it before the government here. We are up against an impasse. Through different sources we have approached several members of the Cabinet. The result has been the same in every case. We are treated as madmen. Polloch will do nothing. The fleet has sailed, the rifles remain in the alleys of Soho and Heaven knows where. Not a single precautionary measure has been taken."

"In a lesser degree," she said, "I, too, have failed. I have succeeded in getting the royalist officers removed from the frontier army, but with regard to the navy, they would do nothing. The French government declined to believe that England might need assistance. We shall get no aid from there."

The little old gentleman leaned over and addressed me.

"What is your next step?"

"We have none," I answered bluntly. "I have only spoken for a minute or two with Guest since we heard of our last failure. Shall I fetch him?"

Adele nodded. I went for Guest, who was promenading the room with his hands behind him, casting every now and then a sharp glance in our direction.

"They wish to speak to you," said.

He nodded and walked by my side.

"Our friend," he said, "is admirably disguised, but I recognized him. It is Monsieur Bardow, the cleverest man in France."

The two men exchanged bows and smiles. A waiter was standing near.

"I insist, Monsieur," Monsieur Bardow said, "that you and your nephew here join me in a bottle of wine. We will drink luck to your new venture. No! you must seat yourself, you and your nephew also!"

The farce was well kept up till the wine had been fetched and the waiter dismissed. Then Monsieur Bardow, with the mild expression of one who is still exchanging compliments, began to talk.

"Mr. Guest," he said, "I know you, and I think that you know me. We are both up against a hard thing—officials, who won't believe what does sound a little, perhaps, like a fairy story. I have succeeded a little, you not at all. I consider that a disaster to England, however, would be a disaster also to my country. I am here, therefore, to see if I can be of service to you."

Adele leaned over towards us.

"Monsieur Bardow," she said, "has already been to his ambassador here!"

"And Monsieur Lestrange, who is good enough to have complete confidence in me, went at once to Downing Street," Monsieur Bardow explained. "When he returned he was angry!"

Guest tapped on the table with his forefinger.

"We have submitted our proofs," he said, "and they have been received with derision. Your ambassador, Monsieur Bardow, has spoken for us—and in vain! In what different manner can we approach this wooden-headed government? You have come here with something to propose! What is it?"

Monsieur Bardow nodded assent. He opened his mouth to speak. Suddenly his expression changed. He pointed to the door. The words came from his lips with the crisp rapidity of a repeating rifle!

"Who is that man?" he demanded. "Look! quick!"

I was just in time to see Hirsch's figure disappearing through the swing doors.

"A man named Hirsch," I answered.

"Who is he?"

"One of the committee of the Union," I answered.

"He left something with a waiter. Call the waiter quickly," Monsieur Bardow demanded.

I obeyed at once. The waiter, a Swiss-German, hurried to our table.

"What did Mr. Hirsch want?" I asked.

"He said that he was coming back to dinner this evening, and he left a bag," the waiter replied.

"Bring the bag here at once!" Bardow ordered.

Already he had risen to his feet. Something of his excitement had become communicated to us. In obedience to a peremptory gesture from Guest, the waiter hurried off, and returned almost immediately carrying a small black bag. Bardow held it for a moment to his ear. We were all conscious of a faint purring noise. Nagaski began to whine. Monsieur Bardow laid the bag gently down upon the table.

"Out of the place for your lives!" he commanded in a tone of thunder. I took Adele's arm, we all rushed for the door. We had barely reached it before the floor began to heave, the windows to fall in, and a report like thunder deafened us! We emerged into the street, wrapped in a thick cloud of curling smoke, with masonry and fragments of furniture falling all around us. But we emerged safely, though of the Cafe Suisse there was scarcely left one stone upon another.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

A LAST RESOURCE

From all sides a great crowd gathered, with almost inconceivable rapidity. We pushed our way through, and gained a side street in safety. Monsieur Bardow arrested the attention of a four-wheeled cab galloping towards the scene of the disaster, and motioned us to enter. We all crowded in, and Monsieur Bardow, who entered last, gave an address to the driver.

"My friends," he said, as he finally stepped in, "I am afraid that it was my presence which has brought this disaster upon your cafe. My disguise is good, but not good enough to deceive the cleverest rogues in Europe. Let us take up our conversation where it was interrupted."

Guest nodded.

"The cafe has served its turn," he declared. "I am glad it is gone, although it was a close shave for us. Monsieur Bardow, I believe that you have something to suggest. There is no time to lose!"

The little Frenchman nodded.

"I have," he admitted. "It is, perhaps, a forlorn hope, but it is our only chance. You have appealed to the government—you have failed! Appeal, then, to their masters."

"The people!" Guest exclaimed. "But how? There is no time!"

"There is only one way," Monsieur Bardow declared, "but it is a royal way. The things which we four in this cab know could be driven home to every living Englishman in little more than twelve hours' time, if we can only find—!"

"The Press!" I cried.

"If we can only find," Monsieur Bardow continued, with a little nod, "an editor man enough to throw the great dice!"

"Staunton!" Guest exclaimed.

"We are on our way there," Monsieur Bardow declared. "He is our one hope!"

I glanced towards Guest. There was a new fire in his eyes. I saw that the idea appealed to him. Nervously he flung down the window and let in the fresh air.

"A newspaper agitation," he muttered, "takes time, and if that destroyer does not leave by four o'clock to-morrow afternoon—"

Monsieur Bardow held up his hand.

"We go no further," he said. "It shall leave!"

The cab drew up before the palatial offices of the Daily Oracle. Monsieur Bardow took the lead, and with very little delay we were escorted to a lift, and into a waiting-room on the third floor. Here our guide left us, but only for a moment. In less than five minutes after we had entered the building we were in the presence of John Staunton, Editor and Managing Director of the Daily Oracle, a paper whose circulation was reported to be the largest which any English journal had ever attained. He was sitting, a slight, spare man, before a long table in the middle of a handsomely furnished room. Before him were telephones of various sorts, a mass of documents, and a dummy newspaper. He held out his hand to Monsieur Bardow, and half rose to his feet as he noticed Adele.

"You have something to say to me, Monsieur Bardow?" he said rapidly. "As quickly as possible, if you please! This is the busiest hour of the day for me."

"You may reckon it, also," Monsieur Bardow said, "the greatest hour of your life, for I am going to give you an opportunity to-day of making history for all time."

Staunton raised his eyebrows. Yet it was easy to see that he was impressed.

"Your friends?" he asked, glancing towards us.

Monsieur Bardow turned to Guest.

"Forgive me," he said, "but it must be truth now, and nothing else. This is Lord Leslie Wendover, third son of the Duke of Mochester. You may remember Lord Leslie Wendover's name in connection with the Berlin scandals fifteen years ago. This," he added, turning to me, "is Hardross Courage. You have heard of him, no doubt. The lady is Miss Van Hoyt of America."

Mr. Staunton bowed to all of us.

"Well?" he said.

"Each one of us," Monsieur Bardow said, standing, a slim, calm figure at the end of the table, with his fingers resting upon its leather top, "has a story to tell you. The stories vary only from their point of view. The end of all is the same. It is this: unless the English government sends a fast destroyer to Kiel before four o'clock to-morrow afternoon, the Germans will command London before seven days have passed. And to the best of my belief, Mr. Staunton, you are the only man who can save this country."

"I will hear the story in a moment," Staunton said calmly. "First! You have been to the government?"

"We have," Guest answered. "They decline to hear us, believe us, or receive us. They scoff at our facts and ignore our warnings."

"You have some proofs?"

"We have almost convincing ones," Guest answered. "A further one almost cost us our lives a few minutes ago! The restaurant where we were deliberating was blown up by a bomb, placed there by some one who suspected us."

"The name of the restaurant?" Staunton asked.

"The Cafe Suisse," I told him.

From his look of interest, I knew that he had heard something about the place.

"Well," he said, "let me hear the stories."

Guest told his first, I followed, Adele told hers, and Monsieur Bardow rapidly filled in certain blanks. All the while Staunton listened in silence. He had opened an atlas, and studied it carefully with a cigarette in his mouth, whilst Monsieur Bardow was speaking. When he had heard everything we had to say, he pushed the atlas back and leaned over the table towards us.

"You ask me," he said slowly, "to publish this story to-morrow. With what object?"

"That the people of this great country," Monsieur Bardow answered quickly, "should at least have a chance to themselves arrest this horrible disaster. Let them rise up and insist that before four o'clock tomorrow that destroyer leaves Devonport, with orders to stop our fleet entering Kiel harbor. Let them insist upon a general mobilization of the fleet, and the breaking up of this traitorous Rifle Corps. Your ministers have failed you! It is by favor of the people that they rule! Let the people speak!"

The man at the table moved his position ever so slightly. His eyes were fixed downwards. He seemed to be thinking deeply. Monsieur Bardow continued.

"My friends here," he said, "have done all that can be done with members of the Cabinet, not only themselves, but in the person of others of great influence. The appeal to you is practically an appeal to Caesar. Ministers are great, but you are greater. It is your hand to-day which grasps the levers which guide the world."

And still the man at the table was silent. Monsieur Bardow had more to say.

"I will tell you," he said, "what an American newspaper has done for us. To-morrow, at twelve o'clock, ten million of dollars is due to be paid to the agents of Prince Victor of Normandy, by the Credit Lyonnais of Paris. To-morrow morning, the New York Herald, in great type, exposes as a gigantic joke the whole affair! It will give the names of the American citizens, and the titles which their contribution to the Royalist cause in France is to secure. To-morrow, all New York will be convulsed with laughter—and I do not think that that ten million dollars will be cabled to the Credit Lyonnais."

The man at the table lifted his head. His face was the face of a man who had been in pain.

"The two cases," he said slowly, "are not identical. The New York Herald perpetrates a huge joke upon its readers. Whichever way that affair ends, the newspaper has little to lose! You ask me, on the other hand, to risk ruin!"

"I do!" Monsieur Bardow answered. "I came to you, I and my friends here, because, from the first, you have shown yourself the uncompromising foe of German diplomacy and aspirations. I give you the chance to justify yourself. I know what it is that you fear, you do not doubt our faith—your only fear is lest we may have been deceived. Is that not so?"

Staunton assented gravely.

"You are asking me a great deal," he said. "The Daily Oracle represents a million of capital, it represents the life work of myself and many dear comrades. You ask me to stake our prestige, our whole future, upon your story. You ask me to publicly flout the government which we have supported through thick and thin. You give me no time to consult my colleagues—I must decide at once, yes or no! This is no small matter. Monsieur Bardow!"

"It is a tragedy," Monsieur Bardow answered. "I tell you that the future history of your country, perhaps of Europe, rests upon your decision. Don't let any smaller issue weigh with you for a moment. Be thankful that you are the man whose name will live in history as the savior of his country."

"Do not be too sure even of that," Staunton said. "Polloch is an obstinate man, and I know as well as any one, perhaps, how set the Cabinet are upon this German rapprochement. Still—you have fastened the burden on my shoulders, and I will carry it."

"Thank God!" Monsieur Bardow exclaimed, leaning over and shaking hands with Staunton. "Have no fear, my friend! It is Heaven's truth which you will print."

"I believe it," Staunton answered quietly. "Several mysterious things have happened during the last few days, and late this afternoon, consols began to fall in a most extraordinary fashion. The side-winds have blown some curious information to us, even this last hour or so! Now, gentlemen, and Miss Van Hoyt," he continued in a suddenly altered tone, "I have to send for all my editors and break up the whole paper. I shall be here till daybreak and afterwards. One condition I have to make with you."

"Name it," Monsieur Bardow declared.

"You must not leave this building till the paper is out. At any moment we may require information from one of you! You shall be made as comfortable as possible! Do you agree?"

"Of course," we all answered. "In fact," Guest remarked, "I fancy this is the safest place for us for a few hours."

Staunton looked at us all a little curiously.

"I suppose," he remarked, "you know the risk you have been running?"

"Our friends have reminded us," I answered.

An attendant came in, and Staunton handed us over to him.

"Show this lady and these gentlemen into the strangers' room," he ordered. "See that they have food and wine, and anything they require."

We left at once. In the passage we passed a little crowd of hurrying journalists on their way to answer Staunton's summons. In every room the alarm bell had sounded, and the making-up of the paper was stopped!



CHAPTER XXXIX

WORKING THE ORACLE

We had food and wine, plenty of it, and very excellently served. The room in which we were imprisoned was more than comfortable—it was luxurious. There were couches and easy-chairs, magazines and shaded electric lights. Yet we could not rest for one moment. Adele and I talked for an hour or so, and we had plenty to say, but in time the fever seized us too. The roar of the machinery below thrilled us through and through. It was the warning which, in a very few hours, would electrify the whole country, which was being whirled into type. I thought of Madame, and once I laughed.

Three times Guest was sent for to give some information, mainly with regard to earlier happenings in Berlin, before our fateful meeting at the Hotel Universal. At last my turn came. It was interesting to visit, if only for a moment, the room where Staunton himself was writing this story.

He was sitting at his table, his coat off, an unlighted cigarette in his mouth, an untasted cup of tea by his side. Two shorthand clerks sat opposite to him, a typist was hard at work a few yards away. Staunton called me over to him. His voice was hoarse and raspy, and there were drops of sweat upon his forehead.

"Is it true, Mr. Courage," he said, "that you are still believed here to be dead?"

"Certainly!" I answered. "I have not communicated even with my lawyers. My substitute's fate was enough to make me careful!"

"Does any one know on this side?"

"My cousin, Sir Gilbert Hardross. He is with us. He saw Polloch and tried all he could himself."

"Good!" Staunton declared. "One more question. You say that on the committee of the Rifle Club was a German officer. Do you know who he was?"

"I do," I answered. "I saw him at the club when I went to meet my cousin. His name is Count Metterheim, and he is on the military staff at the Embassy here."

"Better and better," Staunton grunted. "That's all, thank you!"

I went back to the room where the others were waiting. The few people whom I passed looked at me curiously. Already there were rumors flying about the place. In less than five minutes I was summoned again. Staunton looked up from his writing.

"The news has come through of the wrecking of the Cafe Suisse," he said. "So far your story is substantiated. A man and a woman are in custody. Their names are Hirsch!"

"He's a member of the committee!" I exclaimed. "I saw him bring in the bag. It was Madame, his wife, who distrusted me all the time."

"Do you think," he asked, "that you were followed here?"

"Very likely," I answered

Staunton turned to a tall, dark young man who stood by his side.

"Tell Mr. Courage what has happened," he said.

The secretary looked at me curiously.

"A man arrived about a quarter of an hour ago who insisted upon seeing Mr. Staunton. He hinted that he had an important revelation to make with regard to the Cafe Suisse outrage. He would not see any one else, and tried to force his way into the place. In the scuffle, a revolver fell out of his pocket, loaded in all six chambers."

"What have you done with him?" I asked.

"Handed him over to the police," the young man answered; "but I am afraid they would never get him to the station. Have you looked out of the window?"

"No!" I answered.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Do so!" he suggested.

I crossed the room, and, drawing the blind aside carefully, looked out. The street was packed with people! Even as I stood there, I heard the crash of breaking glass below!

"What does it mean?" I asked, bewildered.

"Your Rifle Corps, I should think," Staunton said, without ceasing writing. "We closed the doors just in time. They will try to wreck the place."

"We have telephoned to Scotland Yard and the Horse Guards," the man who stood by my side said, "and we have forty policemen inside the place now! Good God!"

The sudden roar of an explosion split the air. The floor seemed to heave under our feet, and the windows fell in with a crash, letting in the cold night air. We could hear distinctly now the shrieks and groans from below. It seemed to me that the roadway was suddenly strewn with the bodies of prostrate men. I sprang back into the room, we all looked at one another in horror. I think that for my part I expected to see the walls close in upon us.

"A bomb," Staunton remarked calmly. "Listen!"

He leaned a little forward in his chair, his pen still in his hand, his attitude one of strained and nervous attention. By degrees the tension in his face relaxed.

"It goes!" he muttered. "Good!"

He bent once more over his work. I looked at the man by my side in bewilderment.

"What does he mean?" I asked.

"The engine! The machinery is not damaged!" was the prompt reply.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead. The silence in the room seemed almost unnatural, and behind it we could hear the dull, monotonous roar of the machinery, still doing its work. Once more I turned to the window, and as I did so I heard the sullen murmur of voices. A little way down the street a solid body of mounted police were forcing back the people.

I made my way back to the other room, almost knocked down in the passage by a man, half-dressed, tearing along with a bundle of wet proofs in his hand. Adele was standing by the wrecked window-frame—there were no more windows anywhere in the building—and she turned to me with a little cry.

"Jim!" she exclaimed, "Look! Look!"

I saw the line of fire and the policemen's saddles emptying fast. The people were closing round the building. Guest stood frowning by our side.

"This is what comes," he said, "of making London the asylum for all the foreign scum of the earth. How goes it, Courage?"

"Staunton is still writing, and the machinery is untouched."

"For how long, I wonder," he muttered. "The police are going over like ninepins."

I looked below longingly, for my blood was up. It was no ordinary mob this. They were beginning to fire in volleys now, and leaders were springing up. As far as we could see there was a panorama of white faces. It was easy to understand what had happened. We had been followed, and our purpose guessed. Tomorrow's edition of the Daily Oracle was never meant to appear!

"The place will be at their mercy in another few minutes," Guest said gloomily. "Twenty-four hours ago who would have dared to predict a riot like this, in London of all places? Not all the police in Scotland Yard would be of any avail against this mob."

"They may stop the paper," I said; "but Staunton's word—and these events—should go for something with Polloch."

Guest looked at me and away out of the window. Adele was behind us, and out of hearing.

"Do you suppose," he said in a low tone, "that Staunton or any of us are meant to leave this place alive? I am afraid our friends below know too well what they are doing."

The door opened, and Staunton himself appeared. He looked years older than the strong, debonair man to whom I had told my story a few hours ago, but in his face was none of the despair which I had feared. He was pale, and his eyes were shining with suppressed excitement, but he had by no means the air of a beaten man. He came over to where we were standing.

"It is finished," he said calmly. "I read your story in print."

"Magnificent," I murmured, "but look! Do you think that a single copy will ever leave this place?"

He stood looking downwards with darkening face. For several moments he was silent.

"Look at them!" he muttered. "At last! The tocsin has sounded, and the rats have come out of their holes! Half a million and more of scum eating their way into the entrails of this great city of ours. For years we have tried to make the government see the danger of it. It is our cursed British arrogance which has shut the ears and closed the eyes of the men who govern our destinies. Supposing your invasion should take place, who is going to keep them in check? The sack of London would be well on its way before ever a German soldier set foot upon our coast."

"The question for the moment," I remarked, "seems to be how long before the sack of this place takes place. Look, the police are falling back. The mob are closing in the street!"

Staunton was unmoved.

"The soldiers are on their way," he answered. "We received a message just now by the private wire. The other has been cut. Look! My God, they've brought the guns! There are some men at headquarters who are not fools."

We pressed close to the windows, and indeed it was a wonderful sight. From the far end of the street, where the police had retreated, men were flying in all directions. We caught a gleam of scarlet and a vision of grey horses. There was no parley. The dead bodies of the police in all directions, and the crack of the rifles, were sufficient. We saw the gleam of fire, and we heard the most terrible of all sounds—the quick spit-spit of the maxims. I drew Adele away from the window.

"Don't look, dear," I said, for already the ranks of the mob were riven. We saw the upflung hands, we heard their death cries. Leaders leaped up, shouting orders, only to go down like ninepins as the line of fire reached them. There was no hope for them or any salvation save flight. Before our eyes we saw that great concourse melt away, like snow before the midday sun. Staunton drew a great breath of relief.

"In half an hour," he said, turning abruptly to Adele, "I will present you with a copy of the Daily Oracle."



CHAPTER XL

THE ORACLE SPEAKS

The issue of the Daily Oracle which appeared on the following, or rather the same, morning electrified Europe. Nothing like it had been known in the memory of man. For one halfpenny, the city clerk, the millionaire, and the politician were alike treated to a sensation which, since the days of Caxton, has known no parallel. The whole of the front page of the paper was devoted to a leading article, printed in large type, and these questions were the text of what followed:

"1. Do the Government know that within eighty miles of Kiel are one hundred and eighty thousand troops, with guns and all the munitions of war, assembled there for the purpose of an immediate invasion of England, assembled partly in secrecy, and partly under the ridiculous pretexts of manoeuvres?

"2. Do the Government know that it is a skeleton fleet, the weedings of the German navy, which awaits our squadron in Kiel waters, and that the remainder of the German fleet, at its full strength and ready for action, is lying in hiding close at hand?

"3. That there exists in London, under the peaceful guise of a trade union, an army of nearly 200,000 Germans, who have passed their training, and that a complete scheme exists for arming and officering same at practically a moment's notice?

"4. That a German army is even now massed upon the French frontier, prepared to support the claims to the throne of France of Prince Victor of Normandy, and that a conspiracy has been discovered within the last forty-eight hours amongst the French army, to suffer an invasion of their country on this pretext?

"5. That an American paper is to-day publishing the names of some of her richest citizens, who are finding the money for French Royalist agents, to buy over the wavering officers of the army of our ally, the army of the French Republic!

"There is ignorance which is folly," the article went on, "and ignorance which is sin. The Government have proved themselves guilty of the first; if they show themselves guilty also of the second, the people of this country have the right to hurl from their places the fools who have brought them to the brink of disaster, and to save themselves. In their name, we demand two things:

"The dispatch of a gunboat with orders to the Channel Squadron to at once return to their waters.

"The mobilization of our Mediterranean Fleet."

With this text Staunton had written his article, and he had written it with a pen of fire. Every word burned its way home. With the daring of those few hours of inspiration, he had turned inference into fact, he had written as a man who sees face to face the things of which he writes. There could be but one result. At ten o'clock a Cabinet Council was called, and Staunton was telephoned for. Before midday, everything that he had suggested was done.

Even then, we knew that the question of peace or war must be trembling in the balance.

"Let it come if it will," Guest declared from his easy-chair in Gilbert's study, "the great plot is smashed. I pledge you my word that to-morrow the German newspapers will hold us up to scorn, will seek to make of us the laughing-stock of the world. They will explain everything. There will be no war. A German invasion of England is only possible by intrigues which will keep France apart, and treachery which will render our fleet ineffective. This plot has taken five years to develop, and I have been on its track from the first. Thank God, I can call myself square now with the past! ..."

There was no war, but the laughter of the German newspapers was a little hysterical. The Press of the world took the matter more seriously. But there was no war, and there are people even to-day, mostly his journalistic enemies, who say that Staunton was hoaxed.

* * * * *

"Do we receive our deserts in this world?" some one asked one night, when our dinner table at Saxby was like a suggestion of old times—and we all paused to think.

"Staunton has a peerage," Adele remarked.

"Luckier than I," Guest laughed; only he called himself Guest no longer, but Lord Leslie Wendover. "My past disgrace had to be wiped out by an invitation to Windsor and a ribbon. Such are the ways of diplomacy, which never dare own a mistake."

"The amazing denseness of the man!" his wife murmured. "Do I count for nothing?"

He bent and touched her hand with his lips, as Adele leaned forward and laughed at me across the table.

"I think," she said; "that you both deserve—what you got—us!"

THE END