Part 33 (2/2)

”Very much indeed. Don't you see that there is one hope left to us--one hope--and that is Russia? The Czar must be made to withdraw from that compact. We want to know his share in it. When we know that, there will be a secret mission sent to Russia. Germany and Austria are strong, but they are not all the world. With Russia behind and France and England westward, the struggle is at least an equal one. They have to face both directions, they have to face two great armies working from the east and from the west.”

She nodded, and they sat there in silence for several moments.

Bellamy was thinking deeply.

”You say, Louise,” he asked, looking up quickly, ”that your rooms have been searched. When was this?”

”Only last night,” she replied.

Bellamy drew a little sigh of relief.

”At any rate,” he said, ”Streuss has no idea that the doc.u.ment is not in our possession. He knows nothing about Laverick. How are we going to deal with him, Louise, when he comes for his answer?”

”You have a plan?” she asked.

”There is only one thing to be done,” Bellamy declared. ”I shall say that we have already handed over the doc.u.ment to the English Government. It will be a bluff, pure and simple. He may believe it or he may not.”

”You will break your compact then,” she reminded him.

”I shall call myself justified,” he continued. ”He has attempted to rob us of the doc.u.ment. You are sure of what you say--that your rooms and dressing-room have been searched?”

”Absolutely certain,” she declared.

”That will be sufficient,” Bellamy decided. ”If Streuss comes to me, I shall meet him frankly. I shall tell him that he has tried to play the burglar and that it must be war. I shall tell him that the compact is in the hands of the Prime Minister, and that he and his spies had better clear out.”

She looked at him questioningly.

”Of course, you understand,” he added, ”there is one thing we can do, and one thing only. We must send a mission to Russia and another to France, and before the German fleet can pa.s.s down the North Sea we must declare war. It is the only thing left to us--a bold front.

Without that packet we have no casus belli. With it, we can strike, and strike hard. I still believe that if we declare war within seven days, we shall save ourselves.”

Streuss and Kahn looked, too, across the panorama of London, across the dingy Adelphi Gardens, the turbid Thames, the smoke-hung world beyond. They were together in Streuss's sitting-room on the seventh floor of one of the great Strand hotels.

”Our enterprise is a failure!” Kahn exclaimed gloomily. ”We cannot doubt it any longer. I think, Streuss, that the best course you and I could adopt would be to realize it and to get back. We do no good here. We only run needless risks.”

The face of the other man was dark with anger. His tone, when he spoke, shook with pa.s.sion.

”You don't know what you say, Kahn!” he cried hoa.r.s.ely. ”I tell you that we must succeed. If that doc.u.ment reaches the hands of any one in authority here, it would be the worst disaster which has fallen upon our country since you or I were born. You don't understand, Kahn! You keep your eyes closed!”

”What men can do we have done,” the other answered. ”Von Behrling played us false. He has died a traitor's death, but it is very certain that he parted with his doc.u.ment before he received that twenty thousand pounds.”

”Once and for all, I do not believe it!” Streuss declared. ”At mid-day, I can swear to it that the contents of that envelope were unknown to the Ministers of the King here. Now if Von Behrling had parted with that doc.u.ment last Monday night, don't you suppose that everything would be known by now? He did not part with it.

Bellamy and Mademoiselle lie when they say that they possess it.

That doc.u.ment remains in the possession of Von Behrling's murderer, and it is for us to find him.”

Kahn sighed.

”It is outside our sphere--that. What can we do against the police of this country working in their own land?”

<script>