“With pleasure,” said Pringle, as Redmile, now flushed with success in addition to the wine, darted off to redeem his check.
“I’ve had as much as is good for me or we’d have had another bottle to celebrate the occasion,” he remarked as they strolled down Piccadilly.
“Rather more,” thought Pringle, adding politely, “I should not have noticed it.”
“Perhaps not; but I must have a clear head tomorrow. I’m in the F.O., you know, and we’re very busy just now.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Pringle, much interested. “You must have had a harassing time lately — over this Congo affair, for instance?”
“Yes, harassing isn’t the word to describe it. Come in!”
He drew out his latchkey, and after some ineffectual efforts succeeded in opening the door. Then he insisted on writing the check in spite of all Pringle’s protestations and, opening a box of cigars, put whisky and soda on the table. The fresh air had completed the work of the alcohol. He was evidently becoming very drunk, and laughed insanely when, missing the tumbler, he directed the cascade from a syphon over the table-cloth.
“We’ll just have a nightcap before you go,” he hiccoughed. “Yes, as you were saying, we’ve had a deuce of a time lately. I’m one of Lord Tranmere’s secretaries, and the berth’s not all beer and sk — skittles? Why, you mightn’t think it, but I have to examine every blessed dispatch and telegram that passes between London and Paris every day, Sundays and all; and that means some work just now, I can tell you! Yesterday was no d-day of rest for me.”
He unlocked a despatch-box and held up an official envelope for Pringle to see. The direction was printed in bold letters:
On Her Britannic Majesty’s Service
HIS EXCELLENCY THE RIGHT HONBLE. THE VISCOUNT STRATHCLYDE, G.C.B., HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY,
Etc. Etc. Etc.
PARIS
Foreign Office
“This is the finish to the whole business,” he said. “Rather short and sweet. I only finished dr-drafting it this evening. It will be franked by the Secretary of State in the morning, and I think by this time to-to-morrow the F.O. officials will sleep sounder in both capitals.”
“Will they, indeed!” exclaimed Pringle. “I am delighted to find that diplomacy is not a lost art in England. But, talking of that, I suppose you know the story of the Queen’s Messenger and that affair of the Emperor of Austria’s razors?”
Redmile had never heard of it, and settled himself comfortably to listen. But as the combined result of his potations and the lateness of the hour, his head began to nod, and long before Pringle arrived at the climax of the story a loud snore proclaimed that his audience was asleep.
After waiting a little while to make sure of his host’s unconsciousness, Pringle cautiously reached towards the despatch-box which still lay open on the table, and possessed himself of an addressed envelope and several sheets of foolscap embossed with the Foreign Office stamp. He then turned his attention to the waste-paper basket, and after a search, as noiseless as possible, among its rustling contents, found a torn envelope bearing a nearly perfect Foreign Office seal in wax. Placing all the stationery carefully in his pocket, he gave vent to a loud sneeze.
Redmile woke up with a start, and Pringle, as if finishing the story, remarked calmly, “So that’s how the affair ended.”
“Dear me! I’m awfully sorry,” apologized Redmile thickly. “I’m afraid I’ve been asleep. It must have been that whisky that did it!”
“More likely the prosiness of my story,” Pringle suggested with a smile. “But, anyhow, I must be moving.”
“Come and look me up any time you’re passing,” said the other sleepily.
When he reached Furnival’s Inn Pringle did not trouble to go to bed. He had a hard night’s work before him and the dawn found him still busily engaged.
Drawing up the blinds he admitted the morning light. The venetian mirror which hung above the mantel had seldom reflected such a scene of confusion as the usually neat room presented. Pringle’s hat crowned one of the two choice pieces of delft which flanked the brass lantern-clock, while his overcoat sprawled limply across the reading-easel. On a table in one corner stood a glass vessel containing a chemical solution. In this, well coated-with black-lead, was immersed the seal abstracted from the waste-paper basket, which, with a plate of copper, also hanging in the solution, was connected with the wires of a “Daniell’s” chemical battery; in the course of the night the potent electricity had covered the wax with a deposit of copper sufficiently thick to form a perfect reverse intaglio of the seal. A centre-table was littered with pieces of paper, scrawled over with what appeared to be the attempts of a beginner in the art of writing. A closer inspection would have revealed a series of more or less successful reproductions of Redmile’s handwriting — his check for eight pounds being pinned to a drawing-board and serving Pringle as a copy. With frequent reference to a Blue-book which lay open before him, Pringle penned a communication in a couple of short paragraphs, which he carefully copied onto one of the sheets of foolscap. Then, folding it into the envelope, he sealed it with a neat impression from the copper electro-type.
One thing only remained to complete the official appearance of the package; that was the “frank.” Turning to the dado of dwarf bookcases which ran round the room, Pringle took down an album containing the portraits and autographs of celebrities of the day, and looked up that of the Foreign Secretary. Lord Transmere’s signature was a bold and legible one, and with the skill of an expert copyist he soon had a facsimile of it written in the lower left-hand corner of the envelope.
Eight o’clock was striking just as he had finished. He rose and stretched himself languidly, when his eye fell on the check. Unpinning it from the board, he attached a “y” to the written word “eight,” and deftly inserted a cipher after the somewhat unsteady figure which sprawled in the corner, thus converting it into a check for eighty pounds.
His task was now done, and after swallowing a cup of chocolate brewed over a spirit-lamp, he made a hurried but careful toilet. Endowed by Nature with a fresh complexion which did much to conceal the ravages of a sleepless night, he presented his usual youthful appearance on leaving the Inn, and having chartered a passing cab, was swallowed up in the sea of traffic already beginning to surge down Holborn.
Work, as a general rule, begins later at the Foreign Office than elsewhere, but although it was only a little past nine when Pringle dismissed his cab in Downing Street and entered the portico of Lord Palmerston’s architectural freak, several cabs and a miniature brougham were already waiting in the quadrangle. He inquired at the door for Redmile, and was directed up the magnificent stair-ease to a waiting-room on the first floor.
“I will not detain Mr. Redmile long if he is at all busy,” he remarked to the messenger who took his name.
“Mr. Redmile is always busy, sir,” was the man’s reply.
Pringle sat down and devoted himself to a study of The Times, and it was fully a quarter of an hour before the messenger returned and led him along a dismal and vault-like corridor to an apartment overlooking the Horse Guards’ Parade.
The room was empty, but he had scarcely had time to seat himself when a side-door, through which he caught a glimpse of a vast and lofty room beyond, suddenly opened, and Redmile entered with a packet in his hand.
“Good-morning, er — Mr. James,” he said rather stiffly, and remained standing.