"How I know doesn't matter," I replied. "The point is, I am giving you facts.
You must have taken great care that the second telegram of yours, after you had received three from Krueger, each of which showed that he had not received your first wire; I say, you must have taken extraordinary care to see that the second telegram reached him at once."
"It must have reached him in an hour," said Robinson carelessly, "just as the first must."
"You would be surprised to know," I replied, "that it didn't reach him at all that night, nor till far on in the next day. You left Krueger to his Hollander counselors for a day and a half without any word from you."
"Good God!" cried Robinson. "It can't be true; yet it would explain his attitude to me at first. But how can it be? It's absurd."
"Send and find out when your telegrams went," I urged. "You must have a book of telegrams, where times and everything are entered?"
"Of course, of course," he cried. "That is all in the hands of the Imperial Secretary, Sir Graham Bower. I will ring for him."
He rang, and when a man came, sent him to ask Sir Graham Bower to come at once. Two minutes later Sir Graham Bower appeared: an ordinary dark man, unimportant looking, smiling, I thought, a little nervously, a set smile.
"Oh! Bower," broke out Robinson, "Harris has a most extraordinary tale.
Pardon me, I must introduce you. This is Sir Graham Bower, the Imperial Secretary, and this is a friend of mine, Frank Harris, the editor of the Saturday Review whom we have talked about."
We bowed and shook hands.
"Bower," Robinson broke in again, "Harris has brought a most extraordinary story that on the Sunday morning when we got the first news of the raid, my telegram to Krueger, telling him we had wired ordering Jameson to return, and that the raid was not authorized by Her Majesty's Government, never went oft. I don't know how he knows, but that is what he says."
"No, no," I broke in. "I say that it didn't reach Pretoria that day, and not till well on in the next day."
"Nonsense," cried Robinson. "Please get the telegraph book, Bower, and prove it to Harris."
Bower turned and went out of the room, still with the same smile on his face. I felt sure then he was playing a part. I thought I had found the villain of the piece, but waited for the proof. Meanwhile Robinson and I stood together in tense expectation.
In two minutes Bower returned with a large book in his hand.
"The telegram," he said, "I find, went off at twelve-thirty."
"Twelve-thirty!" cried Robinson. "You must be mistaken. That is hours after I sent it."
"It went off in the usual way," Bower remarked, with studied carelessness.
"Usual way!" said Robinson, looking at him. "But it was of the first importance."
"There was a great deal of excitement and running to and fro," he said.
"I know, I know," said Robinson. "I sent you to Rhodes-but still, Bower- twelve-thirty."
A thought came to me, and I drew the bow at a venture.
"But you have a special form," I said, "for telegrams from power to power, a special form of telegram that takes precedence over all others. Why was this telegram sent as an ordinary telegram, and not on your special form?"
I had hardly begun to speak when Bower's face changed expression. I knew I had guessed right.
"Of course it went on the proper form," cried Robinson. "There can be no doubt of it, can there, Bower? You can prove it."
I smiled. Bower said very lightly, too lightly, "I suppose so."
"But think, Bower," Robinson went on, "think what it means."
"I can't be sure. I'm not sure," replied Bower.
"Not sure," cried Robinson, turning on him, "not sure! But you can't realize what it means, man. Harris here says that we got a second telegram from Krueger in the afternoon, telling us of the raid again and asking us what we were going to do. We believed, or I believed, that my first telegram had already reached him, telling him that we disavowed the raid, and had ordered Jameson to return. Harris says that when we got that second telegram we must have known that Krueger hadn't got my first telegram; and Harris is right. I should have drawn that inference; I remember it struck me at the time as curious that Krueger should merely repeat the news. Then came Krueger's third telegram, and of course Harris insists again it must have made me see that Krueger had not received my first telegram. We answered it, and now Harris says that both these telegrams of mine, official telegrams, must have been sent as ordinary telegrams, for Krueger didn't get even the first of them in the day; Krueger got no word from us till the Monday afternoon, Harris asserts."
"I can only tell Mr. Harris," said Bower, "that the whole place was in a state of the intensest excitement. I went twice or three times to Rhodes and couldn't see him; visitors called at every moment, Hofmeyr and others, who had to be seen: everyone was running about."
"All the more reason," I said, "for sending such important telegrams on the special official forms.
"My God!" said Robinson, putting his hands to his head. "My God! That's what Krueger's cold reception of me meant."
There could be no doubt about the matter. Hercules Robinson was blameless in the affair. He had been kept out of it. Rhodes had found a surer tool in the Imperial Secretary, Sir Graham Bower.
I rubbed the point in decisively.
"Your message," I said, "the telegram of the High Commissioner, the most important telegram ever sent from this office, went as an ordinary telegram, and instead of taking precedence, followed some hundreds of others in ordinary sequence to Pretoria; and Krueger sat in council all day, sending message after message to you, and getting no reply, but getting wire after wire from country districts to the effect that Jameson was pushing on towards his capital as hard as he could. Can you expect Krueger to trust the English after this? All that day, all that night, the old man waited, and half the next day before you gave him the chance to act."
"Good God!" said Robinson.
"You don't want me any more, Sir?" asked Graham Bower, pointedly, and left the room.
"What's to be done now?" cried Hercules Robinson, falling into his seat.
"What's to be done? But how did you know all this? How have you in a few days found out more than I knew, I with such power and experience, and living at the center?"
A little later I went up to Johannesburg, and while there was asked to go and see the President by Chief Justice Kotze of the High Court. I went across one day to Pretoria. It is like a town set in a saucer with low hills ringing it round; a town of squat Dutch houses set amid trees and little noisy rivulets of water running down the sides of the streets-everywhere the chatter of children and childish games, and quiet home life. And in the strange little provincial town, two or three magnificent public buildings that represent fairly enough the obstinate patriotism of the Boer.
I was invited to call upon the President at six o'clock in the morning, but I declared that if I got up at that hour I should be at my worst, and I wanted to be at my best. When the President heard that I never got up before the day was well aired, he invited me to come and have coffee with him, and so I called upon him in the early afternoon, called with Chief Justice Kotze, who was kind enough to offer to act as interpreter. The house was an ordinary Boer house, the reception-room an ordinary Boer parlor with wax flowers, colored worsted mats and a huge Bible as its chief ornaments, unless I include the enormous spittoon, which was used at every moment by the master. I hardly dare to describe the coffee. For providing this coffee Krueger got eight hundred a year besides his salary of eight thousand pounds, and I should think that for eight pounds he could make enough of it to float a battleship. It was the vilest liquid I had ever attempted to drink; a very disagreeable decoction of Gregory powder in half-warm milk. I took one sip and left it at that.