I listened carefully to these words, scrutinising them for any trace of a double meaning. It was impossible for me to dismiss entirely from my mind that suspicion which the story told by Wilhelm II. was naturally calculated to excite. I asked myself whether the Kaiser was really in earnest, or whether he was not inviting me, in a delicate fashion, to extricate him from the consequences of his own rashness, by putting together some fictitious account of the origin of the telegram, which might impose on Lord Salisbury. It was clearly necessary, however, for me to appear to be convinced. ‘May I ask if your Majesty’s suspicions point in any particular direction?’ I asked, trying to feel my way cautiously. ‘The President of the Boers is perhaps----’ The Kaiser interrupted me. ‘I do not think Kruger would dare to provoke me by such a trick. He would know that he would be the first to suffer when it was found out. No, I am convinced that we must look nearer home for the traitor.’ Something in the Emperor’s tone struck me as significant. ‘If you could give me any indication of the person----’ I ventured to throw out. His Majesty looked at me fixedly as he answered-- ‘Does it not occur to you, Monsieur V----, that there is in my Empire a powerful family, the heads of which seem at one time to have cherished the notion that the Hohenzollerns could not reign without them, a family which aspired to play the same part in modern Germany which was played by the Mayors of the Palace in the Empire of the Merovingians?’ ‘You allude, sire, without doubt, to the Bismarcks?’ ‘My grandfather was forced into war with the French by a forged telegram. There would be nothing surprising in an attempt from the same quarter to force me into a war with England.’ I had no answer to make to such reasoning. Daring as such a manœuvre might appear, it was absurd, in the face of historical facts, to pronounce it improbable. After a minute spent in considering the situation, I turned to the question of how the fraud might have been carried out. It was quite clear to me that such a message could not have gone over the ordinary wires. The despatches of Emperors are not, as a rule, handed in over the counter of a post-office, like a telegram from a husband announcing that he is prevented from dining at home. I asked the Kaiser to explain to me the system pursued with regard to Imperial messages. ‘That is a matter about which you will be able to learn more from the Chancellor than from me,’ was the answer. ‘Foreign despatches go through the Chancellery, and there is a staff of telegraphists there to deal with them. The wire goes direct to the Central Telegraph Office, I believe, from which it would, of course, find its way to the Cable Company.’ ‘Then this fabrication must have been sent from the Chancellery in the first instance?’ I inquired. ‘It could not have been received at the Central Office from an outside source?’