An extraordinary meeting of the Cabinet was held, and cipher instructions at once sent to each of His Majesty's Ambassadors abroad--instructions which had the result of successfully combating the intrigue at Berlin, and for the time being breaking up the proposed powerful combination against us. The bitter chagrin of the German Chancellor is well known in diplomatic circles, yet to Suzette Darbour our kid-gloved _coup_ meant her freedom. In my presence she openly defied Henry Banfield and cut herself adrift from him, while Charles Pierron, after his ignominious failure in Berlin, and possibly on account of certain allegations made by the rich American, who wished to get rid of him, was dismissed from the French Secret Service and disappeared, while the pretty Suzette, three months afterwards, married Armand Thomas. I was present at the quiet wedding out at Melun in the first days of 1909, being the bearer of a costly present in the form of a pretty diamond pendant, as well as a dozen pairs of sixteen-button-length kid gloves from an anonymous donor. She alone knew that the pendant had been sent to her as a mark of gratitude by the grave-faced old peer, the confirmed woman-hater, who was Minister for Foreign Affairs of His Majesty King Edward the Seventh. More than once lately I have been a welcome visitor at the bright little apartment within a stone's-throw of the Étoile. CHAPTER IX THE SECRET OF OUR NEW GUN Ray and I were in Newcastle-on-Tyne a few weeks after our success in frustrating the German plot against England. Certain observations we had kept had led us to believe that a frantic endeavour was being made to obtain certain details of a new type of gun, of enormous power and range, which at that moment was under construction at the Armstrong Works at Elswick. The Tyne and Tees have long ago been surveyed by Germany, and no doubt the accurate and detailed information pigeon-holed in the Intelligence Bureau at Berlin would, if seen by the good people of Newcastle, cause them a _mauvais quart d'heure_, as well as considerable alarm. Yet there are one or two secrets of the Tyne and its defences which are fortunately not yet the property of our friends the enemy. Vera was in Switzerland with her father. But from our quarters at the Station Hotel in Newcastle we made many careful and confidential inquiries. We discovered, among other things, the existence of a secret German club in a back street off Grainger Street, and the members of this institution we watched narrowly.