“This should be a sign that we are in earnest. You will be given one
more chance. Send to the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral at nine o'clock
to-night. Man will meet you there, and things can be discussed.
Understand clearly that this man must not be tampered with. His arrest
will lead not only to worse befalling Lady Kathleen, but to your
secret passing immediately to Germany. The same results will follow if
any attempt is made to buy the man's assistance.”
Westerham read this message through three times, until at last he could
repeat every word of it by heart. He folded it up, and placing it in
his waistcoat-pocket, shut the lid of the box and placed it in a drawer
of the Premier's writing-table.
Next he went back to Lord Penshurst's room, which he entered without
knocking. The broken old man lay on the bed, his face buried in the
pillows, so entirely wrapped up in his grief that he scarcely heeded
the hand which Westerham placed on his shoulder.
But presently Westerham persuaded him to look up, and then drawing a
chair to the bedside, he sat down.
“I want you to forget, Lord Penshurst,” he said, “what you saw just
now. It is unnecessary to remember it. It is a horrible thing, but the
man who did such an awful deed shall suffer for it.”
He looked away with a set face, which boded no good for Melun when he
found him.
“There is, however, one comfort to be extracted from our distress,”
he continued. “At last we have a clue. The opportunity which I was
certain must come is in our hands now.
“Before nine o'clock, however, there is much to be done. You are
scarcely able to take charge of matters yourself, and you had better
leave them to me. I have already taken measures which ought to prove
effective, though we shall have to act very carefully and cautiously.”
Lord Penshurst dragged himself up into a sitting posture and turned his
blurred and scared old eyes to Westerham's resolute face.
He clenched his fists and beat excitedly on the coverlet.
“Don't let that fiend escape! Oh! if I had the strength I could kill
him! I could kill him myself!”
Westerham did his best to soothe him.
“Have no fear,” he said, “that I shall let him slip through my fingers
this time. And Heaven judge between us when I do meet him!”
The Premier clutched at his hands in an appealing and childish way.
“Don't spare him! Don't spare him!” he cried.
“There's no fear of that,” said Westerham, and he rose up to go.
When he regained the Prime Minister's study he sent for a map of
London, and for some minutes studied it with close attention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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