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Updated: May 31, 2025
"And she wishes to see you," he continued. "Lady Chelsford is chaperoning her to-night to Suffolk House, but she says that she should have come here in any case. She believes that you are going to China." "Did you tell her?" I asked. "I have told her nothing," he answered. "The question is, what you are to tell her. I understand, Ducaine, that Lady Angela was engaged to be married to Colonel Ray."
"I have brought up the first batch of copy, sir," I answered. "You have sealed it properly?" "With Lord Chelsford's seal, sir," I told him. He turned round in his chair sharply. "What's that?" he asked. "Lord Chelsford gave me an old signet ring before he left, sir," I said, "with a very peculiar design. I wear it attached by a chain to an iron bracelet round my arm."
Ducaine," he said, "who is there in the household of the Duke who opens that safe and copies those papers? Who is the traitor?" "God only knows!" I answered. "It is a hopeless mystery." "Yet we must solve it," Lord Chelsford said, "and quickly. If a single batch of genuine maps and plans were tampered with, disparities would certainly appear, and the thing might be suspected.
Lord Chelsford poured himself out a glass of wine, and held it up to the light for a moment. "Mr. Ducaine," he said, "a secret is a very subtle thing. Though the people who handle it are men of the most unblemished honour and reputation, still the fewer they are, the safer the life of that secret." "But the Duke and Colonel Ray!" I protested.
"I should not dream of any concealment," I answered. "Of course not! But it is possible Ah!" He broke off and remained listening. There was the sound of a quick footstep in the hall. "Now you will understand what I mean," he whispered. "Remember!" It was not Chelsford, but the Duke, who entered and greeted me cordially. With a farewell nod to me Ray disappeared.
Lady Angela emerged from the plantation and crossed the open space in front of the cottage with swift footsteps. Her hair was streaming in the breeze as though she had been running, but there was not a vestige of colour in her cheeks. Her eyes, too, were like the eyes of a frightened child. Lord Chelsford descended the stairs and himself admitted her.
I exclaimed, startled for the moment out of my respectful silence. The Duke himself seemed affected by the revelation which he had made. He sat forward in his chair with puckered brows and bent head. His voice, which had been growing lower and lower, had sunk almost to a whisper. It seemed to me that he made a sign to Lord Chelsford to continue.
I looked at him in blank amazement. The thing seemed impossible. "But in very many cases," I protested, "the code word for opening the safe has been known only to Colonel Ray, the Duke, and myself." "The fact remains as I have stated it," Lord Chelsford said slowly. "My information is positive.
With him came Lord Chelsford, whose face and figure were familiar enough to me from the pages of the illustrated papers. Dark, spare, and tall, he spoke seldom, but I felt all the while the merciless investigation of his searching eyes. The Duke, on the other hand, seemed to have thrown aside some part of his customary reserve. He spoke at greater length and with more freedom than I had heard him.
Besides, upon the face of it, the thing is terribly serious." "You have a plan," I said. "I have," Lord Chelsford answered calmly. "You remember Grooton?" "Certainly! He was a servant at Braster." "And the very faithful servant of his country also," Lord Chelsford remarked. "You know, I believe, that he was a secret service man. He is entirely safe, and I have sent for him.
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