"I suppose," he remarked, "you know the risk you have been running?"

"Our friends have reminded us," I answered.

An attendant came in, and Staunton handed us over to him.

"Show this lady and these gentlemen into the strangers' room," he ordered. "See that they have food and wine, and anything they require."

We left at once. In the pa.s.sage we pa.s.sed a little crowd of hurrying journalists on their way to answer Staunton's summons. In every room the alarm bell had sounded, and the making-up of the paper was stopped!

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

WORKING _THE ORACLE_

We had food and wine, plenty of it, and very excellently served. The room in which we were imprisoned was more than comfortable--it was luxurious.

There were couches and easy-chairs, magazines and shaded electric lights.

Yet we could not rest for one moment. Adele and I talked for an hour or so, and we had plenty to say, but in time the fever seized us too. The roar of the machinery below thrilled us through and through. It was the warning which, in a very few hours, would electrify the whole country, which was being whirled into type. I thought of Madame, and once I laughed.

Three times Guest was sent for to give some information, mainly with regard to earlier happenings in Berlin, before our fateful meeting at the Hotel Universal. At last my turn came. It was interesting to visit, if only for a moment, the room where Staunton himself was writing this story.

He was sitting at his table, his coat off, an unlighted cigarette in his mouth, an untasted cup of tea by his side. Two shorthand clerks sat opposite to him, a typist was hard at work a few yards away. Staunton called me over to him. His voice was hoa.r.s.e and raspy, and there were drops of sweat upon his forehead.

"Is it true, Mr. Courage," he said, "that you are still believed here to be dead?"

"Certainly!" I answered. "I have not communicated even with my lawyers.

My subst.i.tute's fate was enough to make me careful!"

"Does any one know on this side?"

"My cousin, Sir Gilbert Hardross. He is with us. He saw Polloch and tried all he could himself."

"Good!" Staunton declared. "One more question. You say that on the committee of the Rifle Club was a German officer. Do you know who he was?"

"I do," I answered. "I saw him at the club when I went to meet my cousin.

His name is Count Metterheim, and he is on the military staff at the Emba.s.sy here."

"Better and better," Staunton grunted. "That's all, thank you!"

I went back to the room where the others were waiting. The few people whom I pa.s.sed looked at me curiously. Already there were rumors flying about the place. In less than five minutes I was summoned again. Staunton looked up from his writing.

"The news has come through of the wrecking of the Cafe Suisse," he said.

"So far your story is substantiated. A man and a woman are in custody.

Their names are Hirsch!"

"He's a member of the committee!" I exclaimed. "I saw him bring in the bag. It was Madame, his wife, who distrusted me all the time."

"Do you think," he asked, "that you were followed here?"

"Very likely," I answered

Staunton turned to a tall, dark young man who stood by his side.

"Tell Mr. Courage what has happened," he said.

The secretary looked at me curiously.

"A man arrived about a quarter of an hour ago who insisted upon seeing Mr. Staunton. He hinted that he had an important revelation to make with regard to the Cafe Suisse outrage. He would not see any one else, and tried to force his way into the place. In the scuffle, a revolver fell out of his pocket, loaded in all six chambers."

"What have you done with him?" I asked.

"Handed him over to the police," the young man answered; "but I am afraid they would never get him to the station. Have you looked out of the window?"

"No!" I answered.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Do so!" he suggested.

I crossed the room, and, drawing the blind aside carefully, looked out.

The street was packed with people! Even as I stood there, I heard the crash of breaking gla.s.s below!

"What does it mean?" I asked, bewildered.

"Your Rifle Corps, I should think," Staunton said, without ceasing writing. "We closed the doors just in time. They will try to wreck the place."

"We have telephoned to Scotland Yard and the Horse Guards," the man who stood by my side said, "and we have forty policemen inside the place now!

Good G.o.d!"

The sudden roar of an explosion split the air. The floor seemed to heave under our feet, and the windows fell in with a crash, letting in the cold night air. We could hear distinctly now the shrieks and groans from below. It seemed to me that the roadway was suddenly strewn with the bodies of prostrate men. I sprang back into the room, we all looked at one another in horror. I think that for my part I expected to see the walls close in upon us.

"A bomb," Staunton remarked calmly. "Listen!"

He leaned a little forward in his chair, his pen still in his hand, his att.i.tude one of strained and nervous attention. By degrees the tension in his face relaxed.

"It goes!" he muttered. "Good!"

He bent once more over his work. I looked at the man by my side in bewilderment.

"What does he mean?" I asked.

"The engine! The machinery is not damaged!" was the prompt reply.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead. The silence in the room seemed almost unnatural, and behind it we could hear the dull, monotonous roar of the machinery, still doing its work. Once more I turned to the window, and as I did so I heard the sullen murmur of voices. A little way down the street a solid body of mounted police were forcing back the people.

I made my way back to the other room, almost knocked down in the pa.s.sage by a man, half-dressed, tearing along with a bundle of wet proofs in his hand. Adele was standing by the wrecked window-frame--there were no more windows anywhere in the building--and she turned to me with a little cry.