e. The future of the great thing for which our own statesmen
and the statesmen of some of the countries provisionally leagued
together with us are working--well, that result, to put the thing
mildly, would be jeopardised. The very least that could happen would be
that four governments would be tremendously embarrassed.

"Indeed it is hard offhand to calculate the possibilities of disaster,
but this much is quite sure: Our enemy--and Germany is as much our enemy
now as she was during active hostilities--would almost inevitably
succeed in the very thing she has been plotting to bring about, which is
the sowing of discord among the Allies, not to mention the increase of a
racial distrust and a racial antagonism which exist in certain quarters,
and, on top of all that, the widening and deepening of a problem which
already has been sufficiently difficult and delicate."

"I see. Well?"

"Well, naturally everything possible was done at Washington to
safeguard a dispatch of such tremendous importance. No copies of the
communication were made. The original was put in a place where it was
presumed to be absolutely safe. But within forty-eight hours it
disappeared from the place where it had been put."

"How did it disappear? Is that known?"

"It was stolen. A government clerk named Westerfeltner, a man who held a
place of trust and confidence, was the man who stole it. For it he was
offered a sum of money which would make him independent for life, and
under the temptation he weakened and he stole it. But first he stole the
key to the cipher, which would make it possible for anyone having both
the key and the message to decode the message. Once this is done the
damage is done, for the signature is ample proof of the validity of the
document. That is the one thing above all others we are trying to
prevent now."

"But why couldn't the thief have decoded the dispatch?"

"He might have, excepting for two things. In the first place his
principal, the man who corrupted him to betray his honour and
incidentally to betray his Government, would not trust him to do this.
The head plotter demanded the original paper. In the second place an
interval of a day and a half elapsed between the theft of the code and
the theft of the dispatch. Before the thief secured the dispatch the
key had already passed out of his possession."

"How do you know these things with such certainty?"

"Because Westerfeltner has confessed. He confessed to me