lly mean me to go to China, sir?" I asked him, anxiously.

"Not I!" he answered. "I am going to send you to Braster."

CHAPTER XXXVII

LORD CHELSFORD'S DIPLOMACY

I dined alone with Lord and Lady Chelsford. From the moment of our
arrival at Chelsford House my host had encouraged nothing but the most
general conversation. It happened that they were alone, as a great
dinner party had been postponed at the last moment owing to some Royal
indisposition. Lord Chelsford in his wife's presence was careful to
treat me as an ordinary guest; but directly she had left the room and we
were alone he abandoned his reticence.

"Mr. Ducaine," he said, "from the time of our last conversation at the
War Office and our subsequent _tete-a-tete_ I have reposed in you the
most implicit confidence."

"I have done my best, sir," I answered, "to deserve it."

"I believe you," he declared. "I am going now to extend it. I am going
to tell you something which will probably surprise you very much. Since
the first time when you found your documents tampered with, every map
and every word of writing entrusted to the safe, either at Braster House
or Cavendish Square, has been got at. Exact copies of them are in Paris
to-day."

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. When you came to me and suggested that you
should make two copies of everything, one correct, one a mass of
incorrectness, I must admit that I thought the idea farfetched and
unworkable. Events, however, have proved otherwise. I have safely
received everything which you sent me, and up to the present, with the
exception of that first plan of the Winchester forts, our secrets are
unknown. But now we have come to a deadlock."

"If you do not mind telling me, Lord Chelsford, I should very much like
to know why you did not explain the exact circumstances to Ray and the
Duke this afternoon."

Lord Chelsford nodded.

"I thought that you would ask that," he said. "It is not altogether an
easy question to answer. Remember this. The French War Office are
to-day in possession of an altogether false scheme of our proposed
defences--a scheme which, if they continue to regard it as genuine,
should prove nothing short of disastrou