<h3> MR. CAMPBELL AND THE CABLE </h3>
<p> </p>
<p>Just as it is one man's business to manufacture
watches, and another man's business
to peddle shoe-strings, so it was Mr.
Campbell's business to know things. He was
a human card index, a governmental ready reference
posted to the minute and backed by all the
tremendous resources of a nation. From the little
office in the Secret Service Bureau, where he
sat day after day, radiating threads connected
with the huge outer world, and enabled him to
keep a firm hand on the diplomatic and departmental
pulse of Washington. Perhaps he came
nearer knowing everything that happened there
than any other man living; and no man realized
more perfectly than he just how little of all of
it he did know.</p>
<p>In person Mr. Campbell was not unlike a retired
grocer who had shaken the butter and
eggs from his soul and settled back to enjoy a
life of placid idleness. He was a little beyond
middle age, pleasant of face, white of hair, and
blessed with guileless blue eyes. His genius
had no sparkle to it; it consisted solely of detail
and system and indefatigability, coupled with a
memory that was well nigh infallible. His brain
was as serene and orderly as a cash register; one
almost expected to hear it click.</p>
<p>He sat at his desk intently studying a cable
despatch which lay before him. It was in the
Secret Service code. Leaning over his shoulder
was Mr. Grimm—<i>the</i> Mr. Grimm of the bureau.
Mr. Grimm was an utterly different type from
his chief. He was younger, perhaps thirty-one
or two, physically well proportioned, a little
above the average height, with regular features
and listless, purposeless eyes—a replica of a
hundred other young men who dawdle idly in
the windows of their clubs and watch the world
hurry by. His manner was languid; his dress
showed fastidious care.</p>
<p>Sentence by sentence the bewildering intricacies
of the code gave way before the placid understanding
of Chief Campbell, and word by
word, from the chaos of it, a translation took
intelligible form upon a sheet of paper under
his right hand. Mr. Grimm, looking on, exhibited
only a most perfunctory interest in the
extraordinary message he was reading; the listless
eyes narrowed a little, that was all. It was
a special despatch from Lisbon dated that morning,
and signed simply "Gault." Completely
translated it ran thus:</p>
<blockquote><p>"Secret offensive and defensive alliance of the
Latin against the English-speaking nations of
the world is planned. Italy, France, Spain and
two South American republics will soon sign
compact in Washington. Proposition just made
to Portugal, and may be accepted. Special envoys
now working in Mexico and Central and
South America. Germany invited to join, but
refuses as yet, giving, however, tacit support;
attitude of Russia and Japan unknown to me.
Prince Benedetto d'Abruzzi, believed to be in
Washington at present, has absolute power to
sign for Italy, France and Spain. Profound secrecy
enjoined and preserved. I learned of it by
underground. Shall I inform our minister? Cable
instructions."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>"So much!" commented Mr. Campbell.</p>
<p>He clasped his hands behind his head, lay
back in his chair and sat for a long time, staring
with steadfast, thoughtful eyes into the impassive
face of his subordinate. Mr. Grimm
perched himself on the edge of the desk and with
his legs dangling read the despatch a second
time, and a third.</p>
<p>"If," he observed slowly, "if any other man
than Gault had sent that I should have said he
was crazy."</p>
<p>"The peace of the world is in peril, Mr.
Grimm," said Campbell impressively, at last.
"It had to come, of course, the United States
and England against a large part of Europe
and all of Central and South America. It had
to come, and yet—!"</p>
<p>He broke off abruptly, and picked up the receiver
of his desk telephone.</p>
<p>"The White House, please," he requested
curtly, and then, after a moment: "Hello!
Please ask the president if he will receive Mr.
Campbell immediately. Yes, Mr. Campbell of
the Secret Service." There was a pause. Mr.
Grimm removed his immaculate person from the
desk, and took a chair. "Hello! In half an
hour? So much!"</p>
<p>The pages of the Almanac de Gotha fluttered
through his fingers, and finally he leaned forward
and studied a paragraph of it closely.
When he raised his eyes again there was that in
them which Mr. Grimm had never seen before—a
settled, darkening shadow.</p>
<p>"The world-war has long been a chimera, Mr.
Grimm," he remarked at last, "but now—now!
Think of it! Of course, the Central and South
American countries, taken separately, are inconsequential,
and that is true, too, of the Latin
countries of Europe, except France, but taken
in combination, under one directing mind, the
allied navies would be—would be formidable, at
least. Backed by the moral support of Germany,
and perhaps Japan—! Don't you see?
Don't you see?"</p>
<p>He lapsed into silence. Mr. Grimm opened his
lips to ask a question: Mr. Campbell anticipated
it unerringly:</p>
<p>"The purpose of such an alliance? It is not
too much to construe it into the first step toward
a world-war—a war of reprisal and conquest
beside which the other great wars of the world
would seem trivial. For the fact has at last
come home to the nations of the world that ultimately
the English-speaking peoples will dominate
it—dominate it, because they are the practical
peoples. They have given to the world all
its great practical inventions—the railroad, the
steamship, electricity, the telegraph and cable—all
of them; they are the great civilizing forces,
rounding the world up to new moral understanding,
for what England has done in Africa and
India we have done in a smaller way in the Philippines
and Cuba and Porto Rico; they are the
great commercial peoples, slowly but surely winning
the market-places of the earth; wherever
the English or the American flag is planted
there the English tongue is being spoken, and
there the peoples are being taught the sanity
of right living and square dealing.</p>
<p>"It requires no great effort of the imagination,
Mr. Grimm, to foresee that day when the
traditional power of Paris, and Berlin, and St.
Petersburg, and Madrid will be honey-combed
by the steady encroachment of our methods.
This alliance would indicate that already that
day has been foreseen; that there is now a resentment
which is about to find expression in
one great, desperate struggle for world supremacy.
A few hundred years ago Italy—or
Rome—was stripped of her power; only recently the
United States dispelled the illusion that Spain
was anything but a shell; and France—! One
can't help but wonder if the power she boasts is
not principally on paper. But if their forces
are combined? Do you see? It would be an
enormous power to reckon with, with a hundred
bases of supplies right at our doors."</p>
<p>He rose suddenly and walked over to the
window, where he stood for a moment, staring
out with unseeing eyes.</p>
<p>"Given a yard of canvas, Mr. Grimm," he
went on finally, "a Spanish boy will waste it, a
French boy will paint a picture on it, an English
boy will built a sail-boat, and an American
boy will erect a tent. That fully illustrates the
difference in the races."</p>
<p>He abandoned the didactic tone, and returned
to the material matter in hand. Mr. Grimm
passed him the despatch and he sat down again.</p>
<p>"'Will soon sign compact in Washington,'"
he read musingly. "Now I don't know that the
signing of that compact can be prevented, but
the signing of it on United States soil can be
prevented. You will see to that, Mr. Grimm."</p>
<p>"Very well," the young man agreed carelessly.
The magnitude of such a task made, apparently,
not the slightest impression on him.
He languidly drew on his gloves.</p>
<p>"And meanwhile I shall take steps to ascertain
the attitude of Russian and Japanese representatives
in this city."</p>
<p>Mr. Grimm nodded.</p>
<p>"And now, for Prince Benedetto d'Abruzzi,"
Mr. Campbell went on slowly. "Officially he is
not in Washington, nor the United States, for
that matter. Naturally, on such a mission, he
would not come as a publicly accredited agent,
therefore, I imagine, he is to be sought under
another name."</p>
<p>"Of course," Mr. Grimm acquiesced.</p>
<p>"And he would avoid the big hotels."</p>
<p>"Certainly."</p>
<p>Mr. Campbell permitted his guileless blue eyes
to linger inquiringly upon those of the young
man for half a minute. He caught himself wondering,
sometimes, at the perfection of the deliberate
indifference with which Mr. Grimm masked
his emotions. In his admiration of this quality
he quite overlooked the remarkable mask of benevolence
behind which he himself hid.</p>
<p>"And the name, D'Abruzzi," he remarked,
after a time. "What does it mean to you, Mr.
Grimm?"</p>
<p>"It means that I am to deal with a prince of
the royal blood of Italy," was the unhesitating
response. Mr. Grimm picked up the Almanac
de Gotha and glanced at the open page. "Of
course, the first thing to do is to find him; the
rest will be simple enough." He perused the
page carelessly. "I will begin work at once."</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<SPAN name="CH3"><!-- CHAPTER 3 --></SPAN>
<h3> III </h3>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />