Committee 9 met at three o'clock in the spacious and sunny saloon known as Committee Room C. The only portion of the public admitted was the correspondent of the British Bolshevist, who sat behind the President's chair with a portfolio full of papers, looking pale, shabby, and tired, but exalted, like one whose great moment is at hand.
After the minutes of the last meeting had been read, the President rose to address the committee, in French. He had, he said, some fresh and important facts to communicate. A quite new line of inquiry had that day been suggested to him by one who had for some time been secretly pursuing investigations. The facts revealed were so startling, so amazing, that very substantial evidence would be necessary to persuade committee members of their truth. It could at present be only a tentative theory that was set before the committee; but let the committee remember that magna est veritas et prevalebit; that they were there to fulfil a great duty, and not to be deterred by any fears, any reluctances, any personal friendships, any dread of scandal, from seeking to draw out truth from her well. He asked his colleagues to listen while he told them a strange story.
The story, as he told it, gained from his more important presence, his more eloquent and yet more impartial manner, a plausibility which Henry's had lacked. His very air, of one making a painful and tentative revelation, was better than Henry's rather shrill eagerness. Every now and then he paused and waved his hand at Henry sitting behind him, and said, “My friend Mr. Beechtree here has documentary evidence of this, which I will lay before the committee shortly.” When, after long working up to it, he gave the suspected member of the Secretariat the name of Wilbraham, it fell on the tense attention of the whole table. Henry, looking up to watch its reception, saw surprise on many faces, incredulity on several, pleasure on more, amusement on a few. He met also the blue eyes of Mr. Macdermott fixed on him with a smile of cynical admiration. Macdermott would doubtless have something to say when the President had done. But what he was now thinking was that the correspondent of the British Bolshevist had more journalistic gifts than one would have given him credit for.
“Where, you may demand of me,” proceeded the President, “is M. Wilbraham now? That I cannot tell you. He entered this system of secret passages last night in company with those who are suspected by Mr. Beechtree of being his fellow conspirators, and he has not been seen since. Have they, possibly, escaped, their evil work done? Whither have they gone? Who was that Protestant pastor? What doings, gentlemen, engage the attentions of M. Kratzky of Russia, that enemy of small republics, Sir John Levis of Pottle and Kett, that enemy of peace, a soi-disant Protestant pastor, the presumed enemy of true religion, and M. Wilbraham of the Secretariat? Mind, gentlemen, I impute nothing. I merely inquire.”
A murmur of applause broke from the Latin Americans. As it died down, Henry, looking up, saw standing by the door Charles Wilbraham, cool, immaculate, attentive, and unperturbed, and the soi-disant Protestant pastor at his elbow.
