Читать книгу Secret History of To-day: Being Revelations of a Diplomatic Spy онлайн

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I looked back at the Bavarian before demanding—

‘Have you any definite scheme to put before me?’

‘Until I know that you accept,’ he demurred.

‘I do not know that you are accredited,’ I reminded him.

‘What authority do you require?’

‘The Imperial autograph simply.’

‘Impossible.’

‘I am accustomed to be trusted by my employers,’ I returned decidedly. ‘I cannot act under any other conditions.’

‘That is final?’

‘It is final.’

‘Then I am afraid I can only ask you to forget that I have occupied so much of your time.’

I allowed Kehler to rise and take his departure without making the least sign. The moment he was out of hearing I sprang to the telephone and rang up the agent of the Sugar Trust.

Herr Kehler’s refusal to produce the guarantee for which I asked convinced me that he contemplated some action of a character doubtful, to say the least, if not criminal.

It would have been useless for me to communicate my suspicions to the American Minister in Paris. The diplomacy of the United States, blunt and self-reliant, takes little account of the subterranean intrigue which pervades European politics. But the Government of Washington was not the only factor concerned. As Europe is beginning to learn, the Union is a federation, not so much of those geographical divisions which are painted in different colours on the map, and called States, but of those vast organisations of capital which control the American electoral system, and fill the Senate with their delegates. Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Illinois—these are merely names for school children; the Silver Ring, the Steel Trust, the Cotton Trust, the Pork Trust—such are the true American Powers.