“I know exactly what they will be,” Fenn pointed out. “The trouble, of course, is that the missing packet contains the signature of the three guarantors. The packet, no doubt, will be in the hands of the Foreign Office by to-morrow. The Prime Minister can verify our statements. We present our ultimatum a little sooner than we intended, but we get our blow in first and we are ready.”
“Forgive me if I intervene for one moment,” he begged. “You say that Julian Orden has escaped. Are we to understand that he is absolutely at liberty and in a normal state of health?”
“I have no reason to believe the contrary,” he said.
“Still, it is possible,” the Bishop persisted, “that Julian Orden may not be in a position to forward that document to the Foreign Office for the present? If that is so, I am inclined to think that the Prime Minister would consider your visit a bluff. Certainly, you would have no argument weighty enough to induce him to propose the armistice. No man could act upon your word alone. He would want to see these wonderful proposals in writing, even if he were convinced of the justice of your arguments.”
There was a little murmur of approval. Fenn leaned forward.
“You drive me to a further disclosure,” he declared, after a moment’s hesitation, “one, perhaps, which I ought already to have made. I have arranged for a duplicate of that packet to be prepared and forwarded. I set this matter on foot the moment we heard from Miss Abbeway here of her mishap. The duplicate may reach us at any moment.”
“Then I propose,” the Bishop said, “that we postpone our decision until those papers be received. Remember that up to the present moment the Council have not pledged themselves to take action until they have perused that document.”
“And supposing,” Fenn objected, “that to-morrow morning at eight o’clock, twenty-three of us are marched off to the Tower! Our whole cause may be paralysed, all that we have worked for all these months will be in vain, and this accursed and bloody war may be dragged on until our politicians see fit to make a peace of words.”
“I know Mr. Stenson well,” the Bishop declared, “and I am perfectly convinced that he is too sane-minded a man to dream of taking such a step as you suggest. He, at any rate, if others in his Cabinet are not so prescient, knows what Labour means.”