He broke off suddenly, for there was a knock at the door. A _commissionaire_ entered with a telegram. It was for Spence. He opened the envelope, read the contents with a groan, and passed it to the editor.
"Schmöulder entirely confirms discovery, is communicating first instance with Kaiser privately, fuller details in mail, confer Ommaney, make statement to Secretary Society, use Wire medium publicity, leave all to you, see Prime Minister, send out Llwellyn behalf Government immediately, meanwhile suggest attitude suspended decision, personally fear little doubt.--HANDS."
"We must act at once," said Ommaney. "We have a fearful responsibility now. It's not too much to say that everything depends on us. Have you got any of that brandy left? My head throbs like an engine."
A sub-editor who came in and was briefly dismissed told his colleagues that something was going on in the editor's room of an extraordinary nature. "The chief was actually drinking a peg, and his hand shook like a leaf."
Ommaney drank the spirits--he was an absolute teetotaler as a rule, though not pledged in any way to abstinence--and it revived him.
"Now let us try and think," he said, lighting a cigarette and walking up and down the room.
Spence lit a cigarette also. As he did so he gave a sudden, sharp, unnatural chuckle. He was smoking when the Light of the World--the whole great world!--was flickering into darkness.
Ommaney saw him and interpreted the thought. He pulled him up at once with a few sharp words, for he knew that Spence was close upon hysteria.
"From a news point of view," he continued, "we hold all the cards. No one else knows what we know. I am certain that the German papers will publish nothing for a day or two. The Emperor will tell them nothing, and they can have no other source of information; so I gather from this telegram. Dr. Schmöulder will not say anything until he has instructions from Potsdam. That means I need not publish anything in to-morrow's paper. It will relieve me of a great responsibility. We shall be first in the field, but I shall still have a few hours to consult with others."
He pressed a bell on the table. "Tell Mr. Jones I wish to see him," he told the boy who answered the summons.