Jennie Baxter, Journalist - Robert Barr (novels in english .TXT) 📗

and destructive that, if it got into the hands of an anarchist, he could, alone, lay the city of Vienna in ruins."

"Good heavens!" cried the horrified official, whose bane was the anarchist, and Jennie, in mentioning this particular type of criminal, had builded better than she knew. If she had told him that the Professor's invention might enable Austria to conquer all the surrounding nations, there is every chance that the machine would have been carefully preserved.

"The explosion in the Treasury vaults," continued Jennie, "was accidentally caused by this instrument, although the machine at the moment was in a garret half a mile away. You saw the terrible effect of that explosion; imagine, then, the destruction it would cause in the hands of one of those anarchists who are so reckless of consequences."

"I shall destroy the instrument with my own hands," asserted the Director fervently, mopping his pallid brow.

Jennie then went on, to the increasing astonishment of the Princess and the Director, and related every detail of her interview with the late professor Carl Seigfried.

"I shall go at once and annihilate that machine," said the Director, rising when the recital was finished. "I shall see to that myself. Then, after the inquest, I shall give an order that everything in the attic is to be destroyed. I wish that every scientific man on the face of the earth could be safely placed behind prison bars."

"I am afraid that wouldn't do much good," replied Jennie, "unless you could prevent chemicals being smuggled in. The scientists would probably reduce your prison to powder, and walk calmly out through the dust."

Mr. Hardwick had told Jennie that if she solved the Vienna mystery she would make a European reputation for the _Daily Bugle_. Jennie did more than was expected of her, yet the European reputation which the _Bugle_ established was not one to be envied. It is true that the account printed of the cause of the explosion, dramatically completed with the Professor's tragically sudden death, caused a great sensation in London. The comic papers of the week were full of illustrations showing the uses to which the Professor's instrument might be put. To say that any sane man in England believed a word of the article would be to cast an undeserved slight upon the intelligence of the British public. No one paused to think that if a newspaper had published an account of what could be done by the Roeentgen rays, without being able to demonstrate practically the truth of the assertions made, the contribution would have been laughed at. If some years ago a newspaper had stated that a man in York listened to the voice of a friend at that moment standing in London, and was not only able to hear what his friend said, but could actually recognize the voice speaking in an ordinary tone, and then if the paper had added that, unfortunately, the instrument which accomplished this had been destroyed, people would have denounced the sensational nature of modern journalism.

Letters poured in upon the editor, saying that while, as a general rule, the writers were willing to stand the ordinary lie of commerce daily printed in the sheet, there was a limit to their credulity and they objected to be taken for drivelling imbeciles. To complete the discomfiture of the _Daily Bugle_, the Government of Austria published an official statement, which Reuter and the special correspondents scattered broadcast over the earth. The statement was written in that calm, serious, and consistent tone which diplomatists use when uttering a falsehood of more than ordinary dimensions.

Irresponsible rumours had been floating about (the official proclamation began) to the effect that there had been an explosion in the Treasury at Vienna. It had been stated that a large quantity of gold had been stolen, and that a disaster of some kind had occurred in the Treasury vaults. Then a ridiculous story had been printed which asserted that Professor Seigfried, one of Austria's honoured dead, had in some manner that savoured of the Black Art, encompassed this wholesale destruction. The Government now begged to make the following declarations: First, not a penny had been stolen out of the Treasury; second, the so-called war-chest was intact; third, the two hundred million florins reposed securely within the bolted doors of the Treasury vaults; fourth, the coins were not, as had been alleged, those belonging to various countries, which was a covert intimation that Austria had hostile intent against one or the other of those friendly nations. The whole coinage in this falsely named war-chest, which was not a war-chest at all, but merely the receptacle of a reserve fund which Austria possessed, was entirely in Austrian coinage; fifth, in order that these sensational and disquieting scandals should be set at rest, the Government announced that it intended to weigh this gold upon a certain date, and it invited representatives of the Press, from Russia, Germany, France, and England to witness this weighing.

The day after this troy-weight function had taken place in Vienna, long telegraphic accounts of it appeared in the English press, and several solemn leading articles were put forward in the editorial columns, which, without mentioning the name of the _Daily Bugle_, deplored the voracity of the sensational editor, who respected neither the amity which should exist between friendly nations, nor the good name of the honoured and respected dead, in his wolfish hunt for the daily scandal. Nothing was too high-spiced or improbable for him to print. He traded on the supposed gullibility of a fickle public. But, fortunately, in the long run, these staid sheets asserted, such actions recoiled upon the head of him who promulgated them. Sensational journals merited and received the scathing contempt of all honest men. Later on, one of the reviews had an article entitled "Some Aspects of Modern Journalism," which battered in the head of the _Daily Bugle_ as with a sledge hammer, and in one of the quarterlies a professor at Cambridge showed the absurdity of the alleged invention from a scientific point of view.

"I swear," cried Mr. Hardwick, as he paced up and down his room, "that I shall be more careful after this in the handling of truth; it is a most dangerous thing to meddle with. If you tell the truth about a man, you are mulcted in a libel suit, and if you tell the truth about a nation, the united Press of the country are down upon you. Ah, well, it makes the battle of life all the more interesting, and we are baffled to fight better, as Browning says."

The editor had sent for Miss Baxter, and she now sat by his desk while he paced nervously to and fro. The doors were closed and locked so that they might not be interrupted, and she knew by the editor's manner that something important was on hand. Jennie had returned to London after a month's stay in Vienna, and had been occupied for a week at her old routine work in the office.

"Now, Miss Baxter," said the editor, when he had proclaimed his distrust of the truth as a workable material in journalism, "I have a plan to set before you, and when you know what it is, I am quite prepared to hear you refuse to have anything to do with it. And, remember, if you _do_ undertake it, there is but one chance in a million of your succeeding. It is on this one chance that I propose now to send you to St. Petersburg--"

"To St. Petersburg!" echoed the girl in dismay.

"Yes," said the editor, mistaking the purport of her ejaculation, "it is a very long trip, but you can travel there in great comfort, and I want you to spare no expense in obtaining for yourself every luxury that the various railway lines afford during your journey to St. Petersburg and back."

"And what am I to go to St. Petersburg for?" murmured Jennie faintly.

"Merely for a letter. Here is what has happened, and what is happening. I shall mention no names, but at present a high and mighty personage in Russia, who is friendly to Great Britain, has written a private letter, making some proposals to a certain high and mighty personage in England, who is friendly to Russia. This communication is entirely unofficial; neither Government is supposed to know anything at all about it. As a matter of fact, the Russian Government have a suspicion, and the British Government have a certainty, that such a document will shortly be in transit. Nothing may come of it, or great things may come of it. Now on the night of the 21st, in one of the sleeping cars leaving St. Petersburg by the Nord Express for Berlin, there will travel a special messenger having this letter in his possession. I want you to take passage by that same train and secure a compartment near the messenger, if possible. This messenger will be a man in whom the respective parties to the negotiation have implicit confidence. I wish I knew his name, but I don't; still, the chances are that he is leaving London for St. Petersburg about this time, and so you might keep your eyes open on your journey there, for, if you discovered him to be your fellow-passenger, it might perhaps make the business that comes after easier. You see this letter," continued the editor, taking from a drawer in his desk a large envelope, the flap of which was secured by a great piece of stamped sealing-wax. "This merely contains a humble ordinary copy of to-day's issue of the _Bugle_, but in outside appearance it might be taken for a duplicate of the letter which is to leave St. Petersburg on the 21st. Now, what I would like you to do is to take this envelope in your hand-bag, and if, on the journey back to London, you have an opportunity of securing the real letter, and leaving this in its place, you will have accomplished the greatest service you have yet done for the paper."

"Oh!" cried Jennie, rising, "I couldn't think of that, Mr. Hardwick--I couldn't _think_ of doing it. It is nothing short of highway robbery!"

"I know it looks like that," pleaded Hardwick; "but listen to me. If I were going to open the letter and use its contents, then you might charge me with instigating theft. The fact is, the letter will not be delayed; it will reach the hands of the high and mighty personage in England quite intact. The only difference is that you will be its bearer instead of the messenger they send for it."

"You expect to open the letter, then, in some surreptitious way--some way that will not be noticed afterwards? Oh, I couldn't do it, Mr. Hardwick."

"My dear girl, you are jumping at conclusions. I shall amaze you when I tell you that I know already practically what the contents of that letter are."

"Then what is the use of going to all this expense and trouble trying to steal it?"

"Don't say 'steal it,' Miss Baxter. I'll tell you what my motive is. There is an official in England who has gone out of his way to throw obstacles in mine. This is needless and irritating, for generally I manage to get the news I am in quest of; but in several instances, owing to his opposition, I have not only not got the news, but other papers have. Now, since the general raking we have had over this Austrian business, quite aside from the fact that we published the exact truth, this stupid old official duffer has taken it upon himself to be exceedingly sneering and obnoxious to me, and I confess