r boy to his Prime Minister, he must conduct a business office
and a fashionable restaurant and successfully run a detective bureau.

Something of the ambitions of Franz Ferdinand and his wife had been
known to the Right Honorable Sir Herbert Southgate; the Archduke's visit
with his wife to the court of St. James was significant, and their stay
at Potsdam dutifully recorded at Berlin, had shown something of the
nature of the _rapprochement_ between Archduke and Kaiser. The visit of
the Kaiser to the Archduke's hunting lodge at Eckartzau on the Danube,
had set tongues wagging, and private information had served to warn Sir
Herbert that an understanding had been brought about. The visit to the
roses of Konopisht had not deceived the Ambassador, for it was known
that a pact of some sort had been made, but the revelations of Mr.
Renwick had been of a nature to appall.

A night of deliberation had done little to obliterate the Ambassador's
grave fears for the future, and he communicated at once in code and in
full with the Home Government. He lost little time upon the following
day in setting in motion all the devices he possessed for obtaining
secret information as to the effect of Countess Strahni's startling
disclosures.

For several months the surface of the diplomatic pool had been ominously
placid. Few ripples had disturbed its surface, save those occasional
ones from the direction of unquiet Serbia. But the waters were seething
now, stirred to their very lees by plot and counterplot. The advices
received by the Ambassador were alarming. Had the attack upon Hugh
Renwick failed to advise him that the military party possessed full
knowledge of the Countess Strahni's disclosures, he should soon have
discovered it. There was an undercurrent of intrigue in various high
offices which advised him that communications of the greatest importance
were passing. His own interests, of course, were best served by a
studied innocence and unconcern, and his public appearances, both social
and official, gave no sign of his intimate knowledge of approaching
calamity.

The first surface indication of the turmoil was a polite note from the
ministry, stating that his second secretary, Hugh Renwick, was _persona
non grata_ to the Austrian government, and requesting his recall. This
indicated a definite purpose neither to ignore nor condone, and in
itself was a surprising admission of the facts. The Ambassador by note
expressed his high o