"
"I must confess that I am relieved to hear you say so," Nigel replied.
"All the information which I have points to a crisis very near at hand."
The Prime Minister leaned a little across the table.
"The immediate reason for my sending for you," he explained, "is this.
My friend the American Ambassador has just sent me a copy of a wireless
dispatch which he has received from China from one of their former
agents. The report seems to have been sent to him for safety, but the
sender of it, of whose probity, by the by, the American Ambassador
pledges himself, appears to have been sent to China by you."
"Jesson!" Nigel exclaimed. "I have heard of this already, sir, from a
friend in the American Embassy."
"The dispatch," Mr. Mervin Brown went on, "is in some respects a little
vague, but it is, on the other hand, I frankly admit, disturbing. It
gives specific details as to definite military preparations on the part
of China and Russia, associated, presumably, with a third Power whose
name you will forgive my not mentioning. These preparations appear to
have been brought almost to completion in the strictest secrecy, but the
headquarters of the whole thing, very much to my surprise, I must
confess, seems to be in southern China."
"In that case," Nigel pointed out, "if you will permit me to make a
suggestion, sir, you have a very simple course open to you."
"Well?"
"Send for Prince Shan."
"Prince Shan," the Prime Minister replied, with knitted brows, "is not
over in this country officially.
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