Chapter Two
The Rising Cloud
A fortnight later — the second day of August, to be exact.
The Taverne Joseph, that popular restaurant in the Boulevard d’Anspach, in Brussels, where, beneath the shadow of the Bourse, the business-man gets such deliciousplâts du jour, was crowded, as it always is each day at noon. The many little tables set out upon the pavement, along which the life of the bright little Belgian capital ebbed and flowed, were filled by men who daily, year in and year out, ate their midday meal, gossiped, and drank long glasses of icedbock.
At one table, in a corner by the glass screen which divided the pavement before Joseph’s establishment from that belonging to a restaurant next door, Edmond Valentin sat alone.
He had every reason to congratulate himself most heartily. An hour ago, after making a most brilliant and impassioned speech for the defence in the Assize Court, the trial of the Affaire of the Rue du Trône had at last ended. The chemist’s assistant, Sigart, a cruel-hearted assassin who had killed his young wife by administering gelsiminium — as the prosecution had alleged — had been acquitted, and upon Edmond’s remarkable success he had been everywhere congratulated by hisconfrères in the great atrium of the Courts.
As he sat alone, idly watching the passers-by, he was wondering what Aimée would think. She would read in thePetit Bleu that night the account of the trial, which she was so closely following, he knew. What would she say when she saw that he had been successful — that he had made a name in the legal world at last!
He was in the act of lighting a cigarette, one of a special brand of Egyptians which were sold only at the littleMosque in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel opposite, when a strident voice reached his ear, and next second a perspiring young vendor of newspapers, in a peaked cap, thrust under his nose a newspaper, crying in French, “German Ultimatum to Belgium! —V’la Le Journal!” He paid his sou, and eagerly opened the thin damp sheet.
His quick eyes scanned the sinister news which the paper contained, to the effect that the German Minister in Brussels had, at seven o’clock on the previous evening, offered Belgium anentente with Germany in return for her facilitating German military operations. A pistol was held at Belgium’s head. She had been given till seven o’clock that morning to reply. A Council Meeting had been held which had lasted till midnight, after which Messieurs Hymans and Van den Heuvel had drafted a reply, which for three hours further had been discussed. Belgium relied upon the treaty to which Germany herself had been signatory, guaranteeing her neutrality, and had therefore replied that she could not accept the proposal.
Edmond Valentin held his breath as he read those significant lines of print.
Half the men in the restaurant eagerly bought papers, were silent for a moment, and then the greatest excitement was apparent everywhere.
“War with Germany!” yelled the newsvendors in strident tones as they rushed along the Boulevard, and even the police — the most correct in Europe — were so dumbfounded that they did not raise a voice
