"A Romance of the Chancelleries of Europe" (continued 3)

“Well, signore, His Excellency came out of the room just as I went on sentry duty, and for half an hour no one else entered. Several clerks and others came to the door, but I did not permit them to go in, and told them His Excellency was absent. At half-past twelve Colonel Pironti, whom I knew as His Excellency’s secretary, came up the stairs, and of course I allowed him to pass in. He was there about ten minutes, when he came out again with a large orange-coloured portfolio in his hand.”

“That contained the papers,” Waldron remarked.

“I suppose so, signore. Then nobody entered the room until Colonel Pironti came back again at half-past two. He had the same orange-coloured portfolio in his hand, and took it inside. When he came out I saw that he had left it within. He had evidently placed it in the safe, for as he came out of the door he was putting a key attached to a chain into his trousers-pocket.”

“And after that?” asked Waldron, his dark eyes fixed intently upon the man he had under examination.

“Well, signore, several gentlemen came to interview His Excellency the Minister, but I, of course, allowed no one to pass. His Excellency himself came back at three o’clock. He remained about ten minutes and then left. His chauffeur came up and told me his car had arrived. I went in and announced the fact.”

“His car!” sniffed Waldron suspiciously. “He was in a hurry to get away—eh?”

“His Excellency had an appointment at the Tivoli—so his chauffeur told me.”

Waldron made a mental note of that curious fact.

“And then?” he asked.

“His Excellency had left about ten minutes when Colonel Lambarini, the secretary of the Council of Defence, came up to the door, which I opened for him, as he always had access to His Excellency’s private cabinet. He was inside for a few seconds when he suddenly rushed out wildly and asked: ‘Who has been here since Colonel Pironti?’ I replied that only His Excellency himself had been there, and had just gone. ‘There has been a theft! Some very important papers have been stolen; and you, as sentry, are responsible!’ I stood aghast. Then he dragged me inside the room, and showed me the safe open, and the drawer was empty.”

“Then you are sure—quite sure that nobody entered that room after His Excellency had left?” asked Waldron earnestly, for that was an extremely important point.

“Nobody, signore. I will swear that as a soldier of Italy, before His Majesty my King—if necessary.”

Chapter Fifteen.

Behind the Throne.

After Hubert Waldron had left the corporal of Bersiglieri he entertained a distinct feeling that His Excellency the General knew more of the theft than he had admitted.

On his return to the Minister’s private cabinet he found His Excellency in consultation with his secretary, Pironti, a tall, thin-faced, black-haired man, with whom he presently held a long discussion regarding the theft. The secretary of the Council of Defence was also called, and the quartette sat for nearly an hour putting forward various theories as to how the documents could have been extracted. Up to the present it was a dead secret. But how long it would remain so was a question.

“Secrecy is all-important,” Waldron declared at last. “We must allow no word of this to leak out. It is His Majesty’s express command.”

“That sentry may possibly gossip,” remarked His Excellency, drawing slowly at his cigar stump, for he smoked perpetually.

“I have already impressed upon him the necessity for silence,” replied Waldron.

“In my own opinion the man knows something of the affair,” the General went on. “He was on sentry duty, and tells us that nobody whatsoever passed in here except we three. Yet, notwithstanding, the papers were stolen! He must have neglected his duty in some way—without a shadow of a doubt.”

“Yes,” replied his secretary, “I quite agree with Your Excellency that if he were continuously on duty, as he alleges that he was, then he must have seen the thief.”

“Probably bribed to remain silent,” His Excellency grunted suspiciously.

Waldron uttered no word. He watched the General’s face keenly and kept his own counsel.

“The affair is a complete mystery,” remarked Lambarini, who had spoken but little. “I, too, incline towards the opinion that the man, Tonini, knows the identity of the thief, but will not speak.”

“If I have him arrested then we might get him to open his lips,” His Excellency exclaimed. Waldron at once said:

“No. His arrest would betray the secret of Your Excellency’s loss. Besides, such an injudicious action would place a very serious obstacle in the channel of my present inquiries.”

“Then you are against his arrest. Why?”

“Because that man has told me the truth.”

The three high officials stared at the Englishman in surprise.

“Yes,” Waldron went on boldly, “I do not believe the man knows anything more than what he has already stated.”

“But what has he told you?” inquired Pironti, whose attitude showed that he was full of resentment that a foreigner should be employed by His Majesty to investigate the scandal.

“That, signore, is my own affair,” was Waldron’s cool reply as he rose from his chair.

“Pironti, have the corporal placed under arrest, and see that nobody speaks with him,” His Excellency ordered, a trifle pale with suppressed anger at Hubert’s words.

The latter, however, turned towards the Minister and said in a hard voice:

“I wish Your Excellency to remember that His Majesty the King has vested me with full powers on his behalf—as you will see by this decree,” and he drew a letter from his pocket. “Corporal Tonini is not to be arrested, nor is he to be threatened—or even approached. This inquiry is now in my hands, General Cataldi, not in yours. Please recollect that this is His Majesty’s orders, and that I am the King’s agent in this matter. Good morning.” And he turned and left the trio staring at each other in silence.

As he turned the corner under the high walls of the Palazzo Albani and walked up the narrow Via Quattro Fontane in the direction of his rooms in the Via Nazionale, he felt convinced that by His Excellency’s manner he had some knowledge of that package of documents.

Back in his own sitting-room he threw himself into a chair before the English coal fire—a luxury in Rome—lit his old briar pipe, and composed himself to reflect.

Ghelardi was one of the most renowned spies in Europe and would, without a doubt, know every secret agent of Austria who had recently been or was in Rome at that moment. Should he consult him? That was a very difficult problem, for from the outset he knew the old man would be antagonistic and would feel that the Englishman was usurping his position and power.

The Italian police official is remarkable for his cunning shrewdness and resourcefulness. In the Secret Police of Italy are men of remarkable, even astounding, tact and ability as investigators of crime. Even the ordinary plain-clothes policeman in Italy is, as a rule, a much more astute officer than those of the same grade in London, Paris, or Berlin. Indeed the Italian with his suave politeness, his natural shrewdness, his keen intelligence, and his suspicious nature makes a most excellent detective, and many of the cleverest officers of the Paris Sûreté and the detective departments of Berlin and New York have graduated through the Secret Police of Italy.

Old Ghelardi had all his life been brought up in that school, rising from an obscure clerk in the Questura in Naples to be a plain-clothes officer, and such distinction did he win in the capture of criminals that he quickly obtained promotion to Rome. As a young man it was he who, single-handed, captured the renowned Calabrian bandit, Bodrero, the fiend who at his trial boasted of having tortured and killed with his own hand over one hundred men, women, and children.

The anarchists, Palmera and Spineti, of Forli, he captured red-handed with their bombs, which they were about to throw at the carriage of the King’s father, and again, after a whole year’s diligent work, he had at last laid hands upon the two souteneurs, Civardi and Tedesco who, as probably will be remembered, murdered the young and pretty Countess Rinaldi in the Palazzo Rinaldi in Cremona and stole her jewels.

None could deny that Ghelardi was a very remarkable man. The German Government knew that, or they would not have seduced him from his office in Italy and given him the position of Chief of the Secret Service. A German appointment such as that is not given to a foreigner without considerable merit.

In a sense, Hubert admired him for his tact, courage, and untiring energy, and now, as he sat smoking and reflecting he remembered how, in his ignorance, he had up the Nile met the greatest secret agent of the present century and believed him to be a prosperous and rather antagonistic Frenchman!

It showed Ghelardi’s resourcefulness, for Waldron, keen, shrewd, cosmopolitan man of the world that he was, was not a person easily taken in.

Time was pressing. From one hour to another the Ministry of Foreign Affairs might receive a cipher dispatch from Vienna indicating that the objectionable documents had passed into the hands of the War Department there.

He knew quite well that His Majesty—who had that morning gone to the great review, a brilliant figure in uniform and sparkling decorations—had ridden there and was standing at the saluting point with a quickly beating heart. Peril, a grave and imminent peril, existed for the nation, for Austria, who for so long had desired some excuse for picking a quarrel with her neighbour, was now in a position to declare immediate war.

And with the great armies of Austria-Hungary against her, poor Italy must be ground beneath the iron heel of the invaders!

To-day it is the fashion for the public, gulled by the Press, to talk glibly of the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. The Man in the Street, be he in Plymouth or in Petersburg, Margate or Madrid, Rochester or Rome, believes that treaties duly translated and made in duplicate or triplicate, signed by the Sovereign, sealed with the Great Seal, and delivered with all the pomp and ceremony which diplomacy demands, are a safeguard against war. But your modern diplomat smiles, for he knows they are not.

Truly the situation in Europe would be comic, if it were not so terribly tragic—also if it were not so full of the smell of the lyddite shell. Yet the beguiled Man in the Street is content to read and believe his halfpenny newspaper—to feed upon the daily diet which the unscrupulous journalists, bent upon money-making, provide for him, and actually give credit to the daily “story,” as it is termed in newspaper parlance, as the real gospel truth.

Ten times within our present twentieth century has Europe been upon the verge of a great and bloody war. Orders have been given to mobilise, and armies have stood ready to come to grips. Yet only the Embassies have known, and there, most happily, secrets can be kept, even in these get-rich-quick days of bribery and dishonesty.

Europe has slept in her bed in calm, blissful ignorance that at any hour the terrible weapons of modern warfare might provide a cruel awakening, or perhaps a long and fatal sleep!

Such were the thoughts which floated through Hubert’s mind as Peters came in one morning after five days of uncertainty and vain inquiry, and placed the letters at his master’s elbow.

Among them was one bearing a Spanish stamp—a long and regretful letter from Beatriz.

He read it through twice, and then tore it into little fragments and cast it upon the fire with a brief sigh.

The telephone bell rang, and he rose and answered it.

A girl’s voice spoke. It was the Princess Luisa.

“I say, Signor Waldron,” she exclaimed in English, when he had told her that it was he who spoke, “the appointment is all right. To-night at eight-thirty—eh? I want to see you most urgently.”

“I shall be there,” he replied. He did not address her as “Highness,” as he feared lest the telephone girl should be curious.

“Benissimo. Addio!” was her reply, and then she rang off.

Again he threw himself into his chair, his brow dark and thoughtful. The appointment they had made when she had visited him she had been unable to keep, as she had had to accompany the Queen to Naples; and she had only just returned, she explained.

How strange was it all. If by good chance he were successful in his inquiries he might, after all, save Italy and her Sovereign.

But could he? Was the dastardly conspiracy too clever and well sustained? Ay, that was the question.

Those very men—those Ministers who depended upon the King’s good graces, and would lick His Majesty’s boots, were the same men who were now betraying him and the country into the hands of their hereditary enemy. And for gold—always for gold—that most necessary commodity upon which the devil has for ever set his curse.

That afternoon he spent at the Embassy attending to dispatches brought from Downing Street by the King’s messenger who had arrived in Rome that morning, and who was due to return to London at midnight.

For two arduous hours he was closeted with the Ambassador going through the various matters requiring attention, including several questions regarding the Consulates of Florence and Venice. A question had arisen in London of the advisability of reducing the Florence Consulate-General to a Vice-Consulate and making Livorno a Consulate-General in its place. Florence was without trade, while Livorno—or Leghorn as it is known to the English—was full of shipping and other interests. Florence had too long been practically a sinecure, and its Consul-General a picturesque figure, hence the question afoot—the Ambassador being asked to write his opinion upon the proposed reduction.

Durrant, the Councillor of Embassy, being absent in England on leave, it devolved upon Waldron to attend to the clerical duties, and it was nearly six o’clock ere he had sealed the last dispatch and placed it in the small Foreign Office bag of white canvas.

Then the Ambassador questioned him upon the latest phase of his inquiry, but to all questions he was discreetly evasive—even to his own Chief.

Hubert Waldron was never optimistic, though he felt that already he was on the track of the thief.

Chapter Sixteen.

Her Royal Highness.

Soon after eight o’clock Hubert descended from a rickety vettura outside the great dark Pantheon, and passing across the piazza, plunged into a maze of narrow, obscure, ill-lit streets until he came to a small quiet restaurant—a place hidden away in the back thoroughfares of the Eternal City, and known only to the populace.

The place which he entered was long and bare, with whitewashed walls and red plush settees—an unpretentious little place devoid of decoration or of comfort.

Upon the empty tables stood vases of paper flowers, big serviettes, and a single knife and fork lay in each place, for the Italian, though he is fond of good food and is usually a gourmet, takes no notice of his surroundings so long as the fare is well-cooked and palatable.

Upon each table stood the big rush-covered fiasco of Tuscan red wine in its silver-plated stand, and as Hubert entered, the padrone, a short, stout man, came forward to greet him. Dinner was long since over, and the proprietor believed his visitor to be one of those stray foreigners who sometimes drifted in at odd hours because his establishment was a noted one in Rome.

He was surprised when Hubert, speaking in excellent Italian, explained that he was expecting a lady, and that he wished to dine tête-à-tête.

“Egisto,” he called to the elderly, under-sized waiter, “a private room for the signore. A lady will call at half-past eight.”

“Si, signore,” was the man’s prompt reply, and at once he conducted the Englishman upstairs to a small stuffy room on the first floor overlooking the little piazza, where he began setting out the table for two.

Egisto in his black cotton coat and long white apron was surprised when his visitor, in reply to a question as to what he wished to eat, said:

“Please yourself. Something which is a speciality of the house. What is it?”

“Well, signore, our zuppa alla Marinara is supposed to be the best in Rome,” he replied. “And of fish, we have red mullet cooked in the Livornese fashion—and carciofi alla guidea.”

“Good,” the visitor answered, for Hubert knew Italian cooking and knew what to order. “A dozen tartufi della mare, the ztàppa, triglie and a risotto with fegatini of chicken.”

Egisto bowed. From that moment he held the stranger, though a foreigner, in great esteem, for he realised that he knew a good dinner. And every waiter from Liverpool to Luxor or from Tunis to Trondhjem bows to the man who can discriminate on a menu. In what contempt, alas! are our own dear Cookites our Lunnites and our other various couponists held by the man in the black tie and white apron. I have heard a tourist order a boiled haddock in Florence, another whom I overheard demanded “fish and chips” in the Grand Rue in Constantinople, and I recollect quite well a man from Oldham—evidently a cotton operative—loudly call in broad Lancashire for roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in the Grand Hotel at Christiania.

Waldron descended the stairs and waited outside for some ten minutes or so until a taxi drove up and Her Highness, in the same shabby navy blue costume, and worn furs, descended and greeted him eagerly.

When alone together in the small bare room—for only a table and two rush-covered chairs were set upon the uncarpeted floor, with a cheap sideboard against the wall—he assisted her off with her jacket, and when she was seated, Hubert said:

“Now we shall be able to resume our little confidential chat that was so unfortunately interrupted the other night. This place is quite quiet, and the waiter cannot understand a single word of English.”

“Yes,” she sighed apprehensively. “I—I really hardly know what to tell you, Mr Waldron,” she faltered, her big, expressive eyes fixed upon his. “I only know that you are my very good friend, and that I have been foolish—ah! terribly foolish.”

The waiter at that moment entered with the zuppa, and after it was served, discreetly withdrew.

“You hinted something about blackmail. I hope Your Highness will tell me everything. No doubt I can assist you,” he said in a low, intense voice when the door had closed.

“Not Highness, please—Lola,” she protested, with a faint smile.

“I’m sorry,” he exclaimed with an apologetic laugh. Then he added: “I suppose we must eat some of this in order to keep up appearances—eh?”

“I suppose so,” she agreed, and they both commenced to eat.

“Of course,” Waldron went on earnestly, “I don’t ask you in any spirit of mere inquisitiveness to tell me anything. I simply make the request because you have admitted that you are worried, and I believe that it may be in my power to assist you.”

“Ah, Mr Waldron,” she sighed, “I know I have been horribly indiscreet, and have greatly annoyed Their Majesties. Old Ghelardi has orders to watch me daily, but fortunately he is, after all, my friend. It is true that an agent of secret police is told off to follow me wherever I go, for my own personal protection, and because the anarchists have lately again threatened the Royal House. But our crafty old friend, whom you know as Jules Gigleux, is good enough to allow me much latitude, so that I know when the secret agent will be off duty, and can then escape his unwelcome attentions.”

“With Ghelardi’s connivance?” Hubert suggested with a laugh. “Then he is not exactly your enemy?”

She nodded in the affirmative, a sweet and mischievous smile playing about her full red lips.

“True,” she went on bitterly, a hard, haunted look in her eyes, “I am a Princess of Savoia, yet after all, am I not a girl like all the others about me? At home, at my mother’s castle at Mantova, I was always allowed my freedom to ride, to motor, to do whatever I liked. But since, alas! I’ve been compelled to live at the Palace my life has been so horribly circumscribed. I’m tired to death of the narrowness, the pomp, the tiresome etiquette, and the eternal best behaviour one has to put on. It’s all horrible. Only in the evenings when, with Ghelardi’s connivance, can I go out for an hour or so, do I breathe and enjoy the freedom to which ever since a child I have been accustomed. In Society, people declare that I outrage all the conventionalities, and they hold up their hands at exaggerated stories of my motor trips, or because I go incognita to a theatre or make visits to my friends. But they do not know, Mr Waldron, all that I have suffered. They cannot realise that the heart of a princess of the blood-royal is just the same as that of a girl of the people; that every woman loves to live, to enjoy herself, and to have her own freedom even though she may live in the eternal limelight and glitter of a brilliant Court like ours.”

“But permit me to say that if half what I hear be true you are—well, shall we say just slightly injudicious in the way you go about incognita,” he remarked.

“Ah! Yes, I know,” she replied impatiently. “But I really can’t help it. Oh, how heartily I wish that I had never been a princess! The very title grates upon my nerves.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because of the utter emptiness of it all—because,” and her voice changed—“because of the tragedy of it all.”

“Tragedy! What do you mean?” he echoed quickly, staring at her.

The waiter again entered interrupting, yet Waldron saw from the change in her countenance that there was something hidden in her heart which she desired to confide to him, but for some reason she dare not speak the truth.

As the man busied himself with the plates, recollections of that young Frenchman, Henri Pujalet, arose before the Englishman. He remembered the passionate meeting beneath the palms, and her strict injunctions to exert every precaution so that Gigleux should suspect nothing.

Where was Pujalet? he wondered. Had their affection now cooled, and the secret lover, in ignorance of her real identity and believing her to be poor and dependent upon her uncle, had with a Frenchman’s proverbial inconstancy returned to his own beloved boulevards?

From the Princess’s attitude he felt convinced that it was so, and he had, in consequence, become much relieved.

When Egisto had bowed low and again disappeared, having changed the dishes, Waldron looked across at his pretty companion, and in a voice of deeper earnestness, said:

“May I not be permitted to know the nature of this tragedy? Remember, you alone know the tragedy of my own love. Is yours, I wonder, of a similar nature?”

She bit her lip, her wide-open eyes fixed upon his. He saw that her breath came and went in short quick gasps and that in her strained eyes was the light of unshed tears.

“Yes,” she managed to respond.

There was silence for a few moments. She looked a sweet, pathetic little figure, for her countenance was very pale and apprehensive.

Then he bent across the table where she sat with her elbows upon it, her chin resting upon her hands, her plate untouched.

“And will you not confide in me? You know my secret and gave me certain advice which I heeded,” he said.

“Ah! Then you have broken with your Spanish dancer—eh?” she asked quickly in a voice which surprised him. She laid a bitter accent upon the word “dancer.”

“I have.”

“Because she has, of course proved false to you—as I knew she would,” declared Her Highness. “Yes, Mr Waldron, you have acted wisely, as one day you will most certainly be convinced. I heard all about it when I was visiting the Queen of Spain. The woman would have led you to ruin, as so many women have led the men who are the most honest and best in the world. It seems by the contrariness of Fate that the life of a good man should so often be linked with that of a bad woman—and vice versa?”

He nodded in acquiescence.

“Will you tell me nothing concerning yourself—your own difficulties and sorrows?” he asked, earnestly looking into her face. “I have been perfectly frank with you, and surely you know how proud I am to believe myself your friend.”

“You are proud of my friendship merely because I happen to be a princess,” she remarked sharply, glancing straight at him, her dark, well-marked brows slightly contracted.

“No, not for that, Your Highness,” he protested. “When we first met you led me to believe that you were poor and dependent upon your uncle. Was my attitude in any way different towards you then than it is now?”

“No. Ah, forgive me!” she replied quickly, stretching her little hand across to him in appeal. “I am, I know, too impetuous. It was foolish of me to utter such words, knowing them to be untrue! No, Mr Waldron, you have always shown yourself my friend, ever since that sunny morning when we first met on the deck of the Arabia. I deceived you, but under sheer compulsion, I assure you.”

“I have forgiven that long, long ago,” was his reply. “We are still friends and I, unfortunately, find you in distress. Yet you will not confide in me. That is what annoys me.”

“I regret if my silence irritates you in the least,” was her low reply, her face growing very grave. “But have you not, in your own heart, certain secrets which you do not desire divulged to anyone—certain private matters which concern your own life—perhaps your own honour?”

“Well, if you put it to me in that fashion, I cannot deny it,” he said. “I suppose we all have, more or less.”

“Then pray do not let my hesitation annoy you, Mr Waldron,” was her quiet, serious answer. “I know you are my friend, and I highly appreciate your friendship,—but I—I—”

And she broke off short, again biting her lip.

Then, without another word she took up her knife and fork and commenced to eat, as though to divert her thoughts from some subject intensely distasteful to her.

Waldron sat sorely puzzled.

Time after time he tried to induce her to explain further her strange hint as to blackmail, but without avail.

The meal, which proved so dismal and unenjoyable, at last ended and Egisto disappeared for the last time. Both felt relieved.

Then Waldron bent to the Princess Luisa, asking frankly:

“Now tell me what may I do to prove to you my friendship?”

“There is no necessity to prove a fact of which I am already aware,” was her reply after a few seconds’ reflection.

“Truth to tell, Princess,” he remarked, “I cannot quite make you out. Why are you so silent, and yet so distressed? As a man of the world—a freelance—I could, I am sure, extricate you from what I fear may be a pitfall in which you to-night find yourself. You have been indiscreet, perhaps. Yet all of us, in every station of life, have committed regrettable indiscretions.”

“Indiscretions!” she echoed hoarsely. “Yes, you are right, Mr Waldron. Quite right! Ah!” she cried, after a slight pause. “I only wish I were permitted to reveal to you the whole of the strange, tragic circumstances. They would amaze you, I know—but, alas! I can’t.”

“Why not?” he protested.

“For the sake of my own honour,” she faltered, and her eyes, he saw, were filled with tears.

He sprang up and took her small white hand warmly within his own, saying:

“Let me be your friend, Princess. Do, I implore you.”

“Princess!” she cried bitterly. “Will you never learn to drop that title when you speak to me.”

He apologised, still holding her hand in his strong grip as pledge of his great friendship, and of his deep admiration for her. Love was entirely out of the question, he knew. He had realised that hard fact ever since the startling discovery of that photograph in the drawing-room of the Embassy.

At last, after a long silence, she spoke in a hard, intense voice, quite unusual to her, for she was full of suppressed emotion.

“If you really are my friend I—I wonder,” she hesitated, “if you would do something for me—something to assist me?”

“Most willingly,” he cried. “What is it?”

“I—I hardly like to ask it, but I have no other true and confidential friend in Rome except Renata. And as a maid she cannot help me in this matter without arousing suspicion in a certain quarter.”

“What can I do? I’m ready to assist you in any way in my power,” he answered her quickly.

“Even though it necessitates a journey to Brussels?”

“To Brussels!” echoed Hubert in surprise. Then he added: “Of course—anywhere that may be necessary.”

“Then I want this letter delivered by hand. It is most secret and important, and I would only trust it to you, Mr Waldron, because I know that you would never betray my confidence whatever may happen.” And she drew forth with nervous fingers from within her blouse a letter sealed with a large black seal bearing the single letter “L.” Waldron took it and saw that the address read:

“Private—To Monsieur S. Petrovitch, Bruxelles.”

“See here,” she went on, showing him a small scrap of paper upon which she had written: “Slavo Petrovitch, Box 463 Bureau de Poste, Bruxelles.”

“On arrival in Brussels send word to this address that you are there, and you will be met if you make an appointment in the Café Métropole.”

“But if this letter is in such strict secrecy how am I to establish the identity of the Monsieur Petrovitch?” Waldron queried after a second’s thought.

For answer she opened the small circular golden locket she wore suspended by a thin platinum chain and exhibited to him a photograph within.

He held his breath as his eyes fell upon it. The picture was that of Henri Pujalet!

She smiled mysteriously in his face, saying:

“You recognise him, I see, as one of our fellow-travellers on the Nile?”

“Yes I do,” was Waldron’s brief response.

“And you will do this for me as my friend—and ask no questions?”

“I have already promised,” he replied, bowing before her very gravely.

“Ah, Mr Waldron!” she cried, bursting into a sudden torrent of tears, quite unable further to repress her emotion. “Yes, I know you are my real true friend! And if you will do this for me you can never know how great a service you are rendering me—a service the magnitude of which you will perhaps one day know when—when I dare to tell you the tragic and astounding truth!” And before he could be aware of it, she had raised his hand in a sudden outburst of frantic gratitude and kissed it.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Cipher Dispatch.

Next day Hubert Waldron continued his inquiry with unceasing activity.

Armed with His Majesty’s authority, he had an interview with the Commendatore Bertini, the Questore, or Chief of Police of Rome. The secret or political police under Ghelardi was an entirely different department. Therefore, without telling the bald-headed Questore the reason or nature of the inquiry in which he was engaged he requested assistance in His Majesty’s name, and was given the Brigadier Giovanni Pucci, a well-known and astute officer of the brigade mobile.

To the tall, thin, athletic-looking, clean-shaven man with small black eyes, and hair turning a trifle grey, Hubert took a fancy at once, and in a taxi they went round to his rooms to hold secret council.

Beside the fire, while the detective, a crafty, keen-eyed Neapolitan, smoked cigarettes, the diplomat explained that he required strict inquiry made into the antecedents of the corporal, Tonini. He also desired information concerning the private lives of General Cataldi, his secretary, Pironti, and the official, Lambarini.

The detective made some careful memoranda in his pocket-book and promised most minute attention to the matter.

“Remember, Signor Pucci,” Waldron said, “this affair is strictly confidential and concerns His Majesty alone. I shall tell him that I have entrusted the inquiry to you.”

“I will do my very utmost, signore, and place in your hands all the information I can gather. You wish for a written report?”

“Certainly. And only actual facts.”

The detective showed greatest curiosity regarding the reason of such inquiries regarding public officials, but the Englishman told him nothing.

“Just make your inquiries, Signor Pucci,” he said, “this is all I require of you at present. I may be absent from Rome for a week, so while I am away please continue to work. As you know, the Questore has placed your services entirely at His Majesty’s disposal.”

“I appreciate the honour which has been done me,” was the astute officer’s reply, for he was a brigadier, and a terror to the criminal fraternity in the Eternal City. Having graduated in the underworld of Naples among the Camorra and the Mafia, he had become one of the Questore’s right-hand men. “His Majesty knows me,” he added, “for I have done duty with him many times on his journeys. I am often told off as his personal guardian.”

“In that case then I can rely upon you to treat this matter with the utmost confidence,” Hubert remarked, and soon afterwards Peters showed the tall man out.

Time after time Hubert examined the mysterious letter with which Her Highness had entrusted him. Why was Pujalet passing in Brussels as a Servian? What secret could that sealed envelope contain which could not be trusted to the post? Ah! if he could only discover it!

“Peters,” he said presently, as his man came in to stir the fire, “I may be leaving Rome for a day or two. I may even go to-night. So just pack my small suit-case.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stay,” he said, and going to a drawer in a small occasional table which was laden with English books and magazines he took out a serviceable-looking Browning pistol, adding: “Just put that in also.”

“Very well, sir.”

It did not surprise Peters, for his master often took the weapon with him on night journeys upon Continental railways. Indeed in Italy one acquires the habit of carrying a gun.

In the afternoon Hubert strolled, as usual, up the Pincio where he met and greeted many of the great ones in Roman Society, not because he cared for it, but because it was the correct thing to do so, and as diplomat he had to bow always to Society’s decree.

He afterwards paid a call upon the Princess Altieri at the great old Grazini Palace, that fine mediaeval palazzo, the chief façades of which, as those who know Rome are aware, are in the Piazza della Valle and the Via del Sudario, that palace designed by the immortal Raphael and erected by Lorenzetto.

Entering the great portals where stood the pompous concierge in cocked hat and bearing his silver-headed staff of office, he ascended the great stone staircase at the head of which a flunkey met him and conducted him to the huge gilded salon wherein the Princess Altieri, a diminutive old lady in black, was entertaining a crowd of chattering friends.

After he had bowed over the old lady’s hand he glanced around and recognised a number of familiar faces. His own Chief, besides the Russian and French Ambassadors were there, while there were a dozen or so marquises and Counts with their women-folk, a few foreign notables, and a sprinkling of the ornamental men from the Embassies.

Hubert found himself chatting with Count Niccoli, Colonial Secretary of State, when presently his Chief came up and whispered in his ear: “Waldron, can you be round at the Embassy in an hour? I want to tell you something.”

“Certainly,” was the diplomat’s reply, and the two men were lost to each other in the crush.

The chatter went on, for the old Princess being highly popular in Rome, many people always came to her weekly receptions. In half a dozen tongues conversation was carried on, and the room with its ancient painted ceiling, its closed windows and high stoves, was unbearably hot. Indeed, half aristocratic Rome seemed to have dropped in after its sunset airing on the Pincio.

An hour later, however, when Hubert entered the Ambassador’s room, his Chief rose from his table with a grave expression upon his pale, refined face.

“Waldron,” he said, “I fear the secret of those stolen plans of the frontier fortresses is out.”

“The secret out!” gasped the other. “Why—what is known?”

“Look at this!” he said, taking from a drawer a telegram in cipher which was deciphered upon a sheet of paper to which it was pinned. “It came in at three o’clock. Read it.”

Waldron scanned it with eager eyes, and saw that the message which had been handed in at Vienna at half-past one was from Lord Ecclesbourne, British Ambassador to Austria, and read:

“From information received through confidential channels it seems that Austria-Hungary is now rapidly and secretly mobilising on the Italian frontier. The Seventh and Eleventh Army Corps are assembled at Bozen and Klagenfurt respectively. Orders have been sent to the Austrian fleet by wireless from Sebenico, but of these I have no knowledge. The Emperor returned to Vienna last night and a meeting of the War Council was held an hour afterwards at which he was present. Though the newspapers this morning merely announce a series of manoeuvres in the Tyrol, it seems clear that a crisis has occurred and that immediate hostilities against Italy are contemplated. Please regard foregoing as confidential and report back any information which may come to your knowledge. I have to-day sent dispatches by telegram and also by special messenger to London.—Ecclesbourne.”

“By Jove! This is extremely serious!” declared Hubert, standing aghast with the dispatch in his hand. “No doubt the truth is out. Have you told them here of this dispatch?”

“Certainly not. The information is ours, and, as you see, it is strictly confidential.”

“But surely I may warn His Majesty!”

“No,” was the Ambassador’s decided reply.

“But are we not a friendly Power?” argued the secretary. “Is it not our duty to tell them what we know?”

“It may be, but I cannot betray what is sent to me as strictly confidential,” was His Excellency’s response.

“But Lord Ecclesbourne is unaware of the actual truth. If he knew it he certainly would not withhold the information,” Hubert argued.

“True. But do you not remember that any information obtained through our Secret Service is strictly confidential, and must not on any pretext be given to a foreign Power?”

“I know that, of course. But such a rule surely cannot apply in such a case as this,” urged Waldron impatiently. “We know that the plans have been stolen, and that this hostile movement is the result. We surely ought to warn Italy, so that she is not taken by surprise, which is, no doubt, the intention of her arch-enemy.”

“No doubt it is,” replied the Ambassador. “And I regret that we cannot break the rule. Indeed, I dare not—without orders from home.”

“Those we shall never get, I fear. We cannot explain the facts by wire, and a messenger to Downing Street would take fully three days. Why, in that time the Austrians will be in Venice and Milan!” declared Waldron. “Can we do nothing to avert this war?” he asked frantically.

“What can we do, my dear fellow? Even if you went to His Majesty I do not see what benefit would accrue.”

“It would put the Ministry of War upon its guard.”

“They will know. Possibly they know already. Ghelardi is a good watch-dog, and he has his spies in Vienna, just as we have. Probably he knows as much as we do,” was the Ambassador’s reply as he stood upon the red Turkey hearthrug with folded arms, a fine diamond pin sparkling in his black cravat.

“But can we do nothing—nothing?” cried Waldron in impatience and alarm. “I promised His Majesty that I would work in the interests of Italy, and if I withhold this fact from him, surely I shall be held culpable!”

“Your first duty is to your own King, Waldron,” replied His Excellency very gravely. “To betray information obtained by our Secret Service is, by the regulations, absolutely forbidden, I repeat.”

“I know that full well. But in these circumstances is it not our duty as a friendly Power to place Italy on her guard, and save her from invasion?”

“Our first duty is to observe our own regulations,” replied the Ambassador, one of the old red-tape school, who like the ostrich hid his head in the sand and still believed in England as the chief and unconquerable Power among nations.

“And not to observe at the same time our cordial relations with a Power which has, on its own initiative, already given us plans of half a dozen improvements in modern ordnance—plans which we have used to our own advantage.”

“Well—if you desire, you are at liberty to send a cipher dispatch to Lord Westmere and try and obtain leave,” was the Ambassador’s reply. “I can, I regret, give no permission myself.”

For some seconds Waldron remained silent. He stood near the window gazing blankly out upon the broad handsome thoroughfare now lit by long rows of electric lights, the fine modern road which led to the Porta Pia.

“Very well,” he replied savagely, “I will myself obtain leave from Downing Street,” and turning upon his heel, he went away to the chancellerie and there wrote out a telegram which he reduced to cipher by aid of the small blue-covered book which he took from the strong-room, afterwards taking the message himself to the chief telegraph office and dispatching it.

The dispatch was a long one, but it was necessary to give full explanation.

It was then six o’clock by Italian time, or five o’clock in England. The night express left Rome for Paris at twenty minutes after midnight, and it was his intention to catch it, providing he received a reply in time to have audience with His Majesty prior to leaving.

He dressed and afterwards dined at the Embassy, as was his habit. Lady Cathcart, with the hauteur of the Ambassador’s wife, sat at the head of the table, and several of the staff were present, also two Members of Parliament, men to whom ambassadors always have to be civil. But the meal proved a very dreary one. Both Members—who were quite unimportant persons, and who would never have appeared in “Who’s Who” had not their Constituents placed them there—aired their ideas upon the European situation—ideas which were ridiculous and unsound, though none present were so impolite as to say so.

“Have you sent your dispatch?” asked His Excellency the Ambassador when they were alone together for a few moments after dinner.

“Yes,” Waldron replied. “I am expecting permission, and if so I shall have audience at once.”

The Ambassador’s grey face lit up with a faint smile, as he shook his head.

“I fear, my dear Waldron, that you will not get permission. The Powers must look after their own perils.”

Hubert, glad enough to escape from the official atmosphere, left the Embassy shortly afterwards, and after killing time for an hour in the club—where he chatted with Colonel Sibileff, the Russian military attaché, and young Count Montoro, one of the jeunesse dorée of the Eternal City—walked back to his rooms to see if any reply was forthcoming from London. He had given orders to Sheppard, the concierge at the Embassy, to send round at once any telegram addressed to him.

“Any message?” he asked eagerly of Peters as he let himself in with his latch-key.

“Yes, sir, a telegram arrived from the Embassy only two minutes ago.”

His master tore it open with eager, trembling fingers, but, alas! it was in cipher! He had never thought of that.

Dashing downstairs he tore back to the Via Venti Settembre, and in the chancellerie sat down and impatiently worked it out, placing each decipher over the code letter until the whole message ran as follows:

“Situation already reported from Vienna. Later inquiries show report exaggerated. Tension no doubt exists, but not sufficient to warrant breach of regulations.”

Hubert Waldron ground his teeth in despair. Downing Street had given him a polite but firm refusal.

And with that he was compelled to be satisfied, even though he knew that war was contemplated and was actually imminent.

He was now upon the horns of a dilemma. To wilfully disregard his instructions from London was impossible. What, he wondered, did the later inquiries in Vienna reveal?

He remembered his promise to the Princess. At all hazards he must make a flying visit to the Belgian capital. But during those six days which he must of necessity be absent, what might not occur? A great disaster was fast-approaching.

The Ambassador had gone to the theatre, therefore he left him a note, and again returning to his rooms, he sat down and scribbled a few lines to Her Highness, telling her of his departure. This he posted later on at the railway station soon after midnight, after which he entered the long, dusty wagon-lit marked “Roma-Torino-Parigi.”

Chapter Eighteen.

Told in the Café Métropole.

Weary and fagged Waldron descended from the sleeping-car at the Gare de Lyon in Paris twenty hours later and dispatched a telegram to the address Lola had given him. Then he drove in a taxi across the French capital, and next morning found himself in the Grand Hotel in gay little Brussels—awaiting a reply.

About eleven o’clock it came—a message by express making an appointment to meet at noon at the Café Métropole a little farther up the boulevard.

Hubert was wasting no time. He had not lost a single moment since leaving the Eternal City, and on that rush northward his mind was ever centred upon the crisis between the two Powers which had evidently occurred.

He had left word with Peters that if any person called, or anyone rang up on the telephone, the reply was that he had left Rome on urgent business for three or four days. On no account was his man to say whither he had gone.

He flung off his coat and cast himself upon the bed to rest for an hour. But the noise in the busy boulevard outside was irritating, worse even than the roar of the great international express which had borne him half across Europe.

Presently he washed, changed his clothes, and then went forth to the café, a popular rendezvous which he had known when, six years before, he had served temporarily at the Brussels Legation.

It was a huge, square, open place, with walls tiled to represent various Bacchanalian pictures, and many tables, upon half of which were laid cloths for the déjeuner. Being winter there were only a dozen tables set on the pavement outside, but in summer there are a hundred spread over the broad footway, and in an evening the place, being a highly papular resort, is crowded to overflowing by the chattering, bearded Bruxellois and their female friends.

At that hour, however, the place was nearly empty as Hubert entered, his sharp eyes gazing around. Then suddenly he saw a youngish man in grey overcoat and wearing a Tyrolese hat of dark green plush, seated in a far corner.

He rose and smiled as Waldron entered, and the latter instantly recognised him as the secret lover—the man who had travelled with them down the Nile, and whose attitude towards Lola had so completely disarmed all suspicion.

The two men lifted hats to each other in the foreign manner, and then Hubert exclaimed with a pleasant smile:

“This is a strange renewal of our acquaintance, M’sieur Pujalet, is it not?”

“Hush?” exclaimed the other warningly. “Not Pujalet here—Petrovitch, if you please!” and a mysterious expression crossed his dark, rather handsome, features.

“As you wish, of course,” replied Waldron with a bright laugh. “You, of course, know the object of my mission? The—”

He hesitated, for he was naturally cautious, and it had suddenly occurred to him at that second that this Frenchman was, no doubt, in ignorance of the true station of the woman he loved, just as he himself had been. So the word “Princess” died from his lips.

“Mademoiselle asked you to give me a letter, did she not?” said the man politely in French. “I am sure, M’sieur Waldron, I do not know how to thank you sufficiently for making this long journey in order to meet me.”

“No thanks are necessary,” the other replied. “I am simply Mam’zelle’s messenger,” he laughed, producing the letter from his pocket-book and handing it to him.

“Ah! but this is really a great service you have done both of us,” he declared earnestly. “One that I fear I shall never be able to repay,” he declared, taking the letter in his eager hands.

Waldron, watching keenly, saw that the man’s fingers trembled visibly. That letter contained some message of greatest import to him, without a doubt. Yet he held it unopened—not daring, it seemed, to break the seal and learn the truth.

“Candidly,” Waldron said, now sitting back easily in a chair opposite Pujalet, “I wondered why it could not be entrusted to the post. It would in that case have reached you two days earlier.”

“Ah! there are some things one does not exactly care to trust to the post even though registered.”

“If a packet is insured it is rarely lost—even in Italy where the post is so uncertain and insecure. The Administration of Posts and Telegraphs does not care to be called upon to pay an indemnity.”

Pujalet did not reply. And by his silence Waldron was convinced that he feared the letter might have been tampered with and opened—that the secret it contained might be revealed.

If this were so, then, after all, it was more than probable that he did really know Lola’s actual identity!

And again, what had Her Highness meant when she had hinted at blackmail! Why, too, had not Pujalet travelled to Rome himself instead of burying himself in Brussels.

From that moment Waldron viewed Henri Pujalet with suspicion. Why should he, a Frenchman, be passing there as a Servian, and living in obscurity? His manner, from the very first moment when he had seen him with Lola in his arms under those dark palms in far-off Wady Haifa, had been suspicious. For some reason—why, he could not himself tell—Hubert felt a bitter antagonism towards the Frenchman. Surely it was a foolish fancy of Her Royal Highness to allow herself to love that man—a person whose movements were, on the face of them, not those of an honourable man.

Yet, on the other hand, Waldron remembered how devoted the pair had seemed towards each other. And it was only because of this, because of his intense interest and admiration for Lola, that he had declared himself her friend, and had undertaken that mad rush across Europe on her behalf.

“Please disregard me entirely,” he said to the Frenchman, “if you wish to open your letter,” and taking out his cigarette-case he selected one and slowly lit it, the while covertly watching the man before him as he broke the seal and drew forth a sheet of paper.

Pujalet eagerly devoured what was written there, while Waldron, from the opposite side of the little marble table, watched his countenance keenly.

He saw a sudden expression of blank amazement. Then his sharp, dark eyes narrowed, and surprise gave way to a distinct expression of evil.

Whatever the Princess’s missive contained, it certainly caused him both annoyance and alarm. The man’s astute cleverness, however, was shown by the manner in which he made pretence of disregarding it and treating it with nonchalance.

He smiled as he looked again into the face of his companion, though it was but a strange, sickly smile, like that seen upon a criminal’s face on listening to his sentence. And without a word he signalled to a waiter and called for a cognac.

Waldron refused his invitation to drink, but watched him as he tossed off the petit verre at a single gulp.

“I regret if the news I have brought is unwelcome,” Waldron remarked, as he drew slowly at his cigarette and watched the smoke curling upwards. “But m’sieur must forgive me.”

“Oh, no,” he laughed, “the news is not unwelcome in the least. At first I regarded it as such, but on mature reflection I see it is not,” he declared, quite unperturbed.

But Waldron knew from the man’s manner that he was lying. He felt that Henri Pujalet was not the charming, educated man which he had believed him to be on the Nile.

“I hope Mademoiselle has not been—well, indiscreet,” the Englishman remarked with a smile. “Ladies so often are.”

“Ah, yes. Well—she has, truth to tell, been just a little indiscreet. But it is nothing,” he declared, “really nothing whatever.”

“Is there any reply I can convey to her?” asked Waldron. “I am leaving for Paris at four o’clock.”

“So soon—eh? Will you not remain and be my guest at dinner this evening?” urged the other. “Do. You must be tired and want rest.”

“Ah, no. I much regret, M’sieur Pujalet. But I have to be back at my post at the Embassy at once. I travel to Italy direct—just as I came.”

“Of course. You are a diplomat! I clean forgot!” exclaimed the man before him. “Ah! yours must be a most interesting profession! I have several good friends at the foreign Embassies in Paris. But I heard yesterday that trouble seems to be brewing in Europe—another war-cloud, they say.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Waldron, in an instant interested. “I know nothing of it. Who told you?”

Pujalet seemed upon his guard in an instant.

“Oh—er—I—well, somebody here in this café last night was telling us that secret mobilisation orders had been given.”

“Secret mobilisation! Where?”

The Frenchman hesitated and reflected.

“In Austria—I believe,” was his reply. “But, really, I did not take much notice.”

Hubert Waldron held his breath for a few seconds. Was the great secret already out? The political gossip of the cafés was very often correct. “Was the man unknown to you?”

“Quite. While I was seated over yonder with a friend of mine, a banker of Liège, the man came in, greeted his friend, and joined us. And then they began to chat. Personally, I’m tired of all these war alarms. They come too frequently, being set about by unscrupulous operators on the Bourses.”

“Then you don’t believe the rumour—eh?”

“I never believe rumours which I hear in such circumstances as those. Not until I have some confirmation,” the man declared.

“I have not seen the papers to-day. Is there any mention of the crisis?” Hubert asked.

“None that I have seen,” Pujalet replied. “It is merely an alarmist rumour, no doubt.”

Waldron lit another cigarette and reflected deeply.

It was distinctly curious and certainly most alarming that the fact which was regarded as such a dead secret in Vienna should have been openly discussed in that café in Brussels on the previous night. On his journey he had carefully watched the principal French and Italian papers, but there was no mention whatever of the affair. Besides, before leaving Rome he had arranged that if anything fresh leaked out regarding the crisis a telegram should meet him on his arrival at the Gare de Lyon.

With that innate cautiousness and shrewd discretion which was inborn in him, and which had placed him above others in the profession of diplomacy, he carefully questioned Henri Pujalet further, asking him the opinion held by the stranger regarding the pending crisis, and other such-like questions.

But the mind of the man seated before him seemed an utter blank regarding what had transpired.

“All I know is that the man told us that Austria is secretly preparing for war, and that in a few days Europe would be aflame. I naturally put him down to be one of those alarmist cranks with whom one so often comes into contact—a man who exaggerates the gossip of the Bourse and repeats it as actual fact with embroidery of his own.”

“Your friend was a banker?” Waldron remarked. “Perhaps the man had received some inside knowledge from Vienna for the purpose of operating on the Bourse?”

“He may have done,” replied the other thoughtfully. “But really I don’t know. I didn’t take much notice of his words.”

Waldron said nothing for a few moments.

“And your reply to Mam’zelle?” he asked at last.

“If I bring it to you at the Grand by three o’clock will that be convenient to you?”

“Quite,” was the reply, and then the two men parted, Hubert taking a taxi up to the British Legation in the Rue de Spa, where he had a pleasant luncheon with Hugh Bennett, the Minister, and his wife, returning to the Grand at three o’clock, where in his room he received a sealed letter from the Frenchman’s hand.

It was addressed “To Mademoiselle Lola Duprez” and not to the Princess Luisa of Savoy, as Hubert had half expected.

“I can, alas! do no more than thank you most warmly and deeply both on my own behalf and upon Mam’zelle’s,” said Pujalet in his polite Parisian manner. “By coming here you have rendered a great service to us both—one that I can never in all my life forget.”

But Hubert Waldron, though he placed the letter in his pocket, held the man in distinct antipathy. He could read men’s minds better than most of his fellows. It was his profession as a diplomat.

And in the heart of Henri Pujalet, that man who had come up out of the desert from nowhere, he felt that there was a hidden yet distinct evil.

Upon him on that grey, wintry afternoon as he drove to the station to catch the express back to Paris there fell a feeling that a crisis—a dangerous and dramatic crisis—was imminent.

Ah! had he but known the truth—had he had but sight of what the Princess had written in that fatal letter he had conveyed to her lover—how differently would he have acted!

But, alas! he travelled back to the Eternal City bearing the bitter reply of the Princess’s secret lover—a reply by which her own young life was held in the balance, which crushed her soul, which held her in breathless terror, and, alas! caused her to long for the dark oblivion of death.

Chapter Nineteen.

At the Court Ball.

The second Court ball—one of the most brilliant functions of the Roman season—was at its height when, having arrived direct from Paris, very dirty and weary, Hubert hastened to his rooms, washed, changed into uniform, and drove at once to the Palace.

He was all anxiety to hear what had occurred during his absence.

Pucci had left a note on the previous day saying that he hoped to call and see him immediately upon his return. Apparently he had something to communicate.

Hubert, smart in his diplomatic, gold-laced uniform, his cocked hat tucked under his arm, and wearing his sword with the Royal Victorian Order and two foreign decorations—the Spanish Order of the Toison d’Or, and the Order of the Elephant of Denmark, passed the sentries of the Royal bodyguard, and through the long lines of gorgeously dressed flunkeys in the vestibule, and up the brilliantly lit grand staircase—that same staircase which he had descended after his secret conversation with His Majesty the King.

Above showed the fine fresco of Christ in a cloud of angels by Melozzo da Forli, once in the Church of Santi Apostoli, and then as he greeted the Royal Chamberlain and entered the great ballroom he suddenly found himself in a whirl of gaiety amid the smartest and most exclusive Court circle in Europe.

The scene was one of great brilliance and animation. The huge salon with its polished floor, its great crystal electroliers, and its beautiful tapestries and paintings, was a perfect phantasmagoria of light and colour. In the gallery the Royal orchestra was playing a pretty waltz from one of the latest Viennese musical comedies, and the dancers, the women in Court gowns, and the men in uniforms and glittering with decorations were whirling round the splendid chamber.

Upon the raised dais with the purple velvet hanging, on the left sat Her Majesty the Queen, wearing a splendid tiara of diamonds and her world-renowned pearls, while across her corsage showed the parti-coloured sash of the Order of St. Elisabeth. Near by her was the King himself in his blue military tunic and pale grey trousers, wearing the collar of the Order of the Annonciade, of which he was Grand Master, while on his breast glittered the diamond stars of the Order of the Crown of Italy, St. Maurice and Lazarus, and a dozen others. With them were two foreign minor royalties, and several other members of the Royal circle, together with ladies-in-waiting and aides-de-camp and others standing at the rear.

Waldron’s eyes were searching for the Princess Luisa. At first he failed to discover her, but a few moments later he saw her take her place beside the Queen and bend to speak with her.

In white, with her hair beautifully dressed, she presented a sweet, charming picture of youthful patrician beauty, of exquisite refinement. From where he stood he could see the black watered ribbon of one of the Imperial German Orders peeping over the edge of her low-cut corsage, and from it was suspended the cross of the Order in brilliants.

She was looking unusually pale and worn. Her eyes seemed to have black rings around them which told of anxiety, perhaps of sleepless nights—different, indeed, to her appearance in those sunny, careless winter days up the Nile.

As the British diplomat made his way through the throng—for the waltz had just concluded—he bowed over the hands of a dozen pretty women, dames of high degree in the Eternal City, wives of Roman princes, of marquises, of great signori, and of diplomats. With many men, politicians, financiers, Court sycophants, and those struggling for distinction—that crowd of place-seekers and unscrupulous officials with which every European Court is surrounded—he nodded acquaintance, until suddenly espying Sir Francis Cathcart, he made his way to him.

“Hallo, Waldron—back?” exclaimed his Chief sharply.

“Yes, only an hour ago,” was the other’s reply.

“Come out into the conservatory. I want to have a word with you,” said the Ambassador, and the pair strolled together to the end of the room, where, cunningly concealed, lights showed beneath the feathery foliage of the palms of the great winter-garden.

“Well?” asked Sir Francis, when they were alone together; “I’ve heard nothing more concerning that alarming report from Vienna. Have you learnt anything?”

“Nothing,” was Hubert’s reply, “except one fact—that the rumour was also afloat in Brussels.”

“Ah! Some Bourse conspiracy, then!” was the Ambassador’s quick remark, for he was a shrewd and well-seasoned diplomat, who knew all the subtle moves in the game of international politics.

“I cannot quite determine.”

“Then you’ve been in Brussels?”

“Yes. In the interests of the matter which we were discussing.”

“Curious that what is a secret here should be rumoured there!” remarked the British Ambassador. “But a week has now gone, Waldron, therefore we can only hope the storm-cloud has blown over.”

And at that moment the Russian Ambassador, in his brilliant uniform, passed, and Sir Francis joined him, leaving the secretary again alone.

As he returned to the ballroom he met the old yellow-toothed Marchesa Genazzano face to face, and though he endeavoured to avoid her—for she was such a terrible gossip and bore—he was compelled to bend over her hand and stop to chat.

She was full of the latest titbit of scandal concerning a young and pretty French Baronne, well-known in Roman Society, and her good-looking chauffeur. It was being whispered that the lady had gone away on a motor tour with him a fortnight ago and had not returned, while the irate husband was searching frantically for the driver with a revolver.

“They were last seen in Brescia,” the Marchesa said. “Probably they are on their way back to France. I hear, too, that the Baronne, though always supposed to be of the haut monde, was, before her marriage, a variety artiste at Olympia in Paris. And”—she lowered her voice behind her fan—“and there are all sorts of queer stories going about.”

Waldron was bored. The scandals of Rome—and, alas! Florence and the Eternal City are the two most scandal-mongering centres in the whole of Europe—were frequent. There seemed to be a fresh one daily, and nobody’s reputation was sacred from the venomous tongues of the old women, of whom the Marchesa Genazzano was one.

Her Majesty had done all she could to put a stop to such gossip at Court, but, alas! only six months before, one of her own ladies-in-waiting, a pretty woman moving in the best Society, had kept a secret tryst at an obscure restaurant down near the Tiber and had been shot dead by her lover, a common soldier.

After that unfortunate scandal in her own entourage Her Majesty had been powerless to prevent uncharitable chatter concerning others.

That night the whole of the great Quirinale Palace was ablaze with light. Music and gaiety were everywhere, for through the great suite of rooms the Sala of the Ambassadors, the Sala Regia, and the others, supper was being served with all that pomp and ceremony characteristic of the Italian Court.

Presently Hubert managed to escape the old lady, and offering his arm to a young, dark-haired girl, the daughter of the Minister of the Interior, made his way across the ballroom.

There was another waltz, and this he danced with his pretty little companion, afterwards taking her back to her mother, a rather obese, Hebrew-looking woman with more than a suspicion of dark hair upon her upper lip.

He had bowed and withdrawn when, passing through the crowd, he suddenly heard a low female voice utter his name, and saw at his side the Princess Luisa.

“I must see you,” she whispered, as he halted and bowed. “Go to the small door of the Capella Paolina. I will meet you outside it in five minutes.”

And next instant she moved onward towards the raised dais where His Majesty was standing chatting with Sir Francis Cathcart.

In obedience Hubert made his way by a circuitous route, first through the great winter-garden, where many couples were sitting out, and then through that long suite of heavily gilded State apartments comprising fourteen magnificent chambers, each ornamented with wonderful tapestries and paintings, and full of historic associations from the days of Gregory XIII. Generations of courtiers had paced those oaken floors until now, in our twentieth century, those who trod them were the embodiment of selfishness, of avarice, and of vain glorification.

Ah! what a brilliant, glittering, tinselled world of sham and subterfuge, of resplendent plutocracy, and adventurous politics, is each of the European Courts of to-day—that of our own St. James’s not excepted. The shameful traffic in titles goes on unchecked everywhere, and many a man who struts about with a piece of gilded ironmongery upon his breast and a handle to his name ought if he obtained his deserved merits, to have more strongly forged ironmongery upon his wrists and eat the bread of a felon’s cell. Their Excellencies who are Ministers, too, are many of them hypocrites and adventurers, who swell the purses from the public funds, or, by means of their previous knowledge of legislation, make coups upon the Bourse. Corruption is rife everywhere, the public are gulled by the Press, and the religion of to-day is, alas! the worship of the great god, Gold.

Beyond the blue drawing-room, with its many portraits of Sovereigns and Princes, where only a few of the more elderly people were chattering, Hubert passed down two long corridors, quite deserted save for the sentries, and at length approached a small side door which led to the Paolina Chapel—the private chapel of the Quirinale.

He was quite alone, and stood listening in expectation. From the courtyard below came up the sounds of motor-cars and the tramp of the Palace guard, while in the faint distance he could hear the strains of music.

Suddenly, however, he saw a figure in white approaching, and a moment later Lola was at his side.

“Follow me,” she said hastily. “Follow me at a distance—to Villanova’s room. No one will be there.”

General Villanova was Minister of the Royal Household.

And she went on, he lounging leisurely after her at a distance.

A couple of minutes afterwards he found himself with her in a small room where a coal fire burned brightly—the private office of the Controller of the Household.

“Well,” she echoed eagerly. “You have seen him—eh? When did you return?”

“To-night,” Waldron replied. “He has sent you this,” and from the breast of his uniform coat he drew the letter from her lover, Henri Pujalet.

With eager fingers she carried the note across to the shaded reading-lamp upon the table, and tearing it open, read the message it contained.

Hugh stood watching the expression of her pale, anxious face. It went instantly white as the dress she wore; her pale lips slowly parted, and in her splendid eyes was an expression of such horror that he had never seen in any person’s eyes before.

For a second she seemed transfixed by the words written there.

Next second, with an almost superhuman effort, she summoned all her self-composure. Her slim, nervous fingers crushed the letter, and with a quick movement she crossed to the fire near which Hubert was standing and cast the message into the flames.

Hubert Waldron had acted as Cupid’s messenger, but whatever the Princess’s secret lover had written, it apparently gave her grave concern.

She stood, her left hand pressed to her heaving chest, a strangely pathetic little figure in her Court dress and glittering diamond cross upon her corsage. Her great, wonderful eyes were fixed upon the moss-green carpet, and he saw that she was trembling as though in fear.

“Your Highness is distressed,” he remarked in a low voice full of sympathy. “Cannot I assist you further?”

“Distressed!” she cried, turning quickly upon him with her eyes flashing suddenly. “Distressed!” she echoed. “Ah, Mr Waldron, you do not know how crushing is this blow that has fallen upon me! I have done—my—very best—what I believed to be for the best, but—ah, Dio!—all is lost—lost—ah!—I—I—” And reeling suddenly, she clutched wildly at air and would have fallen forward had he not sprung up to prevent her.

He took her in his strong arms and carried her insensible form to the high couch near the window, whereon he laid her tenderly.

Then he looked around bewildered, not knowing how next to act.

Chapter Twenty.

Reveals Hubert’s Secret.

Water was needed, he knew, though he had had but little experience of cases such as this.

Upon the Minister’s writing-table stood a silver bowl full of pale pink tulips, and these he threw out quickly and began to sprinkle Her Highness’s hard-set countenance.

But to no avail.

For some minutes he tried frantically to restore her. He dared not ring for the servants, as it would no doubt compromise her to be found alone with him in that room. There were alas! sufficient wild stories afloat about her already, and no doubt if she were discovered there with him the fact would, in an hour, reach His Majesty’s ears.

In such case what explanation could he give without telling absolute lies? Besides, did not His Majesty repose the utmost confidence in him, and that confidence must assuredly be shaken.

Absolutely helpless he stood gazing upon her prostrate figure and trying in vain to seek a solution of the difficulty.

If she would only regain consciousness in order that he could ring the bell and leave her. But, alas! she was insensible, and no amount of water upon her face would revive her. Of smelling-salts or other restoratives there were none. So he was compelled to remain there inactive and impatient.

What could be the nature of the message she had received from that man who, though a Frenchman, was posing in Brussels as Slavo Petrovitch, a Servian from Belgrade? It must have been a most disquieting one to have so upset her as to cause her to faint. A girl who knew no fear, who was naturally athletic and strong-minded, who drove her car through the night alone and unattended, and who, travelling to the north incognita, had won a motor-cycle race, was not the sort of person to faint at any news which did not gravely concern herself.

Was it possible, he wondered, that Henri Pujalet had written abandoning her?

That was the impression which forced itself upon him. The Frenchman certainly could not know her real title and position. Pujalet no doubt believed, as he himself had believed, that Lola was a poor dependent. Hence it was quite probable that he had met some other woman and in favour of her had abandoned Lola.

Yet, as he stood there wondering he recollected the love-scene that hot stifling night beneath the palms in the far-off Sudan, how her lover had held her so passionately to his breast and smothered her face with his kisses. And how she, too, had stroked his cheeks tenderly with both her soft hands.

Yes. They, no doubt, loved each other, and perhaps, after all, he was misjudging that man to whom she had given her affection.

Thoughts of Beatriz, too, flashed across his mind. How different was the pale recumbent figure in white to that dashing Andalusian dancer!

He dropped upon one knee at the side of the couch, looked intently upon the white unconscious countenance, and held his breath.

“Lola!” he whispered, but so low that sound hardly passed his fevered lips. “I love you, darling! I love you, though you shall never know, because our love is forbidden. Alas! it could only bring grief, sorrow, and disaster upon both of us. But—ah, my God! I love you—I love you!”

And slowly and reverently he took the inert hand which he held in his and raising it to his lips, kissed it with all the mad, ardent passion of his stifled affection.

For some minutes he remained there kneeling by her side, stroking her bare white arm and kissing her soft little hand. Sorely tempted was he to kiss her upon the lips, but by dint of self-restraint he held himself back.

She was unconscious, and to kiss her would be to take an unfair advantage.

But time and again he repeated those fervent whispered words, sometimes so loud that they could actually be heard in the room.

“Lola! I love you! I love you, darling. I love you—though you can never be mine!”

He was bending over her hand in silence, a great lump having arisen in his throat, while in his eyes were unshed tears. The blank hopelessness of his mad passion had been forced upon him. There were two reasons. She loved the young Frenchman, and again she, a Princess of the House of Savoy, could never marry a mere foreign diplomat.

No, he must again crush down all his intense love for her; again remain her sincere and most devoted friend.

Once more he bent till his lips reverently touched her cold hand, but at that moment he heard a movement behind him, and, turning, saw a short, white-haired man in Court uniform, with the crimson and white ribbon of the Order of the Crown of Italy at his throat.

Waldron started quickly.

The man who had entered noiselessly and stood there watching him was none other than the man who, up the Nile, had passed as Lola’s uncle, Jules Gigleux—but whose real name was Luigi Ghelardi, the most renowned Secret Service Chief in Europe.

“Well, signore,” exclaimed the shrewd, cunning old man in Italian with his grey brows knit, “this is certainly a surprise! I did not expect when I entered here in search of His Excellency the General that I should make this very interesting discovery?”

Waldron sprang to his feet much confused and altered in the same language:

“Her Highness has unfortunately fainted.”

“And you were trying to restore her—eh?” he laughed with bitter sarcasm.

There was a look of distinct evil in the man’s small cunning eyes.

“Yes. And I have failed,” Waldron answered.

“Had you not better ring for the servants? I think so.”

And the chief spy of Italy pressed the electric button near at hand.

In response, a tall sentry appeared at once and saluted.

“I want one of the maids of the household instantly. Her Royal Highness has fainted.”

“Si, signore,” was the man’s reply, saluting, again turning like clockwork and disappearing.

“I must confess, Signor Waldron,” exclaimed Ghelardi, very severely, “that I am greatly surprised to discover you here, and in such a position as I found you.”

“And I am equally surprised, Signor Ghelardi, to discover your real identity,” was the diplomat’s reply. “For a number of years, as Chief of the German Service, you were the arch-enemy of my country. That is not forgotten, even though you have returned to the land of your birth, and taken service again under your own King.”

“It appears that your attitude is the reverse of friendly, signore,” was the antagonistic reply of the man with the bristly hair, who looked much more French than Italian.

“And it appears to me that very little friendship exists between us on either side—eh?”

“From what I have just witnessed I can plainly discern the truth,” said the Chief of the Secret Service. “The Princess is a giddy, skittish girl whose injudicious actions have, from time to time, caused greatest annoyance and anxiety to Their Majesties. Rome is full of scandals regarding her unconventionality and her disregard for her high position. And here we have yet another. I discover her insensible with you kneeling at her side declaring your affection?”

“I hope the discovery gives you most supreme satisfaction, Signor Ghelardi,” exclaimed Hubert defiantly.

“It gives me the greatest dissatisfaction. His Majesty entrusts her to my care, and I am responsible.”

“You exercised your duty very well in Egypt, I admit,” Waldron replied with a light laugh. “Now I suppose your intention will be to go to His Majesty and describe what you have seen here this evening.”

“I shall act, signore, just as I think fit.”

“No doubt, in order to curry favour with His Majesty you will give a lurid picture of what you have witnessed,” exclaimed Hubert. “Well, do so—at your own peril.”

As he spoke two maids entered, accompanied by the sentry.

“Her Royal Highness has fainted,” Ghelardi explained, pointing to the prostrate figure upon the couch. “You, sentry, had better go in search of Doctor Mellini. He is probably in his rooms. You know where they are—close to the principal entrance. Tell your captain—he will soon find him.”

“Si, signore,” was the man’s answer, as he raised his hand to the salute, turned again and left.

The two maids in their artistic pale grey caps and aprons—the uniform worn by all the female servants of the Palace—dashed across to the young Princess. Then one of them left and ran away for her own smelling-salts.

“I think we had better leave Her Highness. She will be attended to and taken to her rooms,” Ghelardi said.

So the two men went out together, passing along the corridor which led towards the grand staircase.

Hubert was pondering. He saw that the situation was, both for Lola and himself, a very unpleasant one. Ghelardi would, without a doubt, inform the King. Since he had been appointed to Rome he had learnt that the notorious spy was, in addition to being a most remarkable man in his profession, at the same time a place-seeker of the worst type, a soft-spoken sycophant who was for ever closeted with the King.

That His Majesty, with his shrewd intuition and his instinctive reading of men’s minds, had realised this, had been shown by the fact that he had called in the British diplomat to make inquiries into the serious loss of the plans of the frontier fortresses.

No. The King did not trust Luigi Ghelardi so implicitly as Ghelardi himself believed.

The pair, on their way along the corridor, passed an open door. The small room, which was that devoted to the Captain of the Royal Guard while on duty.

“Before we part, Signor Ghelardi, I would like to have a word with you,” Hubert said suddenly. “We cannot do better than speak together here in private.”

“Benissimo,” was the great spy’s reply, acceding most willingly.

Then when they were inside, and Waldron had closed the door, he turned, suddenly asking:

“I presume it is your intention to reveal to the King what you have just witnessed—eh?”

“It is my duty to do so, signore. I have been entrusted with Her Royal Highness’s welfare.”

“And by doing so you will once more cause His Majesty both pain and annoyance,” Waldron remarked.

“And if I were silent should I not be conniving at this impossible situation?”

Hubert Waldron looking at him with keen defiance said:

“Signor Ghelardi, you will, I tell you, say nothing of to-night’s incident to a single soul.”

The elder man laughed openly in the diplomat’s face.

“No, Signor Waldron,” he said, “I quite understand you have no desire that the truth should become common property; but His Majesty will say nothing to others.”

“His Majesty will not know!” Waldron said decisively and very quietly. There was a hard look upon his dark handsome face.

“Madonna mia! I may surely make what report I like to my King, to whom I am directly responsible.”

“In this instance, Signor Ghelardi, though you discern in it an excellent opportunity of showing your remarkable powers of inquiry, you will remain strictly silent. No word of it shall pass your lips.”

“Oh, and pray why, my dear signore?” asked the other opening his eyes.

“Because I forbid it.”

“You forbid!” he echoed. “I tell you that I shall act just as I deem proper.”

“Then I, too, shall also act, Signor Ghelardi—and much against your interests, I assure you.”

“You threaten me—eh? You?”

“I do not threaten,” Hubert hastened to assure him. “I shall only act in case you should act against the interests of Her Royal Highness.”

“I do not think you, a foreigner, can interfere very much with my interests,” laughed the other in defiance.

“Think whatever you please. After you have had audience with His Majesty I, too, shall have audience, and when I have left, then the King will probably tell you what I have revealed to him.”

“And what, pray, can you reveal?” asked the Chief of the Secret Service, his grey brows again knit, showing that he was somewhat puzzled by the diplomat’s defiant attitude.

“That is my own affair,” replied Hubert with a triumphant smile. “Suffice it to say that the hour you make any statement concerning what you have witnessed to-night, then in the same hour you will cease to be Chief of Italy’s Secret Service!”

“Do you think to frighten me, then?”

“I have no wish, my dear Signor Ghelardi,” was Hubert’s very polite reply. “I only desire that no further scandal should be attached to Her Royal Highness’s good name.” And after a brief pause he looked the official straight in the face and said: “I offer you silence for silence!”

“And I decline your most generous offer.”

“Good. Then we shall see!”

“But—”

“I do not wish to discuss this unpleasant matter further,” interrupted Waldron. “Go and tell the King—but at your own peril. Buona sera.” And the diplomat turned away. As he was about to leave the room Ghelardi sprang forward and placed his fingers upon the handle of the door to prevent him.

“I think,” he said, “that we are perhaps misunderstanding each other.”

“No, we are not,” was Hubert’s prompt reply, sturdy Briton that he was. “I understand you, Luigi Ghelardi, perfectly. You have no compunction where Her Highness is concerned. You, man of secrets that you are, will, rather than conceal a woman’s shortcomings, bring upon her the anger of the King in order to secure your own personal ends.”

The bristly haired old official bit his lip. Hubert watched him and smiled inwardly.

“You defy me to execute my duty.”

“Your duty is political espionage, not to spy upon a member of the royal family,” the diplomat replied. “And, further, I tell you that if you breathe a word of this to His Majesty—or if His Majesty gets to hear of it through any third party, I will not spare you, Luigi Ghelardi,” he added, earnestly facing the old man in defiance. “Go then, tell him what you will,” Hubert continued angrily, and again he turned the handle of the door to pass out.

“That is my intention.”

“And in return my intention will be to bring you down from your high position in the King’s esteem. That I shall do, and quickly—never fear,” Waldron said. Then, after a second’s pause, he added: “You are acquainted with a certain Englishman—a Mr Jerningham. He knew you well when you were in the German Service—he has cause to remember you. Indeed he has still a little account to settle with you, has he not—eh?”

Ghelardi started.

“What do you mean?” he asked, though affecting disregard of the remark.

“I mean nothing—so long as you remain silent,” Waldron answered.

Ghelardi was nonplussed. But only for a second, for he was not a man to be easily deterred from any intention.

“So you think that I may heed your empty threats—eh, Signor Waldron? Well, we shall see,” he replied, with a hard, triumphant laugh.

Then releasing his hold upon the door handle he bowed mockingly to the Englishman, inviting him to pass out.

Chapter Twenty One.

A Confidential Report.

Hubert Waldron halted on the threshold, his eyes fixed upon those of the spy.

“Well?” asked Ghelardi, with a sinister smile.

“All I desire to say is that I have the ear of His Majesty as well as yourself. And what I shall tell him will not be to your credit.”

The countenance of the Chief of the Secret Service broadened into a smile of open derision. In his high official position he was all-powerful in Italy—more powerful indeed than the whole Cabinet of Ministers.

“Neither will it be to your credit when I describe to the King what I have witnessed to-night,” he answered.

The Englishman had it upon the tip of his tongue to speak more openly, but on reflection realised that it would be more judicious to keep the information to himself. Jerningham knew that man who had been England’s arch-enemy while in the pay of his masters at Berlin; he had cause to know him—and well, too.

“Signor Ghelardi,” he said finally, “this matter is one of give and take. I offer you terms for your silence. If you refuse, then I shall act as I think fit.”

“Act just as you think fit,” was the Italian’s sneering response.

“Very well,” replied the diplomat, turning and walking up the corridor back to the ballroom.

Half an hour later he met His Majesty face to face.

“Ah, Signor Waldron, you are back again in Rome—eh?” the King exclaimed anxiously. “Well—anything to tell me?” he asked, dropping his voice.

His Majesty was passing through the Sala Regia alone, and there was nobody in the vicinity to overhear.

“Nothing, sir—only—”

“Only what? Quick,” he said impatiently. “It is rumoured in Brussels that Austria is mobilising for attack!”

“In Brussels!” exclaimed the King as they walked together. “How do you know that?”

“I have to-night returned from there.”

“Curious—very curious,” repeated His Majesty reflectively. “Here, as far as I know, we have heard nothing. Ghelardi’s agents in Vienna report by telegraph several times daily, but they can obtain no definite information, though it is known that troops are massing in the south—for manoeuvres—the old story.”

“I am still inquiring into the affair,” said Waldron. “As soon as I have anything to report I will seek audience of Your Majesty.”

“Yes; at any hour. I have instructed Villanova.”

“I have not spoken about the matter to Ghelardi,” the Englishman said as they left the great salon and turned into one of the corridors. Several men and women had halted to bow as His Majesty passed.

“Ghelardi has discovered nothing,” was the King’s hasty response. “He has all sorts of wild theories regarding the theft of the plans, but as far as I can see he has no clue whatever to the thief.”

“Then I shall continue to work without his aid,” Waldron declared, and a moment later he bowed and left His Majesty, who passed through a small door leading to the private apartments.

Next morning, at nine o’clock, Pucci, the brigadier of detective police, called at Hubert’s rooms, and produced a carefully written report, which the Englishman settled himself to digest.

It certainly was interesting reading.

While the brigadier sat smoking a cigarette, the diplomat ran through the document, which showed that Pucci had been extremely active during the week of his absence.

The private and public lives—with extracts from the dossiers at the Prefecture of Police—of His Excellency the Minister for War, of Lambarini, secretary of the Council of Defence, and of Pironti, the Minister’s private secretary, were all laid bare.

Of General Cataldi it was stated that, after long service in the army, he became General, commanding the Third Army Corps in Calabria. While occupying that post an army scandal occurred regarding the supply of stores, great quantities having been paid for and not delivered by the contractors. A court martial was held and four officers attached to the General’s headquarters had been sentenced to terms of imprisonment and dismissed the Service. Certain journals had accused the General himself of being cognisant of the misappropriation of funds, but this he had indignantly denied and had demanded of the Minister of War an inquiry into his conduct. This had been held, and a report returned that there were no grounds for the allegation. But even in face of that the journals in question had charged him with making scapegoats of the four imprisoned officers.

It was curious that a year later the General, who had hitherto, like all Italian officers, not been very well off, had suddenly appeared to be in possession of considerable funds. He had been transferred to Turin, where he had bought a large house and, with his wife, had entertained lavishly. Another lady, a certain youthful Countess in Milan, had attracted him, and in consequence, after a few months, his wife preferred to live apart.

Then, by reason of his lavish entertainments, his apparent wealth, and also because he had a number of influential friends in the Chamber of Deputies, he had been called by the King and given his portfolio as Minister of War.

The confidential report added that his present expenditure greatly exceeded his income, and that he was also heavily in debt, owing, in great measure, to the extravagances of the young Countess in question, who had now taken up her abode in Rome.

Against Colonel Lambarini nothing was known. He was happily married, with two charming children. He lived well within his income, and was of a plain and rather economic turn of mind. He ran into debt for nothing, and his wife had a private income of her own.

The King’s estimate of Lambarini was therefore perfectly correct.

With Pironti it was different. As His Excellency’s secretary he was a man who pandered in every way to all his Chief’s whims and foibles. He was a bachelor, and spent his evenings in the gaming clubs and other questionable haunts, and had been known to lose considerable sums at baccarat. He frequented the political cafés and the variety theatres, and it was also well-known in the army that no one could obtain the ear of His Excellency without first obtaining “the good graces of his secretary.”

“These good graces you mention, Signor Pucci, mean money, I suppose!” remarked Waldron suddenly in Italian.

“Si, signore,” replied the dark-faced detective, with a smile.

Continuing, the report stated that Pironti often associated with undesirable persons, and, further, that it was a known fact that he had received from many officers who had sought promotion douceurs to a considerable amount. Indeed in the army it was declared that so lax was His Excellency in his duties as Minister that he left Pironti to prepare the lists of both promotions and military decorations, merely taking care that the names of none of his enemies appeared there, and scribbling his signature to the decree for the King’s approval.

Hubert Waldon sighed when he had finished that most instructive document.

Then, rising, he placed it in a drawer of his writing-table and locked it safely away.

“So His Excellency and his secretary are not exactly above accepting bribes—eh?” he asked, throwing himself again in his chair.

“According to the result of my inquiries they seem to be both reaping a golden harvest,” Pucci said. “But perhaps not greater than in any other department.”

“The police excepted, I hope,” laughed the diplomat.

But the brigadier grinned. During his years of office he had known more than one person being given timely warning to escape when the Government, forced to prosecute, did not wish to expose a scandal. The Italian peasant may well say that the law for the count is exactly opposite to that for the contadino.

Hubert sat for some moments looking straight into the fire.

He saw that General Cataldi, with the assistance of his dishonest secretary, could enforce a secret toll from every officer who obtained promotion. While nearly every member of the Cabinet was doing the same thing, and every Deputy was giving or accepting bribes, often quite openly, it was not likely that anyone would dare to come forward and denounce them.

The motto of the Minister in Italy is to make a fortune while the office lasts. And they certainly do—as is proved by the constant scandals ever being exposed by the Press, while more are suppressed with hush-money.

But if this were so, and if His Excellency and his sycophant were reaping such a rich harvest, then would they dare to run such risks as to connive at the theft of the plans by a foreign agent?

According to Tonini, only His Excellency and the two secretaries entered the room wherein the plans reposed. Therefore, either His Excellency or his secretary must have extracted them.