William Le Queux (continued 3)

“I laughed aloud in their faces.

”‘Ah!’ I cried, ‘this is amusing! This is really a good joke! And pray what do you threaten?’

”‘We do not threaten,’ Zekki said. ‘You are here to die.’ And he laughed grimly, while the others grinned.

”‘Why?’

”‘That is our affair.’

”‘And mine also,’ I replied. ‘And gentlemen, I would further advise you in future to be quite certain of your victim, or it may go ill with you. Let me pass!’ And I drew the revolver the kavass had given me.

”‘Put that thing away!’ ordered the elder of the men, approaching me with threatening gesture.

”‘I shall not. Let us end this confounded foolishness. Shunam-al-Zulah!’

“The effect of these words upon the trio was electrical.

“The sallow-faced attaché stood staring at me open-mouthed, while his companions fell back, as though I had dealt them both a blow. They seemed too dumbfounded to respond, as, revolver in hand, I next moment passed out of the room and from that house to which I had been so cleverly lured, and where my death had evidently been planned.

“At the hotel I spent a sleepless night, full of deep anxiety, wondering for what reason the curious plot had been arranged, and whether my dainty little companion had had any hand in it.

“My apprehensions were, however, entirely dispelled when early on the following been morning, Olga called to ask why I had absent when the kavass had called for me.

“I took her into one of the smaller rooms, and told her the whole truth, whereat she was much upset, and eager to leave the Turkish capital immediately.

“At seven that same evening we sailed for Naples, and without further incident duly arrived at the Italian port, took train for Rome, and thence by express to Paris and Charing Cross.

“On the journey she refused to discuss the plot of the jealous, evil-eyed Turk. Her one idea was to get to London—and to freedom.

“At eleven o’clock at night we stepped out upon Charing Cross platform, and I ordered the cabman to drive me to the Cecil, for when acting the part of Reggie Martin, I always avoided Dover Street. It was too late to catch the Scotch mail, therefore I would be compelled to spend the first day of the pheasants in London, and start north to my friends on the following day.

“Suddenly as we entered the station she had decided also to spend the night at the Cecil and leave next day for Ipswich, where a brother of hers was a tutor.

“I wished her good-night in the big hall of the hotel, and went up in the lift.

“Rising about half-past six next morning and entering my sitting-room, I was amazed to encounter Olga, fully dressed in hat and caracul jacket, standing in the grey dawn, reading a paper which she had taken from my despatch-box!

“Instantly she dropped her hand, and stood staring at me without uttering a word, knowing full well that I had discovered the astounding truth.

“I recognised the document by the colour of the paper.

”‘Well, mademoiselle?’ I demanded in a hard tone, ‘And for what reason, pray, do you pry into my private papers like this?’

”‘I—I was waiting to bid you adieu,’ she answered tamely.

”‘And you were at the same time making yourself acquainted with the contents of that document which I have carried in my belt ever since I left Sofia—that document of which you and your interesting friend, Zekki, have ever since desired sight—eh?’ I exclaimed, bitterly. ‘My duty is to call in the police, and hand you over as a political Spy to be expelled from the country.’

”‘If m’sieur wishes to do that he is at perfect liberty to do so,’ she answered, in quick defiance. ‘The result is the same. I have read Petkoff’s declaration, so the paper is of no further use,’ and she handed it to me with a smile of triumph upon those childlike lips. ‘Arrest or liberty—I am entirely in monsieur’s hands,’ she added, shrugging her shoulders.

“I broke forth into a torrent of reproach for I saw that Bulgaria had been betrayed to her arch-enemy, Turkey, by that sweet-faced woman who had so completely deceived me, and who, after the first plot had failed, had so cleverly carried the second to a successful issue.

“Defiant to the last, she stood smiling in triumph. Even when I openly accused her of being a spy she only laughed.

“Therefore I opened the door and sternly ordered her to leave, knowing, alas! that, now she had ascertained the true facts, the Bulgarian secret policy towards Turkey would be entirely negatived, that the terrible atrocities in Macedonia must continue, and that the Russian influence in Bulgaria would still remain paramount.

“I held my silence, and spent a dull and thoughtful Sunday in the great London hotel. Had I remained in Bucharest, as was my duty, and handed the document in Petkoff’s handwriting to the King’s Messenger, who was due to pass in the Orient express, the dainty Olga could never have obtained sight of it. This she knew, and for that reason had told me the story of her torture in the prison at Riga and urged me to save her. Zekki, knowing that I constantly carried the secret declaration of Bulgaria in the belt beneath my clothes, saw that only by my unconsciousness, or death, could they obtain sight of it. Hence the dastardly plot to kill me, frustrated by the utterance of the password of the Turkish spies themselves.

“It is useless for a man to cross swords with a pretty woman where it is a matter of ingenuity and double-dealing. With the chiefs of the Foreign Office absent, I could only exist in anxiety and dread, and when I acted it was, alas! too late.

“Inquiries subsequently made in Constantinople showed that the house in which Zekki had received me, situated near the konak of Ali Saib Pasha, was the headquarters of the Turkish Secret Service, of which the sallow-faced scoundrel was a well-known member, and that on the evening of the day of my return to London the body of Nicholas, the Montenegrin kavass who saved my life, had been found floating in the Bosphorus. Death had been his reward for warning me!

“Readers of the newspapers are well aware how, two months later, as a result of Turkish intrigue in Sofia, my poor friend Dimitri Petkoff, Prime Minister of Bulgaria, was shot through the heart while walking with me in the Boris Garden.

“Both Bulgarian and Turkish Governments have, however, been very careful to suppress intelligence of a dramatic incident which occurred in Constantinople only a few weeks ago. Olga Steinkoff, the secret agent employed by the Sublime Porte, was, at her house in the Sarmaschik quarter, handed by her maid a beautiful basket of fruit that had been sent by an admirer. The dainty woman with the childlike face cut the string, when, lo! there darted forth four hissing, venomous vipers. Two of the reptiles struck, biting her white wrist ere she could withdraw, and an hour later, her face swollen out of all recognition, she died in terrible agony.

“The betrayal of Bulgaria and the assassination of Petkoff, the patriot, have, indeed, been swiftly avenged.”

Chapter Seven.

The Sign of the Cat’s-Paw.

Another part which the Prince played in the present-day drama now being enacted in Eastern Europe brought him in touch with “The Sign of the Cat’s-Paw,” a sign hitherto unknown to our Foreign Office, or to readers of the daily newspapers.

At the same time, however, it very nearly cost him his own life.

The affair occurred about a couple of months after the death of the fascinating Olga Steinkoff. He had been sent back to the Balkans upon another mission. Cosmopolitan of cosmopolitans, he had been moving rapidly up and down Europe gathering information for Downing Street, but ever on the look-out for an opening for the Parson and himself to operate in a very different sphere.

Garrett, blindly obedient to the telegrams he received, had taken the car on some long flying journeys, Vienna, Berlin and back to Belgrade, in Servia. For two months or so I had lost sight of both the mild-mannered, spectacled Clayton and the Prince, when one morning, while walking down St. James’s Street, I saw Garrett in his grey and scarlet livery driving the car from Piccadilly down to Pall Mall.

By this I guessed that his Highness had returned to London, so I called at Dover Street, and twenty minutes later found myself seated in the big saddle-bag chair with a “Petroff” between my lips.

He was in his old brown velvet lounge coat and slippers, and had been at his writing-table when I entered. But on my appearance he threw down his pen, stretched himself, and sat round for a gossip.

Suddenly, while speaking, he made a quick, half-foreign gesture of ignorance in response to a question of mine, and in that brief instant I saw upon his right palm a curious red mark.

“Hullo!” I asked. “What’s that?”

“Oh—nothing,” he replied, rather confused I thought, and shut his hand so that I could not see it.

“But it is!” I declared. “Let me see.”

“How inquisitive you are, Diprose, old chap,” he protested.

So persistent was I, and so aroused my curiosity by finding a mark exactly like the imprint of a cat’s-paw, that, not without considerable reluctance, he explained its meaning. The story he narrated was, indeed, a most remarkable and dramatic one. And yet he related it as though it were nothing. Perhaps, indeed, the puzzling incidents were of but little moment to one who led a life so chock-full of adventure as he.

Yes, it really was curious, he remarked at last. It was in March. I had been in London’s mud and rain for a fortnight, and grown tired of it. Suddenly a confidential mission had been placed in my hands—a mission which had for its object British support to the Bulgarian Government against the machinations of Austria to extend her sphere of influence southward across the Danube and Servia.

My destination was Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, and once more the journey by the Orient Express across Europe was a long and tedious one. I had wired to Garrett, who was awaiting me with the car at the Hungaria, in Budapest, to bring it on to Sofia.

But I was much occupied with the piece of scheming which I had undertaken to carry out. My patriotism had led me to attempt a very difficult task—one which would require delicate tact and a good deal of courage and resource, but which would, if successful, mean that a loan of three millions would be raised in London, and that British influence would become paramount in that go-ahead country, which, ere long, must be the power of the Balkans.

I knew, however, that there were others in Sofia upon the same errand as myself, emissaries of other governments and other financial houses. Therefore, in the three long never-ending days the journey occupied, my mind was constantly filled with thoughts of the best and most judicious course to pursue in order to attain my object.

The run was uneventful, save for one fact. At the Staatsbahnhof, at Vienna, just before our train left for Budapest, a queer, fussy little old man in brown entered, and was given the compartment next mine.

His nationality I could not determine. He spoke deep guttural German with the fair-bearded conductor of the train, but by his clothes—which were rather dandified for so old a man—I did not believe him to be a native of the Fatherland.

I heard him rumbling about with his bags next door, apparently settling himself, when of a sudden my quick ear caught an imprecation which he uttered to himself in English.

A few hours later, at dinner, I found him placed at the little table opposite me, and naturally we began to chat. He spoke in French—perfect French it was—but refused to speak English, though, of course, he could had he wished.

“Ah! non,” he laughed, “I cannot. Excuse me. My pronunciation is so faulty. Your English is so ve-ry deefecult.”

And so we chatted in French, and I found the queer old fellow was on his way to Sofia. He seemed slightly deformed, his face was distinctly ugly, broad, clean-shaven, with a pair of black piercing eyes that gave him a most striking appearance. His grey hair was long, his nose aquiline, his teeth protruding and yellow, and he was a grumbler of the most pronounced type. He growled at the food, at the service, at the draughts, at the light in the restaurant, at the staleness of the bread we had brought with us from Paris, and at the butter, which he declared to be only Danish margarine.

His complaints were amusing. He was possessed of much grim humour. At first the maître d’hôtel bustled about to do the bidding of the new-comer, but very quickly summed him up, and only grinned knowingly when called to listen to his biting criticism of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-lits and all its works.

Next day, at Semlin, where our passports were examined, the passport-officer took off his hat to him, bowed low and viséd his passport without question, saying, as he handed back the document to its owner:

“Bon voyage, Altesse.”

I stared at the pair. My fussy friend with the big head must therefore be either a prince or a grand duke! Just then I was not a prince—only plain M’sieur Martin. In Roumania princes are as plentiful as blackberries, so I put him down as a Roumanian.

As I sat opposite him at dinner that night he was discussing with me the harmful writings of some newly discovered German who was posing as a cheap philosopher, and denouncing them as dangerous to the community. He leaned his elbow upon the narrow table and supported his clean-shaven chin upon his finger, displaying to me most, certainly by accident, the palm of his thin right hand.

What I discovered there caused me a good deal of surprise. In its centre was a dark livid mark, as though it had been branded there by a hot iron, the plain and distinct imprint of a cat’s-paw!

It fascinated me. There was some hidden meaning in that mark, I felt convinced. It was just as though a cat had stepped upon blood with one of its fore-paws and trodden upon his hand.

Whether he noticed that I had detected it or not, I cannot say, but he moved his hand quickly, and ever after kept it closed.

His name, he told me at last, was Konstantinos Vassos, and he lived in Athens. But I took that information cum grano, for I knew him to be a prince travelling incognito. The passport-officer at Semlin makes no mistakes.

But if actually a prince, why did he carry a passport?

There is, unfortunately, no good hotel at Sofia. The best is the Bulgarie, kept by a pleasant old lady to whom I was well-known as M’sieur Martin, and in this we found ourselves next night installed. He gave his name as Vassos, and to all intents and purposes was more of a stranger in Prince Ferdinand’s capital than I myself was, for I had been there at least half a dozen times before. Most of the Ministers knew me, and I was always elected a member of the smart diplomats’ club, the Union, during my stay.

The days passed. From the first morning of my arrival I found myself as before in a vortex of gaiety; invitations to the Legations poured in upon me, cards for dances here and there, receptions by members of the Cabinet, and official dinners by the British and French Ministers, while daily I spent each afternoon with my friend, Colonel Mayhew, the British military attaché, in his comfortable quarters not far from our Agency.

All the while, I must here confess, I was working my cards very carefully. I had sounded my friend, Petkoff, the grave, grey-haired Prime Minister—the splendid Bulgarian patriot—and he was inclined to admit the British proposals. The Minister of War, too, was on my side. German agents had approached him, but he would have none of them. In Bulgaria just then they had no love of Germany. They were far too Russophile.

Indeed, in this strenuous life of a fortnight or so I had practically lost sight of the ugly old gentleman who had been addressed by the passport-officer as his Highness. Once or twice I had seen him wandering alone and dejected along the streets, for he apparently knew nobody, and was having a very quiet time, Greeks were disliked in Sofia almost as much as Turks, on account of the Greek bands who massacre the Bulgars in Macedonia.

One night at the weekly dance at the Military Club—a function at which the smart set at Sofia always attend, and at which the Ministers of State themselves put in an appearance—I had been waltzing with the daughter of the Minister of the Interior, a pretty dark-haired girl in blue, whom I had met during my last visit to Bulgaria, and the Spanish attaché, a pale-faced young man wearing a cross at his throat, had introduced to me a tall, very handsome, sweet-faced girl in a black evening-gown trimmed with silver.

A thin wreath of the same roses was in her hair, and around her neck was a fine gold chain from which was suspended a big and lustrous diamond.

Mademoiselle Balesco was her name, and I found her inexpressibly charming. She spoke French perfectly, and English quite well. She had been at school in England, she said—at Scarborough. Her home was at Galatz, in Roumania, where her father was Prefect.

We had several dances, and afterwards I took her down to supper. Then we had a couple of waltzes, and I conducted her out to the carriage awaiting her, and, bowing, watched her drive off alone.

But while doing so, there came along the pavement, out of the shadow, the short ugly figure of the old Greek Vassos, with his coat collar turned up, evidently passing without noticing me.

A few days later, when in the evening I called on Mayhew at his rooms, he said:

“What have you been up to, Martin? Look here! This letter was left upon me, with a note asking me to give it to you in secret. Looks like a woman’s hand! Mind what you’re about in this place, old chap! There are some nasty pitfalls, you know!”

I took the letter, opened it, read it through, and placed it in my pocket without a word.

With a bachelor’s curiosity, he was eager to know who was my fair correspondent. But I refused to satisfy him.

Suffice it to say that on that same night I went alone to a house on the outskirts of Sofia, and there met at her urgent request the pretty girl Marie Balesco, who had so enchanted me. Ours seemed to be a case of mutual attraction, for as we sat together, she seemed, after apologising for thus approaching me and throwing all the convenances to the winds, to be highly interested in my welfare, and very inquisitive concerning the reasons which had brought me to Bulgaria.

Like most women of the Balkans, she smoked, and offered me her cigarette-case. I took one—a delicious one it was, but rather strong—so strong, indeed, that a strange drowsiness suddenly overcame me. Before I could fight against it the small, well-furnished room seemed to whirl about me, and I must have fallen unconscious. Indeed I knew no more until on awakening I found myself back in my bed at the hotel.

I gazed at the morning sunshine upon the wall, and tried to recollect what held occurred.

My hand seemed strangely painful. Raising it from the sheets, I looked at it.

Upon my right palm, branded as by a hot iron, was the Sign of the Cat’s-paw!

Horrified I stared at it. It was the same mark that I had seen upon the hand of Vassos! What could be its significance?

In a few days the burn healed, leaving a dark red scar, the distinct imprint of the feline foot. From Mayhew I tried, by cautious questions, to obtain some information concerning the fair-faced girl who had played such a prank on me. But he only knew her slightly. She had been staying with a certain Madame Sovoff, who was something of a mystery, but had left Sofia.

A month passed. Mademoiselle and Madame returned from Belgrade and were both delighted when I suggested they should go for a run in the “sixty.” I took them over the same road as I had taken Olga Steinkoff. In a week Mademoiselle became an enthusiastic motorist, and was full of inquiry into the various parts of the engine, the ignition, lubrication, and other details. One day I carefully approached the matter of this remarkable mark upon my palm. But she affected entire ignorance. I confess that I had grown rather fond of her, and I hesitated to attribute to her, or to Madame, any sinister design; the strange mark on my hand was both weird and puzzling. We drove out in the car often, and many a time I recollected pretty Olga, and her horrible fate.

Vassos, who was still at the hotel, annoyed me on account of his extreme politeness, and the manner in which he appeared to spy upon all my movements. I came across him everywhere. Inquiries concerning the reason of the ugly Greek’s presence in Bulgaria met with negative result. One thing seemed certain; he was not a prince incognito.

How I longed to go to him, show him the mark upon my hand, and demand an explanation. But my curiosity was aroused; therefore I patiently awaited developments, my revolver always ready in my hip pocket, in case of foul play.

The mysterious action of the pretty girl from Galatz also puzzled me.

At last the Cabinet of Prince Ferdinand were in complete accord with the Prime Minister Petkoff, regarding the British proposals. All had been done in secret from the party in opposition, and one day I had lunched with his Excellency the Prime Minister, at his house in the suburbs of the city.

“You may send a cipher despatch to London, if you like, Mr Martin,” he said, as we sat over our cigars. “The documents will all be signed at the Cabinet meeting at noon to-morrow. In exchange for this loan of three millions raised in London, all the contracts for quick-firing guns and ammunition go to your group of financiers.” Such was the welcome news his Excellency imparted to me, and you may imagine that I lost no time in writing out a cipher message, and sending it by the man-servant to the nearest telegraph office.

For a long time I sat with him, and then he rose, inviting me to walk with him in the Boris Gardens, as was his habit every afternoon, before going down to the sitting of the Sobranje, or Parliament.

On our way we passed Vassos, who raised his hat politely to me.

“Who’s that man?” inquired the Minister quickly, and I told him all I knew concerning the ugly hunchback.

In the pretty public garden we were strolling together in the sundown, chatting upon the situation in Macedonia and other matters, when of a sudden, a black-moustached man in a dark grey overcoat and round astrachan cap, sprang from the bushes at a lonely spot, and raising a big service revolver, fired point-blank at his Excellency.

I felt for my own weapon. Alas! It was not there! I had forgotten it!

The assassin, seeing the Minister reel and fall, turned his weapon upon me. Thereupon, in an instant I threw up my hands, crying that I was unarmed, and was an Englishman.

As I did so, he started back as though terrified. His weapon fell from his grasp, and with a spring, he disappeared again into the bushes.

All had happened in a few brief instants; for ere I could realise that a tragedy had actually occurred, I found the unfortunate Prime Minister lying lifeless at my feet. My friend had been shot through the heart!

Readers of the newspapers will recollect the tragic affair, which is no doubt still fresh in their minds.

I told the Chief of Police of Sofia of my strange experience, and showed him the mark upon my palm. Though detectives searched high and low for the hunchback Greek, for Madame Sovoff, and for the fascinating Mademoiselle, none of them were ever found.

The assassin was, nevertheless, arrested a week later, while trying to cross the frontier into Servia. I, of course, lost by an ace the great financial coup, but before execution the prisoner made a confession which revealed the existence of a terrible and widespread conspiracy, fostered by Bulgaria’s arch-enemy Turkey, to remove certain members of the Cabinet who were in favour of British influence becoming paramount.

Yes. It was a rather narrow squeak.

Quite unconsciously, I had, it seemed, become an especial favourite of the silent, watchful old Konstantinos Vassos. He had no idea that I was a “crook” or that I was a secret agent. Fearing lest I, in my innocence, should fall a victim with his Excellency—being so often his companion—he had, with the assistance of the pretty Marie Balesco, contrived to impress upon my palm the secret sign of the conspirators.

To this fact I certainly owe my life, for the assassin—a stranger to Sofia, who had been drawn by lot—would, no doubt, have shot me dead, had he not seen upon my raised hand “The Sign of the Cat’s-paw.”

Chapter Eight.

Concerning a Woman’s Honour.

Few people are aware of the Prince’s serious love affair.

Beyond his most intimate friend, the Parson, I believe nobody knows of it except myself.

The truth I have managed to glean only bit by bit, for he has never told me himself. It is a matter which he does not care to mention, for recollections of the woman are, no doubt, ever in his heart, and as with many of us, ever painful.

No man or woman is thoroughly bad. Adventurer that he is, the Prince has ever been true and honourable, even generous, towards a good woman. The best and staunchest of friends, yet the bitterest of enemies if occasion required, he has never, to my knowledge, played an honest woman a scurvy trick.

The little romance of real life occurred in Florence about three years ago. A good many people got hold of a garbled version of it, but none know the actual truth. He loved, and because he loved he dare not pose in his usual character as a prince, for fear that she should discover the fraud. On the contrary, he was living at a small cheap hotel on the Lung Arno as Jack Cross, and posing as a man who was very hard-up and, besides, friendless.

He had entered upon the campaign with an entirely different object—an object which had for its consummation the obtaining of some very fine jewels belonging to the wife of an American who had made a corner in cotton, and who was engaged in seeing Europe. Max Mason and the Parson were both living as strangers to each other at the Savoy, in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, and idling daily in the Via Tornabuoni. A big coup had been planned, but instead of bringing it off, as luck would have it, his Highness had fallen hopelessly in love, and with a real royal princess, a woman whose beauty was universally proverbial.

Their love-story was full of pathos.

They were standing together in a garden one sunny afternoon, and were alone, without eavesdroppers. A moment before, he had been wondering what she would do; what she would say if she knew the ghastly truth—that he was a thief!

He had been born a gentleman—though he had no more right to the title of “prince” than I had. True, at college at Cheltenham he had been nicknamed “the prince,” because of his charming manner and elegant airs. Few of us even imagined, however, that he would, in later years, pass himself off as a German princeling and gull the public into providing him with the wherewithal to live in ease and luxury.

As he stood at the handsome woman’s side, thoughts of the past—bitter and regretful—flashed upon him. His conscience pricked him.

“Princess!—I—I—” he stammered.

“Well?” and her sweet red lips parted in a smile.

“I—ah! yes, it’s madness. I—I know I’m a fool! I see danger in all this. I have jeopardised your good name sufficiently already. People are looking at us now—and they will surely misjudge us!”

“You are not a fool, my dear Jack,” she answered in her charming broken English. “You are what you call a goose.” And she laughed outright.

“But think! What will they say?”

“They may say just whatever pleases them,” she answered airily, glancing at the half a dozen or so smartly dressed people taking tea in the beautiful Italian garden overlooking the red roofs and cupolas of the Lily City, Florence. “They—the world—have already said hard things about me. But what do I really care?”

“You care for the Prince’s honour, as well as your own,” he ventured in a low serious voice, looking straight into her blue eyes.

Her Imperial and Royal Highness Angelica Pia Marie Therese Crown-Princess of Bosnia, and daughter of a reigning Emperor, was acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful and accomplished women in Europe. Her photographs were everywhere, and a year before, at her brilliant marriage in Vienna, all the States of Europe were represented, and her photograph had appeared in every illustrated newspaper on the two Continents. The world, ignorant of the tragedy of life behind a throne, believed the royal marriage to be a love-match, but the bitter truth remained that it was merely the union of two imperial houses, without the desire of either the man, or the woman. Princess Angelica had, at the bidding of the Emperor, sacrificed her love and her young life to a man for whom she had only contempt and loathing.

As she stood there, a tall, frail figure, in plain white embroidered muslin, her fair hair soft beneath her big black hat, her sweet delicately moulded face and her eyes of that deep childlike blue that one so seldom sees in girls after fourteen, there was upon her countenance an undisguised love-look. She was indeed the perfect incarnation of all that was graceful and feminine; little more indeed, than a girl, and yet the wife of a prince that would ere long become a king.

For a few moments the man and the woman regarded each other in silence.

He was spell-bound by her wondrous beauty like many another man had been. But she knew, within herself, that he was the only man she had ever met that she could love.

And surely they were a curiously ill-assorted pair, as far as social equality went, she the daughter of an Emperor, while he a hard-up young Englishman, tall, dark-haired, with a handsome, serious face, lived, he had explained to her, in Florence, first, because it was cheap, and secondly, because his old aunt, who had a small house out on the Fiesole Road, practically kept him. His story to her was that he had once been on the Stock Exchange, but a run of ill-luck had broken him, so he had left England, and now managed to scrape along upon a couple of hundred or so a year paid him by a firm of Italian shipping and forwarding agents, for whom he now acted as English manager. The position was an excellent “blind.” Nobody recognised him as Tremlett, alias “his Highness.”

Half aristocratic Florence—those stiff-backed Italian duchesses and countesses with their popinjay, over-dressed male appendages—envied Jack Cross his intimate acquaintance with the Crown-Princess of Bosnia, who, in winter, lived at the magnificent villa on the Viale dei Colli, overlooking the town. Towards Italian society her royal Highness turned the cold shoulder. The Emperor had no love for Italy, or the Italians, and it was at his orders that she kept herself absolutely to herself.

On rare occasions, she would give a small garden-party or dinner to a dozen or so of the most prominent men and women in the city. But it was not often that they were asked, and beyond three or four people in Florence her Highness had no friends there. But part of her school-days had been spent in the big convent up at Fiesole, therefore it had been her whim after her marriage, to purchase that beautiful villa with its gorgeous rooms, marble terraces, and lovely gardens as a winter home.

And to that splendid house the Prince, alias Jack Cross, was always a welcome guest. He went there daily, and when not there, her Highness would amuse herself by chattering to him over the telephone to his office.

Envied by the society who would not know him because he was not an aristocrat, and with the sharp eye of the Florentine middle-classes upon him, little wonder was it that whispers were soon going about regarding the Princess’s too frequent confidences with the unknown Englishman.

He was watched whenever he rang at the great iron gate before which stood an Italian sentry day and night, and he was watched when he emerged. In the clubs, in the salons, in the shops, in the cafés, the gossip soon became common, and often with a good deal of imaginary embroidery.

It was true that he often dined at the Villa Renata with her Highness, the young Countess von Wilberg, the lady-in-waiting, and the old Countess Lahovary, a Roumanian, who had been lady-in-waiting to her mother the Empress, and in whose charge she always was when outside Bosnia. The evenings they often spent in the drawing-room, Her Highness being a good pianist. And on many a night she would rise, take her shawl, and pass out into the bright Italian moonlight with the young Englishman as her escort.

It was the way they passed nearly every evening—in each other’s company. Yet neither of her companions dare suggest a cessation of the young man’s visits, fearing to arouse the Princess’s anger, and receive their dismissal.

At risk of gossip her Imperial Highness often invited him to go for runs with her in her fine forty “Fiat” to Siena, to Bologna, or to Pisa, accompanied always, of course, by the Countess Lahovary. In those days he pretended not to possess a car, though he could drive one, and on many occasions he drove the Princess along those white dusty Italian highways. She loved motoring, and so did he. Indeed, he knew quite as much regarding the engine as any mechanic.

The Crown Prince hardly, if ever, came to Florence. His father, the King, was not on the best of terms with the Italian Court, therefore he made that an excuse for his absence in Paris, where, according to report his life was not nearly as creditable as it might have been.

Such were the circumstances in which, by slow degrees, her Highness found herself admiring and loving the quiet unassuming but good-looking young Englishman at whom everybody sneered because, to save himself from penury, he had accepted the managership of a trading concern.

Prince Albert himself saw it all, and recognised the extreme peril of the situation.

Born in the purple as the woman who had entranced him had been, she held public opinion in supreme contempt, and time after time had assured Jack that even if people talked and misconstrued their platonic friendship she was entirely heedless of their wicked untruths and exaggerations.

That afternoon was another example of her recklessness in face of her enemies.

She had invited up a few people to take tea and eat strawberries in the grounds, while a military band performed under the trees near by. But quickly tiring of the obsequiousness of her guests, she had motioned Cross aside, and in a low voice said in English: “For heaven’s sake, Jack, take me away from these awful people. The women are hags, and the men tailors’ dummies. Let us walk down to the rosary.”

And he, bowing as she spoke, turned and walked at her side, well knowing that by taking her from her guests he was increasing the hatred already felt against him.

In her heart she loved this unknown hardworking young Englishman, while he was held captive beneath her beauty, spell-bound by the music of her voice, thrilled by the touch of the soft hand which he kissed each day at greeting her, and each evening when they parted.

Yes, people talked. Cross knew they did. Men had told him so. Max and the Parson had heard all sorts of wild gossip, and had sent him a letter telling him that he was an idiot. They wanted to handle the American woman’s diamonds. They were not in Florence for sentimental reasons. The report had even reached his old aunt’s ears, and she had administered to him a very severe reprimand, to which he had listened without a single word of protest, except that he denied, and denied most emphatically, that he was the Princess’s lover. He was her friend, that was all.

True, she was lonely and alone there in gay Florence, the City of Flowers. Sarajevo, her own capital she hated, she had often said. “It is pleasant, my dear Jack, to be in dear old Firenze,” she had declared only the previous evening as they had walked and talked together in the white moonlight. “But doubly pleasant to be near such a good, true friend as you are to me.”

“I do but what is my duty, Princess,” he replied in a low voice. “You have few friends here. But I am, I hope, one who is loyal and true.”

Those words of his crossed her mind as they strolled away from the music and the guests that warm May afternoon, strolled on beneath the blossoms, and amid the great profusion of flowers. She glanced again at his serious thoughtful face, and sighed within herself. What were titles, imperial birth, power, and the servility of the people, to love? Why was she not born a commoner, and allowed to taste the sweets of life, that even the most obscure little waiting-maid or seamstress were allowed. Every woman of the people could seek Love and obtain it. But to her, she reflected bitterly, it was denied—because she was not of common clay, but an Emperor’s daughter, and destined to become a reigning queen!

Together they walked along the cool cypress avenue; he tall, clean-limbed in his suit of white linen and panama. But they strolled on in silence, beyond the gaze of their enemies.

“You seem to fear what these wretched gossips may say concerning us, Jack,” she said at last, raising her eyes to his. “Why should you?”

“I fear for your sake, Princess,” he answered. “You have all to lose—honour, name, husband—everything. For me—what does it matter? I have no reputation. I ceased to have that two years ago when I left England—bankrupt.”

“Poor Jack!” she sighed, in her quaint, childlike way. “I do wish you were wealthy, for you’d be so much happier, I suppose. It must be hard to be poor,” she added—she who knew nothing of the value of money, and scarcely ever spent any herself, her debts and alms being paid by palace secretaries.

“Yes,” he laughed. “And has it never struck you as strange that you, an Imperial Princess, should be a friend of a man who’s a bankrupt—an outsider like myself?” and an ugly thought flashed through his mind causing him to wince.

“And have you not always shown yourself my friend, Jack? Should I not be ungrateful if I were not your friend in return?” she asked.

They halted almost unconsciously half way along the cypress avenue, and stood facing each other.

Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein was struggling within himself. He loved this beautiful woman with all his heart, and all his soul. Yet he knew himself to be treading dangerous ground.

Their first acquaintance had been a purely accidental one three years ago. Her Highness was driving in the Ringstrasse, in Vienna, when her horses suddenly took fright at a passing motor-car and bolted. Jack, who was passing, managed to dash out and stop them, but in doing so was thrown down and kicked on the head. He was taken to the hospital, and not until a fortnight afterwards was he aware of the identity of the pretty woman in the carriage. Then, on his recovery, he was commanded to the palace and thanked personally by the Princess and by her father, the grey-bearded Emperor.

From that day the Princess Angelica had never lost sight of him. When she had married he had endeavoured to end their acquaintance, but she would not hear of it. And so he had drifted along, held completely beneath her spell.

He was her confidant, and on many occasions performed in secret little services for her. Their friendship, purely platonic, was firm and fast, and surely no man was ever more loyal to a woman than was the young Englishman, who was, after all, only an audacious adventurer.

In the glorious sunset of the brilliant Tuscan day they stood there in silence. At last he spoke.

“Princess,” he exclaimed, looking straight into her eyes. “Forgive me for what I am about to say. I have long wished to say it, but had not the courage. I—well, you cannot tell the bitterness it causes me to speak, but I have decided to imperil you no longer. I am leaving Florence.”

She looked at him in blank surprise.

“Leaving Florence!” she gasped. “What do you mean, Jack?”

“I mean that I must do so—for your sake,” was his answer. “The world does not believe that a woman can have a man friend. I—I yesterday heard something.”

“What?”

“That the Prince has set close watch upon us.”

“Well, and what of that? Do we fear?”

“We do not fear the truth, Princess. It is the untruth of which we are in peril.”

“Then Ferdinand is jealous!” she remarked as though speaking to herself. “Ah! that is distinctly amusing!”

“My friendship with you has already caused a scandal in this gossip-loving city,” he pointed out. “It is best for you that we should part. Remember the difference in our stations. You are of blood-royal—while I—” and he hesitated. How could he tell her the ghastly truth?

She was silent for a few moments, her beautiful face very grave and thoughtful. Well, alas! she knew that if this man left her side the sun of her young life would have set for ever.

“But—but Jack—you are my friend, are you not?”

“How can you ask that?”

“Ah! yes. Forgive me. I—I know—you risked your life to save mine. You—”

“No, no,” he cried, impatiently. “Don’t let’s talk of the past. Let us look at the future, and let us speak plainly. We are old friends enough for that, Princess.”

“Angelica,” she said, correcting him.

“Then—Angelica,” he said, pronouncing her Christian name for the first time. Then he hesitated and their eyes met. He saw in hers the light of unshed tears, and bit his lip. His own heart was too full for mere words.

“Jack,” she faltered, raising her hand and placing it upon his arm, “I don’t quite understand you. You are not yourself this evening.” The bar of golden sunlight caught her wrist and caused the diamonds in her bracelet to flash with a thousand fires.

“No, Princess—I—I mean Angelica. I am not. I wish to speak quite plainly. It is this. If I remain here, in Florence, I shall commit the supreme folly of—of loving you.” She cast her eyes to the ground, flushed slightly and held her breath.

“This,” he went on, “must never happen for two reasons, first you are already married, and secondly, you are of Imperial birth, while I am a mere nobody, and a pauper at that.”

“I am married, it is true!” she cried, bitterly. “But God knows, what a hollow mockery my marriage has been! God knows how I have suffered, compelled as I am to act a living lie! You despise me for marrying Ferdinand, a man I could never love. Yes, you are right, you are quite—”

“I do not despise, you, Angelica. I have always pitied you,” he interrupted. “I knew well that you did not love the Prince, but were compelled to sacrifice yourself.”

“You knew!” she cried, clutching his arm wildly, and looking into his face. “Ah! yes, Jack. You—you knew the truth. You must have known. I could not conceal it from you.”

“What?” he asked, his hand upon her slim shoulder.

“That—that I loved you,” she burst forth. But next second, as if ashamed of her confession, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed bitterly.

Tenderly he placed his strong arm about her neck as her head fell upon her shoulder. For a moment he held her closely to him. Then, in a faltering voice, he said:

“Angelica, I know that our love is mutual, that is why we must part.”

“No! no!” she cried through her tears. “No. Do not leave me here alone, Jack! If you go from Florence I must return to the hateful semi-imprisonment of the Palace at Sarajevo among those dull boors with whom I have not the least in common.”

“But, Angelica, I am in honour bound not to compromise you further. Your enemies are all talking, and inventing disgraceful scandals that have already reached the Prince’s ears. Hence his spies are here, watching all our movements.”

“Spies! Yes, Bosnia is full of them!” she cried angrily. “And Ferdinand sends them here to spy upon me!” and she clenched her tiny white hands resentfully.

“They are here, hence we must part. We must face our misfortune bravely; but for your sake I must leave your side, though heaven knows what this decision has cost me—my very life and soul.”

She raised her head, and with her clear blue eyes looked into his face.

At that same instant they heard a footstep on the gravel, and sprang quickly apart. But just as they did so a tall, well-dressed, brown-bearded man came into view. Both held their breath, for no doubt he had seen her in Jack’s arms.

The man was the Marquis Giulio di San Rossore, a Roman nobleman, who was a friend of her husband the Prince. But that he was her secret enemy she well knew. Only a month ago he had fallen upon his knees before her, and declared his love to her. But she had spurned and scorned him in indignation. He heard her biting words in silence, and had turned away with an expression upon his face which plainly told her of the fierce Italian spirit of revenge within his heart.

But he came forward smiling and bowing with those airs and graces which the cultured son of the south generally assumes.

“They have sent me to try and find you, your Highness,” he said. “The Duchess of Spezia has suggested a ball in aid of the sufferers from the earthquake down in Calabria, and we want to beg of you to give it your patronage.”

And he glanced at the Princess’s companion with fierce jealousy. He had, as they feared, witnessed the beautiful woman standing with her head upon his shoulder.

“Let us go back, Mr Cross,” her Highness said, “I would like to hear details of what is proposed.”

And all three strolled along the fine old avenue, and skirted the marble terrace to where the guests, having now finished their tea, were still assembled gossiping with the Countess Von Wilberg and Countess Lahovary.

As they walked together, the Marquess Giulio chuckled to himself at the discovery he had made, and what a fine tale he would be able to tell that night at the Florence Club.

The truth was proved. The penniless Englishman was the Princess’s lover! Florence had suspected it, but now it should know it.

That same night, after dinner, Jack was standing alone with the Princess in the gorgeous salon with its gilt furniture and shaded electric lights. He looked smart and well-groomed, notwithstanding that his evening clothes showed just a trifle the worse for wear, while she was brilliant and beautiful in an evening-gown of palest eau-de-nil embroidered chiffon, a creation of one of the great houses of the Rue de la Paix. Upon her white neck she wore her historic pearls, royal heirlooms that were once the property of Catherine the Great, and in her corsage a splendid true-lover’s knot in diamonds, the ornament from which there usually depended the black ribbon and diamond star-cross decoration, which marked her as an Imperial Archduchess. The cross was absent that night, for her only visitor was the man at her side.

Her two female companions were in the adjoining room. They knew well their royal mistress’s attraction towards the young Englishman, and never sought to intrude upon them. Both were well aware of the shameful sham of the Princess’s marriage and of his neglect and cruelty towards her, and both women pitied her in her loveless loneliness.

“But, Jack!” her Highness was saying, her pale face raised to his. “You really don’t mean to go? You can’t mean that!”

“Yes, Angelica,” was his firm reply, as he held her waist tenderly, drawing her towards him and looking deeply into her fine eyes. “I must go—to save your honour.”

“No, no!” she cried, clinging to him convulsively. “You must not—you shall not! Think, if you go I shall be friendless and alone! I couldn’t bear it.”

“I know. It may seem cruel to you. But in after years you will know that I broke our bond of affection for your own dear sake,” he said very slowly, tears standing in his dark eyes as he uttered those words. “You know full well the bitter truth, Angelica—just as well as I do,” he went on in a low whisper. “You know how deeply, how fervently I love you, how I am entirely and devotedly yours.”

“Yes, yes. I know, Jack,” she cried, clinging to him. “And I love you. You are the only man for whom I have ever entertained a single spark of affection. But love is forbidden to me. Ah! yes I know! Had I been a commoner and not a princess, and we had met, I should have found happiness, like other women. But alas! I am accursed by my noble birth, and love and happiness can never be mine—never!”

“We love each other, Angelica,” whispered the man who was a thief, softly stroking her fair hair as her head pillowed itself upon his shoulder. “Let us part, and carry tender remembrances of each other through our lives. No man has ever loved a woman more devoutly than I love you.”

“And no woman has ever loved a man with more reverence and more passion than I love you, Jack—my own dear Jack,” she said.

Their lips slowly approached each other, until they met in a fierce long passionate caress. It was the first time he had kissed her upon the lips—their kiss, alas! of long farewell.

“Good-bye, my love. Farewell,” he whispered hoarsely. “Though parted from you in the future I shall be yours always—always. Remember me—sometimes.”

“Remember you!” she wailed. “How can I ever forget?”

“No, dear heart,” he whispered. “Do not forget, remember—remember that we love each other—that I shall love you always—always. Farewell!”

Again he bent and kissed her lips. They were cold. She stood immovable. The blow of parting had entirely paralysed her senses.

Once more he pressed his hot lips to hers.

“May Providence protect and help us both, my beloved,” he whispered, and then with a last, long, yearning look upon the sad white countenance that had held him in such fascination, he slowly released her.

He caught up her soft white hand, kissing it reverently, as had been his habit ever since he had known her.

Then he turned, hard-faced and determined, struggling within himself, and next second the door had closed upon him, and she was left alone.

“Jack! My Jack!” she gasped. “Gone!” and grasping the edge of the table to steady herself, she stood staring straight before her.

Her future, she knew, was only a blank grey sea of despair.

Jack, the man whom she worshipped, the man whom she believed was honest, and for whom her pure affection was boundless, had gone out of her young life for ever.

Outside, a young Tuscan contadino, passing on to meet his love, was singing in a fine clear voice one of the old Florentine stornelli—those same love-songs sung in the streets of the Lily City ever since the Middle Ages. She listened:

Fiorin di mela! La mela è dolce e la sua buccia è amara, L’uomo gli è finto e la donna sincera. Fior di limone! Tre cose son difficili a lasciare: Il giuoco, l’amicizia, e il primo amore! Fior di licore! Licore è forte e non si può incannare; Ma son più forti le pene d’amore.

She held her breath, then with sudden wild abandon, she flung herself upon the silken couch, and burying her face in its cushions gave herself up to a paroxysm of grief and despair.

Six weeks later.

Grey dawn was slowly spreading over the calm Mediterannean, the waters of which lazily lapped the golden shingle. Behind the distant blue the yellow sun was just peeping forth. At a spot upon the seashore about four miles from Leghorn, in the direction of the Maremma, five men had assembled, while at a little distance away, on the old sea-road to Rome, stood the hired motor-car which had brought one of them there.

The motive for their presence there at that early hour was not far to seek.

The men facing each other with their coats cast aside were the brown-bearded Marquess Giulio di San Rossore, and Prince Albert.

The latter, having left Florence, had learnt in Bologna of a vile, scandalous, and untrue story told of the Princess by the Marquess to the aristocratic idlers of the Florence Club, a story that was a foul and abominable lie, invented in order to besmirch the good name of a pure and unhappy woman.

On hearing it he had returned at once to the Lily City, gone to the Marquess’s palazzo on the Lung’ Arno, and struck him in the face before his friends. This was followed by a challenge, which Jack, although he knew little of firearms, was forced to accept.

Was he not champion and defender of the helpless and lonely woman he loved—the woman upon whom the Marquess had sworn within himself to be avenged?

And so the pair, accompanied by their seconds and a doctor, now faced each other, revolvers in their hands.

The Prince stood unflinching, his dark brow slightly contracted, his teeth hard set, his handsome countenance pale and serious.

As he raised his weapon he murmured to himself some words.

“For your honour, my own Angelica—my dear lost love!”

The signal was given an instant later, and two shots sounded in rapid succession.

Next moment it was seen that the Italian was hit, for he staggered, clutched at air, and fell forward upon his face, shot through the throat.

Quickly the doctor was kneeling at his side, but though medical aid was rendered so quickly, he never spoke again, and five minutes afterwards he was dead.

Half an hour later Prince Albert was driving the hired car for all he was worth across the great plain towards the marble-built city of Pisa to catch the express to Paris. From that day Jack Cross has concealed his identity, and has never been traced by the pretty Crown-Princess.

No doubt she often wonders what was the real status of the obscure good-looking young Englishman who spoke German so perfectly, who loved her devotedly, who fought bravely in vindication of her honour, and yet who afterwards so mysteriously disappeared into space.

These lines will convey to her the truth. What will she think?

Chapter Nine.

A Double Game.

Lord Nassington drove his big red sixty horse-power six-cylinder “Napier” slowly up the Corso in Rome.

By his side was his smart chauffeur, Garrett, in dark-green livery with the hand holding a garland proper, the crest of the Nassingtons, upon his bright buttons.

It was four o’clock, the hour of the passeggiata, the hour when those wintering in the Eternal City go forth in carriages and cars to drive up and down the long, narrow Corso in order to see, and be seen, to exchange bows with each other, and to conclude the processional drive at slow pace owing to the crowded state of the street by a tour of the Pincian hill whence one obtains a magnificent view of Rome and the Tiber in the sunset.

Roman society is the most exclusive in the world. Your Roman princess will usually take her airing in her brougham with the windows carefully closed, even on a warm spring afternoon. She holds herself aloof from the crowd of wealthy foreigners, even though her great gaunt palazzo has been denuded of every picture and work of art years ago, and she lives with a donna di casa in four or five meagre rooms on the first floor, the remainder of the great place being unfurnished and untenanted.

There is more pitiful make-believe among the aristocracy of Rome than in any other city in the world. The old principessa, the marchesa, and the contessa keep themselves within their own little circle, and sneer at the wealthy foreigner and his blatant display of riches. One hears girls of the school-room discussing the social scale of passers-by, and disregarding them as not being “of the aristocracy” like themselves.

Truly the Eternal City is a complex one in winter, and the Corso at four o’clock, is the centre of it all. You know that slowly-passing almost funereal line of carriages, some of them very old and almost hearse-like, moving up and down, half of them emblazoned with coronets and shields—for the Italian is ever proud of his heraldry—while the other half hired conveyances, many of them ordinary cabs in which sit some of the wealthiest men and women in Europe who have come south to see the antiquities and to enjoy the sunshine.

Behind the lumbering old-fashioned brougham of a weedy marchesa, Lord Nassington drove his big powerful car at snail’s pace, and almost silently. In such traffic the flexibility of the six-cylinder is at once appreciated.

Both Garrett and his master had their eyes about them, as though in search of some one.

A dozen times pretty women in furs bowed to Lord Nassington, who raised his motor-cap in acknowledgment. The smart, good-looking young peer had spent a couple of months there during the previous winter and had become immensely popular with the cosmopolitan world who gather annually in the Italian capital. Therefore, when he had arrived at the Excelsior, a week before, word had quickly gone round the hotels, clubs, pastrycooks, and cafés that the young English motoring milord had returned.

Upon the table of his luxurious little sitting-room at the hotel were lying a dozen or so invitations to dinners, receptions, the opera, and a luncheon-party out at Tivoli, while Charles, his man, had been busy spreading some picturesque gossip concerning his master.

For the nonce his Highness Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein was incognito, and as was the case sometimes, he was passing as an English peer, about whose whereabouts, position, and estates Debrett was somewhat vague. According to that volume of volumes, Lord Nassington had let his ancestral seat in Northamptonshire, and lived in New Orleans. Therefore, his Highness had but little to fear from unwelcome inquiry. He spoke English as perfectly as he could speak German when occasion required, for to his command of languages his success had been in great measure due.

Such a fine car as his had seldom, if ever, been seen in Rome. It was part of his creed to make people gossip about him, for as soon as they talked they began to tumble over each other in their endeavour to make his acquaintance. Both Garrett and Charles always had some interesting fiction to impart to other servants, and so filter through to their masters and mistresses.

The story running round Rome, and being passed from mouth to mouth along the Corso, in Aregno’s, in the Excelsior, and up among the idlers on the Pincio, was that that reckless devil-may-care young fellow in motor-coat and cap, smoking a cigar as he drove, had only a fortnight before played with maximums at Monte Carlo, and in one day alone had won over forty thousand pounds at roulette.

The rather foppishly dressed Italians idling along the Corso—every man a born gambler—were all interested in him as he passed. He was a favourite of fortune, and they envied him his good luck. And though they wore yellow gloves and patent-leather boots they yearned for a terno on the Lotto—the aspiration of every man, be he conte or contadino.

As his lordship approached the end of the long, narrow street close to the Porta del Popolo, Garrett gave him a nudge, and glancing at an oncoming carriage he saw in it two pretty dark-haired girls. One, the better looking of the pair, was about twenty-two, and wore rich sables, with a neat toque of the same fur. The other about three years her senior, wore a black hat, a velvet coat, and a boa of white Arctic fox. Both were delicate, refined-looking girls, and evidently ladies.

Nassington raised his cap and laughed, receiving nods and merry laughs of recognition in return.

“I wonder where they’re going, Garrett?” he remarked after they had passed.

“Better follow them, hadn’t we?” remarked the man.

A moment later, however, a humble cab passed, one of those little open victorias which the visitor to Rome knows so well, and in it was seated alone a middle-aged, rather red-faced English clergyman.

His lordship and he exchanged glances, but neither recognised each other.

“Good!” whispered the man at the wheel to his servant beside him. “So the Parson’s arrived. He hasn’t been long on the way from Berlin. I suppose he’s keeping his eye upon the girls.”

“Trust him,” laughed the chauffeur. “You sent him the snap-shot, I suppose?”

“Of course. And it seems he’s lost no time. He couldn’t have arrived before five o’clock this morning.”

“When Clayton’s on a good thing he moves about as quickly as you do,” the smart young English chauffeur remarked.

“Yes,” his master admitted. “He’s the most resourceful man I’ve ever known—and I’ve known a few. We’ll take a run up the Pincio and back,” and, without changing speed, he began to ascend the winding road which leads to the top of the hill.

Up there, they found quite a crowd of people whom Nassington had known the previous season.

Rome was full of life, merriment and gaiety. Carnival had passed, and the Pasqua was fast approaching; the time when the Roman season is at its gayest and when the hotels are full. The court receptions and balls at the Quirinale had brought the Italian aristocracy from the various cities, and the ambassadors were mostly at their posts because of the weekly diplomatic receptions.

Surely it is a strange world—that vain, silly, out-dressing world of Rome, where religion is only the cant of the popular confessor and the scandal of a promenade through St. Peter’s or San Giovanni.

At the summit of the Pincio Lord Nassington pulled up the car close to the long stone balustrade, and as he did so a young Italian elegant, the Marquis Carlo di Rimini, stepped up and seizing his hand, was profuse in his welcome back to Rome.

The Englishman descended from the car, lit one of his eternal “Petroffs,” and leaned upon the balustrade to chat and learn the latest scandal. The Marquis Carlo and he were fellow members of the Circolo Unione, one of the smartest clubs in Rome, and had played bridge together through many a night.

A whisper had once gone forth that the source of the over-dressed young noble’s income was cards, but Nassington had always given him his due. He had never caught him cheating, and surely if he had cheated the Englishman would have known it.

As they stood there, gazing across the city below, the sky was aflame in all the crimson glory of the Roman sunset, and even as they spoke the Angelus had, of a sudden, clashed forth from every church tower, the bells clanging discordantly far and near.

It was the hour of the venti-tre, but in the city nobody cared. The patient toilers in the Campagna, however, the contadini in the fields and in the vineyards who had been working on the brown earth since the dawn, crossed themselves with a murmured prayer to the Madonna and prodded their ox-teams onward. In Rome itself nowadays, alas! the bells of the venti-tre of spring and winter only remind the gay, giddy cosmopolitan crowd that it is the hour for tea in the halls of the hotels, or the English tea-rooms in the Corso.

An hour later, when his lordship entered his room at the Excelsior, he found the Reverend Thomas Clayton seated in his armchair patiently smoking and awaiting him.

“By Jove! old chap. You got through quick,” cried his lordship throwing off his coat and cap. “Well?”

“It’s a soft thing—that’s my opinion, the girl Velia is devilish pretty, and the cousin isn’t half bad-looking. I haven’t been idle. Got in at six—an hour late, of course, had a bath and breakfast and out. Saw a dozen people I know before noon, lunched at that little trattoria behind the post office where so many of the Deputies go, and learnt a lot. I’m no stranger here you know—lived here a year once—did a splendid bit of business, but had to slip. That was the year before we joined our forces.”

“Well, what do you know?”

“Boncini, her father is, of course, Minister of the Interior, and a pretty slick customer. Made pots of money, they say, and only keeps in office by bribery. Half the money subscribed by charitable people on behalf of the sufferers from the recent earthquake down in Calabria went into his pocket. He bought a big villa, and fine estate, close to Vallombrosa a month or so afterwards.”

His lordship grunted.

“Picks up what he can?” he remarked. “One of us—it seems!”

“Exactly. And to do any business, we’ll have to be pretty cute. He’s already seen and heard a lot of you, and he knows that you’ve met his pretty daughter. Perhaps he fancies you’ll marry her.”

“The only use of marriage to a man, my dear Clayton,” exclaimed the devil-may-care adventurer blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his lips, “is to enable him to make a settlement upon his wife, and so wriggle from the clutches of his creditors.” The Parson laughed. Regarding the marriage tie his Highness, or “his lordship” rather as he was at that moment called, was always sarcastic.

“Really, old chap, you spread your fame wherever you go. Why, all Rome is talking about this wonderful coup of yours at Monte.”

“It was Garrett’s idea. He told them down in the garage, and Charles told a lady’s maid or two, I think. Such things are quite easy when one starts out upon a big bluff. But if what you’ve discovered about his Excellency the Minister Boncini is really true, then I shall alter my tactics somewhat. I mean that I must make the dark-haired daughter a stepping-stone to her father.”

“With care—my dear fellow,” exclaimed the Parson in that calm, clerical drawl habitual to him. “The girl’s cousin, Miss Ethel Thorold, is English. The sister of the Signora Boncini married a man on the London Stock Exchange, named Thorold.”

“That’s awkward,” exclaimed his lordship thoughtfully, “upsets my plans.”

“But he’s dead,” the Parson declared. His companion nodded satisfaction.

“Now Miss Ethel is, I’ve found, a rather religiously inclined young person—all praise to her. So I shall succeed very soon in getting to know her. Indeed, as you’ve already made her acquaintance you might introduce me as the vicar of some living within your gift.”

“Excellent—I will.”

“And what’s your plans?”

“They’re my own secrets at present, Tommy,” was the other’s quick answer. “You’re at the Grand, aren’t you? Well, for the present, we must be strangers—till I approach you. Understand?”

“Of course. Give me five hundred francs will you. I’m short?”

His lordship unlocked his heavy steel despatch-box and gave his friend five one-hundred franc notes without a word.

Then they reseated themselves, and with Charles, the faithful valet, leaning against the edge of the table smoking a cigarette with them, their conversation was both interesting and confidential.

A fortnight went by, and Rome was in the middle of her Pasqua fêtes. The night was perfect, bright and star-lit.

The great gilded ballroom of the huge old Peruzzi Palace, in the Via Nazionale, the residence of his Excellency the Minister Boncini, was thronged by a brilliant crowd, among whom Lord Nassington made his way, ever and anon bowing over some woman’s hand.

The bright uniforms, the glittering stars and coloured ribbons worn by the men, and the magnificent toilettes of the women combined to form a perfect phantasmagoria of colour beneath the huge crystal electroliers.

The political and social world of Rome had gathered there at the monthly reception of his Excellency, the rather stout grey-bearded man with the broad cerise-and-white ribbon of the Order of the Crown of Italy across his shirt-front, and the diamond star upon his coat. His Lordship strode through the huge painted salons with their heavy gilt mirrors and giant palms, and approached the man of power in that complex nation, modern Italy.

At that moment his Excellency was chatting with the French Ambassador, but on the Englishman’s approach he turned to him exclaiming in French:

“Ah! Lord Nassington! I am so pleased you could come. Velia told me of the slight accident to your car yesterday. I hope you were not hurt at all?”

“Oh! no,” laughed the debonair young man. “I had perhaps a close shave. My car is a rather fast one, and I was driving recklessly on the Maremma Road—a sharp turn—and I ran down a bank, that’s all. The car will be all right by to-morrow.”

“Ah, milord. The automobile is an invention of the future, without a doubt.”

“Most certainly. Indeed, as a matter of fact, I thought of making a suggestion to your Excellency—one which I believe would be most acceptable to the Italian nation. But, of course, here it’s quite impossible to talk.”

“Then come to-morrow morning to my private cabinet at the Ministry—or better still, here to luncheon, and we can chat.”

His Lordship expressed his thanks, and then moved off in search of the pretty Velia.

For the greater part of the evening he dangled at the side of the good-looking girl in turquoise chiffon, having several waltzes with her and afterwards strolling out upon the balcony and sitting there beneath the starlight.

“What a charming man your friend Mr Clayton is!” exclaimed the girl in English, as they were sitting together apart from the others. “Papa is delighted with him.”

“Oh, yes—a most excellent fellow for a parson,” his Lordship laughed, and then their conversation turned upon motors and motoring.

“How is your shoulder this evening?” she inquired.

“Not at all painful,” he declared. “It’s nearly all right again. The car will be ready for the road to-morrow afternoon. I’m lunching with you here, and I wonder if you and your cousin will come with me for a run out to Tivoli afterwards?”

“I should be delighted,” she said. “Our car is only a sixteen ‘Fiat’ you know, and we never travel faster than a cab. It would be such fun to have a run in your beautiful ‘sixty’! I don’t suppose papa would object.”

“I’ll ask him to come, too,” laughed the man by whom she had become so attracted, and then they returned for another dance. Her ears were open, and so were those of the shrewd old man who controlled the internal affairs of the kingdom. There were whisperings everywhere, regarding the young man’s wealth, his good fortune, and his aristocratic family.

His Excellency had not failed to notice the attraction which the young English peer held for his daughter, and also that he paid her marked attention. Therefore the old man was extremely self-satisfied.

Next day after the little family luncheon at the Peruzzi Palace at which only the Signora Boncini, Velia, and her cousin Ethel were present, his Excellency took his guest aside in his small private room for their coffee and cigarettes.

Nassington offered the Minister one of his “Petroffs” which was pronounced excellent.

Then, after a brief chat, his Lordship came to the point.

“The fact is, your Excellency,” he said, “a suggestion has occurred to me by which the Italian Government could, while benefiting the country to an enormous extent, at the same time secure a very handsome sum annually towards the exchequer.”

“How?” inquired the shrewd old statesman.

“By granting to a group of substantial English financiers a monopoly for the whole of the motor-transport of Italy,” his Lordship replied, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips. “You have, in every part of the kingdom, great tracts of productive country without railways or communications. At the same time you have excellent roads everywhere. The concession, if granted, would be taken up by a great firm who handle motor-traction, and certain districts, approved by your government, would be opened up as an experiment. Would not that be of national benefit?”

“I see,” replied the statesman stroking his beard thoughtfully. “And you propose that the earnings of the syndicate should be taxed by our Department of Finance?”

“Exactly.”

A keen, eager look was in the old man’s eyes, and did not pass unrecognised by the man lounging in the armchair in picturesque indolence.

“And suppose we were to go into the matter,” the Minister said. “What attitude would your Lordship adopt?”

“Well—my attitude would be this,” Nassington replied. “You give me the proper concession, signed by the Ministers, and I guarantee to find the capital among my personal friends in financial circles in London. But on one condition,” he added. “That the whole matter is kept secret. Afterwards, I venture to think the whole country, and especially the rural population will be grateful to your Excellency.”

Boncini instantly saw that such a move would increase his popularity immensely in the country. The idea appealed to him. If Lord Nassington’s friends were ready with capital, they would also be ready, he foresaw, with a very substantial sum for bribery. Personally he cared not a rap for the progress of Italy. While in office, he intended to amass as much as he could. He was the all-powerful man in Italy at the moment. But next year he might be—well where more than one Minister as powerful as he, had found himself—in prison!

“There are difficulties,” his Excellency said with some hesitation. “My colleagues in the Cabinet may raise objections. They may not see matters in the light that I do. And the Senate, too—they—”

“I know. I quite understand your Excellency,” exclaimed his Lordship, lowering his voice into a confidential whisper. “Let us speak quite frankly. In a gigantic matter of this sort—a matter of millions—certain palm-oil has to be applied—eh?”

The old man smiled, placed his hands together and nodded.

“Then let us go further,” Lord Nassington went on. “I submit in all deference—and, of course, this conversation is strictly in private between us, that should you think favourably of the scheme—my friends should secretly place a certain sum, say one hundred thousand pounds sterling at your Excellency’s command, to apply in whatever way you may think best to secure the success of the proposition. Are you willing?”

The old man rose from his chair, and standing before the younger man stretched forth his hand.

“Perfectly,” he said as the other grasped it. “We agree.”

“And if I frame the form of the concession you will agree to it and, in return for an undertaking of the payment of one hundred thousand pounds into—where shall we say—into the head office of the Credit Lyonnais in Paris in the name of your nominee, you will hand me the legal concession confirmed by the Italian Government?”

“I agree to hand you the necessary documents within a fortnight,” responded his Excellency. “The adoption of motor-traction in the remote districts for bringing wine and produce to the nearest railways will be of the greatest boon to our country.”

“Of course, my friends will leave the whole of the details, as far as finance on your side is concerned, to you,” his Lordship said. “You can administer the official backsheesh so much better than any one else.”

“Within a fortnight you shall be able, my lord, to hand your friends the actual concession for motor-transport throughout the kingdom of Italy.”

For another half-hour they discussed certain details, Lord Nassington talking big about his wealthy friends in London. Then, with his daughter and his niece, his Excellency accepted his guest’s invitation for a run out to Tivoli to take tea.

The “sixty” ran splendidly, and the Minister of the Interior was delighted. Before the girls, however, no business was discussed. Velia’s father, who, by the way had once been a clever advocate in Milan, knew better than to mention affairs of State before women.

During the run, however, he found himself counting upon the possibilities of Velia’s marriage with the amiable young English aristocrat who, upon his own initiative, had offered to place one hundred thousand sterling unreservedly in his hands. At most the present Cabinet could last another year, and then—well, oblivion if before then he did not line his nest snugly enough. The thought of the poor widows and orphans and starving populace down in Calabria sometimes caused him a twinge of conscience. But he only laughed and placed it aside. He had even been unscrupulous, and this young English peer was his friend, he would use to best advantage.

Though Lord Nassington was an eligible husband for his daughter, yet, after all, he was not a business man, but a wealthy “mug.” As such he intended to treat him.

At the little café, near the falls, where they took tea the conversation ran on motors and motoring, but his Excellency could not disguise from himself that the young peer was entirely fascinated by his good-looking daughter.

They lingered there until the mists began to rise and the red afterglow was fast disappearing; then they ran past the sulphur springs and on the broad highway back to the Eternal City at such a pace that his Excellency’s breath was taken away. But Lord Nassington drove, and notwithstanding the accident of two days previously, the Minister felt himself perfectly safe in his hands.

Three weeks went by. His Lordship took a flying visit to London, and quickly returned. Both he and the highly respectable clergyman of the English church, the Reverend Thomas Clayton, became daily visitors at the Peruzzi Palace. In the Corso the pretty Signorina Boncini and her cousin were often seen in his Lordship’s car, and already the gossip-loving world of Rome began to whisper that an engagement was about to take place.

The valet, Charles, also made a quick journey to London and back, and many telegrams were exchanged with a registered cable address in London.

One afternoon, in the private cabinet of that colossal building, the Ministry of the Interior, his Excellency handed his English friend a formidable document bearing many signatures with the official seal of the Government embossed, a document which gave Lord Nassington the exclusive right to establish motor-transport for both merchandise and passengers upon every highway in the kingdom. In exchange, his Excellency received an undertaking signed by a responsible firm in the City of London to place to the account of Madame Boncini at the Credit Lyonnais in Paris the respectable sum of one hundred thousand pounds within seven days.

“I shall return at once to London,” his Lordship said replacing the formidable document in its envelope, “and in exchange for this, the financial group will at once pay in the sum to Madame’s account in Paris, while the actual sum for the concession will be paid here, in Rome, to the Department of Finance, on the date stipulated.”

“Benissimo,” replied the grey-bearded statesman, holding one of his long Toscano cigars in the candle which he had lit for that purpose. “It is all settled. You will dine with us at home to-night.”

His Lordship accepted, and after further discussion regarding several minor details of the concession he rose and left.

That night he dined at the Peruzzi Palace, seated next his Excellency’s charming daughter, and next morning left the Excelsior in his big red car, to run as far as Bologna and thence return to London by rail.

With her father’s consent Velia her cousin and Signora Ciullini, her aunt, accompanied him and they set out across the Maremma for marble-built Pisa, where the girls were to return home by rail.

The more direct road was by Orvieto, but it is not so good as that wide, open road across the fever-marshes of the Maremma, therefore his Lordship resolved on taking the latter.

The day was glorious, and travelling for all they were worth with only two stops to refill with petrol, they ran into Pisa late that same night. The sleeping-car express from Paris to Rome was due in half an hour, therefore after a scrambling meal at the Victoria the aristocratic motorist saw the girls and their aunt safely into the train—kissing Velia in secret by the way—and waving them “addio,” watched the train glide out of the big echoing station again.

Then, with Garrett at his side, he turned the big car with its glaring head-lights out of the big gates through the town along the Lung’ Arno and into the high road for Florence.

In the early morning he passed through the dimly-lit deserted streets of the City of the Medici, and away beyond, through Prato, to the foot-hills of the Appenines where he began to ascend that wonderfully engineered military road which runs, with many dangerous turns for motorists, high up across the mountain range, and ends in the long colonnaded street of old Bologna.

It was noon ere he drew into the Piazza before the station, and giving Garrett instructions to continue on to Milan and north to Berlin where the car was to be garaged, he took the afternoon express for the frontier at Chiasso, travelling thence via Bâle to Ostend and London.

On entering his snug chambers at five o’clock one afternoon, he found Charles and the Parson smoking and awaiting him. That evening the trio held a long and earnest consultation. The official document was carefully examined, and the names of many city firms mentioned. The Parson seemed to possess a remarkable intimate knowledge of city life.

“Old Boncini is a clever old thief,” remarked the reverend gentleman. “He’s feathering his nest finely—all the money in his wife’s name.”

“My dear fellow, half the Cabinet Ministers of Europe only use their political influence in order to gain fortune. Except the British Government there isn’t a single one which isn’t corrupt.”

“Well, Albert, my dear boy, you certainly seem to have got hold of a good thing,” the Parson remarked. “His Corrupt Excellency seems to place every faith in you. Your four-flush was admirable all the time.”

“It took a bit of working, I can tell you. He’s as slick as a rat.”

“But he doesn’t suspect anything wrong?”

“Hasn’t the slightest idea of it, my dear Tommy. He fancies I’m going to marry his daughter. The fat old mother is already imagining herself mother-in-law of a British peer.”

“Yes. All Rome knows that you’ve fallen in love with the pretty Velia, and that you’ve told her the tale. What a fellow you are with the ladies.”

“Why?” he laughed taking a cigarette. “They are all very charming and delightful. But in my career I generally manage to make them useful. It’s really remarkable what a woman will do in the interests of the man whom she fancies is in love with her. Fortunately, perhaps, for me, I’ve only been in love once.”

“And it resulted in a tragedy,” remarked the Parson quietly, knowing that he referred to the Princess.

His Lordship sighed, flinging himself down in his armchair, worn out by long travel.

“My dear boy,” he said with a weary sigh, “if I ever got married I’d soon go mothy—everybody does. Married people, whatever their position in life, settle down into the monotonous groove that is the death of all romance. Before a man marries a girl they have little dinners together at restaurants, and little suppers, and all seems so bright and gay under the red candle-shades. We see it on every hand. But why should it all be dropped for heavy meals and dulness, just because two people who like one another have the marriage service read over them?”

The Parson laughed. His friend was always amusing when he discussed the question of matrimony.

During the next four days his Lordship, in the character of Mr Tremlett—as he was known in certain circles in the City—was busy with financiers to whom he offered the concession. His story was that it had been granted by the Italian Government to his cousin, Lord Nassington, and that the latter had given it into his hands to negotiate.

In the various quarters where he offered it the concession caused a flutter of excitement. The shrewdest men in the City saw that it was a good thing, and one after the other craved a day to think it over. It really was one of the best things that had been offered for a long time. The terms required by the Italian Government were not at all heavy, and huge profits were certain to be made out of such a monopoly.

The great tracts of fertile land in central and southern Italy would, by means of motor-transport, be opened up to trade, while Tremlett’s picturesque story of how the concession had been snatched away from a strong group of German financiers was, to more than one capitalist, most fascinating.

Indeed he saw half a dozen of the most influential men in the City, and before a week was out he had got together a syndicate which could command a couple of millions sterling.

They were all of them shrewd men, however, and he saw that it behoved him to be on the alert. There is such a thing in the City as to be “frozen out” of a good thing, even when one holds it in one’s hand.

By dint of close watching and clever observation, he discovered something, and this caused him to ponder deeply. The syndicate expressed themselves ready to treat, but for the present he was rather unwilling.

Some hitches occurred on technicalities, and there were a number of meetings to consider this point and that. By all this Mr Tremlett saw that he was losing time, and at the same moment he was not keeping faith with the old statesman concerning the amount to be paid into Madame’s account in Paris. At last one morning, after the Parson had left for an unknown destination, he took a taxi-cab down to the City with a bold resolve.

The five prominent financiers were seated together in an office in Old Broad Street when Mr Tremlett, leaning back in his chair, said:

“Well, gentlemen, it seems that we are as far away as ever from coming to terms, and I think it useless to discuss the matter further. I must take the business elsewhere.”

“We admit,” exclaimed an old bald man, a director of one of London’s largest banks, “that it is a good thing, but the price you ask is prohibitive.”

“I can get it in Paris. So I shall go there,” was Tremlett’s prompt reply.

“Well,” exclaimed the bald man, “let’s get straight to facts. Your cousin, Lord Nassington, wants sixty thousand pounds in cash for the concession and a percentage of shares, and that, we have decided, is far too much.”

“Those are his figures,” remarked Tremlett.

“Well, then all we can offer is one-half—thirty thousand in cash and ten per cent, of shares in the company,” said the other, “and,” he added, “I venture to say that ours is a very handsome offer.” Tremlett rose from the table with a sarcastic smile.

“Let us talk of something else,” he said. “I haven’t come down here to the City to play at marbles.”

“Well,” asked the old man who was head of the syndicate. “What are your lowest terms?”

“I’ve stated them.”

“But you don’t give us time to inquire into the business,” he complained.

“I have shown you the actual concession. Surely you are satisfied with it!”

“We are.”

“And I’ve told you the conditions of the contract. Yet you postpone your decision from day to day!”

The five men glanced at each other, rather uneasily Tremlett thought.

“Well,” he went on. “This is the last time I shall attend any meeting. We come to a decision this morning, or the matter is off. You, gentlemen, don’t even show bona fides!”

“Well, I think you know something of the standing of all of us,” the banker said.

“That is so. But my cousin complains that he, having offered the concession, you on your part do not attempt to show your intention to take it up.”

“But we do. We wish to fix a price to-day,” remarked another of the men.

“A price, gentlemen, which is ridiculous,” declared Tremlett.

The five men consulted together in undertones, and in the end advanced their offer five thousand pounds. At this Tremlett only shook his shoulders. A further five thousand was the result, and a long discussion followed.

“Have you your cousin’s authority to accept terms?” asked one of the capitalists.

“I have.”

“Then forty thousand is all we can offer.”

Tremlett hesitated.

“I have a number of payments to make for bribery,” he declared. “It will take half that sum.”

“That does not concern us, my dear sir,” said the bald-headed banker. “We know that a concession such as this can only be obtained by the judicious application of palm-oil.”

“But I must pay out nearly twenty thousand almost immediately,” Tremlett said.

At this there was another long discussion, whereupon at last the bald-headed man said:

“If the payment of the bribes is imperative at once, we will, on consideration of the business being to-day concluded on a forty thousand pound basis, hand you over half the sum at once. That is our final decision.”

Tremlett was not at all anxious. Indeed he took up his hat and cane, and was about to leave, when two of the men present exercising all their powers of persuasion, got him at last to reseat himself and to accept the sum of twenty thousand pounds down, and twenty thousand thirty days from that date, in addition to a percentage of shares in the company to be formed.

Memoranda were drawn up and signed by all parties, whereupon Tremlett took from his pocket the official concession and handed it to the head of the syndicate.

That same afternoon, before four o’clock, he had received a draft for twenty thousand pounds, with which he had opened an account in Charles’s name at a branch bank in Tottenham Court Road.

At nine o’clock that same evening he left for Paris, putting up at a small obscure hotel near the Gare du Nord where he waited in patience for nearly a week.

Once or twice he telegraphed, and received replies.

Late one night the Parson arrived unexpectedly and entered the shabby bedroom where his Lordship was lounging in an armchair reading a French novel.

He sprung up at the entrance of the round-faced cleric, saying:

“Well, Tommy? How has it gone? Tell me quick.”

“You were quite right,” exclaimed the clergyman. “The crowd in London were going behind your back. They sent two clever men to Rome, and those fellows tried to deal with Boncini direct. They arrived the day after I did, and they offered him an extra twenty thousand if he would rescind your concession, and grant them a new one. Boncini was too avaricious and refused, so they then treated with you.”

“I got twenty thousand,” remarked his Lordship, “got it in cash safe in the bank.”

“Yes. I got your wire.”

“And what did you do?” asked his friend.

“I acted just as you ordered. As soon as I was convinced that the people in London were working behind our backs, I laid my plans. Then when your wire came that you’d netted the twenty thousand, I acted.”

“How?”

“I took all the signed proof you gave me of old Boncini’s acceptance of the bribe, and of Madame’s banking account at the Credit Lyonnais, to that scoundrel Ricci, the red-hot Socialist deputy in the Chamber.”

“And what did he say?” asked his Lordship breathlessly.

“Say!” echoed the other. “He was delighted. I spent the whole evening with him. Next day, he and his colleagues held a meeting, and that afternoon he asked in the Chamber whether his Excellency, the Minister of the Interior, had not been bribed by an English syndicate and put a number of similarly awkward questions. The Government had a difficulty in evading the truth, but imagine the sensation when he waved proofs of the corruptness of the Cabinet in the face of the House. A terrible scene of disorder ensued, and the greatest sensation has been caused. Look here,”—and he handed his friend a copy of Le Soir.

At the head of a column on the front page were the words in French, “Cabinet Crisis in Italy,” and beneath, a telegram from Rome announcing that in consequence of the exposure of grave scandals by the Socialists, the Italian Cabinet had placed their resignations in the hands of his Majesty.

“Serve that old thief Boncini right,” declared his Lordship. “He was ready to sell me for an extra few thousands, but I fortunately got in before him. I wonder if the pretty Velia has still any aspirations to enter the British peerage?”

And both men laughed merrily at thought of the nice little nest-egg they had managed to filch so cleverly from the hands of five of the smartest financiers in the City of London.

Chapter Ten.

Love and the Outlaw.

“By Jove!” I ejaculated, “Who’s the girl, Prince?”

“That’s Zorka. Pretty, isn’t she, Diprose?”

“Pretty!” I echoed. “Why, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in the whole of Servia!”