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.