Kitabı oku: «Her Royal Highness: A Romance of the Chancelleries of Europe», sayfa 14
At the top of the staircase stood the Minister himself, His Excellency General Cataldi, resplendent in his brilliant, gold-laced uniform, glittering with decorations, saluting as he received his guests.
Hubert smiled bitterly within himself. He recollected that last occasion when, after travelling many miles, he had seen him driving to the Univers at Tours, and remembered the subsequent conversation when he had accepted the bribe to place brown-paper boots upon the feet of the Italian Army.
He saw that His Excellency wished to behave with great cordiality as he passed. But he merely drew himself up, saluted, and passed on along the corridor.
A second later he found himself face to face with the detective, Pucci, who, in plain evening-clothes as a waiter, came up and bowed, and then, with darkly knit brows, motioned that he desired most anxiously to speak with him.
Chapter Twenty Seven.
Reveals an Intrigue
Hubert Waldron, a smart figure in his diplomatic uniform, strolled along the corridor, followed at a respectable distance by the neatly-dressed waiter until, at a convenient point, the diplomat halted at the junction of two corridors, as though in doubt. Pucci was at his side in an instant.
“I learnt only half an hour ago, signore, that there is a plot against you!” he said. “Signor Ghelardi is your enemy. You were attacked by the two assassins whom he bribed, but the conspiracy failed. Be careful. Exercise the greatest caution, signore – I beg of you.”
“This is not news to me, Pucci,” replied the diplomat, pretending to button his white glove. “I am keeping observation upon His Excellency the Minister, so be near me to-night, and keep a sharp look-out. It is in the personal interests of His Majesty. Is he here?”
“Si, signore. He arrived a quarter of an hour ago. I saluted him and he recognised me – even in this garb. His Majesty never forgets the faces of those whose duty it is to be his personal guardians.”
“All right, Pucci. Be near in case I require you – I trust you.”
“Bene, signore. I shall be there if you want me, never fear,” was the reply; of the faithful police agent.
And then the British diplomat strolled up the corridor, leaving the waiter to bustle along in the opposite direction.
Pucci was full of resource. He had been attracted to Hubert Waldron because he had seen that he was a fine, strong character, a man of high ideals, of dogged courage, and of British bull-dog perseverance. Waldron, of the stock that had made the Empire what it is, commanded respect. He was a man of action and of honour. Though clever, far-seeing, and with a keen scent for mystery, yet he was honest, upright, and once he made a friend that friend was his for always. His only fault was that he was too generous towards his friends, or to those who were in want. He would give his last half-sovereign to anyone who told him a tale of poverty.
In this connection he had often been imposed upon. He knew it, but always declared that, after all, he might have done one really charitable action, though others who had told their stories were impostors.
Like most men possessed of keen wits, he had been very badly imposed upon at times. Yet often and often, by his sympathetic feelings, he had spent the greater part of his pay in the relief of real cases of distress.
The Waldrons had ever been charitable, for they were always English gentlemen in the truest sense of the word.
In the great Council Chamber with the huge crystal chandeliers, where the walls were hung with the ancient tapestries brought from the Palazzo Communale at Siena – the chamber in which the sittings of the Council of Defence were held, and where the lost plans had been discussed – the King stood, the brilliant, imposing centre of His Excellency’s guests.
The assembly was a somewhat mixed one, though mainly military, and uniforms of every description were there, while every second man wore decorations of one kind or another. The ladies were mostly wives of high officers of State, of prefects and of military men. Yet there was also the usual sprinkling of wives and daughters of deputies and senators. Monte Citorio is always much in evidence in every public function in Italy.
Twice each year was the great imposing Ministry of War – or at least the public portion of it – thronged with officials from every corner of the kingdom, for His Excellency, General Cataldi, sent invitations broadcast, as he found it a cheap way of returning the hospitality daily offered to him – especially as the entertainment was paid for out of the public purse.
Waldron, on entering the Council Chamber, made his bow before His Majesty, and then, after nodding acquaintance with many persons he knew, crossed to where the Princess Luisa was standing in conversation with a stout old General, the commandant on the Alpine frontier. He bowed over her hand, and then all three began to chatter, while a few moments later the secretary, Lambarini, approached and found the little group.
Presently Lola, who was wearing a beautiful gown of pale carnation pink, and who looked inexpressibly sweet as she smiled, bent and whispered to Hubert:
“We had better not be seen together to-night, I think. Let us meet to-morrow at noon, out at Frascati, as before. I must see you. It is most important.”
“Good,” he replied. “That is an appointment,” and bending over her hand he passed across the great apartment, and was soon laughing merrily with Suderman, secretary of the Swedish Embassy.
He was rather annoyed that Lola – whom he had come there expressly to meet – should have ordered him to remain apart from her. What, he wondered, did she fear?
When in her presence, the world was, to him, full of bright gladness, but when they were apart, he only moped in silence and despair.
Did she know the truth, he wondered. Had she, by her woman’s keen, natural intuition, discovered that he loved her – that he was hers, body and soul?
Though he laughed lightly with the tall, fair-haired Swede at his side, his thoughtful eyes were still upon her, full of supreme admiration. And once she glanced furtively at him, as though in fear, it seemed, and then he saw her accompany the fat old General out into the ante-chamber adjoining.
For half an hour, or more, he remained talking with men and women he knew – the same old weary chatter of which the diplomat serving his country abroad grows so unutterably tired.
Who, of all that gay throng save His Majesty himself, dreamed of the sharp-edged sword of war suspended above them? Who knew of the black peril which threatened the fair land of Italy, or of the carefully prepared plot which her enemies in Vienna had prepared against her.
As Waldron stood chatting with a stout woman in black – the wife of one of the great Hebrew financiers of Genoa, he saw His Excellency enter and take his stand near the King, smiling serenely and bowing graciously to those about him – he, the man who was feeding the army upon tinned meat that had been rejected by the German authorities, and who signed contracts in return for bundles of bank-notes. Ah! what a world is ours!
But alas! is there not corruption in every Ministry of every European Power. What contractor to-day can hope to do a legitimate business without placing apart a sum for palm-oil? Disguise it as you will, business morality is in these days of grab and get-rich-quick, at a very low ebb, for too often, alas! honesty spells bankruptcy.
A pretty young Countess was talking with Hubert as he stood watching His Excellency. Was the General, he wondered, the man who had hired the two ruffians, Merlo and Fiola, to make that murderous attack upon him? Or was it Ghelardi, as the detective, Pucci, had that night declared.
Was it possible that the Chief of Secret Police had now found out the strenuous efforts he was making towards the elucidation of the problem of the stolen plans, and in consequence his jealousy had been aroused.
Of which theory to accept he was utterly undecided.
He was listening to the pretty woman’s inane chatter, hardly aware of what she said. His mind was far too full of the grave peril of the international situation.
Suddenly his eyes wandered around to find Lambarini. He was there a few moments before, but he seemed to have left and passed into one or other of the ante-rooms. A point had arisen in his mind regarding the plans earlier that evening, and upon it he wished to ask him a question.
The Council Chamber was now hot and stifling, and the mingled odours of the chiffons of the women nauseated him. He would have preferred to be in the quiet comfort of his own rooms, now that Lola had sent him away. Yet was not his duty to be seen at that official reception?
Dawson, the British military attaché, conspicuous in his Guards’ uniform, came up to him, saying in a low voice:
“Hallo, Hubert, you look a bit bored, my dear boy. So am I. Couldn’t we clear out, do you think? I’m going to play bridge down at the club. Come?”
“Not to-night, old chap,” Hubert answered. “I shall stay another quarter of an hour, and then toddle home.”
“Sure you won’t – eh?”
“No, not to-night. I’m tired.”
“Right-ho! Good night,” answered the attaché cheerily, and was next moment lost in the crowd. Waldron pushed his way through the throng into the ante-chamber, vainly searching for Lambarini. Pironti, the unscrupulous secretary of the Minister was there, surrounded by women – wives of officers and others who hoped to secure the man’s good graces to procure better appointments for their husbands. In the army it was openly declared that Pironti was necessary in order to secure His Excellency’s ear, and many a man had been passed over his superior’s heads and given lucrative jobs because Pironti’s palm had been crossed by a few bank-notes.
Presently, tired to death of the incessant laughter and chatter, Hubert left by a door which he knew led to a long corridor, which ended with a flight of stairs to the first floor.
On the nights of Ministerial receptions the sentries had orders to allow guests to pass without hindrance and unchallenged throughout the building, therefore, as Hubert ascended the stairs the soldier stood at attention.
Above, was another wide corridor leading right round the first floor to where was situated General Cataldi’s private cabinet in the centre of the huge, handsome pile overlooking the broad Via Venti Settembre.
To that part of the building few of the guests penetrated, save perhaps some officials who took their wives to see the fine suite of rooms occupied by His Excellency the Minister.
Hubert was still in search of Lambarini, and was wondering if he had gone in that direction.
At some distance down the corridor from the door of His Excellency’s private cabinet two sentries, their duties relaxed that night, stood at ease chatting, but as Hubert passed they drew themselves to attention, while around a corner from another corridor which ran at right angles a waiter with a silver salver in his hand hurried by.
The man’s face struck Waldron as peculiarly familiar, yet he saw it only for a second, as the man seemed in a great hurry.
It was not Pucci, for he had not seen him since he had first entered the building.
Hubert halted and looked after the receding figure, much puzzled. His clothes did not fit him, for the tails of his dress-coat were too long, and the trousers also were too big. Apparently, he seemed of middle-age, with a short moustache turning slightly grey, yet in his eyes, in that brief second when their glance had met, there was an expression that was familiar.
“Who can he be?” murmured Hubert to himself. “I know him. But for the life of me I can’t recollect where we’ve met before.”
The man who travels comes frequently across familiar waiters in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. Therefore, after reflection, he came to the conclusion that it must be a man who had served him somewhere or other in the past.
And he went forward to His Excellency’s rooms – that room wherein, on the last occasion, he had discussed the stolen plans with Cataldi and the two secretaries.
No one was nigh. The sentry still stood gossiping at the other end of the corridor. He would enter and have yet another look at that big safe which had been so mysteriously opened, though no one appeared to have entered there.
He turned the handle of the big door of polished mahogany. It yielded noiselessly, and pushing it open, he stood upon the thick, Oriental carpet in the too familiar room.
He halted upon the threshold, scarce believing his own eyes.
Before the Minister’s safe – the same one from which the plans had been stolen – stood a woman – Lola!
The safe door stood open, and as he looked he watched her abstract an envelope, which she folded hurriedly with nervous hands and thrust into the breast of her gown, at the same time producing a similar envelope which she put in the place of the one she had stolen.
So noiselessly had he entered that she was all unconscious of his presence.
His heart gave a great bound and he held his breath. His senses were frozen by the amazing and horrifying discovery.
With staring eyes he watched her breathlessly, as with hurried hands she closed the heavy safe door, turned the small key twice and then slipped it into her long white glove, at the same time crushing the stolen envelope deeper down into the breast of her low-cut dress.
For a second she remained motionless. Then she tried the safe door in order to reassure herself that it was securely locked, and turned to leave.
But as she did so a low cry escaped her hard, white lips.
She found herself face to face with Hubert Waldron.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
The Eyewitness
“Princess!”
“You!” she gasped, staring at him, her face white as death, and clutching at the back of a chair for support.
“Yes. I see now why you were so anxious that I should not remain in your company this evening,” he said in bitter reproach.
“Then —then you know!” she cried. “You —you saw me!”
“Yes. I have been watching you, and I can only say that I am surprised to find you tampering with His Excellency’s safe!” he said in a low, hard tone, while, as ill-luck would have it, old Ghelardi, in uniform, with a glittering star upon his coat, entered the room just at that moment and overheard part of the diplomat’s words.
“Ah!” said the crafty Chief of Secret Police, affecting not to have overheard anything. “Ah! these assignations – eh?”
She raised her hand towards him in a quick gesture, but from her glove, there fell the small key.
Ghelardi stooped and picked it up.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed, “what does this mean, Your Highness? A safe key!”
The unhappy girl, white as death, nodded in the affirmative.
The white-haired official stepped across, drew the brass cover aside from the keyhole, and tried the key. It yielded.
“And may I ask Your Royal Highness why I find you here, in His Excellency’s room, with a key to his private safe wherein, I believe, many secrets of our defences are kept?” he asked of her.
“I refuse to answer you, Signor Commendatore,” was her bold reply, as she drew herself up and faced him. “You have no right to question me. I shall answer only to His Majesty for what I have done.”
This bold declaration took Hubert aback.
“Very well,” replied the old man, pocketing the key and smiling that strange, cunning smile of his. “Your Highness shall be compelled to answer to him – and without very much delay.”
And he turned on his heel and without a word left the room.
“Ah! Mr Waldron,” she cried, wringing her hands, “what must you think of me? I know I have acted very foolishly – that I am mad – that I – ”
“Hush, Princess!” he said, his heart full of sympathy for her in her wild distress. “You have acted wrongly, it is true – very, very wrongly. Yet I am still your friend. I will see you safely out of this impasse – if you will only allow me. What is that document you have abstracted from the safe?”
She made no response, but placing her hand within her breast she very slowly drew it out and handed it to him.
Without opening the envelope he placed it in his pocket. Then taking her hand, he looked long and earnestly into her face and said:
“You had better return to the Palace at once, Lola. You are not well. Leave me to settle matters with Ghelardi.”
“But he will tell the King!” she gasped, wringing her hands in despair. “What can I say – how shall I explain?”
“Leave all to me,” he urged. “But before you go, tell me one thing. Why is Henri Pujalet in Rome?”
“No, no!” she shrieked, “do not mention his name. I – ah! no – do not torture me, I beg of you!” she went on wildly. “Hate me – denounce me as a spy, if you will – revile my memory if you wish – but do not taunt me with the name of that man.”
“I will see you to your carriage. Come,” he urged simply.
She struggled to calm herself, placing her gloved hand upon her beating heart, while the Englishman laid his hand tenderly upon her shoulder in deepest sympathy.
At first he had been horrified at discovering the bitter, amazing truth. But horror had now been succeeded by poignant regret and a determination to suppress, if possible, what must be, if divulged by Ghelardi, as no doubt it would – a most terrible national scandal.
While they were standing together, a Colonel of Artillery and two ladies entered, the former showing them the private cabinet of the head of the War Department. The women recognised the Princess by the decoration she wore at the edge of her bodice, and bowed low and awkwardly before her as she passed out, followed by Hubert.
With hurried steps he conducted her to the main entrance, and at once sent a servant for one of the royal automobiles, saying that Her Royal Highness was not well.
Together they waited in an ante-room almost without speaking. She seemed too nervous and overwrought.
“I trust you, Mr Waldron,” she said suddenly, looking up into his face. “Yet – ah! what can you think of me! How you must scorn and despise me! But – but I hope you will not misjudge me – that – you will make allowances for me – a girl – a very foolish girl?”
“Do not let us discuss that now,” he hastened to reply in a low, hard voice, for he never knew until that moment how mad was his affection for her.
And just then one of the royal flunkeys entered, bowing, to announce that the car was awaiting Her Royal Highness.
Their hands clasped in silence, and she walked out through a line of obsequious servants and down the flight of steps to the royal car.
As she went out a waiter stood behind the line of soldiers drawn up in the great vestibule, watching intently. Unobserved he had followed the pair when they had emerged from His Excellency’s private cabinet, and his shrewd eyes had noticed something amiss.
He was the same man who had passed Hubert earlier in the evening and whose face had so puzzled him.
The Englishman, after the royal car had driven away, turned and made his way back in search of Ghelardi.
The discovery held him utterly confounded. What secret was contained in that envelope she had stolen? Why had she a key to the Minister’s safe?
As he walked back, his mind tortured by a thousand strange thoughts and curious theories, the mysterious waiter followed him at a respectable distance, watching.
Hubert was wondering what had become of Pucci whom he ordered to be near him, and whom he had not seen the whole evening.
He gained the door of His Excellency’s room just as the Chief of Secret Police returned along the corridor.
“I have been endeavouring to discover His Excellency, but, unfortunately, I cannot find him anywhere,” the old man said. “We will open the safe and see what has been taken. It is utterly astounding to me that the Princess Luisa should be revealed as a spy.”
“I do not think we should condemn her yet,” urged Waldron. “There may be some explanation.”
“Explanation! What explanation can there be of a woman who takes advantage of a reception, when the sentries are relaxed, to creep up here, open the safe with a false key, and abstract documents.”
“I cannot see the motive,” declared Waldron.
“Ah! but I do. I and my agents have been watching for weeks,” he replied, and crossing to the safe he placed the key in the lock and again opened it.
Many formidable bundles of documents were disclosed, lying within, together with the thin envelope with which Lola had replaced the one she had taken.
Waldon took it up and turned it over with curiosity. Then, deliberately tearing it open, he pulled out its contents.
It was, he found to his dismay, only a blank piece of tracing paper!
“Ah! that is what she has placed here, after taking out a similar envelope, I suppose,” snapped the keen-eyed old man, grasping the situation in a moment. “I have suspected this all along – ever since those fortress plans so mysteriously disappeared. And now she has taken another document. I was foolish to allow her to leave with you.”
“The document – or whatever it is – is in my safe keeping.”
“You have it!” he cried quickly. “Please hand it to me.”
“I shall do no such thing, Commendatore,” was Hubert’s defiant reply.
“It is a secret of State, and you, as a foreigner, have no right to its possession!”
“It has been given to me for safety, and I shall hand it over to His Majesty, and to him alone.”
“Signor Waldron, I demand it,” the old man said angrily, raising his voice as he flung the safe door to with a clang and re-locked it. “I demand it – in the name of His Majesty!”
“And I refuse.”
“You defy me then?”
“Yes, I defy you, signore,” he replied firmly, his dark eyes fixed upon those of the crafty official.
“You are Her Highness’s lover. When the King is made aware of that fact he will show you little graciousness, I assure you,” said Ghelardi with a dry laugh.
“But you will remain silent upon that point, just as you will remain silent regarding what we have discovered to-night,” the Englishman said slowly. “No scandal must attach to the Princess’s name, remember.”
“Of course you wish to shield her – for your own ends. She is the spy for whom we have been searching all these weeks. It is she who placed in the hands of the our enemies the truth concerning the new fortifications along the northern frontier.”
“I refuse to discuss that point,” replied Hubert very coldly, but firmly. “One thing alone I demand of you, and that is silence – silence most absolute and profound.”
“It is my duty to inform the King of the whole circumstances.”
“True, it may be your duty, but it is one that you will not perform, Signor Ghelardi. Think of the terrible scandal throughout Europe if the Press got wind of it! And they must do – if you report officially, and it comes to the ears of His Excellency the Minister. The latter hates the Princess, because she accidentally snubbed the Countess Cioni at the ball at the Palazzo Ginori last week.”
“That is no affair of mine. Women’s jealousies do not concern me in the least. I am charged with the safety of the State against foreign espionage.”
“Well – in this case you’ve discovered the truth accidentally,” responded the diplomat, “and having done so, if you respect your Sovereign and his family, you will say nothing. Further, we may, if we remain silent, be able to obtain more information from Her Highness as to the identity of the person into whose hands the plans fell.”
“She abstracted them, without a doubt, for she had this duplicate key of the safe,” the old man declared.
“You will say nothing, I command you.”
“You! How can you impose silence upon me, pray?” he demanded fiercely. “You are a foreigner, and you are holding a State secret.”
“I shall hold it at present for safe keeping.”
“Then I shall go straight to the King and lay the whole matter before him.”
“You threatened to do a similar action before,” said the other very quietly. “I repeat my warning – that silence is best.”
“Then I tell you frankly that I refuse to heed your warning. It is my duty to my Sovereign to tell him the truth.”
“Very well – go to him and tell him – at your own peril.”
“Peril!” he echoed. “What peril?”
“The peril at which I have already hinted, Signor Ghelardi,” he answered in a low, hard voice. “Do you wish me to be more explicit? Well – there is in a village called Wroxham, in Norfolk, a mystery – the murder of a man named Arthur Benyon, a British naval officer – which has never yet been cleared up. One man can clear it up – an eyewitness who is, fortunately, still alive and who knows you. And if it is cleared up, then you, Luigi Ghelardi – who at the time occupied the office of Chief of the German Secret Service, and was directing the operation of the horde of spies who are still infesting East Anglia, will be confronted with certain very awkward questions.”
The old man’s face went livid. He started at Waldron’s words, and his bony fingers clenched themselves into the palms.
“Shall I say more?” asked the Englishman, after a brief pause, his eyes fixed upon the crafty chief of spies. “Shall I explain how Arthur Benyon, an agent of the British Intelligence Department, was attacked one summer night after sailing on the Norfolk Broads, being shot in cold blood, and his body flung into the river – how the revolver was thrown in after him, and how, half an hour later, a man, dusty and breathless, gained a car that had been waiting for him and drove through the night up to London. And the fugitive was yourself – Luigi Ghelardi!”
He paused.
“And shall I describe the hue and cry raised by the police: how at the inquest a man named James, employed on a wherry, made a queer statement that was not believed, and how you left London next day and returned to Germany? Shall I also describe to you what the eyewitness saw – and – ”
“No!” cried the man hoarsely. “Enough! enough!”
“Then give me that safe key and remain silent. If not, I shall also do my duty and explain to the King those circumstances to which I have just referred.”
Ghelardi reluctantly drew the key from his pocket, and having handed it to the Englishman, passed to the door in silence, staring in horror at the man who had so unexpectedly levelled such a terrible accusation against him.
He knew that Hubert Waldron held all the honours in that game. In his eyes showed a wild, murderous look.
Yes, he would treat the man before him as he had treated the Englishman, Benyon – seal his lips as he had sealed his own – if only he dared!
But Hubert Waldron, his hand upon the hilt of his uniform-sword, only bowed as the other slowly passed out. He knew now the reason why those two men, Merlo and Fiola, had been bribed to encompass his end.
