Kitabı oku: «Her Royal Highness: A Romance of the Chancelleries of Europe», sayfa 17
Chapter Thirty Three.
Spreading the Net
At half-past three next day Hubert Waldron entered the private room of the Questore, or Chief of Police at Turin, where they found a rather elegant, brown-bearded man seated at his writing-table. He instantly recognised Pucci, and quick explanations ensued.
“The man you want duly arrived here,” said the official, “and was picked up by Cimino – whom I believe you know.”
“Certainly. He was with me in Genoa some years ago,” said Pucci.
“Well, all I know is, that the man Flobecq left by the Paris express just before noon, and Cimino is with him. I had a telephone message from you to the effect that His Majesty was making an inquiry. What is it about?” he asked, gazing from the detective to the Englishman.
“At present it is confidential,” replied Pucci, rather lamely. And then he introduced Waldron as a foreign diplomat, and explained that the matter concerned diplomacy, and that the King desired the affair to be kept entirely secret.
The curiosity of the bearded official was at once curbed. Cigarettes were lit by all three, and the Questore suggested that Pucci and his companion should go to the Hôtel Europe and await word from Cimino.
“I will give orders that at any hour when a wire may arrive a copy shall be sent over to you,” he promised.
“Excellent,” exclaimed Hubert, thanking the Chief of Police, and ten minutes later the pair left the Prefecture and drove to the hotel to await developments.
Hubert telegraphed to Lola, giving her brief word of what he had done, and signing himself “Your Friend.” He feared lest somebody might open the dispatch, because for aught he knew she might have left Rome to attend the Queen upon some public function or other, as she was so often forced to do. She scarcely knew from one day to another where she might be, for King Umberto’s Queen was a capricious lady, and somewhat erratic in attending the public ceremonies which were so frequent, and entailed such long and tedious journeys from end to end of the kingdom, one day in Bari, the next in Pisa, and the next in Como. Often Their Majesties, in the fulfilment of their public duties, travelled the whole twenty-four hours in order to arrive at a memorial, to lay a foundation-stone, launch a battleship, or inspect a corps of veterans – and those twenty-four hours of train journey in summer were often the reverse of pleasant. Truly the King worked as hard as any daily toiler within his kingdom.
The Europe, overlooking the big, wide piazza in Turin, proved a quiet place, and Hubert was glad of a stretch on the bed – in his clothes – after the wild motor journey of the previous night.
About twenty-four hours later came the eagerly awaited message from the Italian detective, reporting that Flobecq had installed himself in a small obscure establishment called the Hôtel Weber in the Rue d’Amsterdam, close to the Lazare Station in Paris, and that he was apparently in treaty with a person named Bernard Stein, a journalist of evil reputation.
“He is negotiating the sale of the Princess’s letters!” Hubert gasped when he read the copy of the detective’s telegram.
Therefore, within an hour, accompanied by Pucci, he was in the express, climbing that steep railroad which leads up to Bardonnechia, and the long tunnel of the Mont Cenis.
The train was not an international one, therefore they were compelled to change at Modane, the frontier, where they took the P.L.M. rapide for Paris.
After another night journey across France, the two men alighted from a taxi at the Hôtel Weber, a small, uninviting-looking place with a dingy café beneath. It was then eight o’clock in the morning, and the valet de chambre, a clean-shaven man in shirt-sleeves and green baize apron, showed them two barely furnished rooms with the beeswaxed floors uncarpeted. They held consultation, being joined at once by the detective, Cimino, a short, stout man with small black eyes, and rather shabby clothes.
A few words sufficed to explain the situation.
He had followed Flobecq, unobserved, and had ascertained that on the previous day he had met in the Café de la Paix, a man named Stein, whom he afterwards found was an unattached journalist who wrote for certain of the most unprincipled of the Paris journals.
The two men spent several hours together, and were apparently bargaining. No agreement, he believed, had been arrived at, and they had arranged to meet again that day.
Hubert listened in silence to the man’s story, then, taking a taxi, he drove first to the British Embassy, and thence to an apartment near the Arc de Triomphe, where he was closeted for half an hour with Colonel Guy Maitland, the British military attaché.
Thence, just after half-past ten, he drove to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d’Orsay, and there interviewed one of the permanent staff.
When he emerged he was accompanied back to the Hôtel Weber by a thin, insignificant-looking little man, wearing a bowler hat and grey gloves. The net was gradually being drawn around the famous spy, who had not yet left his room, and was still unconscious of how completely he was now surrounded. Truth to tell, the thin man in black was Berton, a detective inspector of the political department of the Sûreté, attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Thus the four men waited impatiently in the hotel, Berton of the Sûreté having telephoned from the little bureau of the proprietor for two plain-clothes agents from the nearest poste of police.
At last Flobecq, on descending the stairs, was met by a waiter who told him that a gentleman was awaiting him in the little private salon on the first floor.
In surprise, he turned into the room indicated, and there came face to face with Hubert Waldron. His cheeks went pale, and he started at the unexpected encounter.
“Ah, m’sieur!” he exclaimed, with a strenuous attempt to conceal his surprise. “It is you – eh?”
“Yes, M’sieur Flobecq,” replied Hubert, at once closing the door. “I have great pleasure in meeting you again. You see your identity is well-known to me, and I require a few minutes’ private conversation with you.”
And as he uttered these words he placed himself between the spy and the door.
“Well, and what, pray, do you want with me?” asked Flobecq in French, his dark brows quickly knit with a hard, evil expression.
“I want you to hand over to me those letters you have of the Princess Luisa of Savoy,” Waldron said boldly.
The man laughed. He was well-dressed – a good-looking, easy-going figure of that type which always made an impression upon women, but which men instinctively hated.
“I have followed you here from Italy. And at Her Highness’s request I ask you for those letters. I know that you are in treaty with the journalist, Stein, regarding them. He is a dealer in scandals, and if he purchases them will, no doubt, have a ready market for them,” Hubert added.
“Your audacity is really amazing, M’sieur Waldron.”
“It may be. But I have, fortunately, gained knowledge of your heartless deception. I know the whole of the bitter circumstances; of your pretended affection for the Princess, and how you have compelled her to act as your cat’s-paw and become a thief. Further,” and he hesitated for a few seconds, “further, I am also well aware of your position as secret agent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Vienna – a fact of which they are also aware, here in Paris – at the Quai d’Orsay!”
“My dear m’sieur,” laughed the other, folding his arms deliberately and facing the Englishman. “If you think you can bluff me, you are quite welcome to the illusion. The Princess is my friend – as you well know – you admitted it when we met at Brussels.”
“She was your friend. But to-day, you having been revealed as a spy of Italy’s enemy, she is no longer your friend. I am still her friend. And that is the reason of my presence here to-day. You were very clever in your escape from Orvieto, when you left her there in expectation. But there are others equally as evasive, I may assure you.” Waldron stood with his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his blue serge suit in an attitude of triumph. He could play the game of bluff equally with anyone, when occasion demanded.
“I shall act exactly as I think proper,” was the spy’s indignant reply.
“You will think proper to hand me over those letters – letters of an innocent girl who has been misled by as clever and cunning a plot as has ever been conceived in the whole history of espionage. I admit that you, Mijoux Flobecq, are an artist. But in this case, you have been betrayed by the patriotism of your unfortunate victim.”
“Ah! She has told you then!” he remarked with a smile of contempt.
“No, I watched and found out for myself,” was Hubert’s reply. “The key plan of which you had so ingeniously contrived to obtain possession, is safe in my hands, and – ”
“Because she handed it over to you!” he cried. “Because she grew afraid at the last second. All women do! It seems that her love for me waned,” he added in a strange voice.
“That may be. But can a woman ever really love a man who is suddenly revealed to her as an enemy?” queried the diplomat. “No. You were amazingly clever, M’sieur Flobecq, but your estimate of human nature was entirely wrong. As soon as she knew that you were a spy of Italy’s hereditary enemy, Austria, her love turned to hatred. That was but natural.”
“And she betrayed me?”
“No, she did not. There, you are quite mistaken,” was Hubert’s quick response. “It will surprise you to know that I was in the Hôtel Belle Arti and overheard every word that passed between you. It was there, for the first time, that I realised the truth. And – ” He looked straight into the eyes of the spy. ”… and I tell you openly and frankly that I am her friend!”
“Then it was your threat I overheard while speaking to her! Well, and what can you do, pray? She has misled me.”
“Do!” echoed Waldron, still standing with his back to the door of the little, shabbily furnished reading-room. “Do! I merely ask you for those letters.”
“Which you will never get. I have them here safe in my pocket,” and he drew out a bulky envelope which he exhibited in triumph. “At noon to-day I shall sell them to my friend, Stein, who can easily place them in the proper quarter. It will be my revenge, my dear m’sieur,” he laughed.
“And a pretty revenge – eh? – upon a defenceless girl whom you have deceived – whom you have met in all sorts of odd, out-of-the-way places. I saw you together as far away as Wady Haifa, in the Sudan. And I watched you all the time you were together in Egypt.”
“I think that to discuss this affair further is quite useless,” Flobecq said with an annoyed look. “You can rest assured that neither your bluff, nor any other influence that you could bring to bear upon me, would ever induce me to give up the letters to you.”
“That is your decision – eh? Reflect – because your defiance may cost you more than you imagine.”
“Bah! What do I care for you, a mere British diplomat! What do you know of Secret Service ways, or methods?” he laughed.
“I know this,” was Hubert’s reply, “that if you refuse to give back to me the correspondence of your unfortunate victim you will find yourself in a very awkward predicament here in Paris.”
“Bah! You are only bluffing, I repeat! What, do you think I have any fear of you? You diplomats are merely air bubbles of self-importance. You are so easily pricked.” And he turned from Waldron with an expression of supreme contempt.
“Seven months ago there was an incident at Toulon Arsenal – regarding the Admiralty wireless station there – and you escaped,” Hubert remarked in a low, meaning voice.
“Well?”
“Well, that incident is not yet forgotten,” the Englishman said with a curious smile.
“I don’t follow you.”
“Well, in this hotel there are three agents of police now waiting to place you under arrest as a spy of Austria,” he said very quietly; “therefore I think, M’sieur Flobecq, you really must admit that, in this particular game, I just now hold most of the honours – eh?”
The spy’s face darkened. He saw himself checkmated for the first time by a better and more ingenious man.
“You will hand me over those letters at once,” Waldron went on, “or I shall call into this room the inspector of the Sûreté who is anxious to arrest you on charges of espionage. And they have been wanting you now for fully seven months, remember. But they are not yet tired. Oh, dear no! The Sûreté is never tired of waiting. If it is ten years, the penalty for espionage in France is the same!” Hubert added, with a grin of triumph.
In an instant Mijoux Flobecq flew into a passion, declaring that the Englishman should never regain possession of the incriminating correspondence for which he had so heartlessly practised blackmail upon Her Royal Highness.
“I defy you!” he cried with a sneer. “I have arranged the price with my friend, Stein. And he shall have the letters for publication – to reveal to Europe how, even in Royal circles, traitors exist?”
“Traitors!” cried Hubert, advancing towards him threateningly. “Repeat that word, and, by gad! I’ll strangle you – you blackguard! The Princess Luisa is no traitor. You have held her in an evil bondage – you, the agent of your taskmasters in Vienna – you, who with your devilish cunning, hoped to betray Italy into Austria’s hands.”
Hubert Waldron was intensely angry, now that he had cast that outrageous reflection upon Lola’s honour.
“Now, once and for all, I demand those letters?” he added, facing Flobecq very determinedly.
“And I, on my part, refuse to give them to you.”
“Then you are prepared to accept the consequences – eh?”
“Quite.”
“You refuse to release an unfortunate girl from the consequences of a foolish infatuation?”
“She has betrayed me. Therefore I feel myself entirely at liberty to act just as I deem fit.”
“Act as you wish, M’sieur Flobecq, but I warn you that it is at your own peril. I am prepared to endeavour to give you your liberty in exchange for those letters.”
“I have my liberty. I do not wish to bargain for it with you!” laughed the other in open defiance.
“For the last time, I ask you to hand me over that packet.”
“And I refuse.”
“Give the letters to me, I say?” cried Hubert, and, exasperated by the fellow’s demeanour, he sprang suddenly upon him.
He was strong and athletic, and the insults which the spy had cast upon Lola had caused him to lose his temper. His hands were at Flobecq’s throat.
A second later, however, the spy drew a revolver, and only just in the nick of time did the Englishman manage to turn the barrel aside ere it went off.
Then ensued a fierce and desperate struggle for the weapon – indeed a fight for life.
Hubert held Flobecq’s right wrist in a grip of iron, at the same time endeavouring to obtain possession of the envelope containing the letters. In this latter, however, he was unsuccessful.
Again the weapon went off in the mêlée, the bullet embedding itself in the ceiling, while the two men, locked in each other’s deadly embrace, fell against a table, smashing a large porcelain vase to fragments.
The reports aroused the alarm of the agents of police who, a few seconds later, rushed into the room where they found the two men struggling desperately. But just as they entered, accompanied by the proprietor of the hotel in a state of the utmost alarm, Flobecq discharged his weapon a third time. The bullet struck a huge mirror, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
With the aid of the police agents, Flobecq was, with difficulty, secured, whereupon Hubert – with the one thought uppermost in his mind, that of Lola’s honour – placed his hand swiftly into the inner pocket of his adversary’s coat and abstracted the envelope containing the fateful letters.
“That man is a thief!” yelled the spy, white to the lips with fury. “Arrest him! Arrest him, I say. He has stolen my property.”
Next second, as Hubert drew back and before anyone was aware of it, the man under arrest snatched a heavy police revolver from the hand of one of the men holding him, and fired point-blank at the Englishman.
Again, in the spy’s passion of hatred, his shot went wide of the mark, and Hubert stood unharmed, the letters already safe in his pocket.
In a moment all three men, finding their prisoner armed, drew back. Then in an instant he had freed himself.
His back was set against the wall, and flourishing the heavy weapon he held them all at bay.
“You shan’t take me!” he shrieked in defiance. “Touch me again, any of you, and I’ll shoot you dead!” he shouted in desperation.
And by the distorted expression of his livid face they all knew he meant it.
Berton, the inspector of the Sûreté, made a sudden dash forward, in order to again secure the man so long wanted for espionage, but in less time than it takes to describe the dramatic scene he received a bullet in the shoulder.
Again Flobecq, still holding them all at bay and defying them to arrest him, fired at Waldron, once more missing him, and then firing two further shots at random, one taking effect upon the hand of the elder of the two French agents.
Then the third man, finding his two companions wounded, and himself at the mercy of the frenzied spy, raised his own revolver, took careful aim and fired in self-defence.
The shot took instant effect.
Mijoux Flobecq, the handsome adventurer, shot through the heart, fell forward, face downwards, dead.
Chapter Thirty Four.
The Truth is Told
At the Quirinale the last State Ball of the season was in full swing.
The Palace was ablaze with light. In the great courtyard, where the sentries paced, there were constant arrivals and departures. All aristocratic and official Rome was there. Smart uniforms were everywhere, and in the great ballroom with its wonderful chandeliers the scene was perhaps the most brilliant of any to be witnessed in the whole of Europe.
In a small salon in the private apartments far removed from the music and glitter of the Court – a delightful and artistic room with white-enamelled walls, and furniture and carpet of old rose – stood Hubert Waldron, who had only arrived back in the Eternal City an hour before. He had hastily changed into uniform, and stood there with Her Royal Highness, Princess Luisa, whose slim figure was a tragic one, notwithstanding her handsome Court gown of white satin, and the black watered ribbon of her decoration in her corsage.
He had just related, as briefly as he could, the exciting chase from Orvieto, a thousand miles, to Paris, and the dramatic meeting in the frowsy little hotel in the Rue d’Amsterdam.
“And here, Lola, are your letters,” he said calmly, drawing from his tunic the envelope which he had sealed in Paris without prying into its contents, save to reassure himself that they were letters in the handwriting of the woman he loved so devotedly.
“My letters!” she gasped, casting her ivory fan aside and eagerly taking them in her gloved and trembling hands. “Then – then you have recovered them!” she cried in sudden glee. “You – you have saved me, Mr Waldron, for to-night I – I confess to you, my friend – I had the fixed intention to end it all. I could not bear to live and face the terrible exposure, for I knew not from day to day if one of the scurrilous papers in Paris might print my letters – the confession of a woman who, though a Princess of a Royal House, was also a spy, because she was fooled – tricked into love!”
“Lola,” he said, still speaking earnestly and very calmly, “you need have no further fear of that man. He came near bringing you to ruin – nay to death. But the peril is now at an end.”
“At an end – how?” she asked.
“I begged of you to leave all to me – that I would settle the account with him. I have brought you back your letters,” he said, very gravely. “You need have no further fear, because the scoundrel who made such dastardly pretence of loving you, Lola, is dead!”
“Dead!” she gasped with startled, wide-open eyes.
“Yes; shot dead by the Paris police who had wanted him for espionage. He fired at them, and they retaliated in self-defence.”
“Then my enemy is dead!” she exclaimed in a whisper, standing motionless, her big, expressive eyes fixed straight before her.
“Yes. The peril which threatened you, Lola, and the very existence of the Italian nation, is at an end.”
“And you, Mr Waldron,” she cried in a voice broken by emotion, turning to him suddenly with hand outstretched, “you have risked your own life and have averted a war in Europe, of which I, in my unfortunate ignorance, was so nearly the cause.”
“Because your actions and your movements have been – well, just a little too unconventional,” he laughed, bowing gallantly over her outstretched hand and kissing it fervently.
She knew the truth. She knew how devotedly the Englishman loved her. And she, in return, reciprocated his affection. Had she not, in that moment of her ecstasy, responded to his well-remembered kisses?
He was holding her hand, gazing long and deeply into those fathomless eyes of hers. He was about to speak – again to confess to her his great all-consuming passion, when a hand was placed upon the door knob and they sprang apart, as of a sudden His Majesty the King, a brilliant figure in his uniform and glittering decorations, entered.
“Ah, Waldron?” he cried in his usual cheery way, “I received your message, and came here to find you. They told me that you were here, with Lola. Well? You have a report to make, I suppose. What is it? Lola,” he said, addressing Her Highness, “I fear I must ask you to leave us. I have some business to talk over with Mr Waldron.”
“I ask Your Majesty’s pardon,” the diplomat said; “but I would beg that Her Royal Highness be allowed to remain. My report closely concerns her.”
“Concerns her! How?”
“If Your Majesty will have patience with me I will explain,” Hubert replied, and then, as briefly and tersely as possible, he related to the King the series of startling and exciting events recorded in the preceding chapters – how Lola, at the instigation of the Austrian spy, Flobecq, in guise of lover, was induced to go in secret to the private safe of the Minister of War and thence abstract the plans of the new frontier defences. He explained, too, how these being found useless without the key – though in secret Austria mobilised her army in readiness for a descent upon her neighbour at the moment that key was forthcoming – Flobecq, the cunning scoundrel in the employ of the Vienna Foreign Office, had blackmailed the unfortunate Princess by threatening to publish her letters if she did not dare further – and steal the key plan.
“And you, it seems, entered His Excellency’s cabinet just in the very nick of time,” the King said, both surprised yet gratified. “Yes, Waldron, I am seldom mistaken in my man,” he went on, “and when I called you and asked you to assist me, as your respected father assisted my own father, I felt that I could trust you. My confidence has not been misplaced. By your staunch friendship to me – not loyalty, because you are loyal only to your own Sovereign, my good brother – you have saved my beloved nation, saved an international complication which must have cost Europe a terrible war. And more – you have saved my madcap little niece’s honour. And why?” he demanded suddenly.
Hubert did not answer for several moments.
“Well, I will be frank, Your Majesty,” he responded. “Because ever since we met in Egypt and I believed her to be Lola Duprez, niece of the cantankerous old Gigleux, we have been most excellent friends. I have only done my duty towards her as a friend, and towards you as Sovereign of Italy, at whose Court I am humbly attached as servant of my own King.”
“Waldron!” exclaimed His Majesty, “to-night I sleep securely for the first time for several months. The war-cloud has been dispersed – and by you. You have my heartfelt thanks – the thanks of a man who has the misfortune perhaps of being born a King.” And he gripped the diplomat’s hand warmly in his own, and looked into his face as only one man can look at another who returns thanks from the very depths of his heart. “We can only reflect, Waldron,” added the King in a low, earnest voice, “upon how many lives might have been sacrificed, of what ruin and desolation must have resulted and of the terrible horrors of modern warfare that have been averted by your devotion to Lola, to myself, and to my own beloved Italy!”
But Hubert Waldron was thinking only of Lola. His Majesty’s eulogy was lost upon him.
He bowed low, and declared himself as the devoted servant of Italy and her Sovereign, as his father had been before him.
Again the King grasped his hand, and then and there declared that he bestowed upon him the coveted Grand Cross of the Order of Saints, Maurice and Lazarus, an order which very few of the Italian Cabinet Ministers possessed, and one of the principal distinctions of Italy.
Afterwards His Majesty bade him a cheery addio, and, turning, left the room.
For some moments Hubert stood facing Lola, without speaking.
What could he say?
“Lola,” he exclaimed at last, “there is one point which still remains to be cleared up. Tell me. How did you manage to enter the General’s room while the corporal, Tonini, was there on sentry duty?”
“Tonini knew me well. He is engaged to marry my maid, Renata. I entered the room on pretence of paying a visit to General Cataldi, and finding that His Excellency was not there, I waited in the room a few minutes, during which time I opened the safe. Then I called him in and made him promise solemnly to tell no one that I had paid the General a visit, explaining that I had come to crave the promotion of one of my friends – a captain of cavalry – and was not desirous of the fact becoming public property. He understood the scandal at which I hinted, and therefore loyally preserved silence – even when he knew that the plans had been stolen. Imagine my horror when I realised the full gravity of my action. I had handed over the plans to Austria! At once – ignorant of the inquiry you were making – I called a man I knew, Pietro Olivieri, an ex-police officer, and begged him to assist me to recover the plans. But, alas! he failed. And then Flobecq, holding out the threat to publish my letters, forced me to make an attempt to gain the tracings which formed the key.” And she drew her hand wearily across her brow as though to clear her brain of those terrible memories.
A few moments later Hubert stretched forth his hand in farewell.
He loved her with all his heart and all his soul, but, alas! he knew too well the wide barrier of birth that lay between them.
He saw, too, in Lola’s face a sweet, passionate love look, that one expression which a woman can never feign. By that alone he knew his affection was reciprocated.
The cup of bitterness was at his lips. But with supreme self-control he dashed it from him.
To speak would only bring upon her grief and sorrow. Yes. Silence was best, after all, even though it cost him all that he held most dear in the world – best for her sake, and for his.
He took her white-gloved hand in his, and bowing over it till his lips touched its back, wished her a courtly addio.
“But how can I ever thank you sufficiently for saving me, Hubert?” she cried, addressing him by his Christian name, hot tears welling in her great dark eyes.
“I desire no thanks, Lola,” was his low, earnest reply. “If sometimes you remember me as your friend – as your most true, and most devoted friend – then that is an all-sufficient recompense for me.”
His voice trembled with emotion and she saw a strange expression at the corners of his mouth.
“But I will see you soon – to-morrow – eh? Where?” she said eagerly.
“No,” he answered briefly. “I am leaving Rome.”
“Leaving Rome!” she echoed in dismay.
“Yes. I am applying for transfer to another post. There are reasons why I cannot remain here any longer. I could not bear it. You know why.” And he looked her straight in the face, still holding her hand strongly in his.
She averted her gaze and sighed deeply.
He saw the hot tears upon her cheeks, therefore slowly he drew her towards him in his strong arms, and impressing one last fervent kiss upon her cold white brow, released her, and with bowed head left the room with a whispered:
“Addio – addio, my own beloved!”
The door closed, and for a moment she stood motionless as a statue.
Then in sudden frenzy, with wild despair in her eyes, she threw herself upon her face on the rose-coloured silk couch, and there burst into a fit of violent sobbing – sobbing as though her young heart would break.
The sun of her life had, at that moment, been suddenly extinguished.
Several years have now brought their changes.
A new King rules in Italy. He has a new entourage and a new Cabinet, but the Princess Luisa stills lives at the Palace, sweet, handsome, yet ever pale and thoughtful.
Her acts of charity and her blameless life have rendered her highly popular in the Eternal City, and when she drives out in one of the royal automobiles the men raise their hats and the populace cry after her, “Viva Luisa! Viva Luisa di Savoia!”
The giddy world of Rome has often wondered why Her Royal Highness, so bright and vivacious, has never married, though her name has frequently been coupled by gossips with that of one or other of the eligible Royal Princes of Europe, notably the Crown Prince of Saxony.
The truth, however, has never leaked out, for his late Majesty, King Umberto, who alone knew his niece’s secret, never betrayed it, even to his Queen.
Sir Hubert Waldron, K.C.M.G., is now British Ambassador at St. Petersburg, yet still a bachelor. In diplomatic circles it has long been a matter of surprise that he has never taken to himself a wife, for many wealthy women are known to have set their caps at him.
However, the world is in ignorance that the plain disc of gold which he wears upon his watch-chain, though it has not the appearance of a locket, nevertheless is one, and opens with a cunningly concealed spring. Within, on one side, is an exquisite little ivory miniature of the Princess Luisa, while on the other two simple words are engraved upon the gold case – “For Ever.”
