Kitabı oku: «Her Royal Highness: A Romance of the Chancelleries of Europe», sayfa 4
Chapter Seven.
The Night of the Golden Pig
It wanted thirty minutes to midnight.
The New Year’s Eve fun at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo was fast and furious.
Ministerial officers and their women-folk, British officers of the garrison, officials and their wives from all parts of Egypt, Society from the other hotels, and a sprinkling of grave, brown-faced Egyptian gentlemen in frock coats and fezes, all congregate here to dine, to dance, to throw “serpentines,” and to make merry by touching the golden pig – a real pig covered with gold paint – at the coming of the New Year.
That night was no exception, for the salons were crowded to overflowing, champagne flowed freely, and everyone laughed heartily at the various antics of the great assembly. Cosmopolitan it was, in every sense of the word, for most European languages could be heard there. In the ballroom a great dance was in progress, while the supper-room was crowded to suffocation, and in the big salons one could hardly move about so dense was the well-dressed crowd.
Upon this scene Hubert Waldron gazed when he arrived in a cab from the Savoy. Though Lola, her uncle, and Miss Lambert had, on landing, obtained rooms at Shepheard’s, the Englishman had failed to do so, and had therefore gone to the Savoy, whither Henri Pujalet had also gone, as well as Chester Dawson, the Easthams, and several other members of the party.
Already they had been in Cairo three days, and though Waldron had watched Pujalet continuously, the lovers had not held any clandestine meeting.
As he elbowed his way through that New Year’s Eve crush in the big Oriental lounge, however, he suddenly – came upon the pair. Lola, her face beaming with supreme pleasure, was dressed in simple, yet becoming taste in turquoise blue, with a touch of the same colour in her dark hair, while the Frenchman, erect and well-groomed, presented a particularly smart appearance. Neither noticed the diplomat, so engrossed were they in their conversation. The opportunity of meeting was, of course, a unique one, for even if her uncle discovered her how could he reprove her for dancing with a man who had been their fellow-traveller for nearly three weeks?
The girl’s face was flushed with excitement and pleasure now that she hung upon her lover’s arm as he led her back to the ballroom.
Hubert Waldron watched them, then sighed and turned away.
He had not gone far up the long salon before he was accosted by a rather thick-set, clean-shaven Englishman of about thirty-five, with blue eyes, rather fair hair, and whose clothes fitted perfectly.
“Hulloa, Waldron! By Jove! Who’d have dreamt of meeting you here! Why, I thought you were still in Madrid!”
“Jerningham!” gasped the diplomat. “My dear old Jack, how are you?” he cried, grasping his hand warmly.
“Oh, so-so,” replied the other, nonchalantly. “I’ve been travelling about a lot of late. And you?”
“Been on leave up to Wady Haifa, and now on my way back to Madrid.”
“And to the Teatro Real – eh?” added his friend with a sly grin.
“No. She’s in London. An engagement there.”
“And you’re not in London! Why?”
“Can’t get my leave extended, or, you bet, I’d be back in town like a shot. What would I give for a bit dinner at the St. James’s Club and a stroll along Piccadilly.”
“Of course. But how’s the lady?”
“Very well – I believe. I had a wire yesterday telling me of her great success at the Palace. The newspapers are full of her photographs and all that.”
“And all the nuts in town running madly after her – eh? Beatriz likes that.”
Waldron did not reply for a few moments, then, changing the subject, he said:
“Let’s go along to the bar. This crowd is distinctly unpleasant.”
Five minutes later, when the pair were seated in a quiet corner, Waldron asked in a low, confidential tone:
“What’s the latest? I’ve been away from the Embassy for nine weeks.”
“Oh, the political situation remains about the same. I’ve been mostly in Germany and Russia, since I was last in Madrid. I had a rather good scoop about a fortnight ago – bought the designs of the new Krupp aerial gun.”
“By Jove, did you?”
“Yes. It has taken me three months to negotiate, and the fellow who made the deal tried to back out of it at the last moment.”
“Traitors always do,” remarked the diplomat.
“Yes,” admitted the British secret-service agent, as Jack Jerningham actually was. “They usually lose heart at the crucial moment. But in this case the new invention of our friends is simply a marvellous one. It’s a feather in my cap in the department, I’m glad to say.”
“You’ve had a good many feathers in your cap during the past five years, my dear Jack,” Waldron replied. “Your successes since you left the navy have been phenomenal – especially when a year ago you obtained a copy of the secret treaty signed by Austria regarding the partition of the Balkans. That was an amazing feat – never before equalled by any secret agent, I should think.”
“Bah! Nothing really very wonderful,” was Jerningham’s modest reply. “More by good luck than anything else. I’m here in Cairo to report on the growing unrest. At home the Chief suspects German influence to be at work.”
“And what’s the result of your inquiries?”
“Our friends are, no doubt, at the bottom of it all. Across the North Sea they mean business; and the ‘day’ must come very soon.”
“You’ve made that prophecy for several years now.”
“Because I happen to know, my dear boy. If one man should know the truth, surely it’s my unimportant self. My Chief has always agreed with me, although it is the fashion in the House to laugh at what is called ‘the German bogey.’ But that’s exactly what they desire in Berlin. They don’t want the British public to take our warnings too seriously. But if you doubt the seriousness of the present situation, ask anybody at the Berlin Embassy. They’ll tell you the truth – and they ought surely to know.”
Jack Jerningham and Hubert Waldron had been friends ever since their youth. The estate near Crowhurst, in Sussex, which Waldron’s father owned, though his diplomatic duties had kept him nearly always abroad, adjoined that of the Jerninghams of Heatherset, of whom Jack was the second son.
After Dartmouth he had passed into the navy, had become a full lieutenant, and afterwards had joined the Intelligence Department, in which capacity he was constantly travelling about the world as the eyes and ears of the Embassies, and ever ready to purchase out of the secret-service fund any information or confidential plan which might be advantageous to the authorities at Whitehall.
A typical, round-faced, easy-going naval officer of a somewhat careless and generous disposition, nobody outside the diplomatic circle ever suspected his real calling. But by those who did know, the ambassadors, ministers, and staffs of the embassies and legations, he was held in highest esteem as a thoroughgoing patriot, a man of great discretion and marvellous shrewdness, in whom his Chief at home placed the most complete confidence.
“There’ll be trouble here in Cairo before long, I fear,” he was whispering to his friend. “Kitchener will have a very rough time of it if the intrigues of our friends at Berlin are successful. They are stirring up strife every day, and the crisis would have arrived long ago were it not for Kitchener’s bold firmness. They know he won’t stand any nonsense from the native opposition. Britain is here to rule, and rule she will. Hence our friends the enemy are just a little afraid. I’m going back home next week to report upon the whole situation.”
“I’m getting pretty, sick of the humdrum of diplomacy,” Hubert declared wearily, between the puffs of his excellent cigarette. Though the big American bar was crowded by men, in the corner where they sat upon a red plush settee they could not be overheard, the chatter and noise being so great. “We at the Embassies are only puppets, after all. It is such men as you who shape the nation’s policy. We’re simply the survival of the old days when kings exchanged courtesies and views by means of their ambassadors, and we, the frills of the Embassy, merely dress up, dance attendance at every function, and pretend to an importance in the world which we certainly do not possess.”
“My dear Hubert, you never spoke truer words than those. Everything nowadays is worked from Downing Street, and the ambassador is simply the office boy who delivers the message. Your father was one of the brilliant men of the old regime. The Empire owes much to him, especially for what he did at Rome.”
“Yes, those days have passed. In this new century the world has other ways and other ideas. It is the age of advertisement, and surely the best advertisement manager which the world has ever known is the Kaiser William.”
“Oh, that’s admitted,” laughed the secret agent. “Why, he can’t go to his castle at Corfu for a week – as he does each spring – without some wonderful relic of Greek antiquity being unearthed in his presence. It is whispered that they sow them there in winter, just as the brave Belgians sow the bullets on the battlefield of Waterloo. To-day we are assuredly living on the edge of a volcano,” Jerningham went on. “When the eruption takes place – and who knows when it will – then, at that hour, the red-tape must be burst asunder, the veil torn aside, and the bitter truth faced – the bubble of British bombast will, I fear, be pricked.”
“You are always such a confounded pessimist, my dear Jack,” laughed Waldron.
“Ah, Hubert, I’m a pessimist because I am always on the move from capital to capital and I learn things as I go,” was Jerningham’s quick reply. “You fellows at the Embassies sit down and have a jolly good time at balls, dinners, tea-fights, and gala performances. Why? Because you’re paid for your job – paid to remain ignorant. I’m paid to learn. There’s the little difference.”
“I admit, my dear fellow, that without your service we should be altogether a back number. To your department is due the credit of knowing what is going on in the enemy’s camps.”
“I should think so. I don’t pay out ten thousand a year, more or less, without getting to know something, I can tell you.”
Chapter Eight.
The Great Ghelardi
While Waldron and his friend were discussing matters, shouts suddenly arose everywhere – the golden pig had entered and was being touched for luck by everyone, and men raised their glasses to each other, to wish one another “A Happy New Year.” The Christian year had opened, but the Egyptians in fezes only smiled and acknowledged the compliment. Their year had not yet commenced.
“Well,” exclaimed Jack Jerningham at last. “You haven’t told me much about Beatriz.”
“Why should I, my dear fellow, when there’s nothing to tell?”
“Ah, I’m glad to hear that,” was his friend’s quick response, apparently much relieved, for the fascination of the handsome ballerina for Hubert Waldron was the gossip of half the Embassies of Europe. Hubert was a rising man, the son of a great diplomat, but that foolish infatuation would, if continued, most certainty stand in the way of his advancement. Many of his friends, even the Ambassador’s wife, had given him broad hints that the friendship was a dangerous one. Yet, unfortunately, he had not heeded them.
Every man who is over head and ears in love thinks that his adored one is the perfect incarnation of all the virtues. Even when Waldron had heard her discussed in the Casino, that smart club in the Calle de Alcata, he refused to credit the stories told of her, of the magnificent presents she received from admirers, and more especially from the favoured one, the septuagenarian Duke of Villaneuva y Geltru.
“Why are you so glad to hear it?” Hubert asked, his brow slightly knit, for after all it was a sore subject.
“Well, to tell you the truth, because there is so much gossip flying about.”
“What gossip?”
“Of course you know quite well. Why ask me to repeat it, old chap?”
“But I don’t,” was the other’s reply.
“Well,” exclaimed Jerningham after a pause, “perhaps you are, after all, like most men – you close your ears to the truth because you love her.”
“Yes, Jack, I admit it. I do love her.”
“Then the sooner you realise the actual truth, the better,” declared the other with almost brutal abruptness.
“What truth?”
“My dear fellow, I know – nay, everybody knows – your foolish, quixotic friendship with the girl. You love her, and naturally you believe her to be all that is your ideal. But I assure you she’s not.”
“How in the name of Fate can you know?” asked the diplomat, starting up angrily.
“Well – I’ve been in Spain a lot, remember. I’ve seen and heard things. Why, only a week ago in this very hotel I met old Zeigler, of the German Embassy at Madrid, and he began to discuss her.”
“And what did he say, pray?”
“What everybody else says, that – well, forgive me for saying so – but that you are a fool to continue this dangerous friendship with a woman whose notoriety has now become European.”
“Why should people interest themselves in my affairs?” he cried in angry protest.
“Who knows? It’s the same the world over. But I suppose you know that Beatriz has gone to London with the old Duke?”
“It does not surprise me. She asked me to accompany her and to introduce her, but I couldn’t get back from here in time.”
“She asked you, well knowing that you were tied by the leg – eh?” laughed Jack. “Well, my dear fellow,” he sighed, “I think you’re terribly foolish to continue the acquaintanceship. It can only bring you grief and sorrow. Think of what she was, and what she is now. Can any girl rise from obscurity in such a short time without the golden ladder? Ask yourself.”
“You need not cast ugly insinuations,” was Hubert’s angry retort, yet truth to tell, that fact had ever been in his mind – a suspicion the first seeds of which had been sown one night in the Casino Club, and which had now grown within his heart.
“Please forgive me if I’ve hurt your feelings, but we’re old friends and you know how very blunt I am. It’s my failing,” he said in a tone of apology. “But the name of the fair Beatriz has of late been coupled with half a dozen admirers. When I was in Madrid four months ago I heard that Enrique de Egas, the director of the opera, was her very intimate friend, and also that young Juan Ordonez had given her a pearl necklace worth eighteen thousand pounds, while there were whispers concerning Pedro de Padras, Conrado Giaquinto, Sanchez Ferrer and several other nuts of the Spanish nobility with whom you are acquainted. They laugh at you behind your back.”
“Yes,” Hubert responded, quite undisturbed. “But surely you know that it gratifies the vanity of those young bloods of Madrid if their names are coupled with that of a pretty woman. It is the same in Vienna, the same in Rome.”
“Ah, my dear fellow, I see you are hopelessly in love,” declared the other. “I was – once. But the scales fell from my eyes just in time, as I sincerely hope they will fall from yours.”
Waldron remained silent. In his pocket lay a letter which he had received only that morning from Beatriz, dated from the Carlton Hotel in London, a letter full of expressions of undying affection, and of longing to be again at his side.
Were those her true sentiments, he wondered? Had Jack Jerningham, on the other hand, told him the bitter truth? He had first met her a couple of months after her arrival in Madrid when she, poor and simply dressed, was dancing at the Trianon, and as yet unknown. Young Regan, one of the attachés, had introduced her, and the trio had had supper together at Lhardy’s, in the Carrera de San Jeronimo, and on the following day he had taken her for a drive in the El Retero, the beautiful park of Madrid, and afterwards to the Plaza de Toros where the famous Sevilian Espada Ricardo Torres, known to all Spain as “Bombita,” dispatched five bulls after some marvellous pases de pecho, redondos and cambiados before giving the estocada, or death-blow.
He remembered the hot afternoon and the breathless tension of the multitude as “Bombita” with his red cloth met the rush of the infuriated bull, stepped nimbly aside and then plunged his sword downwards through the animal’s neck into its heart. Then came the roar of wild applause in which his dark-haired companion joined with such enthusiasm that her cheeks glowed red with excitement.
In that crowded bar, thick with tobacco smoke and noisy with the laughter of well-dressed men, the beautiful face of the dancer who, since that blazing well-remembered day, had won fame all over Europe, rose before him in the mists. Did he really love her, he asked himself as Jack Jerningham sat at his side, now smoking in silence. Yes he did, alas! he did.
And yet how strange – how very foolish, after all. He, Hubert Waldron, who for years had lived the exotic social life of diplomacy, who, being a smart, handsome man, had received the smiles and languishing glances of a thousand women of all ages, had fallen in love with that girl of the people – the daughter of a drunken dock labourer.
His friend Jerningham watched him covertly and wondered what was passing in his mind.
“I hope I haven’t offended you, Waldron,” he ventured to exclaim at last. “Perhaps I ought not to have spoken so frankly.”
“Oh, you haven’t offended me in the least, my dear old chap,” was the other’s open reply. “I may have been a fool. Probably I am. But tell me frankly are you really certain that all these stories concerning Beatriz have any foundation in fact?”
“Any foundation?” echoed the other, staring at him with his blue eyes. “You have only to go about the capital with your ears open, and you will hear stranger and more scandalous stories than those. There is the husband, you know, the cab-driver, who threatened the Duke with divorce, and has been paid a hundred thousand pesetas as hush-money.”
“Is that a fact?” gasped his friend. “Are you quite certain of it? I can’t really believe it.”
“I’m quite certain of it. Ask Carreno, the advocate in the Calle Mayor. He made the payment, and told me with his own lips. The story is common property all over Madrid.”
Waldron’s countenance changed, but he made no reply.
“The woman and her husband are making a very substantial harvest out of it, depend upon it, Hubert. Therefore I do, as your old pal, beg of you to reconsider the whole situation. Is it really judicious for you to be associated any longer with her? I know I have no right to dictate to you – or even to make the suggestion. But I venture to do so for your own sake.”
“I know! I know!” was his impatient reply. “Yes. I’ve been a fool, no doubt, Jack – a damned idiot.”
“No; don’t condemn yourself until you have made your own inquiries. When you get back to the Embassy look around and learn the truth. Then I hope you will become convinced of the foundation of my allegations. When you are, let me know, old chap, won’t you?”
At that moment a stout, elderly man, accompanied by another a trifle his junior, who wore the button of the Legion d’Honneur in the lapel of his dress-coat, elbowed their way laboriously up to the bar.
Jack Jerningham’s quick eyes discerned them, whereupon in amazement he ejaculated in a low whisper the somewhat vulgar expression:
“Good God!”
Hubert looked up and saw old Jules Gigleux.
“What?” he asked in surprise.
“Why, look at the elder man – that old fellow with the white, close-cropped hair. Don’t you know him?” he asked in a low voice, indicating Lola’s uncle.
“Know him? Yes. He’s been up the Nile with us. He is a Frenchman named Gigleux.”
“Gigleux!” echoed his friend. “By Gad! and a rather good alias. No, my dear fellow. Look at him well. He is the greatest and most cunning secret agent Germany has ever possessed – the arch-enemy of England, the Chief of the German Secret Service – an Italian whose real name is Luigi Ghelardi, though he goes by a dozen aliases. It is he who controls the whole service of German espionage throughout the world, and he is the unscrupulous chief of the horde of spies who are infesting the Eastern counties of England and preparing for ‘the day.’”
At that second the man referred to glanced across and nodded pleasant recognition with Waldron, though he apparently had no knowledge of his companion.
“Is that really true?” gasped Hubert, utterly astounded and aghast, staring open-mouthed at Lola’s uncle.
“Most certainly. I know him by sight, only too well.”
“Then that accounts for the fact that I found him prying into my belongings in my cabin up the Nile!” exclaimed his friend, to whom the truth had come as an astounding and staggering revelation. And so the dainty Lola – the girl of mystery – was niece of the chief spy of England’s enemies.
