"Because that man has told me the truth."

The three high officials stared at the Englishman in surprise.

"Yes," Waldron went on boldly, "I do not believe the man knows anything more than what he has already stated."

"But what has he told you?" inquired Pironti, whose att.i.tude showed that he was full of resentment that a foreigner should be employed by His Majesty to investigate the scandal.

"That, signore, is my own affair," was Waldron's cool reply as he rose from his chair.

"Pironti, have the corporal placed under arrest, and see that n.o.body speaks with him," His Excellency ordered, a trifle pale with suppressed anger at Hubert's words.

The latter, however, turned towards the Minister and said in a hard voice:

"I wish Your Excellency to remember that His Majesty the King has vested me with full powers on his behalf--as you will see by this decree," and he drew a letter from his pocket. "Corporal Tonini is not to be arrested, nor is he to be threatened--or even approached. This inquiry is now in my hands, General Cataldi, not in yours. Please recollect that this is His Majesty's orders, and that I am the King's agent in this matter. Good morning." And he turned and left the trio staring at each other in silence.

As he turned the corner under the high walls of the Palazzo Albani and walked up the narrow Via Quattro Fontane in the direction of his rooms in the Via n.a.z.ionale, he felt convinced that by His Excellency's manner he had some knowledge of that package of doc.u.ments.

Back in his own sitting-room he threw himself into a chair before the English coal fire--a luxury in Rome--lit his old briar pipe, and composed himself to reflect.

Ghelardi was one of the most renowned spies in Europe and would, without a doubt, know every secret agent of Austria who had recently been or was in Rome at that moment. Should he consult him? That was a very difficult problem, for from the outset he knew the old man would be antagonistic and would feel that the Englishman was usurping his position and power.

The Italian police official is remarkable for his cunning shrewdness and resourcefulness. In the Secret Police of Italy are men of remarkable, even astounding, tact and ability as investigators of crime. Even the ordinary plain-clothes policeman in Italy is, as a rule, a much more astute officer than those of the same grade in London, Paris, or Berlin.

Indeed the Italian with his suave politeness, his natural shrewdness, his keen intelligence, and his suspicious nature makes a most excellent detective, and many of the cleverest officers of the Paris Surete and the detective departments of Berlin and New York have graduated through the Secret Police of Italy.

Old Ghelardi had all his life been brought up in that school, rising from an obscure clerk in the Questura in Naples to be a plain-clothes officer, and such distinction did he win in the capture of criminals that he quickly obtained promotion to Rome. As a young man it was he who, single-handed, captured the renowned Calabrian bandit, Bodrero, the fiend who at his trial boasted of having tortured and killed with his own hand over one hundred men, women, and children.

The anarchists, Palmera and Spineti, of Forli, he captured red-handed with their bombs, which they were about to throw at the carriage of the King's father, and again, after a whole year's diligent work, he had at last laid hands upon the two _souteneurs_, Civardi and Tedesco who, as probably will be remembered, murdered the young and pretty Countess Rinaldi in the Palazzo Rinaldi in Cremona and stole her jewels.

None could deny that Ghelardi was a very remarkable man. The German Government knew that, or they would not have seduced him from his office in Italy and given him the position of Chief of the Secret Service. A German appointment such as that is not given to a foreigner without considerable merit.

In a sense, Hubert admired him for his tact, courage, and untiring energy, and now, as he sat smoking and reflecting he remembered how, in his ignorance, he had up the Nile met the greatest secret agent of the present century and believed him to be a prosperous and rather antagonistic Frenchman!

It showed Ghelardi's resourcefulness, for Waldron, keen, shrewd, cosmopolitan man of the world that he was, was not a person easily taken in.

Time was pressing. From one hour to another the Ministry of Foreign Affairs might receive a cipher dispatch from Vienna indicating that the objectionable doc.u.ments had pa.s.sed into the hands of the War Department there.

He knew quite well that His Majesty--who had that morning gone to the great review, a brilliant figure in uniform and sparkling decorations-- had ridden there and was standing at the saluting point with a quickly beating heart. Peril, a grave and imminent peril, existed for the nation, for Austria, who for so long had desired some excuse for picking a quarrel with her neighbour, was now in a position to declare immediate war.

And with the great armies of Austria-Hungary against her, poor Italy must be ground beneath the iron heel of the invaders!

To-day it is the fashion for the public, gulled by the Press, to talk glibly of the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. The Man in the Street, be he in Plymouth or in Petersburg, Margate or Madrid, Rochester or Rome, believes that treaties duly translated and made in duplicate or triplicate, signed by the Sovereign, sealed with the Great Seal, and delivered with all the pomp and ceremony which diplomacy demands, are a safeguard against war. But your modern diplomat smiles, for he knows they are not.

Truly the situation in Europe would be comic, if it were not so terribly tragic--also if it were not so full of the smell of the lyddite sh.e.l.l.

Yet the beguiled Man in the Street is content to read and believe his halfpenny newspaper--to feed upon the daily diet which the unscrupulous journalists, bent upon money-making, provide for him, and actually give credit to the daily "story," as it is termed in newspaper parlance, as the real gospel truth.

Ten times within our present twentieth century has Europe been upon the verge of a great and b.l.o.o.d.y war. Orders have been given to mobilise, and armies have stood ready to come to grips. Yet only the Emba.s.sies have known, and there, most happily, secrets can be kept, even in these get-rich-quick days of bribery and dishonesty.

Europe has slept in her bed in calm, blissful ignorance that at any hour the terrible weapons of modern warfare might provide a cruel awakening, or perhaps a long and fatal sleep!

Such were the thoughts which floated through Hubert's mind as Peters came in one morning after five days of uncertainty and vain inquiry, and placed the letters at his master's elbow.

Among them was one bearing a Spanish stamp--a long and regretful letter from Beatriz.

He read it through twice, and then tore it into little fragments and cast it upon the fire with a brief sigh.

The telephone bell rang, and he rose and answered it.

A girl's voice spoke. It was the Princess Luisa.

"I say, Signor Waldron," she exclaimed in English, when he had told her that it was he who spoke, "the appointment is all right. To-night at eight-thirty--eh? I want to see you most urgently."

"I shall be there," he replied. He did not address her as "Highness,"

as he feared lest the telephone girl should be curious.

"_Benissimo. Addio_!" was her reply, and then she rang off.

Again he threw himself into his chair, his brow dark and thoughtful.

The appointment they had made when she had visited him she had been unable to keep, as she had had to accompany the Queen to Naples; and she had only just returned, she explained.

How strange was it all. If by good chance he were successful in his inquiries he might, after all, save Italy and her Sovereign.

But could he? Was the dastardly conspiracy too clever and well sustained? Ay, that was the question.

Those very men--those Ministers who depended upon the King's good graces, and would lick His Majesty's boots, were the same men who were now betraying him and the country into the hands of their hereditary enemy. And for gold--always for gold--that most necessary commodity upon which the devil has for ever set his curse.

That afternoon he spent at the Emba.s.sy attending to dispatches brought from Downing Street by the King's messenger who had arrived in Rome that morning, and who was due to return to London at midnight.

For two arduous hours he was closeted with the Amba.s.sador going through the various matters requiring attention, including several questions regarding the Consulates of Florence and Venice. A question had arisen in London of the advisability of reducing the Florence Consulate-General to a Vice-Consulate and making Livorno a Consulate-General in its place.

Florence was without trade, while Livorno--or Leghorn as it is known to the English--was full of shipping and other interests. Florence had too long been practically a sinecure, and its Consul-General a picturesque figure, hence the question afoot--the Amba.s.sador being asked to write his opinion upon the proposed reduction.

Durrant, the Councillor of Emba.s.sy, being absent in England on leave, it devolved upon Waldron to attend to the clerical duties, and it was nearly six o'clock ere he had sealed the last dispatch and placed it in the small Foreign Office bag of white canvas.

Then the Amba.s.sador questioned him upon the latest phase of his inquiry, but to all questions he was discreetly evasive--even to his own Chief.

Hubert Waldron was never optimistic, though he felt that already he was on the track of the thief.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS.

Soon after eight o'clock Hubert descended from a rickety _vettura_ outside the great dark Pantheon, and pa.s.sing 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 _tete-a-tete_.