The attempt upon his life showed plainly that the thief was aware of the strenuous efforts he was making to fathom the mystery. But who was the thief! Was it this unscrupulous, much-decorated General who took secret commission of contractors, the man who allowed the army to be fed on discarded tin food, and go shod in cheap German boots which wore in holes on the first march, in order to enrich himself?

Long and deeply he thought, and still the conviction clung to him that the person mainly responsible for the sale of the plans to Austria was His Excellency himself.

Thoughts of Her Highness rose within him. He sighed. Yes, he loved her with all his body and soul. Yet that barrier of birth could never be bridged. After all, they could be only good friends, therefore he had never dared to declare his love. She was a Princess of the blood-royal and might marry a reigning Sovereign, but he was a mere diplomat, a secretary of Emba.s.sy, a man whom the Court regarded as the necessary adjunct of a practically defunct inst.i.tution, for, however much one may cling in these days to the old usages and customs, yet the glaring fact must be faced that kings themselves are the amba.s.sadors, and royal visits from one Court to another tend to cement more international friendships than ten years of that narrow little squabbling and intriguing world which exists in every capital under the name of the _corps diplomatique_.

The public have been long enough gulled by the false tinsel and glamour of the diplomatic world, and in these ultra-modern days they see the inutility of it all. Often an obscure Vice-Consul in an obscure port is of greater use to the nation than the whole of the red-taped, ceremonious Emba.s.sy, with its splendid house, its dinners and dances, its flunkeys and furbelows, and its flabby, do-nothing policy directed from Downing Street.

Hubert Waldron, born and bred in the diplomatic atmosphere and nurtured upon the squabbles and petty jealousies of international politics, could not close his eyes to the fact that the public of Europe were being gulled daily by the Press, and that at an hour when all would seem quietest and most peaceful, the great and terrible European war would suddenly break out.

Though at the Emba.s.sies you will be told that the peace of Europe is quite a.s.sured nowadays, and though your penny papers with their "advertised actual sales" will print rea.s.suring leaders for the sake of the particular party who supports them, yet there is not a diplomat in all Europe who does not, in his own heart, fear a violent and b.l.o.o.d.y explosion and that brought about by the Dual Monarchy.

Though this view may appear pessimistic, it is nevertheless a hard fact that the Powers of the Triple Alliance have not signed any agreements relating to the Mediterranean, and more than one European throne is to-day tottering to its fall, nay, more than one nation may, at any moment, be erased from the map.

But the whole object of diplomacy is to rea.s.sure, not to alarm. The days when the greatest international tension exists are those when the outlook seems the most serene and unruffled.

In our present century war breaks out; it is not declared. And war in Europe may break out at any moment, even though much is said of the solidity of the Triple Alliance.

On arrival at the great echoing station at Rome, Hubert descended, tired and f.a.gged, and took a taxi home.

It was then nine o'clock in the morning, and Peters, surprised to see him, handed him a letter which had been left on the previous night. On opening it he found it was from Ghelardi, dated from the Bureau of Secret Police, and asking when he could see him.

At this request he was somewhat surprised in view of what had already pa.s.sed between them, nevertheless he spoke to the functionary on the telephone at his private house and at eleven o'clock entered his private room at the Ministry.

Their greeting was the reverse of cordial. Indeed Hubert had at first hesitated to meet him at all, yet he thought that the object of the interview might concern the unfortunate incident in the Palace; hence he went, determined to still show a bold front.

"I regret, Signor Waldron, to have disturbed you," the crafty old man said when his visitor was seated. "But it has been reported to me that the other night you were attacked by two individuals, and that you narrowly escaped with your life--that you shot and wounded both your a.s.sailants."

The policeman had, notwithstanding the bribe, evidently made a report in order to show his watchfulness to his superior. Hubert frowned in annoyance.

"Oh, it was nothing at all," he declared, laughing. "I had quite forgotten all about it. They were merely footpads, I suppose. No further notice need be taken of them."

"Ah! but they are very dangerous characters, and well-known in Rome," he said. Then, looking straight at him the old man with the bristly hair said in a curious, half-suspicious voice: "You appear, Signor Waldron, to have some rather bitter enemies in Rome--eh?"

"I was not aware of it," answered the diplomat. "If I have it does not trouble me in the least. I am perfectly able to defend myself."

"They are secret enemies, it seems," Ghelardi said slowly, looking at his visitor meaningly.

Hubert did not reply for a few moments. At last he said:

"And they include yourself, Signor Commendatore."

The cunning old fellow smiled.

"Ah, you are referring, I suppose, to that incident of the other night.

Well, I think we may surely let that pa.s.s. We all of us have our hours of irresponsibility," and he slowly twisted the diamond ring around his little finger, laughing lightly.

"Thank you. I have no desire for your covert sneers, Signor Commendatore," he said angrily, rising. "As I have told you--you are my secret enemy, and I shall treat you as such."

"It is rather a pity that you do so."

"A pity--why?"

"For the sake of Her Royal Highness."

"Her name need not enter into our discussion," Hubert said hotly, his hand upon the door ready to leave. "I do not see your object in troubling me to come here, merely to tell me of the attack made upon me by two criminals which the police should already have under lock and key. It is not much to the credit of the department that the streets of Rome are unsafe at night."

"Ah! my dear signore, you are a little too impatient, I fear," replied the chief of spies, quite undisturbed. "I was about to prove to you my friendliness."

"I desire none of your friendship," declared the Englishman hotly. "And I tell you that I will not have you mention the name of the Princess Luisa in connection with my own."

"Friendships formed by Her Royal Highness are frequently unfortunate."

"Are they!" exclaimed Waldron, his eyes aflame. "If you were younger, Signor Commendatore, I would knock you down for your gratuitous insult.

As it is, I shall not forget it. _Buon giorno_!"

And he left the room, slamming the door after him.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

GATHERING CLOUDS.

Dust had once more been thrown into the eyes of Europe.

Weeks had gone by, spring came, and the Roman season was on the wane.

The month of May--the Primavera--with all its blossoms and ceremonies had opened.

As far as the world knew not a cloud obscured the political horizon. In the chancelleries of Europe there were no sinister whispers, in the Emba.s.sies they danced and dined, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand had made a placid speech from the Throne, and Count Berchtold had declared the foreign policy of Austria-Hungary unchanged, and further, that the changes in the Near East had created new interests common to the Dual Monarchy and to Italy, and that their policy was leading them together along the path of co-operation, and also that their att.i.tude towards each other tended to preserve the peace of Europe and to a.s.sure freedom and equilibrium in the Adriatic.

It is always so. The calm is followed by the storm. At Vienna they were secretly completing their plans for a sudden coup against their neighbours, yet the true facts were known only in our own Intelligence Department in Whitehall, and the information had in turn been sent in a cipher dispatch to the Emba.s.sy in Rome.

It was this dispatch which the Amba.s.sador, receiving it one evening from the hand of the King's messenger, who had brought it in hot haste direct from Downing Street, pa.s.sed over to Hubert to decipher.

The information was highly alarming, to say the least.

The British secret agent--a responsible Austrian official in the Ministry of War--reported that the great army ma.s.sed in the Tyrol for manoeuvres was being kept there. A secret order had been issued to the Eighth, Tenth, and Thirteenth Army Corps to concentrate from the Adriatic across to the Danube, and at the same time the Ministry of Marine had issued orders to the navy recalling the Adriatic fleet which had been manoeuvring between Cattaro and Ragusa up to Trieste.

The wireless stations at Sebenico and Pola had been taken over by the navy, and operators placed there sent expressly from the Ministry of Marine in Vienna.

All tended to a secret attack--to war--a war in Europe with dreadnoughts, high explosives, aeroplanes, seaplanes, submarines, and wireless conditions never before imagined either in the wildest dreams of novelists or the ever-active brains of place-seeking party politicians.

Preparations were slowly but surely being made in Vienna, and the blow would surely soon be struck.

For an hour Waldron remained in consultation with his Chief. Then, regardless of Downing Street regulations, and only hoping to prevent the conflagration, he went back to his rooms on the ground floor of the Emba.s.sy, scribbled a hasty copy of the secret information, and with it walked direct to the Quirinale.

Events would, he saw, very soon be moving fast.

About six o'clock he entered the private room of the Minister of the Royal Household, that cosy, well-remembered apartment in which Ghelardi had discovered him on his knees beside Her Royal Highness. The Minister himself was not in, but his secretary went immediately along to the private apartments and asked His Majesty for audience on Waldron's behalf.