Her Royal Highness Part 24

The Amba.s.sador's grey face lit up with a faint smile, as he shook his head.

"I fear, my dear Waldron, that you will not get permission. The Powers must look after their own perils."

Hubert, glad enough to escape from the official atmosphere, left the Emba.s.sy shortly afterwards, and after killing time for an hour in the club--where he chatted with Colonel Sibileff, the Russian military attache, and young Count Montoro, one of the _jeunesse doree_ of the Eternal City--walked back to his rooms to see if any reply was forthcoming from London. He had given orders to Sheppard, the concierge at the Emba.s.sy, to send round at once any telegram addressed to him.

"Any message?" he asked eagerly of Peters as he let himself in with his latch-key.

"Yes, sir, a telegram arrived from the Emba.s.sy only two minutes ago."

His master tore it open with eager, trembling fingers, but, alas! it was in cipher! He had never thought of that.

Das.h.i.+ng downstairs he tore back to the Via Venti Settembre, and in the chancellerie sat down and impatiently worked it out, placing each decipher over the code letter until the whole message ran as follows:

"Situation already reported from Vienna. Later inquiries show report exaggerated. Tension no doubt exists, but not sufficient to warrant breach of regulations."

Hubert Waldron ground his teeth in despair. Downing Street had given him a polite but firm refusal.

And with that he was compelled to be satisfied, even though he knew that war was contemplated and was actually imminent.

He was now upon the horns of a dilemma. To wilfully disregard his instructions from London was impossible. What, he wondered, did the later inquiries in Vienna reveal?

He remembered his promise to the Princess. At all hazards he must make a flying visit to the Belgian capital. But during those six days which he must of necessity be absent, what might not occur? A great disaster was fast-approaching.

The Amba.s.sador had gone to the theatre, therefore he left him a note, and again returning to his rooms, he sat down and scribbled a few lines to Her Highness, telling her of his departure. This he posted later on at the railway station soon after midnight, after which he entered the long, dusty _wagon-lit_ marked "Roma-Torino-Parigi."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

TOLD IN THE CAFE METROPOLE.

Weary and f.a.gged Waldron descended from the sleeping-car at the Gare de Lyon in Paris twenty hours later and dispatched a telegram to the address Lola had given him. Then he drove in a taxi across the French capital, and next morning found himself in the Grand Hotel in gay little Brussels--awaiting a reply.

About eleven o'clock it came--a message by express making an appointment to meet at noon at the Cafe Metropole a little farther up the boulevard.

Hubert was wasting no time. He had not lost a single moment since leaving the Eternal City, and on that rush northward his mind was ever centred upon the crisis between the two Powers which had evidently occurred.

He had left word with Peters that if any person called, or anyone rang up on the telephone, the reply was that he had left Rome on urgent business for three or four days. On no account was his man to say whither he had gone.

He flung off his coat and cast himself upon the bed to rest for an hour.

But the noise in the busy boulevard outside was irritating, worse even than the roar of the great international express which had borne him half across Europe.

Presently he washed, changed his clothes, and then went forth to the cafe, a popular rendezvous which he had known when, six years before, he had served temporarily at the Brussels Legation.

It was a huge, square, open place, with walls tiled to represent various Baccha.n.a.lian pictures, and many tables, upon half of which were laid cloths for the _dejeuner_. Being winter there were only a dozen tables set on the pavement outside, but in summer there are a hundred spread over the broad footway, and in an evening the place, being a highly papular resort, is crowded to overflowing by the chattering, bearded Bruxellois and their female friends.

At that hour, however, the place was nearly empty as Hubert entered, his sharp eyes gazing around. Then suddenly he saw a youngish man in grey overcoat and wearing a Tyrolese hat of dark green plush, seated in a far corner.

He rose and smiled as Waldron entered, and the latter instantly recognised him as the secret lover--the man who had travelled with them down the Nile, and whose att.i.tude towards Lola had so completely disarmed all suspicion.

The two men lifted hats to each other in the foreign manner, and then Hubert exclaimed with a pleasant smile:

"This is a strange renewal of our acquaintance, M'sieur Pujalet, is it not?"

"Hush?" exclaimed the other warningly. "Not Pujalet here--Petrovitch, if you please!" and a mysterious expression crossed his dark, rather handsome, features.

"As you wish, of course," replied Waldron with a bright laugh. "You, of course, know the object of my mission? The--"

He hesitated, for he was naturally cautious, and it had suddenly occurred to him at that second that this Frenchman was, no doubt, in ignorance of the true station of the woman he loved, just as he himself had been. So the word "Princess" died from his lips.

"Mademoiselle asked you to give me a letter, did she not?" said the man politely in French. "I am sure, M'sieur Waldron, I do not know how to thank you sufficiently for making this long journey in order to meet me."

"No thanks are necessary," the other replied. "I am simply Mam'zelle's messenger," he laughed, producing the letter from his pocket-book and handing it to him.

"Ah! but this is really a great service you have done both of us," he declared earnestly. "One that I fear I shall never be able to repay,"

he declared, taking the letter in his eager hands.

Waldron, watching keenly, saw that the man's fingers trembled visibly.

That letter contained some message of greatest import to him, without a doubt. Yet he held it unopened--not daring, it seemed, to break the seal and learn the truth.

"Candidly," Waldron said, now sitting back easily in a chair opposite Pujalet, "I wondered why it could not be entrusted to the post. It would in that case have reached you two days earlier."

"Ah! there are some things one does not exactly care to trust to the post even though registered."

"If a packet is insured it is rarely lost--even in Italy where the post is so uncertain and insecure. The Administration of Posts and Telegraphs does not care to be called upon to pay an indemnity."

Pujalet did not reply. And by his silence Waldron was convinced that he feared the letter might have been tampered with and opened--that the secret it contained might be revealed.

If this were so, then, after all, it was more than probable that he did really know Lola's actual ident.i.ty!

And again, what had Her Highness meant when she had hinted at blackmail!

Why, too, had not Pujalet travelled to Rome himself instead of burying himself in Brussels.

From that moment Waldron viewed Henri Pujalet with suspicion. Why should he, a Frenchman, be pa.s.sing there as a Servian, and living in obscurity? His manner, from the very first moment when he had seen him with Lola in his arms under those dark palms in far-off Wady Haifa, had been suspicious. For some reason--why, he could not himself tell-- Hubert felt a bitter antagonism towards the Frenchman. Surely it was a foolish fancy of Her Royal Highness to allow herself to love that man--a person whose movements were, on the face of them, not those of an honourable man.

Yet, on the other hand, Waldron remembered how devoted the pair had seemed towards each other. And it was only because of this, because of his intense interest and admiration for Lola, that he had declared himself her friend, and had undertaken that mad rush across Europe on her behalf.

"Please disregard me entirely," he said to the Frenchman, "if you wish to open your letter," and taking out his cigarette-case he selected one and slowly lit it, the while covertly watching the man before him as he broke the seal and drew forth a sheet of paper.

Pujalet eagerly devoured what was written there, while Waldron, from the opposite side of the little marble table, watched his countenance keenly.

He saw a sudden expression of blank amazement. Then his sharp, dark eyes narrowed, and surprise gave way to a distinct expression of evil.

Whatever the Princess's missive contained, it certainly caused him both annoyance and alarm. The man's astute cleverness, however, was shown by the manner in which he made pretence of disregarding it and treating it with nonchalance.

He smiled as he looked again into the face of his companion, though it was but a strange, sickly smile, like that seen upon a criminal's face on listening to his sentence. And without a word he signalled to a waiter and called for a cognac.

Waldron refused his invitation to drink, but watched him as he tossed off the _pet.i.t verre_ at a single gulp.

"I regret if the news I have brought is unwelcome," Waldron remarked, as he drew slowly at his cigarette and watched the smoke curling upwards.

"But m'sieur must forgive me."