Her Royal Highness: A Romance of the Chancelleries of Europe

“I respect Your Majesty’s confidence as fully and entirely as though it were that of my own Sovereign,” was Waldron’s earnest response.

“I know that I can trust you implicitly,” declared the monarch upon whose countenance the diplomat noted a dark cloud of apprehension. The situation was indeed one of extreme gravity, for the relations between Austria and Italy – never very cordial – had for the past year been much overstrained.

Whatever was the truth concerning the theft of those confidential plans, Waldron suspected from the very outset that one or other of the higher officials had had a hand in it. The onus might be placed upon secretaries, clerks, or sentries, but with the recollection of the many and constantly recurring political scandals in Rome he was inclined to a distinct belief that even one or other of the members of the Council of Defence might be the guilty person who had basely betrayed his country for Austrian gold.

“Then Your Majesty can give me no further details regarding this mysterious disappearance?” Hubert remarked after a pause, during which the King had been toying pensively with his fountain pen, his dark, deep eyes fixed upon the pile of documents awaiting his signature before he retired to rest.

“No. What I have told you comprises the whole facts as reported to me to-day. I have not sought to go further into any detail, for I considered that a shrewd, active man like yourself – and I have heard what your past record in elucidating diplomatic mysteries has been – would have greater chance of getting at the truth if allowed to make inquiries quite independently.”

“And Ghelardi?”

“I have not told him that I intended to consult you.”

“But he may resent it – most naturally he will.”

“Probably. But surely you, as my personal and private agent, will take no heed. Remember that you are working on my behalf alone.”

“But I fear, sir, that he may endeavour to place obstacles in my way,” Waldron remarked.

“And if he does then report instantly to me. I will warn him at once that you are to be given every assistance. Indeed, if you require his services, he shall himself act under your instructions, for am I not Sovereign – and I tell you I intend at all hazards to know the truth regarding this dastardly theft!” cried His Majesty with some warmth.

“I will promise to do my very utmost towards that end,” was Hubert’s reply. “Your Majesty trusts me, and I will in return carry out the mission to the very best of my ability.”

“Those words of yours are all-sufficient for me,” replied the King, rising and gripping his visitor’s hand. “Do your best. Leave no stone unturned, Waldron, and spare no expense on my behalf. Report to me frequently, as I shall be full of anxiety until this matter is cleared up. Count del Grillo will admit you to private audience at any hour. I will give him instructions. Go,” the monarch added. “Do your best on my behalf, and may every good fortune attend you. Upon your efforts will mean the averting of a long and disastrous war. Addio!”

And he again pressed the diplomat’s hand.

The latter bowed low, and with a repeated promise backed out of the royal presence, closing the door after him.

And carrying with him the secret of Italy’s peril, he descended the great marble staircase, where at the foot stood the two gorgeous flunkeys in the royal livery who bowed low as he passed out.

Chapter Fourteen.

Is Mainly Problematical

Hubert Waldron, after a sleepless night, determined to begin his inquiries independently of the famous Chief of Police, Ghelardi, whom he had not met since that memorable evening in Shepheard’s.

It was news to him that the famous European spy had resigned from the service of his masters in Berlin, and returned to the land of his birth. At least, however, there was one consolation, namely, that he would, in his new position, no longer be antagonistic to England.

Waldron’s first impulse when he dressed that morning was to go over to the Ministry and seek him, but on reflection he feared that the old man might be jealous of his interference in the affair. Hence it would best to act independently.

With that object he first went along to the Embassy and had a chat with his Chief and then called upon General Cataldi at the handsome Ministry of War in the Via Venti Settembre. There he explained matters to the short, alert, little white-haired man who, in his smart uniform, received him in his private cabinet. His Excellency was at first much surprised to learn that the Englishman knew so much, but soon expressed his readiness to assist him by every means in his power.

“My first object is to have an interview with Corporal Tonini, of the 19th Bersiglieri,” Hubert said in Italian.

“With pleasure, signore,” replied the dapper Minister who was enjoying one of those long Toscanos so dear to the Italian palate, and he at once pressed a button.

A sentry appeared instantly.

“Tell Major Brusati I wish to see him at once,” he said.

“Yes, Excellency,” replied the man, who saluted and retired.

“This affair, Signor Waldron, is a most serious one for us,” he said a few moments later. “You see yonder. There is the safe in which the plans were – ”

At that moment he was interrupted by the entrance of a burly major of artillery in dark blue uniform with the broad yellow stripe down his blue-grey trousers.

“Brusati, I want Corporal Tonini, Number 34876 19th Regiment of Bersiglieri to be called here at once. This gentleman, Signor Waldron, of the British Embassy, desires an interview with him in private.”

“Benissimo, Excellency,” replied the Major, saluting. “I will telephone over to the barracks at once.”

“And let me know as soon as he arrives.”

“Immediately, Excellency.”

And the officer turned upon his heel and left.

“Your Excellency was pointing out the safe when we were interrupted,” Hubert remarked, noticing that there were three safes in the room. Two were large, heavy ones of a well-known English make, painted dark green, against the left-hand wall, while the other was a smaller one embedded in the wall behind the Minister’s chair.

“It is this,” replied the General rising and approaching the safe in the wall. “From this the documents mysteriously disappeared.”

Hubert also rose from his chair, and going behind the writing-table, stood beside the Minister of War examining the steel door carefully.

“Has Ghelardi been here?” he inquired of His Excellency.

“He was here last night.”

“What did he do?”

“He made a complete examination of it and took photographs of some finger-prints upon the knob and door,” responded General Cataldi, placing his own key in the lock and turning the handle twice, opened the heavy, steel door, disclosing a number of pigeon-holes, wherein reposed quantities of papers.

Waldron carefully inspected the door, and saw that it was by the same excellent maker as the other two.

“There is no question of the papers having been put in one or other of the racks,” the General said. “Confidential papers are always placed in this drawer,” and he opened a small, steel drawer in the bottom of the safe. It was empty.

“Have all these papers been examined?”

“With my secretary, Colonel Pironti, I examined each one last night. The documents in question have undoubtedly disappeared.”

Hubert Waldron stood before the open safe in pensive silence.

Then he bent, and taking his gold, half-hunter watch from his pocket and opening it, used the small lens as a magnifying glass with which he carefully examined the lock of the safe.

“There are no marks of the lock having been tampered with,” he remarked to His Excellency. “A false key must evidently have been used.”

“That is Ghelardi’s opinion.”

Then the diplomat, with His Excellency’s permission, removed the whole of the papers from the safe, and carefully examined the sides and back of the interior, satisfying himself that they were all intact.

“Which wall is this?” he asked, tapping it with his hand.

“The outer wall – in the courtyard,” was the Minister’s prompt reply. “It could not have been attacked from behind, as we are fifty feet from the ground. The exterior wall has already been examined.”

Waldron made no reply. He was thinking deeply – wondering whether, after all, His Excellency, General Cataldi, Minister of War, knew more about the affair than he had admitted? The corruptness of Monte Citorio was too universally known, and Austria would, no doubt, give a very substantial sum for such important information as that which had been stolen.

His Excellency, on his part, stood with his cigar half-smoked between his teeth, a smart figure in his General’s undress uniform, with the green-and-white cross of Maurice and Lazarus at his throat, controller of an army which in case of war would consist of three and a half million men.

Was Hubert’s faint suspicion correct? Regrettable as it was, few men in Italy accepted Ministerial portfolios for the sake of the small remuneration paid to them. Everyone looked to office as a means of increasing his income, from the Minister of Justice down to the most obscure prefect. Therefore, was General Cataldi an exception, or was he endeavouring to fix a scapegoat among his underlings? Such a circumstance was not at all unknown in the modern official life in Rome.

But Hubert Waldron determined not to form any premature theory. He refused to allow his mind to become prejudiced by previous events.

In several notable cases of espionage, particularly when that secret report of the British Admiralty regarding the results of our naval manoeuvres two years before had mysteriously disappeared from Whitehall, he had successfully cleared up the mystery. Indeed, he had earned the thanks of the Prime Minister and of the Sovereign, and had gained his M.V.O. for his clever and untiring efforts, by which he was actually able to wrest the precious and most confidential documents from the possession of the spy – a traitorous Englishman who had acted on behalf of Germany – a man who that same night committed suicide at his house at Richmond, in order to avoid arrest.

Probably it was knowledge of Hubert’s previous successes that had induced His Majesty King Umberto III to invoke his assistance. At any rate His Majesty could scarcely have chosen a keener, or more resourceful man.

He had made a second and most thoroughly exhaustive examination of the safe when Major Brusati entered, saluted, and remarked:

“Corporal Tonini is in the ante-room, Excellency.”

“I will see him alone,” said Hubert, “if I may be permitted?”

“Certainly, signore,” replied His Excellency politely. Then, addressing the Major, he said:

“Take Signor Waldron to the man. He wishes to see him.”

Promising the General to return and make his adieu, Hubert followed the artillery officer out into the corridor to a room on the opposite side.

Waldron opened the door, and at once a soldier, aged about thirty, with a thin face and rather crooked nose, sprang to attention. He wore the dark blue uniform with crimson facings of the renowned Bersiglieri, or riflemen, with his large, round hat with cock’s plumes at the side.

“You are Corporal Tonini?” asked Waldron kindly, as he closed the door and advanced into the bare, severely furnished room, which smelt of stale cigars, as do all the rooms in the Italian Ministries.

“Yes, signore,” replied the soldier, looking askance at the civilian foreigner who had come to question him.

“Sit down,” Waldron said, taking a seat himself. “I had better explain. I am acting on behalf of His Majesty your King, in order to clear up the mystery of the theft of those plans from His Excellency’s room.”

“The plans?” gasped the man, and by his accent Hubert knew that he was not a Roman. “Then you know, signore?”

“You come from Tuscany, Tonini?”

“Si, signore.”

“What part?”

“My home is at Signa, near Firenze.”

And from that moment Hubert Waldron, whose knowledge of Italian was practically perfect, spoke in the Tuscan tongue, using all the aspirated “c’s” and substituting the “r’s” for “l’s” which is the betrayal of the true Florentine or the Livornese.

“I want you, Tonini, to put yourself at once at your ease,” the Englishman said. “First, there is nothing against you, not the slightest breath of suspicion. His Excellency the Minister has told me that you have been an excellent soldier. You fought in Tripoli with distinction, as your medal shows, and you have, I see, the medal for saving life. But I want you to be perfectly frank with me – to help me, as His Majesty wishes you to do.”

“Has His Majesty been told that I was on sentry duty?” asked the corporal.

“Yes, it has been reported to him, and you, as a loyal soldier of your Sovereign, must assist in every way to help me to clear up this mystery. You know the value of those documents, I presume?”

“Yes. They are plans of our new fortresses against Austria,” replied the man in a changed voice, for Hubert’s words had greatly impressed him.

“Then you know it must be a spy of Austria who has stolen them?” Waldron said. “Either a spy in person, or an individual who has sold them to a spy. Which, we do not yet know. Now you were on duty outside His Excellency’s private cabinet, were you not?”

“Si, signore. From noon till four o’clock.”

“The Council of Defence met at noon – just at the time you went on duty. Now tell me exactly who entered or left His Excellency’s room.”

“I will tell you, signore, exactly. I have nothing whatever to conceal,” replied the soldier frankly.

“Of course you have not. If you tell me everything you will greatly assist me in my inquiries.”

“Well, signore, His Excellency came out of the room just as I went on sentry duty, and for half an hour no one else entered. Several clerks and others came to the door, but I did not permit them to go in, and told them His Excellency was absent. At half-past twelve Colonel Pironti, whom I knew as His Excellency’s secretary, came up the stairs, and of course I allowed him to pass in. He was there about ten minutes, when he came out again with a large orange-coloured portfolio in his hand.”

“That contained the papers,” Waldron remarked.

“I suppose so, signore. Then nobody entered the room until Colonel Pironti came back again at half-past two. He had the same orange-coloured portfolio in his hand, and took it inside. When he came out I saw that he had left it within. He had evidently placed it in the safe, for as he came out of the door he was putting a key attached to a chain into his trousers-pocket.”

“And after that?” asked Waldron, his dark eyes fixed intently upon the man he had under examination.

“Well, signore, several gentlemen came to interview His Excellency the Minister, but I, of course, allowed no one to pass. His Excellency himself came back at three o’clock. He remained about ten minutes and then left. His chauffeur came up and told me his car had arrived. I went in and announced the fact.”

“His car!” sniffed Waldron suspiciously. “He was in a hurry to get away – eh?”

“His Excellency had an appointment at the Tivoli – so his chauffeur told me.”

Waldron made a mental note of that curious fact.

“And then?” he asked.

“His Excellency had left about ten minutes when Colonel Lambarini, the secretary of the Council of Defence, came up to the door, which I opened for him, as he always had access to His Excellency’s private cabinet. He was inside for a few seconds when he suddenly rushed out wildly and asked: ‘Who has been here since Colonel Pironti?’ I replied that only His Excellency himself had been there, and had just gone. ‘There has been a theft! Some very important papers have been stolen; and you, as sentry, are responsible!’ I stood aghast. Then he dragged me inside the room, and showed me the safe open, and the drawer was empty.”

“Then you are sure – quite sure that nobody entered that room after His Excellency had left?” asked Waldron earnestly, for that was an extremely important point.

“Nobody, signore. I will swear that as a soldier of Italy, before His Majesty my King – if necessary.”

Chapter Fifteen.

Behind the Throne

After Hubert Waldron had left the corporal of Bersiglieri he entertained a distinct feeling that His Excellency the General knew more of the theft than he had admitted.

On his return to the Minister’s private cabinet he found His Excellency in consultation with his secretary, Pironti, a tall, thin-faced, black-haired man, with whom he presently held a long discussion regarding the theft. The secretary of the Council of Defence was also called, and the quartette sat for nearly an hour putting forward various theories as to how the documents could have been extracted. Up to the present it was a dead secret. But how long it would remain so was a question.

“Secrecy is all-important,” Waldron declared at last. “We must allow no word of this to leak out. It is His Majesty’s express command.”

“That sentry may possibly gossip,” remarked His Excellency, drawing slowly at his cigar stump, for he smoked perpetually.

“I have already impressed upon him the necessity for silence,” replied Waldron.

“In my own opinion the man knows something of the affair,” the General went on. “He was on sentry duty, and tells us that nobody whatsoever passed in here except we three. Yet, notwithstanding, the papers were stolen! He must have neglected his duty in some way – without a shadow of a doubt.”

“Yes,” replied his secretary, “I quite agree with Your Excellency that if he were continuously on duty, as he alleges that he was, then he must have seen the thief.”

“Probably bribed to remain silent,” His Excellency grunted suspiciously.

Waldron uttered no word. He watched the General’s face keenly and kept his own counsel.

“The affair is a complete mystery,” remarked Lambarini, who had spoken but little. “I, too, incline towards the opinion that the man, Tonini, knows the identity of the thief, but will not speak.”

“If I have him arrested then we might get him to open his lips,” His Excellency exclaimed. Waldron at once said:

“No. His arrest would betray the secret of Your Excellency’s loss. Besides, such an injudicious action would place a very serious obstacle in the channel of my present inquiries.”

“Then you are against his arrest. Why?”

“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 attitude 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 nobody 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 Nazionale, he felt convinced that by His Excellency’s manner he had some knowledge of that package of documents.

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 Sûreté 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 documents had passed 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 shell. 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.