your threat I overheard while speaking to her! Well, andwhat can you do, pray? She has misled me."
"Do!" echoed Waldron, still standing with his back to the door of thelittle, shabbily furnished reading-room. "Do! I merely ask you forthose letters."
"Which you will never get. I have them here safe in my pocket," and hedrew out a bulky envelope which he exhibited in triumph. "At noonto-day I shall sell them to my friend, Stein, who can easily place themin the proper quarter. It will be my revenge, my dear m'sieur," helaughed.
"And a pretty revenge--eh?--upon a defenceless girl whom you havedeceived--whom you have met in all sorts of odd, out-of-the-way places.I saw you together as far away as Wady Haifa, in the Sudan. And Iwatched you all the time you were together in Egypt."
"I think that to discuss this affair further is quite useless," Flobecqsaid with an annoyed look. "You can rest assured that neither yourbluff, nor any other influence that you could bring to bear upon me,would ever induce me to give up the letters to you."
"That is your decision--eh? Reflect--because your defiance may cost youmore than you imagine."
"Bah! What do I care for you, a mere British diplomat! What do youknow of Secret Service ways, or methods?" he laughed.
"I know this," was Hubert's reply, "that if you refuse to give back tome the correspondence of your unfortunate victim you will find yourselfin a very awkward predicament here in Paris."
"Bah! You are only bluffing, I repeat! What, do you think I have anyfear of you? You diplomats are merely air bubbles of self-importance.You are so easily pricked." And he turned from Waldron with anexpression of supreme contempt.
"Seven months ago there was an incident at Toulon Arsenal--regarding theAdmiralty wireless station there--and you escaped," Hubert remarked in alow, meaning voice.
"Well?"
"Well, that incident is not yet forgotten," the Englishman said with acurious smile.
"I don't follow you."
"Well, in this hotel there are three agents of police now waiting toplace you under arrest as a spy of Austria," he said very quietly;"therefore I think, M'sieur Flobecq, you really must admit that, in thisparticular game, I just now hold most of the honours--eh?"
The spy's face darkened. He saw himself checkmated for the first timeby a better and more ingenious man.
"You will hand me over those letters at once," Waldron went on, "or Ishall call into this room the inspector of the Surete who is anxious toarrest you on charges of espionage. And they have been wanting you nowfor fully seven months, remember. But they are not yet tired. Oh, dearno! The Surete is never tired of waiting. If it is ten years, thepenalty for espionage in France is the same!" Hubert added, with a grinof triumph.
In an instant Mijoux Flobecq flew into a passion, declaring that theEnglishman should never regain possession of the incriminatingcorrespondence for which he had so heartlessly practised blackmail uponHer Royal Highness.
"I defy you!" he cried with a sneer. "I have arranged the price with myfriend, Stein. And he shall have the letters for publication--to revealto Europe how, even in Royal circles, traitors exist?"
"Traitors!" cried Hubert, advancing towards him threateningly. "Repeatthat word, and, by gad! I'll strangle you--you blackguard! ThePrincess Luisa is no traitor. You have held her in an evil bondage--you, the agent of your taskmasters in Vienna--you, who with yourdevilish cunning, hoped to betray Italy into Austria's hands."
Hubert Waldron was intensely angry, now that he had cast that outrageousreflection upon Lola's honour.
"Now, once and for all, I demand those letters?" he added, facingFlobecq very determinedly.
"And I, on my part, refuse to give them to you."
"Then you are prepared to accept the consequences--eh?"
"Quite."
"You refuse to release an unfortunate girl from the consequences of afoolish infatuation?"
"She has betrayed me. Therefore I feel myself entirely at liberty toact just as I deem fit."
"Act as you wish, M'sieur Flobecq, but I warn you that it is at your ownperil. I am prepared to endeavour to give you your liberty in exchangefor those letters."
"I have my liberty. I do not wish to bargain for it with you!" laughedthe other in open defiance.
"For the last time, I ask you to hand me over that packet."
"And I refuse."
"Give the letters to me, I say?" cried Hubert, and, exasperated by thefellow's demeanour, he sprang suddenly upon him.
He was strong and athletic, and the insults which the spy had cast uponLola had caused him to lose his temper. His hands were at Flobecq'sthroat.
A second later, however, the spy drew a revolver, and only just in thenick of time did the Englishman manage to turn the barrel aside ere itwent off.
Then ensued a fierce and desperate struggle for the weapon--indeed afight for life.
Hubert held Flobecq's right wrist in a grip of iron, at the same timeendeavouring to obtain possession of the envelope containing theletters. In this latter, however, he was unsuccessful.
Again the weapon went off in the melee, the bullet embedding itself inthe ceiling, while the two men, locked in each other's deadly embrace,fell against a table, smashing a large porcelain vase to fragments.
The reports aroused the alarm of the agents of police who, a few secondslater, rushed into the room where they found the two men strugglingdesperately. But just as they entered, accompanied by the proprietor ofthe hotel in a state of the utmost alarm, Flobecq discharged his weapona third time. The bullet struck a huge mirror, shattering it into athousand pieces.
With the aid of the police agents, Flobecq was, with difficulty,secured, whereupon Hubert--with the one thought uppermost in his mind,that of Lola's honour--placed his hand swiftly into the inner pocket ofhis adversary's coat and abstracted the envelope containing the fatefulletters.
"That man is a thief!" yelled the spy, white to the lips with fury."Arrest him! Arrest him, I say. He has stolen my property."
Next second, as Hubert drew back and before anyone was aware of it, theman under arrest snatched a heavy police revolver from the hand of oneof the men holding him, and fired point-blank at the Englishman.
Again, in the spy's passion of hatred, his shot went wide of the mark,and Hubert stood unharmed, the letters already safe in his pocket.
In a moment all three men, finding their prisoner armed, drew back.Then in an instant he had freed himself.
His back was set against the wall, and flourishing the heavy weapon heheld them all at bay.
"You shan't take me!" he shrieked in defiance. "Touch me again, any ofyou, and I'll shoot you dead!" he shouted in desperation.
And by the distorted expression of his livid face they all knew he meantit.
Berton, the inspector of the Surete, made a sudden dash forward, inorder to again secure the man so long wanted for espionage, but in lesstime than it takes to describe the dramatic scene he received a bulletin the shoulder.
Again Flobecq, still holding them all at bay and defying them to arresthim, fired at Waldron, once more missing him, and then firing twofurther shots at random, one taking effect upon the hand of the elder ofthe two French agents.
Then the third man, finding his two companions wounded, and himself atthe mercy of the frenzied spy, raised his own revolver, took careful aimand fired in self-defence.
The shot took instant effect.
Mijoux Flobecq, the handsome adventurer, shot through the heart, fellforward, face downwards, dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.
THE TRUTH IS TOLD.
At the Quirinale the last State Ball of the season was in full swing.
The Palace was ablaze with light. In the great courtyard, where thesentries paced, there were constant arrivals and departures. Allaristocratic and official Rome was there. Smart uniforms wereeverywhere, and in the great ballroom with its wonderful chandeliers thescene was perhaps the most brilliant of any to be witnessed in the wholeof
Europe.
In a small _salon_ in the private apartments far removed from the musicand glitter of the Court--a delightful and artistic room withwhite-enamelled walls, and furniture and carpet of old rose--stoodHubert Waldron, who had only arrived back in the Eternal City an hourbefore. He had hastily changed into uniform, and stood there with HerRoyal Highness, Princess Luisa, whose slim figure was a tragic one,notwithstanding her handsome Court gown of white satin, and the blackwatered ribbon of her decoration in her corsage.
He had just related, as briefly as he could, the exciting chase fromOrvieto, a thousand miles, to Paris, and the dramatic meeting in thefrowsy little hotel in the Rue d'Amsterdam.
"And here, Lola, are your letters," he said calmly, drawing from
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