Her Royal Highness Part 48

Hubert saw the two long sleeping-cars with their blinds closely drawn.

"It's the express!" he cried, dismayed. "The Paris express! The spy has caught it--and escaped!"

Pucci said nothing. He sat silent, turning to watch the red tail-lamps as the express bore on its way and out of sight.

And until the car reached the railway station at Orbetello, theft dark and deserted, with lights turned down, no further word was uttered by either man.

Of a sleepy porter Hubert, as he dashed out of the car, made quick inquiry.

"_Si, signore_," replied the man. "An open car drove up a few moments before the express came in, and a signore got out and bought a ticket for Turin, and left by the train. The car went away at once, away in the direction of Montalto and Rome."

Hubert described the man Flobecq, and according to the porter the description fitted exactly.

After that the two men returned to the car and held consultation.

"The train is due in Turin about eleven to-morrow morning. We cannot reach there before three in the afternoon."

"If the individual is making for France he will proceed at eleven-thirty, and be across the frontier before we can reach Turin,"

Pucci remarked thoughtfully.

"Exactly. Our only plan is to have him met at Turin and followed, and a report sent to us at Turin as soon as he arrives at his destination. He may go on to Milan, and thence to Trieste and Vienna--who knows? We must therefore telephone to the Questore in Turin to send down a sharp detective to pick him up and travel with him. You, Pucci, must use your authority as brigadier of detective police and make the request to the Questore."

At once the detective called the porter and sent him for the stationmaster who, as soon as he ascertained the detective's position, opened the office and upon the telephone called up the central police bureau at Turin.

For fully half an hour there was no reply.

At last a voice responded, whereupon the detective at the instrument explained that he was Brigadier Pucci of the _brigade mobile_ of Rome, that he was following a dangerous person named Flobecq, _alias_ Pujalet, who was in the Paris express due at Turin at eleven next morning.

Then he made an urgent request that he should be met, and followed abroad if he attempted to leave Italy. Again there was a silence for ten minutes, while the request was placed before the detective superintendent on duty.

At last came the request for the description of the fugitive, and this Pucci gave slowly, with professional exactness, so that it could be taken down.

"He is a very clever and elusive person, and no doubt suspects he may be followed," Pucci added. "Therefore the greatest caution is necessary not to let him discover that observation is being kept. I am at Orbetello, and am coming on to Turin by the next train to report personally to the Questore."

The voice in return a.s.sured the detective that the fugitive would be met and watched by one of the shrewdest officers available.

"_Benissimo_! I shall arrive about three. Please tell the Questore that the matter is a strictly confidential one--a private inquiry inst.i.tuted by the direction of His Majesty the King."

"Your message shall be sent to the Questore to his home at once," the voice replied, and their communication was interrupted.

Would they be successful in cutting off the spy's retreat?

Suspecting that he would be followed, he might leave the train at Pisa and go on to Florence, and thence to Milan. Or again, at Genoa he might decide to continue along to Ventimiglia and thus across the frontier into France at that point.

Hubert pointed out these loopholes of escape, whereupon Pucci returned to the telephone and was presently speaking to the Commissary of Police at the station of Ventimiglia, giving him a description of the fugitive, and asking that he might be followed. And afterwards he spoke to the police officer at Pisa station, warning him in similar manner.

Thus all that they could do from that dark, lonely, obscure little town they did, yet Hubert's thoughts were chiefly with Lola. He was wondering if she had yet returned to Rome.

The startling truth which he had learnt while listening to the conversation in Orvieto that evening had staggered him.

The spy, Flobecq, still held the trump card--those foolish declarations of affection and admissions of her guilt.

Truly the situation was most serious, for the honour of the Royal House of Savoy was at stake!

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

SPREADING THE NET.

At half-past three next day Hubert Waldron entered the private room of the Questore, or Chief of Police at Turin, where they found a rather elegant, brown-bearded man seated at his writing-table. He instantly recognised Pucci, and quick explanations ensued.

"The man you want duly arrived here," said the official, "and was picked up by Cimino--whom I believe you know."

"Certainly. He was with me in Genoa some years ago," said Pucci.

"Well, all I know is, that the man Flobecq left by the Paris express just before noon, and Cimino is with him. I had a telephone message from you to the effect that His Majesty was making an inquiry. What is it about?" he asked, gazing from the detective to the Englishman.

"At present it is confidential," replied Pucci, rather lamely. And then he introduced Waldron as a foreign diplomat, and explained that the matter concerned diplomacy, and that the King desired the affair to be kept entirely secret.

The curiosity of the bearded official was at once curbed. Cigarettes were lit by all three, and the Questore suggested that Pucci and his companion should go to the Hotel Europe and await word from Cimino.

"I will give orders that at any hour when a wire may arrive a copy shall be sent over to you," he promised.

"Excellent," exclaimed Hubert, thanking the Chief of Police, and ten minutes later the pair left the Prefecture and drove to the hotel to await developments.

Hubert telegraphed to Lola, giving her brief word of what he had done, and signing himself "Your Friend." He feared lest somebody might open the dispatch, because for aught he knew she might have left Rome to attend the Queen upon some public function or other, as she was so often forced to do. She scarcely knew from one day to another where she might be, for King Umberto's Queen was a capricious lady, and somewhat erratic in attending the public ceremonies which were so frequent, and entailed such long and tedious journeys from end to end of the kingdom, one day in Bari, the next in Pisa, and the next in Como. Often Their Majesties, in the fulfilment of their public duties, travelled the whole twenty-four hours in order to arrive at a memorial, to lay a foundation-stone, launch a battles.h.i.+p, or inspect a corps of veterans-- and those twenty-four hours of train journey in summer were often the reverse of pleasant. Truly the King worked as hard as any daily toiler within his kingdom.

The Europe, overlooking the big, wide piazza in Turin, proved a quiet place, and Hubert was glad of a stretch on the bed--in his clothes-- after the wild motor journey of the previous night.

About twenty-four hours later came the eagerly awaited message from the Italian detective, reporting that Flobecq had installed himself in a small obscure establishment called the Hotel Weber in the Rue d'Amsterdam, close to the Lazare Station in Paris, and that he was apparently in treaty with a person named Bernard Stein, a journalist of evil reputation.

"He is negotiating the sale of the Princess's letters!" Hubert gasped when he read the copy of the detective's telegram.

Therefore, within an hour, accompanied by Pucci, he was in the express, climbing that steep railroad which leads up to Bardonnechia, and the long tunnel of the Mont Cenis.

The train was not an international one, therefore they were compelled to change at Modane, the frontier, where they took the P.L.M. _rapide_ for Paris.

After another night journey across France, the two men alighted from a taxi at the Hotel Weber, a small, uninviting-looking place with a dingy cafe beneath. It was then eight o'clock in the morning, and the valet de chambre, a clean-shaven man in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves and green baize ap.r.o.n, showed them two barely furnished rooms with the beeswaxed floors uncarpeted. They held consultation, being joined at once by the detective, Cimino, a short, stout man with small black eyes, and rather shabby clothes.

A few words sufficed to explain the situation.

He had followed Flobecq, un.o.bserved, and had ascertained that on the previous day he had met in the Cafe de la Paix, a man named Stein, whom he afterwards found was an unattached journalist who wrote for certain of the most unprincipled of the Paris journals.

The two men spent several hours together, and were apparently bargaining. No agreement, he believed, had been arrived at, and they had arranged to meet again that day.

Hubert listened in silence to the man's story, then, taking a taxi, he drove first to the British Emba.s.sy, and thence to an apartment near the Arc de Triomphe, where he was closeted for half an hour with Colonel Guy Maitland, the British military attache.

Thence, just after half-past ten, he drove to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d'Orsay, and there interviewed one of the permanent staff.

When he emerged he was accompanied back to the Hotel Weber by a thin, insignificant-looking little man, wearing a bowler hat and grey gloves.