The net was gradually being drawn around the famous spy, who had not yet left his room, and was still unconscious of how completely he was now surrounded. Truth to tell, the thin man in black was Berton, a detective inspector of the political department of the Surete, attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Thus the four men waited impatiently in the hotel, Berton of the Surete having telephoned from the little bureau of the proprietor for two plain-clothes agents from the nearest _poste_ of police.
At last Flobecq, on descending the stairs, was met by a waiter who told him that a gentleman was awaiting him in the little private _salon_ on the first floor.
In surprise, he turned into the room indicated, and there came face to face with Hubert Waldron. His cheeks went pale, and he started at the unexpected encounter.
"Ah, m"sieur!" he exclaimed, with a strenuous attempt to conceal his surprise. "It is you--eh?"
"Yes, M"sieur Flobecq," replied Hubert, at once closing the door. "I have great pleasure in meeting you again. You see your ident.i.ty is well-known to me, and I require a few minutes" private conversation with you."
And as he uttered these words he placed himself between the spy and the door.
"Well, and what, pray, do you want with me?" asked Flobecq in French, his dark brows quickly knit with a hard, evil expression.
"I want you to hand over to me those letters you have of the Princess Luisa of Savoy," Waldron said boldly.
The man laughed. He was well-dressed--a good-looking, easy-going figure of that type which always made an impression upon women, but which men instinctively hated.
"I have followed you here from Italy. And at Her Highness"s request I ask you for those letters. I know that you are in treaty with the journalist, Stein, regarding them. He is a dealer in scandals, and if he purchases them will, no doubt, have a ready market for them," Hubert added.
"Your audacity is really amazing, M"sieur Waldron."
"It may be. But I have, fortunately, gained knowledge of your heartless deception. I know the whole of the bitter circ.u.mstances; of your pretended affection for the Princess, and how you have compelled her to act as your cat"s-paw and become a thief. Further," and he hesitated for a few seconds, "further, I am also well aware of your position as secret agent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Vienna--a fact of which they are also aware, here in Paris--at the Quai d"Orsay!"
"My dear m"sieur," laughed the other, folding his arms deliberately and facing the Englishman. "If you think you can bluff me, you are quite welcome to the illusion. The Princess is my friend--as you well know-- you admitted it when we met at Brussels."
"She was your friend. But to-day, you having been revealed as a spy of Italy"s enemy, she is no longer your friend. I am still her friend.
And that is the reason of my presence here to-day. You were very clever in your escape from Orvieto, when you left her there in expectation.
But there are others equally as evasive, I may a.s.sure you." Waldron stood with his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his blue serge suit in an att.i.tude of triumph. He could play the game of bluff equally with anyone, when occasion demanded.
"I shall act exactly as I think proper," was the spy"s indignant reply.
"You will think proper to hand me over those letters--letters of an innocent girl who has been misled by as clever and cunning a plot as has ever been conceived in the whole history of espionage. I admit that you, Mijoux Flobecq, are an artist. But in this case, you have been betrayed by the patriotism of your unfortunate victim."
"Ah! She has told you then!" he remarked with a smile of contempt.
"No, I watched and found out for myself," was Hubert"s reply. "The key plan of which you had so ingeniously contrived to obtain possession, is safe in my hands, and--"
"Because she handed it over to you!" he cried. "Because she grew afraid at the last second. All women do! It seems that her love for me waned," he added in a strange voice.
"That may be. But can a woman ever really love a man who is suddenly revealed to her as an enemy?" queried the diplomat. "No. You were amazingly clever, M"sieur Flobecq, but your estimate of human nature was entirely wrong. As soon as she knew that you were a spy of Italy"s hereditary enemy, Austria, her love turned to hatred. That was but natural."
"And she betrayed me?"
"No, she did not. There, you are quite mistaken," was Hubert"s quick response. "It will surprise you to know that I was in the Hotel Belle Arti and overheard every word that pa.s.sed between you. It was there, for the first time, that I realised the truth. And--" He looked straight into the eyes of the spy. "... and I tell you openly and frankly that I am her friend!"
"Then it was your threat I overheard while speaking to her! Well, and what can you do, pray? She has misled me."
"Do!" echoed Waldron, still standing with his back to the door of the little, shabbily furnished reading-room. "Do! I merely ask you for those letters."
"Which you will never get. I have them here safe in my pocket," and he drew out a bulky envelope which he exhibited in triumph. "At noon to-day I shall sell them to my friend, Stein, who can easily place them in the proper quarter. It will be my revenge, my dear m"sieur," he laughed.
"And a pretty revenge--eh?--upon a defenceless girl whom you have deceived--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 I watched you all the time you were together in Egypt."
"I think that to discuss this affair further is quite useless," Flobecq said with an annoyed look. "You can rest a.s.sured that neither your bluff, 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 you more than you imagine."
"Bah! What do I care for you, a mere British diplomat! What do you know of Secret Service ways, or methods?" he laughed.
"I know this," was Hubert"s reply, "that if you refuse to give back to me the correspondence of your unfortunate victim you will find yourself in a very awkward predicament here in Paris."
"Bah! You are only bluffing, I repeat! What, do you think I have any fear of you? You diplomats are merely air bubbles of self-importance.
You are so easily p.r.i.c.ked." And he turned from Waldron with an expression of supreme contempt.
"Seven months ago there was an incident at Toulon a.r.s.enal--regarding the Admiralty wireless station there--and you escaped," Hubert remarked in a low, meaning voice.
"Well?"
"Well, that incident is not yet forgotten," the Englishman said with a curious smile.
"I don"t follow you."
"Well, in this hotel there are three agents of police now waiting to place you under arrest as a spy of Austria," he said very quietly; "therefore I think, M"sieur Flobecq, you really must admit that, in this particular game, I just now hold most of the honours--eh?"
The spy"s face darkened. He saw himself checkmated for the first time by a better and more ingenious man.
"You will hand me over those letters at once," Waldron went on, "or I shall call into this room the inspector of the Surete who is anxious to arrest you on charges of espionage. And they have been wanting you now for fully seven months, remember. But they are not yet tired. Oh, dear no! The Surete is never tired of waiting. If it is ten years, the penalty for espionage in France is the same!" Hubert added, with a grin of triumph.
In an instant Mijoux Flobecq flew into a pa.s.sion, declaring that the Englishman should never regain possession of the incriminating correspondence for which he had so heartlessly practised blackmail upon Her Royal Highness.
"I defy you!" he cried with a sneer. "I have arranged the price with my friend, Stein. And he shall have the letters for publication--to reveal to Europe how, even in Royal circles, traitors exist?"
"Traitors!" cried Hubert, advancing towards him threateningly. "Repeat that word, and, by gad! I"ll strangle you--you blackguard! The Princess Luisa is no traitor. You have held her in an evil bondage-- you, the agent of your taskmasters in Vienna--you, who with your devilish cunning, hoped to betray Italy into Austria"s hands."
Hubert Waldron was intensely angry, now that he had cast that outrageous reflection upon Lola"s honour.
"Now, once and for all, I demand those letters?" he added, facing Flobecq 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 a foolish infatuation?"