"She has betrayed me. Therefore I feel myself entirely at liberty to act just as I deem fit."
"Act as you wish, M"sieur Flobecq, but I warn you that it is at your own peril. I am prepared to endeavour to give you your liberty in exchange for those letters."
"I have my liberty. I do not wish to bargain for it with you!" laughed the 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 the fellow"s demeanour, he sprang suddenly upon him.
He was strong and athletic, and the insults which the spy had cast upon Lola had caused him to lose his temper. His hands were at Flobecq"s throat.
A second later, however, the spy drew a revolver, and only just in the nick of time did the Englishman manage to turn the barrel aside ere it went off.
Then ensued a fierce and desperate struggle for the weapon--indeed a fight for life.
Hubert held Flobecq"s right wrist in a grip of iron, at the same time endeavouring to obtain possession of the envelope containing the letters. In this latter, however, he was unsuccessful.
Again the weapon went off in the melee, the bullet embedding itself in the 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 seconds later, rushed into the room where they found the two men struggling desperately. But just as they entered, accompanied by the proprietor of the hotel in a state of the utmost alarm, Flobecq discharged his weapon a third time. The bullet struck a huge mirror, shattering it into a thousand 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 of his adversary"s coat and abstracted the envelope containing the fateful letters.
"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, the man under arrest s.n.a.t.c.hed a heavy police revolver from the hand of one of the men holding him, and fired point-blank at the Englishman.
Again, in the spy"s pa.s.sion 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 he held them all at bay.
"You shan"t take me!" he shrieked in defiance. "Touch me again, any of you, and I"ll shoot you dead!" he shouted in desperation.
And by the distorted expression of his livid face they all knew he meant it.
Berton, the inspector of the Surete, made a sudden dash forward, in order to again secure the man so long wanted for espionage, but in less time than it takes to describe the dramatic scene he received a bullet in the shoulder.
Again Flobecq, still holding them all at bay and defying them to arrest him, fired at Waldron, once more missing him, and then firing two further shots at random, one taking effect upon the hand of the elder of the two French agents.
Then the third man, finding his two companions wounded, and himself at the mercy of the frenzied spy, raised his own revolver, took careful aim and fired in self-defence.
The shot took instant effect.
Mijoux Flobecq, the handsome adventurer, shot through the heart, fell forward, 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 the sentries paced, there were constant arrivals and departures. All aristocratic and official Rome was there. Smart uniforms were everywhere, and in the great ballroom with its wonderful chandeliers the scene was perhaps the most brilliant of any to be witnessed in the whole of Europe.
In a small _salon_ in the private apartments far removed from the music and glitter of the Court--a delightful and artistic room with white-enamelled walls, and furniture and carpet of old rose--stood Hubert Waldron, who had only arrived back in the Eternal City an hour before. He had hastily changed into uniform, and stood there with Her Royal Highness, Princess Luisa, whose slim figure was a tragic one, notwithstanding her handsome Court gown of white satin, and the black watered ribbon of her decoration in her corsage.
He had just related, as briefly as he could, the exciting chase from Orvieto, a thousand miles, to Paris, and the dramatic meeting in the frowsy little hotel in the Rue d"Amsterdam.
"And here, Lola, are your letters," he said calmly, drawing from his tunic the envelope which he had sealed in Paris without prying into its contents, save to rea.s.sure himself that they were letters in the handwriting of the woman he loved so devotedly.
"My letters!" she gasped, casting her ivory fan aside and eagerly taking them in her gloved and trembling hands. "Then--then you have recovered them!" she cried in sudden glee. "You--you have saved me, Mr Waldron, for to-night I--I confess to you, my friend--I had the fixed intention to end it all. I could not bear to live and face the terrible exposure, for I knew not from day to day if one of the scurrilous papers in Paris might print my letters--the confession of a woman who, though a Princess of a Royal House, was also a spy, because she was fooled--tricked into love!"
"Lola," he said, still speaking earnestly and very calmly, "you need have no further fear of that man. He came near bringing you to ruin-- nay to death. But the peril is now at an end."
"At an end--how?" she asked.
"I begged of you to leave all to me--that I would settle the account with him. I have brought you back your letters," he said, very gravely.
"You need have no further fear, because the scoundrel who made such dastardly pretence of loving you, Lola, is dead!"
"Dead!" she gasped with startled, wide-open eyes.
"Yes; shot dead by the Paris police who had wanted him for espionage.
He fired at them, and they retaliated in self-defence."
"Then my enemy is dead!" she exclaimed in a whisper, standing motionless, her big, expressive eyes fixed straight before her.
"Yes. The peril which threatened you, Lola, and the very existence of the Italian nation, is at an end."
"And you, Mr Waldron," she cried in a voice broken by emotion, turning to him suddenly with hand outstretched, "you have risked your own life and have averted a war in Europe, of which I, in my unfortunate ignorance, was so nearly the cause."
"Because your actions and your movements have been--well, just a little too unconventional," he laughed, bowing gallantly over her outstretched hand and kissing it fervently.
She knew the truth. She knew how devotedly the Englishman loved her.
And she, in return, reciprocated his affection. Had she not, in that moment of her ecstasy, responded to his well-remembered kisses?
He was holding her hand, gazing long and deeply into those fathomless eyes of hers. He was about to speak--again to confess to her his great all-consuming pa.s.sion, when a hand was placed upon the door k.n.o.b and they sprang apart, as of a sudden His Majesty the King, a brilliant figure in his uniform and glittering decorations, entered.
"Ah, Waldron?" he cried in his usual cheery way, "I received your message, and came here to find you. They told me that you were here, with Lola. Well? You have a report to make, I suppose. What is it?
Lola," he said, addressing Her Highness, "I fear I must ask you to leave us. I have some business to talk over with Mr Waldron."
"I ask Your Majesty"s pardon," the diplomat said; "but I would beg that Her Royal Highness be allowed to remain. My report closely concerns her."
"Concerns her! How?"