Flobecq, yet I suppose that is not the name by whichyou know him--eh?"
"Flobecq!" gasped Hubert Waldron. "You are dreaming. Surely that isnot his name."
"Yes, signore, I tell you it is. His name is Mijoux Flobecq!"
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.
THE BOND REVEALED.
"The whole affair last night was a complete fiasco, thanks to you!"
"I know it, alas!"
"And all through your infernal friendship with Waldron?"
"I cannot help it. I did my very best, Henri."
"Your best!" sneered the Frenchman. "You actually allowed him to takethe tracings from you when you already had them in your possession!Faugh! It is all too childish."
"Childish!" Lola echoed in anger. "Ah, yes, I know. What affectionhave you now for me--you who declared that you were mine--that--"
"Love is out of the question," the man replied brutally. "With me it isa matter of business. We must all live. You--a Royal Princess--are inno want. I, agent of the Foreign Office at Vienna, am in constant wantof money. You gave me plans that were useless. I merely asked you tocontrive to obtain for me the missing tracings."
"In return for my letters to you!" she cried, in bitter reproach.
But the man merely laughed as he replied:
"Have I not told you, my dear Lola, it is with me purely a matter offinance, not of sentiment." They were together in a small, plainlyfurnished sitting-room on the first floor of the mediaeval PalazzoBisenzi, now occupied by the Hotel Belle Arti, in ignorance that everyword spoken could be overheard by the Englishman and his companion.
The two latter were listening intently at the door of an adjoiningroom--for in Italian hotels the communicating doors are always aninvitation to the eavesdropper. The old place had frescoed walls andceilings, and in some rooms the floors were of marble.
"And because I have failed, you will carry out your disgraceful threat--eh? You told me so on the telephone this morning," she asked in a low,nervous voice.
"You have failed purposely--because you did not intend that I shouldgain knowledge of that military secret. I know how strenuously activethat English friend of yours has been in endeavouring to elucidate themystery of the theft--and now, thanks to you, he has succeeded," repliedMijoux Flobecq, _alias_ Henri Pujalet, the well-known spy of Austria--the man to whom, though young, the authorities in Vienna had practicallyentrusted the direction of her wide network of spies across the face ofEurope. So cleverly had he concealed his identity that even Ghelardi--the great Ghelardi, whose boast it was that he knew every secret agentof importance in Europe--had been utterly unaware that Henri Pujalet andMijoux Flobecq were one and the same!
Hubert had long ago heard him spoken of as a man whose phenomenalsuccesses in espionage had been most remarkable for their cleverness,ingenuity, and daring. The foreign policy of the Austro-HungarianEmpire had practically been based upon his reports--as that of Italy wasbased upon those of Luigi Ghelardi--and in every chancellerie in Europethe name of Flobecq was synonymous of all that was crafty, cunning, andunscrupulous.
The official head of Austria's Secret Service was a stout and ratherslow-speaking, plethoric man of middle-age, who had graduated underAzeff in Russia, and who was well-known to Ghelardi. But Mijoux Flobecqwas a man of meteoric fame, a man who had recently come to be regardedin almost legendary light as one of the most remarkable of the unseenand unknown characters in European espionage.
There are several others, Bylandt of Berlin, Captain Hetherington ofLondon, Gomez of Petersburg, and the mysterious and elusive Monsieur X.of the Quai D'Orsay. Diplomats know them by name, and are too wellaware of their successes. But not one of them has ever been identifiedin the flesh.
Lola uttered a loud protest against the allegation that she hadpurposely played into the Englishman's hands, and then turned andreproached him bitterly for his heartless and brutal treatment.
"I have failed through no want of tact," she cried. "Was it not clearlyto my own advantage to preserve my honour--now, alas! that you standrevealed in your true light--that I should act as you directed andbecome a thief?"
"You used the safe key I gave you with great success on the firstoccasion--"
"Because I was in ignorance of the terrible gravity of my action," sheinterrupted. "You told me that the plans were of no real consequence,but if you could obtain them it would put you in the good graces of yourfirm in Paris. You told me that your firm were Government contractorswho were seeking to learn certain details in order that they mighttender to our Ministry for the construction of the forts. I neverdreamed the truth. I had no idea that you were Mijoux Flobecq, the spyof Austria! Not until three days after I had handed you the plans weremy suspicions aroused by some remark which His Majesty dropped whilespeaking with General Cataldi after one of the State banquets. Then,making a few inquiries in secret, aided by my friend, Pietro Olivieri, Iwas horrified to discover the ghastly truth," she said. "I found thatyou--the man who had declared your profound love for me--had practised amost wicked deception. You had induced me to hand over one of the mostimportant of our State secrets to our enemies in Vienna!"
"It was useless without the key," he remarked, quite unaffected by thebitterness of her reproach.
"I committed a theft for which others were suspected, because of my lovefor you," she went on in a low, hard tone. "You, as Henri Pujalet, hadvery cleverly led me to believe you had no idea that I was any otherthan Lola Duprez, niece of old Jules Gigleux of Paris. Yet you knew myreal identity all the time! You had laid your plans cleverly, and mademe believe that you spoke the truth when you swore undying devotion tome. For nearly nine months you made pretence to love me, and wrote memany letters, to which I naturally responded. Our stolen interviewstook place in many cities, but you had always one fixed idea--the coupwhich you would one day make with my assistance. At last, on thatoccasion when at midnight I met you on the road to Tivoli, you putbefore me a proposition. To save you from bankruptcy, and in order thatyour position might be assured with your firm in Paris, you begged me toobtain the plans of those frontier fortresses--to steal them! You had,it seemed, intimate inside knowledge of all the arrangements at ourMinistry of War. You actually described the very portfolio in whichthey were kept, and knew the very hour at which they would be placed inthe Minister's safe, to which you even gave me a duplicate key."
The man only laughed aloud at her chagrin.
"I now know how you had met General Cataldi at Biarritz, and had, by aclever ruse, taken a wax impression of his safe key, and how, indeed,for months you had been contemplating the theft, feeling certain that mylove for you would be strong enough to induce me to fall your helplessvictim. Well, I fell. Yes, I believed in you, Henri--believed that youreally loved me. I sacrificed all for your sake. But it never crossedmy mind that your love was only a hollow pretence, that you were foolingme with your soft-spoken speeches, and that you were the enemy of mycountry or a professional spy."
"You could have had me arrested," he laughed. "Why didn't you?"
"Ah, when I realised what I had done I begged you to return the plans Ihad stolen. Mr Waldron conveyed my imploring message to you inBrussels and what was your reply? That I must remain silent--that thekey plan was wanted--and that if I did not consent to help you to obtainit you would hand over my letters to you for publication in the_Matin_!"
"That is exactly what I intend now to do," was his cold reply. "Ourbargain was that I would return your letters on condition that youobtained the tracings of the key."
"I failed to do that," she cried frantically. "I was detected."
"By Waldron. Because you intended that you should be caught in the act,and thus prevented from carrying out your part of the contract."
"But surely you will give me back my letters!" she implored eagerly."You will not hound me--a helpless girl--to death by my own hand! Icould not bear the exposure, for the honour of my House."
"You should have thought of all that bef
ore," he laughed mockingly."The bargain was fair enough, and you accepted readily."
"Because I could not bear exposure. Think what the publication of thoseletters will mean to me. In them I have admitted committing a theft.I--a Royal Princess--have betrayed my own country?"
"You are not the first woman who has sacrificed her life for her love,"he answered, quite regardless of her emotion.
"But have you no pity for me, no remorse?" she cried in frantic despair.
"I repeat that, to me, this is not a matter of sentiment. All Irequired was the cipher key plan--which you actually had in yourpossession and gave up to Waldron. I was in the Ministry that night inthe garb of a waiter. I watched him