“He was whispering to her a moment ago, just before they commenced to dance,” the General remarked. “Has Her Highness ever mentioned him?”
“Oh yes. They met up the Nile, I understand, when Luisa was sent away from Court in disgrace.”
“Ah! then the friendship has been of some duration—eh?” grunted His Excellency, casting another strangely suspicious look at the pair as he turned away.
Late one night, about a week later, Hubert had been to an official dinner at the Russian Embassy, in the Via Gaeta, and the weather being bright and starlight he threw his cloak over his uniform and, lighting a cigar, started to stroll home.
It was past one o’clock and few people were astir in those narrow, ill-lit Italian streets with their high, dark houses. He had turned from the Via Gaeta into the narrow Via Curtatone on his way towards the Piazza del Cinquecento—which was the shortest cut to his rooms—when, ere he was aware of it, a dark figure lurched suddenly out of a doorway and he was dealt a stunning blow at the back of the head, causing him to reel, stumble, and fall.
His assailants, of whom there were two—who had apparently been lying in wait for him—bent quickly over his prostrate form with keen knives drawn, when Hubert’s hand shot out and next second one of the men staggered back with a revolver bullet in his stomach. So swiftly had the Englishman defended himself that the second man, ere he could use his knife, received a bullet in the cheek, whereupon the pair both wounded and in fear because of the alarm caused by the report of the explosions, slipped round the corner and were well out of sight before a policeman from the neighbouring piazza came running up eagerly to discover what was wrong.
The whole affair happened within a few seconds, but never had Hubert Waldron been nearer death than at that moment.
His presence of mind to draw his weapon which he had carried loose in the pocket of his cloak, and at the same time to fall heavily as though stunned and unconscious, had saved his life. Had he simply fallen back against the wall his assailants’ knives would, no doubt, have been buried in his heart ere he could have fired.
He had escaped death by an ace.
The policeman, on arrival, found him standing with his back to the wall, recovering from the sudden shock.