“I have met him,” replied Hubert vaguely. He dare not tell His Majesty the curious story of their acquaintance, or the circumstances in which he had met his madcap niece.
“Ah! then you will want no introduction. You will find him at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But perhaps I had better give him instructions,” he added, and turning to his table he scribbled a hasty note, which he enclosed in an envelope and addressed. “If you wish to consult him or others that will prove an open sesame,” smiled His Majesty.
Waldron took the royal mandate with a word of thanks, and placed it securely in his inner pocket.
“Remember,” His Majesty urged very seriously, “in this affair, I beg of you, Waldron, to spare no effort. We must save the situation at all hazards, and though Ghelardi and his agents may make their own inquiries, I rely upon you alone to tell me the truth. Go to your Chief and ask him to relieve you of your present duties for a short time. Tell him that you are carrying out a personal mission for myself, the friend of your youth, and I feel sure he will raise no objection. Great Britain is ever the firm and true friend of myself, and of my beloved nation. But please keep the secret of our loss entirely to yourself.”
“I respect Your Majesty’s confidence as fully and entirely as though it were that of my own Sovereign,” was Waldron’s earnest response.
“I know that I can trust you implicitly,” declared the monarch upon whose countenance the diplomat noted a dark cloud of apprehension. The situation was indeed one of extreme gravity, for the relations between Austria and Italy—never very cordial—had for the past year been much overstrained.
Whatever was the truth concerning the theft of those confidential plans, Waldron suspected from the very outset that one or other of the higher officials had had a hand in it. The onus might be placed upon secretaries, clerks, or sentries, but with the recollection of the many and constantly recurring political scandals in Rome he was inclined to a distinct belief that even one or other of the members of the Council of Defence might be the guilty person who had basely betrayed his country for Austrian gold.
“Then Your Majesty can give me no further details regarding this mysterious disappearance?” Hubert remarked after a pause, during which the King had been toying pensively with his fountain pen, his dark, deep eyes fixed upon the pile of documents awaiting his signature before he retired to rest.
“No. What I have told you comprises the whole facts as reported to me to-day. I have not sought to go further into any detail, for I considered that a shrewd, active man like yourself—and I have heard what your past record in elucidating diplomatic mysteries has been—would have greater chance of getting at the truth if allowed to make inquiries quite independently.”
“And Ghelardi?”