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Chapter Twenty Three
The Plot

On that same hot afternoon, while His Excellency was pacing the library in the high-up old villa in the Apennines, Dubard alighted from a cab in the Via Salaria, in Rome, and entered a fine modern mansion, the home of Angelo Borselli, Under-Secretary for War. He was conducted to a small sitting-room, where, in the dim light of the closed sun-shutters, the arch-schemer was taking his siesta in a long wicker lounge-chair, half dozing, and yet revolving within his brain every detail of his ingenious plan to oust the Minister from office and to replace him.

“Why, my dear Jules!” he cried in surprise as the young Frenchman entered. “I thought you had gone up to San Donato in order to be near your charmer when the blow fell.”

“No,” responded Dubard in a rather hard voice. “I am still here – in Rome.” Then after a brief pause he looked the sallow man straight in the face and added, “The question must not be asked in the Chamber. The blow must not be struck – do you understand?”

“What do you mean?” cried Borselli, starting to his feet. “What has happened? I see by your face that something has occurred.”

“It has,” was the other’s answer. “Montebruno must be stopped.”

“Why?”

“Because to seek to overthrow Morini at this moment is against our interests.”

“Oh!” laughed the other. “So you have just discovered that fact, have you? It is against your interest, of course, because you intend to marry his daughter; but not against mine.”

“I tell you that no revelation must be attempted,” said Dubard firmly.

“But why do you say this? What is there to prevent the question being put and the Ministry criticised?”

“It is unwise. It would be a serious blunder on your part.”

“And yet you have assisted me! My dear Jules, I don’t really understand you! Do you not recollect what we arranged in London when our reconciliation took place? Have you forgotten what we agreed only the day before yesterday?”

“I have forgotten nothing. I only speak plainly, and say that by making the revelations at the present moment you will imperil your own position.”

“No. I shall become Minister on Morini’s downfall. All is arranged. I am not the man to pick the chestnuts out of the fire for others – you surely know that?”

“But will you not be incriminated in the matter of certain secret commissions? Did you not rather unfortunately arrange matters and act as the go-between?”

“Of course. But I shall be careful enough that my own interest in the matter does not appear. The Minister of Justice is no friend of Morini,” he added, with a grin upon his thin, hard features.

“Montebruno must be stopped,” declared Dubard determinedly after a pause. “Let us telephone to him to come here.”

“He is already down at the Camera,” said the Under-Secretary, glancing at the little French timepiece on the mantelshelf. “The question is to be put at five, and it is already half-past four.”

“But it shall not be put!” cried the young man.

“Who will prevent it?” inquired Borselli, looking at him defiantly.

“I will,” he said sternly. “Let us be quite plain and outspoken, my dear Angelo. I tell you that you shall not imperil the future by this premature action. Morini knows of the conspiracy against him, and is prepared.”

“Well – and if he is? What then?”

“He may seek to defend himself in a manner of which you little dream.”

Borselli regarded his companion suspiciously, for he saw that he was in possession of some information which he was keeping to himself.

“You know something,” he said, fixing his dark eyes upon Dubard. “What is it?”

“I only know that it would be most injudicious to make any revelations, or to stir up the public indignation at the present moment,” was the response. “There is no time to lose. You must telephone at once to Montebruno and stop him.”

“Impossible. The whole matter is arranged. All the Socialist deputies are in their places awaiting the bolt to be launched.”

“Then let them wait. It shall not be launched to-day,” replied Dubard in a clear, distinct voice.

“But it shall?” exclaimed Borselli. “It has taken me nearly three years to complete preparations for this coup, and I do not intend to abandon it merely because you hint mysteriously that it is premature. I speak quite candidly upon this point.”

“And I speak equally candidly when I tell you that Montebruno must not put the question to the Chamber. There are reasons – serious reasons.”

He said nothing of his compact with Mary or of his demand of His Excellency for her hand.

“And what are they, pray?”

“Well,” – and he hesitated. “Well, if the coup is made at the present moment you will merely imperil yourself, that is all I can say. Morini will retaliate, and charge you with certain things which will place you in a very awkward position.”

A silence fell between the two men. Borselli was reflecting upon a certain agreement at which they had arrived when in London.

“I really can’t understand you, Jules,” he exclaimed at last. “You have rendered us the most valuable assistance until the present moment, and now, when all is prepared, you suddenly withdraw and make mysterious hints that our efforts may result in serious consequences. What do you mean?”

“I mean that the revelations are premature.”

“But tell me the truth, once and for all. Are you still on our side, or has the girl’s beauty appealed to you, and you now intend to save her father? I know what a soft, impressionable heart you have – like all your race.”

“I am still united with you,” the Frenchman declared quickly. “It is because of that I give you warning.” Borselli’s dark eyes were fixed upon the other’s with a look of quick shrewdness. He was a man whose mind, when once made up, was not easily turned from its purpose.

“And your warning I shall certainly not heed,” he said slowly. “You know my intentions, and I shall carry them out to-day to the letter.”

“You shall not?” the other exclaimed defiantly.

“Oh! and who will prevent it?” asked the Under-Secretary.

“I will. You shall not seek your own ruin blindly like this!”

Dubard very cleverly endeavoured to convince his companion of his own interest in the conspiracy against Morini, while Borselli, of course, had no knowledge of his compact with Mary. Nevertheless, he saw plainly that the Frenchman’s sudden withdrawal from the affair was due to some hidden motive, and he refused to be turned from his object. To him the overthrow of Morini meant wealth and power, and he had no intention of relinquishing his efforts just at the moment when the reins of office were within his grasp. All was prepared. The revelations were to be made, and charges of misappropriation and treason hurled at the unfortunate Minister; charges which would, on the morrow, be taken up by the subsidised Press and exaggerated and distorted into a public scandal which no statesman, however popular, could withstand. The plot had cost him three years of clever scheming, during which time he had acted as Morini’s humble underling, expressing profound thanks for any small benefits, but secretly hating and despising him, and yet always seeking to worm himself further into his confidence. And Dubard wished him to abandon it all at the very hour when success was assured! No. He flatly refused. And he told his companion so in plain, forcible language.

The other, however, merely shrugged his narrow shoulders and was silent, allowing the Under-Secretary to upbraid him without offering a word in self-defence. Then, when Borselli paused to gain breath, he said —

“I merely repeat what I have said – the question must not be put.”

“I say it shall be put?” cried the other fiercely.

Dubard was silent again and quite cool, only the slight flush upon his high cheeks told that a fierce anger consumed him.

“If it is put, it will be at your own risk,” he exclaimed at last, placing his forefinger on the table to emphasise his words. “Remember there are many who would gloat over the downfall of Angelo Borselli.”

“And there are more who would like to see me Minister of War.”

“You will never obtain office if you carry out the scheme you have arranged,” Dubard declared. “I think up to the present I have shown myself your friend, for without me you surely could not have done what you have. You have many times admitted that. Why, therefore, do you not take my advice?”

“Because, my dear Jules, you have suddenly turned round and are now championing Morini.”

“No, you mistake me. I am merely warning you in our mutual interests. Morini will retaliate – and if he does – !” And again he shrugged his shoulders significantly.

“Well, and if he does? What can he do?”

“He can make some ugly revelations, you know.”

“I have no fear of anything he may allege,” laughed the other. “He cannot establish his innocence.”

“Then you will not listen to reason and postpone the public sensation you have arranged for this afternoon?”

“No,” replied Angelo. “I will not.”

“Then, if you intend to imperil both of us by acting so injudiciously, I, for one, do not intend to suffer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Simply this. If you are determined not to interfere, and to allow the question to be put and the stream of allegations to pour forth from the Socialists, I shall, in order to save myself, place myself on the side of Morini.”

“Of course, my dear Jules. You are always on the side which pays you best,” sneered the other.

“And in your company,” remarked the Frenchman quite coolly, adding in a firm voice, “I wish you to give me a line to Montebruno now, this moment, and I will take it to him in the Camera – a word to him to postpone the question.”

“I shall do nothing of the sort. I do not intend to sacrifice my future because of your sentimentalities. You are defending Morini.”

“Yes,” he cried. “I will defend him! I tell you again, and very clearly, that if Montebruno speaks in the Camera to-day you will be relieved of office.”

“Oh, how’s that?”

“I am speaking plainly,” Dubard said, with knit brows.

“Time does not admit of more words, otherwise Montebruno will rise and put the question. I therefore tell you that if you do not give me the letter I require at once, I shall make a clean breast of the whole affair.” And he glanced at his watch as he spoke.

“You!” gasped Borselli quickly, staring at the speaker. “Ah yes! I was a fool to have trusted you after all. I recognised it when too late. You have turned in Morini’s favour.”

“I have my own interests to serve as well as yours,” Dubard remarked quite frankly. “It is to my interest that the question is postponed.”

“And it is to mine that it should be put.”

“But you will not allow Montebruno to proceed, and risk your own position. Remember that in this affair my interests at the moment are not the same as yours.”

“And you actually declare that you will tell the truth if Montebruno speaks?” said Borselli hoarsely, realising how completely the man before him held his future in his hands.

“I do,” was the response. “You surely know me well enough! In such moments as these I do not trifle. Give me the letter! It is already a quarter to five, and I have only just time to drive to the Camera and place it in Montebruno’s hand.”

“But I can’t understand your motive,” exclaimed Borselli, realising that his companion meant what he said. “Remember what we agreed that night in London.”

“Perfectly. While our interests are similar, I am your friend; but where they divide, I am friend of myself alone. Come, Angelo, we cannot afford to waste further words – the letter, just two lines, or exposure of the truth. The latter would, I think,” he laughed, “be even a greater sensation to the public than the allegations against the Minister.”

Chapter Twenty Four
In the Chamber of Deputies

The man who had laid such an elaborate plot against His Excellency stood hesitating and confounded. He had never dreamed that Dubard, upon whom he had relied so implicitly, would be seized with this sudden caprice to defend Morini. Mary might have persuaded him to adopt this course, he reflected, yet he knew Jules too well as a man in whose heart there did not exist a single spark of either respect or true affection for the opposite sex.

“Come,” exclaimed the elegant Frenchman, with a look of determination on his pallid countenance. “Write the note quickly, or it will be too late. Recollect, if Montebruno speaks, I shall tell the truth.”

“And betray me?”

“Of necessity.”

Then Angelo Borselli, seeing that all his elaborate preparations for a coup were checkmated by the very man who had rendered him such valuable help, threw himself into a chair, and muttering some hard words, scribbled three lines to the man, his puppet, who was to hurl those terrible charges against the Minister of War.

“Good,” exclaimed Dubard airily, as he took the letter and thrust it into his pocket. “You have done well to save your own reputation, my dear Angelo. It would not be wise for the public to know everything, would it? Excuse me running away so quickly, but I have only just time to drive down to the Camera.” And snatching up his hat he rushed out, leaving the Under-Secretary standing in the centre of the room, silent in disappointment and chagrin.

Meanwhile, in the Chamber the excitement among the Socialist group had gradually increased as the hands of the big clock moved on towards the hour of five. They watched Montebruno seated in his place armed with many formidable documents, and saw how he was preparing himself for one of those oratorical efforts for which he was so famous. He was a thin, black-bearded man with small dark eyes and aquiline features – a man who had made the law a stepping-stone to politics like so many of his confrères. Time after time he fidgeted, changed his position, stroked his beard thoughtfully, and re-examined his papers, every action being watched anxiously by his party, among whom it was whispered that he was to put some sensational question – but of what character was to them a mystery.

The hand of the big clock pointed to the hour of five, and the Chamber was occupied with other business. Vito Ricci, sitting in his place almost opposite Montebruno in the great horseshoe chamber, waited breathlessly, well knowing that the words which would fall from his lips would seal the doom of that man waiting so patiently in his library in the far-off Apennines.

The tension of those moments of expectancy was terrible.

The clock marked five, ten, fifteen minutes past the hour, when, of a sudden, the voluble Socialist rose, and began by expressing regret at being compelled to take up the time of the Chamber upon a most important and very pressing matter. He had just arrived at that point, holding the whole Camera in attention by his clever oratory, when a prominent member of his own party pulled his coat-tails and handed him a letter. This he tore open mechanically while still speaking, but on glancing at the contents, he hesitated and stopped short in utter confusion.

“Go on! Go on!” urged his party wildly, eager to hear what allegations he was about to make against the Government.

But regaining his self-possession in a moment, he turned to them, and with a smile said —

“Gentlemen, I have just learned, and very fortunately perhaps, that I have been somewhat misinformed regarding certain matters to which I intended directing the attention of the Camera, and therefore I will no longer occupy your time.”

And he sat down abruptly, whereat those in opposition jeered at him, and even the Socialists themselves rose and went out in disgust, disappointed at relinquishing what was promised to be a staggering blow against the Government. With them went Vito Ricci, who, ten minutes later, was in the Ministry of War describing the curious scene to Camillo Morini over the telephone.

The words he spoke put fresh life and hope into the despairing Minister. He breathed again when he heard how he had been saved almost by a miracle. Then he walked to his table, and the letters he had written he carried to the fireplace and there lit them with a wax vesta and watched them consume – all save the order for Solaro’s release and reinstatement.

He held the latter in his hand for a long time thinking deeply. But at last the temptation grew too strong within him, for slowly, and with seeming reluctance, he opened it, applied a match, destroying it as he had done the others, and as he watched it burn to black tinder he murmured to himself —

“No! I dare not release him. If I did they might suspect – suspect. And yet Mary declares that he is innocent! What, I wonder, can she know?”

New life had been created within him, new hope, new aspirations. A moment before he had looked upon that tiny tube with its fatal tabloids as the only means by which he could escape his enemies, but now he laughed to himself as he placed it in a drawer of the writing-table – laughed at his own cowardice.

He never dreamed that he had been saved by Mary’s self-sacrifice. The incident, as related by Ricci over the telephone, was curious and mysterious. The letter handed to the man who had risen to denounce him had evidently contained something which prevented him making the charges, but what it was he could not imagine.

To him the whole affair was a complete mystery, which he left to Vito Ricci to unravel and report.

When his wife and the girls returned, they found him idling on the terrace beneath the pretty arbour from which spread that glorious view of the Arno valley up to Florence. He was a changed man from an hour before – that hour when he had come face to face with ruin and death. By the mysterious turn which events had taken a new life had suddenly opened to him. The blow they intended to aim at him had apparently been abandoned, even though all preparations had been made. The reason was an utter enigma.

He laughed merrily with Mary and the English girls as they came along the terrace where he was sitting idly smoking a cigar, inquiring where they had been and how they had found the lady they had visited.

All three began to chatter, as was their wont, while Her Excellency, fatigued after the drive, entered the house to rest before dinner. She, however, did not fail to notice her husband’s unusual good-humour, for of late he had been thoughtful and depressed, silent and moody when in her presence, and apparently full of serious state affairs.

The instant Mary saw her father’s countenance she read the truth. She had left the villa well knowing – through Dubard, who had sent her word in secret – that the blow was to be dealt that afternoon. She knew all that her father was suffering, and she feared the worst, even though she had made that compact with the man she suspected and despised. She had dreaded to return lest some hideous tragedy should have occurred, and all the time she was absent she had reproached herself that she had not remained at his side to support and encourage him in face of the threatened peril.

But the danger was over. He had no doubt received word over the telephone, for he was his own old self again, and began chaffing Violet Walters, the blue-eyed daughter of the London barrister, regarding a young lieutenant of the bersaglieri, an aristocrat of Florence, who had dined with them on the previous evening, and towards whom she had been very much attracted.

“It is really too bad!” declared the English girl, blushing to her eyes. “You declare that I’m in love with every good-looking man, and I’m sure I’m not.”

“We Italians always find English girls very charming,” His Excellency said, smiling. “That is why I married an Englishwoman myself,” whereat the two Fry girls, pale-faced and insipid, tittered to themselves.

“Really it was most disgraceful of Violet to flirt with young Capponi as she did last night!” exclaimed Mary mischievously, upholding her father’s view.

“I did not!” protested the barrister’s daughter. “You know I didn’t, Mary!”

“He’ll be proposing next Monday when he comes again to dinner, and you’ll be the Marchesa Capponi,” Mary said, spreading out her skirts and bowing with mock obeisance.

Her father, full of good-humour now that the terror of those anxious hours had passed, rose, and placing his hand kindly on Violet’s shoulder, assured her that his words were not meant to be taken seriously; for he saw the girl’s indignation was rising, and that she resented being accused of flirtation before the two daughters of the Genoese merchant.

They all gossiped together for some time, until presently Mary went forth, as usual, to accompany her father on his evening stroll through the pine woods.

When alone, His Excellency was the first to speak, explaining to her all that Vito Ricci had related over the telephone.

“Then the crisis is prevented,” she remarked, in a strange, mechanical voice, he thought. He had expected her to betray surprise and joy, but, on the contrary, she received the information of his escape with an inertness which surprised him. “It must have been the letter handed to the Socialist deputy,” she added.

“Without doubt,” he remarked. “But how annoyed and disappointed Angelo must be at the failure of his scheme just at the very moment when his triumph was assured.”

“I expect so,” his daughter said, walking slowly at his side, her eyes fixed upon the ground. Her father had been saved at the cost of her own happiness, her own life. But would that man adhere to his compact? she wondered. Was the crisis only postponed until after her marriage – until after she had given herself to him in exchange for her father’s life? She knew too well that he would never face exposure; she knew, alas! that, like many before him, he would rather take his own life than bear the brunt of those scurrilous and unscrupulous attacks. He had more than once told her so – not directly, of course, but in language that was unmistakable.

She had had no confidence in Dubard since the night when he had examined the safe in the library. He would, she felt assured, play her false. His ingenuity was unparalleled, and he was, moreover, a friend of her father’s bitterest enemy. Therefore, what had she to hope from him? The attack upon the Minister and his methods was only postponed in order to lure her and her father into a sense of security. What was to prevent the allegation being made after she had given herself to him in marriage? As she walked there in the evening light beneath the high dark pines she fully realised the insecurity of the position. In the end the man Borselli must triumph, and she, with her father, would be equally a victim.

What her father had told her of the incident in the Chamber that afternoon revealed the truth. Dubard had, by his clever scheming, succeeded in postponing the blow until after she had become his wife. She knew well his intimate friendship with Angelo Borselli, and felt assured that it was in the interests of the Under-Secretary that he had opened that safe which His Excellency had believed to be closed so effectively to everyone.

“You will seek to retaliate, will you not?” she asked her father suddenly. “You will surely not allow Borselli another opportunity of conspiring against you! He should be removed from office upon some pretext or other.”

Her father smiled at her words, and replied —

“It would be easy to retaliate, my dear, but it would be unwise.”

“Why? If he remains in office, he may to-morrow, or on some occasion when you least expect it, level a blow that might crush you?”

“I know! I know!” he groaned. “I am not safe by any means. Until Vito discovers what has really occurred I must remain patiently inactive.”

“But why not remove Borselli from office? You could surely do that! It is your duty to yourself to do so!”

“Ah! You do not know everything, Mary,” answered her father very gravely. “To attempt his dismissal at the present moment would be a most injudicious course. By making charges against him I should also implicate myself. If I spoke a single word to his detriment, it would be suicidal. I should be seeking my own downfall.”

“Then, to speak plainly, you are unable to dismiss him?” she said in a low, distinct voice, looking her father straight in the face with a glance of reproach. “You are entirely in that man’s hands?”

His Excellency, grave and thoughtful again, nodded in the affirmative, sighed heavily, and then admitted —

“You know the truth, my dear. My secrets are, unfortunately, his?”

And she echoed his sigh with her white lips compressed. She foresaw, alas! that for her there was no hope of escape from that hideous compact she had been compelled to make. She had given herself as the price of her father’s honour, the price of his very life, to a man whom she could neither trust nor love – a man who, when it suited his own interests, would break his bond without the slightest compunction, and allow the crushing blow to fall upon her house – a blow that must be fatal to her beloved father, who stood there so grave and thoughtful at her side.

She contemplated the future, but saw in it only a grey, limitless sea of blank despair.