Chapter Nine
His Excellency Learns the Truth
The Minister of War was seated busily writing beneath the green-shaded reading-lamp in the big library of the great old Antinori Palace, his handsome residence in Rome.
Five years ago he had bought that enormous old place in the Via Nazionale – a place full of historic interest – together with its old furniture, its gallery of cinquecento paintings, and its corridor filled with armour. It was a high, square, ponderous place of princely dimensions, with a great central courtyard where an old fountain plashed on in the silence as it had done for three centuries or more, while around the arched cloisters were the carved arms of the various families through whose hands the place had passed in generations bygone.
The library was a high room on the first floor, with long cases filled with parchment-covered books, many of them illuminated codices and rare editions, a fine frescoed ceiling, and a great open hearth over which was an ornamentation of carved marble of the Renaissance with a grinning mascherino. The floor was of marble, except that the littered writing-table was set upon an oasis of thick Turkey carpet, giving to the room an austere character of comfortless grandeur, like everything else in that huge old palace of the days when every house of the Roman nobility was a fortress.
An Italian Minister’s life is not by any means an easy one, as Camillo Morini had long ago discovered. He was often in his private cabinet at the Ministry of War at nine o’clock in the morning, and frequently sent home by his private secretary urgent papers which he could examine and initial after dinner, as he had done that day. His wife and daughter were up at the villa near Florence for the vintage, and he was alone and undisturbed. He had not even troubled to change for dinner, but was still in the linen suit he had worn during the day, and had merely exchanged his white coat for an easy black alpaca one.
As Minister of War, his salary was one thousand pounds sterling per annum, an amount quite inadequate for his needs. True, he travelled free in his private saloon on the railway, but yet he had a most uncomfortable time of it owing to the fact that he was expected by his friends to repay them for services rendered with the gift of offices, favours, introductions, and recommendations. Wherever he went he was besieged by a host of people who wanted favours, exemptions of their sons from military service, increased stipend, or the redressing of some act of official injustice or petty tyranny.
His wife, too, was pestered with “recommendations” to him; for without recommendations nothing could be obtained. If he went to inspect the garrison of a provincial town, the prefect, the mayor, the head of the carabinieri, and the most prominent citizens called on him every day; while when in the country the wheezy village band played operatic airs outside his window every evening, alternated with a chorus of children from the elementary schools.
His sovereign, King Humbert, although good-natured and brave, was too easy-going and lacking in moral stamina to make a really strong monarch, hence the whole Cabinet, from the Prime Minister downwards, were guilty of grave irregularities, if not of actual corruption. The fault, however, lay with the system, rather than with the men. How could a Cabinet Minister entertain lavishly and keep up appearances upon a mere thousand pounds a year, when he had no private means?
Happily, the present hard-working, cultivated king, Victor Emmanuel the Third, has mastered all the details of state business, and has swept his Cabinet clean of those men who abused their position under his lamented father, until the whole face of Italian politics has entirely changed since the days when Camillo Morini held office as head of the army.
Under the late King Humbert, Ministers were often chosen, not because they were capable statesmen, but simply because it was necessary that a particular region should be represented in the Cabinet, so as not to arouse local jealousies. In any case, their tenure of office was too precarious and too short to enable them to do much good work, and whatever the Minister managed to do would probably be undone by his successor.
Morini would have gone out of office half a dozen times had he not succeeded, by judicious bribery, in obtaining protection from his enemies. Indeed, he only retained office by dint of his own ingenuity and clever diplomacy towards those who were ever trying to hound him down. Not only did he bear the great responsibility of the army, but, in common with other members of the Cabinet, the greater part of his activity was absorbed in the manipulation of party groups in the Chamber and in studying parliamentary exigencies. He had to judiciously subsidise certain newspapers in view of a general election, make use of the secret service fund in certain quarters, and be careful not to shower too many favours on one province; for if he offended any particular town, the local deputy, hitherto a staunch ministerialist, would turn and rend him.
Truly his position, head of an army costing sixteen millions annually, and with a multitude of people bent on getting something out of him, was the reverse of comfortable. He would have resigned long ago had he dared, but resignation or dismissal from office would, he knew only too well, spell ruin to him. So he was held there in an office of bribery and dishonesty, which he had grown to regard with bitter hatred. He had served through three administrations, it was true, and was a trusted servant of his king, yet the daily worry of it all, the ever-present fear of exposure and of downfall, held him in constant apprehension of a future ruin and obscurity.
The dead silence of the night was unbroken save by the scratching of his quill as he scribbled his signature upon one after another of the pile of various papers at his elbow.
He wrote mechanically, for he was reflecting upon that scene in his cabinet when the captain of Cacciatori Alpini had broken his sword across his knee.
“A clever fellow!” he murmured. “He thought to bluff me, but he did not know how closely I had had him watched. If I did not know all that I do, I really believe I should have thought him innocent. A good actor. I will send his broken sword as a present to that doddering old fool, his general – as a souvenir of his visit to Rome without leave!” he laughed to himself, still continuing to sign the commissions and decrees.
Of a sudden there was a rap at the big white doors at the end of the dimly lit room, and a gorgeously dressed man-servant in stockings and gold-laced coat advanced to the table, saying —
“The Onorevole Ricci desires to see your Excellency.”
“Pig’s head! Didn’t I give orders that I was not at home?” he cried, turning furiously upon the man.
“But your Excellency is always at home to the Signor Deputato?” the servant reminded him, surprised at the sudden outburst of anger.
“Ah!” growled his master. “Yes, you are right, Antonio! I forgot that I told you I was always at home to him. I must see him, I suppose,” he sighed, and when the man had gone his brow contracted, his teeth clenched; yet almost before he could recover his self-possession the long white doors reopened, and his visitor – a short, dark-bearded, middle-aged man in evening dress – was ushered in.
“Ah, my dear Camillo!” he cried enthusiastically, advancing towards the Minister, who rose and took his hand. “I only arrived in Rome this afternoon, and heard you had returned from England. Well, and how are you after your holiday? I suppose I may take a cigar?” he asked, crossing to the cigar-box, opening it, and selecting one.
“The rest was welcome,” answered the other calmly, stretching his arms above his head and glancing furtively at the new-comer as though he held him in some suspicion. He was a pleasant-looking man, a trifle stout, with a round, sun-bronzed face, as though fond of good living, while his perfectly fitting dress-suit was cut in a style which showed it to be the garment of a London tailor. He possessed the careless, easy manner of the gentleman, striking a match and lighting his cigar with a familiarity which showed that he was no stranger to the Minister’s roof.
“I too have been in the country for quite a long while,” he said – “at Asti. I have to visit the electors now and then just to make them promises and put them in a good-humour.”
“Or they would hound you out, Vito – eh? – just as the Socialists would throw me out if they could,” laughed His Excellency drily, walking to the cigar-box, selecting one, and lighting it.
“And Her Excellency and the signorina?” inquired the deputy.
“They are up at the villa. They always go there for the vintage.”
“Of course, Rome in September is only fit for us politicians and the English tourists. I wonder you are back so early.”
“Duty, my dear Vito,” replied the other. “One day, when you are Minister, you will find that you had much more leisure as advocate in Turin and deputy for Asti.”
“I suppose so,” he laughed. Then he added, “I met Angelo in the club an hour ago. He has also been in England, it seems. I think I shall go to England next summer – if you invite me.”
“Which is not likely.”
“Why?”
“Because when I am in England I like to be away from all my official duties,” frankly answered Morini. “They don’t even know who or what I am – and I delight in keeping them in ignorance.”
“Then why did you invite Angelo? I am jealous, you see.”
“Because I wished to consult him upon a confidential matter.”
“Regarding an army contract tendered you by a German firm,” replied the other, carelessly blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips as he stood with his back to the huge open grate. “You may as well tell the truth, my dear friend.”
The Minister, starting, looked at him sharply, and asked —
“How did you know?”
“Never mind how I know, Camillo. It is, as you see, useless for you to try and deceive me. You have given the contract to those Germans – for a consideration. But don’t think that I blame you. Why, I should do the very same thing myself. I get a little in my own small way out of certain people in Asti, but not enough. That’s why I am compelled, so much against my will, to come to you.”
“Ah!” groaned the Minister, facing him quickly and determinedly. “The same old story – eh? Money.”
“Like air, it is a necessity of life,” he replied, smiling. “I have been in want of it for a month past, but preferred to wait rather than to trouble you while you were on holiday.”
“But you surely get enough now!” protested His Excellency. “I’ve obtained a dozen different favours for you; I’ve given you appointments; I’ve allowed you to make recommendations for military decorations in Piedmont; I’ve allowed you to handle the secret service funds; and I’ve done all I could so as to place you in a position to receive secret commission. But of course, if you fail to make use of your opportunities, it is not my fault.”
“Never fear. I do not stir a finger without some consideration,” he laughed. “You surely know me too well after all these years. No; I find that it is not sufficient. Money I want, and money I must have. Recollect what services I have rendered to you in the Camera, my dear Camillo,” he went on. “You surely do not forget the dead set made against you a year ago, and how I succeeded in uniting the various groups and inducing them to pass a vote of confidence! You never were nearer downfall than you were that afternoon – except, perhaps, to-night. You have enemies, my dear friend – enemies in the Socialist groups, who declare that you have held office too long,” he added.
“I know,” exclaimed the other hoarsely. “I know that,” and he tossed his cigar away with a quick, impatient gesture.
“While you’ve been abroad I have been active in secretly ascertaining the real state of political opinion in the north, and much as I regret to tell you, it is distinctly antagonistic. Now that Milan is such a strong Socialist centre the other large towns are following, and an agitation is spreading against you. They want a fresh man in office as Minister of War – the man who is so cleverly scheming to replace you.”
“To replace me!” exclaimed Morini. “And who is this man, pray?”
The words which Vito Ricci had spoken sank like iron into his soul. He knew, alas! how very precarious was his office.
“The man is our friend Angelo,” slowly replied the crafty deputy. “Already in the north he is looked upon as your successor. If the groups in the Camera fall asunder, then your dismissal is imminent. I know this is a very unwelcome piece of news, my dear Camillo, but it is a hard fact which I have come here to-night to reveal to you.”
Chapter Ten
“For Mary’s Sake.”
His Excellency’s face fell. He was silent for several moments.
The easy-going, well-dressed political adventurer before him was, he knew, in the secrets of the strong party who were his opponents and who were ever plotting his downfall. He had, since his return to Rome, heard rumours through certain quarters in which secret service money was spent that an agitation had been set afoot by his antagonists, but he had never dreamed that the prime mover of it all was the very man in whom he had so implicitly trusted, one of the men who owed everything to him – Angelo Borselli! The revelation staggered him. He really could not believe it to be actually true.
“And so he intends to become Minister – eh?” remarked Morini bitterly, when he at last found tongue.
“He is working for that end,” replied Ricci. “I was in Milan and Parma a week ago, and on every hand I saw how cleverly he was stirring up ill-feeling against you. He is secretly allied to the Socialists – of that I am certain.”
“Because he sees that through them he can obtain office,” replied His Excellency, his pale face now very serious. “You have done well to tell me this, caro mio,” he added. “I shall know now how to deal with the man who learns my secrets and then seeks to betray me.”
“But your position is daily becoming one of graver peril,” exclaimed the wily advocate, placing his hand confidentially upon the Minister’s arm. “The agitation is widespread. The Socialists intend that the Government shall fall.”
“But you will help me, Vito, as before?” Morini urged quickly. “Those shrieking Socialist maniacs shall not gain the ascendency?” he declared, clenching his hands and pacing the room quickly.
Vito Ricci, deputy for the town of Asti, shrugged his shoulders, but did not reply. In the Italian Camera every politician of any prominence had a small body of adherents, and political ability consisted in so manipulating a number of these bodies as to form a majority; therefore for this purpose each Minister secretly bribed one or more of the most unscrupulous deputies to juggle with the party. A group might to-day be on the side of the Government, and to-morrow with the Opposition. There were no real political principles at stake in the policy of these groups, and the only important question was that of party management and judicious bribery.
Vito Ricci was a professional politician, with whom politics was a regular trade. The Government granted him a free railway pass – as it did all the other deputies at Montecitorio – and he made money wherever he could. His position enabled him to obtain many favours for himself and his friends. The system of recommendations and parliamentary influence was one of the worst features of Italian political life, for it was generally regarded as one of the deputy’s chief duties that, for a consideration, he should help his friends and constituents to procure favours, promotions, decorations, and concessions of contracts which would not be otherwise obtainable. Political jobbery was regarded as inevitable.
Indeed, Vito Ricci lived upon the bribes he received – and lived well.
“You are silent,” remarked His Excellency, looking him straight in his face. “Why?”
“Because I have nothing to say.”
“You don’t promise to assist me!” he exclaimed. “You don’t declare your readiness to unite the groups again in our favour!”
“Because I fear it would be a useless task,” responded the other in a calm, mechanical voice.
“A useless task!” gasped the elder man, whose face was blanched. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that matters have assumed an ugly appearance,” replied the deputy. “Even the journals who have received so much money from you are silent when they ought to be loudest in your eulogy. They are evidently awaiting the advent of their new masters.”
“Then you actually anticipate a catastrophe?” exclaimed Morini hoarsely, halting before the man who had rendered him so many valuable services – the clever, unscrupulous adventurer who had several times turned the parliamentary tide in his favour.
Vito nodded slowly, his bearded face grave and hard set.
“If what you say is really true regarding Angelo, then I am fully aware of the great peril in which I stand,” the Minister exclaimed at last, his voice faltering in his agitation. “Borselli will hesitate at nothing in order to gain power.”
“Ah, I told you so a year ago, my dear Camillo,” was the deputy’s reply. “But you would not listen. He was your friend, you said – as though there was such a thing as friendship in any of the ministries.”
“I have been deceived,” admitted the other in a low voice.
A silence fell between the pair, until the deputy suddenly said hesitatingly —
“I suppose Angelo could make some rather awkward revelations – eh?”
The Minister slowly nodded.
“H’m. I thought as much from what I gathered in Milan. He would denounce you, and by reason of his big Socialist following he would come out with clean hands. He has laid his plans well, without a doubt. Sirena, the Socialist deputy for Pesaro, told me, in confidence, all that is intended.”
“They mean to strike a blow at me?”
“Yes, by criticising the army, and by bringing forward some curious story about the plans of the fortress of Tresenta in the Alps being sold to France. Do you know anything about it?”
“Yes. The plans have unfortunately been given to France by a captain named Solaro, who has been dismissed the army and sent to prison. So they intend to make political capital out of that, do they?”
“It seems so,” was the other’s answer.
Morini slowly repaced the room, his chin upon his breast, deep in thought, the dead silence being broken only by his footsteps upon the marble floor.
“Borselli has formed a plot against me – a deep, dastardly plot!” he exclaimed in a desperate tone, halting again suddenly, a determined look upon his grey features. “He intends that I shall fall. But you, Vito, can save me, if you will – you know you can. With a little of this,” and he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, “you can unite the groups as you did before, and show the country that the Minister of War still possesses the confidence of the kingdom.”
“I doubt it,” answered Ricci dubiously.
“But you will not desert me now?” implored His Excellency, laying his hand firmly upon the deputy’s shoulder. “Recollect the past, Vito. Remember the day when you, a lieutenant, prevented my horse throwing me at the manoeuvres in the Chianti. That was long ago, but both of us have had cause to congratulate ourselves upon that meeting.”
Ricci nodded. He recollected well how the Minister, then only a few months in office, had allowed him to resign from the army and complete his studies as an advocate, and how, by a clever stroke of political jobbery, he had been elected deputy for Asti, in order that he should serve the Minister as his secret agent in the Camera. He had become rich in a few years, owing to the various grants and concessions His Excellency had made to him, yet somehow his personal extravagance kept him always poor, always in want of money. He feared to calculate how much of the secret service funds had already found its way into his pocket, and yet with wily ingenuity he was there again for a grant, not from the secret service fund – for he knew well that the sum voted for the present year was already exhausted – but from Camillo Morini’s own private purse.
Vito Ricci, with all the outward appearance of a gentleman, was utterly unscrupulous. He worked in the Camera for the master who paid him best – a fact which Morini knew too well. If the Socialists were prepared to pay his price, then the man whom he had trained so cleverly and promoted to place and power would calmly throw him over, and hound him down with just as great an enthusiasm as he now supported him.
“I suppose,” he went on at last, “it is, as usual, a matter of price with you – eh, Vito?”
“Well, I must live, just as you must,” responded the other with a faint smile as he discerned how terrified the Minister had become at the information he had just given him. “I have no private income, and therefore must make money somehow.”
“You have made plenty of it,” the other remarked. “Only three months ago you had fifty thousand lire out of the secret service fund.”
“And I am now badly in want of an exactly similar amount,” the deputy declared.
“Ah! so that is the price – eh? Fifty thousand?”
“Yes. But of course I cannot guarantee success for that sum. It may cost more. I have to bribe the leaders of each of the groups in the Chamber, and I flatter myself that I am the only man who can work them in favour of the Ministry.”
“I admit that, my dear Vito. You are a marvel of tact and cunning. What a pity you did not enter the Diplomatic service! But the price. It is too high. I can’t really afford to pay so much. Ah! if you knew how heavy my personal expenses are, and how – ”
“Of course,” the other cried, interrupting. “You made the same excuse last time, but you paid these screaming hounds all the same. It is surely useless to waste breath upon argument. The facts are quite plain, as I’ve already told you. If you pay for triumph you will probably receive it; if you don’t, you must fall, and Angelo Borselli will be given your portfolio. Pardon me for saying it, Camillo, but of late you have lived with your eyes shut. I have watched, and I have observed certain things. Recently you have held me aloof from you, just at a moment when I could be of greatest service. This, I confess, has hurt me. I believed you reposed confidence in me, but it seems that you mistrust me.”
“I mistrust all blackmailers,” was the Minister’s quick reply, his dark eyes flashing at the speaker.
“Because you are one yourself,” the other retorted quickly, with a grin. “You yourself taught me the gentle art of blackmailing. But no! do not let us revile each other. Rather let us face the critical situation. I tell you that you are blind – otherwise you would realise how cleverly and with what devilish ingenuity your power is being undermined. You must bribe the groups – you must pay the sum I ask. It is your duty, not only for your own sake, but for that of your family – the signora and the Signorina Mary.”
The Minister of War stood undecided. Mention of his family brought home to him the terrible responsibility upon him. Ruin, exposure, condemnation, disgrace, all stared him in the face. Yet by paying what his creature demanded he could once again steer clear of the shoals of the stormy parliamentary waters, and the country would have renewed confidence in Camillo Morini.
He knew that he was – as indeed he had been for years – entirely at the mercy of this man whom he had trained as his secret agent both in the Camera and out of it.
“Well,” he answered at last in a deep, hoarse, broken voice, “and suppose I pay? What then?”
“Then I shall do my best,” was Vito’s response. “I can’t, of course, be certain that I shall succeed, but as the groups require my influence in another quarter, they will probably render me assistance in this.”
Morini was pacing the room again. His appearance was that of a man filled with apprehension. He saw that the situation was most critical, and recognised that ruin was before him. He glanced across at his writing-table, when his lips compressed and a strange, half-triumphant smile overspread his grey countenance.
“Very well,” he exclaimed, and his sigh ran through the great old chamber. “I suppose you must have the money to throw to those howling dogs. Call at the Ministry to-morrow and you shall have a draft.”
“For sixty thousand,” said the deputy quickly. “Better be on the safe side. I shall have to distribute money freely this time, you know.”
But the Minister refused, knowing that the extra ten thousand lire would go into Vito’s pocket. Then they argued, long and hotly, Ricci, the accomplished blackmailer, refusing openly to lend his influence for any less sum, until at length the man who was so completely in his power was reluctantly compelled to yield – for the sake of his wife and Mary, he said in sheer desperation.
“And now that you are again reposing confidence in me, my dear friend,” said the deputy, “let me give you a word of warning.”
“Speak. I am all attention.”
“Last season there was here in Rome a man named Dubard. You introduced us one night when I dined here. I have since heard that he is aspiring to your daughter’s hand.”
“Well?”
“Watch him, and you will discover something that will surprise you. I shall say no more. The future is in your own hands.”