"So your effort has failed?"
"Absolutely."
"Then you are likely to give up your plan of punishing the man for
defaming and degrading you?"
"I have given it up already."
"Strange! Very strange! Very unfortunate also, for we are at this moment
at a crisis when it is doubly important to the Government to possess the
information you set out to find. Still, your idea was a good one, and I
can never be sufficiently grateful to you for suggesting it. And
although _your_ efforts have failed, you need not be uneasy. You have
given us the clues by which _our_ efforts are succeeding, and you shall
yet punish the man who insulted you so publicly and so grossly."
"How is it possible for me to punish him?"
"By identifying David Rossi as one who was condemned in contumacy for
high treason sixteen years ago."
"That is ridiculous," she said. "Sixteen months ago I had never heard
the name of David Rossi."
The Baron stooped a little and said:
"Had you ever heard the name of David Leone?"
She dropped back in her chair, and again looked straight before her.
"Come, come, my child," said the Baron caressingly, and moving across
the room to look out of the window, he tapped her lightly on the
shoulder:
"I told you that Minghelli had returned from London."
"That forger!" she said hoarsely.
"No doubt! One who spends his life ferreting out crime is apt to have
the soul of a criminal. But civilisation needs its scavengers, and it
was a happy thought of yours to think of this one. Indeed, everything
we've done has been done on your initiative, and when our friend is
finally brought to justice, the deed will really be due to you, and you
alone."
The defiant look was disappearing from her eyes, and she rose with an
expression of pain.
"Why do you torture me like this?" she said. "After what has happened,
isn't it quite plain that I am his friend, and not his enemy?"
"Perhaps," said the Baron. His face assumed a death-like rigidity. "Sit
down and listen to me."
She sat down, and he returned to his place by the stove.
"I say you gave us the clues we have worked upon. Those clues were
three. First, that David Rossi knew the life-story of Doctor Roselli in
London. Second, that he knew the story of Doctor Roselli's daughter,
Roma Roselli. Third, that he was for a time a waiter at the Grand Hotel
in Rome. Two minor clues came independently, that David Rossi was once a
stable-boy in New York, that his mother drowned herself in the Tiber,
and he was brought up in a Foundling. By these five clues the
authorities have discovered eight facts. Permit me to recite them."
Leaning his elbow on the stove and opening his hand, the Baron ticked
off the facts one by one on his fingers.
"Fact one. Some thirty odd years ago a woman carrying a child presented
herself at the office in Rome for the registry of births. She gave the
name of Leonora Leone, and wished her child, a boy, to be registered as
David Leone. But the officer in attendance discovered that the woman's
name was Leonora Rossi, and that she had been married according to the
religious rites of the Church, but not according to the civil
regulations of the State. The child was therefore registered as David
Rossi, son of Leonora Rossi and of a father unknown."
"Shameful!" cried Roma. "Shameful! shameful!"
"Fact two," said the Baron, without the change of a tone. "One night a
little later the body of a woman found drowned in the Tiber was
recognised as the body of Leonora Rossi, and buried in the pauper part
of the Campo Verano under that name. The same night a child was placed
by an unknown hand in the _rota_ of Santo Spirito, with a paper attached
to its wrist, giving particulars of its baptism and its name. The name
given was David Leone."
The Baron ticked off the third of his fingers and continued:
"Fact three. Fourteen years afterwards a boy named David Leone, fourteen
years of age, was living in the house of an Italian exile in London. The
exile was a Roman prince under the incognito of Doctor Roselli; his
family consisted of his wife and one child, a daughter named Roma, four
years of age. David Leone had been adopted by Doctor Roselli, who had
picked him up in the street."
Roma covered her face with her hands.
"Fact four. Four years later a conspiracy to assassinate the King of
Italy was discovered at Milan. The chief conspirator turned out to be,
unfortunately, the English exile known as Doctor Roselli. By the good
offices of a kinsman, jealous of the honour of his true family name, he
was not brought to public trial, but deported by one of the means
adopted by all Governments when secrecy or safety is in question. But
his confederates and correspondents were shown less favour, and one of
them, still in England, being tried in contumacy by a military court
which sat during a state of siege, was condemned for high treason to the
military punishment of death. The name of that confederate and
correspondent was David Leone."
Roma's slippered foot was beating the floor fast, but the Baron went on
in his cool and tranquil tone.
"Fact five. Our extradition treaty excluded the delivery of political
offenders, but after representations from Italy, David Leone left
England. He went to America. There he was first employed in the stables
of the Tramway Company in New York, and lived in the Italian quarter of
the city, but afterwards he rose out of his poverty and low position and
became a journalist. In that character he attracted attention by a new
political and religious propaganda. Jesus Christ was lawgiver for the
nation as well as for the individual, and the redemption of the world
was to be brought to pass by a constitution based on the precepts of the
Lord's Prayer. The creed was sufficiently sentimental to be seized upon
by fanatics in that country of countless faiths, but it cut at the roots
of order, of poverty, even of patriotism, and being interpreted into
action, seemed likely to lead to riot."
The Baron twisted the ends of his moustache, and said, with a smile,
"David Leone disappeared from New York. From that time forward no trace
of him has yet been found. He was as much gone as if he had ceased to
exist. _David Leone was dead._"
Roma's hands had come down from her face, and she was picking at the
buttons of her blouse with twitching fingers.
"Fact six," said the Baron, ticking off the thumb of his other hand.
"Twenty-five or six years after the registration of the child David
Rossi in Rome, a man, apparently twenty-five or six years of age, giving
the name of David Rossi, arrived in England from America. He called at a
baker's shop in Soho to ask for Roma Roselli, the daughter of Doctor
Roselli, left behind in London when the exile returned to Italy. They
told him that Roma Roselli was dead and buried."
Roma's face, which had been pale until now, began to glow like a fire on
a gloomy night, and her foot beat faster and faster.
"Fact seven. David Rossi appeared in Rome, first as a waiter at the
Grand Hotel, but soon afterwards as a journalist and public lecturer,
propounding precisely the same propaganda as that of David Leone in New
York, and exciting the same interest."
"Well? What of it?" said Roma. "David Leone was David Leone, and David
Rossi is David Rossi--there is no more in it than that."
The Baron clasped his hands so tight that his knuckles cracked, and
said, in a slightly exalted tone:
"Eighth and last fact. About that time a man called at the office of the
Campo Santo to know where he was to find the grave of Leonora Leone, the
woman who had drowned herself in the Tiber twenty-six years before. The
pauper trench had been dug up over and over again in the interval, but
the officials gave him their record of the place where she had once been
buried. He had the spot measured off for him, and he went down on his
knees before it. Hours passed, and he was still kneeling there. At
length night fell, and the officers had to warn him away."
Roma's foot had ceased to beat on the floor, and she was rising in her
chair.
"That man," said the Baron, "the only human being who ever thought it
worth while to look up the grave of the poor suicide, Leonora Rossi, the
mother of David Leone, was David Rossi! Who was David Leone?--David
Rossi! Who was David Rossi?--David Leone! The circle had closed around
him--the evidence was complete."
"Oh! oh! oh!"
Roma had leapt up and was moving about the room. Her lips were
compressed with scorn, her eyes were flashing, and she burst into a
torrent of words, which spluttered out of her quivering lips.
"Oh, to think of it! To think of it! You are right! The man who spends
his life looking for crime must have the soul of a criminal! He has no
conscience, no humanity, no mercy, no pity. And when he has tracked and
dogged a man to his mother's grave--_his mother's grave_--he can dine,
he can laugh, he can go to the theatre! Oh, I hate you! There, I've
told you! Now, do with me as you please!"
The death-like rigidity in the Baron's face decomposed into an expression
of intense pain, but he only passed his hand over his brow, and said,
after a moment of silence:
"My child, you are not only offending me, you are offending the theory
and principle of Justice. Justice has nothing to do with pity. In the
vocabulary of Justice there is but one word--duty. Duty called upon me
to fix this man's name upon him, that his obstructions, his slanders,
and his evil influence might be at an end. And now Justice calls upon
you to do the same."
The Baron leaned against the stove, and spoke in a calm voice, while
Roma in her agitation continued to walk about the room.
"Being a Deputy, and Parliament being in session, David Rossi can only
be arrested by the authorisation of the Chamber. In order to obtain that
authorisation, it is necessary that the Attorney-General should draw up
a statement of the case. The statement must be presented by the
Attorney-General to the Government, by the Government to the President,
by the President to a Committee, and by the Committee to Parliament.
Towards this statement the police have already obtained important
testimony, and a complete chain of circumstantial evidence has been
prepared. But they lack one link of positive proof, and until that link
is obtained the Attorney-General is unable to proceed. It is the
keystone of the arch, the central fact, without which all other facts
fall to pieces--the testimony of somebody who can swear, if need be,
that she knew both David Leone and David Rossi, and can identify the one
with the other."
"Well?"
The Baron, who had stopped, continued in a calm voice: "My dear Roma,
need I go on? Dead as a Minister is to all sensibility, I had hoped to
spare you. There is only one person known to me who can supply that
link. That person is yourself."
Roma's eyes were red with anger and terror, but she tried to laugh over
her fear.
"How simple you are, after all!" she said. "It was Roma Roselli who knew
David Leone, wasn't it? Well, Roma Roselli is dead and buried. Oh, I
know all the story. You did that yourself, and now it cuts the ground
from under you."
"My dear Roma," said the Baron, with a hard and angry face, "if I did
anything in that matter, it was done for your welfare, but whatever it
was, it need not disturb me now. Roma Roselli is _not_ dead, and it
would be easy to bring people from England to say so."
"You daren't! You know you daren't! It would expose them to persecution
for perpetrating a crime."
"In England, not in Italy."
Roma's red eyes fell, and the Baron began to speak in a caressing voice:
"My child, don't fence with me. It is so painful to silence you.... It
is perhaps natural that you should sympathise with the weaker side. That
is the sweet and tender if illogical way of all women. But you must not
imagine that when David Rossi has been arrested he will be walked off to
his death. As a matter of fact, he must go through a new trial, he must
be defended, his sentence would in any case be reduced to imprisonment,
and it may even be wiped out altogether. That's all."
"All? And you ask me to help you to do that?"
"Certainly."
"I won't!"
"Then you could if you would?"
"I can't!"
"Your first word was the better one, my child."
"Very well, I won't! I won't! Aren't you ashamed to ask me to do such a
thing? According to your own story, David Leone was my father's friend,
yet you wish me to give him up to the law that he may be imprisoned,
perhaps for life, and at least turned out of Parliament. Do you suppose
I am capable of treachery like that? Do you judge of everybody by
yourself?... Ah, I know that story too! For shame! For shame!"
The Baron was silent for a moment, and then said in an impassive voice:
"I will not discuss that subject with you now, my child--you are
excited, and don't quite know what you are saying. I will only point out
to you that even if David Leone was your father's friend, David Rossi
was your own enemy."
"What of that? It's my own affair, isn't it? If I choose to forgive him,
what matter is it to anybody else? I _do_ forgive him! Now, whose
business is it except my own?"
"My dear Roma, I might tell you that it's mine also, and that the
insult that went through you was aimed at me. But I will not speak of
myself.... That you should change your plans so entirely, and setting
out a month ago to ... to ... shall I say betray ... this man Rossi, you
are now striving to save him, is a problem which admits of only one
explanation, and that is that ... that you...."
"That I love him--yes, that's the truth," said Roma boldly, but flushing
up to the eyes and trembling with fear.
There was a death-like pause in the duel. Both dropped their heads, and
the silent face in the bust seemed to be looking down on them. Then the
Baron's icy cheeks quivered visibly, and he said in a low, hoarse voice:
"I'm sorry! Very sorry! For in that case I may be compelled to justify
your conclusion that a Minister has no humanity and no pity. If David
Rossi cannot be arrested by the authorisation of Parliament, he must be
arrested when Parliament is not in session, and then his identity will
have to be established in a public tribunal. In that event you will be
forced to appear, and having refused to make a private statement in the
secrecy of a magistrate's office, you will be compelled to testify in
the Court of Assize."
"Ah, but you can't make me do that!" cried Roma excitedly, as if seized
by a sudden thought.
"Why not?"
"Never mind why not. You can't do it, I tell you," she cried excitedly.
He looked at her as if trying to penetrate her meaning, and then said:
"We shall see."
At that moment the fretful voice of the Countess was heard calling to
the Baron from the adjoining room.